Wayward

We asked the west to make us a living, and it turns out this is not so much what we needed, or even what we asked.  What we really meant was that it make some of us materially rich and secure, and the place is simply not geared for that, not without compromising its greatest gift which is its ability to confer freedom.  ...

Freedom is a holy word of our culture and as such has lost its meaning.  We no longer mean we want freedom; we want security, and they are very different goals.
From "Grasslands", by Richard Manning

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                                        Wayward

I stood at the door, struggling to breathe through my fears.  Pushing with the pry bar the hinges moaned.  I looked into our old room.  A broken widow framed a cornfield crowding the decayed, abandoned house. Focusing on the window, I pushed my fears aside and walked to it.

The sun had fallen low, below the cloud bank, and lit the prairie yellow-white. To the left, a long pile of glacier boulders and cobbles, the old barrier edging the fields.  One end of the rock pile rose like a cairn.

I knelt and pried the molding away from the wall. Reaching into the gap, grasping our childhood storehouse of secrets, I laid it across my thighs. I striped off my protective leather gloves.  The tin sealed, by fear and rust, waited.  I forced the lid off, my fingertips, at least, equal to the rust.

I reached in and pulled out the smooth pebble. The pebble was four times an orphan. It was a fossil of a coral-like animal from an ancient sea that had covered this land.  Then it had been a gizzard stone for a reptile that swam over this land in a less ancient sea.  It had been part of a Medicine Man's pouch when the Lakota roamed this land.  Then we took it and lost ourselves.  I slid the pebble into my jacket pocket and hoped it would not be orphaned tonight.

I pulled out a leather bundle that held the two stone blades and pocketed it. The rest of our treasures, my childhood memories, the room, and the house I left behind, taking only my fears.

I opened the back of my old pickup and put the bar into a basket. I grabbed the basket's handles and walked around the back of the house to the cairn.

I put a metal wash tub between me and the stones and spread three throw rugs on the other side of the tub.  Each rug received a canteen, one uncapped.  Next to each canteen I placed a handful of buffalo jerky.  Starting with an act of generosity would be my thin, as we found so long ago, very thin protection. I spread a rug for myself on this side. 

I piled firewood to my right, a lantern to my left, and started a fire in the basin.  I knelt down, facing the cairn. Pulling my hat down and collar up, I gripped the steel pry bar lying across my thighs. Squeezing the cold steel, I tried to force my fear into it.  I waited for darkness and for it to begin.

Past the stones the moon rose and I heard the first raspy clink of moving stones, then a pause.  For two, three, breaths there was silence, then another rasp of sliding stones and musical clink, then another pause.  Stronger, purposely the stones moved again. I took a bunch of sweet grass from the basket and threw it on the fire.
"Come warm yourself at the fire brother."
A shadow rose from the stones and flowed down to the edge of the fire, rising up, hovering.
"Come brother breath the sweet smoke, eat the food, drink the water, and warm yourself at my fire."

The shadow fell back onto the center rug with the sound of a breath intaken. Slowly the shadow coalesced, solidified. Soon a blond boy in patched denim jacket and coveralls was sitting on the rug. Staring into the fire, he sat unmovable.  Evil by its nature is unchangeable.

To the southwest, flashes like a lighting storm, on the horizon.  My other two chosen ones were coming. I threw another bunch of sweet grass onto the fire.
"Come warm yourself at the fire brother." 

A shadow pooled onto a rug then flowed down to the edge of the fire, rising up to hover over it.
"Come brother breath the sweet smoke, eat the food, drink the water and warm yourself at my fire."
The shadow fell back onto the right rug with the sound of a breath intaken. The shadow coalesced, solidified.  An Indian formed, tall broad shouldered, twin braids with feathers hanging. He sat on the rug, his arms still on his thighs.  His left hand lay flat on his lap, his right arm, handless.

I heard hoof beats and threw another bunch of sweet grass onto the fire.
"Come warm yourself at the fire brother."
A shadow flowed out of the darkness to the edge of the fire, rising up to hover over it.
"Come brother breath the sweet smoke, eat the food, drink the water and warm yourself at my fire."
The shadow fell back onto the left rug with the sound of a breath intaken.  The shadow coalesced, solidified.  A cavalryman formed Colonel's braids on his blue-coat, Colorado militia insignia on his collar, barrel-chested, close-cropped beard frosted with gray, beetle-browed.

I put more wood on the fire, and lit my lantern.  I took the red stone pipe I had killed for from the basket, and the beaded pouch of tobacco and Red Willow bark.  It was time.  It was time to alter the balance.

They sat, had they been human I would have waited them out.  Let them break the silence first.  Power games were pointless.  I cleared my throat. 
“The first terms of our bargain have nearly run out.  I paid your price and you did as I asked.  They only term left is for me to seal the second half of the bargain.”
“The specter of my brother, my blood price, spoke.
“The bargain for the first half of your span of days is over.  We await your payment for the second half of your life.”
“I want to change the terms.”

One hand looked up, stretched his empty wrist toward me.  I could image his missing fingers grasping.
“If more is required, then more is demanded.  If less is required, the blood-price is no less.”

“More, less, I require different.”

The cavalryman spoke, “you are not the first to want to bargain anew.  Tell us what you require … we will tell you what we require.  If you do not meet our requirements the old bargain stands.  Then you give us the blood price or we take it”

I took a shuttering breath, paused; there were no tricks or strategies to try.  Plain words or fancy words, reasons and motives, were all the same to them.  It was only what I wanted and what they wanted and where the balance lay.


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{I don't know where this is going yet, but it will be dark.  The theme is ill defined but will revolve around freedom, greed, and generosity.

The pebble is real, the one handed chief is from Lakota (Sioux) mythology.  In the myth the Thunderbirds took the chief's hand because he was greedy.  The hand was restored by Fallen Star who then married the chief's daughter.

The description of the cavalryman is based on a photo of John Chivington the commander at the Sandcreek Massacre.}