Chapter 2: The Talk

Jason sat on the other side of the large circular table. Jenny and Becky were celebrating their fifteenth birthdays with several of their classmates and Maria and Carlita.

‘They’re getting so big, so mature for their age; they’re young ladies now. Where did the time go; it seemed like only yesterday that I was playing ‘hide and seek’ with them. T Growing up, they had never given us any problems. There was some mischief, for sure; they weren’t perfect, but never anything serious.’ All of this flashed through his mind.

‘Even their teachers, the principal, and their classmates had long ago accepted their unusual family structure. So, why am I worrying about this? Maybe I should just allow it to take its own course.’

However, he knew the answer to that question as well. This was something that he had to do and now was the time to do it, before he had to do it.

After dinner, after they had dropped off the other girls, they returned home. The girls got ready for bed and retired to their rooms for the evening, while Jason, Maria and Carlita sat in the family room watching the end of the local news.

“I think it’s time we told them.” Jason said as he shut the television.

“Tell them what?” Carlita replied.

“Everything; the tribe, Anna and Summer Rain, us; tell them everything. No more secrets.” Jason countered.

“Why now, why so soon, they’re only fifteen?” Maria responded.

“Because I have a really bad feeling that we are running out of time. I want to tell them, now, before we have to tell them; and I want to be the one to do it.”

“How would you do it?”

“I’ll just tell them the whole story. I will let them form their own opinions and questions; but I won’t be the one who’ll answer them; you two will, one on one with your child. Then they can compare notes if they want; and finally, as a family, we’ll discuss this if that is what they want.”

“I’m worried about what they’ll think of us.” Carlita said.

“It will be better than letting them form opinions without knowing all the facts.”

The three of them sat in silent contemplation for what seemed like an eternity and then Maria looked over at Carlita, who gave her an almost undetectable nod.

“Okay, we’ll go for a hike up the trail tomorrow at eleven. We will be gone about two hours, which should give you plenty of time. After we return, you will do the same. Let’s hope that our dinner conversation tomorrow will be pleasant; I know it will be lively.”

The next morning after breakfast, Maria and Carlita announced that they were going for a hike. Jenny and Becky looked like they wanted to join them but as they were about to leave the table, Jason said, “Not you girls, I want to have a talk with you; see me in the office in five minutes.”

The girls looked at each other as if to say, “What did we do?” and left the kitchen.

When Jason entered the office five minutes later, they were both sitting with their hands folded in their laps, with a worried look on their faces.

“We’re not in any trouble are we dad?”

Jason laughed, “No you’re not in any trouble; is there anything that I should know about that would make you think that you were?” He let them off the hook a few moments later with a hardy laugh. “Relax girls, I just want to talk to you about something very important, and I wanted to be sure I had your undivided attention.”

The girls both visibly relaxed and asked, “What do you want to talk about?”

Jason took a deep breath to settle himself and then began to speak.

“First of all, I just want to let you know that I love you both very much. In addition, that I love your mothers just as much. You know I have been doing a lot of research and writing and that your mothers have been helping me. In the past, we have told you that I have been planning to write a book, a history of the Arizona Territory before it became a state. Well, that was not quite true. What we have actually been doing since before you were born, is researching and looking for evidence of a tribe of female warriors known as the Amazonians who were said to have lived in the Superstition Mountains dating back to at least the early 1200’s AD.

“That’s so cool; did you find any evidence?”

“Please, no questions right now, let me finish first. However, I will answer that one. Yes, we found a whole lot more than evidence that they existed; we found the remnants of the tribe themselves.”

“Let me start back before you were born. I was a college graduate, doing research for my own pleasure, looking through the Arizona State Archives, when I stumbled upon a series of letters between several historians, one of which was adamant that the tribe did exist. I worked hard following the trail of documents, but after a time I needed a break, so I took a weeks’ vacation in Acapulco; that is where I met your mothers. During a conversation with Maria, I told her what I was looking for. She said that she was researching the same thing at the University of Arizona and asked for my address so she could send me some information that I might find helpful.

Several weeks later, she sent me a letter telling me to look for a specific journal. It was the break that I was looking for; that journal gave me a general location to look in. Shortly thereafter, I hiked into the mountains expecting to spend a couple of days looking for artifacts left by the tribe. What I found, or more accurately, what found me, were the living members of the tribe. I was taken captive and brought before the tribe’s High Priestess, Souring Eagle or her white man’s name, Anna. There were seventeen members of the tribe; all were female, thirteen young warriors about my age, three in their mid-forties and one in her sixties. I lived with them for nearly four months before I completed the task that I was held there to do. They used me to impregnate all the members of the tribe that were able to have children.”

He watched the girls’ faces flush as they realized just what he was saying.

“During that time, I lived with Anna, and fell hopelessly in love with her. She told me that she had spent the first thirteen years of her life living on the Gila River Reservation, going to school until the age of thirteen and that she had two sisters, identical twins that she loved very much. She found out later, after she was brought back to the tribe, that she and her sisters had been part of the tribe and that she was brought back to become the tribe’s high priestess, but the twins had been banished from the tribe at birth.

I wanted to stay with Anna, but was told that that was not possible. There was only one way for me to leave the valley that they lived in, alive; I had to agree to live for the rest of my life being watched over by my two keepers.”

He paused his narrative again, until they fully grasped what he had just told them.

“Our mothers are your keepers!”

“Yes, you have to remember that they were actually members of the tribe, but because the tribe is very superstitious and have been very isolated, they did not understand and had never experienced the birth of twins before. I think it was commendable of your mothers to remain loyal to the tribe and to take on the role of being remote members.

“I remember the first night we spent together here. I was very hurt and I missed Anna, I considered her my wife, and I was very upset and wanted nothing to do with Maria and Carlita. However, very quickly, they made me realize that we all were in this together; that if we did not get along, we would be living a very celibate and lonely life. It didn’t take long before we began to become romantically involved with one another. If we did not, at some point, they might have decided to return me to the valley so that they could live a more normal life here. However, to their credit, they knew what that would mean for me. They held my life in their hands.