Trail of Bones (14 page)

“Have you seen my wife?”

I shake my head. It’s the first clear answer
I can give him, and it’s sad news.

“The dinosaur boy?”

His voice is rising. He has to compete with
the sparking blue energy swirling around the room.

I’m so sorry I can’t tell him what he wants
to hear.

I’m so sorry.

I reach out for him. He reaches back.

Our fingers nearly touch. But more sparks,
not just blue ones, burn and crack between them.

Sandusky snaps his hand back. “Thea! What
have I done to you?”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

I can’t tell him it’s not his fault. Even if
I could speak, he wouldn’t hear me over the sudden loud thudding as
the door flies open —
SHZZZT!
—and slams shut. I’ve seen
this man before. He once ordered soldiers to open fire on a Saurian
time-craft I was in. “Hello, Sandusky.”

He’s there with a woman.

“Howe. Thirty.”

There are two armed guardians behind them
now. He’s keeping the same kind of company.

Thirty — I wonder if she’s a mathematician —
and Howe both squint against the brightness.

“Quite a dramatic meeting, Mr. Sands,”
Thirty tells him. “And quite clever. We thought you had run away.
And yet here you were, under our noses, in the most restricted area
of the tunnels.”

“Everything seems to be here. Every last
splinter and crumb from the hotel room. Everything but my
wife.”

“She’s never been here, Sands.” The one
named Howe seems always impatient, whereas Thirty acts more like
this is a game. “If you’d cooperate, maybe we could find her.”

“And look,” Thirty makes her next move,
“you’ve brought the artifact.” She points to the
sklaan
.
“
We’ve kept that under very tight security, since our
predecessors found it. You’ve been quite busy, Sands, stealing it,
breaking in here and contaminating the entire room.”

“How long has this project been going on?
How many ‘Danger Boys’ have there been before my son?”

It’s not a game to Sandusky. But there’s
still some strategy. He has put himself between me — the apparition
of me — and the intruders.

“Your wife doesn’t appear here, Sands. She
doesn’t haunt this place like a ghost. We need you back in your
lab. Helping us. Helping your country. Helping the
world
.”

“You’ve taken my family from me. How much
more help can I give?”

Howe doesn’t respond to that but keeps
looking around the room. Perhaps after you’ve done certain things
to someone, it becomes impossible to look them right in the
eye.

But Sandusky looks at Howe. “You even took a
hotel room my wife lived in once and rebuilt it
here
, in
this tunnel, where no one could find it.
Why
?

“Things in the world…are not as under
control as we would like, Sands.” The guardians are moving slowly
toward Eli’s father. Howe keeps talking to him. “It’s dangerous for
all of us.”

“This isn’t a man who worries about danger,
Mr. Howe.” Thirty still seems to be enjoying this situation. “This
is a man who brings an alien artifact like that”—she nods at the
sklaan
—“into a room like this, hoping all the time-particle
residue will ignite a reaction with his portable time-sphere. He
wants to tear open another hole in time and space. This isn’t a man
who worries about danger at all.”

“Maybe this is a man who needs to be left
alone to experiment, if you ever want me to help you.”

The guardians are steps away from Eli’s
father, but at these words, even Thirty and Howe involuntarily step
forward. As everyone closes in, Sandusky is forced to adjust
position, and can no longer block their view of me.

“My God.” Howe stares.

Thirty moves toward me. I move — drift —
aside. She circles around me, then looks at Eli’s father. “So,
Sands, do you know this… emanation?”

He doesn’t answer.

“We’ve seen her before, I believe.” She
motions at the guardians, who lower their weapons, pointing them at
both Sandusky — and Mr. Howe.

“This room is contaminated in all sorts of
interesting ways. Mr. Howe and Sandusky, you’ll have to stay here.
And so will the girl. However much of her there is.”

Howe seems shocked. “But—”

Eli’s father just shakes his head. And
laughs.

Thirty continues. “We’ll say it was slow pox
and keep these corridors sealed off.”

The laugh turns into a sudden roar as
Sandusky charges Thirty. “Taken…
everything
!” The guardians
look like they want to fire, but Mr. Howe, still loyal to her,
tries to stop his charge, and they don’t have clear aim.

