Onio (31 page)

Blue
Sky, Onio and Melody had been chosen to talk to the small humans and ask for
the sasquatch hostages’ freedom. Onio didn’t like it but their orders were clear.
Besides, he acknowledged, he and Blue were the only sasq who really knew how to
address the smalls in their own tongue. Mel couldn’t speak, but would be
present to demonstrate to the army that small humans were treated kindly within
the tribes.

Still,
the spokesperson should not be so obviously frightened. Blue’s previous
experience had soured his normal bravery and now that the time was at hand,
Onio feared for his people, and at their chance for success. The sun moved
behind a cloud and he saw large, mechanical beasts moving into position behind
the gates of the base. They were what the small human soldiers called tanks.

They
were painted with the colors of the desert; buff, tan, and sage green. They had
long snouts with large black holes that were aimed at the sasquatches, like the
malevolent eyes of hungry predators. Two of the soldier’s black birds, or
helicopters, lifted into the sky behind the tanks and moved toward them as
well. The gate bars lifted up and a column of Humvees coasted slowly down the
two lanes, stopping about fifty feet or so away from the sasqs.

Onio,
Blue Sky and Mel faced the idling vehicles and the soldiers who sat inside of
them. Many soldiers stood on the SUV’s side steps, as well. These men held
machine guns and looked only too willing to use them. Onio knew that, right
now, he and his wife’s lives hung by a thread.

Mel
trembled with anxiety and Onio took her hand in his. It was frightening to face
such open hostility, but they were not alone. Although they stood ten paces ahead
of the rest of the sasquatches, the fiercest and mightiest of their warriors
formed a wall behind them. Each of them held spears, clubs and hammers in their
fists. Onio knew that although the small humans could paint the ground red with
sasq blood, it would not be before the sasq warriors killed every single man
and woman in the convoy.

Even
the weakest sasq warrior could throw his spear at least fifty feet with uncanny
accuracy and do it in the blink of an eye. Two Horses’s war hammer could easily
bend one of the soldiers cars in two, and Onio did not even want to contemplate
the toll any hand-to-hand combat would have on the far smaller humans.

The
sky was growing darker and darker and Mel saw lightning scratch white fingers
across the top of some low hills to the north. A cool breeze swept her hair
back and she heard a mechanical voice growl, “Release the girl, and retreat!”
The words were amplified in her mind telepathically, through her husband’s
ears. She felt, more than heard, Onio’s gasp of shock and dismay.

It
had not occurred to the sasquatches that the small humans might assume Mel was
a prisoner, and it introduced a completely new sense of urgency and danger into
an already tense situation. Onio saw an older man climb out of one of the
Humvees and he heard his friend Blue groan.

“It’s
him,” Blue whispered. “It’s the leader.”

A
tall, white haired soldier approached. He was distinguished looking and
handsome but for the frown lines that etched deep furrows around his electric
blue eyes and bracketed thin lips. He held one hand casually on his sidearm as
he approached. His eyes studied Blue with a look of loathing so profound it
made Onio’s heart sink in his chest.

His
friend was correct…for some reason, this war was a personal campaign waged
against the sasquatch people by this man alone. It was fueled with hatred and
powered by the rage this leader held deep in his heart. Blue lifted his spear
in sudden fear and Onio spoke loudly, so all could hear his words.

“Stop,
please! Stop and hear our words,” Onio pleaded. “We have come to take our
people back from you, that’s all. We come in peace, and we will leave in peace
if only you give us our relatives. Then we will go to the far northern lands
and deep into the mountains so you will never have to see us or hear from us
again.”

When
Onio first opened his mouth and spoke, the man paused for a moment in surprise.
He looked at Blue and growled, “I suppose you can talk too?”

Blue
Sky nodded and said, “I was always able to speak but was afraid to try.”

Onio
studied the sky overhead. Giant cumulous clouds were piling up, one on top of
the other, like grey boulders, and ground against each other ominously. The
helicopters blades whipped the air, sending tails of dirt, smoke, bits of weed
and grass far into the sky and swirling around the sasq people and the human
beings who watched.

