Long Snows Moon (2 page)

She put down her brush to rub her eyes. The
raven hopped to her opposite knee. A shriek from above made them
both jump.

Jameson peered up at the bridge some seventy
yards above. “Get off the brakes, you weekender.”

The SUV above careened along the metal
railing, screeching like Snow White’s wicked queen. The vehicle
fishtailed causing the rear bumper to smack the railing with enough
force to eject its contents from the rear-seat passenger window.
The object tumbled out and fell like a bird tossed from its nest.
The raven did flee, and Jameson ducked for cover but wasn’t fast
enough. The flailing object slammed on top of her and pinned her to
the ground. She gasped for breath trapped beneath a blanket of fur,
bones, and teeth.

Jameson remained still, to a degree because
she couldn’t move but mainly because she didn’t know what the
animal was. She struggled to breathe under its weight. She was
aware of its ragged breath on her neck. The animal moaned and tried
to raise its head but collapsed against her. Jameson’s skin crawled
when the animal howled in despair. She wrapped her arms around the
creature that had fallen from the sky and whispered words of
comfort.

“You are whole. You are healed, and you are
safe.”

When her hands were hot, Jameson caressed the
animal’s soft coat, white and wet as the falling snow.

“Be still, my sister.”

Jameson shivered, chilled by the family
resemblance. She glanced over at the tree that stood atop the grave
where she had planted her precious pet. This wolf hybrid had not
fallen from sky. It had come home.

Chapter Two

The raven came in for
a closer look, its eyes black glistening.

“She looks like one of ours, doesn’t
she?”

The bird hopped onto Jameson’s forehead and
squawked.

The dog peeked up at the raven with eyes so
blue they were almost translucent. Jameson gasped.

The raven nipped the dog’s snout and flew up
to the bridge, perhaps to see if the inept driver had gained
control over the SUV. It would only be a matter of time before the
driver realized their cargo was missing. She would investigate the
accident later, but her immediate focus was to get the animal
somewhere safe and warm. She had survived an unthinkable fall.

“Well, it’s a good thing I cushioned your
landing,” she said.

Jameson was gentle as she rolled the dog onto
the snow. “I’m going to take you to my home. I will make you
comfortable and safe. I promise I will find your owner.”

The dog moaned and glanced at the
overpass.

“I know but it’s much too steep here to
climb. I will hike up through a trail. But, first let me take you
to my place to make sure you’re okay. Let me put my paint things
away.”

The dog picked up one of Jameson’s
paintbrushes in her teeth.

Jameson grinned and accepted the paintbrush.
“You’re brilliant and resilient.”

She barked once in agreement.

“Do you understand me?”

She barked once.

“What is yes?”

The dog barked once.

“What is no?”

She barked twice.

“Wow, that’s amazing.” Jameson laughed.

The dog barked once.

“I’ll bet someone is missing you like
mad.”

The dog barked once and yowled at the
overpass in despair. It made the hairs on the back of Jameson’s
neck stand up.

“I will find your owner,” Jameson soothed.
She dropped to her knees and hugged the animal, feeling a deep
familiarity in her. She and her mother sold a good many wolf hybrid
pups over the years. Chances were good this dog was one was one of
theirs.

The dog returned the hug and began to pace,
barking and watching the overpass.

Jameson stuffed her blanket and brushes into
her backpack. “That is one fancy collar you’re wearing. Diamonds?
You are a bit overdressed for the occasion. Come on, my place isn’t
far at all.”

Jameson felt a hundred eyes upon her as she
led Moon along the path to Elk’s Pass Sundries. She knew
he
watched them from his place within the trees. Jameson learned to
smell him as he smelled her. Her heightened olfactory sense was a
bequest from Berry when she crossed.

“At least there’s going to be a full moon
tonight,” Jameson observed as they crunched along the gravel
drive.

The dog barked at Jameson with earnest.

“What, moon?”

She barked once, her bright eyes shining.

“Is your name Moon?”

The dog barked once and stomped her foot.

