Recruits (Keeper of the Water Book 2) (33 page)

“Too bad I couldn’t say the same for her. Before our lips even touched, her face scrunched in disgust and she backed away, shaking her head.
This is what it was like being with someone
so
much older? You
really
must’ve loved me,
she said. She proceeded to give me even more water but warned me not to drink too quickly. This time, the water worked to reverse my aging. It was an odd sensation – like my body was collapsing in on itself – but my wrinkles smoothed away, my thinning hair became full and lush and the spare tire that formed around my belly disappeared behind a wall of muscle.
All
the muscles in my body became tighter with strength: I never felt so powerful in my life.

“And I never felt more in love with Isabella. She gave me back my life, my youth, the power of the water I’d been lusting after for years.”

“Power was the only thing important to you?” I interrupt, no longer attempting the charade of hiding my jealousy.

John frowns but shrugs. “I can’t lie, power
was
most important to me. But like I’ve told you before, times back then were – ”

“Different,” I interrupt. “I know. But Isabella was your only source of power all along and you had no control over her. Therefore, you seemed to be even
more
powerless as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’re right about that, there was
never
any controlling Isabella,” John says. “Not by
me
. The warrior women
did
hold some control over her, at least back then. She told me that the women were very careful with disbursement of the water but she’d gradually stored away enough for me over the years. Since she left me, she remained on the lookout for me in the area but never saw me. She spotted my two troops several times but never bothered trying to contact them. She worried that something awful had happened to me – the same assumption
I’d
made about
her
– but she could not leave the tribe to check on me since it was so difficult to gain trust among the women.

“
How did you do it?
I asked her.
How did you gain their acceptance without being killed on sight?
Isabella smiled and said simply,
Exactly how I said I would – I walked right in and told them my tale,
she said. But the tale she told wasn’t
exactly
based upon facts. After Isabella left me and headed deeper into the swamps, she was intercepted right away by nearly a dozen warrior women, many holding primitive weapons still dripping in blood from their massacre of our hired mercenaries. Not that the women would ever know that Isabella was the one to hire them in the first place…

“All of the bodies had already been cleared away but the Amazons were still on high alert. Seeing Isabella unarmed, they merely warned her to turn around and leave. But she captivated them with a story that none could ignore, a blend of fact and fiction that had them eating out of the palm of her hand. She admitted to being Queen Isabella of Spain, though none of the women ever heard of her. She told them how her husband declared her dead in order to replace her with a younger bride. The king handed Isabella over to a bunch of killers as payment for whatever water they found.

“The women were upset that anyone knew of their location but Isabella assured them that the men were lucky to stumble upon them, that they were actually trying to find the Indies but had gone too far north. When the Amazons voiced their concern about one of the mercenaries escaping the battle, Isabella’s story turned back to fact. She admitted finding the injured captain and killing him, though she blamed him for using her body for his every desire despite her protests.

“Isabella spun a perfect tale, one where the women pitied her plight and knew that she had every reason to distrust men. But she also portrayed herself as strong and ruthless, thus making her the perfect candidate for initiation into the tribe. It still took her years to gain their trust but over time, her inner strength and leadership qualities from once being royalty made her a valuable member of the tribe. Needless to say, I was in awe of the way she used her brains to accomplish something I couldn’t do with hundreds of fierce soldiers at my disposal.

“I was so full of strength and energy upon hearing of her success that I suggested the two of us march right into the Amazon camp and use our power to take control of the water. At that moment, it seemed like it would be so easy to take over the world. But Isabella explained that she was still the newest recruit and it would be impossible to steal the water with the Keeper so close to it. I had no idea what a Keeper was but I suggested that we simply kill her.”

I inhale sharply at the thought. This may have happened hundreds of years ago but I still feel the urge to reach across the bench and attack John for merely suggesting the idea of hurting the Keeper.

“Don’t worry,” he tells me. “Isabella was just as appalled by the suggestion as you are now. She explained the importance of the Keeper to me, about how killing her would not only destroy the water source but also cause the Earth to begin dying from the inside. It all sounded like witchcraft hocus pocus to me but Isabella pointed out that life-giving water would’ve also seemed unbelievable had we not witnessed it with our own two eyes. Isabella was a changed woman since joining the Amazons. I became angry that she seemed to be choosing life with the warrior women over me, especially since I finally
wanted
her by my side.

