Thunderstone

  Thunderstone

  Barbara Pietron

  Thunderstone

  Published by Scribe Publishing Company

  Royal Oak, Michigan

  www.scribe-publishing.com

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2013 by Barbara Pietron

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN 978-1-940368-92-4

  Dedication

  For Nikki—my inspiration, my toughest critic, and my biggest fan. Love you!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Humankind has not woven the web of life.

  We are but one thread within it.

  Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

  All things are bound together.

  All things connect.

  —Chief Seattle, Suquamish

  Chapter 1

  Jeni was halfway back to the car when she heard the voice behind her.

  “I’ll double what you just paid for that statue.”

  She knew the offer was directed at her. She hadn’t seen any other customers inside the convenience store where she’d just purchased a stone statue. And her cousin was the only one at the gas pumps. Still, she kept walking. Even quickened her pace a bit.

  The scrape and crunch of gravel on her left warned of the guy’s approach before she saw him from the corner of her eye.

  “Excuse me. Uh… sorry to bother you, but the statue you just bought? I’d like to buy it. It’s important,” he babbled while shuffling alongside her. “Look, I’ll give you forty bucks.” The guy thrust his hand forward with two twenty-dollar bills sticking out.

  Jeni’s “stranger danger” reflex kicked her heartbeat up a notch. She glanced sideways; surprised to see a young guy, seventeen or eighteen at most, with copper skin, black hair, and startling blue eyes. Her lips parted and her breath hitched involuntarily. Wow, the guy was super-cute.

  Her feet slowed, though her pulse continued to race as a new nervous energy replaced her initial alarm. Maybe she should hear him out.

  “Buzz off, buddy. Whatever you want to buy, she’s not selling.” Her cousin Tyler suddenly appeared in front of her, and Jeni stopped short to avoid running into him.

  The guy raised his hands and held them out past his shoulders, the money still clenched in one fist. He gave Jeni a pleading look but took a step backward.

  “Tyler, I… he just…”

  Tyler grabbed Jeni’s arm and propelled her toward the car. She shook off his hold on her. “What’s your problem?”

  “I saw him offering you money. Just get in and lock the door,” he said. “I’ll drive.”

  “Overreact much?” she muttered. Going back to talk to the guy now would be embarrassingly awkward, so Jeni got in the car. She was more than happy to let Tyler drive—it was better than him scrutinizing her newly-acquired driving skills—but he was acting like a jerk.

  Not that that was new.

  With the door closed, Jeni glanced in the side mirror and saw the guy hadn’t moved. Dang. The well-worn jeans, athletic build, and sun-kissed skin added up to rugged hotness—the best kind of hotness in Jeni’s opinion. Only his downcast expression was at odds with his outdoorsy brawn. A pang of sympathy struck her as he shook his head and scrubbed his hands over his face.

  Tyler dropped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. “Um, maybe you should consider jeans that aren’t quite so tight,” he said. He started the car and pulled away from the pumps.

  “What’re you talk…” Jeni hissed out a disgusted sigh as she got his meaning. “You’re such an idiot.” She dug in the paper bag she’d set on the floor between her feet. After plunking two drinks into the cupholders, she drew out a small stone statue. “He wanted to buy this.”

  “How would I know that? A stranger waving money at a girl in a parking lot looks pretty suspicious to me. Besides, you went in to buy drinks.”

  “Puh-leeze, he was probably younger than you.”

  Tyler shrugged. “What is that anyway? A stone cat?”

  “Well, it’s not an ordinary cat, that’s why I bought it.” Jeni held the figure out. “Look, it has horns. And check this out, doesn’t it look like it’s painted with scales?”

  Tyler glanced at the statue and grunted.

  “The man at the store called it an artifact; maybe it’s valuable. That guy offered me forty dollars and I only paid twelve,” Jeni said.

  “Try eBay. And I get a cut since I chased the dude off.”

  Jeni didn’t dignify that with an answer. She might be twenty-eight dollars richer right now if Tyler hadn’t chased the guy off. The cute guy. Tyler turned up the radio, and Jeni let her head fall back on the headrest. Trees and marsh flashed by on either side of the two-lane blacktop road. An occasional break in the foliage revealed dirt roads cutting through the woods, some which bore signs indicating residences beyond the dense vegetation. Jeni hardly noticed; she’d seen similar scenery back in Michigan—not where she lived in suburban Detroit, but a few hours north where her family went camping.

  Something about the incident at the gas station didn’t add up. She was pretty sure now that was the same guy she saw on the phone in the back room of the convenience store. At the time, she assumed he worked there. But if so, why would he rush out and try to buy the statue she just bought? It didn’t make any sense.

  Jeni could still picture his crestfallen face. He’d looked like a kid who had just dropped his science project and watched it explode into a million pieces.

  She fingered the statue’s cool, stone surface for a few moments, then slipped the figure into her pocket. The encounter definitely put a damper on her enthusiasm for the newest item in her cat collection. When she got back to civilization, she’d definitely Google ‘cat with horns and scales’ to see if anything came up.

