Chapter 3

Nokomis was tired, dirty, thirsty, and hungry. What had possessed her so she could find her way back to the vans that the expedition team had driven here in, she didn't know. It was getting to be dusk and the temperature was starting to drop. Nokomis had her backpack with her, as her mother had taught her, but she didn't have a jacket of any kind inside. Cursing at herself, she stopped walking.

Looking around Nokomis knew that she was lost. "Good and lost in the desert," she told herself. All she could see was rocks and sand in any direction that she looked in. A no-man's land with the only sign of habitation an occasional red willow and shriveled reed that had died years earlier. Looking down at the compass that she held in her hand she waited for the needle to stop. She had positioned the compass housing before she left the Loulan ruins to point her west; back to the Kongque River. From there she would follow the river to the road, where the vans were, that lead to Bayingol. She had left in a hurry, mad at her mother for not believing in her, and thought she had set the compass right.

Looking up from the compass, the setting sun was not in front of her as it should have been. "The sun comes up in the east and sets in the west," she muttered to herself. Her father had taught her this long ago on camping trips. He had been a Boy Scout and had earned his Eagle Scout when he was seventeen. His camping and emergency preparedness badges had been instilled in her at a young age. The setting sun was to her left which meant that she was going in the wrong direction.

"Stupid!" she scolded herself as she quickly took off her backpack and dropped it to the ground. "The swords are made of iron. That's why the direction is off."

Nokomis realized her mistake too late. The samurai's swords that she had taken from the burial chamber were made of iron. They had caused a local magnetic attraction and had disturbed the arrow that was supposed to point to magnetic north. She had been walking since before lunch time and had figured on getting to the vans in time for a late lunch. But that wasn't how her day had gone so far.

Stepping away from the backpack Nokomis watched as the needle of her compass moved. As soon as she was far enough away from the iron swords the needle swung in a different direction and stopped. Nokomis turned to face the setting sun knowing that was west. Her compass housing was off by a couple of degrees, but a couple of degrees meant a lot of distance traveled in the wrong direction.

"Damn!" she cursed walking back to her backpack, "I should have taken the G.P.S. from Cassie."

The two swords in question were sticking out of the top of the backpack. She took and opened the top, placing the swords on the ground as she dug inside for a topographic map of the area. Taking the map out and spreading it on the ground she used the swords as paperweights as she knelt down and consulted the map. Tracing a finger down the Kongque River to where she knew the ruins were, she stopped.

"Okay," she said to herself, "if Mother is here," she placed her finger on a red dot on the map, "and I've been traveling in the wrong direction here," she said going north with her finger, "there should be what?" she questioned the map.

Removing her finger there was another red dot. Consulting the legend she read: "The advance sentry of Loulan".

Looking up and studying the mountains in front of her Nokomis removed the swords and folded up the map.

"So, 'The advance sentry of Loulan' it is," she said out loud placing the map back into her backpack and the compass into the side pocket of her shorts that she was wearing, before rising up from the ground.

Before Nokomis set out she gathered rocks and made an international ground-air emergency code large enough to be seen by an aircraft. In this case a capital 'V' and a directional arrow. Placing the backpack on her back she tucked the two swords into her belt. She knew that whoever saw the marker would know that she required assistance; that was the capital 'V', and was proceeding in this direction; that was the directional arrow. Teetering a little and swallowing the bile that had risen to her mouth Nokomis set out again.

"Don't think about it," she told herself as she walked along the desert's rocky, sandy landscape but her mind keep returning to it.

Nokomis was most likely suffering from heat stroke. Her tiger striped camouflage boonie hat tugged at her throat and she reached up and loosened the chin strap a little. She had run out of water three hours ago but the symptoms had started before then.

Her skin had started showing signs first, becoming red, hot, and dry. Then Nokomis had noticed that her urine was a deep yellow color when she went to the bathroom a couple of hours ago.

"If your urine is concentrated and deeply yellow or amber, you may be dehydrated," her father told her when they were camping one day.

After that she had a throbbing headache. Thinking it had been from her time in the sun, she had taken a couple of aspirin for it. When her muscles had started to cramp up, Nokomis had stopped for a lunch break thinking that would help. Sitting in the high noon-day sun hadn't helped any as she ate an M.R.E. out of her backpack. It hadn't been her favorite 'meals ready to eat' variety; chili with beans, but at least her hunger was gone, at the time.

