A sound awoke Sandia in the night. She still hadn’t completely gotten used to the utter silence of the past. Whether back in Cherokee country or here in California, the quiet could be deafening for someone who grew up with the constant hum of the city as a backdrop. Subway rumbles, honking horns, car alarms, and constant clatter from the sidewalk let you know you were never alone.
Out here, a distant coyote let you know you might be a meal.
There it was again, the sound that woke her. The floor, creaking in the hallway.
Thinking Mary must be awake and looking for the kitchen, Sandia hopped up and opened her bedroom door.
Mary’s door, directly across from hers, was closed. No light was coming from beneath it. Looking to her right, Sandia gasped.
The cloaked woman she’d seen in the barn was leaving Caleb’s room with his special stone in her hand, the one with the Shaman’s Knot carved into it.
Purely on instinct, Sandia lunged for the woman, wrestling her to the ground. The woman was no match for Sandia. She was fragile and weak but still put up a tenacious fight as Sandia tried to wrench the stone from her fingers. At one point, the woman bit her and Sandia let out a yelp.
Fueled by the pain, as well as her training, Sandia flipped the woman onto her belly, twisted her arm behind her back, and thrust her knee into the woman’s wrist, forcing her hand to open.
At that moment, Caleb’s door swung open.
“What in Sam Hill’s goin’ on out here?” Caleb demanded.
Sandia grabbed the Knot from the woman’s hand, then suddenly, she vanished into thin air. Sandia tumbled to the floor in her absence, since she’d had all her weight resting on the woman’s wrist.
“Who was that? Are you all right?” Caleb asked, reaching down to help her up.
“Ouch,” was all Sandia could say. She was still very tender from the fall off Daisy and most of her body ached.
“Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
By way of answer, Sandia held out her hand to reveal the sacred stone.
Caleb’s eyes went wide as he reached for it.
“I caught her trying to steal it.”
His eyes darted up to hers. “Who was she?”
“Napoleon said her name is Kat, a Russian refugee you brought here not long ago.”
“I haven’t brought any Russian refugees here...well, not since World War I, anyway…”
“Which hasn’t happened yet, so it could’ve been anytime.”
“No, I mean it’s been a while. That wasn’t anytime recently.”
Caleb’s brow furrowed in concern.
“You don’t think it could be the police, do you?” Sandia asked.
“The Pinhead Posse? No way, no...I told you, Grandfather has made this place impervious to those idiots.”
“Well, whoever she is, she’s obviously a Time Dancer, right?”
“No. I’m the only Time Dancer.”
“Or would be, if you’d complete your training,” came the voice of Grandfather, causing Sandia to jump, as usual.
“Fine, a time traveler then, yes?”
“Yes. Or a magician,” Caleb quipped.
“Always with a joke, this one,” Grandfather complained.
Attempting to avoid another blow-up, Sandia stepped between the apparition and Caleb. Turning to look the cowboy in the eye, though it was difficult in his old-fashioned long underwear that hugged his body and was unbuttoned down to his navel, she tried to act as mediator.
“OK then, maybe your grandfather would know who this Kat person is because the only way she could’ve gotten here is if--” Sandia went silent.
“What?” Caleb asked.
“...is if you brought her here. Is she one of your exes?”
Sandia looked at Grandfather, and he dropped his eyes to the floor.
“Nah, she couldn’t be. She seemed too old, first of all…” Caleb said, trailing off.
“Well, that’s time travel for ya,” Sandia bit out acerbically, throwing the line he’d used on her back in his face.
Caleb went silent as he considered the real possibility.
“Do you know who she is Grandfather?” Caleb finally asked the old man.
“I have my suspicions,” he answered, “but I’m not in a very helpful mood. What is it you young people say nowadays? ‘You made your own bed…’”
Caleb rolled his eyes and huffed out a disapproving sigh. Pacing the hallway, he said, “Look, I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you all, but whoever this person is won’t be coming back. Sandia stopped her, and for that, I thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, dryly. “But she’s still out there, and she obviously knows how to track you. Is one of your girlfriends a time traveler?”
“No, definitely not. At least not when they were my...I don’t have any girlfriends!”
Just when Sandia was starting to feel something for Caleb, something would happen to cause her to take a step back from him. This evening was case and point. At this moment, Sandia was feeling like the sooner she could get home the better.
“I think it’s time you took me home, Caleb.”
He spun to look at her as if he’d been slapped. “No, please, don’t leave yet. I need your help.”
“You definitely need help, but unfortunately I’m not a psychiatrist.”
“I mean I need your help with Wounded Knee.”
“What? No. No way am I getting mixed up in this crazy ‘plan’ of yours. I’m with Grandfather...I think you should be looking to the future, not the past.”
“Fine. I’m going with or without y’all’s help. If I can’t save my parents without altering my own life, then I can at least do something to save one of the most mistreated groups of people on the planet. That’s always been the plan. I can’t let them down. I can’t--”
Caleb stopped short as he began to get choked up. He turned away to hide the tear that was forming in his eye. The sight nearly broke Sandia’s heart. And here she went again, round and round. As quickly as Caleb did something to push her away, he’d turn around and do something to draw her back in again.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, Sandia gently whispered, “I’ll help you, okay? I’ll help you.”
Caleb’s body relaxed a little, and he nodded.
“So, what is Wounded Knee anyway?” Sandia finally asked.
“Wounded Knee is the name of a creek in South Dakota. In 1890, the 7th Cavalry had gathered the last few Lakota still resisting white settlement into a camp near the creek. On December 29th, they surrounded the two hundred unarmed men, women and children...and gunned them down. It was a massacre,” he said.
A chill ran down Sandia’s spine. How awful. No wonder this had become such a focus for Caleb.
“What’s chillingly ironic, is that the government did the same thing to the people in my father’s church over in Missouri some years later,” Caleb continued.
“So, why aren’t you doing anything about that?”
“Oh, I have, I’ve got plenty of religious refugees here too.”
“These things are much more complicated, adahy. You must have a smarter plan; a plan that looks to the future and not just the past. Killing the 7th Cavalry will not solve anything long term. You already tried that at Little Bighorn and look what happened? Wounded Knee is a direct result of the Indian victory at Little Bighorn. Only this time, the 7th Cavalry get their revenge on the red man. Violence is a circle, just like time.”
“What do you want to achieve, ultimately?” Sandia asked. “What kind of man do you want to be?”
Her words, though simple, seemed to stop Caleb in his tracks. He looked stumped. He thought for a long moment, then swallowed hard.
“All right, fine! So you’re telling me I’ve gotta come up with a better plan, then, let’s come up with a better plan! Whatever that means!”
“It means you have so much of your mother in you...the power, the sharp senses...that you still need to find the balance of your father as well...he lives in you as much as your mother. Find the patience and love of your father and balance it with the fire of your mother.”
Caleb looked at the old man as if hearing him for the first time.
“All right, Gramps, we’ll come up with a more ‘balanced’ plan. Ya happy?”
Grandfather nodded. “I’m glad to hear you finally making sense, adahy.”
Sandia sighed, feeling some relief herself until it truly sunk in that she had agreed to help.
Did he say two hundred men, women, and children killed? Was she really willing to put her life in danger to help them? To help Caleb? Especially if Grandfather thought the whole thing was a bad idea?
Sandia gulped hard.