For
a moment, as sheets of dust covered the area, obscuring and separating the sasquatches
from their emissaries, the only people who existed in the entire universe were
the two young sasq warriors, a human girl, and an Army colonel whose heart had
long ago shriveled and died from bitter sorrow, loss and revenge.

Onio
knew from the look in the soldier’s eyes that nothing he said would ever make a
difference in stopping this war. The die had been cast, somehow, long ago, and
the only thing left for him and his people now was to fight and probably die in
this dismal land of sand and tears.

Chapter 36

Onio
saw the soldier’s hand drop to his pistol and he knew that the colonel had
decided to kill Blue Sky and as many sasquatches as possible, despite the risk
to his own people. Onio stepped up to the soldier, and before O’Dell could
react at all, plucked the gun from the man’s holster. Immediately, a metallic
clatter filled the air as rifles and machine guns were cocked, ready to fire.

Then,
a distorted voice shouted, “Colonel, stand down! Do it, now!”

The
colonel, whose face was as red as blood, paused and looked back over his
shoulder as another vehicle approached slowly from the rear of the convoy. A
fat soldier sat in the passenger seat. He wore a uniform much like the other
soldiers but his glittered with stars and ribbons. When the Humvee came to a
stop, the man got out and waddled toward O’Dell and the sasquatches.

As
he approached, every soldier he passed raised his right hand in a salute,
effectively disarming them, at least temporarily. Keeping his brown eyes fixed
on O’Dell, he muttered to the soldiers he passed, “As you were, for God’s
sake…as you were!” The weapons came up again, immediately.

He
came to a full stop in front of O’Dell, who, reluctantly it seemed, tipped his
right hand in a salute. Then the old soldier barked, “What’s the meaning of
this O’Dell, and why have you gone dark?”

O’Dell’s
cheeks flushed and he responded, “I felt that my men could handle these
creatures without incident or threat to the base, sir!”

“You
thought that, eh?” The short, fat Army officer turned and studied Onio and his
companions. Although he was portly, and much older than the colonel, the keen
intelligence in the general’s warm brown eyes impressed Onio, and made him feel
like there might be hope in salvaging this operation yet.

Shading
his eyes, the soldier looked up at Onio and said, “Can you talk?”

Onio
nodded and said, “Yes, Blue Sky and I can both speak.”

The
soldier replied, “You speak very well. My name is General Thomas Liddy.” He stuck
his hand out. “Pleased to meet you.”

Onio
gently took the man’s hand in his and gazed into the man’s eyes. He could feel
his lungs filling with air, as though a tight band of tension had been
loosened, and now he could breathe again, without fear.

General
Liddy gazed past Onio’s shoulder, his eyes as wide and bright as a child’s, and
murmured, “I’ve heard about you and your people, but never thought I would get
a chance to actually meet you.”

Onio
frowned and said, “You did not know then, that this man has been capturing and
experimenting on us? That, even now, he holds almost a thousand of our people
in an underground facility to the north of here?”

The
general turned to O’Dell with a grimace. “Is this true, Colonel? Because if so,
you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

O’Dell
glared and barked, “Permission to speak freely, sir.”

Liddy’s
face flushed with anger at the barely concealed contempt in the colonel’s voice.
“Permission granted, Colonel, but I warn you…be careful what you say at this
point, because if you’ve been running ops out of this base without my approval
or authority it would be considered insubordination and could result in a
court-marshal.”

O’Dell
nodded and replied, “Begging your pardon, General, but I’m working with the
N.S.A. now, and Homeland Security. I’m taking my orders from them, sir, not
from you!”

Liddy
nodded and growled, “Maybe so….” The little general was vibrating with rage as
he stepped up close to O’Dell and hissed, “But, if you EVER use that tone of
voice with me again, I’ll have you thrown in the brig. ARE WE CLEAR?”

O’Dell
blinked and stepped back. “Clear, sir!”

