|
We Are Still Here BOOK FIVE of Indian Chronicals by Rick Beck Chapter Eight "Spirits" Back to Chapter Seven "Turn of the Waterfall" On to Chapter Nine "The Turning" Complete Chapter Listing We Are Still Here Main Page ![]() Click on the pic for a larger view Teen & Young Adult Native American Action/Adventure
Proudly presented by You can translate this page. Choose your language. |
I was back with Running Horse, but it was more like he was with me. Paradise Valley was my valley, and having Running Horse's clan there was fine. I loved this valley while living here on my last survey.
I had begun to think I didn't know the valley at all. There was far more to it than I knew. Once again, my lack of curiosity meant I didn't much care about steam vents or channels to drain off excess water. I went into the caves to collect ore to see if there was gold in Paradise Valley. When I took that ore to town, and was ambushed by two polecats, Big Joe entered the picture, saved both Samuel and me, and he became the one who discovered the true nature of Paradise Valley that was below the surface.
I brought my people to Paradise Valley, because it was a nice place to live. If someone said we would live in or near the caves, I would have laughed. Paradise Valley was beautiful. Caves were gloomy dark places that might or might not lead somewhere. Caves lead nowhere I wanted to go, or so I thought at the time.
I liked daylight. I liked sun shining on me on a pleasant spring day. I liked walking to the waterfall, and I liked seeing Running Horse working on the firepit before the evening meal. I liked the fact that we settled into a life that pleased us, and I liked having my people in Paradise Valley. Even when there were things I couldn't even guess about before the ground shook under us.
The earthquake was over.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"The spirits?" I asked, since they had been on my mind.
"They remain silent. I wait for them to speak. Nothing since coming here. If you are right, and the storm and the earthquake were sent by the spirits to protect us from destruction, I have no way of knowing until they speak to me, Tall Willow."
"You think it is the valley?"
"There is a force here I do not know. It could allow the spirits to speak but doesn't. I keep trying, because our ancestors have always managed to reach me before. A chief goes blind without the spirits to advise him. In our dash from the village by the lake, we outran them. I have hopes they will find us."
I watched him sit in the corner of our lodge waiting for some contact. As far as I could tell, there had been none. We escaped into the valley, but the spirits hadn't made it this far. I was worried for Running Horse. I could see the worry on his face. For him to be a good chief, he needed the advice of our ancestors. He depended on it, and not having it meant he was blind to the things that stood ahead of us. He didn't like it. I didn't like it much either, when I saw what this did to him.
"You haven't sat and tried to get in touch with them?" I asked him, knowing he got up late at night and sat alone in the corner of our lodge. He did it late at night, because I sleep soundly. He doesn't want to bother me with the problems of being chief, but his inability to make contact with the spirits bothered me more.
"They let me know when it is time to talk. They have up until now. Chief Lone Wolf told me what to look for, and I would know when to sit and wait for them to speak. Most of my contact is about waiting and keeping my mind clear of thoughts. I can't have a lot of clutter in my head when we talk. I sit here hoping they'll speak, but I know how it works, and it isn't working. I need to give it time, but we don't have a lot of time."
This gave me chills. How did he know about the time we had left us? What did he know he hadn't told me?
"I thought you sat and called the spirits to advise you? When you had a need to know?"
"If that were the case, I would have called them a long time ago. How long have we been in Paradise Valley? The spirits have not spoken to me since we came here. I have no idea why or what is wrong. Did I offend them because we couldn't take our ancestors with us? We were running for our lives. We had no time for that."
"Would they have told you about the storm, the earthquake?" I asked.
This was where I was going all along, but Running Horse could get testy when I pried about the province of chiefs. It was the only time he showed any reluctance to my inquiries. I thought maybe he couldn't explain his visits to the spirit world. That's why he didn't explain it to me. He couldn't explain it. It simply was what it was. It's something that gave me trouble, things that were the way they were when I wanted it to be different gave me trouble.
"They could. Their advice told me what direction to go in and what to wait for. There are signs when things unexpected are happening. They tell me what to look for. While we were running to get here, they were silent. I didn't expect silence to greet me here. We aren't in a good situation. It isn't going to get any better. I need their advice more than I ever did before."
"Why are they silent? If we hadn't left the village by the lake when we did, we would be dead now. If we hadn't had Joe and Riggs to decoy the cavalry away from us, we would be dead now. If spirits have the wisdom of the ages, and they dispense it when it is needed, they certainly couldn't be offended by us being alive."
