Kundra always had trouble sleeping if there were other people there. She stayed awake a good part of the night, listening to their snoring, which was a bothersome sound, but smiled as she lay there. Eventually, she woke to the sound of hacking, and McGuff digging in his jeep for some out of date pop tarts. He ate them cold, and gave a few away. It was morning.
Kundra was getting hungry, as she hadn't loaded up on non dairy creamer and sugar like the guys, and didn't want to buy food in front of them. She wanted to eat her wheat-free bread with mayonnaise made with free range eggs, and organic vegetables as the sandwich stuffing. But she spent most of her money on gas and food, and didn't have extra enough to feed everyone when she knew they would rather be eating at a diner for breakfast. She retrieved some organic carrots and rice crackers from her car and asked if anyone wanted any. Mountain Man was happy to share them with her, and Bill tried a few crackers, looking puzzeled at the taste, chewing slowly.
"We ain't got enough teeth between us to eat them damned carrots!" said Crackers. He was probably right.
"Crackers want a cracker?" asked McGuff and flapped his arms. That made Crackers laugh and dance up and down.
They drove back into town, and dispersed, and Kundra spent most of the day doing non clan activities. Eating at the health food store, trying to meet people who shared her interests in art, experimental film, literature…. Asking about Dove, processing that she would probably not find him, and that her adventure was really something else, meditating. Going to the book store and speed reading books on shamanism, quantum physics, vibrational healing, and on the evils of the Illuminati.
In the book store, she met a woman who has a terrible rash. "I can probably help you with that," Kundra said. "I've been a healer since I was a kid."
"Really? I don't have much money, though. This rash is killing me. It won't go away, no matter what I put on it. I can't even sleep at night."
Kundra walked with her to her car after the woman made her purchase. They sat in the front seat, and Kundra held her hands on the woman's arms. She brought through the spirit of healing, pumping up herself with her breath, turning her eyes up while they were closed, making her see more gold light. She saw the layers of herself, her outer auras, and climbed up through them with her consciousness, and brought back the fiery feeling, remembered all the hundreds of people she had healed in her life, and squeezed the muscles of her upper back in determination. She sent the energy through her into the woman, pictured the healing taking place, squared her jaw, creased her forehead, pushed, pushed, pushed, and felt a wave move through there that finished and she opened her eyes, spent.
The woman opened her eyes too, when Kundra let go of her arms, and they both were excited to see that the rash was going away. Kundra closed her eyes and did some more, encouraged by the progress. And when she opened them, the rash was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief. She was dizzy but filled with a glorious sense of the world being a miraculous place. Such miraculous changes in people's health was commonplace for her to see, but she was always a little scared it wouldn't happen, and always excited when it did. The woman was just as excited. "It doesn't itch! It was all over my chest, and my back, and I can feel it gone." They looked to see, and it had indeed disappeared. "Can I get your phone number? I want to tell my sister about you. She's sick. Got a lump."
"I don't have a number. I can't afford to live in a house even if I wanted to. Being a healer and an artist doesn't bring in a lot of money."
"So, it won't come back?"
"I could tell that you have to give up wheat. You have to promise me that you'll stop eating wheat for awhile. The rash is there to tell you you're allergic to something. You have to listen to it, or it isn't good to fix it. I never fix things without making people promise to stop doing what caused it."
"I believe you." It was hard not to believe Kundra. She had to be one of the most startlingly sincere people around. " I work in a bakery, though. That's where I get a lot of my food. That might be kinda hard to stop. But I'll try."
She gave Kundra ten dollars, and the phone number, and drove off. Kundra didn't know if she could explain to the clansters what she did as she traveled around. She couldn't talk about it to many people. It was her little secret, something she was almost ashamed of because she was afraid people would make fun of it if they knew, or think she was new age hoity-toity, but when she got busy in a town she was staying in, the word spread. In one town, she could eat for free at the health food restaurant whenever she traveled through, and wanted to work on any of the workers. In another, she could get her food free for working on the workers there. She had made her living at it for years, but never charged, just accepted whatever donations people wanted to give her. Usually the wealthiest people who were saved from expensive operations gave the least. But no one questioned it when they saw the results, which were constantly effective. She barely got by.
