Samuel was pretty clever, and Samuel knew what he liked and what he wanted. Once he realized that there was no one to tell him what to do, he decided on what he did. He moved cautiously. I knew he was beaten if he didn't move fast enough for Nester. It takes a while to learn not to jump each time someone speaks to you.

Somehow Samuel figured it out as he went along, and he had become more self-confident as he grew into a young man. His relationship with Barnaby was unclear. They were at that age where their appetites were large, and both of them made the most of it. They separated and came back together. I could see no change in how they viewed each other.

Once Barnaby came back to the valley, he was always with Samuel when I saw them.

Many evenings as Running Horse and I walked hand in hand, Sammy Boy and Barnaby walked behind us, as we walked behind Riggs and Angel. We weren't the only ones who walked after the evening meal, but we were the ones I paid attention to. It was a clan within a clan. We were all moving parts of a good life. There were no thoughts that time was growing short.

When it came time for John to return to his horse ranch, after we went to the village, Barnaby went with John. I would have bet Barnaby stayed with Samuel every time, but he went to the horse ranch. They came to Paradise Valley to see how it faired during the freak storm. Samuel and Barnaby picked up where they left off. Seeing Sammy Boy walk hand in hand with Barnaby made me smile. If anyone deserved some happiness, Sammy Boy did, and he was happy with Barnaby beside him.

When it came time for Joe to close the door behind us, John knew he would be trapped in the valley with us, once the door closed. I believe Joe had made it clear to John that he could get him on the ground out front if he decided to head back to his ranch. I didn't realize it until joe broke John's wagon into three pieces, there was a way to leave the valley. There was also a way to go into town to get goods.

Joe got help carrying the three pieces of the wagon up top to place beside the Eagle's nest. I watched Joe put the rope around his body and he was lowered to the ground to receive the pieces of the wagon as they went down in front of the cliff but behind the two big boulders and out of sight of the trail.

Once the pieces to John's wagon were put back together, all he needed to do was to go to the horse farm and get two of John's pulling horses. I watched him run toward the mangled trail, looking both ways, and they crossing as he trotted toward John's horse ranch. Two hours later, Joe crossed the trail to come back on the valley side. He rode one horse and led another up in between the two boulders.

As John was lowered to the ground to join Joe, the horses were being hitched to the wagon. They were all set to go to town, and I watched them drive south beside the mangled trail.

That wasn't the only surprise I got after Joe closed the door.

We went to the pond every day or two to take a soak. We couldn't see the waterfall head on, because it faced south now. Not only did the waterfall shift, that entire section of cliff turned to the right. There was a split you were looking at when you bathed at the eastern end of the pond, it ran up to the top of the cliff.

The view of the waterfall no longer existed. We could see the side of it, where it spilled into the pond, and the water was still pleasant enough for bathing. There was a wide split in the earth that ran beside the pond and followed the split in the western cliffs up to the top.

"Chief, gots something I wants you to see," Joe said the week before John and him went to town.

We walked to the pond, going to the far side and we walked toward the waterfall, being careful of the wide split in the earth. Both Running Horse and I had a mind to stop walking before we fell inside the opening, but Joe didn't hesitate once we reached the split, he walked right down in it until he disappeared.

He reappeared to say, "Come on. It's down here."

"What's down there?" Running Horse asked, not ready to disappear into a hole in the ground.

"You'll see. Come on."

We followed Joe into the hole in the ground. It was dark in a hole in the ground, but we got some light through the opening and Joe stopped a few minutes later. We stopped at an opening inside the opening in the ground.

"It's a cave," Joe said. "It's bigger and as far as I walked it is open. It goes down into the ground. In doesn't meander around like the waterfall cave, it goes down into the ground. Can't be sure where it goes yet."

I didn't get it. Even if there was a cave in the ground in front of the waterfall, Joe was already working in a cave a few dozen feet away. A cave was a cave. What was he looking for? What did he expect to find?

Little did I know then, it mattered more than anything else in Paradise Valley. A cave may be a cave, but it turns out that some caves have more to offer than other caves. It's a little like a wall being a door.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The earthquake was the latest means of keeping us alive. It didn't seem like it at the time, but when the dust settled the United States, Cavalry was gone. It did more than shake. The trail was twisted. There was no way to tell how far the shaking went or how much damage was done outside of Paradise Valley.