  As Tyler turned into Itasca State Park, Jeni thought about the beaded bracelet she’d returned to the rack after she spied the statue. She suddenly had the sinking feeling she would’ve been better off choosing the bracelet for a souvenir.

  ***

  “What happened? Where is it?”

  Ice recoiled from the medicine man, thrusting the dance stick he’d purchased from Hoglund’s Gas & Goods out in front of him.

  The older man ignored the stick. “The statue. What did you do with the statue?”

  “Nothing…I…I didn’t get it.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t get it?”

  Ice backed up a step. He knew the medicine man would be disappointed, but he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction. “Roffe sold it. While I was on the phone with you.” He watched Nik pace the small room, his gray braid swinging outward each time the man spun on his heel. In the five years he’d studied with the medicine man, Ice had never seen him pace before.

  “To who? D
o you know? Did you see the person?”

  “Yeah, some girl. Uh…Nik, I tried to buy it from her but when it looked like I’d have to fight her boyfriend, I backed off. You didn’t sound too concerned over the phone.”

  “I wasn’t concerned when we were on the phone, then—” Nik stepped around Ice to the doorway, peeked into the hall, then shut the door to his office. He motioned Ice to a seat then dropped into the chair behind his desk. “About five minutes ago I noticed a hawk. On my windowsill.”

  Ice raised his eyebrows.

  The medicine man placed an object on the desk in front of his apprentice. “The bird left this behind.”

  Ice lifted what he at first thought was a rock. The smooth, dirty brown of one side contrasted with the varying shades of orange on the rough and crusty surface of the other side. Thinking back to some of the earliest lessons with the medicine man, Ice rubbed his thumb across a russet nodule and recognized a warm metallic element not present in stone. He met Nik’s grave stare. “Copper.”

  Nik blew out a breath. “The omen couldn’t be any plainer: copper delivered by a Thunderbird? Especially after you called about the statue…I was afraid you’d stopped somewhere close to water—too close.”

  Ice dropped his gaze to the floor. Uh-oh. He’d screwed up. Big time. “I’m sorry. I should’ve tried harder to get statue from that girl. I should—”

  “Ice,” Nik interrupted. “It’s not your fault. I told Roffe to go ahead and sell the figures. He listed them over the phone yesterday. I just wasn’t thinking when he said ‘cat’.”

  Nik’s assurances didn’t have much of an effect. Ice had been in the store; he knew the statue depicted the underwater monster, Mishebeshu. He should’ve gotten the figure from Roffe first and then called Nik.

  A few years back, Nik had revealed the truth about the artifacts he collected: authentic relics used in rituals and ceremonies maintain their connection to the spirit world. That connection could be tapped by anyone with the requisite ancestry. The danger was twofold: for a person who knew their own potential, the spiritual link could be harnessed for selfish and often unethical purposes; for the person unaware of their dormant capability, the accidental contact could prove disastrous.

  “The question is,” Nik said, leaning back in his chair, “did the Thunderbird warn about the statue or about the underwater manitou himself? If the statue is our only concern, and the girl who bought it simply sits it on a shelf, we might be okay.”

  Ice stayed quiet, allowing the medicine man to sort out his thoughts.

  “We need answers. I prefer to be proactive considering the potential threat posed by the underwater monster, so I’ll go to the vision quest lodge and see what I can learn from the spirit world.” Nik’s gaze settled on Ice. “Is there any chance you could find this girl?”

  Ice started to shake his head then froze. “Maybe.”

  ***

  “How’d the drive go?” Jeni’s mom asked.

  “How do you think it went?” Jeni grumbled, holding her hands up and glowering at the drips accumulating on the kitchen floor. Her jacket and shirt, wet from the waist down, hung limply over her waterlogged jeans.

  “What happened?”

  “Tyler. That’s what happened.” Jeni kicked off her shoes and tromped to the bathroom. She peeled off her wet jacket and began to twist it into a bundle. With a heavy sigh she paused, extracted the bizarre cat statue from her pocket, then wrung the jacket over the tub. If today was an indication of what this family gathering would be like, it was going to be a long, miserable week.

  “What?” she barked in response to a knock on the door.

  “Do you want me to bring you some dry clothes?” her mom asked.

  Since she could hardly traipse around in her underwear with thirteen other people in the cabin, Jeni told her mom which clothes she wanted. When her mom returned, she offered to wring out Jeni’s jeans.

  “I told you Tyler always thinks I’m around for his amusement,” Jeni said. “That’s why I didn’t want to go with him in the first place.” She rubbed her legs with a towel. “You know why he asked me to drive?”

  “So you could practice maybe? Or to give you guys something to do?”

  “No. His car’s a stick. He wanted to laugh at me.” Her mom didn’t get it. She seemed to think cousins were automatically friends.

  “Well, the joke was on him then, right? Since you know how to drive one.”

