Gathering Cats
Michael was out of sight against the wall of the old gas station, pressing the payphone tight to his ear. The sound of distant mortar fire rumbled as flashes of light occasionally illuminated the surrounding desert. His niece and nephew (Cat and Sawyer) were back in the states, a thousand miles away, listening intently as they lay curled up in bed next to his sister-in-law Abrey. It's 2010 and the kids are 5 and 7.
Michael's vantage point placed him a few miles from the Lebanese border while he waited for his ride. He picked up the story of Moki and Coda, continuing from where he'd left off when they were together last week. As he described Moki climbing into the dense canopy, he found himself feeling a little more at ease. It felt good to visualize a calm setting before the perils on the road ahead.
"Perched high in the trees overlooking the trail," he began, "Moki had arrived early, before sunrise. He could see the other children coming up from the village far below. As they climbed the rocky path, each was collecting hollow gold and green chrysalises of monarch butterflies that had emerged in the morning light."
"There was one girl in particular who stood out to Moki. Her name was Coda, and she was the most beautiful of the butterfly girls, at least to Moki. Her smile, when it came, was tender and true."
And so began their favorite story, set in the hills of Central America over 11,000 years ago, two tribes, the Jaguar People of the forest and the Bird People from the north, who came together each spring to celebrate the migratory departure of the monarchs.
"Coda was the daughter of the Jaguar tribe leader whose family had moved to the hills two years after their land was taken by the tribe from the south. Each morning, at the end of winter, Moki would silently watch Coda fill baskets with the shimmering chrysalises picked from the morning dew."
Their uncle Michael 's voice trailed off, distracted by the sound of mortar fire from the hills. He glanced over the top of his glasses, barely making out the line between the hill crests and the dark night sky.
"Uncle Mike, tell us more about Moki and Coda. Pleeeease."
"Okay, I have a little more time before my ride arrives." There was a broad smile on Michael's face from being able to connect with his kids across this distant. The sounds of insects created a slow breathing rhythm around him which quicken ever so slightly as the night air cooled. The hill were desolate here, five miles outside an Israeli town, several miles from the Lebanese border.
Michael loved to weave stories with elements from his travels. He wove in details from his own father's research during the years they spent at digs in the jungle when he was young. Michael closed his eyes again and fell effortlessly back into the long-ago world of Moki and Coda.
"Coda's people lived around the big cats year round, but Moki's people followed the migrations of the birds and butterflies to the north. They only passed through the forests for a few short weeks before reversing and following the migrations back to their homelands."
"From Moki's forest, the butterflies would start a thousand mile migration that spanned several butterfly generations. Some would fly as far north as Quebec on Canada. And on a very rare occasion a few would get blown all the way across the Atlantic to the British Isles."
Moki's tribe charted their routes by following the migrations of birds and butterflies across the plains and valleys. They returned each winter to the forests of the south, which they shared for several weeks with the Jaguar people based on a truce which spanned hundreds of years.
As a child Moki would cover himself in feathers to win the affection of the girl he loved.
"On mornings like this, Moki would sit high atop the branches of the gently swaying trees gracefully extending his wings."
"Can he fly?" his daughter asked.
"No, the feathers are just for show. His wings are covered with the colors his tribe collected during their migration. Long white feathers from the ocean birds, blues and greens from the forest. As the tribe traveled, they also dug up pigments from the earth to paint their faces - orange from clay, red from roots, yellow from mustard seeds and black from ashes."
"In his face paints, Moki would mix the iridescence gold from the chrysalises in a tiny copper bowl. It created a metallic luster, like you see in the refraction of light on oil. So it's not really a pigment, but more of a structural iridescence."
She entranced him. Her sun soaked shoulders were covered with freckles. Her eyes reflected the shimmering gold of the chrysalises in her basket.
"The light played off Coda's back as she moved through the forest below, bouncing off the polished wooden beads of her necklace as she searched through the leaves. She moved near Moki now, giving him a knowing smile without looking up, as she new he was watching her from above."
A loud semi-truck rattled by, carrying heavy munitions and military hardware.
"Honey, the kids have fallen asleep, but I'm enjoying listening." his wife said while pulling the covers up and tucking them in. She'd had a long day too, organizing details for their upcoming sendoff.
"Only three days now." she continued.
"Feels like we need ten more to pull everything together." Michael replied.
As he spoke, the sound of a smaller truck rumbled in from the night, its light reflecting off the metal edge of the phone and into his eyes.
"Gotta go, they're here." Michael said as he stood up, shielding his eyes with his hand. The headlights illuminated the side of the war-torn gas station. The pickup truck made a wide arc and pulled up to the side as Michael stood up by the payphone. Soon he'd be heading across the border on a route that would hopefully lead them to one the world's foremost mathematicians, Oseph Eastay. A man who knew a great deal about routes and outcomes.
