Chapter 2

"Bob, you just don't understand," Lani Walker was saying, "your home life was so screwed up, you just can't see what I'm talking about. I love my mother... we've got a really beautiful thing between us, you know?"

Lani lay on her back, her eyes searching the cloudless California sky, her bare toes playing little games with the golden brown grass that covered the hills of Mendocino.

"I mean, my mother doesn't have all the hangups about her kid that your parents have. She treats me like an adult, so there isn't any need for me to rebel against her. I mean I didn't run away from her like you did from your parents. There wasn't any need to."

"Look, kiddo, I didn't run away from my parents. I just left, see? And anyway, I think you're just kidding yourself, because your mother just isn't as understanding as she pretends."

"Bob, that's not true..."

"Yes it is true, baby, I know it's true... When we were all down at your mother's place, she was hanging all over you, man, like you were some kind of teddy bear or something..."

"Come on, Bob, that's not fair! Just because you can't visualize any kind of love between parents or children doesn't mean it doesn't exist, right? I mean..."

"All right! Let's just forget about it, O.K.? It's Saturday afternoon, and the sun is shining... let's talk about something else for Christ's sake! The whole thing is so fucking sentimental I think I'm going to cry."

Lani looked over at him as he turned away on his side, and then she sat up abruptly, and looked away. Her long blonde hair was tangled with strands of grass, and her eyes were moist with a few tentative tears caused by the lack of understanding on her boyfriend's part. Her face was almost an exact replica of her mother's, with the same soft brown eyes and delicately formed features, but lacking the coolness, the distance her mother had cultivated after so many years of frustration. Lani was young, but already had a figure that surpassed even her mother's, with large rounded breasts and gently flaring hips, and soft smooth thighs that were tanned a delicious golden brown by the hot California sun. Her slender arms reached out around her shapely legs, and clasped together tightly around her knees, which were trembling slightly now with emotion. She glanced over at Bob, and tried to decide why he was sometimes so harsh with her. She knew he had had a rough life, but still... sometimes it was as though he didn't have any feeling for her at all.

She quickly turned her thoughts away from this unpleasant thought, deciding that it was absurd to even suspect that Bob didn't love her. After all, wasn't he one of the main reasons she had come to the commune in the first place? She looked away, across the lush green hills covered sparsely by single standing oaks in irregular patterns, and her mind wandered aimlessly through visions of her past, her school, old friends, her mother...

"Look, kiddo, I'm sorry."

Lani's memories were invaded by Bob's deep masculine voice. She didn't turn to him immediately.

"Oh, that's all right Bob. I guess I get carried away sometimes when I think about Mom. It's my fault really."

"No, I shouldn't have yelled at you. It's my fault. But, like I don't understand one thing, kiddo."

She turned to him questioningly.

"... I mean, if everything was so fine back in San Francisco, why did you come up here? Christ, you could have stayed there in your Momma's lovin' arms!"

Lani looked at him in surprise, but saw he was serious. She'd come for him, of course!

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just had to settle down in a place of my own, you know? I mean, ever since I remember, Mom and I have been either moving in or moving out of crummy little two bedroom apartments. I can't even remember how many. And, I never went to the same school more than a year and a half... Oh, I don't mean it was all that bed! All I'm saying is... well... I just had to find something a little more stable, you know?"

Bob leaned over to her, and drew her supple young body over to him roughly, pressing her up against him.

"Yeah, I know kiddo... something stable like me, huh?"

Lani winced a little from the unexpected roughness, and then eased herself into the curve of his huge, muscular frame. She snuggled up like an infant against his massive chest, and worked her face up against the rough stubble of his week-old bear, sighing with pleasure. She felt the crotch of his jeans begin to bulge as his hidden cock quickly grew excited by her tantalizing closeness, and laughingly reached down to touch its fabric-covered hugeness with her small tanned hand.

"Mmmm... well, I guess you're pretty stable, all right..."

With a throaty growl, Bob threw her over onto her back, and pressed her breasts back against her small frame with his powerful body He reached under her skimpy body shirt and ran one hand teasingly up over one soft unencumbered nipple, raising it to an instant hardness.

"Want to see just how stable, kiddo?" he asked laughingly.

Lani moaned with the pleasure elicited by his expert manipulations of her breasts, and answered only by reaching down seductively to slowly unbutton the top button of his straining blue jeans.

