On the day before the Fourth of July, Juniper finally cracked the password and hacked into the email account of Petrov’s mysterious benefactor. The domain name was registered with a business in Virginia called RPS Global Security. But Juniper had still been unable to log into the company’s network.
From what she uncovered so far, RPS was a large security firm with tentacles all over the world, in hotspots like Syria, China, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Russia, and the United States. They seemed to focus their efforts on internet security and supplying mercenaries and equipment for global conflicts.
What would a company like that be doing for a resort developer like Petrov?
Juniper’s tangled thoughts were interrupted by her father. He was in Southern California. He called to say he wouldn’t be home for at least five more days. Was she staying out of trouble? She assured him she was fine.
To loosen the tangle, Juniper went up on the roof of her pueblo to look at the stars.
She thought about her research into aging. The latest efforts to reverse the aging process, allowing humans to live forever, fascinated her. This wasn’t crackpot stuff anymore. Silicon Valley billionaires like Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, were pumping their green blood money into the new research.
Alphabet had just started a super-secret company called Calico with a billion-dollar-a-year budget, whose mission was immortality.
This was a battle that had long been waged. It began in the Renaissance by draining the blood of young people into the old; which was, perhaps, the inspiration for the original Dracula story about vampires.
But the search for immortality was now leading down new paths—enzymes, genetic coding, wonder drugs. The National Academy of Medicine’s Grand Challenge would award $25 million to the most promising techniques in the fight against aging.
Would people one day be able to live forever?
Juniper laid down on an ensolite ground pad atop the pueblo Under the skyful of stars, her thoughts turned to the Two Hearts and their quest to live forever.
The Hopi believed they were sad, very powerful people. Every culture—whites, blacks, yellows, and browns of every nation—had its own Two Hearts. Across cultures, they had their own organization and spoke a common secret language. They postponed their own death by taking the lives of their relatives. The local members of each Two Heart Society had a meeting place where they plotted their evil deeds. At special times, they all got together for a sort of super convention near the Sipapu on the Little Colorado River.
The Hopis of Oraibi lived in constant fear of the Two Hearts in their midst, and they never could be sure who was who. With every death, everybody in the family became a suspect. Caught up in the nightmare fairy tale, Juniper’s analytical mind went into fifth gear as she drifted into sleep …
Juniper’s Guardian Spirit came to her in the dream. From her talks with her mentor, the old Sun Chief Albert Tuvenga, she recognized him instantly. He wore white buckskin and carried a spear and a bell. Strands of colored beads hung around his neck and he was barefoot. She knew him as a member of the Kwan, or Warrior society, who guarded the Hopi villages against strangers and the Dead. He too, like her, was Antelope Clan.
“My daughter, I am here to teach you an important lesson. You shall travel to Skeleton House, the Home of the Dead, and learn the true value of your life.”
Juniper rose from her bed, propelled into the air like a cottonwood seed in the wind. She magically soared over Second Mesa, looking down on the orderly little fields and gardens shining in the moonlight. She flew over the Vermilion Cliffs and the moonscape expanse of Navajo land, dotted with the occasional hogan and small herds of sheep.
She landed on a dirt road sprinkled with blessed corn meal.
Her Guardian pointed to the west. “I am here to point you to your destiny. But you must travel alone from here. You will see two paths laid out before you. You must take the smooth, broad trail. The narrow one is crooked and full of rocks and thorns. It is a hard and dangerous route. And it is filled with evil Two Hearts walking the Path of Sorrow to their final punishment. They will ask you for food and water. You must ignore their calls for help.”
Juniper followed the clear trail sprinkled with cornmeal and pollen. Songbirds flitted from bush to flowering bush.
To her right, a narrow, twisting path wound perilously through the rocks. Strewn along the path were clothes discarded by the men and women who traveled that way. Naked, suffering people struggled along the trail. Thorns stuck into their bodies. Snakes lined the path, and a humming groan filled the air like a song of doom.
