JOURNEY TO THE MIDNIGHT SUN
James Sheldon
LOVE CONQUERS ALL
Book 1 of 3
Chapter 2
If Ellie had not needed time to heal, John would have hightailed it out of the area directly after the battle. But he had held up, and as a result, his plans changed as we shall now see.
It was mid-October and for the past two weeks, John had appeared regularly on the edge of the hunter-gatherer camp. Always he hung up a deer, or a few grouse, or a pair of squirrels. More than once he hung stringers of bass or trout (the forest transition zone supported both species). He befriended the dogs and, of late, they wagged their tails and danced around him. He never stayed but disappeared into the woods without a word. He should not be given too much credit, though. Like the conquistador Coronado, John had, from boyhood, been taught to search for his lost city of gold. As for the women, they shouted, screamed, threw rocks, and shot arrows at John even as their world demanded they make use of everything he brought. In their world, John’s presence was a reflection of the wild that surrounded them. One buck defeats another and adopts a harem. One wolf defeats another and assumes leadership of a pack. Even among the forest tribes, such things, while rare, had precedent.
During this time, while out collecting nuts which were plentiful, two of the women discovered John’s camp tucked into the edge of a glade. They were country neighbors not a mile apart even though no cordial contact took place between them. That changed one particularly beautiful October day after conditions had calmed enough for John to play his hand. The four women were sitting in their camp, bathed in sunlight, talking as they worked. They sat around a large firepit, itself positioned like a fountain some distance out from the steps of a modest structure called a longhouse around which several huts were neatly ordered. Below the structures, a stairway cut into a limestone cliff angled down to a pebbly beach on the river fifteen feet below where a pair of birch bark canoes were tied. The small river, known as the Qu’Appelle River in the 21st century, had returned to its original northwesterly course after the failure of Diefenbaker Dam a thousand years before and not twenty miles to the northwest.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” said John, speaking clearly from the cusp of the wood.
Startled, the women turned to look.
Straight-faced, Summerfield tipped his wolverine cap. Then, as the women looked on in silence, he walked in and took a seat among them.
“My name is John,” pointing to himself in a businesslike manner while moving his eyes from woman to woman until his gaze came to rest on the eldest. A tall woman of sixty and some years, Emma had become the clan’s Matriarch at an early age when her mother and father drowned. Along with her parents, several of her children, her siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins had also perished. It had happened while camped at a river crossing during a rainy season many years before. A tumbling wave of logs and debris had decimated the unsuspecting clan in a flash flood resulting in part from an earlier forest fire. Emma’s once golden hair, now mostly gray, was kept in a large braid that came over her shoulder before disappearing in a cloak of woodland caribou trimmed in red fox. She was fine-figured for her age and must have been a rare beauty in her day. Her large green eyes were not naturally menacing but sharpened by the responsibilities that had fallen on her early in life.
“Ma’am,” John continued, addressing the Matriarch with a nod of respect, “may I ask your name?”
Holding her work in her lap, the Matriarch looked on soberly. At her knee, a little girl named Sophie had been learning to tease thread from strips of sinew. The child, being less restrained than the adults, stared at John with a mixture of fear and curiosity.
John smiled at the child. She smiled back and the Seeker, somewhat swedged, lifted his eyes to the Matriarch, “I mean you no harm.”
The Matriarch looked on with suspicion.
“Can you understand me?’ John asked. “I have not come here to harm anyone.”
Speaking cautiously, the Matriarch replied, “Ya say no haam us?”
“Yes,” said John, nodding, “I mean no harm.” And looking around the fire, he added, “I regret what has happened, but…it is what it is.”
In the silence that followed, the chickadee sang its song, “See-saw, see-saw.” Perched on a twig beside the river, it pruned its feathers and soaked up sunlight. The little river meanwhile, gently sparkled and rolled along.