General
Liddy stepped away from the colonel and turned to face Onio and Blue Sky. Onio
had pushed Mel behind him when it looked like the colonel was going for his gun,
but she had crept forward again when the general showed up. Liddy’s eyes fell
on her and he said, “Well, hello there…who are you, miss?”

Mel
glanced up at her husband, who nodded in encouragement. Taking a deep breath,
she opened her mouth and said, “Hi, my name is Melody Carver. This is my
husband, Onio, and these people are my family.” She knew her words were not
clear but the kindly general watched her eyes and mouth carefully. It took a
few seconds, but she could see that he understood what she said, and he nodded.

“So,
you are not being held against your will?” he asked, gently.

Mel
shook her head emphatically, and said, “No! I love him…I love all of them!”

Liddy
smiled and turned away. Calling out to his personal guards, he ordered, “Take
the colonel to holding, and escort these people to the gymnasium. Call medical
to see to their needs and tell the kitchen to bring—”

“What’s
that?” O’Dell gasped, staring at Onio with real fear on his face. Onio stared
back at him in confusion, and then looked down at the rock that hung from the
cord around his neck. He had felt the rock’s temperature rise but thought it
was just the heat of the sun, or the tension in the air. He was amazed however,
to see that the rock was blazing with color and pulsed like a beacon in
alternating bands of white, blue and purple flashes of light.

After
the spider attack in the underground tunnels, Onio understood that this was some
sort of alien technology that, when needed, served as a weapon. He did not
activate it though, and could not understand what it was doing now. He held his
hands up in a shrug and started to remove it from his neck, but forgot that he
still held the colonel’s gun in his right hand. Immediately, the colonel
shouted out a warning, and two huge MPs moved in to flank the general.

The
lieutenant colonel was whispering something into General Liddy’s ear. Although
Onio slowly and carefully knelt, placing the officer’s weapon on the ground, he
knew by the look of consternation and sorrow in the general’s eyes that any
ground he and the sasq had gained was lost now through his own carelessness.

Then,
he heard queen Tanah say, “Terry…is that you?”

***

If
not for the thunder that rumbled overhead in black clouds that seethed and
swirled through the yellow sky, every sasq, human, and soldier could have heard
a pin drop. Lieutenant Colonel O’Dell, who was in the act of retrieving his
pistol from where Onio had placed it on the ground, froze and slowly turned
around to face a voice from his distant past.

He
stood up and stared at a wild woman who was standing about ten feet away from
him. She was the strangest and ugliest thing he had ever seen. She wore furs,
beads and leather. Her hair was braided, and had been dyed with every color of
the rainbow and festooned with bone, wood, and pieces of broken glass. She was
covered from head to toe in tattoos, and one of her eyes was gone; in its place
a piece of blue stone gleamed dully. The other eye, as blue as a robin’s egg,
as blue as his own, stared at him in shocked recognition.

“Terry,
my brother, are you the one who has done these things to my people…to my son,
your own nephew?” The queen’s voice shook with sorrow and betrayal.

O’Dell
stared at the woman and at the gigantic sasquatch by her side, remembering the
day, so long ago, when that same beast commanded him not to interfere, even as
it stole his beloved sister away forever.

He
had spent a lifetime vowing revenge against these creatures, in truth, because
he thought that Tonya was long gone…killed…raped, maybe even eaten by the
beasts that haunted his dreams. To see her now, alive and well, and so
ugly…deformed by the creatures she called family, made his blood boil in his
veins. How dare she address him this way, like an equal, rather than the evil,
deceitful bitch she was?

He
heard a babble of voices rise up around him but those voices seemed far away,
as a high, buzzing whine filled his ears. He saw nothing but Tonya, his
beautiful sister, a stranger now, embodying everything he hated and had vowed
to destroy. He didn’t see the sorrow in Tanah’s eye, or the shock in Blue’s
face, or the fear and dread in Two Horses’s expression as he lifted his gun and
shot two slugs into the lying bitch’s chest. The only thing O’Dell saw was red.