As Howe and Sandusky grapple, Howe is spun
toward the center of the room, toward the
sklaan
, and the
glowing blue orb. Toward me.

Howe hits me first.

But there is no “hit,” no impact, just
tingling, and the skittish release of even more energy.

Howe flails his arms and tries to grab ahold
of me, to slow himself, but I’m not solid.

And then it starts to feel like there’s an
electrical storm, like it did when Eli and K’lion and I were
ejected from the Saurian time-ship, and fell through the Fifth
Dimension, seemingly so long ago…

From somewhere comes the sound of one of the
guardian’s weapons firing.

Howe still tumbles, still trying to hold me,
but he can’t. I’m not really all there, all here — I haven’t been
all
anywhere
for a while — but still, he slows down going
through me. It’s as if I am made of sticky ether. Then he slips
away, and much to my surprise, it feels like he’s pushing me along
with him, like we’re tangled up…

There are more flashing lights and then
BAM!
I hit something really solid. Somebody falls on me, or
over me, and knocks the wind out of my stomach. There are screams
and running feet, and then I hear a voice. Sally’s.

“Amazing, child. We thought we’d lost you
for good.”

Chapter Fifteen

Eli: Sacagawea

February, 1805

Thwap!

The bundle of rags lands in the snow. Well,
of course it lands in the snow. There hasn’t been anything else for
it to land in for months. And it’s far enough away that I think we
can count it as extra bases, and say that North Wind Comes has a
couple of RBIs.

It’s my first time back outside since
Sacagawea and the others found me. I had to promise both Clark and
Lewis that I wouldn’t run away and wouldn’t go looking for Clyne,
“the big rumored lizard,” as Lewis called him, on my own.

I promised. And besides, I just barely
escaped getting frostbite the last time. I’m still thawing out,
still a little sore. And it won’t do Clyne or me any good if I get
lost again.

Still, the two captains make sure there’s
always somebody around to watch me.

Right now, it’s Gassy, watching the baseball
game unfold.

He just told me that Sacagawea was inside
the fort, having her baby. He heard the labor might have started a
little early because she was outside in the cold so long, helping
to find me. My hands go around the small jagged crystal she gave
me, the one for good luck.

“Eli… I score?”

“A double,” I tell him, and hold up a couple
of fingers.

North Wind’s English has gotten better in
the three months we’ve been here. He’s picked up a lot from me and
the other Corps members.

It’s better for both of us if he uses his
English, rather than us being seen in high-speed Mandan/English
exchanges that might raise a few eyebrows.

But even though he has a lingo-spot — he
must — he still won’t tell me much about Clyne. A good shaman
doesn’t reveal many secrets, I guess.

Including the secret of where Clyne has been
spending the winter. I think, with the harsh climate, North Wind’s
only been out to see him once or twice since we got here,
anyway.

Once was to give Clyne the orange.

That was when I tried to follow him and it
didn’t work out so well. And it doesn’t look like I’ll get another
chance to do that.

“What did you think you were doing?” Lewis
asked me after that first time, when he felt I was defrosted enough
to answer a couple of questions.

“I—I…” I stammered a bit, then fell back on
the classic you use with your parents, when you tell one of them
that the other said something was okay. “Jefferson. Instructions…
from Jefferson.”

Lewis shook his head. “I am dubious that
your instructions included freezing to death in the Dakotas. In
fact, I believe I am supposed to send you back in decidedly
nonfrozen condition when the spring comes. Besides, a president
shouldn’t keep secrets,” he added. “It’s bad for the country. Even
if the rest of us,” and here he looked right at me, “walk around
with secrets all the time.”

Did he mean my secrets? Or did Lewis have a
bunch of his own?

North Wind came into the fort after my
rescue to see how I was doing. “I have a message from your friend,”
he told me. “‘Prolific thanks. And soon, a good time to meet.’”

A good time to meet.
Clyne’s favorite
greeting. But this time, did he mean we’d actually be seeing each
other?