Both Seeker and clanswomen could not in their wildest dreams imagine where the coming alliance would take them, but as it is said, ‘the past is prologue.’ The women, though they knew it not, were the long-lost legacy of farmers and ranchers, shopkeepers and tradesfolk. Eleven hundred years before in that very neck of the woods and throughout the region, there had come a people from the north of Europe. Tracing their lineage to Viking, Goth, Saxon, and Celtic ancestors, they were migrants in search of new and better lives. Few had survived the cataclysm of the 21st century. Those who did, sifted through the shattered remains and salvaged what they could to survive. The need for survival forced them together. Organically and surprisingly fast, they formed into clans and tribes. They congealed around likeness of being as well as the absorption of anyone who, by some outstanding ability, could add to the group’s chance of survival. Time rolled on, the centuries accumulated and a rich forest culture developed with villages along the many rivers and lakes. Some of the villages grew large. A few grew into super-villages not so different from the Stone Age super-villages that rose in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of civilization seven thousand years before. These people, descendants of 21st century Canadians, called themselves Kasskatchens. The central hub of their Nation, a super-village named Grandal, stood on the shore of what we call Lake Winnipeg. From Grandal, Kasskatchen chieftains ruled over what had once been Saskatchewan, Manitoba, northernmost Minnesota, and southwestern Ontario. Presently, the clanswomen lived in the western reaches of the realm and were known as people of the frontier. Beyond the frontiers, across vast areas of unknown territory, there existed other realms. For example, the descendants of the Cree plied the waterways to the south and east of old Hudson Bay. In the far north, descendants of the Inuit made their livings along the Arctic coasts. They, like everyone else on earth, lived in the aftermath of a civilizational collapse. Not a new thing but the same rise and fall that has occurred throughout history. And perhaps it is at least plausible then that the collapse of civilization in the 21st century dramatically dwarfed all its predecessors because technology, the very thing that dramatically decreased distances around the world, also increased the distance for the world to fall. From the skyscraper heights of the Digital Age to the ground level of the Stone Age was a very long drop. A drop perhaps not so different from the fall of the Assyrian and other great empires, where people living only a few centuries later had no idea who built the massive ruins that stood along the rivers. And still the English language survived in derivatives, which should not be too surprising, as history shows that language survives even as reading and writing are forgotten. Moreover, English had dominated the entire continent, a first in human history. Of course, distinct dialects had developed among surviving groups. And yet, for those who spoke the old tongue, enough similarity remained to make communication possible, much like Latin and Italian remained similar a thousand years after the fall of Rome. And so different groups could trade without having to learn a language entirely foreign to them. Of course, English was not the only language but outside a smidgen of Spanish, the writer of this story is limited to it. I am also limited by my training in Western literature and 20th/21st century culture, with which I can only do my best to convey the richness and unique complexities of 31st century Kasskatchen culture. On a similar note, their lexicon contains words and terms of pre-existing origins. For example, the term “the seeds we sow” has morphed over time from its original agricultural meaning into a popular reference to human behavior. And being flawed as I am, and owning the awful way in which this story begins, I nevertheless will do my best to recount all following events in a manner that clears the bar of common decency without undue austerity, like this current meeting for example, to which we will now return without further interruption.
“Ma’am,” John inquired, addressing the Matriarch while gesturing to the woman beside her, “if I may ask, is this your daughter?” The similarity being obvious.
“Yes.”
Receiving no further reply, John shifted his attention to the daughter, “Ma’am, may I ask your name?”
“My name is Jessie,” apprehensively.
“And may I ask your mother’s name?”
“Emma.”
John lifted his wolverine cap and gave nods of respect to Emma and Jessie, “Ma’am…ma’am.”
Jessie, tall and well-made like her mother, appeared young for thirty-eight. Somewhat more outgoing, she gestured to the woman sitting to the other side of her, “This is my cousin, Mia.”
“Ma’am,” gesturing again with a lift of his cap.
Initially an outsider from the southeast corner of the realm, Mia had married into the clan and was mother to twins named Noah and Sophie. At age twenty-five, Mia rivaled her blond-headed kin with dark Aegean eyes, large and widely spaced above high cheekbones framed by dark brown hair. Her expression spoke of apprehension mixed with curiosity.
Jessie next introduced her daughter, Laureal, who bore her mother such strong resemblance as to be the image in the tale of the reflecting pool at the heart of the enchanted forest, of which we are all familiar. More than a few times, John had gone out hunting only to end up spying the young woman walking the forest paths, gathering herbs in sunlit glades, or digging nuts from squirrel caches. More than a few times, she had yelled and screamed at him.
At present, Laureal spoke no words even as she sized John up beginning with a search of his eyes before unconsciously looking him up and down once.
Years of rigorous training aimed at keeping our hero faithful to his mission could not protect him from the overwhelming gravity of nature but, as we already know, there's more to it than all that—
“Ladies, I have come here to propose a trade. I offer you my continued assistance, and in return, I ask for your assistance.”
