TWICE IN A LIFETIME

by Carole Mortenson

cardi38morn@gmail.com

PART FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Shannon and Jo carefully made their way down the trail, watching for snakes and strange wildlife that might be around. Jo looked up for an instant, just as a wedge-tailed eagle spread its wings and flew off from the top of a tall gum tree.

"Look, Shannon ! Up there!" she exclaimed as she pointed. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Shannon looked up just in time to see the eagle gliding down the path they were on, a few feet above the ground. It looked like it was heading for The Fortress . She thought that was an omen. Kim had told her at the Denver Zoo as they watched the caged eagles that her totem was the eagle, although the bears were favorite animals of hers, also. Shannon didn't have the faintest idea what Kim was talking about, as she just stated it matter-of-factly and gave no further explanation.

After Shannon returned to the States after leaving Kim behind in Australia , she undertook a search to discover what having the eagle as a totem meant. She felt that must be important in Kim's life and perhaps might be the key to why Kim stayed in Australia . As a result of what she came across in that search, she began to understand Kim and her 'higher calling' a little better.

She learned that when one accepted the eagle as a totem, they accepted a powerful new dimension to their life and a heightened responsibility for their own spiritual growth. When Kim accepted the eagle as her totem, she must have known that she would be learning how to move between worlds, touching all of life with healing. She must have believed that was her destiny. The eagle was a symbol of great power. Shannon finally understood after she had completed that research that Kim would somehow become the bearer of a new and vital force in the world and be a powerful leader.

But when she and Kim parted in Melbourne , she didn't recognize that. All she felt was the anguish in her heart.

It wasn't until she received the Christmas card from Kim six months later that she realized her lover had finally and fully accepted her responsibility in the world, and had become a shaman. And the decisive change in her had taken place right here in The Grampians , though Shannon believed it had to have begun years before that, in an unknown past that she knew nothing about. She had not been allowed entrance into that past, and neither had she become a part of Kim's future.

Now when she saw the magnificent five-foot wingspan of that mighty eagle, she knew she was heading in the right direction. Kim was ahead of her up there somewhere—waiting for her. She was as sure of that now as she was of Jo being by her side. As she watched the eagle disappear from sight, she remembered how her broken heart had ached when she kissed Kim good-bye for the last time. The years since then had dulled the ache, but not the memory.

"God, it's hot out here," Jo said. "Can we take just a short break? Did you get a picture of that eagle? Wasn't that something?"

Jo's words jolted Shannon out of her reverie. She had been so engrossed in the sight of the beautiful eagle and remembering the past that she didn't even think to pull her camera up from around her neck and snap a picture! Taking photos was far from her mind. Of course, Jo could not have known about Kim's eagle totem, and Shannon didn't want to talk to her right now about that part of her past. She was having a hard enough time trying to figure out what was going on in herself concerning Kim. She now knew without a doubt she was looking for Kim. But why ?

They sat down on some rocks in the shade and took off their day-packs and reached for their water. Jo took off her hat and wiped her brow with the sleeve of her shirt.

"No, I didn't get a picture," Shannon said. "I wasn't quick enough."

She continued. "I think we've probably come about halfway down the trail, maybe a kilometer and a half, Jo. I'm not really sure, because with the unevenness of the terrain, my pedometer registers sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. But I'm sure the trail will run out soon, and then we'll have to start hacking."

"Hacking?" Jo asked, questioning.

"Uh-huh," Shannon responded.

So that's why Shannon brought machete knives! Jo thought. And I never knew Shannon brought a pedometer, either. Why didn't I think of that? I left mine back at the B&B . But I didn't know were going to be hiking, either, till we stopped at Ararat!

She realized there was a lot she didn't know. That's what happens when you don't ask questions.

"Come on," Shannon said. "We can't rest for long. When we get to the end of the trail, the heavy brush is going to slow us down considerably."

"I think we should eat first," Jo said. "It's so blasted hot that I'm running out of energy."

"We probably should. But we can't linger here very long. We won't get to The Fortress before dark if we don't hurry."

Shannon expects to get to The Fortress before dark? That's miles away! Jo thought.

Shannon went on, "I don't really want to be caught out here at night. You never know what we might run into."

