White Wolf McLeod

by David J. Wallis

  “Thank you, Running Bear. The Great Spirit go with you.”

  “May you find what you are looking for.” He turned the car around after White Wolf had exited and was soon a small speck down the road.

  White Wolf shouldered the bag over his left shoulder and carried his Chanunpa in his right hand. He climbed the hill pointed out to him and prepared to begin his vision quest. Sitting down on the ground, he laid out the bowls of water, corn, berries, and dried meat in front of him. He also removed the special gifts that had been made for him to present to whichever spirits deigned to visit him during his quest: brightly colored ribbons that the spirits could use to clothe themselves. Then he assumed the lotus position to wait and meditate with the Chanunpa on his lap and held with both hands.

  His Grandfather had told him that there were four things that a man must have when he goes on a vision quest: wisdom, knowledge, power, and endurance. He would have neither food nor water for the next ninety-six hours, and during that time he could not sleep as well but be ever vigilant, for he did not know when the Great Spirit would send his messenger.

  Time passed, but he did not feel it. Instead, he immersed himself in the power of the universe and tapped the raw energy of creation, which the Great Spirit had used to form the Earth and the heavens above. Inside this power, there was no fear, and White Wolf felt at ease with himself and the world around him. He did not feel the heat of the sun nor the breeze that rose up in the afternoon and tousled his hair. Night fell, and still he kept his vigilance, but nothing came to him. Then during the dawn, he saw a wolf approach him.

  “It’s been a long time,” White Wolf greeted the wolf-spirit as an old friend.

  The spirit transformed itself into that of the old Great Medicine Man who had helped him as a child. “Yes, it has,” he agreed. “So, tell me,” he began as he sat down across from White Wolf, “how has the young Brave I met in the woods fared in the White Man’s world? I remember that the boy was cold and very troubled.”

  “I wanted to thank you for leading me to the wolf den. The medicine that you gave me has continued to sustain me in the White Man’s world. The she-wolf promised never to leave me, and I have felt her presence every day in my spirit.”

  “I have watched you, White Wolf. You have done very well. You have chosen a profession that protects the weak and the innocent.”

  “There is also much death connected with it. And there is an evil that grows in the hearts of too many White Men in positions of power, which causes them to prey upon the very people they have sworn to protect. I have a license to prosecute the law breakers, but I am often powerless to prosecute the men and women who abuse the power given them.”

  “You have used other agents of evil to eradicate these evil men,” the Medicine Man pointed out.

  “Yes, I have. I will not say that I am proud of what I have done. In each case I have had to decide which evil was the lesser.”

  The Medicine Man nodded with understanding. “You have become a Buddhist.”

  “Yes, Great Medicine Man. I have come to believe that it was meant to be that I convert to Buddhism. There is much in Buddhism that coincides with the way of the People. One concept I embrace is that my body is a temple. It is, of course, a temple of the Great Spirit. Buddhism is a way of life that helps to sustain me in the White Man’s world, that I might be true to myself, the Land, the universe, and the will of the Great Spirit.”

  The Medicine Man grunted. “You did not accept the promotion offered you. Do you fear that this evil that grows in the hearts of other men will infect you as well?”

  “Perhaps, Great Medicine Man. I feel that the promotion would further remove me from the weak and the innocent that I have sworn to protect and move me closer to the centers of power where the evil resides and waxes strong.”

  The wolf spirit rose to his feet. “You will be visited by other spirits. Some may be evil. Others may be beneficial. Hold on to your Chanunpa, for it represents your faith in the Great Spirit. And do not worry, for He continues to hear your prayers.”

  White Wolf rose as well. “I thank you for your counsel, Great Medicine Man, and I thank you for visiting me and giving me this powerful medicine.”

  The Medicine Man became a wolf again, turned its back on White Wolf, and ran off towards the trees, disappearing into the unseen world. White Wolf sat back down and resumed his vigil.

  Near mid-morning of the second day, he saw a man approach him, and he recognized him as the CIA agent Doris. Doris carried a shotgun in his left hand, and his countenance showed that he was greatly angry. The agent stopped about six feet away from him and leveled the barrel of the shotgun directly at White Wolf.

  “We trusted you. We gave you information in confidence, because we thought we could be good friends. But you betrayed our trust. We cannot allow traitors to our nation to continue to live. Speak your last prayer, Indian, and get ready to die.”