The twins, who usually helped the adults and by such means learned skills critical to their survival, were released from their training to play with the dogs in the safety of the compound. And regarding the boy who had shot an arrow at John, the Seeker already knew him to be hunting squirrels deep in the wood. Thus having their full attention, Summerfield began, “This is my offer. I will aid you in securing your survival. For example, perhaps I can escort you to another dwelling or village where you have kin?”
Gaining no response, John continued, “In return, I ask only for information regarding the territory to the north. In particular,” scooting out on his seat, “the realm beyond the forest. I am looking for an object there; a monolith said to be the size of a great boulder, rectangular in form, standing upright and…shining like polished onyx.”
With every word, the Seeker grew more and more acute, “According to the ancient account, it stands in plain view on a barren expanse of such beauty and purity that no man can make his home there. And yet, it is there that it awaits our return.”
Finishing, John appeared kindled with the passion of a zealot.
Visibly apprehensive, Laureal opened her mouth to speak only to fall silent on a look from her grandmother.
“What?” asked John, his dark eyes suddenly fixed on her. “Please, tell me what you know!”
Laureal’s mother jumped in, “We know nothing of the realm beyond the trees!”
Turning to Jessie, the Seeker’s glare was hard and long, “But then, you do know that a realm beyond the trees exists.”
“Yes, but that is all.”
“Sir,” Mia began, hoping to placate the stranger, “if I may ask, when you look to the north, do you see the hovering lights?” referring to the Aurora Borealis.
Staring at the woman, John nodded slowly, “Lately, I have glimpsed some strange things there. In the night sky, faint traces of red and green.”
Mia nodded like one who knows, “What you have seen will grow stronger as you travel north, and according to some, it is the reflection of the world beyond the forest.” Then, with an air of wonderment, “Sir, could it be that by following those lights, you may find what you seek?”
“Perhaps there is something to that,” the Matriarch broke in at last, “but seeing as how the further north one travels, the larger the lights grow, where would one turn to search when having traveled far, the lights cover the breadth of the sky?”
“The forest is what we know,” Jessie reiterated with a raised brow. “There are things here that cannot be explained, one such thing not five days north of here.”
On John’s entreaty, Jessie described an aberration deep in the wood that, in reality, was only the ruin of a city once known as Saskatoon. Mia further expanded and, being keen on the oral mythology of the Kasskatchen people, recited the closing verses in the epic saga of the Niths:
“…their cloaks gave
no comfort.
Their memories, their spirits,
their futures, all fallen, all
lost to the darkness.
Now only the Nith remains,
biding its time, until the
new host cometh within
the fallen walls of
its own making.”
Jessie and Mia’s accounts, well-meaning though they be, were in reality little more than a mix of superstition and vague oral reference to an epic cataclysm ten centuries before. Long since swallowed up by the forest, the ruins of Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Prince Albert, and Regina to name a few were known as ‘Niths’ to the forest people and were considered taboo. Nevertheless, the ruin of Saskatoon, as we shall see, would prove pivotal to the Seeker’s mission.
Presently out on the edge of his seat, John had only opened his mouth to speak when the Matriarch cut him off, “Sir, I pray you have not come here in search of evil.”
“No ma’am!” incredulously. “My mission is to recover lost knowledge!”
“Well, whatever it is you are after, we will not give you any more information…not today.”
In great surprise, John stared at Emma. And she, glaring back at him, continued, “You said you would help us in return for what we know. All right then, but do not think that because we have lost our men you can strut in here expecting us to trade our world away.”
“I would remind you, ma’am,” growing heated, “that your men could have approached me peacefully but instead chose to ambush me, to capture me, or kill me! And when that failed, they tried to take my equipment, without which I might die. But it did not turn out that way. And now I have come here, not seeking revenge but offering my assistance, and asking for nothing in return but information!”
“Our men were protecting us!” Jessie stated, her intensity boosted by her impressive beauty and keen emerald eyes. “They died protecting the land on which our lives depend. They died doing what their fathers’ fathers before them did. And we miss them terribly!”
In the silence that followed, only the voices of the children could be heard, playing in their own little world.
John dropped his eyes to the ground. Withdrawn in thought, uncertain of himself and of whom he was dealing with, he looked up only to come eye-to-eye with Laureal. They had never been so near, and still, even without their awful circumstance, a great gulf lay between them, one raised in a renaissance, the other brought up in the wild. And yet, something more powerful than hatred and mistrust had brought their paths together, out in the allure of the forest, in hallways of trees illuminated by shafts of sunlight where, stopped in their tracks and fallen under a silent spell, each had beheld the other.