"Like what?" Jo asked. "Kangaroos and koalas and red deer ? I'm sure they'll leave us alone."

But Shannon did not elaborate. She didn't want to frighten Jo. "I'm just generalizing, Jo," she said. And she wasn't sure what she was talking about, anyway, as she'd not had enough experience with Australia 's animals to know which ones might actually be dangerous or which were harmless.

They ate some trail mix and plastic containers of fruit, drank some more water, and then started hiking again. They had taken only a fifteen-minute break.

After an hour, they came to the end of the trail. A total dead end faced them, with nothing but dense forest and underbrush in front. A sign posted there said: NO ACCESS. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. They sat down again on a clump of rocks to catch their breath and stared at the sign. It was now one-thirty in the afternoon. Shannon figured an hour and a half to come three kilometers over ground that was far from level wasn't bad. She wasn't in as horrible a shape as she thought she was! And as she looked at Jo, she saw that Jo had had no problem at all—she was in excellent shape! Of course, she thought, remembering. It's because she's into yoga!

Shannon walked over to where the dense brush began, motioning for Jo to stay put for a minute. She wondered where to start hacking. The foliage was so dense she couldn't even see through it for more than a couple of feet. She reached out her hand and touched some of the brush and drew back when it pricked her fingers. Then she remembered what the tour guide had said when she and Kim had taken that 4WD tour. "The dense brush is filled with the horsehead tea tree, which is very prickly, and can easily tear your clothes if you try to walk through it.”

She took her day-pack off and then pulled her machete knife out and cut a wide swath with it. It barely made a dent in the underbrush. The tough horsehead tea tree stems were barely cut in half, and branches were left dangling. She took another wide swath and brought the half-cut branches down. She could see this was not going to be the easiest thing to do! She stood back and looked down at her knife, then back up at the underbrush.

Jo had been silently watching the futility of Shannon 's undertaking. God, how are we ever going to get through that? she thought. It will take us forever to get to The Fortress . No wonder they say it's inaccessible!

Shannon realized the hopelessness of hacking through the underbrush in trying to reach The Fortress. I hate to go back up to the road and try and look for another way to get there, but I don't know what else to do. Surely there has to be a better way. She knew she wouldn't get any help from the park rangers or anyone else, since The Fortress was off-limits.

She replaced the machete knife in her day-pack. Then she took off her camera, which—even though it was lightweight—had become cumbersome dangling from her neck. She put that in her pack, also, and then hoisted the pack up on her back again, ready to start back up the trail and find another way to get there.

"We need to find another route, Jo," she said, buckling her straps before she turned around.

Jo had silently come up behind her. She touched her on the shoulder and whispered her name, " Shannon ."

Shannon jumped. "God, Jo, you scared me," she said. "What is it?"

"Look over there to the right. I think there's some kind of animal in there. Look at the brush moving."

"How can there be an animal there? Nothing can get through this dense stuff," Shannon said annoyingly. But the underbrush was definitely moving.

They put their arms around each other's waists and stood there watching, afraid to move. Shannon remembered the tour guide years ago saying that he saw an iguana one time that was three meters long! She wasn't anxious to come face to face with a seven-foot lizard! And Jo was right. Red deer , kangaroos, and koalas wouldn't harm them. But she had heard stories about packs of Australia 's wild dogs, known as dingoes. And she'd seen movies of them—even individual dingoes—who would come in the night and snatch babies away. But it wasn't night yet. And there were no babies with them. She wondered what kind of animal was there, what kind of monster was going to come charging out of the brush and tear them apart.

There was absolutely nowhere to run!

Jo slowly slid her arm up Shannon 's back and opened her day-pack, keeping her eyes on the moving brush. She surreptitiously slipped her hand down inside the pack and found the handle of the machete knife.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

The underbrush Jo and Shannon had been keeping their eyes on moved again, but more vigorously, and it seemed it moved forward and then slid to the side, as if it were a well-camouflaged moving wall.

And indeed it was!

Four women stepped out from behind the 'wall.' They were bare-breasted, barefooted, well-tanned, and each sported a loin cloth which covered both the front and back of their bodies from waist to upper thighs. They wore feather headdresses, and their bodies were painted in different elaborate designs. Shannon remembered seeing native Aborigines in Halls Gap years ago at the Aboriginal Cultural Center that looked similar, but without the headdresses. They performed dances for tourists on weekends. But none of them had been women! These women were well-built and fairly young, she guessed, and a couple of them didn't look like they were Aborigines at all. They had blonde, straight hair.