Ann Walker eased her Ford Falcon to the side of the small one lane road, and pulled out the map the man at the local postoffice had given her. Farm Road 1789. This must be it, she thought, looking up for confirmation at the billboard on her right. Past the Quaker State sign and turn right. She set the map down on the seat beside her, and eased the car into gear.

She hadn't started as early that morning as she'd wanted. As soon as she'd woke up, she'd thought of a million things she could spend that Saturday doing, errands she'd put off for months, letters she'd never planned to write... but then her mind had stopped rushing around desperately trying to think up excuses for not coming, and she'd realized she was just being silly.

She was still nervous, though, even after her long drive-- nervous about how Lani would receive her surprise visit, uncertain whether she might be intruding She was almost convinced that Lani would be overjoyed to see her, but not quite. She hoped that the single fact of her presence would not put any kind of pressure on her daughter, making her feel as though she had to choose between her mother and the commune. The reason Ann felt this way, of course, was that unconsciously she hoped Lani would make that choice, and would return to South San Francisco with her.

She drove back onto the road, and turned right onto Farm Road 1789. She drove up a long hill with the sun at her back, and continued on until the paved road turned into gravel, and the gravel finally gave way to a rutted, sun-baked dirt that threatened to wrench her old car's shock absorbers from the chassis. Bravely, she went on, and finally came to an old broken down fence stretched haphazardly across the road with a carefully painted sign hung beside it, the words "The Zodiac" emblazoned on the sign in red letters.

Well, this is it, she thought to herself nervously, and looked with apprehension at the dry hillsides around her, broke only by the line of rusted barbed wire that stretched out from the gate until it disappeared behind the curve of the hill. The isolation and apparent desolation of the place disturbed her, and she wondered how Lani could enjoy being so cut off from civilization. She got out of the car, and opened the old gate, which creaked in the hot stillness of the afternoon, eerily, like an invitation to enter another world. Getting back in her car, she drove through, stopped, got out once again, and closed the gate behind her. You're here, the gate creaked at her once again, and she hurriedly got back into her car and drove on.

After a mile or so, she came suddenly into a clearing, surrounded by homemade wooden cabins peaking out into it from under the protection of a grove of huge oak trees. The houses were all fairly small, except for one building that stood out from the others and had a long front porch built out from it, covered by a shingled roof. There didn't seem to be many people about, though Ann did see a couple of naked children playing around one of the houses in a carefree game of kick-the-can, and two woman dressed in calico sitting in the shade of a large tree, mending what looked like handmade shirts. She drove up to the main building, which she took to be some kind of meeting hall, and stopped her car in front.

As she slid her slender body from behind the wheel, she saw a man walk out on the porch in front of her, and gaze down at her with curiosity. His eyes peered out from behind a massive, tangled growth of beard and hair, that practically hid his face from view. His hands rested lazily in the pockets of his faded, patched coveralls.

"Good afternoon," Ann ventured timorously. "My name is Ann Walker."

Ann could feel the bearded man's eyes taking her in, and suddenly she felt very out of place in this almost 19th century community, dressed as she was in her modern, brightly colored, light summer dress. She waited for the man to give some response to her introduction, but he simply continued staring at her, impassively.

"My daughter lives here in this... place," Ann continued bravely. "Her name is Lani Walker."

The silent man descended the stairs slowly, and walked over to where Ann was standing. Her nervousness grew as he approached her, but then he stuck out his hand and smiled.

"Of course... Lani. I'm afraid we don't know very many last names around here. How do you do?"

Ann shook his hand gratefully, suddenly put completely at ease by the graciousness and ease of his manner.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr... ?"

The man smiled again, quietly, and put his hands back into his pockets.

"... Moses," he said simply.

"Well, I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Moses."

Ann was surprised to hear him laugh out loud, and then questioned him with a smile.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh," the man beamed at her, "but I'm afraid I'm not a mister. My name is just Moses. And while you're here in the Village, I hope you don't mind if we call you Ann."

Ann returned his laugh, comfortable somehow with this seemingly gentle man.

"Oh, I'm sorry... Moses then. And I'd love you to call me Ann."

"Well that's fine. Good. Now I suppose you're looking for Lani?"

"Yes, I am," Ann answered, "can you tell me where I might find her?"

"The last I saw her she was walking up toward the Chapel."

"The Chapel?" Ann echoed.

