The Spirit of the Forest

"What on earth is this?" I asked, holding up a leather thong from which was suspended a small, plain copper disc.

Bill looked down from the ladder and smiled broadly, "Why I haven't seen that for decades!" he said, "where did you find it?"

I was sitting on the floor on the landing of his house below the hatch which gave access to the attics helping him to clear out some trunks he had stored there. Bill was dragging them down the ladder and stacking them on the floor and I was nosing through them on the pretext of "helping". He jumped down and took the thong from my hand, holding the little disc against his other hand and examining it carefully.

"I've not held this in fifty years! Where was it?" he asked again.

"It fell out of one of those pockets" I said, pointing to a battered leather satchel which I had pulled out of one of the trunks. "What is it?" I asked curiously.

"Do you know, I really have no idea!" he said with a laugh. But I'll make a deal with you. If you go downstairs and make us some drinks, I'll tell you the story behind it."

"Deal!" I said, dusting off my hands and heading downstairs.

By the time I had made myself a cup of coffee and heated up a Tru Blood in the microwave, Bill was sitting on the sofa turning the little copper disc over and over between his fingers with a faraway look in his eyes. I gave him the Tru Blood and sat down beside him, tucking my feet up under me and leaning against his shoulder. He gave me a little smile and began his tale...

"It was the autumn of 1873 and Lorena and I were travelling from Sacramento on the California coast eastward towards Santa Fe on one of the great steam trains that ran across the continent. We had a private carriage which was sufficiently large to hold two steamer trunks where we would be able to sleep undisturbed during the day, if necessary, thanks to a sizeable payment to the steward.

We had boarded the train at Sacramento, several people stopping to watch us as we walked beside the porter that Lorena had engaged to put our luggage on board. I had to admit that Lorena looked charming as always in her fashionable slim fitting dress with a mass of ruffles and pleats down the back, her smart button boots tapping on the ground. I noticed some envious stares as I reached down to help her into the carriage taking her kid gloved hand in mine. If only they knew, I thought wryly.

We headed down the corridor and settled in to our carriage, watching the crowds outside as well as the people boarding the train. Soon the crowds began to draw back and with a great explosion of steam, the train began to pull away. Lorena put her feet up on one of the trunks and said "With luck, we should be in Santa Fe before dawn so we shouldn't need these. It would really be too risky to sleep on the train, we'd have to arrange to have the trunks unloaded, if there was a delay we'd be safer getting off the train and going to ground somewhere outside. Although, I must admit I'm getting a little hungry. Shall we take a walk and check out our fellow passengers?"

"After what you just said about risk, you're surely not so reckless as to think of feeding on the train?" I asked, shocked that she would even consider such a thing.

"Not necessarily" she said. "It depends what's on offer."

She gave me a brilliant smile over her shoulder and swayed out of the carriage and headed off down the rocking train. Our fellow passengers, it turned out, were mostly single men sitting, talking or playing cards in small groups. There were a few families with women and children but not many. We wandered down to the observation car at the rear and then back again to our private carriage.

"Well, I can't say that I'm very impressed." Lorena sniffed, "very disappointing, although..." she paused, looking out into the corridor. I glanced through the glass and saw the steward who had assisted us with our luggage, a young man, whose tight uniform shirt was stretched over the muscles of his chest and arms. "Very nice!" murmured Lorena, licking her lips. She leaned across me and opened the carriage door, beckoning to him with a smile.

"Can I help you Ma'am?" he asked politely.

"Oh, I certainly think so." said Lorena, smiling sweetly at him.

As he came in to the carriage I reached over and pulled the blind down so that no-one could see in. I knew that I would be unable to prevent Lorena from attacking the steward. I imagined that she would expect me to glamour away the memory. What actually happened was infinitely worse.

I stood up and blocked the door with my body as Lorena smiled at him disarmingly.

"I wonder if you could just help me with this for a moment?" she said. The steward smiled down at her. "Of course Ma'am. What do..." before he could finish his question Lorena was on him and pulled him down onto the seat with her, one hand tangled in his hair, her fangs buried in his neck. I glanced nervously at the door to the corridor, checking that the blind was fully down.

Lorena looked up at me for a moment. "Well don't just stand there...take his wrist!"

I sat down next to her and took the steward's arm. We would have to glamour him now anyway so there seemed no point in my going hungry. When I pulled my fangs from his wrist I was surprised to see that Lorena was still drinking. I hissed at her to stop, the man was weakening rapidly, but she ignored me. I took hold of her shoulder and tried to pull her off him, horrified by the implications of her impulsive action.

"Lorena! No!...you can't get away with this...he'll be missed straight away! We have nowhere to go, the train doesn't stop until Santa Fe!" My protests were to no avail and in a few moments I saw the man's eyes glaze over and I knew, from bitter experience, that he was dead.