In my mortal frame of mind, that seemed logical to me. Not knowing anything about spirits, was it logical?
"Has to do with this valley. For some reason they do not speak to me. It's never happened before. Even when I lived in Chief Lone Wolf's lodge, I heard the spirits speaking. They aren't bashful. At least they weren't bashful about me hearing what they told Lone Wolf. It was part of learning to be a chief. He let them speak out loud when the spirits came to him. Lone Wolf could see what was coming. He kept us safe by knowing."
"You don't know what will happen?" I asked, feeling dazed when I asked this question.
"I see nothing more than you see, and you can make more sense of what the white people will do than I can. Maybe in this valley, you should be chief."
"Not on your life," I said. "I have trouble being me, and that keeps changing. You are a great chief, Running Horse. We are all still alive when Indians are dying all over the plains. You have a gift for knowing what to do."
I had no desire to be responsible for Running Horse's clan. A chief needed to know much more than I knew, and I would take Running Horse with the spirit world not speaking, rather than try to lead people with my limited thinking. I doubt he was serious, but the idea was unnerving. We were in trouble, and I knew it.
"Do you know how much I love you. Even all those years you were gone from me, I felt your presence. You were always here, even when you were gone," he told me.
This was a strange place for him to speak of our love. I felt it even when we were separated. There wasn't a day I did not feel him with me. I could not see him, and I hadn't touched him in years, but I felt him with me.
"It's always good to hear how it was for you, Running Horse. I thought no less about you. I think I felt your presence in the world, but there was a lot of disorder where I roamed. It was my love for you that allowed me to survive the chaos. I always intended to come home, but the trails I went down took me far away."
I had said it before, and I would say it again, but it is what kept me alive at times when I could have died.
I knew about love because I knew Running Horse. That's all I needed to know when it came to love. We were together again, and we made the most of it. Time would not pass us by, and we never passed on an opportunity to be together in the buffalo robes that were as amazing a place as ever I found.
Love itself is mysterious. I know how it shows itself when my heart aches. At those times I know who I love, and why I love him. I never knew anyone else in love, except for Maw and Paw, but they did not show me their love. If I didn't know better, I would think they were exactly what everyone thought they were. Maw owned the Kelly farm. Paw was her hand. That's the prophets doing. It's hard to undo a prophet's doing.
I remembered when I was on the way back from St Louis with Samuel and Barnaby. They took an instant dislike to each other, and overnight it changed. As we made our way back to Paradise Valley, I watched them making love every time we got off our horses, and once while they were riding along behind me. I looked back to find them giving each other a hand.
Their physical contact reminded me of when Running Horse and I were still boys, and once we found love, we couldn't keep our hands off each other. A few times there were witnesses, but usually we managed to get out of sight before we got going good. Samuel and Barnaby had an appetite for each other.
One early morning before Samuel got up, Barnaby came to the fire I built to warm meat for us before getting underway. He sat explaining how it was in the freight yards, with dozens of boys living on the edge of the city. I say on the edge, because they were disconnected from people who had regular lives. The boys in the freight yard had their lives. Young boys did what the older boys wanted them to do, and for that they got protected and fed. Younger boys might have more than one older boy looking out for him, and once a younger boy became bigger, it was time to take care of younger boys.
Barnaby told me that he was anxious to grow up so he was one of the older boys receiving what younger boys gave him. It wasn't complicated. It made sense, but had they been caught at it, they would all have been put in jail, because sex is one thing you don't let anyone know anything about, and yet Samuel and Barnaby were as happy about finding each other as could be, because it took care of a need they both had.
I couldn't say if Samuel and Barnaby loved each other, or if they liked each other enough to keep getting naked together. I knew Samuel's story for the most part, and I knew about how boys did it in the freight yards of New York City. I'm sure Barnaby was the older boy, but not by much.
"Boys have needs," Barnaby told me. "Left on our own, we manage to work it out together. I don't know if I fell in love with any of the boys I dallied with, but I powerfully missed them once I had a job and a place to lay my head. I started going back to the freight yards to get the thing I missed most about living there."
Samuel and Barnaby hated each other from the start. I needed to separate them more than once to keep them from starting a riot trying to get at each other. I got them a separate room in the Missouri House to let them fight it out. I would pay for the damages before leaving town.
