The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1) (19 page)

It was closing in on ten when Daniels and the others reached the island where Spirit Wolf lived. It was just a large piece of hardscrabble rocks dotted with Caribbean pines, scrub oaks and white mangrove on its edges. A Coleman lantern cast a white light on the rough logs that made up the dock. Shadows danced everywhere like preternatural nocturnal spirits. The house was framed natural logs and planks, all rough angles and large splinters. Spirit Wolf stood in the doorway casting a shadow from the second Coleman that lit the interior. They lashed the boat to the logs and carried Carlos on the dock.

A long sleek body came out of the surrounding darkness like a black deadly wraith, the eyes glowing red embers. A deep warning growl passed over the four inch white fangs. Daniels held his hand out. The panther's tongue delicately touched his fingers in recognition. She retreated back in the darkness, the eyes like pinpoints in the surrounding darkness.

"What the hell is that?" said Conboy.

Daniels ignored him as he carried his friend toward the house. Carlos opened his eyes, his breath ragged and his voice coarse whispers.

"Hey, Pandejo," said Carlos, "I ain't got no Blue Cross you know."

"Don't worry, you won't need it. Spirit Wolf takes American Express."

Daniels didn't like Carlos' appearance in the light of the Coleman. The Mexican's usual nut-brown face was pale with listless eyes. Daniel thought he might be going into shock after the blood loss.

"Hey
Pandejo
," said Carlos, his voice ragged, "If I die, it ain't nobody's fault, but I gotta ask you, don't let me be buried here in this
Puta
of a swamp. Take me back to Guadalajara, you know that little cemetery on the West hill, that's where I gotta be, Can you handle it
Pandejo
?"

"Bullshit. You're going nowhere. Couple days from now you'll be getting your ass kicked from some
Guapa
again."

They carried him to Spirit Wolf's door with Daniels squeezing the blood soaked rag on the wound. Spirit Wolf stepped aside and pointed to a covered pallet.

"You are expected," he said.

As he laid the Mexican down on the pallet, Daniels saw the mixtures of crushed powders and variety of leaves and substances laid out on the table. A fire crackled in a cast iron hearth and a pot overhanging the fire gave out a bubbling pungent aroma. On either side of the hearth stood two shelves holding glass jars filled with clear fluids and the bodies of several snakes and lizards.

Daniels thought better then to ask how Spirit Wolf knew he would be tending a wounded Carlos. There were things about Spirit Wolf and his world that lay way beyond normal white-man comprehension.

Daniels and Conboy watched as the Indian took some of the bubbling fluid from the pot and rapidly mixed it in a bowl with some plants and powder. He worked with all the dexterity and purpose of a modern heart surgeon. His fingers flew over the wound, feeling the life beneath, pinching and squeezing as he administered the mixture into the red slash.

Soon the bleeding stopped. He held Carlos' head in powerful, leathered hands as he fed him a hot brew from a carved wooden bowl. He lit a mixture of dried herbs in a red earthen cup. A deep aroma, strong, pungent, and filled with life, spread throughout the small cabin as Carlos fell into a deep sleep.

Spirit Wolf ushered them out of the cabin. They stood just outside the door as the cicadas and palmettos buzzed around the Coleman.

Daniels thought about his friend Carlos. He was sick with worry for the Mexican who'd been his companion for a decade. He thought about Carlos' mother, a jolly caring woman they had set up in a condo in Key West, his beautiful sister Rosa attending University of Florida, all flashed in his mind.

"Get me back to your base and I'll have him Medivaced," said Conboy.

"No," Spirit Wolf replied, "It is not his time to die."

Daniels was deeply troubled by the sudden savage death of the young sergeant. He, Daniels, was no stranger to violent combat deaths, having inflicted many himself. But this felt so wrong, so alien and unclean. In the middle of US territory, with little purpose or sense, a young soldier had died. Why? Daniels thought, was there no other way? He felt trapped in a cycle of violent death and betrayal he somehow could not break.

Daniels also felt something on the edge of his consciousness, something that danced in his mind, elusive as a June bug. He sensed all was not as it seemed, but what? What was it exactly his subconscious had picked out from the events of the past days. The answers eluded him. Hell he thought, I can't even figure out the questions, let alone the answers.

Conboy and Coronado led the way back to the dock. Spirit Wolf held Daniels back and spoke quietly.

"There are things that you do not know, Richard, certain things that you must learn. Can you be ready tomorrow at sunrise? I will come for you at your camp." Daniels nodded without asking anything. He knew better then to seek information before Spirit Wolf was ready.

Chapter 26

A cloud of Sandpipers and Sanderlings exploded from the water meadows just outside Daniels' camp, disturbed by the noise of the approaching airboat. The craft was nothing more than a flat bottom rowboat with an elevated motor powering a propeller. Tricky as they were to handle, Spirit Wolf slid the boat expertly to the bank where Daniels waited, almost exactly at sunrise.

Wordlessly, Daniels stood next to Spirit Wolf as the craft flew over the surface of a vast sea of yellow and white waterweeds, interspersed with expanses of sawgrass. The run lasted almost an hour and the sun came up from the horizon, a giant yellow-orange burst, filled with the guaranty of another blast-furnace day. They came on a string of small islands overgrown with live oaks and cabbage palms, crowded and screened with bushes. Spirit Wolf guided the boat as it drifted among patches of water hyacinths under the baleful eye of a single heron.

The Indian ran the boat up a tiny sand bar, like a small beach in the riotous vegetation. Daniels followed him up a trodden footpath until they came to a clearing dotted with a tiny house that was not much more than a hut. As they approached the open door, Spirit Wolf placed a restraining hand on Daniels' arm and pointed gently down.

