Brindle's Odyssey Read online

There it was, all sewed up and delivered with a ribbon. This explained my dark skin and ink-black hair. This explained Odd Whitefeather’s visit to my trailer and his urgent need to bring me back to where it had all begun. This also explained why Soliah had mentioned the casino, he had known about my Odd, and confusing heritage.

  “I’m sorry you disapprove of your family roots… Our grandfather’s will be very disappointed,” Odd Whitefeather said, staring out over the water. He then turned to me and said with great urgency: “Dog Breath will be here shortly, you will spend a single day with him and his people. You will next spend another day with Crooked Walker. You will need to listen and learn what you can, do not forget that. The last day you will spend with me. I will try to teach you the little of what I know. You will be welcomed into our number during the Midewiwin ceremony. Do you understand me?”

  “No… I don’t understand any of it.” I didn’t and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t going to be a Medicine Man, the President of the United States, or the next Jim Thorpe. I just wanted to be Huck Brindle and get on with my life. That wasn’t meant to be.

  “You will learn to understand, but there are times when that is all you need to know. Remember that. Digest what you learn slowly, like a good meal.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I’m also related to what lives in that house.”

  “Soliah,” said Odd Whitefeather, nodding his head slowly. “We know all about that.”

  “Did I hear somebody mention my name?” asked a velvety smooth voice from behind the bench. I didn’t need to turn my head to see who had spoken. The voice belonged to Major Barnabus C. Soliah.

  “This is my time,” Odd Whitefeather said in a stern voice. “Leave us!”

  “How dare you take that tone with me,” snarled Soliah. “I’ve got you surrounded and all I have to do is give the order. Your time? You come to my home and sit on my bench, and have the nerve to call this your time? How savage of you. Trust me, your time will come. Your minutes are numbered. Brindle is coming with me.”

  “No!” shouted Odd Whitefeather.

  But Soliah had already put his hand on my shoulder and we were both whisked away. One second I was sitting next to Odd Whitefeather, the next I was seated in Soliah’s study. It was as if no time had passed since my last visit. That was confirmed with a glance out the window.

  The ghost soldiers were still there and I recognized a few of them. Was it possible that they hadn’t moved from their posts in five years?

  As if to drive the point home, Soliah held up his arms. “They are an exceptional group of men, aren’t they?” He asked, looking pleased with himself. “So, there you have it, the rest of the story. Now, where were we? Yes… I remember, I was explaining to you the true meaning of duty. Ah, Huckleberry, so much has changed. The path the country has chosen is despicable, simply despicable. Did we die in vain?”

  He fixed his blue eyes on me and toyed with the ends of his considerable blonde mustache. I could see nothing but cold contempt in that stare, a challenge to contradict him. I was more than happy to oblige him. “You died the way you lived your life, without mercy,” I said. “You got what you had coming to you. You all did!”

  This sent Barnabus Soliah into a terrible rage. He rose from his chair and clomped his hoofs around the desk until he stood inches from my face. “I was murdered by those blood-thirsty savages!” Soliah quickly seemed to compose himself and he softened his tone. “Think of it,” he said. This is truly a win-win situation for you. The land, the casino money, the power that comes with such money, it will all be yours.”

  The sight of those cloven hoofs was enough to take my breath away. Soliah seemed to sense this and he sat on top of his desk, crossing his legs. The hoofs glowed red in the sunlight that filtered in from the window.

  Just as I was about to speak I felt a hand fall upon on my shoulder. I turned and stared into the wise, wrinkled face of Dog Breath. He smiled at me and turned his attention to Soliah. “We go now,” he said in a tone without compromise.

  “By all means,” said Soliah with a forced smile. “But he is mine in three days time. Don’t you dare be late or the truce is over. I’ll be waiting.”

  Dog Breath nodded and suddenly we were engulfed in a whirlwind. The room began to spin and I closed my eyes, wondering what I had gotten myself into. Had I known, I would have ran from the room and headed straight back into the world I understood.

