“And my people? You say they are doomed?”
This gave the woman pause. “I am sorry. I am not responsible for what will happen to your people. It is inevitable here and now. But in their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of others, many, many people will be saved. It is like the fall when much must die before there is rebirth in the spring. A winter comes for many which your son must help prevent.”
Nahimana knew the words were true. It was the curse of the “sight,” to know the truth when it was spoken, even if it was a terrible one. She had seen the blue-eyed one grown, and she had seen the skull. And she had seen her son leading the people into battle.
The woman rested a hand on Nahimana’s shoulder. ”Your son will gain a great victory, one that will be talked about for many generations.”
“But in the end his people lose.”
The woman said nothing.
“Where are you from?” Nahimana finally asked.
The woman looked past Nahimana, her eyes becoming unfocused. ‘The Space Between.”
“‘Between’?”
“The world I came from and this world. The time I came from and your time.”
It made little sense to Nahimana. She looked at the two children snuggled against her chest. It was the blue eyes more than the words that made the decision for Nahimana. She knew Crazy Horse would see those eyes and wonder what magic was afoot. He might even proclaim the child to be possessed by a demon. Nahimana opened the buffalo robe and nodded at the woman. The woman stood with the children in her arms.
Nahimana raised a blood-soaked hand as the woman turned back to the strange suit that still floated in the air. “I am Nahimana, the mystic one, hearer of voices and receiver of visions. This one-” she indicated the child she still held-“will take his father’s name, Crazy Horse.”
The woman nodded. “That is the name he should have.”
“What is your name? And what will you call the child you take?”
“The child’s name I cannot tell you, as he who I bring him to will give him that,” the woman said. “My name would mean nothing to you.”
“It is a sign of trust to exchange names.”
The woman gave a sad smile. “My name is Amelia. Amelia Earhart. I, too, hear the voices and see the visions. They are what brought me here.”
“You were with me before.” Nahimana didn’t phrase it as it question.
“Yes.”
“Will you take the child to this space between?”
“No. I take him to the white skin people to be raised.” Earhart paused. ‘They will meet again here.” She waved her hand about, taking in the Little Big Horn River and the surrounding bluffs. “It will be a great battle. A terrible victory and a terrible defeat. But it will help those in another place and time.”
“Nahimana wanted to ask more, to understand, but the woman was already moving away toward the suit. Earhart wrapped the child in the pack; head exposed, and hung the pack over the suit’s shoulder. Then she stepped into the suit as if consumed by it. The two halves closed. Nahimana watched as the figure floated back over the steam and up the far bank slope. In a minute, it was gone from view. There was a sound of muted thunder once more, and Nahimana felt her skin crawl with the strange sensation for a few moments, then return to normal.
Nahimana looked down at the child in her arms and shivered once more. Not so much from the bitter cold, but from the bitter truth. It was terrible indeed to know fate.
CHAPTER TWO
“Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” The words were muted by the thick muffler wrapped around the speaker’s face. As if to emphasize the statement, he brushed Way the thin layer of ice that was encrusted on the cloth, and then aimed. “I never thought 1 would see it end in both.”
A burning crescent of light touched the southern horizon, chasing away the soothing darkness of the long Arctic night and illuminating the man and his companions-a handful of men swathed in heavy clothes. Standing on the small bridge top a nuclear submarine’s sail that had punched up through the surface. Stenciled on the metal was the craft’s name: USS “’AUT/LUS. The rest of the submarine was still below the five-foot thick Arctic ice.
The light was tinged with red. As if the sky to the south was n fire. The submarine had been chased by the sun ever northward for the past week, sliding under the shelter of water most of the way during daylight and now trying to hide behind the cover of the long Arctic night. As the sun began to move along the horizon. Never fully appearing. The men on the conning tower slid dark goggles over their eyes to protect them. The long Arctic winter was nearing an end, and they knew the sun would slowly climb higher and higher until one day soon it cleared the horizon. It was an inevitable law of physics. It was also a law of oxygen and supplies that they could only stay submerged so long.
One of the men, who had a silver eagle pinned to his parka indicating he was the captain of the submarine, put a pair of binoculars to his eyes and looked about for a few moments at the desolate ice before lowering the glasses. “This is it. The North Pole.”
“We can’t run anymore,” the poet said. “There is nowhere else to go.”
Captain Anderson fingered his binoculars, twisting the focus. “Some of the men-” he paused.
The poet slowly unwrapped his muffler, revealing blistered and burned skin. His deep blue eyes contrasted starkly with the destruction on his face. A crop of thinning white hair crowned his head. “They want to go quickly,” he said, his breath producing puffs of warm moisture in the cold dry air.
The captain nodded. “Yes, Mister Frost.”
Robert Frost, poet laureate of what had once been the United States, absentmindedly rubbed a gloved hand across his cheek. He didn’t appear to notice as a section of skin peeled loose and blood slowly oozed out, freezing within seconds. “It isn’t time yet.”
“‘Isn’t time’?”
“For us to die … Frost said. “ We’ve heard the last broadcasts from the northern towns. There’s been nothing for three days now. They’re all dead or dying. We’re all that’s left.” He thought for a moment. “Here stands man … Frost said. his voice changing, “for the last time.”
“Is there no hope?” Anderson asked.
“Not for us,” Frost said. “We were too late. Too late. I was too late. I didn’t interpret the visions, the words, until it was too late.”
“Then why did you come with us?” the captain asked.
Frost looked over the desolate, wind-swept ice. “We were too late for us. I said there is no hope for us. But maybe there is hope for others, which is why you and your men must wait.”
“’Others’” What others?” Captain Anderson was confused. “Everyone else on the planet is dead or dying. You just said so yourself.”
“There are others,” Frost said. “Not here and now, but there and then. We must be prepared to take what they need to get rid of.”