Page 56 of Lily's Eagle

He leads the way, cutting a path across the grass. Voices grow louder and louder, but they all cease abruptly as we step into the firelight. Miriam takes a step towards me.

“Where were you?” she asks. “We’ve been here for hours and were just about to send out a search party. Is Tina with you?”

I glance at Eagle to find him already looking at me.

“No,” I say as turn back to Miriam. “She left three days ago to pick up the volunteers.”

I’m guessing they’re the pale ones in the multicolored trekking gear complete with tube hats, sturdy walking shoes, woolen bunched up socks, and multicolored windbreakers, standing in a group a little removed from Miriam and her party.

“She never came to pick up the volunteers,” she says. “That’s why we’re here. We had to bring them.”

Eagle is standing so close to me our sides are almost touching. That coiled, purposeful air around him is even more taut now. Dangerously so.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask, the words just spilling from my mouth.

I don’t mean just right now. I mean for the whole time since I came to the reservation.

No one answers, because there is no answer. I feel like my worst nightmare somehow followed me here and I can’t even articulate that fear, let alone face it or do anything about it.

17

EAGLE

The one thingI don’t remember ever seeing is Lily scared. I’m not saying she doesn’t get frightened, but even when she is, it never shows and she remains poised and tough, at least outwardly, every time. Kinda like her dad. Not that I’m saying Cross gets scared often. And that’s just totally beside the point right now. She’s nearly shivering beside me and I have no idea what we’re dealing with. So much for keeping her safe. I’ve kind of done exactly the opposite since I rode in.

The bonfire light is bright and it’s showing me that there’s ten people in the camp and they arrived in three cars.

The six volunteers, who look exactly like Lily’s rallying friends back home, are huddled together at one end of the fire, all with their hand stuffed deep in the pockets of their colorful rain jackets and trying to look at everything while focusing on nothing in particular. Especially not on my eyes as I look them over. They’re three guys and three girls, at least half of them probably coupled up in some way. They’re no threat.

As for the two tall guys and the two grey haired women from town, I’m not so sure. The guys look like a father and son type of deal, and one of the ladies is the one who sanctioned our trip up here. The chief’s wife, I think Lily called her. The other one is tall and lanky and her white grey hair reaches almost to her hips. There’s nothing overtly dangerous about any of them and they don’t look armed, but that’s not really where their danger lies. It’s more in whatever they’re gonna make of Tina’s disappearance and our involvement in it. The blazing fire is reflected in all their eyes making them seem otherworldly.

I suppose we could make a run for it back into the darkness if worse comes to worst, and lose them that way. But how long are we gonna survive out there with just some crackers, beef jerky and our lacking fish catching skills?

“Like Lily said, Tina left three days ago,” I say. “She took Lily’s truck to bring back some more supplies. And the volunteers. We haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

One of the volunteers steps forward and clears his throat. He’s wearing round glasses, has a shaved head and is about Lily’s height. “The last we heard from Tina was three days ago too, in the evening. She said she was on the way to get us and told us to wait for her at the tribal council building in town. We didn’t get her text until we were already in town for hours though, probably because of the bad reception.”

A woman with long blonde curly hair sticking out of her rainbow colored hat joins the man with the glasses. “At first we thought we missed her, since it was already almost ten PM by the time we got the text, so we went around town looking for her. Someone gave us directions to her trailer, but she wasn’t there either. We camped out in front of it waiting for her all night and most of the next day.”

“And then we waited for three more days for her to show up, and when she didn’t these people gave us a ride here today,” the man with the glasses concludes the explanation.

I’m glad to get the blow by blow, but it doesn’t change much about our predicament.

“Do you think she was abducted?” Lily asks in a quiet voice that still somehow sounds like a yell in the eerie tense silence.

“What I think is that I don’t trust you,” the younger man, the son of the father and son duo, says. “Either of you.”

Miriam sighs, gives us an apologetic look and looks back at him. “As my grandson knows very well, we are not in the habit of making wild accusations here especially not against our own people,” she tells him sharply. “It has been decided that Ariana’s accusations are completely unverifiable.”

Well, that’s a relief. I hope that decision is somehow binding. But now they’re gonna have to make a whole new one about our involvement in Tina’s disappearance, that much is clear to me too.

Miriam and her grandson glare at each other for a couple of seconds, and then she turns back to us. “Let’s sit by the fire and you can tell us all you know. Then we’ll decide how to proceed.”

The lady with the long white hair has her eyes fixed on Lily, as she has had almost the whole time we’ve been here. The best way to describe the expression on her face is pained.

She suddenly steps forward and takes one of Lily’s hands in both of hers. The touch seems to wake Lily as though from a deep slumber. She jerks and fixes her eyes on the older woman’s.

“This one, I must speak with this one,” the white haired woman says. “She knows something and doesn’t know she knows.”

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