Our eternal curse II Read online

  Robert lifted his hand and pointed. Once again, his voice sounded respectful. "Money, guns, food, water, weapons all gone, but they left the boots."

  Julii had no idea what the presence of boots was telling Robert, but she was not going push her luck and make the mistake of asking a question a about it just in-case it was too obvious. She silently watched him conclude his examination of the bodies, then walk back to the horse and mount. He didn't make such a mess of it this time and she no longer felt so bad about staying on the horse.

  Turning to look over his shoulder, Robert told her: "You keep an eye out behind us. Let me know the moment you see anyone, right? You got that?"

  Julii did not understand what bushwhackers were, but he had said something that treated her as an equal and required her to respond. "Right."

  'That felt better; not stupid or dramatic.’ ‘Her tone and brevity had mirrored his.' 'She was a part of Robert's tribe now.' 'They were two parts of one thing acting in unison with the common objective of survival.'

  The rest of Julii's night was spent fighting off the burning urge to sleep while engaging in serious surveillance of the moonlit road and trees behind them.

  Julii was definitely not going to let Robert down or do something silly to break this new-found bond between them...

  Luckily for Julii, her fingers were locked in place around Robert's waist and that kept her from falling off of the horse as she drifted off to a deep sleep.

  South

  Julii woke to find herself laying under her hide blanket. A campfire had burned and long since died. By the look of the sun sinking into the west, evening was not far away. Robert must have lifted her from the horse and laid her on the ground.

  'Was he angry about her falling asleep when she should have been watching out for bushwhackers?'

  Julii had no memory of him carrying her in his arms, and that annoyed her greatly. 'What a moment to miss.' She was also laying right next to him and must have been so all day. So much contact with her Robert and no memory of it. 'This was unbearable.'

  Julii felt Robert beginning to stir and she did not want to miss the opportunity to be close for just a moment longer. She knew that he would push her away but she needed his touch for just a moment. Cuddling his back, Julii braced herself for rejection but there was something different. She could sense something new; something in the movement of his body.

  'Something was changing.' She thought of letting go but the contact, however begrudging, made her feel close and safe. He was still ridged, and still fighting something inside himself, but this time he was not pushing her away.

  Rolling over, Robert simply looked at Julii, moved his arms around her, and pulled her to him. She felt something warm and wet on her face.

  'They are tears.' Robert's silent tears were falling into her hair, onto her cheek and into her ear. His tears fell without restraint. She did not know what to do or how to help him. He was a man broken by something unknown to her; something within himself.

  "Why did it have to be you?"

  Julii heard him repeat the words softly over and over in her ear and she was confused. 'Why did what have to be her?' 'Had she done something to hurt her Robert?' She could not move to take a look at his expression for clues because he held her too tightly.

  Then he was saying something else. Something odd. "This is impossible. I cannot love you."

  These words made absolutely no sense to Julii. '”Love”, as her Robert had explained it by the waterhole, is clearly something you feel or you don't feel.' The idea of not being able to love was stupid, according to the vocabulary that Robert had taught her. ‘It made no sense.’

  'You can only not do something if there is something stopping you from doing it.' Julii was sure she had this right. 'No one can walk through a tree because the tree is solid and will not let you pass.' 'No one can live under water because water has no air to breathe.' 'A tree will stop you and water will drown you, but love is like walking through air. It is unrestrained and available to all.’ 'This is too confusing.'

  Robert's body made a completely new movement and, although her mind was oblivious, Julii's body instantly understood it. Something about Robert's touch made the flooding wetness come between her legs. Something that had never happened to her before was about to happen and Julii could sense it in every single movement he made. It was an animal reaction. Robert was no longer fighting the demon inside himself. He was being propelled by pure animal instinct and Julii's body was responding without question.

  Then there came a tiny pause. It was only the minutest of movements causing only an infinitesimal delay but to Julii it felt like forever. 'Had he changed his mind?' She was determined not to allow whatever was causing it to break this magic spell.

  Julii could feel Robert's urgent need to act was being hampered by something. He was struggling. 'Was it more doubt?'

  Risking separation, Julii pushed away from Robert just enough to look into his eyes but his eyes were looking down. She followed his eyes and what she saw brought massive relief. 'It was those clever little round bone things he called “fly buttons”.'

  Before this moment she had been pleased with the simplicity of joining two pieces of fabric together without the need for permanent stitches, but now she saw them as an insurmountable barrier. 'They were taking forever to disconnect.' The thing driving her and Robert had no tolerance for delays. It needed to happen now. Both clawed at those stupid, pathetic little buttons.

  Julii had seen her parents making love by the fire at night under their hide blanket, but she had never seen or understood the physical act of connection.

  What was coursing through her now was something that needed to be experienced to be truly understood. Robert was inside her and suddenly there was no room inside her body or mind for anything else.

  Everything inside of her let go in one overpowering moment. Her past, her fears, her thoughts of Shiloh, her fear of Robert leaving or staying, and the world in general no longer existed for Julii.