  Uh-uh. She was not going to let her mom put a positive spin on this. “I hope you brought Band-Aids. I’m bleeding.” Jeni dabbed her ankle with toilet tissue.

  Her mom rifled through the toiletries bag. “How did you do that?”

  “On a rock. When I fell in the water. We went to Itasca State Park, figured we’d check out the Mississippi Headwaters so we’d know what to expect when we…do the grandpa thing.” Remembering their purpose here in northern Minnesota dampened Jeni’s urge to take out her frustration on her mom. She dropped an octave of venom from her voice as she explained that the headwaters of the Mississippi—which looked more like a creek than a river—were marked by a row of large rocks. Tyler crossed them easily and challenged her to do the same. It didn’t go as well for Jeni.

  “Look honey, it’s a family trip. And I realize everyone here is either an adult or a toddler, except for you.” Her mom picked up the Band-Aid tabs and threw them in the trash. “It seems like you get stuck hanging out with adults all the time. It’s been that way since you were a baby. So I’m sorry if I pushed you into the ride with Tyler, but he’s at least close to your age and I figured you were both old enough to get along.”

  “Mom, even when I’m an old lady Tyler will try to make me look stupid so he can laugh at me.”

  “I doubt that. He didn’t laugh when you fell, did he?”

  “Pretty much…well, not at first.” Jeni frowned. “I probably had a strange look on my face because when I sat down in the water I went all woozy—like I was going to pass out.” She slid her legs into the dry jeans and then stood to pull them up.

  “The water was that cold?”

  “No. I mean, it was cold, but not that bad. A shock to the system I would’ve expected. The dizziness was weird. As soon as I got on my feet though, I felt better.” Jeni shrugged. “Anyway, once he saw I was okay, Tyler felt free to smirk.”

  Jeni’s mom stuffed the box of bandages back into the satchel. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want to hurt you—or see you get hurt. You do realize he teases you because he likes you? If he didn’t like you he’d just ignore you.”

  Jeni moved in front of the mirror and rolled her eyes at her reflection. Even if it was true, it didn’t make the teasing any easier to bear. Her mom shifted so their eyes met in the mirror. “Honey, Tyler just treats you like a sister. Now you know what it’s like to have a brother.”

  “Yeah, it’s fabulous,” Jeni muttered, though the dry clothes were already improving her mood. She picked up a hairbrush and ran it through her hair.

  “You may feel differently in ten years or so.” Her mom reached for the doorknob. “I better finish slicing the tomatoes. I bet the hamburgers are about ready,” she said as she stepped into the hallway.

  “Mom?” Jeni waited until her mom poked her head back in the room. “You should have seen Tyler’s face when I backed up his car and drove it through the resort. It was priceless. He definitely wasn’t expecting that from a girl with a learner’s permit.”

  Her mom grinned. “See? I knew learning to drive a stick would come in handy.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jeni waved her off with a slight smile.

  She put down the brush and stared at her reflection. Even though her mom encouraged the drive with Tyler, it wasn’t her fault Jeni fell in the water. It wasn’t even Tyler’s fault—as much as she wanted to blame him. No, it was her own fault.

  She’d listened to his assur
ances; let him convince her when she knew better.

  Hadn’t she learned her lesson in third grade?

  Never trust a boy.

  ***

  Ice felt like an idiot sitting in his car monitoring visitors to the Headwaters Center. The cup of coffee he sipped didn’t help. All he needed was a doughnut or some kind of fast food sandwich to complete the stereotypical picture of a stakeout. When he’d agreed to apprentice the medicine man, Ice never imagined surveillance would be among his duties.

  But he had only one lead to the girl who bought the statue at Hoglund’s Gas & Goods yesterday. As he’d entered the store from the stock room, he heard her tell Roffe she’d be visiting the headwaters the next morning.

  This morning.

  Although Ice arrived before the first employee showed up to open the Center, his wasn’t the first car in the lot. Dedicated exercisers preferred vacant trails. So far, Ice had watched two joggers finish their daily trek and move on.

  He slumped in his seat as a truck entered the parking area. It wasn’t the vehicle from the gas pumps yesterday; still, Ice studied the people inside. He wasn’t going to chance missing the girl.

  About an hour later, he regretted drinking coffee but maintained his post.

  Another thirty minutes and seven cars later, a sedan followed by a pick-up truck wheeled into the lot. Two more cars trailed behind. Ice tracked a silver hatchback with interest. All four vehicles parked in a cluster and as people piled out, he had a difficult time picking out who emerged from which vehicle.

  Not that it mattered. The honey-blonde hair was a dead giveaway. This morning the girl wore it loose, where yesterday it was in a ponytail, but Ice had no doubt about her identity. The large group unloaded various items and started for the trail. When the last person disappeared into the forest, Ice got out and followed.

  The overnight chill still lingered among the trees. The swish of feet through last fall’s leaves accompanied hushed conversation from the people ahead. Ice’s churning stomach made him glad he hadn’t eaten yet. How would he nonchalantly approach her? She’d think he was some kind of creepy stalker.