  I opened my eyes and found myself standing next to Dog Breath on a rolling, windswept prairie that stretched for miles in every direction. We stood knee-deep in the tall grass and thunder bellowed in the distance. I looked down and saw that I was dressed in the same manner as Dog Breath. I wore a breech-cloth and little else. My skin was much darker than it had ever been on a summer’s day and I seemed to stand taller. Dog Breath had also changed, except he had somehow grown much younger. He looked to be a man in his mid-forties, in peak condition and still in the prime of his life. He smiled at me and sniffed at the air.

  “Our people live in that direction,” he said, gesturing to his right. “The buffalo are coming from this direction,” he said, pointing the other way. “You and I are all that stands between our village and the great stampeding herd. You need to be brave or we will all be trampled. Our people are depending upon you.”

  With the thunder growing in my ears, I thought of how impossible this all was. Surely, I had to be dreaming. Dog Breath gave me a hard look, the same look he had given me when he threatened to cook me over a fire. I knew then that this was no dream. I looked to the horizon and saw a huge cloud of dust rising in the distance.

  “We must part the herd,” Dog Breath said, raising his voice above the building roar of the charging animals. “Pray to the Great Spirit for strength. Do it now! The time is upon us!”

  Those were the last words that I heard. The first wave of stampeding buffalo appeared over one of the rolling hills. Soon, they were followed by what seemed to be a million more. The ground shook and I wanted to scream as I was paralyzed with fear. There would be no running from this place, it was either stand and pray or lie down and die. I chose to pray.

  The sound rose to a deafening crescendo and I nearly screamed in terror. The leaders of the herd were merely two hundred yards away and they were threatening to swallow us whole. I stole a glance at Dog Breath and he stood facing the onslaught with his eyes closed, his lips were moving and his hands were held defiantly on his hips. With time running out, I followed suit, closing my eyes and praying like I had never prayed before.

  My eardrums threatened to burst, but I couldn’t think about that. I asked for strength and begged for intervention. They were soon upon us and I could feel their hot breath and the wind with their passing. I resisted the strong urge to open my eyes, for I knew if I did that the end would come quickly. I continued to pray and with each passing second I felt just a tad bit stronger. The crashing hoofs thundered across the plains and I seemed to be feeding upon the sound.

  How long had passed I could only guess; fifteen minutes perhaps, or maybe longer. By the time the last of the herd had straggled by, I was a changed man. We had parted the herd. My eyes were open and I practically dared the galloping beasts to oppose me. They continued to dodge to the left and to the right as they grew nearer to our position.

  As the thunder died away in the distance, I felt stronger and more alive than I ever had in my entire life. Dog Breath said nothing, but he smiled at me like a proud parent. I then realized that he was exactly that, six generations removed.

  “You will be called Buffalo Head,” Dog Breath said in a matter-of-fact tone. “The wind will whisper your name and you shall be blessed with great powers.”

  I didn’t care much for the name, but I didn’t say that to the old man. He nodded his head and repeated the name. “Yes,” he said. “It is a good name.”

  Dog Breath motioned me to follow him and we walked across the freshly turned earth. The sound of the stampeding buffalo grew muted and more
distant with each passing minute. I had thought we would walk to the village, why else would he have brought me to this strange place? We walked across the path of the buffalo and we soon found ourselves back in the lush green world of the prairie grass. We walked over and around the rolling hills, keeping the sun at our backs and saying nothing. Occasional groves of trees appeared. An eagle circled overhead. I saw rabbits scurrying away from red blurs of fox fur and whitetail deer with their heads buried in the tall grass. The afternoon sun was warm, but there was no humidity to speak of. A slight breeze blew at our backs and helped keep us cool.

  There was no sign of man. There were no fences, roads, sidewalks, or buildings. There were no airplanes in the blue summer sky, no lawnmowers growling in the distance. There was just Dog Breath, me and nature, the way it had once been.

  We must’ve walked for two or three hours. My bare feet began to protest, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I had grown to trust Dog Breath and knew he had a reason for taking me on such a long, quiet walk. We crossed something akin to a small mountain and came to place where I could see a roaring river spilling into a great ocean of water. I would later find out that it was the mother of all Great Lakes, Superior; in all of its vast, pre-developed glory.

  “I came to this place when I was a young boy. I was not the first of my people to walk here, but that does not matter. The white man came and claimed it as his own.”

  I watched his eyes cloud over at the mention of the name. I had no idea of what he was talking about. I listened and gave him my undivided attention.