  In that moment, Robert and she were one writhing entity and there was no words in the vocabulary of his language or hers to describe what she felt. Call it an exhausting explosion or a draining climax or wearying detonation, whatever it was sent Julii instantly into a dream-filled sleep.

  Sometime later they woke in darkness and did it again. This act repeated itself until they woke up in daylight and did it again and again. The discovery of sex seemed to have sent them into a different state of being. The need to travel south, that had seemed so urgent to Robert, was completely forgotten.

  Food was totally neglected. Water was also forgotten. Even the grazing horse was ignored. They both felt the need to do something about their growing hunger pangs but neither wanted to break their spell by surrendering to their mundane human needs.

  Only when the cries of their churning stomachs could no longer be ignored did they go through the motions of eating and drinking. One cut off a hunk of venison and the other placed it on a spit over the fire.

  They both really tried to give the meat enough time to let the warmth penetrate all the way through to its center but their hide-covered nest seemed to be calling out to them.

  Neither had the willpower or the desire to resist. They found themselves ripping at the semi-cooked meat with their teeth and gulping down water to clear the raw meat from their throats all so they could return to the privacy of their hide blanket for another night and another day.

  When they eventually continued their journey south, it was halfheartedly. Both were waiting and hoping for the first hint of sunlight. Even before the light could be seen, Robert stopped the horse. He said it was because of the clear steam with lots of grass growing around it. He said it was because the horse needed feeding-up, but Julii knew this was an excuse.

  She knew he wanted to return to the wonder of their private world just as much as she did. She knew he would find an excuse not to make a fire. She knew he would find a logical reason to go without food unti
l they absolutely had to eat. She knew all of these things because, when it came to making love, they were no longer functioning as separate entities.

  Every decision they made, and action they took, was now influenced by the underlying desire to maintain contact with each other until their bodies built the strength to have more sex. More sex became the catalyst for Julii and Robert's first foreseeable pattern of behavior since leaving her tribe.

  It was a strange pattern, but a predictable pattern. After five more nights had passed, the ability to predict at least one act made the idea of future normality a tantalizing possibility for Julii.

  Until that first longed for light came, Julii sat silently on the back of the horse holding herself as close to Robert as the saddle would allow. She no longer let herself wonder, or care, what was going to happen to her in the future, her whole routine was simply waiting for the sun to show itself on the horizon.

  If it were left to Julii, the horse would remain permanently saddled, she and Robert would go without food, and traveling at night would be abandoned. In truth, traveling of any kind would be abandoned; all she wanted to do was lay with her Robert, let him touch her body, enter her body, and forget the world existed.

  Of course, the movement of the horse between her legs caused pain. Initially she thought this a good excuse to stop all traveling, but after thinking it through, she said nothing in case her Robert's answer to the problem was no more sex.

  'Anyway, it was good pain.' It reminded her of the things they did together during the days, between sleep, as they waited for the sun to fall in the sky.

  Riding through rough country to loop around small towns took a lot more time than following the road but Julii didn't mind. Time was on her side now; all delays kept her and Robert in this moment. Then, little by little, Julii sensed a growing change in Robert's body. He was becoming tense again.

  Julii tried to deny the change; she did a good job of it, until his body became as unforgiving and hard as the horse. Her desperately suppressed anxieties could no longer be denied when one morning Robert did not stop the horse and find a place to couple with Julii.

  This was the time when he always stopped but today was different. She had been waiting, looking forward to this moment all night as she always did.

  Julii used subtle movements of her body and arms in an attempt to draw attention to potential campsites.

  The sun was moving well up into the sky but he had not stopped. Even when a big town came into view, Robert chose to keep the horse moving forward. 'How could they couple in the middle of a town?'

  Atlanta

  She asked Robert to stop but he did not reply. Julii could see the town growing larger and larger ahead of them. She was close enough to see people in what she knew must be the thing called a “street”. There were carriages, she could see them. There were people inside them and they were being pulled by horses, on wheels with spokes, between stone and wood tipis, just as Robert said they would be.

  'Her Robert had been telling the truth after all.'

  Soon, too soon for Julii, they were clip clopping along the street in among the people, horses and carriages. 'So many people.' More people than Julii had ever imagined, let alone seen.

  She looked anxiously around at the bustle. She looked into the little side streets that branched off of the big street. She even looked under the wooden platforms that were somehow raised off the ground in front of the big tipis and, much to her relief, she could see no wild pigs and no blue men pulling up bodies.

  Julii noticed that the whitish pink people in carriages and walking along the sides of the street were not simply wearing gray or blue. She had only ever seen white people wearing gray or blue but these men wore black, red, green or gray. The women wore billowing dresses that were all the color of the rainbow.

  'Will any of these colors offend her Robert like the blue seemed to offend him?' 'Will he hit any of them in the head with his sword?'

  One man on the street obviously knew her Robert. He waved and Robert waved back. The man then stopped and stared directly at her, so she waved and smiled until she noticed his stare at her was hostile. It clearly expressed confusion and disapproval.