Once the shaking was done, I had difficulty separating the earthquake from the storm. The first time the calvary was two miles behind us and coming fast, an unexpected violent storm hit just in time. As the cavalry scouts were about to ride up between the boulders that hid the canyon that led to Paradise Valley, we got an earthquake that convinced everyone to get gone but us. When the earth stopped shaking, we were still fine.

I didn't know spirits, and I knew what Running Horse told me, but being saved from destruction once was a stroke of good luck. Being saved a second time in the same place was more than good luck. It told me there was something more powerful at work in Paradise Valley. I always equated the spirits with wishful thinking. I began to think it might be a force it was best for ordinary Indians to leave alone. I couldn't prove it, but what else accounted for it?

After this second stroke of good luck, the spirits began talking to Running Horse again. They hadn't spoken, because they had nothing to say. What they did speak was a lot louder than words.

We had lived inside this valley for nearly a year, and the only thing that happened was the surveying we did once we left Paradise Valley. I found no proof of anyone else living in Paradise Valley, but what if they lived here thousands of years ago? Any sign of them might get erased in that time. I didn't know everything.

I saw the drawings below Paradise Valley, and I accepted someone similar to or some becoming more human than animal might account for them. I didn't think they lived in the caves, and I didn't think they wandered in and out of Paradise Valley. How different could it have been when the drawings were put there?

Running Horse finally reached the spirits, the week before Joe took us to see a cave that was inside the split. He didn't know who he was talking to, but they gave him a cryptic message.

"Go into the dark, you'll see the light. Go there."

It sounded like gibberish to me, but Running Horse took it seriously, and I watched as he spent his time trying to read meaning in those words. I thought it was nonsense, and according to Running Horse, he had no idea who the spirits were. We weren't on very familiar ground. Was it haunted?

He did say, "They know me."

Joe found yet another cave he was spending time in, and with three caves going, he was running through the pitch he bought in town rather quickly. Each time he brought back enough pitch for his torches, he discovered something else to explore. This time it was a cave inside a split next to the pond. That's when he talked with John about getting the wagon on the ground out front and going to town for more pitch, as well as the goods we ran out of most often.

I could stay in the light and save the trip into the dark. There was enough darkness in the world already. I didn't share Joe's fondness for caves, because they were holes in the ground that didn't go anywhere. Joe being Joe, he had to find out for himself.

A chief was supposed to be able to figure out what he was being told. That's how he kept his people safe. He got guidance from people who lived before our time. Our ancestors were available because they had lived, knew the ways of the world, and from their perch in the spirit world, they could see a thing coming long before it reached Running Horse's clan.

"Go into the dark. You'll see the light. Go there."

What the devil did that mean anyway? If you go into the dark, you aren't going to see anything. Who goes into the dark to see anything? Why not stay in the light and save the trip? Running Horse didn't normally tell me what a message was. For one thing, he needed to take some time to think it over. The idea he told me exactly what they said, and it wasn't much, said he wanted to know what I thought. That worried me.

Another way to look at it, who was he talking to?

I knew from Mrs. Taylor's class. There were evil spirits that might not have your best interest at heart. What if he was dealing with the kind that led you into danger and not away from it. If he didn't know who he was talking to, how could you trust what they told him?

This sent a chill through me. The spirits of our ancestors told him true. I knew there were two kinds of spirits. One you could trust, because you knew they were the same people as we were. If these were the other kind of spirits, and he did what they said, wasn't he taking a devil of a chance?

Who were they?

We had been in Paradise Valley for months, where had the spirits been all this time? Why speak now?

"You don't believe what spirits you don't know tell you, do you?" I asked with my doubt attached to it.

End of conversation. He said what he had to say, and if there was more, I needed to wait for it.

Silence was my answer. It was always the answer when I poked my nose into the province of my chief. I heard stories of mischievous spirits who enjoyed tricking people. I knew of witches and warlocks. They burned witches, but warlocks seemed to get a pass for the same crimes. Of course, warlocks were men. I didn't believe in ghosts either, although there had been famous ones, according to Mrs. Taylor and Shakespeare.

