C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

The first was a black leather coat, which he shrugged on and magically transformed from Michael Morrison, Seattle police captain, to Mike Morrison, In Need of a Motorcycle and Possibly Not The Boy You Bring Home To Mother, After All. There was suddenly not enough air in the whole world. I got dizzy. Morrison glanced at me and smirked. I blushed. He laughed, and I said, “Well!”

“Glad you approve.” Then he took the other item out and offered it to me.

My blush turned intosh

My drum. The skin drum given to me by the elders, Carrie Little Turtle included, when I turned fifteen. Aside from Petite, it was easily my most prized possession. Almost two feet across, its thin leather was stretched across a wooden frame. Crossbars were set into the frame’s insides, providing a handhold. Feathers and beads trailed from leather strings around the frame’s edge, and the images painted onto the drum skin were as bright and vibrant as they’d been nearly thirteen years ago when it had been given to me.

But the peculiar thing was, they had changed. Or one of them had, at least. A raven still arched over two other animals, their orientation giving the drum’s circle a top and bottom. On the left was a rattlesnake, poised to strike. But on the right, for more than a decade, a wolf or a coyote—I’d never been sure which—had faced the rattlesnake. Six months ago the painting had begun to fade and warp like it had been soaked, but the drum itself never lost any of its tension. I hadn’t been able to tell what was coming up in the coyote’s place, though even I had understood the change indicated a waning of my mentor’s influence on me.

Now, though, the image was there, fresh and clear as if it had always been the one painted onto the drum. A praying mantis, long legs folded and heart-shaped face examining the rattlesnake across from it. I touched it cautiously, a little afraid it would smear, though I knew perfectly well it was magic, not paint, staining the leather. I said Subtle, inside the confines of my head, and all three of my spirit animals radiated amusement. Most people didn’t go around announcing to the world what form their spirit guides took. I guessed I couldn’t do anything like most people did, and lifted my smile to Morrison. “Thank you.”

He looked incredibly pleased with himself. “I thought you might want it.”

“You...” I shook my head, still smiling. I was alternating between having the best and worst moments of my life the past couple weeks, crashing from one to the other with no real warning. Despite the low moments, Morrison’s presence and thoughtfulness were pulling everything heavily toward it being the best of times. “You have no idea how badly I’ve been wanting this. Thank you. You’re going to roast in that coat, up in the mountains.”

“I’d rather have it in case we’re out there all night. Unless you can keep us warm.”

My eyebrows did a lascivious waggle, all of their own accord. Morrison laughed, but he had a good point. I went to get my own coat and a backpack while he tucked his gun—Les had left it on Petite’s roof—back into its holster.

Ankle-length white leather was even less practical for mountain climbing than Morrison’s black bomber jacket. I stared at my new coat, still in love with it but having a moment of vicious practicality regarding the upcoming cost of maintenance on the thing. On the other hand, the only other coat I had with me was the winter-weight parka I’d been wearing when I went to SeaTac two weeks ago, and there was no way I was wearing that hiking. Feeling a little silly, I pulled the shotgun holster off and the coat on, wondering if the former would fit over the latter.

To my surprise, it did. I belted the holster and turned around to find Morrison looking at me with much the same stunned gaze I’d delivered unto him a few minutes ago. I ducked my head, self-conscious as he had not been, and studied the toes of my stompy boots as I listened to him cross toward me. Hs tliverede tipped my chin up until I met his eyes, and then with great solemnity, said, “Nice coat.”

My discomfort vanished and I laughed aloud. “Did Gary put you up to that?”

“No, why?”

“That’s what he said, too, that’s all. Thanks. I kind of liked it.”

“You look like one of the good guys.” Morrison kissed me and went back to Petite, leaving me all but dancing in his wake. The whole point of the coat was to look like a good guy. I felt like I could take on anything if I was projecting the right image.

We were packed up in less than five minutes. My backpack didn’t fit all that comfortably over the coat and shotgun holster, but it was better than stuffing my pockets with ammo. I locked Petite, informed the gods that if anything happened to her they would have me to reckon with, and Morrison and I walked into the Appalachian Mountains like a modern-day Lewis and Clark.

We were barely forty feet in before Morrison made a sound of satisfaction and called me over with a crooked finger. Bent grass, broken branches and hints of heel prints were visible, the wights’ high-speed escape left its mark. Either that or this was the path most people had been taking up to the Nothing Holler, which I suggested to Morrison in apologetic tones. He said, “I think you’d better fill me in,” and I did as we hiked up the mountainside.

He didn’t interrupt often, once with a “They’d really make it that difficult for Sara because she’s a Fed?” that wasn’t so much disbelieving as a sigh at the human condition, and later with a quiet “It wasn’t your fault, Walker.”

“People keep saying that. Doesn’t make it any easier to believe.” We crested the mountain as I finished catching Morrison up, and there we paused, taking in the view. I loved Seattle and the sharp, ragged Rockies in its distance, but North Carolina’s soft old mountains and hazy landscape were welcoming in a way the Pacific Northwest would never seem, to me. I inhaled deeply, and Morrison cast me a cautious look.

“Miss it?”

“More than I realized.” After a beat, I recognized the real intent behind the question, and shook my head. “Not enough to come back, except maybe to visit. Too much water under this bridge. I’m pretty dedicated to Seattle at this point.”

A flash of regret sang through me as I remembered the expression on my friend and mentor Coyote’s face when he’d realized that I really wasn’t ever going to give up my cool Seattle street stomping grounds for the heat and wilderness of Arizona. It wasn’t a lot of regret, especially with the reasons for my decision standing right here beside me on a low-rolling mountaintop, but the echo of Coyote’s fear in Morrison’s question brought it to mind. His eyebrows quirked, suggesting he was reading something of my emotions in my face, but I didn’t think this was a great time to explain I was thinking about another man. “Trust me, Morrison. I’m coming home with you when this is over.”

“Good. The trail goes two directions here. Which one do we take?”

Even I could see there was a reasonably well-beaten path heading off to the east, in which direction lay the Nothing Holler. Sara had not, I thought, tried very hard to find the easier path into the holler.

The other trail was considerably less obvious, only visible if I crouched and squinted at things. “This way. The path less traveled by.”

“No one can accuse you of accs obtaking anything else.” Morrison forged ahead until I caught up, said, “Snakes,” and lifted my booted foot in comparison to his shod one. It wasn’t so much that I’d come prepared for tromping through viper-infested forests as I’d been wearing my favorite stompy boots when I’d left Seattle. They just happened to go up to the bulge of my calf muscle, which was high enough that most startled snakes would get a fang full of leather instead of flesh.