markwildyr.com,
Post #95
 |
| Courtesy of Pixabay.com |
Got a
fair number of hits from my last story, “Six-Shooter Sex.”
 |
| Courtesy of Publicdomainfile.com |
*****
BLUE STONE AND RAVEN
Blue Stone hurried
through the chore of tending the Pueblo’s cornfields huddled along the gullies
that carried rain and snowmelt runoff through the small canyon. He weeded and
turned the soil and moistened dry places from a jug of water. Afternoon had
fallen before he darted west into a deep, rocky, forbidding canyon known to his
people as the Devil’s Pipe. Few came here even though there was a water source
at the far end. It was a place of supernaturals, the shamans claimed. But Blue
Stone, a true son of the West Region, was as bold and single-minded as Black
Bear, his totem and guardian.
A lunation ago, Blue
Stone found a tiny Stone-of-Health-Happiness-and-Good-Fortune on the floor of
the pipe. The blue stone that gave him his name—called turquesa by the
brown-frocked Spaniards who visited occasionally—excited greed among the
outsiders, so his discovery must be handled carefully. Reasoning all earthly objects
eventually move downhill, Blue Stone scoured the upper reaches of the canyon
until he found other small stones. And then he discovered an outcrop of the
blue-green rock that often contained the precious stone. Although what belonged
to one belonged to the entire community, he dug out several pieces, which he polished
as gifts for his mother. Soon, he would advise the chief priest and council of
his find so a decision could be made over what was best for the People in the
matter.
Upon arriving at the far end
of the great ravine, he froze. Something was in the canyon with him. A
supernatural? Which one? Bent on good or evil? Cautiously, he moved forward. Beyond
the next fissure in the towering rocks was the sheltered waterhole. Blue Stone crept
around a curtain of stone, gasped audibly, and fell to his knees.
In is fourteenth year, he
had undertaken a vision quest in order to be admitted to his clan’s society. He
remained deep in the desert mountain canyons without food or water until his
mind sought the wisdom of the gods. His Vision, as clear to him today as it was
four summers back, had been a tall youth standing naked on a rock shelf, his long
hair unbound. His flesh had not been rose brown like Blue Stone’s people, but a
deep bronze. Great brown eyes peered into his soul. The broad, laughing mouth
uttered mystical, unintelligible words. The Vision—almost assuredly Thunder
Boy, one of the Holy Mountain Twin Gods—wore a physical beauty that surpassed
any man’s. His long limbs were sculpted by the Creator-of-All-Things in his own
image, had He chosen to take a shape.
Now Blue Stone moaned
aloud in fear and joy. His Vision, whose intent had not been revealed to him,
stood majestically at the edge of the small waterhole in the midst of his bath;
water still running across unblemished flesh and dripping from perfect limbs. Blue
Stone shuffled forward on his knees, unmindful of the jagged edges of sharp
stone. As he slowly closed the distance, the spirit turned to him and stood
motionless.
At the feet of the
perfect, immobile youth, Blue Stone removed his headband and wiped water from
the powerful thighs. Overcome, he clasped the strong limbs in his arms and
buried his face against them. He licked away drops of water his headband had
missed. Intent on performing this small service, he moved his tongue across the
smooth flesh.
Timidly seeking to
please, he took the other youth and performed a ritual that would have been
unthinkable except as an offering to the supernatural. Broad hands clasped his
head as the Vision thrust powerful hips with increasing urgency until delivering
his white nectar with a loud groan.
Strong arms pulled him to
his feet on a level with huge, brown orbs that seared his essence. The force of
the look was so powerful Blue Stone’s knees grew weak. The Specter spoke in a
deep voice, uttering the language of the gods. Why did this Being not touch his
forehead so Blue Stone would understand the holy words? But it was not his
place to criticize. The Spirit would find a way. Then in a rush of guttural
sound, Blue Stone caught two or three words in the language of the Spaniards.
“Spanish?” Blue Stone
asked in that foreign tongue. “You speak Spanish?”
“Yes,” the Vision
answered in a voice so deep it reverberated off the rocks. “I speak some of
that devil tongue.”
“Why do you not speak to
me in my own?” Blue Stone asked with more bravado than he felt.
“Because I don’t
understand it,” the other snorted.
“But…but don’t supernaturals
speak all tongues?”
“Supernaturals?” the
perfect youth exclaimed in imperfect Spanish. “You think I am a supernatural? I
am Raven of the Cotanee!”
Blue Stone took a step
backward. The Cotanee were almost as feared as the gods. These lords of the
plains appeared out of the grasslands of the east to kill and plunder and take
what they wanted. In this they were little different from the Spanish except
they went away; the Spaniards did not.
Raven laughed. “Have you never
seen a Cotanee before?”