Some Englishmen who told stories and put on plays made mischievous spirits part of his tales.

If it was up to me, I would be careful of messages coming out of the spirit world. It was complicated. I simplified the world in which I lived, but I was in Running Horse's world. I once called the shots, and now I needed to follow the man I loved, because he was my chief. I would support him, even if I had suspicions.

A chief didn't always make the right decision for everything to turn out hunky dory. Crazy Horse went with the cavalry, thinking he was going to parley to get better treatment for his people. Crazy Horse ended up dead. I have no idea what the spirits told him, but it didn't have a happy ending.

When Joe came to sit and sip coffee, no one mentioned what the spirits had to say, but they knew Running Horse had been away after a day or two.

Life seemed relatively safe in Paradise Valley, but Joe kept making discoveries that complicated our lives. If Joe had been born in Europe, he would have been an explorer. No one but us knew the things he found, but his findings complicated things, because he came to ask the chief if he should go on. Sometimes he wanted more than permission. Sometimes he found things that he insisted the chief needed to know were there.

Joe was handy. He had a big heart, and so when he had something to show Running Horse, we went to see it. They both knew how I felt about the caves, but if Running Horse was going to see the latest find, so was I.

Joe was back to digging in the ground, and if he kept digging, he was going to find something. Only heaven knows that. He was poking around the split in the ground next to the pond. There was a cave there, and he thought it showed promise.

Running Horse's only interest seemed to be, "Does this cave open to the outside?"

Did it?

I didn't know what Running Horse was looking for, but if you went into a cave, you went into the dark. If you should find an opening to the outside, you'll see the light. I was probably all wet, but it made a certain amount of sense. The go there part of it was harder to figure on. Maybe going into the caves was all bad.

"Can't say, chief. I runs out of pitch, and John will go into town with me to put in more goods, just in case. When we goes, I'll get plenty of pitch. I have everything else I needs. I'll get two barrels this time. The cathedral cave has promise. I went in there yesterday, the pond is gone. Cracked open. I wants to see what is below the crack in the pond."

"The cathedral cave?" Running Horse asked. "I want you to work in one cave, until we know something."

"Gots to make a run into town before I can do anything. We'll be out of pitch in a few days, Chief."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I heard they were back from town, and I went to watch them pulling up burlap bags of beans, coffee, and flour, along with two big barrels of pitch. Joe could light the way for months with all that pitch.

Joe took the wagon apart once the goods were pulled up top, and he let the horses run back to the horse ranch. He hid the three pieces among the rocks that were in front of the cliff. No one was going to see it, and even if they saw it, they probably wouldn't know what they were looking at.

Once John came up, he spoke of what Joe had discovered, and he wouldn't leave until Joe went as far as he was able to go in the newest cave inside of the split in the earth. John was excited by things that were found in the ground. I suppose being a land speculator, you wanted to know all you could know about the land.

We had gone just inside the cave entrance a few weeks before, and Joe and some of the warriors had to dig out the cave in a little ways inside. They had removed the rocks blocking their way when they ran out of pitch, but they went deeper before the pitch ran out. This cave went more directly down into the earth. That excited both Joe and John. The warriors were digging to be doing something. I didn't know how they felt about it.

With John encouraging him, and the warriors once again eager to clear rocks out of the cave, Joe began to see how far the new cave went. It was close to the cave Joe followed into the ground for weeks, before he gave up on finding an opening or something that made all that work worthwhile. It did give anyone involved something to do, and who could say what you might find deep underground.

You wouldn't find me, that was for sure, unless Joe came and said the magic words.

"Gots something you needs to see, Chief."

Joe came to give Running Horse a report on where they were and what they had found once or twice a week. I think he came for a cup of my coffee.

"I'll need to set up torches along the route the cave takes. Once I do that, we'll be able to see better. We brought plenty of pitch back from town. It will allow us to keep going for a while."

"Brought plenty of coffee back too," I said.

Joe smiled.

"Nothing different inside the cave in the split?"

