Thunderbird Rising

An empty light poured down through the darkness, jagged boards biting at its edges, while the dust of a hundred years danced in and out of view across the shadows of the abandoned lair. Puetsuku waivered as the dust began to settle and sat still in the echoing silence until she was clear headed enough to check, “Are you hurt, or are you injured?” A subtle flex of her pose set off aches throughout her body, but none of the sharper alarms that might indicate a break, and she began to relax as she got up and reached for her rucksack. She looked up to gauge how far she had fallen and counted herself lucky. The cave was dark but for the skylight she’d just introduced, and the domed chasm seemed to hold its breath in the beckoning shadows, full of the secrets she’d come here to find, spurred by the clues in that ancient journal which she’d found buried in the foundation of her ancestral home. The lockbox had held only a tomahawk pipe, a ceremonial fan, a crow feather, a pocket watch, a strip of red cloth, and the small black book.

Now she peered into the gloom transfixed and as her eyes adjusted she began to make out the shape of things. A hulking figure loomed and for a moment she was afraid, the hair rising on the back of her neck, but its stillness quieted her fears and she rose to edge closer, slapping the dirt and detritus from her knees and elbows. She was able to make out a rounded top, the tall wooden legs, and the tasseled adornments of a saddle resting surely on its stand. It was beautiful, despite the layer of ages that stood upon it’s peaks like a high desert snow, despite being dried out and somewhat withered by the years and covered in cobwebs. Black leather swirled between the robust contours of the cantle and the intricate designs of the fenders, with glints of steel from its rigging and the crest atop its horn, which shown out like winking starlight as she circled slowly around the equine artifact. Draped from the back housing hung a length of rope, and on top of that an ornate bullwhip with a capped heel and three hawk feathers woven in at the ring knot. She squinted, looking closer, and pulled out her smartphone for better light. Now were visible a panoply of symbols, some known to her as heritage, of running horses, of the four directions, of strength and divinity, all of which spoke to her of warriorship and a profound spirit.

She reached out with some daring to open one of the heavy saddle bags, which had sagged with time, half-expecting the whole array to crumble at the slightest touch. But despite some stiffness, the housing held and she found another pouch holding smaller sacks of salt, tobacco and other sundries, along with a pocketknife, a metal flask, a tin cup, and a yellowed copy of “The Prince And The Pauper”. Upon opening the novel with extreme care she found an inscription on the title page which read “To William, on his birthday. May you always know your place in this world by making it for yourself. With greatest affection, your friend, Avner. 1885”. Below the title was marked the publication date, 1882. “Holy shit” she muttered “Is this a first printing? What is happening? Who were you?” She put the contents of the saddle bag back, and turned her beam on the space around her, boldly now, hungry for the answers to questions that threatened to overwhelm her even before they’d fully formed. The ensuing rush of images did just as much to set her reeling until she spotted a hanging lantern, and she half-rushed over to assess its mechanism before digging around for her lighter. As she sparked the standing oil and stood up with the rising light, she took in her surroundings as a whole and began to cry, just a little, over the smile that was making its way from her heart to her face.

“It’s a legit living space!” she thought aloud. It was a lair, a cache, a library, a stable, a look-out, and a safe-house, but more than that it was a home, muted by time but grand in its designs. A tall glass-lined bookcase was built into the rock behind a massive reading chair which stood upon a thick Persian rug, and a low end table sat at attention with its relief-carved drawer and a crown of gilded glass bottles. Next to it stood a large cabinet and a wooden garment stand, which supported a wide-billed hat and a long black coat, with all manner of belts and harnesses hanging within. Racked on pegs in the wall sat the biggest rifle Puetsuku had ever seen, and beneath that was a traditional war lance in the style of the Kwahadi, her ancestors, while an unstrung bow and a buckskin quiver leaned quietly against a notch in the wall. A large fire pit dominated the center of the hideout, with a camp grill and a steel pot nestled inside a long crescent mound of earth, and on the far side of the space a hand-pump protruded from the ground . The saddle stand stood next to a hitching post at the mouth of a tunnel who’s entrance had collapsed, and across from the reading chair sat a simply crafted bed with a large chest at its foot. She could see now a stone-hewn staircase leading back up to the entryway that’d been hidden by the age-worn boards that had failed to support her. Next to the foot of those stairs, tucked into the corner before the bed, stood a writing desk and a workbench, and as she leaned over it she could make out a stack of dust-covered penny dreadful novels and a newspaper dated April 20, 1917.