Two of the women walked over to Shannon and Jo and took their hands and then started leading them toward the opening into the dense forest which had appeared when the wall of underbrush had been moved aside.

"Hold on just a minute," Jo said, yanking their hands from the grasp of the two women. "Who are you? And where do you think you're going with us?"

Shannon quietly told her to calm down. "I'm sure everything is all right," she said.

"But Shannon ," Jo insisted, "you don't even know who these women are. Maybe they're cannibals or something. Look at the way they're all painted up and stuff."

"Oh, come on, Jo," Shannon said. "You don't really believe that! Get real! There are no cannibals around here. And if they were going to eat us, they'd have already chopped off our heads. Look at them. They don't even have any weapons. I think we should go with them."

We should definitely go with them, she thought. I trust them.

Jo wasn't so sure and pulled back even further.

"It'll be all right, Jo," Shannon said again—persuasively this time. She reached out her hand to one of the women again, who took hold of it and interlaced her fingers.

" Shannon , you should know this is against my better judgment," Jo said. But she finally approached the other woman, who gently took hold of her hand.

They moved toward the opening in the underbrush. Shannon took hold of Jo's other hand and squeezed it tightly.

The other two women in the group hung back until Shannon and Jo and the others had gone through the opening. Then they proceeded to obliterate all of their footprints with large, green, broad-leafed ferns and closed the wall of brush behind them as they followed. From the hiking trail—to the untrained eye—the wall never existed, and all that would be seen if one looked in that direction was dense foliage.

They proceeded down a faint path. The two women who were holding hands with Jo and Shannon soon turned loose of them. Now and then the women removed brush out of the way, which had been cleverly placed over the path. After they passed, they arranged the brush back like it had been originally, thereby camouflaging the path again. When Shannon and Jo looked behind them, there was no sign they had ever been there. They saw nothing but dense underbrush and huge, arching trees forming an enclosed canopy over them.

Shannon and Jo were persuaded by the dense surroundings to follow the women. Where could they go, anyway? They could never find their way back out of this wilderness. And the women were not harming them. They didn't treat them as strangers, but as if they were part of their little group.

They moved quickly, and Jo and Shannon were able to keep up with the women with a minimum of effort. The path didn't seem to rise very much, and in some places it actually went downhill. There were no obstacles to hinder their progress.

After two hours of steady walking, they stopped. The brush had given way to a small grassy clearing approximately thirty feet in diameter at the foot of a cliff. The four bare-breasted women went over to a jumble of boulders on one side of the clearing. A rockslide had occurred which had torn rocks off the jagged cliff wall that jutted more than two hundred feet into the sky. A large rock protruded out from a crevice that had been formed by the boulders when they broke loose. A small stream of water was cascading over the rock, falling into a small pool before disappearing underground. The women cupped their hands underneath the small waterfall and began to drink. One of the women motioned to Shannon and Jo to come over.

"How about a nice cool drink of fresh water?" the woman asked. "It's a lot better than that bottled stuff you brought along."

Shannon and Jo both looked at her with surprise, as the woman had spoken in English with a heavy Australian accent! Those were the first words they had heard from any of the women. Without thinking about how the women knew they had bottled water, they gratefully took advantage of the clear, cool water coming from the crevice.

After they drank their fill, the women sat on the ground in a circle, and Shannon and Jo were invited to join them. They took off their day-packs and sat together with the other women on a patch of grass. They were separated by two of the women on each side of them. There were no words spoken after that, as what was occurring made speech unnecessary and would have been out of sync with the quietness surrounding them.

Shannon sat there thinking that the women were leading them to The Fortress.

But Jo was thinking about other things and was not focused on their destination. She looked around her at the women in the circle. They had all assumed the same position—their legs crossed, hands on their knees with palms up, eyes closed. A basic yoga pose. She looked across at Shannon, who was sitting opposite her and told her with hand gestures that they needed to sit in the same pose, with their eyes closed, too. She was reminded of a deep meditation ritual she had been privileged to take part in on a yoga retreat she had attended in New Mexico . The retreat was called Journey of the Feminine Spirit , and its aim was to connect with the feminine energy that was present all around them. After a week-long stay at the retreat, Jo felt refreshed, energized, and invigorated—knowing she had connected with others of like spirit.