"Nothing, but I'm looking at the cathedral cave. That has promise," Joe told us.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Samuel sat on the log where he usually sat, Demon sat next to him. When Running Horse tossed a nice hunk of the meat he was attending to, Demon looked longingly as it passed over his head.

Samuel shifted the meat from one hand to the other, as it cooled to an eating temperature. The hunter got the first piece of meat, if he indicated he wanted it, and Running Horse always responded to Hawkeye's wish.

Demon kept his eye on him, hoping for Samuel to drop it on the ground, or at least save a piece for him.

"Chief, gots something I think you should see," Joe said, walking up once the evening meal was underway.

A minute later, Running Horse handed Joe a plate with meat and potatoes on it, and the big man sat beside Samuel to go to work on it. Big Joe was the most curious man I knew, but he also had a big appetite, and he soon forgot whatever it was he came to report to Running Horse.

"Can it wait until after I eat some of this antelope?" Running Horse asked, once everyone had a plate.

"It's not going anywhere, Chief. I'll take you when you're ready. I don't know what to make of it."

Samuel handed over the last two bites of roast to Demon, who went into wolf heaven. Holding it between his paws, he made short work of the fine chunk of meat. Joe tossed a morsel, and so did John. I felt like I could eat my portion without feeling any guilt. That damn wolf was going to weigh a ton. He got his share of meat.

It had been a week since the shake, and we were still eating at the main firepit for the evening meal. We had a period where families didn't always eat at the firepit. Once given a share of the meat hunted that day, they fixed side dishes and ate at their lodge. After the shake, eating together became the way to do it for a while.

There was some buzz about Crazy Horse for a couple of days. Everyone knew the great war chiefs. The idea he was murdered, after taking his people in, alarmed us. It was like losing our own great man. He was of the same mother. We didn't get along with the Lakota, but there were often brothers who didn't get along.

Because I went where Running Horse went, I went toward the waterfall as the sun was setting. Joe led the way. Running Horse fell in behind him, and I fell in behind Running Horse. Joe didn't seem particularly on guard about anything unusual he found, and while I accepted going into the cave as part of my duty to my chief, it felt easier than in the past when I worried about what might happen down there.

"Watch your step, Chief. It goes down in a way that allows us to walk into the crevice, but it's uneven in places. I'll light a torch once the light on the surface stops lighting our way. This is a branch that goes away from the main cave. It's the kind of place where we can deposit the rocks we clear out of our way. Hardly any blockages in this cave, but when I walked into this branch…, well, you'll see. It's hard to explain."

Joe's voice was loud and had an echo inside the cave. He lit one torch, and he carried it for a while, and he lit the next torch before putting the first torch out.

"Here, this is the new branch I walked into a few hours ago," Joe said, putting out the torch.

If this was some kind of a joke, I wasn't laughing. We were left standing in the pitch black, only it wasn't pitch black. Where the hell was the light coming from hundreds of feet underground?

"You see why I needed you to see this. How can I explain something like this?"

"Where is the light coming from? You left torches burning further along?" Running Horse asked.

"I'll show you. I can't describe it. You need to see for yourself."

I would have been ready to panic if Joe had us standing around in the pitch black, but two hundred feet underground, it wasn't dark. A faint light was coming from further down the cave. We didn't need a torch to see.

How could there be a light down in the earth? It was crazy.

We kept following Joe until he stopped. We were right behind him, and Joe being Joe, well, we knew it was getting lighter, but we didn't see where the light came from until after Joe stopped walking.

"They cleared the cave in and when I was ready to light a torch to take us further down the cave, I saw light coming from here. I didn't light a torch. I followed where the light was coming from until I was here. You tell me what it is, Chief. How did it get down here?"

I walked up between Joe and Running Horse to see where the light was coming from, and I took one giant step backward. There was a hole big enough for the three of us to stand in, and there was light dead ahead of us. There wasn't any more cave. That's where it ended, and the next step was a doozy.

I took another step back. Standing in that opening made me dizzy. There was enough light to see there wasn't anything else, but I got dizzy looking out into emptiness. It was hazy, like just before it became dark at night.