  'How can someone that Robert knew be disapproving of her?' 'He had never met her.' 'He had no idea who she was.' 'How could he disapprove of someone he had never even met?'

  The man next to the man who knew Robert wore gray like Robert. He even had a yellow color like Robert. Julii could tell that he also knew Robert, but he did not wave. He purposefully turned to walk away, and the man who waved grabbed him by the arm. Both men argued, then the man in gray tugged his arm free of the man who also knew Robert and ran away.

  Julii wondered what kind of behavior this strange dance represented. 'Was it ceremonial?' 'The men in her tribe danced ceremonial dances on important occasions. Her Robert's safe return must be an important occasion, so why shouldn't men in Robert's tribe dance too?'

  More people were stopping in the street. Many stopped in the middle of whatever it was they were doing to look at Robert. These people did not wave or seem to recognize him.

  'Could this tribe, village, “town” be so big that not everyone knew everyone else?' This was a revelation for Julii. 'A town existed that was so big not everyone knew everyone else!'

  The people who had stopped what they were doing did not dance, but many drew the attention of other people on the street to what they were looking at. These other people then also stopped and looked. First they all looked at Robert, most with pride if not recognition, then every single one of them moved their gaze disapprovingly to Julii.

  'How could all of them disapprove of her without talking to each other?' 'One man may have disliked the way she looked and maybe one or two of the women disapproved of the way she dressed, but they had not spoken to one-another to pass on their feelings of disapproval.' 'Could everyone be disapproving of something different?' 'No!'

  Julii did not have that many things to disprove of. In her state of raw discomfort, Julii's spontaneous question poured directly into Robert's ear. "Do white people communicate without words?"

  Robert simply swiveled around in his saddle and gave Julii the horrible look that asked if she was mad without the need for words.

  For some reason, her Robert seemed to be feeling extreme discomfort. Coming home should be a wonderful moment, but he was unhappy and his body felt tense and stiff.

  Julii was trying to work out why, when he stopped the horse outside a big stone tipi. 'House!' 'She must call it a house.' It was far too vast to even be thought of as a tipi. Even compared to the other very many, very large houses in this street, this house was huge.

  A man and a woman, about the same age as her parents, walked from the huge house to meet them. Robert dropped to the ground and ran to the woman, calling, "Mother."

  Robert held her and she cried in his arms. It was a very moving scene and Julii enjoyed her Robert's obvious excitement and pleasure. She looked forward to the moment when Robert would help her from the horse and introduce them. Meeting his mother for the first time was important and she silently rehearsed what she was going to say.

  Looking closer, Julii realized that Robert's mother was a little older than her own mother. She thought about how hard it was going to be to tell the age of white people, as she patiently waited on the back of the horse for Robert to finish his greetings.

  Readying herself for the inevitable first introduction to Robert's parents, Julii wondered if her hair was in order. They hadn't stopped, so she had no chance to wash her face or smooth her hair down with her hands. Julii self-consciously felt the hair on both sides of her head. 'It was not standing up or matted.' 'Good!'

  Julii was a little surprised but understood why she was not yet included in the homecoming. Robert separated himself from hugging his mother and immediately hugged the man who must be his father.

  She felt excluded and uncomfortable and exposed up there on the horse, but Robert's father had t
ears of joy in his eyes. She forgave her Robert because his father obviously needed his son's full attention at that moment.

  Then it dawned on Julii that she should be extremely tolerant of this extended emotional process because, until this moment, Robert's parents must have believed that he was long since dead. 'They must have been feeling so sad.'

  She must sit quietly and wait for her Robert to choose the correct moment to include her. 'He would know the right time.' It made Julii happy to think of the pleasure Robert's parents must be feeling at that moment, and then it caused her sadness to think of the sorrow her parents must be feeling for exactly the opposite reason.

  Julii forced that negative thought from her mind. This was a happy occasion. She was about to meet the parents of the man she loved for the very first time. 'She must make a good impression.'

  Julii was shocked when Robert's mother turned to look scornfully up at her. Julii offered her a warm smile. This smile had been winning her favors since childhood but it was failing now.

  Robert's mother had the same glare of disapproval as all the strangers along the street. Robert's father also turned to look and, there it was again, he had exactly the same expression of disapproval.

  Julii looked down at herself. 'Was she covered in something bad?' She could see nothing nasty on her clothes. 'Had coupling with their son somehow changed her appearance?' 'Could they tell by looking?' 'Did they disapprove?' 'No, that made no sense.'

  Julii had seen many of her tribe go through the joining ceremony, then coupling; none of them had changed color or shape, so she must also still look the same as she always had. 'What negative thing is it that all these people keep seeing in her?'

  Much to Julii's relief, Robert broke his parent's disapproving gaze by walking back to the horse to gently lift her down. Julii was pleased to hear warmth and pride in Robert's voice as he said: "This is Julii. Mother. Father. Julii saved my life and we are all to be very good to her."