Lorena let go of the steward and dropped his body to the floor of the carriage. Dump him in one of the trunks," she ordered. "We'll get rid of it in Santa Fe somewhere". She wiped her mouth delicately on a handkerchief and waved at me. "Go ahead!"

I gaped at her, open mouthed, what was she thinking of? "Do you imagine he won't be missed?" I asked, opening the lid of the nearest trunk and heaving the body inside. "Oh Bill, darling...you worry too much!" she said smoothing out the creases in her bodice. "Everything will be fine...you'll see."

"Look after that trunk! I'll check the corridor." I slipped out and took a quick look down the corridor in both directions, but there was no-one in sight. A great burst of laughter from the next carriage caught my attention and I peered carefully in. Five young men were playing cards and drinking whiskey. I concluded that they were being far too boisterous themselves to have heard anything from our carriage. As I turned back Lorena came out and closed the door.

"Let's go and sit in the observation car" she said "It's so much less crowded and stuffy."

So we sat in the observation car for a while, Lorena attempting to make normal conversation and me sitting in a sullen silence and looking out of the window into the darkness. The car was empty as, of course, in the dark there was nothing to observe! At least I could see something of the scenery and I preferred to be out of the crowded public carriages. Suddenly I heard a commotion going on further down the corridor and I leaned around the doorway and looked out. I saw half a dozen young men crammed into the corridor and half in one of the carriages, with a nasty shock I realised that it was ours.

"Lorena!" I whispered "Something's going on around our carriage."

"Damn it!" she said "They must have found the body."

"What?...How could they?" A nasty suspicion was beginning to form in my mind. "You didn't lock the trunk?" For all her cunning, her overconfidence and low opinion of humans meant that she could do some spectacularly stupid things sometimes.

"Don't panic, we'll just keep calm and they probably won't realise it's ours. It must have been some thief, nosing into my belongings, how dare they! I'll make a complaint to the management."

"Do you honestly think anyone is going to worry about some petty thief when they have a murderer on board!" I hissed. I glanced back down the corridor to see someone point at me and gesture to the crowd.

"Good plan Lorena! But it's too late now...they already know." A group of young men were heading down the corridor towards us. I recognised some of them as the group I had seen playing cards in one of the other carriages earlier. They were led by a tough looking man in an old fashioned cutaway coat which was pushed back far enough to reveal a long Bowie knife in an elaborately decorated leather sheath at his waistband.

Lorena sat primly on the edge of her seat and looked out of the window, seemingly perfectly unconcerned as the group of men burst into the observation car.

"Hey, you sir. That carriage two along from here," he pointed back down the corridor, "Number 8? That's yours right? Ah recall seein' you an' yo lady friend here gettin' on board."

There seemed to be no point in denying it, since we had been observed boarding the train by half the passengers. "That's right," I said coldly, "what of it?"

"Them two steamer trunks...they yours?" I simply stood and stared at him with a studied arrogance. There was, after all, nothing I could say.

A voice piped up from the rear of the group "There's a dead body in one o' them trunks!"

Before I could say anything Lorena gave a little gasp and got up from the seat. She stood staring at me in horror, one delicate gloved hand to her mouth. "Why, both those trunks belong to this gentleman" she said in a breathless little voice. "I never met him before the Agent suggested we should share a carriage!"

I stared at her in amazement but made no response to this outrageous statement. I knew I would be wasting my time by trying to argue the point, and what good would it do anyway?

"Hey, look there!" I looked around to see one of the group pointing at my arm. I glanced down to see the cuff of my shirt showing, where my coat sleeve had been pushed back. It was stained with blood.

Lorena gave a little cry and fell back into the arms of one of the men. "Oh here ma'am, let me help you" he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and escorting her from the car. She gave me a hard look from behind his back and I knew that I was on my own. The man in the cutaway coat pulled the Bowie knife from his belt and advanced on me purposefully. I backed up to the outer door at the end of the observation car looking around me, but there was nowhere to go.

Lorena had clearly abandoned me and so I did the only thing possible. I opened the door and leaped from the moving train into the darkness. The shocked cries of my pursuers rang in my ears as they leaned out of the carriage windows and then I hit the ground hard and began to roll down the steep, rocky embankment. It seemed like hours, but it was probably only minutes later that I crashed to a halt in the darkness at the base of the slope and lay still. I heard the whistle of the train in the distance and could feel that Lorena was still on board. My heart leaped at the thought that she was being carried away from me but I knew that I would somehow have to get to Santa Fe and meet her there.