  “Sit,” Dog Breath said, pointing to the sand. After we had both sat down in the warm sand he continued. “We were forced from our sacred tribal lands. I watched our people die in great numbers. We had no way to defend ourselves, yet many tried to do so. We were starving to death. I want you to close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “I said close your eyes. I want to show you something.”

  I did as I had been told, bowing my head as I closed my eyes.

  “You may open them now.”

  The season had suddenly changed and the air took on a distinct chill. Where there had once been nothing but a natural landmark, a small town, had sprouted from the earth. A great wooden mill stood on the opposite shore, where a large water wheel sat turning in the current. People roamed the streets and some were very close to our position. After seeing this place as it had once been, the sight was obscene in a way that I cannot describe. I looked to Dog Breath and pointed at a large man in a cowboy hat, who wore a scowl on his face and was walking straight for us. He wore an unbuttoned tan slicker that billowed behind him like a cape.

  “Do not be alarmed,” Dog Breath said. “He cannot see or hear us.”

  His words helped, but they only went so far with the wide man bearing down on us. He looked as mean as a junkyard dog and he stalked along with a definite purpose in his stride. He carried an old flintlock rifle over his shoulder and it looked like a toy against his massive frame.

  “At this time the Treaty read that this place was the property of the People. We waited with the hope that someone would see what was happening here, but no one cared. The Treaty was rewritten again. More lies fed to desperate people.”

  The cowboy was nearly on top of us now and he stared right through us. I turned my head to see what had captured his interest. I saw two Native teens standing outside a large barn. Two horses were tethered there and the boys were lashing bundles to their backs. The cowboy walked past us, missing us by mere inches. He stank of sweat and whisky and the gun was suddenly held in both of his capable hands.

  “Do something,” I said, for it was obvious that this man was about to attack the two Native boys.

  “I can do nothing to stop this,” Dog Breath said, but he nimbly took to his feet and crossed his arms at his bare chest. I could see fire in his eyes and his teeth were bared.

  For the first time I noticed that Dog Breath had aged a decade since I’d closed my eyes, only a few moments before. Crows feet had dug deep around the corners of his eyes and there were streaks of white in his coarse black hair. “What is he going to do?” I asked, watching as the cowboy walked to within fifty feet of the boys and stopped. I then stood up and held my hands out in front of me. “Stop him!” I shouted as the cowboy leveled his rifle at one of the boys.

  “Close your eyes!”

  “I won’t look away,” I said, feeling helpless and outraged at the same time.

  “You will close your eyes,” Dog Breath said, waving his hand quickly in front of my face. My eyelids snapped shut as if they were heavily weighted. I heard the terrible sound of a gunshot and I felt my stomach fall. We were moving again.

  A moment later my ears were assaulted by a thousand sounds, none of which were pleasant. I opened my eyes to find that it was mid-winter and nearly dusk. I stood barefoot on glare ice, yet I could not feel the cold biting into my feet as I should have. The town had grown into a city and the only thing that remained from the recent past was the end of the frozen river and the open waters of the Great Lake. Men on horseback lumbered down muddy, rutted avenues and the river stank of raw sewage. Gas lights glowed from behind paned-glass windows.

  “The white men found the most inhospitable tracts of land and they called them reservations. The Original Ones were ordered to go live there. Still, there was no getting away from the iron fist that continued to strike without pity.” Dog Breath’s voice was weary and even in the fading light I could see that he had aged, considerably. He was now the man that I’d first laid eyes upon out on the lawn, impossibly old and weathered. The age he had been on the day he had left this world.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, returning my gaze to the brick buildings and the men that milled about in front of them.

  “The logging companies wanted our timber, which was our sole source of income. They had taken everything from us, but it wasn’t enough. They had stolen our land, murdered generations of our people, and finally forced us to live like starving animals, but they still wanted more. They came for our timber and iron. They passed something called the Dawes Act. We believed that someone would see the injustice. No one did. So many lies had been told that the truth could not be seen.”

  I saw a Native American man dressed in shabby clothes and knee-high moccasins. He held his head high and was constantly jeered and harassed as he walked down the side of the road. He looked to be close to sixty, if not well past that age. He stared straight ahead as he walked, and it appeared as if he would walk directly past us.