Shallow breathing and a rapid heartbeat had been next as she removed her purple camp shirt, wearing only her black and white zebra print bra, to try and get cool. She had tried to bring down her rising temperature with an ice pack from her first aid kit that she carried in her backpack.

"You want to apply an ice pack to the person's armpits, groin, neck, and back, because these areas are rich with blood vessels close to the skin. Cooling them may reduce the body's temperature," her father told her once.

Nokomis had taken the ice pack and applied it to her neck, holding it in place with a piece of her shirt that she had ripped off, as she continued on her journey towards where she thought the Kongque River was. She hadn't given much thought about being disorientated because the desert could play tricks on a person's eyes, the most common one being a mirage.

A mirage was a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects. Nokomis had kept her head and refused to run off in the direction of the shimmering water, but know realizing that the iron swords that she carried hadn't helped her situation, by throwing off her compass's readings, she knew that her disorientation was from something else.

Staggering and tripping on a rock, Nokomis fell face first into the desert's rocky floor, her hands taking most of the force. The sun had now set and it would soon be pitch black. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and slid out of her backpack once more. In doing so she noticed that the palm of her left hand had been cut and was now bleeding onto the ground.

"Smooth move," she told herself placing her backpack before her and opening it up with her right hand. She reached inside and grabbed her shirt, wrapping it around her hand, as she went back to search for her flashlight and first aid kit. Nokomis pulled out her headlamp and placed it on the ground next to her. Taking off her boonie hat she stuffed it into her backpack. Carefully with one hand she placed her headlamp upon her head, turning it on as she did so. The desert was becoming dark fast now as she rummaged around for her first aid kit. Pushing aside the test tube vials that held the Celt mummy's muscle tissue samples, she produced the familiar yellow colored first aid kit.

Setting the kit on the ground to her right Nokomis moved her backpack to the left, out of her way. Bringing her hand in front of her, she removed her shirt that she had used to wrap around it. She could see that it was a deep laceration and was bleeding freely. Hopefully she wouldn't have to worry about an infection as she opened the kit and reached for a 4" X 4" sterile gauze dressing and liquid soap.

Cursing a colorful array of words, she had learned from her mom, Nokomis washed the area with the gauze and soap, making sure her scrubbing actions were away from the wound and not towards it. When she was done she applied a disinfectant and covered the area with another sterile 4" X 4" gauze. Grabbing a 2" rolled gauze out of her kit she carefully wound it around her hand and secured the ends with a piece of adhesive tape.

Sighing, Nokomis looked around her. All she saw was darkness and she shivered at the thought of strange creatures out in the night. Her mother had told her about the desert wolves that ran around the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where she was now, on the drive to the ruins the first day that they had arrived in China.

"The wolves are protected for the first time in China, Nokomis," her mother told her.

"Last year, a large number of livestock were killed by wolves in the area, raising concerns among the farmers. Zoologists believe that the wolves' food chain has been disrupted and have pushed the animals to kill the local sheep, cattle, and even camels."

"For the next two years, research is going to be done in the area to discover the number of wolves left in the wild and to find out more about their natural habitat. So if you happen to see one let me know, the local zoologists would be glad for any information about them."

Nokomis shivered again and reached down for her purple camp shirt that lay in the dirt at her feet. She didn't care that it was covered in blood, dirt, and was missing part of the bottom. All she cared about now was that she was getting cold. Carefully pulling it on over her injured hand she tried to button it up and finally gave up. At least she didn't need to worry about the wolves seeking her out as prey because of her injured hand. Her cousin Echo had told her so. She had been told that the wolf's sense of smell was relatively weakly developed when compared to that of some domesticated hunting dogs.

"Because of this, wolves rarely manage to capture hidden hares or birds, although it can easily follow fresh tracks," Echo told her one Christmas Eve when she was over at the Spengler's house. "And its night vision exceeds that of other canines too."

"Great," Nokomis said out loud to herself, "why did you have to remember that!"

Turning to her left, she dug through her opened backpack and withdrew two tan pant legs. Checking to make sure she had the correct leg, Nokomis pulled the bottom of the leg on over her black hiking boots and zippered it into the shorts that she was wearing. When she had first seen the cargo pants that zipped off at the knees to convert to shorts, she had bugged her mother for a pair. Melody had finally given in to her daughter's plea, stating that she could use them when they went on expeditions together. Nokomis pulled the other leg on too and said to herself, "Well you can't sit here forever. Time to get moving."