As she sat there now with her thoughts retreating into stillness—in this pristine wilderness alongside these painted, almost-naked women—she began to feel the same kind of energy coursing through body, renewing her mind and returning to her some insights that she had lost somewhere along the way after she had begun teaching yoga. Insights that saw humanity evolving in a new direction, where energy was the bonding agent that caused them to come together as one entity, bringing peace. Not material things, not power over others, not traditional family-oriented ways of life, but pure energy . She came to the conclusion that these women were all right, because their circle of energy had included Shannon and herself. In her mind, anyone who could exchange energy like this was not a danger to them. It was an exhilarating and liberating moment for her, and she wondered if Shannon felt the same way.

The women started to get up, and Jo thought they must have been sitting there for a long time. But she looked at her watch and saw that only ten minutes had passed since she closed her eyes.

It was just after three-thirty when they started down the path again. One of the women hung back, erasing any signs of human life having been at the clearing and then quickly caught up and merged with the others into the dense surroundings.

In two more hours, they came to the base of an immense cliff. One of the women took some brush and tree branches and covered up the path's opening from which they had just emerged. Shannon and Jo knew they had reached The Fortress . It looked forbidding and ominous. Jagged peaks pressed high into the sky. Most of the cliffs of The Grampians were sandstone, beautifully colored. But The Fortress was slate gray—no other color at all. And they doubted it was really sandstone. They wondered how they were going to climb up those sheer cliffs. Did the women have a way to get to the top? Maybe stairs carved out of the rock? Or rope ladders that were hidden out of sight somewhere close by?

A wedge-tailed eagle suddenly flew over them with a loud screaming and vanished from sight as it soared almost straight up the cliff walls. Shannon thought it might be the same eagle they had seen when they first started walking down the path from the trailhead. It seemed like a very long time ago.

Two of the women turned to the right and began making their way parallel to the base of the cliff. Shannon and Jo followed, with the other two women close behind them. They left no footprints. They walked for another half hour over the hard, rock-strewn ground.

Suddenly, one of the women ahead of them turned left and seemed to disappear into the wall of rock. Shannon and Jo saw the other woman do the same thing. When they reached the spot where the two women had vanished, they discovered a slight opening just large enough to slip through. They gingerly stepped into the darkness. It was not dark for long, however, as the two women who had preceded them had torches in their hands. The other two also picked up torches to light their way. They walked with Jo and Shannon, holding the torches high, telling them to be careful where they placed their feet because of the uneven ground.

They felt the cool, dry air of the tunnel on their bodies and were immediately refreshed. The tunnel wound around a number of times as it went through the rocks. There were many places where it would split in two, and a side tunnel would take off in another direction. But the women knew where they were going, and after a half hour of traversing the darkness, a slight breeze began blowing in their faces as a pleasant fresh wind forced its way into the tunnel.

They emerged from the tunnel into a small area under a canopy of huge gum trees, and the four women put their torches out. Most of the underbrush had been cleared away, and there was a path leading down to where they heard voices—the voices of many women.

Shannon and Jo brought up the rear of the procession as curiosity engulfed them. They wondered what was ahead as the path widened. At least forty women came walking up the trail to greet them. All of them, of various heights and shapes, with hair colors ranging from light blonde to black, looked like the four whom they had accompanied through the dense forest to this place—bare-breasted, barefooted, wearing loin clothes, and with feather headdresses. They gathered around Jo and Shannon, just as curious as they were, and then started leading them back down the trail.

A woman at the far side of a large clearing, where the trail ended, was wearing a brilliant red cloak draped over her shoulders, distinguishing her from the other women. Her back was turned to Shannon and Jo. She lifted a ceremonial object high into the air—an elaborately decorated eagle carved from the wood of a red gum tree. Then she set the object down on a stand, also elaborately carved out of wood.

