Chapter 35

I awoke to nature’s alarm letting me know my body needed relieving. I really didn’t want to get up, I was comfortable with Kendra’s head on my chest and her arm and leg draped across my body. We must have fallen asleep here after our lovemaking last night. I managed to extricate myself from the furs and get dressed without waking Kendra. The sun had not risen over the horizon yet, but there was enough light from the false dawn to make my way further into the niche in the hillside to relieve myself. Strange. I did not remember moving from the open field into this cleft, yet here we were. Maybe I didn’t notice because it was dark and I had a beautiful woman to distract me from my surroundings. I smiled as I recalled the way her fur felt against my skin. Her fur? No, it must have been the furs we slept in. Like the rest of my family, Kendra has no hair anywhere other than on her head. When I returned to our nest, I found Kendra sitting up looking around with a concerned look on her face. As soon as she saw me approaching the look changed to one of relief.

“Oh Andy. Thank goodness! What happened? I woke up alone and...” she looked around. “This isn’t where we were last night, is it? I thought we were closer to the others. We could still see the fire when we stopped so shouldn’t we be able see the camp?”

“It’s easy to see a flame in the dark. We must have gone farther than we thought without realizing it.” I pointed towards the opening of the area we were in. “I bet the others are just over that rise. What do you say, shall we go find them?”

“Of course! I just need to take care of nature and get dressed. I sure hope they have breakfast cooking. I’m starving!”

I helped her to her feet and pointed her to where I had watered the ground. She returned a few minutes later as I was shaking out the fur.

“Kendra, where did this sleeping fur come from?” I asked holding it up to show the gray fur with a black ‘V’ pattern.

“It’s not mine. I thought you brought it. It looks familiar though. Maybe it belongs to one of Kara’s people. We can ask when we get back.”

“I don’t know. It could be. It does look kind of familiar.” I rubbed the fur against my cheek. “It’s nice and soft too. Maybe whoever owns it will trade for it.” I rolled and tied the fur then put it over my shoulder.

“Maybe. Come on,” she said, “let’s go find something to eat.”

My stomach growled in agreement.

We crested the rise a few minutes later and saw the camp. Kara’s people seemed to be packed and ready to leave but were waiting for something. As we got closer, I could see a small group gathered that appeared to be having a heated discussion. Two of those in the group were new arrivals, but I wasn’t sure which two. Kara was there along with one of her guards. The others were Sheila, Abby and Gayle Adams, Emily, and Etala.

“Emily, what’s going on? Is the coach’s group causing more problems?“

Emily started looking around. “Andy! Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours! Where have you been? Is Kendra with you? It’s not exactly the coach’s group causing problems. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on here.“

“We’re just now coming up on the camp, off to your left. Kendra is with me and we’re fine. We just needed a bit of privacy and I guess we wandered off too far. So what is going on?“

We both waved when Emily turned towards us.

“Gene’s body is gone. One of Kara’s guards came running into camp about two hours ago claiming that animal spirits had appeared. Not two minutes later, the young girl, Brooke, ran down ranting that a couple of Egyptian cat gods had taken Gene’s body. Of course that set the Adams girls off wanting to know what happened. I’ve been using the ‘language barrier’ to get out of answering too much but Brooke seems to be catching on to some of what is being said.“

Animal spirits? Cat gods? And Brooke can understand, or at least is starting to understand, the native languages? I wonder if Brooke prayed to Reeree and Aleria had something to do with this as an answer.

Emily must have announced our arrival as everyone turned in our direction. I greeted everyone including the two new arrivals, Brooke and her boyfriend Gary.

Kara was the first to speak. “Andy. My people prepare to depart even as we speak. We will continue our journey as soon as all are ready.”

“That is unfortunate. I had hoped we could continue our discussion from last night over the morning meal. You did seem to indicate that we might. What has changed?”

“I truly would have enjoyed such a conversation with you. But while Oben and Elam were standing watch over the strangers during the night, an animal spirit appeared in the form of a lizard-man. The spirit tried to take Elam, Karom, and Randy but could not because they still breathe. My people tried to drive him off but none were able to move in the presence of the spirit. Word has spread among my people causing great fear. They wish to depart the area before the spirit returns to claim us all.” She pointed to Brooke. “I believe this one had a similar experience.”

I looked at Brooke questioningly. “Is it true? Did you have a vision of the animal spirit as well?”

“Yes I did. Only there were two of them. And they weren’t lizard-men, they were cat people. I mean they looked like humans with cat heads. Kind of like the Egyptian cat gods.”

We were interrupted by the young messenger from the previous night who ran up and spoke excitedly with Kara. After a brief exchange he turned and ran back to their camp.

“I’m sorry for the interruption,” said Kara, “but there has been a development with my people who were injured and I must go see to them. Perhaps we will talk later.”

I offered to send someone with her which she declined. After Kara and her guard departed, I turned back to Brooke.

“Now where were we? What were you doing when you saw these ‘cat people’?”

“I convinced the guard to let me go outside to pray to Reeree as you had suggested. I was worried what the others might think if they saw or heard me praying to a local ‘goddess’. I asked her for the ability to talk with the native like you talk to me so we could go and find our captured friends. Then I figured ‘what the heck’ and asked her to take care of the injured native boys. Then I saw Gene’s body laying there and asked her to guide Gene and D-Man to whatever afterlife there might be. I name-dropped your name in case it might help. To be honest, I felt really silly. I even told her that I didn’t believe in the deities back home. It was really weird but I felt like someone was actually paying attention.”