The Man from Forever by Vella Munn Read Free Book Online Page B

the height of the hills surrounding Canby’s Cross. Still, driven by something she didn’t quite understand, she imagined she could hear the impatient sounds of waiting horses, the clang of weapons, men’s angry or nervous voices.
    And through it all she knew she was being watched.

Chapter 4
    C rouched behind a boulder, he watched the young woman run her hand over the white cross. When he’d first seen her car, he thought she might be leaving. If she did, he would be able to dismiss her from his mind, his thoughts, and think only of staying alive and safeguarding his people’s legacy. If she did, he would never know what she smelled like, sounded like, felt like under him. Never know her name, or why his life had been linked with hers.
    She hadn’t left. Instead, she’d come to where the army leader had lost his life. More of the enemy than he could count had walked to the cross to aim their cameras at it, but she was simply standing beneath it, alone, looking sad and cautious, her eyes taking in her surroundings.
    She sensed he was here. Everything about the way she moved and looked told him that. He could walk away from her, leave her with nothing except her suspicions. Or he could approach her and see if she again ran in terror.
    Instead, he simply watched and absorbed and learned as she crouched at the cross’s base and ran her fingers over thedried grasses growing there. She looked, he thought, almost as he must when he touched his son’s blanket. Knowing that twisted his heart in a way he didn’t want. She was the enemy . It was his right to hate her. But how does a man hate a woman who has crawled into his dreams?
    Confused, he moved a little closer so he could study her features without being watched in return. As he did, she sprang to her feet and looked warily in all directions, her long, straight, shiny hair floating on a breeze. She was like others of her kind, stupid in the ways of the wilderness. If she had spent her life hunting, she would know to watch for birds or rabbits frightened from their hiding places. The birds and small creatures always told when something dangerous was about.
    Still, he didn’t ridicule her for her lack of knowledge; her body’s language told him that she sensed something few did. Yes, many came here, but instead of letting the land tell them what had happened that cold morning, they read the talking leaves they’d brought with them or the plaques that had been placed in the ground back where they left their cars. As a consequence, they knew nothing.
    She understood that yesterday waited in the wind, and for that he admired her. He wondered what she heard, whether everything was being revealed to her or whether she knew only the army’s side. For her to truly understand this haunted place, she needed to hear the beating of Maklaks’ hearts, feel their fear and anger. There was only one way she could know all that; only one person who could tell her—him. In his mind he imagined himself looking into her soft, dark eyes while his words brought his people back to life.
    What was he thinking? She was evil! Muscles taut, he touched his hand to the knife strapped to his waist.
    He’d been here that long-ago day, a silent and somber shadow among other shadows that had come to watch this meeting between his chief and the army leaders. Keintepoos had had no faith in the words the army men spoke because those men were ruled by their leaders who lived far awayand made decisions about things they didn’t understand, who hated and feared the Maklaks, who they had never shared meat with. His voice hard with anger and frustration, Keintepoos had agreed with the shaman Cho-ocks and the killer Ha-kar-Jim that if the army lost their leader, the others would flee in disarray. That was why Keintepoos had killed the army man, but instead of going back to where they’d come from, the army’s strength had grown until there was