Once Barnaby got a look at Samuel's back, his compassion for younger boys kicked in. When I opened the door in the morning, I expected the room to be a shambles, instead, I found Samuel sleeping in Barnaby's arms. I slowly closed the door without waking them.
I learned something about human nature that morning. I didn't know for certain it was getting a look at Sammy Boy's back that changed Barnaby's mind, but Monday at the coroner's inquest, when the inquest took a bad turn for Samuel, the judge would have charged him with murder for killing Nester in a gunfight, until Barnaby said, "Take off your shirt. Show him what he did to you."
As I say, human nature is beyond my ability to understand it. It was a total accident that Samuel and Nester crossed paths, when we went to St Louis to collect Barnaby. I let Samuel wear his Colt .45 gunfighter's rig because it seemed to make him feel safer, especially in Missouri when Nester claimed he owned Samuel.
When the judge found out that I bought him the Colt, he was ready to put me in jail, but it turned out okay.
They did cross paths, and according to witnesses, Nester went for his gun first, and Samuel went for his. Nester ended up dead in the street. I wanted to kill him the day we found Samuel, but town folks stopped me. They were allowing Nester to beat Samuel with a bullwhip in the street, but they wouldn't let me kill the mangy dog beating him. If I had of killed him, Samuel wouldn't have faced charges for killing him, but once the judge saw Samuel's back, the judge said, "I wish I had killed him myself."
Had we not met Barnaby when his stage coach arrived from New York, things would have turned out different. Barnaby was a pain in the ass, when he wanted to be, but the fact he got Samuel to take off his shirt to show the judge what Nester did to him as a boy, who knows how it would have turned out. I owe Barnaby for that, and nothing else really matters. I will bite my tongue when he acts like an asshole. I won't criticize him, although the Lord knows he needs a little criticism from time to time.
Was it love?
I can't say. I don't know what is in their hearts. They like each other enough to take care of each other. If it is love, I am happy for them. If it was some other arrangement that made them happy, that was good too. I never thought that how Samuel and Barnaby treated each other was any of my business. After the terrible childhood Sammy Boy had, I wanted him to find happiness. He deserved to be happy to make up for the torture in his past.
The first time I saw Barnaby, the year after I went to work for Dan and the 1st National Bank, he was sitting with John waiting to see the head of the New York City branch of 1st National. John had been told by his doctor to see George, and he would arrange for him to get passage west on a wagon train leaving later in the week.
I got a good look at Barnaby and John when I was there to meet the man I might take with me on my wagon. I was told he would be with a red-headed boy, and Barnaby's hair was so red, I almost laughed when I saw him. I could have seen that John was sick without Barnaby giving me a hint.
John was very sick, and in the shape he was in, I doubted he would live to see the end of Pennsylvania if something wasn't done quickly. I told George that I would take John, and because I did take him, he did live to see the end of Pennsylvania. He lived to become my right-hand man, and what he told me, if Barnaby hadn't made him get up to go to his appointments, he would have died in a hotel room in New York City.
That was even before we met Samuel four months later, after John was getting stronger. Because of how John figured into saving Samuel, and because of those events, I had another reason to be thankful for Barnaby. When John went back to the horse farm, I figured Barnaby to go with him. I couldn't be sure what Samuel would do. If they were in love, then I thought Samuel might go along with them this time.
When I felt Running Horse's hand around mine, it became a direct passageway to my heart. It didn't hurt that he was the most beautiful Indian in the world, but besides that, his touch made me feel more alive than ever. I imagine it was something similar that happened between Samuel and Barnaby. Once opened to the idea of physical contact, not the fist fight kind, they couldn't leave one another alone.
When I saw the way Samuel had been beaten, I immediately had the desire to protect him to prevent him ever being treated like an animal again. I had another desire that didn't have anything to do with Samuel, I had a desire to kill Nester. That desire was just as strong that day as it was the day Lit'l Fox died. For the second time in my life, I was capable of killing a man.
The crowd that gathered to watch Samuel being beaten, wasn't going to let me get at Nester, because John shot the man when he went for his gun in response to me jerking the bullwhip out of his hand. I would gladly have killed him even after John shot him, but that was a step too far in a town that had no name I knew.
Even after taking Sammy Boy out of there, I never lost the desire to kill Nester. It was on my to do list if we ever crossed paths again, and we did cross paths again, but Nester was already dead when I saw him, and Samuel stood over him with a smoking Colt in his hand.
