The Twelve Stones (7 page)

Alex and his father were on the west side of the park, two miles away from anyone else in the world, ascending one of the more remote climbs available. The route lay directly on one of the largest and most imposing of mountains in the Joshua Tree National Park. The edges sloped up quickly, making it a sheer face for most of the climb. Even experienced climbers shied away from this
m
esa
, preferring to stick to the easier routes located further to the south.

Alex huffed and puffed his way up the rock
,
his fingers
struggl
ing
to find a more secure hold. The top of the Mesa was only a few feet away, but nearer to the top, the edges became more slippery, the granite worn smooth from years of rainwater washing down the sides of the cliff. It was challenging, but it was also an enthralling experience. One false move, a slip of the fingers at some critical moment perhaps, and Alex was going to have a very
quick
fall with an even quicker stop at the end.

His index finger slipped as bits of gravel bit into his knees. He grimaced, grit his teeth
,
and accidentally bit his lip. Tasting blood, Alex leaned closer into the wall
,
struggling to keep his hold on the slippery granite.

He braced his left hand and pushed himself up
,
grabbing a finger hold only a few dozen feet away from the top of the
m
esa. Exhaling softly, he moved his body up onto a ledge
,
sitting carefully to give his body a rest before the final ascent. He called down to his father below him.

“You’re getting old there
,
Pop
s
!”

Ted had fallen behind during the climb to the top of the
m
esa. Alex hadn’t rushed him
–
his father was pushing seventy
,
after all
–
but incredibly, he had kept up with Alex the entire time. Alex smiled at his father as he made the last few feet and joined him on the ledge.

Ted turned to his son,
struggl
ing
to catch his breath.

“I might be slowing down a bit,” he wheezed, “but I’m still spry enough to kick your ass.” Ted kept moving, pushing his feet against the rock and grabbing the edge of the
m
esa wall. Displaying an impressive burst of energy for someone in his late sixties, Ted free
-
scaled the last ten feet handily
,
leaving his son with his jaw on the ground.

After all these years,
Alex thought,
he had no idea how his father stayed so active. Growing up, it had always been his father’s idea to get out into the great outdoors; whether it was rock climbing in Joshua Tree, scuba diving in Hawaii, or climbing some of the highest peaks the United States had to offer, Ted had always taken his son on these trips with the zest and thrill of a much younger man.

The added bonus to all their father/son adventures was the several pounds of muscle
they had
packed onto Alex’s lean frame. He had used his naturally athletic body to take his high school to several state championships
.
A
fter receiving several scholarship offers, Alex
had
settled on going to Stanford with his friend Scott
,
where they would live and learn together and for several years.

Ted stood triumphant over his son. Huffing and puffing, Alex took the challenge and free
-
scaled the last ten feet to the top, shaking his head as he sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of the cliff.

“I’ll never understand just where you get all that energy. Good news for me
,
I guess.”

Ted smiled as his unzipped his backpack. Pulling out two bottles of water and two energy bars, he handed one of each to his son, and opened his own bottle of water.

“Why so?” Ted asked as he bit off a piece of the energy bar.

“Good genes
.
M
eans
I’ll be able to kick my son’s ass when I’m in my sixties too.”

Ted nodded and sat down next to his son. Through a mouthful of his snack
,
he said, “And I’ll be just as happy to pull you and my grandkid up those
last
ten feet then too.”

Alex laughed
.
T
he two of them admired the sunset for a few minutes.
The
smog over Los Angeles, only a few hundred miles to the west
, made the vivid orange-red tones all the more brilliant
.

“Alex,” Ted’s tone was quiet and slightly ominous. Alex looked over at his father. He had never seen his father’s face so sad.

“We having ‘that’ talk now?” Alex asked his father.

Ted cocked his head.

“Do you want to have that talk now?” Ted asked. “I never asked where you were
,
Alex. I know you took your breakup with Emily…”

Alex looked up sharply at the mention of her name. “Emily wasn’t the problem
,
Pop
s
.”

Ted’s face fell at Alex’s reaction to his ex-fiancé
e
’s name. Six years ago, shortly after graduating from Stanford, the two had gotten engaged. Ted had never gotten the full story from Emily. Apparently, the two of them
had
fought bitterly
.
O
ver
what, she never said.

Ted had called Emily after receiving his son’s letter telling him that he had enlisted in the Army and would be out of contact for a few weeks. She hadn’t been exactly forthcoming about the details, and at the time, he hadn’t known how to react to his son’s sudden disappearance into the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, it was only a few days later that Ted had received the call that his son had died at boot camp, in some stupid training accident
,
and would not be coming home.
“
The President thanks you for your son’s heroic service.
”
Bitter words, which had not consoled Ted over the last six years.