Summerfield was first to look away, into the surrounding wood. And Emma, gaining Laureal’s eye, shot a look of her own, to silently tell her granddaughter, “Don’t you look at that animal…or so help me God, I will thrash you with a switch!”
John returned his eyes to Emma, “Ma’am, what would you have me do?”
“Precisely as you said, sir. You have offered your assistance in exchange for what we know. Well, I can assure you our knowledge of the north is extensive and should be of immeasurable value to you. But first, you must cut log poles and build us a wall to keep out the ill-intended, be they four-legged or two. I’m sure that beast of yours will come in handy. And since, as I well know, you like to prowl these woods, and I give you your due, for you are a good hunter, but on that account you can also help us stock our stores for winter. That way, if we can get through the winter, then come spring, our kin can help us find honorable replacements for the men we have lost. And by such means, we can keep our home, our land, and our way of life.”
With his mouth partly agape, Summerfield stared at the Matriarch. What she asked would be a monumental undertaking. To his mind, it seemed she was thinking of a well-stocked motte-and-bailey.
“Do you not have family you can go and live with now?” he asked.
“Our clan is not as numerous as we once were. Our kin would accept us, but we would come as a burden just when they were preparing for winter. And since the territory of our particular family lies on the fringe of the realm, it would be a journey of many days. Who knows how long our home would sit abandoned? Mia and her late husband stayed here last winter…one of our couples always does, but now, in our absence, the wild animals would do their worst. And the destruction might be many times greater if word of our demise spread to certain animals of the two-legged variety.”
Turning the possibilities over in his mind, John gazed into the fire pit where tiny flames danced atop a bed of coals. Perhaps the Matriarch was not asking too much. Given that the compound already sat perched on a small cliff above the river, perhaps he could fortify it with a partial wall. That, and a few extra deer or caribou to supply them with meat for the winter months. It was certainly a lot, but perhaps not impossible.
“Think it over,” said the Matriarch, “then we will talk.”
Over a barrel, young Summerfield’s expression told of his disappointment even while he did his best to retain the courtesy in which he’d been rigorously trained, “Well…alright then, ma’am.” And somewhat aimlessly, he added, “I suppose I should be on my way.”
“Stay,” Emma softly ordered, putting her hand out, that he remain seated. Then turning to her daughter, “This man has been feeding us. Now it is our turn to feed him.”
Laureal rose from her seat, “I’ll get him a bowl.”
“No,” Emma ordered, “you will sit down and remain there.”
Jessie brought a set of clay-fired bowls and, from the blackened pot, drew ladles of steaming porridge made from bread root and rabbit. From a second pot, Mia produced bowls of wild rice spiced with forest herbs. And Laureal, who had gained permission, brought roasted acorns on a wooden dish. For dessert, there would be pears, harvested from rugged little trees that grew in forest glades. Fruit not native to the region but imported and selectively bred by 21st century researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, presently a ruin and all that remained of Saskatoon a hundred miles to the north. The pear trees, a custom-made subspecies, had established their niche with a thousand years of help from birds and other animals that spread their seeds. Also, the forest people periodically burned off the glades and clearings along the rivers to allow more fruit-bearing trees and plants to grow. The pears, being specifically bred for it, had weathered the cold snap of early autumn and, as a result, provided fruit for the fall harvest.
Himself being raised in a renaissance and therefore no stranger to civilized food, John was visibly surprised and, having complimented the women, continued to savor the unexpected goodness of his meal. While they supped, the conversation turned to that of edible plants and herbs, forest medicines, animal pelts, and storms to remember. They spoke of iron, wool, and cotton, relatively new commodities from trading routes that had connected the forest realm to lands beyond the Five Seas in the east (the Great Lakes). In the course of such conversation, Summerfield gained valuable information and wondered if perhaps it was the women’s way of showing goodwill. Indirectly, John also learned some history about the family and the men he had killed. They had been Emma’s husband, Emma’s son-in-law who had been Jessie’s husband, Emma’s nephew who had been Mia’s husband, and Emma’s oldest grandson who had been Jessie’s son and Laureal’s big brother. The family had only recently returned from their summer home and hunting grounds, except for Mia, her late husband, and the twins. They had stayed over the summer to keep and maintain the family’s winter home.