When I first found Samuel, he couldn't defend himself, but the next time he crossed paths with Nester, he did defend himself, and Nester died. I saw this as justice. The law didn't see it the same way I saw it, and Samuel needed to be brought to justice for killing a man in the streets of St Louis. This time, justice got it right, and Samuel was set free.
I can't say how such feelings get there. I had no way of understanding my feelings for Running Horse, and I didn't know what triggered my desire to kill Nester. I loved Running Horse, and I wanted to protect Samuel. Those things were clear to me, and I still loved Running Horse, and Nester was dead. How my mind worked was still a mystery, but it hadn't gotten me killed yet, and that was good.
I should have been amazed by the turnabout in the feelings Samuel and Barnaby had for each other, but I was just happy I no longer needed keep them from beating the hell out of each other. I must admit it was far easier to watch them giving each other what for. I never gave much thought to how Running Horse, and I looked while we made the most delicious love to each other, but I imagine it looked like Samuel and Barnaby giving each other what for. There were only so many ways to make love to your man.
If either of them were the least bit bashful, I never saw it. They knew I was right there with them, but once they got that look in their eyes, they were going to go around and around for a while. It didn't matter where we were, and if I got on Dobbin and took to riding, they would catch up sooner or later.
Confused by what went on in Mrs. Taylor's class, I initially recoiled when Running Horse touched my pisser. I had no objection to Running Horse doing anything he liked, but I originally acted badly to how he made me feel. I didn't know what brought on those feelings, because Running Horse could touch me any way he liked.
I spent some time trying to get him to take an interest in what was my true nature, but I was sure I ruined our friendship. I hadn't, and we were able to recover the feelings we had for each other in short order.
To say that decision changed my life forever, doesn't describe it. We had to get beyond what I saw in the white world. Much of it was meaningless, except it was rules someone made, and now no one knew who, but a rule was a rule, and you had to follow each rule if you wanted to stay out of trouble.
No one knew why people must guard against violating meaningless rules.
One day, when my mind hadn't drifted away yet, I asked Mrs. Taylor, "Why do we do it that way?"
"It's always been that way," she said. "We know what to do because so many people have done it before."
I wondered if she knew what she said. We do things because someone said, 'this is how it should be done."
What if I wanted to do it another way? Rules don't always serve a purpose if you look at the man who made up the law, and his reasons behind it. He wanted things a certain way, and I wanted to do it my way.
What if someone made rules so he felt good about telling everyone what to do? There is only one reason for most laws. Some guy in power creates laws, decides on what he liked and didn't like, and he wrote the laws to please himself and to lock a lot of people up who weren't doing it the way he wanted it done. Some men might have had a real hatred for things he wanted to pass laws against. Some men might have wanted to be in control of people's lives in a way that had them serving his interests.
I want all the babies born that can be born, and I'll have the biggest army in the country, and they'll keep me in charge. Anything that goes against my desire to have the biggest army is outlawed. I'll make that law, and the men who think that way are often in charge and they go into one war after another to prove they rule as much of the countryside as they can get their hands on. What if people disagree?
There were laws against things normal people do, and when you have a law against what is natural for you, the law is there to stop you. It's there because a guy a hundred years ago said, "I don't like that. I'll make a law against it, because I want to be in charge of what I will allow people to do.
A teacher a hundred years later tells her student, "You can't do that. There is a rule against it."
The man who made the rule has been dead longer than the teacher has been alive, but for Europeans, a law passed a hundred years ago needs to be obeyed as well as laws passed yesterday. A law passed a hundred years ago by Lord knows who has to continue to be obeyed, because it's the law? What if times change?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Once the earth shook and we all fell down, I got up, Running Horse didn't want me to get out of his sight. It was similar to how he reacted after we had our confusion over what we felt for each other. Once he realized I had no objection to him touching me any way he liked, he touched me a lot. His touch was doubly good, because he made no attempt to touch me, when he thought I had objections.
Once we got that straight, the touching was glorious, especially Running Horse's touch.
After the earthquake, and I understood we all could have died, Running Horse wanted to make love the way I watched Samuel and Barnaby going at each other all the time. It's the way it was when we first discovered each other. Now that we were grown, and he had many more responsibilities, the love making was just as glorious if not as frequent. If I ever had a question about Running Horse's love for me, it was answered once we endured the earthquake and lived to tell the tale.