In the distance, near the edge of another small ridge of red rocks, she saw twelve black and white animals. They looked like zebras. But as she drew closer, she saw that they were Hopi Clowns whose upper bodies were painted with black and white stripes. They were playing together like happy children.
The leader of the Clowns spoke to her. “My niece, it is late and you must hurry. If you make it back from your vision quest, we will be here to guide you home.” And the Clowns returned to their play.
Juniper continued past abandoned pithouses until she came to a wide valley leading to the edge of a deep canyon. She peered into the depths of the canyon where a shiny psychedelic blue ribbon of water twisted like a snake. Juniper wasn’t sure how, but she knew this was the Little Colorado River. On the walls across the canyon were the stone houses of the Anasazi, smoke rising from their chimneys and people sitting atop the flat roofs. The past had come alive.
When she got to the canyon bottom, her Guardian was angrily waiting for her, ringing a copper bell adorned with blue feathers. “You have been frivolous and do not believe in Skeleton House, where the people go to die,” he told her as he pointed a bony finger. “You think that death is not final, that you can trick the gods. Come with me and I will teach you a lesson that you will never forget.”
As they walked a well-worn trail along the winding river, Juniper saw smoke rising into the sky. As they grew closer, she saw a crowd of people by a great fire coming forth from the ground. The people were silent, staring into the fiery glow intently.
On the very edge of the flaming pit stood four naked people, men and women. They were aligned in all the cardinal directions.
A massive Kwanitaka tended the fire crackling loudly inside a large pit.
“Look closely,” instructed Juniper’s Guardian. “Those are Two Hearts.”
Crowds of people had come to the House of the Dead to see the Two Hearts punished.
“Watch!” cried the fire master. Then he called out to the people around the fire pit, “Push them into the fire!”
Flames engulfed the bodies, sending putrid black smoke into the night sky like storm clouds.
Juniper’s Guardian led her to the edge of the monstrous fire pit. She gazed into the fiery bottom of the pit and saw four black-and-red conenose bugs crawling about in confusion.
“What do you see?” asked her Guardian.
“Conenose bugs,” replied Juniper. She had played with the colorful bugs as a child until she learned that they sucked the blood of animals, including humans.
“That is how it ends for the Two Hearts. They will stay there in the bottom of the fire pit as blood-sucking bugs, forced to consume one another. That is their curse.”
Juniper’s Guardian now led her back the way they had come.
The Little Colorado valley was covered in smoke. The Anasazi villages could no longer be seen.
In the new landscape, Juniper saw a manlike creature the size of a buffalo climbing up the face of the cliff. His bloodied head was adorned with three eagle feathers. His long sharp teeth clicked menacingly like a crackling fire and echoed off the canyon walls. Bright paint and geometric tattoos covered his body and thick black legs. His large feet were bare and the earth shook with each step. A spiked war club hung from a black leather belt of animal skulls and claws around his massive waist. It was Masaw, the God of Death.
Juniper knew he was coming for her.
“Flee for your life and don’t look back!” the Guardian yelled. “If Masaw catches you, he will make you his prisoner in the House of the Dead!”
Her Guardian gave her a farewell push with the end of his spear. Suddenly she was running inches above the ground, and she was moving faster than she had ever imagined possible.
As she raced with all her might, trying to save her life, she saw the Clowns ahead, all standing in a west-facing line with their arms about each other like a human bridge.
“Jump, Masaw is gaining!”
She jumped, landing on the leader’s chest, and knocking him down. The Clowns laughed. “You reached here just in time. Turn around and look.”
Looking to the west, Juniper saw Masaw stalking home to Skeleton House, looking back over his shoulder in anger.
“Now, my niece, I hope you have learned your lesson,” said the leader of the clowns. “Be wise and good. Treat everybody fairly. If you do, they will respect you and help you out of trouble. Your Guardian Spirit has punished you so that you may see and understand the value of following the Sun Way. Remember! People love you. Your life is precious. Do good to others.”
Juniper awoke atop the roof of her pueblo as the yellow morning sun rose slowly in the east and white puffy cumulus clouds drifted overhead like wooly sheep on the move.