Blue Stone tried to look
angry as he remembered what he had done for this young man but couldn’t manage
it. “The only time I saw a Cotanee was a time of death and destruction.”
Raven shrugged. “That is
the way of the world.” The beautiful youth examined him closely. “You believed I
was a god? Is that why you did what you did? I thought it was a strange way of
greeting strangers, but then I do not know your ways.”
“Why did you permit it?”
“Because it pleased me,”
the youth said haughtily. “At first, I thought you were a girl, a bony one
maybe, but you’re pretty enough. Anyway, I’ve been away from home for two moons
now, so I felt the need of relief. Did you like doing it?”
“It wasn’t unpleasant,
but if it pleased you, I liked it.” Suddenly, Blue Stone realized he stood in
the presence of an enemy. “You are a scout! Your people are coming to attack
us.”
Raven held up a hand. “Nay.
I told you, I left my lodge two months ago. There was this girl I wanted for a
wife, but her father sold her to another who paid more horses than I could
afford.”
The four-leggeds! The
Cotanee went nowhere without their four-leggeds. Raven read his face.
“Back there in the draw
where he can find a little grass in this barren place! His name is Whisper,
because he answers to my whisper, and he runs quietly like a whisper.”
Finally facing the fact he
had performed a forbidden act for this Cotanee, Blue Stone searched inside
himself for feelings of shame or mortification. He found none. In fact, the
presence of the powerful, handsome male was disturbing in another way. He
wanted to be touched.
The two young men,
approximately of an age, sat at the edge of the waterhole and talked in the
strange language of the Spaniards. When Raven had not accepted his beloved’s
betrothal to another, causing trouble in the camp, he was banished into temporary
exile. Since that time, the young warrior had worked his way steadily westward,
hunting for his food and communing with nature. He had avoided all human
contact until this day.
“And what will you do
now?” Blue Stone asked, flushing under the other’s examination.
“I will go west to the Beyond
yet another few suns.”
Blue Stone tapped his
lower lip in thought. “They say the mountains give way to a great stretch of
parched earth where humans cannot live. Most perish before even reaching it,
lost and starving in the great mounds of rock. Some say there is a lake beyond
the desert so vast that none have ever crossed it. How can that be? A desert
beside a lake?”
“It will be as the
Creator-of-All made it,” Raven pronounced solemnly.
The two youths dallied while
they opened a fragile friendship. Finally, Blue Stone could delay his return home
no longer. Raven refused his invitation to overnight at the stone and stucco Pueblo
and swore him to secrecy about his presence. Blue Stone gave directions for the
easiest passage to the west and reluctantly prepared to take his leave.
As Blue Stone rose, Raven
spoke. “I will travel west for two more suns, then I will turn back. I will be
here at this place four suns from now, five at the most. It would please me if
you came. But be warned, Blue Stone, if you do, you will spend the night with
me, and I will lie with you. I will cover you as a man covers his woman. Think
on it, because your life will not be the same after that.”
The beautiful youth
remained in Blue Stone’s mind all the way home, and he became halfway convinced
one of the Holy Mountain Boy Twins had played a trick on him. Surely no human
could be so faultless in looks and form. Life would have placed scars or
imperfections on a human, yet in his close examination of the mysterious youth,
he had found none.
Blue Stone climbed to the
second floor of the three-story building and entered his apartment through the
entryway in the roof. His mother clucked at him impatiently for being late. He
ignored her, chewed his meal, cleaned up, and retired to his bedroll to puzzle
over things. Instead, he fell asleep.
*****
Wow! The
plains warrior sure shook up the Pueblo farmer’s world. Will Raven return as
promised? If not, will Blue Stone turn to his boyhood chum, Ram Horn, for
consolation? Tune in on September 19 to find out.
Don
Travis’ next BJ Vinson mystery series novel, The Voxlightner Scandal has
been scheduled for release on November 19, 2019. You’ll remember he’s my fellow
Okie author. The following is a buy link to Voxlightner: http://www.dsppublications.com/books/upcoming-releases-c
Now my
continuing plug (read plea) for my own work. Amazon permits you to read a short
passage of my novels, Cut Hand and Johnny Two-Guns. I also believe the STARbooks-published
River Otter, Echoes of the Flute, and
Medicine Hair are still up. I sure
would like to get the final book in the Cut Hand Series, Wastelakapi… Beloved, published, but it’ll take some help from readers
to get Dreamspinner interested.
My contact
information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email: markwildyr@aol.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr
Twitter: @markwildyr
The
following are buy links for CUT HAND:
And now my mantra: Keep
on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
Until next time.
Mark
New posts at 6:00 a.m. on the first and
third Thursdays of the month.
No comments:
Post a Comment