  “That man spoke out against the lumber companies, so he was arrested and brought here. He now has to walk one hundred miles back to his people. This is not the first time for him. His name is Bugonaygishig and he knows that it will be a miserable journey back home.”

  “Why?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.

  “They wanted to take the fight out of him and to make an example of him to others. There was no voice out there speaking upon their behalf. The killing had stopped, but the torment continued for many years.”

  I watched the curiously named man walk ever closer, I marveled at his simple dignity as he endured the catcalls from the men on horseback. He paused at a cigar store and stood before a carved wooden statue of an Indian. He shook his head and continued to walk towards us. He suddenly stopped as he drew to within three feet of us. He got a strange look on his face and he sniffed at the air. Wordlessly, I looked to Dog Breath and quickly back to the man.

  “You’ve been gone for many moons, but there is no mistaking your odor. I know you are here, Dog Breath,” he said, blindly. “Do not worry about me.”

  Dog Breath held his hand in front of his hawk nose and breathed into it. He scowled and waved at the air. The man he had called Bugonaygishig continued on his journey, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “He was always too smart for his own good,” Dog Breath commented wryly, as the man walked away from us. “Still, he is a great man and is about to
change the way the white men look at our people.”

  A moment later we were back at the fork of the two great rivers. Gone were the dirty brick buildings and the smell of raw sewage. The prairie grass stood as far as the eye could see and the only sound was the gurgling of water crashing over the rocks. Dog Breath then began to instruct me in the old ways. I sat and listened as he explained everything in great detail. He called me Buffalo Head and I answered to the name.

  I left that place having an intimately deeper understanding of the balance of nature. I looked at things differently, and felt as if Dog Breath had somehow removed the blinders from my eyes. I was a completely changed man and would never look at things in the same way.

  The sun set and rose again in an unblemished summer sky. I felt no urge to eat or take water, only the need to drink from the fountain of this man’s knowledge. All too soon, we returned to the shores of Spirit Lake and I was remanded into the custody of Crooked Walker. I remember wanting to share my experiences with Odd Whitefeather, who sat alone on the shore among the cattails and the chattering of starlings.

  “We must not waste time,” Crooked Walker said, laying a hand on my shoulder. I suddenly felt the world grow fuzzy again and I quickly closed my eyes. Whatever was happening, I didn’t think it was wise, or safe, to experience it visually. I felt my bare feet resting on the firm ground and I opened my eyes. Crooked Walker had regressed in his age, looking to be in his forties and every bit as fit as his grandfather had looked. He was dressed in a homespun shirt made of burlap and buckskin leggings; on his feet were my Red Wings and they looked both outrageous and comfortable at the same time. I found that I was dressed similarly, except that my feet were still bare. The cold of the ice and snow didn’t seem to affect them in the least.

  We stood on a well-worn path between tall stands of birch. An inch of fresh snow covered the path and it twinkled in the morning light. A lone set of footprints were in the snow and we began to follow them. A quick check behind me confirmed what I already guessed to be true, and it was that we left none of our own. We walked for many hours and I could see how the man had earned his name. He meandered back and forth across the path like a dying river. The further we walked to the northwest, the more the terrain gave way to huge areas of tamarack swamp and frozen marsh.

  We rounded a corner and came into a small, derelict village, where children played with a hoop and a stick, while the elders crowded around the man I’d seen earlier.

  “His white name is Hole In The Day,” said Crooked Walker, stopping me with an outstretched arm. “He is a hero among the Ojibwe people. Have you ever heard of him?”

  “I was told his name was Bug-O-… something or other.”

  “His name is Bugonaygishig, do not forget it,” Crooked Walker admonished, shaking a finger at my face. “Do not forget any of what I am to tell you, your life will depend upon it.”

  “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “I won’t forget. Bugonaygishig, Hole In The Day, the same guy. I got it.”

  “I got it? What kind of language is that? Words have power, you have to learn that. Any man can site such gibberish and yet they only fool themselves. I got it? I never wish to hear such words again. They cheapen you. You need to learn to act as an Ojibwe. We do not waste our words.”

  I was beginning to wish that my hours with Crooked Walker would pass quickly. He was a gruff man who seldom smiled.

