There was a wrenching sensation, followed by gray cold nothingness, and then by awareness of movement, as though he was the wind sweeping over a land shrouded by fog. He felt a presence, a mass of air moving to his side so they became twin jets of air streaming through nothingness together until slowly they merged and melded, became one—and the beating of a drum began behind them, its rhythm steady and insistent, commanding spirit back to flesh.
The pain was almost unbearable, a death and birth. Voices joined the sound of the drum. Heat burned away the chill of nothingness as the song rose and fell, reached a crescendo—stopped as Trey gasped, opened his eyes and cried at the sight of Tenino bending over him, his chest smooth where once it had gaped and bled out his life.
Tenino’s gaze held raw emotion, making words unnecessary. He lowered his head, pressed his mouth to Trey’s in a kiss that was primal, consuming.
Trey’s arms went around Tenino, pulled him down so limbs tangled as tongues thrust and slid against one another, cocks filling with the frantic desire for physical intimacy. They were panting, shuddering when the need for air forced their lips apart.
Slowly Trey became aware of the rain pounding the roof of the garage, the thunder, the lightning flashes drawing his attention to the open doorway and Patricia’s body. He thought he should feel a backlash of guilt and horror, but he felt only relief.
It was over.
“We need to call this in,” Tenino said.
Trey shivered, wanted to protest when Tenino lifted off him but he knew Tenino was right. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes.” Tenino offered his hand. Trey took it and was pulled up and into Tenino’s embrace. “I know you came after me.”
Tenino’s mouth claimed Trey’s again. The kiss started savage but moved seamlessly into a gentle melding of body and soul. It reached into Trey’s chest and wrapped around his heart like the phantom talons he’d felt when he was sitting in the diner and watching the wing shadow of an imagined thunderbird.
Tenino pulled away just enough so they could look into each other’s eyes and see the emotion there, the word neither of them was quick to say but each felt. Love. “You brought me back. Which means you’re stuck with me.”
“I can deal with that,” Trey said. “There are worse things.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Trey’s gaze strayed to Patricia’s body. He felt a stirring of pity, for the victim she’d once been. But it was overridden by horror at the monster she’d become, if not an abuser herself, then a person who knowingly lived on the wealth gained from child pornography, who willing participated in the business of selling it.
He shuddered, relived for a moment the horror of Tenino’s death, of taking a life— revisited the nightmare path he’d ended up on because he denied his sexuality, pretended to be straight.
Oh yeah, there were worse things than ending up in Tenino’s life, Tenino’s bed. His heart swelled with happiness, with the promise of a future together. “Isn’t there a Chinese proverb that says if you save someone’s life, you’ve got to care for them forever?”
“You’re the teacher, you tell me.” Tenino grinned. “But if that means you do the cooking and housecleaning, I’m all for living by Chinese proverbs.” He closed the distance between them touched his mouth to Trey’s. “Let’s call Tekoa and get this behind us. There’s more about me you need to know, but I can’t show you until after this is handled.”
Tekoa arrived a little while later, after Tenino and Trey had showered and dressed in clean clothes. He listened as Tenino spoke in their native language, wrote down what would become their official statements, what the law and those not of The People could understand and accept as truth. He took photographs before bagging Patricia’s gun and Tenino’s service piece, as the coroner, a grizzled bear of man who arrived behind Tekoa, bagged the corpse.
“Any idea how she found you?” Tekoa asked as they stood in the cabin after the coroner’s vehicle had driven away with Patricia’s body in it. “You make any phone calls out? Tell anyone where you are?”
Trey shook his head. “No calls.”
“Only way she could have found us is with a tracking device,” Tenino said.
“The pig,” Trey said, understanding in that instant how the bank had survived Patricia’s rage when nothing else of sentimental value had.
He’d thought she missed it because one of his shirts was draped over it but instead she’d known he’d take it with him when he returned to find his house trashed.
Tekoa’s eyebrow lifted when Trey retrieved the ceramic pig and returned with it. He held it belly up, removed the stopper then held the bank over the table.
Dollar coins spilled out first, rolling and bouncing and clinking, empting from the bank to reveal a GPS tracking unit.
“Damn,” Tenino said. “I held the thing in my hands and missed the possibilities.”
Tekoa bagged the tracking unit and left a few minutes later, just as the violent edge of the storm reached them.
Lightning flashed, splintered the sky above. Thunder shook the cabin.
“Alone at last,” Tenino said, need as powerful as the storm filling him.
It took sheer willpower to keep his clothes on and his hands off Trey long enough to light a fire in the fireplace, but he managed it—just.
“You know you drive me crazy,” Tenino said, standing, reaching for Trey, pulling him forward and groaning when their cloth-covered erections touched.
“Me? I’m not the one who died.”
Tenino felt Trey tremble, heard the catch in his voice of delayed reaction setting in. He crushed it with a kiss meant to leave no room for anything but lust.
Tongues battled. Hands roamed, tormenting and teasing until driven to work in fevered accord so clothing was stripped away and skin touched.
They sank to the floor to the thick rug, rolled, wrestled, built the passion with rough and tender caresses, with wet tongues and heated lips, the sting of teeth and scrape of nails.
Hair slid from its binding, added to the sensuality until they were both panting, anxious for release.
Tenino could feel the storm raging outside, issuing the same ancient call first answered by his ancestors. He guided Trey onto his hands and knees, used liquid arousal to prepare the way until Trey was rocking backward, his voice and body telling of his willingness to be entered.
It was ecstasy, a joining of flesh and spirit as Tenino slid into Trey, his cock unsheathed, free of any barrier. He reached around, gripped Trey’s penis, loved the way Trey moaned, pulsed in his hand, gave himself completely over to a passion he’d denied before arriving in Hohoq.
“There’s no going back,” Tenino said, remaining still, fighting the urge to thrust.
“I don’t want to.”
“Good.”
Tenino began moving then, sliding in and out, fighting for breath, for closeness, for the merging of two into one, for the ultimate release.
It came as semen jetted through his cock, through Trey’s, heralded by the roar of rain as spirit sheared away from flesh with a clap of thunder.
They became pure energy, power gathering until it took the form of brightly feathered Thunderbirds, their wings outstretched, riding the thermals in the valley they’d seen through human eyes earlier.
This is real, Trey said, his mental voice awed, humbled, excited.
As real as the cup you accepted and drank from.
Tenino reached out and touched Trey’s feathered back with his talon. You asked what the Thunderbird meant to me. Now you know the truth of it. In the eyes of The People, you’re one of us now. My partner and lover.
With those words, desire stirred in Trey and he became aware of his human form lying on the rug in front of the fireplace, Tenino curled around him in a silent embrace. He faltered, felt the powerful, winged shape start to become insubstantial, torn between the call of the storm, the exhilaration of flight and the need to talk, to meet Tenino’s eyes and hold him, to rejoice in both of them being alive.