Nokomis took and dropped the first aid kit back into her opened backpack, zippered it closed, and carefully placed the pack back on. Taking the two swords out of her belt and placing them on the ground, she stood up and retrieved her compass from her side pocket. Walking away a short distance she took a compass reading and then came back to where the iron swords sat. Adjusting for the difference in degrees, Nokomis retrieved the swords and set out into the night.

As she walked she contemplated about what was going to happen to her. She was getting nauseous, another sign of heat stroke, but at least she was out of the sun, she laughed to herself. Her legs and torso were probably sunburned by now too.

"Well at least I got a good tan, the other kids at school would be jealous," she told herself.

School. The dreaded subject around her house that got her parents fighting, first with her and then with each other. Her mother wanted her to finish high school and her father wanted her to get a job if she wasn't going back to school.

Nokomis was smart. Smart enough to know that the typical school setting wasn't for her. When she was with her mother, the other archaeologists had been her teachers. She had learned history first hand along with math, geometry, and biology from each site that her mother dragged her too. A treasure trove of world cultures and languages that most kids would never even have in their lifetime.

When she had gone to school and the teacher was talking about something that Nokomis had experienced with her mother, it had piqued her interest. That was until the teacher had said something that was incorrect and Nokomis had raised her hand to correct the teacher.

The first time it had happened the teacher had told Nokomis that she was misinformed. The second time she had to stay after school and the third time she was sent to the principal's office. Her parents had to come from work to pick her up that time. Eventually, Nokomis had been transferred out of that teacher's classroom, at the insistence of her mother and a few choice swear words too.

But school with its strict rules and lesson plans wasn't for her. After a while Nokomis wished that she could have been raised like her cousin Echo.

Echo had started school like a normal child, at the age of five, but growing up Nokomis never remembered Echo ever talking about any formal schooling with her. It was always Uncle Peter, Ray, or Winston taught me this. Or look at what Helen, Iris, or Grace showed me today.

Nokomis had questioned her father one day about it when he was driving her home from middle school. She had been sent home, again. This time for arguing with the teacher.

"Why didn't Echo go to a real school when she was young like me?" she asked her father.

"She did when she was five," he replied looking both ways for traffic before he turned left out of the school's parking lot.

"What happened?"

"Something bad."

"What?"

"Well," Ray replied as he drove down the street, "Echo started out in school fine but by the second day it was clear to the teacher that Echo didn't belong in the kindergarten class."

"Where did she belong?"

"All over," Ray replied coming to a stop at a red light. Turning to face his daughter in the seat next to him he continued his story. "The school tested Echo to try and place her in a more appropriate class, but that was impossible."

"Why?"

"Well," Ray said turning back around because the light had turned green, "her reading and writing were at a third grade level but her math was fourth. They found that her history was second grade. Geography and art was between forth and fifth because of all the times she went with her mother on tour. She also had one language under her belt, American Sign Language, and was learning another, Spanish."

"What about her science?" Nokomis asked.

Ray snorted, "Where do you think her science was? Her father is the most brilliant man that I know. A genius in his own time."

"High school level?" Nokomis guessed.

"Her father would have loved that," Ray replied. "No, it was tested at a sixth grade level."

"Where I'm at now?"

"Yep."

"So what happened? What could be so bad about being in different grades?"

"It wasn't that Echo was in different grades, it was what happened there at the school itself."

Ray put his car's blinker on and slowed down to stop at the corner. Looking to his left for traffic he continued to talk to his daughter.

"Uncle Egon and Aunt Eden decided to place Echo into the third grade class, that way her peers would only be two years apart in age. Remember Echo's birthday is the day before Christmas and the school's cut off date is November 30th. Echo was really 5¾ when she started Kindergarten here in New York City."

"So what happened Daddy?" Nokomis asked, waiting while her father turned the corner.

"The third grade school placement was fine for a couple of months until three eleven year old boys from the fifth grade cornered Echo one day after lunch."

"Did they bully her?"

"I wish they would have Nokomis. You see they had just gotten out of a class about puberty and becoming a teenager. The class covered topics about reproduction, the development of sexual feelings, and the importance of making healthy decisions about sex as they grew older. So the three boys were eager to find a female to see what all the hype was about."

"Did they try to have sex with Echo?" Nokomis asked shocked that she hadn't heard about this until now.

"Thank the Lord no," Ray said wiping a tear away from his left eye. "They did fondle or grope her though, grabbing her buttocks and thighs. Another student passing by saw them and alerted a teacher, putting a stop to it before the boys went any further."

