Nightrise

Washoes — and about the other Native Americans."
    "I don't know very much," Jamie admitted. "We talked about Indians at school. About what happened to them."
    "Then you must begin by understanding that my people were destroyed," Joe said. He spoke the words as a matter of fact and without rancor. "The Washoe were a mountain tribe and we learned how to hide.
    But even so, there are only a few hundred of us left today, and we have almost nothing. Of course we were not alone. All the native people in America suffered the same way. The white people took our past from us and we grew up with little hope of a future. Many of our parents turned to alcohol to try to forget what had been done to us. Many of our young people have turned to drugs for the same reason.
    "But there are some of us who walk two worlds. We work in modern America — in the hotels or casinos or, like me, in the prisons. But we have not forgotten our history. And we still tell the story of a great battle that took place at the beginning of time and of two heroes — twins — who helped to win it."
    "Flint and Sapling."
    "Those are not the names we use. Those names are Iroquois, I think. But it doesn't matter. There was a time when all the tribes were one tribe. And anyway, the stories have never been written down. They change with the passing of time.
    "But even today we still tell stories of twin heroes. The Apache, the Kiowa, the Navajo, and many others. The twins are always boys of your age. In many of the stories, Flint is evil. He causes the death of his brother, Sapling."

    "He wasn't evil," Jamie said. "Sapling wanted to die."
    "We were always told that the twin heroes would return at a time of great need and that we should watch out for them. There was one way we would be able to recognize them." Joe reached out and touched his own shoulder. "They would carry a mark. Here…"
    "A tattoo…"
    ''You call it that, but it was not something injected into you. I saw that at once. It is something you were born with."
    "What does it mean?"
    "Indian symbols have many meanings. But the spiral is a symbol of human life. Every human being has a spiral on his or her body — look at your fingerprints or the hair on the crown of your head — and to us, these parts have always been sacred. A spiral is circular and never ends, so it can also mean immortality. As for the line, dividing it in two, that could signify many things. Night and day. Good and evil…"
    "Twins."
    'Yes. I saw the mark when you were in the shower and guessed at once who you must be. But you confused me. You lied to me. You said you had no brother."
    "I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell anyone."
    Joe nodded. "If I had known, I might have acted sooner. Even so, I made contact with my friends. That was not easy. I had to contact them by satellite phone, and all the calls at Silent Creek were monitored.
    But I made them understand and they agreed to gather. Then Max Koring found out who you were. He told me your real name and said that you had a twin. That was when I knew you were in great danger."
    "So you raided the prison."
    'Yes."
    "Where are your friends now? I never even got a chance to thank them."
    "They don't need your thanks. They were honored to be able to help you. Most of them have now returned to their homes. A couple of them were wounded. None of them were killed."
    There was a movement and Daniel appeared, crawling bleary-eyed out of the tepee. He had nodded off during the afternoon but now he blinked and smiled, pleased to see Jamie. 'You're alive!" he said.
    "Danny…I need to talk to you." Jamie struggled to raise himself up. It hurt his back but eventually he managed to position himself, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire. Both of them were still wearing their prison pants but someone had supplied them with new T-shirts. Danny's shirt was advertising motor oil.
    "I thought they'd killed you," Danny said. "This old woman came…and I mean, she was really old. She spent ages looking after you. They wouldn't let me watch. I don't know what she did, but this morning she packed up her horse and left. I figured you were dead." He shrugged. "I'm glad you're not."
    Joe got to his feet. "I'll leave you two together," he said. "I must prepare the meal." He disappeared behind the tepee.
    Jamie looked around him. They were in a sort of cleft in the mountains, surrounded on all sides. Unless a helicopter flew directly overhead, there was no chance of their being seen — and