I guessed that I was safe, since the train had not attempted to stop. The gamblers who had wanted to kill me, probably imagined that they had got their wish as no human could possibly have survived such a fall. Sitting up, I began to assess the damage. Fortunately I had fed well on the unfortunate steward earlier and the bruising to my body was already beginning to fade. More serious was the fact that my left arm appeared to be broken and I gritted my teeth as I took hold of my wrist with my right hand and pulled until I felt the bones slide back into place. I could feel the broken bones beginning to knit together and I sighed with relief. I had survived.

I stood up and examined my clothing. My boots were almost undamaged, which was a relief since I imagined that I would have a lot of walking to do soon! However my pants were ripped in several places and the back of my coat was shredded from the rolling fall across the sharp stony slope. I took it off and examined it carefully, deciding that it was not worth keeping. I headed away from the embankment and into the woods and discarded it in the trees, after all, it wasn't as if I would feel the cold. Turning to face the direction that the railroad had taken I looked up through the trees at the stars, taking note of the arrangement of the constellations. Lorena had always teased me about my habit of staring up at the stars, but now I felt that my knowledge of the night sky would stand me in good stead as I began to walk in the direction of Santa Fe.

After an hour or so I saw a pale gleam ahead through the trees and came out on the side of a small lake, it's still surface seeming to glow in the moonlight. I looked down at my hands. The cuts and bruises had long healed but I was covered in dirt and streaks of dried blood. At least I could get clean! I took off what remained of my clothing and gave it a rough wash in the clear, cold water, spreading the damp items over a few conveniently placed rocks and then headed out into the lake.

I had always tried to keep myself clean, although I knew that some of our kind no longer bothered about such things. I knew from Lorena that there were many vampires who shunned human society altogether but, even though I hated what had been done to me, I was not ready to give up on normality completely. Even in my human life the best part of my day had been coming into the warm kitchen after a hard day's work in the fields to find that Caroline had heated water for me and had the old copper bath warming in front of the fire. As I lay floating on my back in the cool waters of the little lake gazing up at the heavens and thinking wistfully of my beloved Caroline, I gradually became aware that someone was watching me.

I turned my head carefully and examined the treeline. Sure enough there was a small figure standing in amongst the trees, a young girl. She was making no attempt to hide, evidently under the impression that, since she was in the shadows, I would be unable to see her, whilst I was lit up in the moonlight. She had long, glossy black hair and copper coloured skin which gleamed in the faint light that penetrated between the trees. She was wearing a short leather tunic and had what appeared to be a string of beads and coins braided into her hair. I assumed that she was one of the native Indians, although what she was doing here in the darkest part of the night was a mystery to me. I put my feet down on the bottom of the shallow lake, stood up and began to walk slowly towards the bank, water running down my naked body in glittering streams. She did not move, just stood in the shadows staring at me. I wondered if she had ever seen a white man before, much less one as pale as I am.

I walked up the bank and stood on the grass watching her and, as I did so, she appeared to suddenly realise that I had seen her. Her body tensed for a moment and I thought that she would flee into the forest like a frightened deer. The thought brought a smile to my lips and, seeing this, she seemed to relax a little. The slight breeze brought her scent towards me, a musky scent of earth and woodsmoke and sweat and pine needles and...yes, a faint touch of arousal. She stepped closer and I saw that she was not quite as young as I had thought, small and slight of build but no longer a child. She reached forward to touch me, seeming not quite sure that I was really there. Perhaps she imagined that I was some kind of forest spirit, as she gave a little gasp as her small, warm hand touched my cool chest and said something in a language which I didn't understand.

She stepped back, but still did not seem afraid of me, just curious. She looked at me with a small secretive little smile on her lips and, as I glanced down at myself, I realised why! A combination of the touch of her warm skin on mine and her earthy, musky scent was having an effect on me which I confess, I had not expected. I was, in fact, a little shocked, ashamed even, that I could become so aroused by someone that, up until a few moments ago, I had imagined to be a child. Lorena had explained to me many times that we had a far higher sex drive than humans but, perhaps because I found her so abhorrent, I had not really noticed this myself. In fact, the only times that I had had sex with anyone other than her, had been those times when she had procured a human woman for me so that she could watch. She loved to do this and was usually so excited by my performance that she ended up killing my unfortunate partner and flinging herself on me herself like an animal in heat. I shuddered slightly at this thought and the girl came forward again and placed her hands on my chest.

I stood absolutely still as her warm hands traced the muscles of my chest, exploring gently, her small fingers running through the hair. Her eyes returning again to gaze in awe at my, by now substantial, erection. I looked down at her, every one of my senses begging me to throw her down on the grassy bank and take her, to feel my fangs and my stiff manhood sink into her warm flesh. This was what Lorena would have done in my place, what she would have expected me to do. Which was probably why I did not do it.