She looked around the room again, and she began to dig into what she’d found. She returned to the bookcase, compelled to know the owner, and found books by Shakespeare and Poe, Cervantes and Dumas, Plato and Aquinas, Machiavelli and Descartes, along with the likes of Adam Smith and the collected works of Confucius. She went to open the cabinet and found a small arsenal of guns, cutting tools and iron manacles mounted inside, with several bundles of dynamite resting at its base, all centered around a long, thick leather vest that was covered in bullet holes. “The fuck… ?” her voice trailed away as her gaze landed on the mask slung around the same hanger that supported the vest. It was a red cloth, spread across the leather so the two eyeholes cut from it showed only the darkness below, the bottom half of it was torn away and tattered. After a long moment, she drew from her pack the scrap she’d found in the mysterious box under her great-great-grandmother’s home, now little more than a ruin. She lifted the cloth up to the mask in its armory, and found it was a perfect match. She closed the doors of the cabinet quietly and backed away, her head swirling with the possible implications, and sat on the bed, which creaked gently with a dusty exhalation. The chest opened for her with a slight jingle and she saw a row of neatly bound journals, perfectly preserved, laying in a rack next to a series of rolled maps. She picked up the top volume and gently opened it to the last page.

“May 3rd, 1917

While it may come to pass that I do not return to this place, I shall always be here with this land, with my people, with my family. The United States has become embroiled with the Europeans’ war and while the affairs of state have as little regard for me as I for they, I still feel called to do what I am able for my brothers and uncles who go to fight, despite my advancement of age and the work to which I’ve been so committed these last twenty years. The spirit of my righteous avenger has become as real to me as any man I have ever known, and we have spilled a river of devil’s blood together, like wolves in the night, but it may be time now to stand and fight under my own name, in the hopes that this may return to us some measure of esteem, that we may be treated as human beings on the same land that bore us. If I am a fool to hope so, then I will go all the same, and trust that my treasures will be enough to finish my work upon my return. – William Iron Shirt Cohen”

“Who?” she said to herself in the lamplight, “Who’s Iron Shirt? Does he mean Iron Jacket? Nah, he was decades earlier – wait… Treasures?” She picked up one of the maps and pried it open gingerly. It marked an area southeast of Lawton, with an X and a series of illustrated clues to an exact location, under a tree with 3 knots in the trunk, forming a kind of face in the bark. She frowned a little and put the map back, only then noticing how shallow the rack was, and she reached in to pull it out. Whatever expression she made, Puetsuku felt as though her face might have fallen off entirely, such was the shock of seeing an actual chest full of gold and jewels, whose tangible luster caressed and confounded her mind to the point of enchantment and disbelief. “Oh… my god!” she sat back then and reached into her pack for water. “Oh my god!” she repeated, loud enough to send an echo booming through the chamber. She got up and laughed, then sat down at the writing desk to collect her thoughts. It was then that she noticed that while some of the penny dreadfuls were printed, one was in manuscript form, which read “The Return Of the Red Mask”, bearing a sketch of a rearing rider in a black coat and hat, with a cloth drawn across his face. “Well damn,” she said to no one, as she shook her head with a wry and wild grin, “looks like I’ve got some work to do!”

+++

Sometime later, a nimble silhouette darted through the night across the Dallas skyline while a very rich man slept soundly in his high-rise, unaware that he was about to be suspended over the city streets for a long overdue conversation about his interests in a highly controversial pipeline project, while his accounts were being hacked and emptied into charities around the world. A light rain cast a sheen over her red tac helmet, and Puetsuku grinned as the heads-up display kept track of her target as she sailed over the edge of the building to repel down the wall at a run, static rope in hand, before crashing through his window and flipping to a graceful landing. “Dustin Carlisle?” she declared as she strode at the man who was still falling out of his bed in terror, “we need to talk!”