As she turned around to face the women, she looked directly at Shannon and Jo. She wore a large feathered headdress with an eagle emblem carved into it. Her hair was long and flowing underneath it—dark brown with streaks of gray. There was a jagged scar running from the outside of her left eye down her check to her chin. The other side of her face was painted all white. But her dark brown eyes were piercing beams of light and energy. Then she stretched out her arms toward them, allowing the cloak to fall behind her, revealing her muscular shoulders and tall, well-built body.

All of the women—Shannon and Jo included—became absolutely still, perhaps twenty-five feet away from the red-cloaked woman. They waited in anticipation for what would happen next.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Shannon started crying softly. She recognized the woman in front of her and ran down the trail into Kim's outstretched arms. Jo stood back quietly, watching the passionate moment unfold, wondering what kind of magnetic hold this woman had on the woman she loved—and who said loved her in return.

Shannon buried her face in Kim's breasts with tears running down her cheeks. Kim wrapped her arms around her and rocked her back and forth, putting her chin on top of Shannon 's head and saying, "I knew you would come. I knew you would come." The tears were streaming down Kim's cheeks, too.

Jo found herself suddenly being shuffled away to another area of the clearing and seated on a large log before a huge fire that had burned down to the coals. She was unhappy with her situation, because Shannon was not with her.

There were at least twenty women around her. Now and then the loin cloth of one of them would swing aside as they turned a certain direction, and Jo could see there was nothing on underneath! None of them had clothes on except for their loin cloth. Oh...my...God , she thought. What a fantasy. This could be lesbian heaven! Even though she didn't know if these women were straight or gay, she was pretty sure they were lesbians, as the way she was thinking right now didn't leave room for anything else.

They stood her up with her back to the fire and began stripping her of her clothes, including her boots and socks, until she was down to her panties. Then they fitted a loin cloth around her waist and started painting her body with white paint—mostly in stripes—then a few dots on her face. Each time their hands passed over a sensitive part of her anatomy, she was caressed—whether it was her neck, her breasts, under her arms, her waist, or down inside and outside of her thighs. By the time they finished painting her, Jo was thoroughly aroused by their touching and completely wet between her legs. She felt like she had been part of an amazing initiation ceremony, and wondered why she would be singled out like this. What did these women know about her that she didn't know? She had immersed herself into the depths of yoga teachings in the past and was aware of different kinds of initiations down through the centuries. But this was a totally new experience for her, to be actually taking part in a ceremony like this. Maybe they sensed that she was a familiar spirit because of her yogic background, and they wanted to acknowledge that.

They sat her down on the log again facing the fire and began handing her food to eat on slabs of wood. They pulled the food out of the hot coals where it had been wrapped in broad, thick, green leaves, buried and cooked there. The smells of cobs of corn done to a delicious crispness, meat still sizzling with bubbling juices, and some kind of elongated tuber—akin to sweet potatoes—came tantalizingly to Jo's nostrils as she began to eat. She realized she was hungry, having had nothing but a bit of trail mix and a fruit cup a few hours previously. It couldn't compare with the feast that was filling her hands and mouth at the present moment!

Shannon and Kim walked up behind her. Kim's arm was still around Shannon .

"Do you like the 'roo meat?" Kim asked.

"This is kangaroo meat I'm eating?" Jo said, looking up in surprise.

"Yes. One of the best meals around. The country is overpopulated with them, and a few 'roos here and there won't be missed. They're supposed to be protected in the park, but they're overpopulated here, too. It doesn't bother us to kill a few. We don't use firearms, so no one knows they're being hunted. And we never cook over an open fire, so no one can smell the meat. We try not to waste any part of the 'roos, but what we don't think we can utilize somehow, we bury deep in the forest."

"It's delicious!" Jo said with enthusiasm. "Where did you get the corn?"

"Rita and I brought it up yesterday from Daylesford," Kim answered.

Who's Rita ? Jo thought.

"Jo," Shannon began, "this is Kim, the woman I told you about."

"I kind of thought it was," Jo answered, her mouth around a hunk of meat.

"She wants to talk to both of us about something."

"All right. Can I finish eating first?" She wasn't going to be intimidated by the woman who had her arm around her woman—even if she was the head honcho around here.