Instead I smiled gently down at her and slid my hand around the back of her neck. She flinched at my touch and I stood still, allowing her to make the decision, vowing that, if she ran, I would not chase her, I was better than that. Her body tensed for a moment and then relaxed as I tipped her head back and leaned down to brush her soft warm lips with mine. She stepped back in surprise at first and then seemed to decide that she liked it after all, coming closer and reaching up to kiss me. I put my arms around her and held her against me and, to my surprise, felt her small hand slide down my stomach and grasp my hard shaft rubbing it against her and murmuring softly. I was still not sure what she believed I was but man, demon or spirit, it was obvious what she wanted from me.

I picked her up and carried her into the trees, laying her down on the carpet of pine needles and sliding my hands up her legs, pushing the soft buckskin tunic up around her waist. She was bare beneath it and she wrapped her muscular legs around me muttering something in her strange tongue. I had no idea what she was saying but took it to be encouragement and pushed myself forward entering her gently at first then, when she began to pull at my hips, more firmly. She moaned and began to writhe beneath me, rubbing her thighs against my hips, her smooth copper coloured skin gleaming in the moonlight.

"Hush" I whispered into her ear "slowly..."

She clung to me and wrapped her legs around my waist with a little moan. I looked down at her, marvelling at the contrast between her rich dark skin and my pale flesh, appearing almost translucent in the moonlight. I could feel her rising excitement as I rocked my hips, driving myself into her firmly, but gently and soon I felt her smooth muscles begin to contract around me, squeezing me rhythmically until I too reached a gentle climax.

My fangs had run out but, since her eyes were closed, she had not noticed and I found, rather to my surprise, that I didn't want her to. I knew I should feed from her as I would need all my strength for the journey. I could already feel the faint pull of Lorena, calling to me. But somehow I could not bring myself to do it. She was so gentle and trusting and, now that I was away from Lorena's influence, I found that I had no wish to harm her. I forced myself to retract my fangs just as she opened her eyes and looked up at me. I lay on my side beside her, one pale hand on her gleaming dark thigh and she looked up at me shyly and said something in her strange guttural language.

"I have no idea what you're saying sweetheart" I said softly "but, thank you. You have taught me something about myself tonight. That I am not entirely a monster."

She stared at me for a moment, clearly puzzled by my speech. Then got to her knees slowly, paused for a moment and then leaned down and kissed me, quickly, as if she were not sure that I would allow it. I just had time to smile back at her, before she jumped to her feet and fled into the forest.

I lay there for a moment longer, thinking how Lorena would berate me for an idiot, if she knew how I had let her go. But for the very first time since she had turned me, I felt that I had done the right thing. As I got up I noticed something glittering on the ground where we had lain and crouched down to examine it. It was one of the small copper discs that she had worn in her long braided hair. I picked it up thoughtfully and went over the to the rocks where I had left my clothes. It would be dawn soon and I needed to find somewhere safe, far from here, where I could go to ground. I placed the little copper disc in my pocket, dressed hurriedly and set off into the dark forest.

I eventually caught up with Lorena at Santa Fe. She had told the authorities that I had murdered the steward and claimed not to know me. That we had met in Sacramento and agreed to share a carriage. With just a touch of glamour she was able to make them believe it but there was a risk that I would be recognised so we thought it best to leave immediately. She was delighted to have me back under her eye but I had learned more that night than she knew.

I knew that I relished those few hours which I had spent apart from her and, for the first time in many years I began to realise that perhaps, one day, I would be free of her.

We never returned to Santa Fe and I often wondered what happened to the little Indian girl, what she told her people about where she had been that night. For many years afterwards I had only to hold the little copper disc in my hand and I could see again the moonlight on the water, smell her musky scent and feel the pine needles beneath my knees."

I sat, curled on the sofa with my head on Bill's shoulder, my coffee untasted.

"Did you ever find out who she was?" I asked quietly.

"No", said Bill. "The whole of south western New Mexico was once the home of the Chiricahua Apache nation. The US Army had negotiated a peace with the Apache war leader Cochise the previous year and most of the tribes were not moved out onto reservations until a few years later in 1877. Bands of Mimbreno Apache had lived in the area around the Santa Rita Copper mines for generations and I can only assume that she was part of one of the few remaining bands in the area." He smiled gently.

"I've done so many things that I regret in my long life, but that was the first time I met a human who seemed to know that I was not like them, but still didn't fear me. I have no idea what she thought of me, what she imagined I was, but I knew that I had no wish to harm her. Lorena had taught me that we needed to kill, that it was our nature." He turned the little copper disc over in his fingers, " She taught me that I could overcome my nature. It was an important lesson for me, one that Lorena would never have thought possible, or even necessary."

He leaned over and kissed me gently. "I've never really spoken about my past before." he said "But I feel I can talk to you...that you won't judge me, or at least not too harshly?"

"I find it fascinating" I said "I'd love to hear more about your past."

"We'd better see what else is in those trunks then." he answered "maybe they'll inspire me!"