Captive Travelers by Candace Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

together to warm the oil, and making his biceps tighten. His hands caressing my back and kneading my…”
    “Enough, Aubrey,” Kayla laughed. “We’re almost there, and we’re not turning back until I find it.”
    “According to you, you don’t even know if it is there,” Cici reminded her. Kayla had spent hours trying to find information on the place and never found a thing.
    “Hehewuti wouldn’t have told me if it wasn’t true. She already had the map made out for me,” Kayla called back.
    Aubrey held up a branch and stepped over a large rock. She waited to help Cici through the obstacle. The trail, if that was what it could be called, was becoming more obscure and difficult to navigate the higher they climbed. There was no maintenance done on the path, and with the overgrown vegetation only slightly broken for the upward climb, Aubrey thought they could just be following some animal tracks.
    “I thought Bobby’s family was mad at her for dumping him,” Cici said quietly. She grabbed Aubrey’s hand to get over the rock.
    “Especially, the grandmother,” Aubrey agreed. “She’d all but asked the tribe’s permission for them to be married, then Bobby was so depressed he dropped out of school. What a mess.” Aubrey turned to make sure Cici was still behind her. “And all of a sudden she calls Kayla. Kayla said the old woman hardly mentioned Bobby at all. She just said something about things getting back into balance with the spirits and working out fair for everyone.”
    “Yeah, like Kayla breaking a leg on this damn camping trip and losing her track scholarship… then she’d be out of school too. I bet Hooti would think that made things fair.” Cici hated the woman just for suggesting this damn hike.
    “It’s Hehewuti, Cici. It means ‘warrior mother spirit’,” Aubrey replied. “Did you ever meet her?”
    “Un un, why? Did you?” Cici asked. She looked up and saw Kayla studying the map again.
    “Just once, when I picked Kayla up. Her house is filled with all this old stuff like feathers and skulls all stuck together… major creepy. She said she was some kind of spiritual guide for the tribe, or something. Um… what the hell was it?” Aubrey frowned for a minute. “Oh, yeah. She helps spirits find their destiny. I guess she can’t go wrong with that. If they’re spirits, they’re dead, so who the hell would know if her crazy stuff works or not?”
    “We’re close. Hehewuti said there’s a good place to camp nearby,” Kayla called down.
    Cici drew in a deep breath and began to walk again. Aubrey could see how miserable she was. Cici, all two hundred pounds of her, was not the outdoorsy type. She was tall, and with her weight distributed so evenly she reminded Aubrey of the Rubenesque women in paintings. She was all curves, with a mop of brown curls that were currently limp and clinging to her sweaty cheeks.
    “I didn’t even know the Indians built mounds on mountains. I thought they were always on flat land, like the plains and stuff,” Aubrey said.
    “Shit, I hope Kayla finds it, or she’s liable to have us trudging up another damn mountain to look for it.” After only two nights of camping Cici had had enough of the outdoors. The manicure she had gotten for the trip was ruined, and she gave up on makeup after the first day. Now, it was just added weight to her backpack.
    The small trail dwindled to nothing, and they were stepping over fallen branches and rocks. “Kayla, this can’t be right,” Cici groaned.
    Kayla had stopped again, once more looking at her little map. Her finger was tracing something on a boulder beside her. “We’re on track, look.”
    Aubrey caught up to her and looked at the map. It was drawn on a yellow sheet of paper. There was a rock with a symbol that looked like a circle with a U pointing up from the top, and another on the bottom pointing down. “It looks like a horoscope sign,” Aubrey said. There was no denying that the carved symbol on