It was at least eight feet long, the body as big around as a man's ankle. It stopped and coiled its lower half, all sinuous muscles, fast and deadly. The Diamondback Rattler's head reared up waist high, the mouth open, the tongue flickering over the wicked curved fangs.

Both men stood very still as Spirit Wolf spoke, his voice soft and low as the breeze rustling the palm grass.

"It is Ulwati. He has been sent by Elohino, our Mother Earth, to be Taloona's guardian."

Richard Daniels had encountered many things, strange and inexplicable things. But now, right here in this time and place, in the tapestry of the savage wilderness of the Everglades, he felt a mystical connection. He sensed his spirit moving in the timeless stream of the universe. In that stream, he became aware of the spiritual entities that flowed all around him, their shapes and natures changing in the constant, moving evolution. He knew that he'd just encountered an entity, a timeless spirit that was more then it seemed.

The Diamondback lowered its head and body. Daniels could never have explained the feeling, the sensibility that washed over him. He felt as if the huge reptile had accepted his presence as it slithered inches from their feet and disappeared beneath the tiny cabin.

It was a religious mystical experience transcending anything he had ever known. Standing at the edge of that hut in the clearing, watching the Diamondback vanish under the footings of Taloona's cabin, he felt the undercurrent of powerful forces. Spirit Wolf's hand grasped his arm, the fingers like stones wrapped in leather. The Indian's voice floated like rumblings from the earth in the still air.

"Come my friend. It is time to meet Taloona."

They stepped through the threshold into the cabin; just three small rooms dotted with windows. No electricity, lamps or artificial illumination. Sunlight stabbed into the rooms from the windows, the beams filled with colors and dancing dust motes. It reminded Daniels of a cathedral he had once visited in Munich with the gloomy interior pierced by golden beams like they were sent directly from heaven.

But it was more than the atmosphere that Daniels felt. There was a presence in that room, a calm and spiritual essence. It washed over him like an invisible soothing stream.

She stood at the edge of the room and it was a few seconds before Daniels even noticed her. He'd felt her presence, her aura, before his eyes picked her from the gloom. She walked toward them and stopped just three feet in front of Daniels. He sensed the moment like a signpost, fixed in time, in his psyche, and he knew it would remain with him to his last day.

She was young and beautiful yet there was a timeless quality about the woman. Her hair hung long, straight and black as a starless night. Her skin a golden hue the features a mixture of classic Greek and American Indian. She wore a floor length gown of some kind of leather with no jewels or adornments—but her eyes, oh her eyes. They burned into his soul, into his very being in a way he could never, ever fathom. Her eyes were a sea of white, immaculate, unblinking, luminescent orbs without pupils.

Taloona was blind.

Daniels stood entranced as Taloona raised her arm. Her fingers touched his face, traced his cheeks and forehead for long moments. He felt an undercurrent, a living energy from her fingers, a gentle touch, caressing, probing, curious and discovering. He heard her voice, soft and delicate like a lover's caress.

"You are the one Deeno speaks of. You are Richard."

Years later, as he tried to write his memories of that moment, in a comfortable condominium, the accoutrements of a modern world sprawled around him, it would seem impossible that she could know who he was, so swiftly and accurately. But in that time and place, it felt natural, the way things should be.

Daniels heard a sighting deep within and realized he had been holding his breath. He nodded his head slowly, not daring to speak and break the moment, destroy the magic that enfolded them in that room.

"You are the warrior," whispered Taloona.

Daniels didn't move, didn't have to. She was like his personal book of revelations. Her other hand came up and traced the outline of his temple and ear.

"You are troubled and there is sorrow in you. It should not be. You have done what you must," she continued.

Her words went directly to Daniels' heart carrying a wealth of meaning. A wave of melancholy poured over him. It had been there for a decade, dormant yet disturbing like the tip of a hidden iceberg. He felt the grief of so many tragic deaths he had failed to prevent, unable to help. He sensed the impact of the violence he'd inflicted. But another presence also lurked there, the malevolent presence of the evil yet to be faced. It was out there still, a hulking, continuing viciousness.

"Trust your spirit."

Just three words, carrying all the meaning in the world from this mystical woman-child, this priestess of a primitive wilderness. Daniels felt a sensation of reprieve, perhaps some sort of justification as a wetness rolled down his cheek.

After a while Daniels and Spirit Wolf left the cabin and stepped outside. Nothing more was said, there was no need, all meaning had been conveyed. It was close to noon and a White Ibis swooped down in a flashing circle before settling in a patch of sawgrass. They sat on a log next to the entrance of the hut, under a solitary spreading oak as insects hummed and danced around them. Taloona remained in the cabin. It was just Spirit Wolf and Daniels. Neither had a thought for the huge Diamondback that was surely no more than a few feet away, invisible under the footings of the cabin. They understood its nature, its purpose.

Spirit Wolf looked at Daniels, reading the questions in his eyes.

"Once in a people's generation," said Spirit Wolf, "there comes a person that is more than a person—someone who has the Gift, the Third Eye, a true Seer. Such a one is Taloona. If a man is fortunate, perhaps he may encounter this person once in a lifetime. If a man is worthy, deserving, he may connect with that person."

Daniels nodded slowly. He'd felt that connection. Her presence had relieved a dark burden from his soul, the burden of so many deaths that had strewn his path like toadstools after a spring rain. Their souls seemed all around him in an invisible whirlwind. All the way back to the innocents in Kuwait and Africa, to his betrayed comrades in Mexico and that young Sergeant who had died so suddenly and violently just last night. He knew he had to keep trying. There was an overwhelming sense of purpose to keep after the evil that stood rooted to this very day.