“
Patience, my love, I haven’t totally changed, nor has our ultimate goal of controlling the water. The only thing that
has
changed is the strategy by which we’ll end up taking it. But we’re going to need a whole new level of patience,
she told me. If we had killed the Keeper in the first place, it would’ve been disastrous so she warned me to keep my two goons far away from their camp.
Not that a mere man could ever defeat enough of us to reach the Keeper,
she added, explaining how strong and powerful the rest of her fellow tribeswomen were – far stronger than she herself.

“
If that’s the case, then how can you and I ever take control of the water?
I wondered. She told me about the Keeper, leader of the Amazons, all-powerful in her control of the water. But that job had a time limit so her plan was to gain the post, to become Keeper and have total control of the water –
and
the god-like powers that came with it. The plan sounded easy – maybe
too
easy – and she told me that she would have to convince the current Keeper to chose her as the future replacement. I asked how long that would take; I’ll never forget her answer.
About 500 years or so, give or take a few decades.

“I looked at her face for any hint that she was joking but there was none: Isabella wasn’t exactly the humorous type.”

“Something
else
that’s never changed about her,” I add.

“She said that a Keeper technically could leave voluntarily before the end of her reign, though none of the other women ever actually heard of this happening. Isabella told me not to expect that, that her best chance of ever gaining the job was to outlast the other Amazons and get in the good graces of the Keeper. The leader was also once a queen so Isabella planned to use that shared experience as a way for them to bond.
What am I supposed to do until that happens?
I asked. She did not appear as sympathetic for my predicament as I hoped. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and replied with a single word.
Wait
.

“She turned and headed back toward the Amazon camp. I went from drinking the water of life and feeling better than ever before to learning how long I’d be waiting and feeling
worse
than ever.”

“So what did you do?” I ask, though I’m certain the answer is obvious.

“What could I do?” John answers. “I waited.”

“For years I followed the Amazons, staying nearby, constantly on the watch for rock formations, living my life solely to wait for my next meeting with Isabella. Years often passed between meetings, years I spent pining for her while she remained close to her camp and the water. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to smuggle any water to me. Most of our meetings were water-free so my age fluctuated over the centuries while she always remained a young woman. In hindsight, I’ve often wondered if that was just another way for her to control me, to keep me coming back to her, keep me reliant on her.

“The Amazons didn’t stay in Florida for very long after I reconnected with Isabella. First, they traveled north and soon after headed west as the New World became populated by more Europeans. They even headed farther north to Canada and then back along the eastern coast again. Moving was always very stressful since it wasn’t like Isabella could exactly draw me a map of their whereabouts. Do you
realize
how hard it is to follow someone for hundreds of miles when all you have to follow are a bunch of rocks pushed together? Sometimes it would take months just to locate the next rock-cross. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I was certain I’d lost the trail and nearly gave up. My sanity felt like it was slipping away again but it had nothing to do with a fever this time.

“And you would think that reaching the area where the Amazons finally settled would be cause for celebration, right?” John asks. He frowns and slowly shakes his head. “I can’t tell you how many times I nearly stumbled right in the middle of an Amazon patrol. I should’ve been caught at least ten times.”

I suddenly think back to the countless hours I spent on patrol duty. It would’ve been easy for me to hear a normal person lurking near our camp but what about someone who drank our water? Someone with heightened senses and powers similar to my own? A part of me feels violated that John was hiding in my general vicinity during all those years.

“
I
used to be on patrol a lot,” I say. “Did you ever see me?”

For a second John looks away, though I’m not sure if he’s trying to remember the past or trying to avoid making eye contact with me.

“Whenever I wasn’t meeting Isabella, I always tried to avoid seeing
any
of the other Amazons. It was hard enough for
me
to avoid them let alone me
and
my two soldiers,” John says. “I brought them along out of a sense of loyalty to our past but splitting the water three ways meant that
none
of us ever became as young as we wanted. The two continued to find trouble wherever we traveled and killed more natives than you could possibly imagine.”

“Knowing those two, I can imagine an
awful
lot,” I say with a shudder. It might not be lady-like to admit but I’m glad those two beastly men are dead.