"Oh, sorry, that's what we call the hillside where we sometimes meditate and have group... gatherings," Moses said with a sly smile. "For us, it's a kind of church, so..."

"I think that's lovely," Ann laughed, "that Chapel! That's wonderful! Could you tell me how to get there? You see, I'm very anxious to see my daughter."

"Well, she's with Bob right now..."

"Oh, is that a friend of hers?" Ann asked hesitantly.

The man looked at her with a strange expression playing about his eyes.

"We're all friends here, Ann. You'll soon find that out."

"Of course, I forgot," she laughed. "After all, isn't that what a commune's for?"

"You're very right, Ann, that is exactly what a commune is for." The same strange smile formed on his lips, making Ann vaguely uneasy somehow, but she quickly dismissed it.

They chatted for a few moments more, and then Ann asked again how she could get to the Chapel. Moses indicated a path rising steeply from the Village, as he had told her the area where they were now standing was called, and said that it came out right above the Chapel. Ann thanked him and turned to make her way across the clearing.

"Oh Ann?" he called after her.

"Yes?" she answered, turning back toward him.

"You're welcome to stay and share our dinner with us."

"That would be lovely," she called to him. "In fact, I was hoping to stay the whole weekend. Would that be all right?"

"That would be fine! We'd love to have you. And you'll enjoy it."

"You know," she said smiling, "I think I will, Moses."

He watched as she waved happily to him, and turned to climb the steep path. His eyes devoured her perfectly formed hips as they swung sensuously, enticingly from side to side.

"I know you will, Ann," he whispered under his breath, an almost leering grin twisting his face under his huge beard, "I know you will!"

It was a hard climb up the narrow, rock-filled path, and Ann had to stop two or three times to catch her breath. Whew, I'm really out of shape! she panted to herself silently, standing about fifty feet below the crest of the hill. Well, one last pull... and she started again, slowly, forcing one foot ahead of the other.

She had been pleasantly surprised at the reception Moses had given her back at the meeting house. She could admit to herself now just how frightened she had been to come to the commune, frightened of people who seemed so very much different from herself. But Moses, despite his long hair and strange ways, had seemed genuinely friendly, and Ann had been pleased. She had also been impressed with the cleanliness and order of the commune. There was nothing in it that was new, of course, and all the buildings seemed to be hanging together only with chewing gum and rubber bands, but despite its very makedo character, it was clean. Most of the houses sported a fairly new coat of dark green or brown paint, the yards around them were raked clean, and Ann could see absolutely no litter or trash cluttering the place up at all. She didn't really know what she'd expected, perhaps a rural slum of tarpaper shacks with garbage and junked cars providing occasional touches of impoverished color, but the rustic beauty of "The Zodiac" as the commune was called, quickly dissolved all her preconceptions.

And now, walking breathlessly toward the crest of the hill, the pretty secretary breathed in the smokeless air, smelled the healthy scent of dusty oak trees and sun-toasted grass, and decided that Lani might just be right. If one could choose between the exhilaration of a summertime hillside under a cloudless sky, and the stench and filth of a modern city, who in his right mind would be anywhere but where she was right at this very moment, panting uncontrollably as she forced her lungs to accept more oxygen than they'd had in years.

At last, Ann reached the top, and paused again to catch her breath. She looked back over the climb she'd just made, and could just make out through the trees the tops of a few of the buildings down in the Village. Then she turned, and began to make her way through the small line of trees that separated her from the meadow on the other side of the hill. Her eyes sparkled with the exertions of her climb, and her unaccustomed ears happily caught the sound of birds talking to her from their hidden perches in the oaks around her, the wind rustling softly through the branches, the healthy sound of her own heavy breathing.

She suddenly stopped, hearing another sound she couldn't identify. It was off to her left, and sounded like small animals digging hastily into the ground. Silently, like some kind of novice big-game hunter, she moved to her left, crouched over, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. She was soon surprised to hear what sounded like muffled voices as well, coming from somewhere at the edge of the line of trees, just at the top of the meadow. She crept closer, and the sounds became more distinct. They were voices, she decided, and involved in a fairly intense discussion it seemed. If she just got a little closer she could perhaps just... Ann's hand suddenly flew to her mouth, and she stifled a horrified shriek which threatened to burst from her constricting throat. Her eyes grew wide with disbelieving shock and revulsion, and she groped frantically for the tree beside her to keep from falling.