  He motioned me closer and we eavesdropped on the conversation of the elders. Bugonaygishig was angry and he let that be known. He went on to say that he had grown tired of being mistreated by the white men and that he wasn’t going to take it any longer. Calmer voices tried to prevail, but he shouted them down. He viscously condemned the practices of the lumbermen and openly speculated that they were paying off the soldiers to turn a blind eye to the plight of their people.

  Crooked Walker grabbed me hard by the shoulder and soon we were falling away. Once again, I closed my eyes and wished that my time with the second of the Medicine Men would pass quickly. I got the distinct feeling that he didn’t much care for me and that he thought it was beneath him to teach his ways to a half breed, such as myself. When I opened my eyes again we were standing in the same place. The only thing that had changed was the season, and it looked as if we’d skipped past summer. The leaves were beginning to change colors and the area around the village was bathed in shades of burnt orange. A crudely made sign hung above a door on a log building, announcing it as the Onigum Indian Agency. Two white men waited there.

  “Now watch and see what happens,” Crooked Walker said. “And see if you can’t learn something.”

  I watched as Bugonaygishig walked into the village along with another man. They didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry and they laughed as they spoke to one and other.

  “That is Sha-Boon-Day-Shkong,” said Crooked Walker, carefully sounding out each syllable in a voice just above a whisper.

  The two Natives walked up to the Indian Agency and were immediately taken into custody by the two white men who stood by the door. They were informed that they were wanted on charges of bootlegging and that they would now be transported back to the city of Duluth to face those felonious charges. The two Natives were beside themselves with fury. They pleaded with the men to let them go, that there was some kind of mistake. They were not bootleggers; they had simply been targeted as troublemakers by the lumbermen. The white men shook their heads and began to lead the two men to their horses.

  That was when the one called Bugonaygishig began to plead for help from the others in the shabby little village. He called out to them in his native tongue, but I understood every word of it. The villagers had come outside to see what all the commotion was about and they looked on with resignation. Finally, an old woman charged into the fray. She carried a short stick and she began to curse at the white men. A few other women followed suit, and soon a small throng of women, children, and old men had crowded around the lawmen and their captives.

  Suddenly, from out of the middle of the scrap, the two captives emerged and they ran into the woods. The crowd that had gathered began to cheer their escape. Not a single shot was fired. Eventually, the two white men, looking highly embarrassed and more than just a little frightened, took to their mounts and rode away at great speed.

  I looked at Crooked Walker and I was happy to see that he was smiling. He nodded his head and a chortle escaped him. He caught my eye and tried to compose himself, but I began to laugh and he quickly joined in. The confrontation had been a serious matter, but the lawmen had been foiled by a bunch of old women, a few men, and a pack of small children. After we finished our laugh, Crooked Walker put his hand back upon my shoulder, only this time he did so with a touch of reverence. I closed my eyes and felt the sudden rush of time travel.

  When I felt my feet find the earth I opened my eyes. We were no longer in the Indian village, but we were standing on the sandy shore of a large lake. Sleet fell from the gray sky and a high wind had whipped the water into a sea of whitecaps; behind us, on a point of land that fell into the roiling lake, stood a small log cabin, crudely built and rugged looking. A group of perhaps twenty Ojibwe men had gathered there and they stood facing the lake.

  “The two white men reported that they were attacked and this is how the Great White Chief responded,” Crooked Walker said, nodding out across the water.

  Two steamships had suddenly appeared where none had been only a moment ago. There were many soldiers gathered on the decks of the ships, well over a hundred. One of the steamers towed a barge and it slapped across the churning waves. I looked back to the cabin and saw that the Natives had taken great interest in the approaching steamships.

  “This place is called Sugar Point, have you ever heard of it?” asked Crooked Walker.

  I shook my head and waited for Crooked Walker to show his displeasure. He simply nodded his head and pointed off into the woods. “A Grand Medicine Dance is taking place inside the woods. These men will be protec
ted. The white men in the two big canoes will not.”

  “Where is this place?” I asked.

  “This is Leech Lake, a name that should rest on the tip of your tongue. This is where the last battle of what the white men called the Indian Wars was fought. I highly doubt you would have read it in any of your history books.”