“Keeping them alive for so long is certainly one of my biggest regrets,” John says. “But they were such loyal troops to me; without their tracking ability and willingness to follow my commands, we never would’ve tracked the Amazons to the New World. They came too far with me to just leave behind, though they never adapted to a life of not killing or pillaging whenever they pleased.

“I guess it was my fault that I kept supplying them with water, though my disgust with them –
and
with the direction of my life– frequently returned. Just like the first time I abandoned them in Florida, I left my two soldiers several more times over the years, determined to make it on my own and live out the rest of my life. But I never lasted very long in the real world and returned every time. Once, I stayed away for nearly a decade and Isabella was very upset with me when I came back, though she
did
manage to sneak me more water than usual that time.

“Over the years, I learned to keep my
own
secrets from Isabella: I never quite drank all of the water she gave me. After several hundred years, I even built up my own emergency supply just in case Isabella decided to turn on me. I nearly had to waste that supply when we followed the Amazons directly into the path of the Confederate Army. Luckily, my troops killed a small convoy of soldiers and we were able to hide before the rest of them found us.

“The journey to South America was the worst. We often had trouble following the trail across the empty plains of the U.S. so you can imagine our difficulty once we reached the rainforest. The next hundred years spent in the jungle was hellish; wild animals, constant rain, deadly snakes, diseased insects, bloodthirsty native tribes – well, you know the hardships of living in that environment. I was too far from civilization to even consider leaving for a while. The only thought that spurred me on was the Isabella getting closer to a chance of becoming Keeper.

“Hundreds of years had passed and Isabella’s moment to finally gain power was quickly approaching, especially since she thought it was a guarantee she’d be named as the replacement. She bragged about forming strong alliances within the tribe and how she pushed many of the older Amazons to leave and return to their normal lives. But in more recent years – if you can call midway through the 1900s recent – Isabella began to grow paranoid of some of the newer women. Things became even more tense when Isabella and I were nearly caught speaking with one another in the jungle.”

“That’s when Cassie became most suspicious of me,” I say.

John nods. “And that’s around the time she started worrying more about you taking her spot as Keeper, thus ruining our plans. She became even more paranoid about taking water and sneaking off to see me. In the next 50-year span, I could count on one hand the number of times I saw her. My troops and I were growing older and older but I refused to tap into our emergency supply until the moment was right. I was hoping that once the Keeper’s reign came to an end that Isabella would be named to the job, that the next time I saw her she would bring more water than I would know what to do with.

“That wasn’t the case. After the Keeper’s ceremony to name her replacement, Isabella came crashing through the jungle to find me. Throughout the centuries, I saw the gamut of her emotions but
never
was she as irate as at that moment. And I guess I couldn’t really blame her – I mean, the Keeper apparently did not give her any clue that she was choosing
you
to replace her instead of Isabella.”

-
- - - - - - - - - - -

John says the last sentence so matter-of-factly that it takes my mind a few seconds to register the meaning of his words. My mouth opens, at first in shock but then to ask John to repeat what he just said. But no words come out – I don’t
need
to hear him say it again. The biggest question in my mind has suddenly been answered and knowing that information – knowing it
for sure
– has now unlocked the final chapter in the story of my past. The blank spots in my mind have been filled in and when John begins to talk again, I hold up a hand to stop him.

“I just… I just need a minute,” I tell him. John’s brow furrows, as he senses that he just said something more profound than he expected. But he respects my wishes and remains silent as I process this new revelation.

My thoughts are on overdrive and I have to take a few deep breaths to slow them down. I turn my attention back to the highway but the long road full of speeding cars and trucks suddenly morphs into a different time and place. My mind relaxes and lets memory take over. I’m back in the small clearing surrounded by dense jungle, a place I’ve seen in many other memories…

-
- - - - - - - - - - -

I’m in the center of the circle of women but now they don’t stand in the shadows like when I was first initiated. This time, most of the faces looking toward me are friendly. My four recruits look particularly pleased while Jane – my de facto mentor – has tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. I expect the Queen Clan to glare at me as usual but they watch me with just as much shock as I feel. And considering the announcement just made by the Keeper, they have good reason.