"Be careful, it drops off a couple of hundred feet. This is what I needed you to see, Chief. It was lighter when I first walked down here. Lighter like when the sun is setting. I see no source of light. I think there is ground down here, but I mean way down there. Hundreds and hundreds of feet."

We didn't need Big Joe to stop us. We had to stop at the opening. It would be a long way down from there, and I took another giant step backward from the opening. I had seen enough, and this was the topper.

Running Horse stood beside me as we looked out into space. Big Joe turned to look at both of us. He had a blank look on his face, which probably matched our blank look. What was down here couldn't possibly be down here, but here it was.

What the hell were we looking at?

It had its own light source, and it was a fairly bright light with no source I could find through the hole. The cave stopped at a dead drop no one wanted to step into. Each time I looked out, I wanted to back up another step. The wispy cloud just beyond the window in the Window cave looked just like a cloud would look if you ever figured out a way to get up to one, but we had gone down, and figuring out how a cloud got out of the sky and in the ground a few hundred feet was perplexing. I knew how we got down there. How did a cloud get here?

If I hadn't liked being in the caves before, I really didn't like it now. I was always worried that my next step in a cave would send me off into nothingness. This was as nothing as you could get. It looked like air outside the window, and in the air was a cloud. I couldn't see what was at the bottom of where we were looking, if there was a bottom.

"Where are we? What are we looking at?" Running Horse asked.

I was glad I wasn't the only one wondering that. All the lessons I learned in Mrs. Taylor's class, and all the traveling I did, didn't do a thing to prepare me for what we found in that cave. I didn't know what we were looking at.

"There was enough light to see the ground when I first found this window. I think there is ground down there."

"There is ground down there?" Running Horse asked.

"Four or five hundred feet down looked like ground down there. Maybe not, but maybe there is ground. It's a long way down. Maybe what is there isn't really ground. It might just look like it is ground from here."

By the time Joe told us there was ground down there, he too little light meant we saw nothing but air, and we both stepped closer to the window to look out at nothingness.

"How far down will this cave go?" Running Horse wanted to know.

"Not without wings, Chief. The cave is the cave. It could go that far. It Is many times further down than we are here. Most of the caves become solid rock after a while. They end at solid rock. Can't say if this cave ends that way. The only way to find out how far it goes, is to go there, if we can. We haven't been in this cave long, and while there are few rockfalls blocking the way, it could end before we get down that far."

"Keep going, Joe. Find a way to get down there, and if there isn't an opening to the outside, make one."

That sounded like an order to me. What if there was no opening? What if there was no down there?

"Wanted to be sure you wanted me to go in that direction, Chief. I'll keep at it," Joe told us.

"Take us back to the surface."

I was ready to get out of there. There was something wholly unnatural about where we were, and I had seen enough. I didn't know where we were.

We moved along the branch of the cave that became the main cave. Once it was too black to see anything, Joe lit a torch, and we worked our way back to the surface.

Big Joe took us back to the waterfall, and I could tell by the way Running Horse moved, he was deep in thought. There was no point in me talking to him. He wouldn't hear me. What would I say anyway?

I wasn't sure he knew where he was. I knew where I was, and there was no way what I saw in that hole in the ground was where it was. It was some kind of an illusion. I didn't think I knew everything, but I did know some things were not possible. Digging a hole in the ground and finding daylight was crazy. A hole was a hole.

Running Horse went to sit in the lodge. I'm sure he was trying to reach the spirit world, and I left him alone. He might not get up for a few hours or a few days once he got going. I had plenty to think about.

He once told me, "I don't go to the spirits. They come to me when there is a need."

They had come, but once again they had failed to mention a light coming out of a hole in the ground. That seemed like an important detail to leave out.

Why did Running Horse want to go deep into the earth anyway?

On to Chapter Ten
"Grounded"
Back to Chapter Eight
"Spirits"
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.

We Are Still Here Copyright © 2026 OLYMPIA50. All rights reserved.
This work may not be duplicated in any form (physical, electronic, audio, or otherwise) without the
author's written permission. All applicable copyright laws apply. All individuals depicted
are fictional with any resemblance to real persons being purely coincidental.