By that evening, Kundra was back with the clan again. There was a new guy with the bunch, who wore a simple white robe that was unbleached. He was maybe late twenties, with longish dark blond hair. She felt she could talk to him, though he did seem a little odd around the edges. She told him and Mountain Man about the healing work she had done that day, and some of the others that she had done in the past. Her eyes were glistening as she talked about it, one of her favorite subjects, but one she was always careful to present in a humble way. She didn't want to look pompous about it, much less crazy.
The new guy, White Eagle Feather, who had a white eagle feather dangling down from his neck, kept agreeing with her. "That's blessed. That's beautiful. You can do it with love, can't you? Love is powerful."
Mountain Man was nodding his head and he put his arms around her. "You're the tits, girl. You're the tits. You know what the spirit can do. You'd be surprised at some of the things I've seen, too." She believed him and wanted to hear more of them.
It seemed that White Eagle had only been in town for a few days. The evening progressed with more stories by both men, stories of occurrences that were down to earth and supernatural. While the rougher men were engaged in their own stories, Kundra told more of hers, too:
"When I was living with the bears near Florence, I was really wrestling with my fears with those big bear tracks. I don't know how they got so big. Maybe it was cause the ground was wet and the grizzlies' paws slipped, making them look bigger. I don't even know if there are grizzlies there. I just know they were a lot bigger than the black bears I was hanging out with. I was doing a lot of shamanic work. I know a lot of the time they use herbs and mushrooms and things, but I wasn't doing that. I just used the air."
"I like the magic mushrooms," said Mountain Man.
"Yeah, it's a shame you didn't pick them. They probably grew there," added White Eagle.
"The old growth stumps were hollow and went way down into the earth. I used them like kivas." She looked up at them to see if they knew what those were. She was happy that neither one looked confused. "So I would project my soul into those kivas and go traveling along the ground. But after awhile, it got sort of scary. I felt like I needed some help. Needed to ask some advice. So I went to see a shaman. Looked her up in the Yellow Pages!" They all laughed. "I went to her, and she said another shaman woman had told her I was coming. And you know what the other shaman woman said?"
She looked into their eyes. They were both looking at her with appropriately wide open eyes. "She said, 'Right now, though, she's wrestling with the bears in the forest. She'll be in to see you in about a week!' Can you believe that? She saw into my life and knew I was going to go even before I had thought about it! Isn't that amazing?" She shook her head. The miraculousness of the world never ceased to get her going. The men shook their heads and laughed too, agreeing with her.
That night, White Eagle Feather slept with them on the hillside too. She liked having him there. It wasn't such a macho group altogether. She felt he was like her in a lot of ways. He seemed sacred, dedicated, with a solemn quietness to him. He ate her carrots with her and even the sprouts. He drank a lot of powdered greens mixed with water. He wore crystals and beaded necklaces, and claws, and bones. The others didn't seem quite so sure about him, and he did seem a little too conscious of himself. But that was OK.
He told her he liked her feather she had tied to her hair wrap. She liked the way it pointed towards the earth, and the lines of energy within it. She was excited to learn more from him. He had animal cards and gave Mountain Man a reading. Then asked for him to give him something for trade. Mountain gave him an arrowhead, and sinew, and White Eagle tied it into a necklace. He was clean which made him stand out. She liked his robe; it made her feel like they were a clan of saints in Santa Fe. Saints and lovable ragamuffins. Warmth spread from her heart over the whole sleeping mixture of folk on the ground. She dreamed they all flew together.