Shannon looked up at Kim, who said, "Sure," with a smile. She had washed the white paint off the side of her face. "In fact, we'll join you. I'm sure Shannon is hungry, too. And I've just finished an initiation ceremony and haven't eaten in twenty-four hours."

They both sat down on the log, Shannon sitting between Kim and Jo. The women brought them food, also, before they started serving themselves. Soon everyone was eating. It was slightly after seven o'clock Jo saw as she leaned over to look at Shannon 's watch. The women had even taken Jo's watch off!

The forest began to darken as dusk graduated slowly into night. The sun sank deeper in the sky, letting coolness settle onto the gathering place. It felt good to Jo, however, as she had all of her clothes off except her panties. A loin cloth wasn't much covering, and sitting by the fireside in the summertime was a little too hot on her bare skin.

Jo finished her meal and drank some water brought to her by one of the most beautiful women she thought she had ever seen! I'm in love with Shannon , and I shouldn't even be thinking what I'm thinking, she observed, looking at the woman as she walked away. But I'm only human! If I could just get Shannon away from Kim for a while. Here she is sitting next to me pressing up against my leg, and I'm going crazy!

On impulse, she slipped her arm around Shannon, who leaned into her shoulder. Jo gathered her in a little closer, welcoming the intimacy, and kissed her gently on her forehead.

Suddenly Shannon jerked back and sat up straight as a ramrod between Kim and Jo, in a neutral position, leaning to neither side. The expression on her face was one of bewilderment. Jo looked at her with her surprise, wondering what she had done that would cause Shannon to pull away like that.

Kim did not notice what had happened, however, as she was engaged in earnest talk with a woman who had appeared and was now sitting beside her. Two additional women were standing in front of Kim and the other woman.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Kim listened closely to the words spoken by the woman sitting next to her. She asked some questions. Then she stood up and walked to the center of the gathering where the women could see her from all directions while they were eating. She raised her arms. Everyone knew that was a sign that their leader was about to speak, and with her bright red cloak fluttering in the breeze she got their attention immediately.

"I know we weren't going to disassemble until tomorrow," she said loudly, so all could hear. "But there's been a change of plans. We need to leave this place immediately. Our sentries here," she pointed to the two women who had accompanied her, "have spotted some men approaching from the south, still almost two hours away, but definitely headed in this direction. They may stop and camp for the night. They're probably poachers, looking for red deer .

"But if they manage to reach this place before stopping—which they might do since the forest is not nearly as dense as it is south of here—our security will have been breached. And you know that anyone carrying firearms—like these men are—is likely to shoot at anything moving."

There was a pause, and the woman started murmuring among themselves.

"We need to gather our things as quickly as possible and erase any sign that we have been here. We'll follow our trail back to the north and come out at the last trailhead and go back to our homes from there," Kim instructed.

"It will be night as we're traveling, so keep hold of the hand in front of you, single file. There is only light by the stars tonight, and we don't want anyone to get lost or left behind. Silence will prevail at all times, even if you stub your toe!"

"So let's get moving!" she added as a final word, and then went back to stand beside Shannon and Jo.

Shannon spoke up. "I have a flashlight, if you need to use it."

"Thank you," Kim said. "We'll probably put it to good use tonight." She smiled broadly at Shannon, who smiled in return.

The band of women had been preparing themselves for forty-eight hours for the momentous ceremony that had just occurred today. One woman after another—usually by twos or threes—had filtered into the gathering place during the previous two days, and had set up their tents for the nights they would be there. Their packs and other things had been stowed in the tents or off to the side of the clearing, so that everything would be out of the way while the initiation ceremony was taking place. They had brought everything with them that they would need—down to the paint, headdresses, and food.

Neither Shannon nor Jo had ever seen an organized group of women move as quickly as these women did after Kim's announcement. Each woman knew exactly what she was supposed to do in case an event like this occurred. Everything had been packed in, so everything had to be packed out—including the trash.

Jo found her clothes and got dressed without washing the paint off. She made the one exception, however, as did the other women, of washing her face and hands. Every other part of her body was covered by clothing. And she noted that everyone wore dark clothing, as she and Shannon did—jeans and long-sleeved, dark plaid shirts, or black pants and shirts.