I'm not complaining.
We would make love a lot more often than we did, if I got my way, but Running Horse was chief. He had the entire village to think about, and I'm not saying he should be as passionate with them as he was with me, but he had a responsibility, and it came first, even before me. I knew that. I knew it when he fell in love with me, or when I fell in love with him. This was the life we had. I had no objections to it. I loved Running Horse after all.
Death had once again come down the trail to end Running Horse's clan, but it rode away empty handed. I don't know how we survived, but we did. That's what I knew, and I was happy to be alive and in love.
Running Horse made me feel more alive than I had ever been. His touch was powerful, and his love stretched to the mountain tops to the valley floor. Even as we grew older, Running Horse was one of the most fit Pawnee, and his body had grown stronger and more in tune with my body by the time we came to Paradise Valley. Ours was a forever love no matter where we were.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
After Joe refused to take any credit for the earthquake that turned the waterfall and shook us all off our feet, he went about checking to see how else the valley had changed.
The split opened up at the far end of the pond that hadn't moved, and Joe decided he needed to take a closer look. He went into the split, he didn't fall into it. He voluntarily went down in the split to see what he could see. Because of how I felt about the caves. I was a bit better about it if Joe really wanted Running Horse to come see his latest discovery. I reluctantly tagged along without knowing what we might find.
Joe already had caves he had been in and out of since I first brought him back to Paradise Valley. Once you saw a cave, and I mean they were all dank and dark, why did you need to see another one? A cave was a cave, and I could hear Joe when he came with news I didn't want to hear.
Joe being Joe, he said, "Chief, something you need to see. I mean if you like, but you really need to see this."
There comes a time when life needs to be lived. Running Horse and I were living it. Nothing was so important that love needed to be interrupted, even when our valley was shaken, and the cavalry came ever so close to finding out where Running Horse's clan got off to.
If our days were numbered, then we wanted to make the most of the days left.
"When I think of how long we were apart, it makes me so sad. Then, I see you, and I am happy all over, Tall Willow. How could we have come back together more in love than we were when we parted? "
"True love is true, and lovers see clearly, My Love. I longed for you the entire ten years we didn't lay eyes on each other. Once we met, once we were together at the farm for those three days, I was sure we would be together again, but I had to go to find this valley first, and I had to finish gathering the people I needed to make the journey back to you."
"I wonder if people aren't put in our way to be found. People we couldn't live without?" Running Horse said.
I had such thoughts about men who saved my life. There they are right in front of me. There they are, not allowing me to die. Maybe my time hasn't come yet. Lit'l Fox saved my life, and the day he died, Riggs saved me from certain death. That's when I became a man. That's when I went out to live my life on my own.
Living on your own is a man size job. My boyhood days were over.
"It was like we were meant for each other," I told him. "When you came to Medicine Woman's lodge, after Lit'l Fox took me home, I felt drawn in by your smile. I didn't know you. I wanted to know you. I wanted you to keep holding my hand. I lived to see you smiling at me. It's funny how it seemed like I was dreaming back then."
"How old were we?"
"I was fourteen when I went to get me a griz. In my mind, I was a man. I had no idea I would find my Pawnee roots. I lived an entirely new life, but it was a life I knew was out there, I knew I was Pawnee, even when I couldn't be Pawnee. Wanting to be Pawnee became a powerful part of me."
I was Pawnee, and we both knew that the danger had passed for the time being. We made love because we could. We were able to make love, and we made it. We left our lodge hand in hand, and our lodge was surrounded by the people in our lives when we went out. They knew love. They knew us.
"Nice day," Joe said. "Did I mention I had something to show you?"
"It's a beautiful day in Paradise Valley," John said.
"I made coffee," Samuel said. "Come have a cup. We'll tell you about what we've found."
We were all ready to celebrate life, no matter how short the celebration might be.
Everyone we met smiled, and our togetherness was enhanced one more time. It was good to be alive, even in a valley that had changed during our latest brush with death. We would adapt to the changes.
We were all alive. The valley wasn't much the worse for wear, and no one was threatening us for the days after the ground shook under us.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Big Joe came the afternoon of the third day.
"I need to speak with Running Horse," Joe said.
"He's not talking at the moment. I'll tell him when he comes back."