The next day, Kundra was able to work on the woman's sister, who had a tumor in her breast that was diagnosed as malignant. Kundra went to her house to do it and as they sat on the couch together, Kundra put her finger up to it and sent the healing. She did that for two hours, and by the time she was finished, the tumor was completely gone. The woman's little dog was sitting on a chair, and Kundra felt sorry for it, as it was deaf and blind. She sent it healing too, quietly, from the couch, without mentioning she was doing anything, and the dog suddenly started jumping up and staring at them and barking. Another good day's work for Kundra. Another 30 dollars.
She had first learned to do that at age 13, and had been doing it ever since, for 20 years, but her gift grew when she started living outside. She usually slept alone, and she had been worried that sleeping with the clan might dampen her gifts, change her vibration, but it hadn't. She was always relieved when it worked. She never knew if it would stop working. Or if she would mess up someone's karma. "Don't drink coffee," she told her. "Coffee is really implicated in causing breast cancer." The woman agreed, reluctantly.
That night with the clan was a rambunctious one. They had all their bags spread out and were about to go to bed when they heard screeching on the road. More than one car was driving fast and recklessly towards them. Crackers seemed to recognize the car sound, and started yelling to everyone what to do. They all got out their knives. Headlights came in crazy directions, waving around, and three cars pulled up, men getting out and running towards them. Crackers was trying to settle them down, get them to have a sense of humor, of reason. He got hit on the head with a big stick. The clan started rushing towards the others, and Kundra hid behind a tree. She was shaking and didn't know what to do. She didn't have a knife, and didn't know who was in the right, what it was about, and didn't want to hurt anyone. She wasn't sure she could be of much help. She could see White Eagle hiding in the bushes too. It all happened so fast, all the noise happening at once, and it was so dark, so really didn't know what was going on. She came up with one plan of attack after another, but none seemed quite right. It began to seem almost like they were relaxing, and Crackers was up and at 'em again. There was a lot of shouting, less physical contact. It even seemed like they were coming to some understanding. The men ran to their cars and drove off.
A rumble. A rumble, Kundra repeated to herself. She came out of hiding and went asking who was hurt. It seemed like they had gotten off with relatively few injuries. She held Mountain's hand while they talked until the pain went away. He had hit a couple people with it. She could never quite make out what it had been about. Apparently it was another clan that thought these guys had narced on them or something. When she asked about it, no one talked in actual sentences. They seemed pretty preoccupied, and not too concerned with answering her questions at the moment. They all stayed up late that night, watchful. They slept farther apart that night, to keep from bumping into each others' wounds. Something about the fear made White Eagle and Kundra draw closer though, and they whispered more about the spiritual world, and ghosts and goblins, until McGuff told them to knock it off.
The next day began with much groaning, stiff muscles, and less than perfect posture for the men of the clan. Mountain Man thanked her for keeping his hand from hurting. The swelling had not come back and the bruise that was starting had gone totally away. The guys ate pototo chips and out of date pastries for breakfast. "Hey, White Eagle. When are you going to bring the grub? You eat more than McPuff!"
Kundra was glad she hadn't taken them up on their offers of food. But probably, being a female, the rules would be different for her. She didn't really feel so much like a woman in the bunch, though, so much as just another person. She was glad it wasn't like the Doris clan. She didn't want to have that kind of power over them, to have that much undue attention because of her gender. She just wanted to be one of the guys. Though it was nice how chivalrously they treated her. And she liked looking at their faces, especially Mountain's and White Eagle Feather's. She liked the warmth she felt emanate from their bodies. The comradery. The silly flirtatiousness, even if it meant scars, tattoos, and knives. They all stuck together a little more that day, and ended up getting some beer to help with their pain. They all sat on the edge of the town on the benches that evening, and drank some. Most didn't drink a lot. Especially not Kundra and White Eagle Feather. But it was enough that they were putting their arms around each other and the guys were telling stories that got more exaggerated about the rumble, acting it out with shouts and making passersby skirt their part of the grass. Someone was playing drums nearby and Kundra danced. It was fun that Mountain was watching her so intently and smiling approvingly. She sort of wished White Eagle was too.
She asked the fella playing the drums if he had heard anything about Dove.