"Be careful over there." his wife said with tenderness and concern.
"Will do, I love you." Michael hung up the phone and pulled his backpack over a shoulder. The wheels of the truck on the gravel had quieted the insects. Shielding his eyes, he stared toward the light, then smiled as he saw Jill Avervance leaning out the window waving him over, looking totally unchanged from their college days.
Jill jumped from the truck and pulled down the seat so Michael could push in his bag.
Jill held the door for Michael as she introduced him to Hudson Greenich, a Russian-American woman whom Michael felt an immediate connection to. Hudson would be their driver, having lived in Lebanon half a dozen years, she knew the area well where they'd be tracking down Oseph.
Jill started to climb into the small back area behind the seat, but Michael waved her aside, and said "I'll take the back, I'm dog tired," then ducked in before Jill could say otherwise. It was a cozy spot and soon he felt himself drifting off.
The girls had experience with these roads, having delivered several dozen shipments of Starlink terminals to Kurdish smugglers heading for Iran.
As Hudson navigated the curving dirt roads, the truck climbed higher and higher into the hills. Jill and Hudson had become close friends during their years working together in the Middle East after college. Both had since moved back to the states, but they frequently returned to the Middle East for work assignments. Jill was a journalist and Hudson a biochemist who had applied her skills to a wide range of careers, including her most recent gig as an investigator for several airlines. She seemed to be always moving on to something new.
At the crest of the hill, Hudson pulled off to the side and the two women put on vails to make traveling through the border check point smoother. The view was astounding, reminding Michael of so many starry nights in the hills in South America. In an instance they had transformed themselves from westerns to cloaked locals. Jill said something softly in Arabic and the two laughed. The contrast of the vails and the rugged individuals tucked underneath made Michael smile.
Soon they were moving down from the hills and Michael found himself nodding off as they bumped along increasingly uneven road. He woke occasionally to hear the murmur of the women talking.
Hudson Greenich was a force of nature. She'd drive though the night without hesitation or a sign of exhaustion. Whatever it took, nothing would stand in her way. Not a border guard, nor the ancient verses of Sharia that once forbid women to drive.
Coda was a princess in name only, for without their homeland they had only the butterfly hills, a gathering place they shared with the bird tribe based on a truce that had spanned hundreds of years.
As Michael drifted off, the story of the forest again drifted through his mind. This time, Moki leaned over the water looking at his reflection. His legs, now useless, had confined him to the forests for much of his life. As a child, his tribe carried him on their annual migrations until he became too heavy around 7. Now he remained in the hills above the Jaguar tribe, learning their customs and eventually becoming one with them. He was their Bird Jaguar, flightless yet free as he scaled the trees and moved effortlessly between their branches, then down the vines to cover in holes in the ground he had dug to trap animals and occasionally intruders from the suouthern tribe.
A dozen years had passed since Moki had joined his adopted Jaguar tribe. During that time the Jaguar home land had been upended by the influx of an ocean-going tribe who had first arrived in boats with oars from the distant northwest, in the decades following the diamond storms.
Coda's people had eventually abandoned their villages closer the deltas of the river, and eventually took to the hills year round. Even in their hardship, they continued to gather annually with the traveling bird tribe to do a send off for their migration each spring.
As the first rays of dawn reached the clouds, Moki went down to the creek to apply the colors to his face for what would likely be the last time. Bending down, he studied his reflection in the stream that ran through the mossy roots. He applied the earthen red, orange and brown, and greys from the silty stream bed. Lastly, he added tiny flecks of gold, from the chrysalis, on his brow to complete his transformation to Bird Jaguar. To his right lied the boat he had been building from the bark of the fig tree. Around him were hidden another 30 boats built by his fellow Jaguar tribesman. The first rays of sun reflected off the highest trees above, soon to be his home no more, for now he was off to war.
To Coda's people, the rolling clouds above the monarch forest were cloaks of the mother godess, whose stars moved across the sky in a ritual of courtship with the dreaming land. There, as morning arrived, the storyteller and dreamer entwined and fell into the sea, to be born again in the morning light.
Michael could feel the vehicle's motion in his dream as the truck bumped along the road. Hudson navigated with expert skill as the steering wheel moved between her fingers. The checkpoint lights grew brighter on the horizon. Soon it would be Michael's turn to drive after they crossed the next border, but for now he drifted into memories of the past, only now the bumps were river rapids as boats plummeted down river rapids toward the sounds thundaring caves that plunged through the rocks as they moved toward the occupying tribe camped above the wide flood plains below.
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