By later in the day, it was Joe, Riggs, Samuel, and Young Antelope sitting near a fire eating fresh cooked rabbit. I sat to eat rabbit with them, but we didn't have much to say. The focus was on the spirits who had come calling on Running Horse, and no one complained. If the spirits had come, Running Horse would be able to see again, and if we ever needed him to see clearly, we needed him seeing clearly now.
"Smells good," Running Horse said from the door of our lodge.
Plenty here, Running Horse. Come have a piece," Samuel said, taking a stick full off the fire. Demon watched it pass from Samuel to Running Horse directly over his head.
He grabbed a stick with freshly cooked rabbit bursting with juices. He looked at how the meat sizzled.
"Hawkeye has been hunting, I see," Running Horse said.
He bit into the meat, closing his eyes, pleasure filled his face.
Running Horse sat but he didn't speak again. He would walk to the pond, and I would walk with him, and he would bathe until he had recovered from his journey. That's when he would tell me whatever he had to say.
The chief was given plenty of room, and that was especially true after he spent some time away.
I was just happy he was back. It was an inordinate absence. Maybe it was somewhat shorter than sometimes when he met with the Pawnee spirits. Knowing what it was, I knew to wait for him.
"How do you feel?" I asked, as we dried on the grass next to the pond.
It was time one of us spoke.
"I don't know yet. I need to consider what has been said to me."
"The spirits spoke to you?"
"They did. They aren't our spirits."
I often didn't understand some of the first things he said once he returned from the spirit world.
"Maybe I can make you feel like you are loved, Running Horse."
It was a bad joke. He didn't smile.
"I would not respond well, Tall Willow. I need time. This was not a visit with Pawnee spirits."
He said it again. What other spirits would talk to a Pawnee chief?
I would wait and he would tell me what he wanted me to know, but what spirits did he talk to? More importantly, what spirits were talking to him?
After being silent for months, why did they come to him now?
A chief did not discuss his visits to the spirit world with his people. This was a province of chiefs only. And his people knew better than to question him. He would tell them what he wanted them to know, and he would do it when it was time.
We would wait for him.
I held a restless Running Horse that night. He was no less restless than me. I wasn't sure where he had gone, or who he was talking to. The pattern didn't change, but it still worried me.
We sat across from each other in the lodge. Nothing had been said since we got up, and we both had a cup of coffee to get the morning started.
"They are not Pawnee," Running Horse said.
I had handed him a steaming cup of coffee, and he watched the vapor rise into the early morning air.
He took a long drink before he let it cool for long enough. His mind seemed to get lost in the steam.
"They are not Pawnee," he told me again. "I'm not sure who they are."
"I don't understand.? The spirits aren't our ancestors? The ones you spoke to?"
"Spirits are not of the Pawnee. They are spirits from a long-ago forgotten time. This is their valley," Running Horse told me.
I thought this was our valley. I saw no one else laying claim to it.
What did it mean?
"Did they speak to you?" I asked.
It was the wrong thing to ask. I knew he didn't like discussing his journey's to the spirit world, but what he said didn't tell me much, and under the circumstances, I needed to know more.
"They spoke."
He stood and went to the doorway of our lodge.
"We'll speak soon, Joe," Running Horse said.
He came back to the fire. I refilled his empty cup.
"Give me some sugar," he said.
"Sugar? You never drink yours with sugar."
"Might take the bitter taste out of my mouth," he said.
He sat back down.
I could hear voices in front of our lodge, but I wasn't going out if I learned more by staying inside.
"Who are they?" I asked.
If they weren't our spirits, who did they belong to, and why had they started talking now?
"I do not know them. They know me. They know Lone Wolf."
"I don't understand," I said.
"Go into the dark. You'll see the light. Go there."
"What light?" I asked. "What dark?"
There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. Spirits didn't talk in plain English or in whatever way they communicated. Their message came in the form of a riddle a chief was supposed to be able to decode.
"Go into the dark, you'll see the light. Go there," I repeated. "It took parts of three days to be told that?"
It was a stupid question. There was no time when he visited the spirit world. There was no answer. I didn't have anything else. I was in the dark and I had been given all there was. There might be more later, but for now, Running Horse said all he intended to say.
On to Chapter Nine
"The Turning"
Back to Chapter Seven
"Turn of the Waterfall"
Complete Chapter Listing
We Are Still Here Main Page
Rick Beck Home Page
![]()
I'd love to hear what you think!
Leave me a comment on our contact us page.