"Yeah. I heard he left Texas and went to Boulder. He was at some sort of concert there. He could be anywhere by now. He's a rambler." At last! No need to wait for him to show up, to try to find him. To worry about him. He had just been the carrot the universe had used to bring her to this place. She was always being tricked that way into her next locations. Dove might never know that Kundra had made that journey to find him and had lived with his clan. Maybe someday she would be able to tell him the story. It didn't seem to matter quite so much any more. She felt she had earned wearing his clothes. She wondered how he had earned wearing hers.
When they went to bed, the clan huddled closer, after the beer, and after being so far apart the night before. It seemed colder, too, and it was a good way to keep warm. Kundra was feeling a little lonely, knowing Dove not about to show up. She slept on the outside, like always, and White Eagle Feather was lying next to her. He only had blankets, too, so they shared. He curled up behind her, closer than anyone in the clan had before. She didn't mind. She was used to friendliness. In fact, it felt kind of nice.
She was almost asleep, when she felt him feeling her in ways beyond friendly. It was almost as if nothing were happening, neither one acknowledging it. But something was definitely happening. She was careful not to make any sound moving around, and wake the others. But she reached back to see if he was wearing a condom. She definitely was one to show lots of love, but at least she always used condoms. He was wearing one. And that was the only movement towards him she made. Except for moving with her hips, softly, quietly, as he moved towards her, and they made love while she meditated on light, and felt he was probably doing the same. She was looking forward to being able to show more affection for him the next day, when no one would be bothered by it. Well, maybe Mountain would, a little, but it would be ok. It felt good, and she was getting more wound up, but he finished pretty quickly, and turned over to go to sleep. She slept more soundly than she had for long time, dreaming of light and flight.
In the morning, she was shy around him, though ready for hugs and kisses, but he pretended nothing had happened at all. She kept waiting 'til they had more time alone, to talk about it, laugh about it, but it never happened. In fact, he seemed pretty preoccupied. He didn't like her looking at him. He seemed to indicate she was watching him too closely and should let up. So she did. She just ignored him. He was extra quiet, and focused that morning. She felt her emotions had been ripped off but tried to feel that it was ok. To not blame him for being so cold.
And then, he took off. "I'm hitching outta here," was all he said. He gathered up his enormous gear and set off down the road. "What's into him?" Mountain wondered. And then it became apparent. Crackers' knife with the mountain lion was missing. McGuff's money was missing. Mountain's tools were gone. Billy's zippo lighter was no more. Toadie's bag was ripped open, though nothing was missing. They all went into a mild frenzy tearing through their bags, looking for what White Eagle Feather had taken. Kundra was relieved he hadn't stolen from her, at least. Though he had stolen some of her faith and trust.
The guys were cursing and spitting and throwing things. "I knew he was no good. A white robe. I mean, come on!"
They even looked quickly through Jimmy's little bag to make sure, thinking he wasn't looking, and he started a fight with Billy over it. "What the hell are you always getting' onto me for? What did I ever do to you?"
Kundra was glad they didn't suspect her. "Want to see my bag?" she asked, and opened it out for them to see, some of the contents spilling out. A tongue cleaner. Natural toothpaste. Hair ties she would probably never find again.
"No, honey," said Crackers. He and Mountain were beaming at her the best they could, angry as they were, and she knew that no matter what happened, she would be safe with them, as much as they would be safe with her. "We know you better than that. You're one of the guys. We trust you. A hell of a lot more than we trusted that pantywaist. We're the Kundra clan."
Tantra, with an MFA in writing from Iowa, taught writing in Universities, wrote five small press books, and edited a magazine called The Mendicant. She has published widely and is the featured writer in Southern Hum Magazine. Her writing site is called Lucid Fiction. Her art and photography have been featured in numerous magazines such as Spartan Dog. Her art site is http://Lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com. Her solo show, Reality Burn!, is touring Spain. She is the art director of the multimedia magazine, Mad Hatters' Review.