Kim had her own hefty backpack, as she had all of her ceremonial objects in there, too. She asked for Shannon's and Jo's machete knives, saying the women needed them more than they did. Shannon wondered how Kim knew they had knives like that, but didn't question her and handed them over without a word. Kim buried them deep in her own pack.

Kim's friend, who had sat next to Kim by the fire, introduced herself as Rita to Shannon and Jo as she packed up to leave. As small as she was, she carried over a third of her weight in her backpack. Shannon and Jo felt ridiculously inadequate now, as they had only their small day-packs, and asked Rita if they could carry something. Rita handed them as much as they could carry to help relieve some of the others from having to carry so much. Lighter packs meant they could move faster. The food would have been eaten the next day if they had stayed at the gathering place.

Shannon slung her camera back around her neck, but taking photos was completely forgotten.

The large campfire was doused thoroughly and dirt thrown over the ashes, the logs were moved around, brush was picked up and scattered about, footprints were wiped away, and everything was put in disarray. And if there was one little thing anyone saw that might draw attention, it was attended to quickly and thoroughly. Kim oversaw every move, now and then saying, "Hurry. Hurry.” Time was of the essence.

In just under an hour, the forty plus women were pouring into the tunnel inside The Fortress . Rita and another woman were the last ones to enter. They efficiently closed up the opening with a makeshift wall of brush that served as camouflage.

Kim led the way, torch held high, holding on to Shannon's hand, who was holding on to Jo's hand, who was holding the hand of woman behind her, and so on down the line to the very end. Shannon felt very safe, with Kim's strong hand in front and Jo's strong hand in back. Kim had been through this tunnel many times and knew every twist and turn by heart—how many paces they had to go down a certain side tunnel and then when to turn onto the next side tunnel.

They emerged from the tunnel in the near-dark and began walking along the base of The Fortress . Kim passed the torch down the line until it reached the last woman—Rita—who snuffed it out and left it in the tunnel as she closed up the opening with brush. The women then walked along the base of the cliff until they reached the opening where the path started into the dense forest.

Kim called two of the strongest women forward, who took the lead—carrying Shannon 's flashlight. They made their way down the almost invisible path, moving camouflaged brush out of the way as they came to it. The whole procedure went like clockwork. They made quick progress.

They came to the clearing where the small waterfall was, and Kim called a halt to wait for everyone to catch up and form a cluster. They took turns drinking from the fresh water and then started walking again. For the next two hours, they moved as silently as possible until they finally emerged at the point where the trail had ended.

Kim, Shannon, and Jo stood by the opening onto the hiking trail until all the women made it through. Then Kim helped Rita—who had been bringing up the rear—close up the barrier. They could make out moving shapes up ahead in the dark, as the women walked back up to the road three kilometers away, using starlight as a guide. Shannon 's flashlight was now a dim glow after being on for several hours. Shannon rummaged around in her pack and found the extra batteries she'd brought.

"What's going to happen to those women?" Shannon asked Kim, changing the batteries.

"Some of them will find campgrounds to stay in the rest of the night, others will walk down toward Halls Gap and stay the night there," Kim said. "We're only a few kilometers from town. They'll all eventually find their way back to their homes, in a completely unobtrusive manner. I'll go to the Cultural Center and spend the night, and Rita will pick me up there tomorrow. We're all used to this. No one will suspect a thing."

"What about us?" Shannon said, looking at Jo.

"I want you two to stay with Rita for tonight. It's after midnight. There's a small campground near the trailhead entrance, and Rita will set up her tent by the light of your flashlight. I won't need these two blankets," Kim said, peeling the blankets off of her backpack and handing them to Shannon . "Spend the night there, because you need the sleep. You've both done a lot of walking today. And tomorrow you can hitch a ride down to Halls Gap with someone. Or, it isn't such a bad hike in daylight. It's all downhill."

Shannon didn't want to leave Kim and go with Rita, but Kim insisted she had to. "Tomorrow when you leave Halls Gap," she said, "head back to where you're staying in Clunes. I'm sure they'll be glad to see you. But as soon as you can, come with Jo to Daylesford. I'll be at The Lakes B&B , right next to The Ice Cream Parlor. You remember that place, don't you, Shannon ? That's where I call 'home.' That is, Rita owns the place now. I just stay there when I can. We can talk there. There are some things you need to know."

To be continued...

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