Gerrie Nelson - Lab Notes

Yami explained: “They say your eyes are the color of the stones inside our mountains. But your mind blocks them from knowing who you are.”

Perplexed, Diane said, “I haven’t intentionally put up any mental barriers. I wouldn’t know how.”

“A thread is broken in the loom of your inner vision. This keeps your mind from weaving into ours. But soon you will conquer the fear and pain that have been your masters. Your strong life force will return, and you will become part of all things.”

“But how?”

“While you sleep, the mountain will bring your dreams into a closer weave; it is for this purpose Olimpia has brought you here.”

Diane pondered this silently.

Yami patted her hand. “The knowledge will come to you - like it did Olimpia years ago when she returned to us full with child.”

“She trekked up here pregnant?”

“That is why she returned here. She begged me not to turn her away. She said her family would send her to Europe; the baby would be given away.

“I helped her bring Eduardo into the world. He was the first emerald one. But, unlike your mind, his was open from the beginning. I raised him. Olimpia came often. And when he was six, she took him away with her.”

Diane turned to Yami. “It must have been painful for you to let him go.”

Yami stared at a distant mountain. “Except for his captive years, he has come to visit often. But even when he is gone, he is with me. Olimpia is the mother of his body, but his mind is always joined with mine.”

“Who held him captive?”

“They only captured his body. You must talk with that mother about it.”

Yami stood up and took Diane’s face between her hands. Her voice held a mystical tone. “The mountain divines that your eyes will become jewels of light that will bind you to the emerald fire within Eduardo.”

On the way back to the village, they stopped at Yami’s small, private plateau. She retrieved a white tribal gown from her hut and offered it to Diane. “I have woven this for you.”

“But when—”

“Wear it at all times. The small holes are to let the weak force out. The larger ones let the strong force in. Food will be brought to your hut.

“Olimpia is staying with friends in a lower village; you will not be disturbed.” She placed her hand on Diane’s head as if anointing her. “Sleep often,” she murmured.

As Diane walked back to her hut alone, her gait became uncertain, her brain whirled and her vision fractured into impressionistic dabs. She blamed it on the altitude.

Passing by the thistles in the village center, she reached out to touch them, only to jerk her finger back in pain. She staggered uphill to the hut.

She would have known him anywhere. There were the scruffy cowboy boots of course, and when he turned his head to snatch the briefcase away, she glimpsed his profile and the angry set of his jaw.

Leonard Everly had his back to Diane and was scuffling with another man who was looking at her and mouthing the words “help me.”

She was startled to realize it was Harry Lee. But how did she recognize him? She’d never even seen his picture.

She stepped forward to help him just as he disappeared over the railing of the observation deck. Stunned at what she had witnessed, she backed into the shadow of the building to hide from the murderer. But when he turned around, he had become Gabriel Carrera, and he was pointing one of his father’s antique pistolas at some invisible foe off to her left. She turned and ran.

Reaching the door, she heard a voice behind her chanting Raymond Bellfort’s name. She glanced over her shoulder to see Bellfort lying facedown on the floor.

Diane made her way toward the cable car to escape the observation deck, but was blocked by a jostling crowd.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she realized Vari had been nudging her awake. He had brought more food.

She struggled out of her hammock and let the Kogi tribesman lead her outside to a small wooden table where she had been taking her meals. How many days had it been now? Her dreams had left her too exhausted to count. After a couple mouthfuls, she dragged herself back inside and fell into her hammock just as the mountain began to roar.

The wind and water grew fierce. She and Vincent clung to the damaged sailboat while they watched the large yacht motor away.

Suddenly, they saw someone fall overboard just as a rogue wave rose up and engulfed the white vessel. The yacht sank, bow first. The last they saw of it was the word written across its stern: “Enterprise.”

Vari appeared in a haze. Time to eat again. “Today, you must stay inside,” he warned. “The mountain is excited.”

Diane had no appetite. Listless, she sat at her makeshift table, watching dirt and thatch blow by the doorway, listening to the hut shiver and scrape in the wind.

Then she heard a bell ring.

Yami had summoned the priestesses forth; the warrior hunters were arriving out of moon phase. This had only happened once before in her lifetime. But she and her priestesses were prepared.

She circulated among them in the village common area and inspected their labors. Fruits, vegetables and bread were laid out in traditional patterns, then woven into baskets with lliana vines to keep the provisions from spilling on their journey down the steep mountain paths.

The priestesses had been taught all about the warrior hunters. Through the tribe’s collective consciousness, the young women traveled back centuries to recall the Spanish conquest. They learned how the warriors protected the tribe’s remote home from men who tried to bring weapons and metal implements to remove their gold and emeralds and weaken their mountains with greed and violence.

The priestesses also learned about the revolution that occurred just two hundred years ago and how, at that time, the Kogi had rewarded the warrior hunters for centuries of protection.

The tribe had looked through the mountains and the days and weeks ahead, then sent messengers to report future positions of the Spanish occupiers to the greatest warrior of all, Simon Bolivar, helping him secure the northern provinces and beyond.

The women were also told about the warrior hunters’ visits every third full moon and how the Kogi maintained their hacienda and supplied them with food, nurturing the bonds that had been forged eons before.

The women stepped carefully down the mountain trail, chanting to forewarn wildlife of their approach. In keeping with a four-hundred year old secrecy pact, only the shaman and her priestesses were permitted to carry food to the hidden valley.

The cloud forest, home to a Kogi ancestral village that held the hunters’ lodge, was forbidden to outsiders. Only one person had ever trespassed and lived.

Dazed, tripping on the ankle-length gown, she followed them at a distance down the precipitous mountain path. Yami’s red sash and the chanting voices were her beacons. Every turn in the trail presented new challenges. Sharp rocks, shifting soil and fallen trees conspired to slow her progress.

Once inside the cloud forest, the clamor of jungle noises and air drenched in mist obscured the voices and concealed the red sash.

She was lost.

Weary, Diane collapsed onto a soft mound of ferns. Just a short rest , she promised herself.

Aroused by the slow approach of hooves, she opened her eyes and looked up.

The rider sat astride his horse, watching her. Even in the dim light, she saw the crest on his shield and glint of his sword.

Heart racing, Diane groped for a vine and pulled herself to a sitting position. At that moment Huck appeared. He growled and barked and tried placing himself between her and the intruder. But some barrier prevented him from coming close.