"What about Echo? Was she okay afterwards?"

"Uncle Egon was fuming mad when he was called. We were at the firehouse when it happened. I have only heard Egon curse twice before in his lifetime, but that day he would have put your mother to shame."

Ray pulled into the driveway of their house and turned off the car's ignition. Turning to face his daughter Ray completed the story.

"Nokomis I never want to relive that day for as long as I live. Eden was out of town on tour, she would be back the next day, so I had to drive Egon down to the school. What I saw made me cry. I was allowed into the nurse's station with Egon to find Echo curled up into a fetal position on a cot, in the corner, crying her heart out. I saw your Uncle Egon tenderly take his daughter into his arms and rock her back and forth, telling her she was safe now. Echo fell asleep in her father's loving arms as he cried for a good half hour sitting there on the cot."

"Eden arrived the next day to find her daughter and husband at the firehouse. I sat with Echo while Egon took his wife next door to tell her what happened. They never filed charges against the school or the boys, but the Spengler's did pull Echo out of school that day. She never set foot into any kind of public schooling until she started Juilliard. The whole family went to counseling for a year with Doctor Charlie Levine. That is one of the reasons that Echo doesn't want anything to do with boys right now."

Nokomis stopped walking, tears falling from her face. She remembered that the next day her mother had taken her out of the country on another expedition. She hadn't been there when Echo had fallen down a hole, broke her leg, and ended up in a coma.

Nokomis felt awful right now. She remembered her father telling her over the phone that Echo had died on the operating room table before the doctor had gotten her heart started again. Nokomis felt as if she had let Echo down, all these years later, for not being there. She had never been there for anything that her cousin did. She was always with her mother, on an expedition. She felt like dying right now. Her legs couldn't go any further and Nokomis sat down in the dirt looking up at the full moon above her. Pointing her headlamp down onto her left wrist she read her watch. It was five minutes to midnight.

Shrugging off her backpack for the last time, Nokomis let her head rest on it as she laid down and closed her eyes. She had seen the blood seeping through the bandage of her left hand. Her hand was also throbbing now too. She didn't want to be here anymore. She felt that she had caused enough problems for her parents. They always fought over her. She had known that this might happen when she had left the safety of the expedition. It was as good a time as any to die. Her mother would find her mummified body at some point in time. Another victim of the never ending circle of life here in the desert.

Suddenly a wind started whipping her hair around her head. Thinking it was a dust storm, Nokomis opened her eyes and sat up, removing the iron swords from her side as she did so. Looking around her with her headlamp she couldn't see any dust, but then again her batteries were dying. Yet something was blowing her hair.

Nokomis slowly stood up and turned around as the light on her headlamp finally went out. Before her was light of some kind. A round glimmering picture of another place. She could see that the sun was high in the sky and the landscape was green like a forest. There was also someone sitting on the ground. A man who had on black pants and a blue top. Slowly the man got up and took a step towards her.

"Go to him," she heard a voice say to her.

Turing to her left, Nokomis saw her Aunt Jean dressed in a white straight gown that hung off of one shoulder. Dropping her compass that she held in her right hand, Nokomis took a step backwards, frightened. Her Aunt Jean had died years ago and yet here she stood next to her.

"Don't be afraid Nokomis. Go to him," Aunt Jean said again.

She had heard stories about the world beyond this one. Her father, Uncle Egon and even her cousin Echo had all died and come back. Each with their own story about the hereafter. Nokomis turned away from her aunt to look back at the round glimmering picture before her. It looked to be a ring or portal of some kind to her.

"This must be what it is like to die," Nokomis thought to herself as she walked towards the portal and the man who held his hand out to her.

Slowly removing her headlamp from her head, she let it drop to the desert floor as she walked towards her afterlife.

"He is the savior for all mankind," Nokomis heard her Aunt Jean say to her.

Nokomis stopped before she stepped through the portal and turned to face her aunt.

"Can you give my parents a message?" she asked.

"Yes," Aunt Jean answered.

"Tell Daddy and Mom that I love them," Nokomis said, "and that they don't have to fight over me any longer."

Nokomis turned back to face the portal and lovely world that awaited her. A beautiful world where she was sure there was no more pain. Her tired body wanted to be there in that place and she reached into the portal and took the man's hand. He smiled at her and held her hand tight. Nokomis smiled back and stepping through the portal she vanished.

All that was left was a full moon that shown down on two iron swords and one orange backpack in the middle of the desert.