Jameson knelt and cradled the dog’s face in
her palms. She returned Moon’s luminous gaze as she braced herself
for the answer. Berry had birthed three litters, each one born
under a different Moon. “Are you Strong Sun Moon?”

Moon barked twice.

“Frogs Return Moon?”

Moon barked twice.

Jameson sighed. She bit her lip and looked at
the dog. Wanting and not wanting to ask the final question. The
wanting won.

“Are you Long Snows Moon?”

Moon barked once and Jameson blinked back her
sudden tears. “I wanted to keep you,” she whispered. “I know who
bought you. Oh my god, this is astonishing. You have come home. You
have come home.”

Moon covered Jameson’s face in kisses in
obvious agreement.

“My name is Jameson Jordan.”

Moon barked once as if she knew.

Chapter Three

Jameson’d put a ‘be
back’ sign on the door when she went to the grave-site. She had
well exceeded her promised return time. She took the sign off the
door and dropped her backpack behind the counter.

“Welcome to Elk’s Pass Sundries. My store and
my home all rolled into one. Come on in. This is where you were
born. Well, you were actually born out back in my mom’s greenhouse
but you and your sisters stayed in here with us.”

Moon followed Jameson through the store. She
sniffed at the beef jerky at the end of the food isle.

“Want a piece?”

Moon barked once.

“This is my mom’s famous recipe which she
passed down to me along with a mountain of others. Do you remember
my mom, the famous Doctor Joann Jordan? Or Crazy Plant Lady as I
used to call her.”

Moon barked once.

“Oh, come on, now you’re just being
polite.”

Jameson chuckled as she tore off a hunk of
jerky and gave it to Moon. She sat on the stairs that led up to the
living quarters. Moon flopped down beside her and gnawed on her
treat.

“You don’t really remember my mom, do
you?”

Moon got up and headed to the front of the
store. She went behind the counter where the cash register was.
Jameson watched as she stood on her hind legs and nudged a framed
photograph of Jameson’s mother.

Jameson shivered.

Moon padded back to her and accepted
Jameson’s reward.

“You are amazing.”

Moon barked once.

“I miss my mother every minute of every day.
It’s hard to keep her work alive. Do you know she held degrees in
Psychology and Botany and she was an M.D? She could really cure
plants, get it?” Jameson shrugged when Moon ignored her. “It was a
pun. Never mind. Come on let me show you the upstairs.”

Jameson led Moon to the loft above. “This is
where I sleep and that other room is my art studio.”

Moon peered through the slats of the railing
to the store below.

“That’s a nice view of the store, isn’t
it?”

Moon looked back at her.

“This place is one of a kind. My father
designed and built it before I was born. Was I embarrassed to live
in a tepee shaped house that was really a store? I guess I was.
Kids can be cruel. My parents taught me to ignore the subjective
observations of other people’s alleged shortcomings. In other
words, I don’t give a flying flip what people think.”

Moon trotted into the bathroom and took a sip
from the toilet.

“I take it you agree.” Jameson laughed. She
tossed some fresh wood in the fireplace. “Come relax on the couch
near the fire. I’ll get you something to eat.”

Moon hopped up onto the sofa.

“My father designed the fireplace in order
for the smoke to billow out the top. Some of the First Nations
people around here thought it was demeaning and xenophobic but they
eventually got over it. My father was anything but racist. My
mother was Lakota and she thought the whole tepee shaped store with
the smoke coming out was fun and whimsical. The Navajos welcomed
them into their community and my mom bridged the gap between the
local Natives and my father and they accepted him into their tribe.
They found that my father knew more about their history than they
did. They revered him as an elder. He was a published author and
well known for his work and research of indigenous tribes. His
book, Rhythm of Nations, was a New York Times best seller.

“Anyway, the tourists have always loved this
place. It has kept me well fed. Speaking of food, I will be right
back.”

Moon barked twice.

“You can come with me if you want.”

Downstairs, Jameson took out some hamburger
meat and made thick patties while Moon explored the wide kitchen.
“Do you like hamburgers?”

Moon barked once.

“Cheese?”

Moon barked once.

Jameson covered the burgers.