  I stared up at the cabin and watched some of the Ojibwe men melt off into the dense growth of towering White Pines. The small clearing was bordered by a rail fence and at one corner was what looked to be a small vegetable garden. I returned my attention to the lake and was surprised to see that the ships had dropped anchor and the soldiers were being ferried to shore on the barge. They arrived in wave after wave, looking sullen and ill-tempered. They were cold and wet, and most of the soldiers appeared to be very young.

  Some of the men took up positions at the shoreline, while others marched up to the little cabin. They threw open the door and rushed inside. Moments later they hauled out one of the Native men. He fought them bravely, nearly escaping before he was brought to his knees by a viscous blow from the butt of a rifle.

  “That is Makwa, he is known as The Bear. He could have beaten any three of them.”

  I nodded my head as I watched The Bear be shackled and led away to the barge. He was loaded inside without ceremony and ferried out to one of the ships. I could read the names stenciled into the sides of the ships, one was named the Flora, and the other was named the Chief of Duluth. I remember thinking how strange it was that the Chief of Duluth had delivered these young men. There was irony there.

  Some Native men were detained and questioned, but were allowed to leave. They quickly disappeared into the surrounding woods. A group of roughly twenty-five soldiers marched in the same general direction, away from the peninsula and into the unknown.

  We stood and watched the remaining soldiers pilfer the small cabin. I could read the fury in Crooked Walker’s glare and said nothing as we stood and waited in the driving sleet. The icy raindrops pelted off of us, as if we were made of wax. We stood there for a long time before the group of soldiers returned, bringing along another captive.

  “That is Bahdwaywedung, he was there when Bugonaygishig escaped,” Crooked Walker said, interrupting his silence. We watched as the Native was ferried away to one of the ships. “Now, look over there. I want you to watch what happens at that point of land.”

  I concentrated on the spot and I saw the prow of a birch-bark canoe emerge from behind the last of the tall pines. The canoe glided out into the open waters and headed to the opposite shore. I held my breath, not that it did any good. The canoe was paddled by a small group of women. The first rifle shot fell short of its mark and the battle was on.

  I was relieved to see the canoe stop dead in the water and reverse directions. It didn’t appear that anyone was hit before it disappeared back to safety. The soldiers had enough to worry about with the deadly volley of gunfire that exploded from the woods. I saw many of them fall.

  The shooting continued with the soldiers suffering great casualties. The Natives grew more brazen and they appeared at the edge of the woods. One of them climbed to the top of the split-rail fence and slowly walked across a section, shouting: “Look, they can’t hit a thing!”

  Shots rained in that direction and finished; the Native, unharmed, leapt to the ground. The sound of great laughter followed.

  “That, my grandson, is called courage.”

  I thought it might be closer to insanity, but I kept my mouth shut. I pointed to one of the men dressed in blue. He repeatedly helped the wounded to the cover of the cabin in a selfless display of bravery.

  “That is also a good man,” Crooked Walker agreed, nodding his head.

  We stood there and continued to watch the battle; daylight fell with a bang and morning arrived in fast forward. The experience made me woozy and I quickly sat down. When the battle appeared to be over, one young soldier emerged from behind a small hill and ran to the little garden. He shouted something about potatoes as he quickly fell to his knees and began to dig. A lone rifle shot rang out and the young soldier was thrown back by an invisible hand. He would never move again.

  The soldiers quickly retreated; back to where only one of the ships remained. After they’d been loaded, the ship was put into the wind and returned in the direction that it’d come. The Native men rushed to the shore and jeered them as they steamed away.

  “Six soldiers were killed and ten more were wounded. The Ojibwe suffered no casualties because the Great Medicine Dance had protected them.”

  “But, the soldiers… Didn’t they come back?”

  “No. One of the White Chiefs made a great apology to the People and things slowly began to change. There was an investigation into the practices of the lumbermen and new rules were adopted. One man is responsible for all of this, do you remember his name?”

  “Bugonaygishig,” I quickly replied.

  “I see that you are learning,” Crooked Walker said with a smile. He had suddenly become old again, as if he had aged fifty years in the blink of an eye. “And why do you suppose that this great show of bravery has gone unnoticed for generations?”

  “I… I do not know.”