Clark was nearby and overheard. “Does Master
Sands have another meeting planned with the Indians? So soon?
You’ve barely warmed up from the last attempt. Unless it means
we’re wasting money hiring Charbonneau and Sacagawea. Perhaps fate
has already selected the translator’s role for you.”

It reminded me of something Thea told me
once, when we were in Clyne’s time-ship. She got it from her
mother, Hypatia: “The journey selects
us
, Eli. It calls us
to it. Because, somehow, we fit the task.”

I think Thea was trying to make herself feel
better since any thought of her mom usually made her sad.

But if the journey really picks us, instead
of the other way around, then I do have to get to Clyne soon — not
so he could be shipped back as some kind of specimen for President
Jefferson — but so he and I can leave and find Thea.

So Clark should let Sacagawea keep her job,
baby or not.

And that baby, it seems, is due any
moment.

Lewis is with her, with his medical bag,
along with some of the Mandans. LeBorgne, the Hidatsa chief, is in
there, too. Since Sacagawea was captured by the Hidatsas, before
Charbonneau married her, I guess he felt like he had the right to
watch over things.

According to North Wind, LeBorgne’s been in
a bad mood ever since his favorite warrior, Crow’s Eye, ran
off.

That’s why North Wind isn’t in there helping
out. LeBorgne has some kind of personal grudge against him because
of the whole Crow’s Eye thing.

But despite all those people in the room, or
maybe because of it, the birth wasn’t going smoothly. That’s what
we heard each time Cruzatte or York or somebody ran out to find
some more firewood to boil water, or old cloth to use for
towels.

“I shouldn’t let LeBorgne keep me out,”
North Wind said, as we paused our game of over-the-line to watch
another firewood run.

“Do shamans help deliver babies?”

“Shamans just try to improve the odds for
everyone.” He gave me a smile that seemed at least a few years
older than he was. “Maybe even you.”

He sounded like Lewis, who was always
wondering about “the real odds of any of this succeeding — this
entire elaborate journey.”

Now Clark has come out. They sure must be
using a lot of firewood in there.

He sees me, and tromps over as fast as he
can in the snow. The look on his face isn’t a happy one. “The
baby’s tangled. The baby’s not coming.” He looks at North Wind.
“Sacagawea wants you. She insists. Lewis will handle LeBorgne.”

North Wind doesn’t reply right away, and in
his panic, Clark turns to me. “Does he understand me?”

“He understands you.”

“She’s saying something about how North Wind
Comes can speak with the animals, but she’s feverish, so we can’t
be sure.”

Since nobody tells me not to, I follow them
inside the fort, where the constant smell of smoke and grease and
sweat is mixed with something else.

There are voices, Mandan, Hidatsa, American,
coming from the next room. I step in there, and when my eyes adjust
to the firelight I realize I’m still holding the stick bat and rag
ball I was playing with outside.

But it doesn’t seem right to just set them
down, even among the big mess of blankets and buffalo skins and
pots of water and baskets of herbs and Lewis’s bottles of medicine.
It doesn’t seem right to treat it like just any room, because you
can feel in the air that something serious, something special is
going on here.

This is before I see Sacagawea.

She’s on the other side, all bundled up,
grabbing the hand of her husband, Charbonneau, who looks around
like he wants a hand to grab, too. Amazingly, Lewis looks
completely calm, kneeling next to her, dabbing a rag against her
face.

She’s resting on a pile of padding and
hides, not lying down all the way, but not quite sitting up either.
There are some Hidatsa women behind her, helping to hold her.

Sacagawea’s eyes usually sparkled if she
looked in your direction, like she was really sizing you up in an
intense way. Even half-frozen that day in the snow, I could feel
the intensity in her gaze.

Now her eyes are glossed over, like all her
concentration has gone inside.

And then she turns and one of the blankets
falls away and there are her legs, spread wide open, and I’ve never
seen anything like that, even on the Comnet when I looked at an
image bank I wasn’t supposed to go to. There’s blood and goop and
hair and a head…

It’s the top of a little head, but it’s hard
to see in the firelight. I’m squinting like crazy but yes, I think
it’s the top of a head, peeking out from the middle of
Sacagawea’s…