“The people who bought you were wealthy
ladies from Florida. You were part of a wedding dowry.”

Moon barked once.

When the burgers started to smoke Jameson
opened the back door.

“Sorry, I’m not much of a cook,” she
admitted.

Moon barked once.

“You better wait until you taste it,” Jameson
laughed.

She watched Moon stare out the open door to
the dusk beyond. Moon went to the door and Jameson followed.
Indeed, the owl was in its usual place like a weather vane. Moon
bolted out the back door and headed for the woods.

“Wait, Moon, you shouldn’t be running,”
Jameson called and dashed after her. “Stop!”

Moon halted as commanded but scanned the
woods.

Jameson knelt down to use her shirtsleeve to
wipe blood from Moon's mouth. Jameson rubbed her palms together
then ran her hands over Moon’s coat.

“You need to rest. I can only do so much for
you with my hands.”

Moon stared at Jameson's hands as if trying
to understand the heat that emanated from them. It was such an
intense look Jameson laughed aloud.

“My hands get hot when I heal with them,” she
explained. “It is a special gift from our creator, the Great
Mystery, known to the Sioux as Wakan Tanka. I received the gift
when I was eleven.”

* * * *

Attention child! You must quiet your mind
and be still if you are to commune with Wakan Tanka.

“You don’t have to yell,” Jameson frowned. “I
am trying to quiet my mind but it’s kind of hard with a bird
sitting on top of my head.”

The raven nipped her ear, and flew up into a
nearby tree to observe Jameson’s transformation.

“Ouch!” Jameson yelled. She touched her ear
to see if the bird had drawn blood. “I should have Doc Jo Jo bake
you in a pie,” Jameson taunted.

I might be black but I am not a blackbird.
Your mother would not do that.

Jameson giggled. “Of course she wouldn’t cook
you. I was joking.”

The small clearing was Jameson’s sacred
place. She’d claimed it as her own when she began to venture alone
into the woods. It was also her section of stream, her rocks, and
her trees. They were her creatures. Hers. They all told her so, the
animate as well as inanimate, whispered it to her in the wind.

Jameson discovered the clearing a few years
back when she, against her mother’s direct orders, followed a lone
wolf into the forest. She worried about him because he looked thin
and weak and had no pack to protect him. She watched him from
behind a cluster of trees when he stopped to drink from the stream.
She knew he was the wolf that lurked in the umbrage by their family
store. Jameson often sensed him watching her as she helped Doc Jo
Jo tend her ever-expanding garden. Jameson knew him from his
crooked tail, bent as the letter L. Doc Jo Jo told her he might
have been born like that, or maybe it had been broken in a
fight.

The wolf finished his drink. She felt him
search the woods seeking Jameson between the trees. They stared
unblinking at each other for a timeless length, Jameson transfixed
and unable to look away. His eyes reminded her of two yellow stars
gleaming from a behind a smoky cloud filled with secret knowledge.
Even without the L shaped tail, Jameson would recognize him from
his eyes.

“May I call you Two Stars?”

The wolf nodded dragging his gaze from her as
if another second would reveal him. He splashed along the edge of
the stream, not bothering to look back.

Yes, you may call me Two Stars, my sister,
because my name is
unpronounceable to you. You may call upon
Two Stars when you are in need. Study well, the meaning of life and
death. There is death in life. There is life in death. This, my
sister, you will learn.

Jameson learned enough about death when her
dad crossed over, she didn’t want to hear anything more about it.
Still, since that day, Jameson visited the clearing every day and
sometimes twice hoping Two Stars would return. As she waited, she
memorized each rock within the stream, each tree that stood behind
her, around her as well as the animals that returned to converse
with her. She came to know them all intimately and they her. She
was not patient, as she yearned for Two Stars to return, the great
gray wolf with the L shaped tail that had no pack to protect
him.

Jameson knew she was to receive a gift from
Wakan Tanka on her eleventh birthday. Doc Jo Jo had been talking
about the grand event since Jameson remembered. She refused to tell
Jameson what the gift was. For years, she suffered as it was
Christmas Eve.