  “It is for the same reason that you know very little about what the white men call the Indian Wars. We welcomed them into our country with open arms, and this, this, is how we were repaid for our generosity. We shared our crops with them, opened our lives to them. This is a terrible truth that must never be forgotten. Bugonaygishig is my blood brother. I have never met a braver man.”

  I looked back toward the cabin and it was suddenly gone, replaced by a gleaming resort and wandering tourists. I wondered if any of them knew the story, and quickly decided they knew precious little as to the historic significance of the place. Crooked Walker shook his head sadly and replaced his hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes and felt my stomach lurch. I very nearly got sick as the hands of time flew full-speed in reverse. I opened my eyes to see the uninhabited point of land as it had been for many thousands of years.

  And Crooked Walker began with his lessons. I learned how to cure the sick and how to do a Rain Dance. I was gifted with the knowledge of the tall trees and the stony earth, both of which were interconnected and vital to my understanding of the powerful medicine that flowed from each. I listened with rapt attention as he slowly warmed to me. Much of what I learned during my three days was learned from Crooked Walker. He was articulate and fierce in his delivery when he needed to be. I learned about the origins of the origins, which was a very deep subject.

  I returned with the story of Bugonaygishig and the Last Battle of the Indian Wars, etched into my mind. I also returned a much better man and more powerful than I’d ever felt. Odd Whitefeather was waiting for me at the bench. Crooked Walker motioned to me and said: “He is truly one of us, there is no denying it. I am sorry for doubting you, my grandson.”

  Odd Whitefeather nodded, but said nothing to his grandfather. I suspected that they communicated on many levels. Crooked Walker bid us farewell and walked in his own peculiar way to the water’s edge.

  “Finally, it is time for the last of your lessons,” Odd Whitefeather said softly. “I hope there is room inside your head for what I am about to say.”

  I thought that was a strange way of putting it to me, but I simply nodded and closed my eyes, ready to be taken to some other time and place.

  “You can open your eyes, Huckleberry. I do not have the power to bring you into the past. Someday,” he added wistfully. “But, that will be a long time from now when I visit the Happy Hunting Ground.”

  I opened my eyes and said: “I am Buffalo Head. The name was given to me by your grandfather’s grandfather, and I am proud to be called it.”

  “Hmm…” Odd Whitefeather said, a shadow of a smile passing over his wrinkled face. “Buffalo Head?” he asked. “That is a good name. You should be proud of it.”

  I stood taller than I ever had, as I came closer to knowing the
truth about my tangled heritage. I was looking forward to my hours spent alone with Odd Whitefeather, who had become very close to a father to me in a very short amount of time.

  “Tell me what you know about hate,” said Odd Whitefeather. “I want to know what it is that you hate, because I sense there is a great deal of it living inside of your body.”

  I was suddenly speechless. My mind raced to come up with a lie because I did not wish to share my hatreds with anyone, especially my grandfather. I felt that they were my own burden to carry and they had found a somewhat comfortable spot inside my head to wait to be recognized.

  “There is much conflict and you do not wish me to know these things. Why could that be?”

  “Because… I do not feel they are worthy to share.”

  Odd Whitefeather smiled warmly. “You let me be the judge of that.”

  The truth came spilling out of me as if a dam had been broken. I began by telling him of the intense hatred I felt for my ex-wife, of the misery I had endured by spending five long years as a total outcast. I hated the snow and the rain when they interfered with my plans. I hated death and the finality of the act.

  But what I really hated, the elephant in the room; was the fact that I hated my parents for putting me up for adoption.

  Odd Whitefeather listened and urged it all out into the open. I could physically feel the negative energy being flushed from my body. The sensation was wonderful and liberating, as I began to dig deeper into my sub-consciousness and did a thorough housecleaning. I was amazed to find that I hated so many things. They were expelled by Odd Whitefeather as evil demons; one terrible hatred at a time.

  A long time passed before I became silent, searching the depths of my being for any more of the negative energies. Odd Whitefeather nodded in appreciation. “Do you see how much lighter your spirit has become?” he asked. “Your hatreds will weigh you down and they serve no purpose but to connect you with the Dark One. You need to understand that there is no need for hatred. It will consume you if you let it.”

  Chapter Seven