John lowered his eyes to his plate, the weight of their loss growing on his shoulders. He was too young to figure it out. Perhaps it was not something that could be figured out. From childhood he had been trained to find the Data Block, to fight his way there, to do whatever was necessary. Not only had the clansmen threatened his existence, they had threatened his reason for existence. Still, he was the one with the giant and the overwhelmingly superior firepower. And at that moment, sitting in silence, if he could go back and do it over again, he would have fired a shot across their bow.
The women had also fallen silent.
The day was getting on. Trees cast their shadows across the river. Wispy signs of dusk gathered on the horizon. Snow geese were honking somewhere just out of sight, slowly descending to earth, looking to overnight on their long journey south. Then, like thunder in John’s ear, there came the snap of a twig.
Summerfield spun in his seat while slinging his rifle from his back to his front. All in the same instant, Laureal nearly collided with him as she leapt past like a cat.
“NO!” cried the Matriarch, rising, shaking her head and extending her hands with palms facing the boy on the edge of the wood, “NO!”
The boy, standing with an arrow drawn to fire, shouted at his sister, “Get out of the way!”
Laureal stood with arms extended, blocking both the boy’s shot at Summerfield and Summerfield’s shot at the boy.
“Get out of the way!” shrieked the boy.
Acting on the quick, Laureal strode to her little brother and slapped the shaft of the arrow, setting it free to fly astray.
In the next instant, John lifted the boy into the air and slammed him to the ground, knocking the wind out of him.
“Don’t hurt him!” cried Laureal, following close behind as John drug the boy roughly into camp, pushed him down hard to sit on a bench, and while he gasped to breathe, got in his face and warned, “Try that again, and I will kill you!”
In silent rage, Summerfield dropped into a seat opposite the boy where he sat glaring across the fire while contemplating his next move. Only a week before and undisclosed to the women, the boy had crept to the edge of the Seeker’s camp and shot John with an arrow. Fortunately for the horseman, he had risen from his seat at the very instant the boy released his arrow. Thus the shot only grazed John. The incident had remained a secret in part because John had chased the boy down, put a knife to his throat, and swore he would kill the boy’s entire family if he ever tried such a thing again.
Presently, Jessie and Laureal stood in near shock, fearful, not knowing what to do.
John glanced up at Laureal, “Thank you for what you did. I won’t harm him…this time.”
Laureal nodded numbly. Then, obeying her grandmother, she went to help Mia quiet the crying children.
Emma approached John and gestured with a solemn look, “Walk with me.”
A short distance into the woods, the Matriarch stopped and said, “Night will fall soon. You should return to your camp.”
“I am very sorry about this, ma’am, but you must tell the boy if he tries that again, I will have no choice but to kill him.”
“Please do not do that, sir. He is all we have left.”
“Then you must see to it that he understands.”
“I do not believe you intended to break our family,” said Emma, “but we have suddenly found ourselves very broken and…struggling to salvage what is left.”
At a loss for words, Summerfield tipped his cap, “Good night, ma’am,” and he went away toward his camp.
That night, John lay in his tent pondering his options. Firstly, he decided he must—he absolutely must—get the savage girl out of his mind. But every time he tried, his thoughts returned to her.
The Seeker and his horse had had time to rest and heal. John had everything prepared. All that remained was to shoe Ellie. The big draft currently walked barefoot and that was good, but she would need her shoes soon. Size 10s with cleats for ice travel on frozen rivers—rivers that John and Ellie could follow north like highways. And they had found the perfect starting point at the camp of the forest women. But after the cold snap, an ‘Indian Summer’ appeared to have set in, meaning it would be necessary to continue north through the forest until the rivers froze.
Summerfield figured the women must know every forest trail. There would be trails along the rivers, but there could be so much more. It would be a priceless advantage to know what the savages knew. He needed the information, and the old woman had him over a barrel, but in truth, he wondered why—why hadn't he broke camp and pushed on weeks ago.
Pushing back against anxiety, unable to sleep, John crawled from his tent. Nearby, his horse stood sleeping, breathing so gently as to be indiscernible. She lifted one foot so that only its toe rested on the ground, then shifted to the next foot, and then the next, slowly rotating all four to rest them as she slept.
Sick at heart, John gazed into the glade that adjoined his camp. The moon was out. Not quite full, it cast the glade in the grayscale of night, making it appear somewhat like a pond in the woods. Behind it, the woods stood like a dark wall, its serrated top set against the bright night sky. John drew a breath so fresh, it seemed as though nature had used the cold snap to clean the air in anticipation of a newly arrived Indian summer.