The funeral had been short, but beautiful. Ted had been too devastated to plan or do much of anything, so Scott had taken care of most of the details. It was a simple ceremony where each of them
—
Scott, Ted, and Emily
—
said a few words
, then
buried mementos in a small casket
. The grave overlooked
the Onyx valley Alex had loved so much. Ted had visited that grave every morning for six years straight
—
that is, until yesterday.

“Emily was your whole world at one point
,
Alex
,
” Ted prodded his son
,
hoping that some information might spring forth. “Something bad had to happen
to
trigger it all, and being your father, I was hoping you’d care to tell me what it was.”

Alex sighed as he rubbed his face. But without explaining the last six years to his father, he couldn’t begin to tell him the story about Emily. “Pop, instead of rehashing all that painful past, how's about we enjoy the moments we have now
?
H
ow
about that?”

Ted looked disappointed, but after a few moments
,
he nodded and reached into his pocket.

“I actually wasn’t going to bring up Em…” Ted stopped abruptly
,
seeing his son wince at the sound of her name again. “Her
.
I really wasn’t going to talk about her initially
.
I just thought maybe…
B
ah
, forget that. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else.”

Alex looked up at his father
,
who was clutching a dirty brown and white rag all tied up into a bundle. Ted handed it to his son.

“Go on son, open it.” His father said.

Alex turned the rag over in his hand. It looked familiar
.
A
s he began to worry the knot on the rag, his father looked out at the desert and the setting sun and began talking.

“Twenty years ago, do you remember Scott’s falling out of the tree in the meadow behind the house? Do you remember any of that?”

Alex’s brow scrunched as reached back into his subconscious mind. Blurry shapes of young boys running around in a forest, blood everywhere, a mysterious blue light.

“Yeah, I do actually,” Alex said in surprise. “Me and Scott used to tell that story about how he almost died one weekend at my place, but no one would believe us because Scott didn’t have a mark on him.” Alex looked at the rag in his hand as he finally loosened the knot opening the bundle.

“Scott didn't have a mark on him because of what you found that day
,
Alex,” Ted said gently, “You healed Scott’s body. That rag you’re holding is stained with the proof that Scott was injured that day.” As Ted said that, a stone attached to a necklace fell out into Alex’s hands
.
“And that is what healed him.”

Alex turned the stone over in his hand. The stone was warm to his touch in his hand. The slight up curve to the stone that made it look like a claw looked familiar. Alex turned and looked at his father.

Ted smiled, “I said I’d give it back to you when I thought you were ready for its power. I don’t know or even care what you were doing for the last few years. I raised you to be a good decent man, and I believe you became one. A good man should be in charge of something like this.”

Alex turned to his dad with a smile on his face. “I appreciate that
,
Pop
s
.”

“Well, I figure if I can’t figure out how the stone did what it did for twenty years
,
I ought to let you have a go with it. You’re a helluva lot smarter than your old man
,
in any case.” Ted slapped his son’s knee as he said that.

Alex smiled as he considered the stone in his hands.

“Try it on.”

Alex
,
amused by his father’s wild imagination, indulged him and put the necklace around his neck.

“
Pop, I seriously doubt it was actually the stone that did anything. More than likely, our collective memories made the accident seem a lot worse than it actually was
,
and the little blood
that
there was got on this rag. I mean, healing someone just by touching them?” Alex laughed, “That's more than a little ridiculous, but I
get
what you're trying to do.”

Ted nodded faintly as he considered his son’s theory. “I’ve been thinking about that day for twenty years
,
son
.
I don’t think I’ve misremembered…” It was then that Ted cocked his ear and began to listen towards the sky.

Alex’s eyebrows furrowed, and then a few seconds later, he could hear it too. Three large commercial helicopters were flying on a direct course towards him and his father. They began to circle around the
m
esa
. From one of the cockpits,
a canister of green smoke dropped out
onto the mesa’s flat surface.

“Training out of
29
Palms?” Alex’s father asked him hopefully, the fear evident in his voice.

Alex’s face was ashen. How had they found him? He reached into his backpack and took out a pair of binoculars. Putting them to his face, he was instantly relieved. The people looking for him wouldn’t fly a ritzy helicopter like this.

“Commercial aviation, and they’re expensive birds.” Alex said as he handed his father the binoculars and considered their options. They were on National Park land
,
so they weren’t trespassing or doing anything wrong. They hadn’t started any fires or even seen another soul for the entire day they had been out there. Whatever the men in the helicopters wanted, Alex and his father had about thirty seconds before they found out.

Chapter Five

The expensive helicopter banked sharply, circling the
m
esa
below
and
righting itself as the pilot looked for a landing spot large enough for the enormous craft. The shadows shifted inside the luxurious cabin where two men sat
.
O
ne
, larger and more intimidating in statu
r
e, stared out the window watching the two men below scramble for cover as the approaching helicopter’s prop wash blew dirt and debris all around the open and exposed
m
esa
top.