In short, he was no longer the twenty-seven-year-old man he had been then. He was more than happy to take a day of rest before launching into a new project that would no doubt involve hauling more rocks.
The next day, they set out for Prata-ah, a trip they would make many times over the next thirty days. As before, Sanda-eh and Monda-ak walked in the lead, and Alex and Lanta-eh brought up the rear.
Once they reached the peak, Alex pointed to the massive pile of rocks and said, “What now?”
“First, we need to clear a flat area,” Lanta-eh answered. “Come, Sanda-eh. Pull these weeds and small saplings with me. We can stack them over there.”
After a few hours of labor, they had an area three strides by three strides cleared of all vegetation and leveled off.
“I was so happy to see you build the rock fence that you did at the river,” Lanta-eh said. “Can you build me something like it here?”
“Of course. What do you want?”
“I want to build four walls inside the area we just cleared. But, leave a doorway for me to get in and out.”
Alex scratched the back of his head and looked perplexed. “I’ll do it for you no matter what, but I can’t see a single reason why we are doing all this. Do you want to tell me?”
Lanta-eh considered this, then said, “I will try.” She sat cross-legged on the grass and gestured for Alex to do the same. Monda-ak trotted down the hill in pursuit of some small game and Sanda-eh trotted after him, but Alex called her back. With a “Humph,” she sat down next to her father.
“I have told you that I am in communication with the monks, haven’t I?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand it.”
“Not understanding is different from not believing, but I suspect both are true.”
“You told me once to continue being a non-believer. I have done so.”
“I don’t know how to explain it except to say that I close my eyes and find a place in my mind where everything is quiet. Sometimes when I do that, one or more of the monks is in that same place in his mind and we can see each other. That’s when we communicate.”
“You say communicate, not speak.”
“We speak without making a sound.”
“Let’s say I believe that...”
“...even if you don’t,” Lanta-eh said, smiling. “Luckily, these things don’t require belief from anyone but me and whoever I am speaking to.”
“So why do we need the rocks built into a room?”
“The monks are far away, but I can still reach them. Now I need to communicate with someone who is much farther away.”
“How do the rocks help with that?”
“The monks knew about this kind of rocks. Do you remember how Senta-eh would make the call of her family?”
Alex smiled at the memory. He could picture Senta-eh throwing her head back, cupping her hands around her mouth, and the strange yodeling call that she made.
“Of course. It was a little eerie the way that sound carried.”
“Right. Exactly that. In order to do it, though, she had to tilt her head to open her throat and use her hands to direct the sound. This room that we will build will do the same thing for me. It will make my voice louder to help me reach the one I need to communicate with.”
“Can I ask you what you need to communicate to them?”
“I need to tell them what is happening here, so they can fix it for us. This is what I have known since I can first remember. This is what I was chosen for.”
“To talk to this person? It is a person, right?”
“Yes. It is a person. What else could it be?”
Alex shook his head. “Sorry, my imagination ran away with me for a minute. Let’s just get to work.”
Alex found a stick the length of his arm and whittled it to a sharp point on one end, then drew a rough outline of the walls and door. He turned and looked at the jumbled pile of rocks the tribe had carried up the day before. Everyone had been so happy to get to the top with their load that they had dropped them haphazardly here and there.
“First, we need to separate the rocks into usable piles. Sanda-eh, you find all the smallest rocks and put them over there. Lanta-eh, you take the middle-sized rocks and pile them over here. Meanwhile, I’ll look for the biggest rocks and we’ll use that for the foundation of the walls.
They each set to their tasks, with Sanda-eh sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she searched for the smaller stones. When the rocks were separated, Alex had placed the biggest, flattest rocks where he had sketched each wall should be.
He put his hands to his lower back and stretched.
Lanta-eh knelt beside the lowest level of the wall and laid her hand flat on the stones. She smiled up at Alex. “This is exactly what I need. I can feel it already.”
By the end of that first day, they had built the walls to calf-height. Alex was surprised to find that Sanda-eh not only helped, but that she had an excellent eye for where each stone fit the best. She was limited by her height and strength, but not by her natural ability.
Every day, I see more of her mother in her. And that’s a wonderful thing.
It took them three more days to build the walls to Alex’s exacting standards.
The finished walls came to just below Alex’s shoulder.
“What do you think?” he asked Lanta-eh after placing the last stone. “Enough?”
“I think it was enough when the rocks were spread all over. But I