“After many years of careful consideration, I’ve determined that one Amazon best embodies the qualities required to effectively replace me: compassion, kindness, strong leadership and an appreciation for the Mother Earth we’re trying to protect by guarding the water,” the Keeper said before turning away from Isabella to face me. “Sacajawea, please accept this responsibility of leading the next generation of Amazons.”

I don’t know what to say and look all around at the other faces, ending with Isabella. Her shock quickly turns to anger, which spurs me into finally responding.

“Of course I would be honored,” I say breathlessly.

When Isabella of Castille speaks, however, she isn’t quite so quiet.

“Is this a
joke?
” she yells. “This isn’t fair; what does a
savage
know about leading the tribe? If you think she can lead us, you’re a foolish old woman. You’re making a colossal mistake.”

The Keeper frowns but doesn’t interrupt Isabella’s tirade until she’s done screaming and her face glows red from rage.

“This is supposed to be a joyous moment for
all
of us,” the Keeper says. Her voice – normally so serene – is tinged with the first bit of anger I’ve ever heard from her. The Keeper steps toward Isabella and offers her hand. “I’m sorry if you’re hurt by my decision and I apologize for failing to teach you the importance of understanding a closeness with Mother Earth.”

Isabella calms for a moment and reaches her hand toward the Keeper’s. It looks like she’s about to accept the apology – to accept the decision – and in my mind I’m already planning how the two of us can unite the tribe, to heal the tension between us all. But any semblance of peace is suddenly smacked away – literally. Cassie smacks aside the Keeper’s hand so forcefully that the old woman stumbles, her feet splashing in the water.

There’s a collective intake of breath from the women and a burst of tingling explodes through my body. I spring into action, leaping between Cassie and the Keeper. Had any normal person laid a hand on my leader, I wouldn’t have hesitated to snap her neck. It takes all of my restraint not to assault Cassie, though she shows no appreciation for my self-control.

“Who the
hell
do you think you are?” Cassie snarls at me. The spittle flying from her mouth is not very queen-like. “You wouldn’t
dare
put your hands on me.”

My instinct is to prove her wrong – to make her pay for laying a hand on our Keeper – but I must prove that I’m distinguished enough to deserve such a peaceful post. Besides, there are plenty of other women who
don’t
need to show such restraint.

“She might not but
we
sure will,” Harriet says, stepping forward with her giant club, ready to swing away.

And she’s not the only one. I was so focused on intercepting Cassie that I didn’t notice how the rest of the Amazons reacted. I wasn’t the only one to feel the tingle of warning in response to the Keeper’s danger. Every other woman stands at attention, bows and spears and clubs and swords aimed at Isabella. It dawns on me that I’ve probably saved her life by jumping in before she could make another move toward our leader.

Cassie spins toward her Queen Clan but they also have their weapons drawn and aimed at her, though they’re clearly apologetic when they look at her. To see them willing to destroy Isabella to save the Keeper makes me even more hopeful that the tribe can come together.

“I… I don’t know what came over me,” Cassie mutters. “My Keeper, please forgive my foolish actions. You were right not to choose me; this experience shall humble me more than you can ever know. I hope this isn’t how you’ll remember me.”

The Keeper raises a hand and gestures for the other Amazons to lower their weapons.

“I forgive you, Isabella. Everyone should remember: it is not whether we make mistakes but whether we learn from them,” the Keeper says.

“Yes, my Keeper, I will certainly learn from this mistake,” Cassie says. “I’ve ruined this moment already and don’t want to make it worse. I need time to reflect upon my actions so I’ll go on patrol during the remainder of the ceremony. I’ll make sure there’s no interruptions but I can’t stay to see you off. Farewell, my Keeper. Thank you for all of the wisdom you’ve imparted to me.”

Cassie opens her arms and takes a step toward the Keeper. The rest of the Amazons tense and raise their weapons again, clearly suspicious. Cassie notices this and frowns; for once, I believe that she’s truly hurt by the others’ level of distrust. She backs away from the Keeper and instead turns toward me, arms still open. I don’t know what’s more surprising: being chosen by the Keeper to replace her or being chosen by Cassie for a hug. I still don’t trust her but can’t look like the bad guy by rejecting someone who’s already been rejected. I tentatively accept her embrace.

Not surprisingly, her mouth ends up just next to my ear. Her whisper is no louder than the softest of breezes.