  White Wolf saw the muzzle blast ejaculate from the barrel in slow motion. He heard the sound of the blast as if it were a freight train rumbling close by him, and he felt the lethal pellets bury themselves deep into the earth behind him. He had recognized the evil spirit come to him as one of dark’s minions, and he prayed to the Great Spirit for protection. His Buddhist training had taught him that the shades of the mind and of the dimension between this material life and the Happy Hunting Life could not harm him unless he feared them, and, in essence, gave them permission to hurt him.

  “Are you dead yet?” the spirit asked him.

  “My life is not yours to take. Leave me, and take your sickness back to the hell from which you were born.” White Wolf prayed and gripped the Chanunpa more firmly. The evil spirit finally acknowledged defeat and disappeared into the void from which it came.

  Towards evening of the same day, he recognized another spirit coming to him, wearing the shape of Sylvia. He peered into the spirit’s being to discern its nature whether it be a good spirit or an evil one. He was a little surprised that it contained elements of both, and this realization made him more aware of his guard.

  “Mind if I sit down, cousin?” she asked sweetly.

  “Do I have a choice?” he asked her.

  Sylvia sat down on the ground in front of him, provocatively showing off her beautiful, shapely legs. “Like what you see?”

  “I have always found the universe a beautiful place,” he responded. “It is only man that has corrupted it and brought evil into the Great Spirit’s creation.”

  “Have we really? Haven’t we brought order to the natural chaos of the world? People are sheep, you know. They need strong leaders who tell them what to believe, how to act, and what to think. We are not born equal, despite what the Constitution states. Some people are born leaders; the rest are sheep. The fittest of the species survive, while those who are weak die to sustain the strong.”

  “All life is sacred. Who but the Great Spirit can determine whether a life is strong or weak?”

  “Is that your Buddhist training? Or the way of the People?”

  “In this aspect, both.”

  “Do not the People put their weak and malformed in the forest for the animals to come and take them? Is this not a judgment of whether a life if strong or weak?”

  “No. If the Great Spirit wishes a life to continue in a weakened or deformed body, then He alone will decide. It is never a judgment that a person can make on his own.”

  “And did the Great Spirit tell you to kill all those men?”

  “The temple had to be protected. I would never have willfully killed those men unless they first had provoked me.”

  “They were weak. Let’s face it. You are strong. The taking of a life is so easy. You have been trained by the best. You can use people for your own interests.”

  “Why have you come to me? To test me?”

  Sylvia shook her beautiful head, her hair rippling seductively. “I am only asking the questions that are in your own mind. You did come out here to seek answers, did
you not? I can give you no answers. They are already within you.”

  “Then, I guess I have answered myself, haven’t I?”

  “Why don’t you go to Uncle Luigi? Get away from this rat race where people don’t understand you or love you the way your Uncle does.”

  “Go away, Sylvia. I have already made my choice in life.” He prayed and concentrated on his Chanunpa.

  “Yes, you have,” Sylvia told him, just before she disappeared.

  In the middle of the night of the third day, a ghostly apparition, all aglow, floated out of the trees and came near him. White Wolf recognized him as the shade of Director Welsh. Behind him came the shades of Eric Simmons, Andrew Prescott, and Senator Laughlin. “Murderer!” they cried in unison.

  “Go away!” White Wolf told them. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You killed us! What right did you have to kill us?”

  “I did not kill you. You predestined your end by the way you lived your lives. No one forced you to listen to the evil that pervades this existence. You turned your hearts from the needs of the unprotected and filled your own bellies with your lusts.”

  “Will you not have compassion for us? Will you not at least say that you are sorry? It will ease the burdens we must carry into the afterlife.”

  White Wolf barked a harsh laugh. “I would shed a tear for an animal that had been needlessly killed first before I would grieve for you. You are less than the meanest or the useless of animals that live in the universe. Leave me. You have nothing to say to me.”

  “We will never leave you. We will haunt you all the days of your life.”

  White Wolf laughed again, this time harder and longer. “No, you won’t. I have already dismissed you. You were nothing to me in life, and you will remain nothing to me in death. This world is better off without you. Now, begone!”

  The shades wailed horribly as if they were in torment, their souls plagued by the sins accumulated during the lives they had consciously chosen. Then they disappeared into the next dimension, their howls dissipating into the wind.

  The following morning, the fourth day, his mind seemed extremely clear. He could taste the colors around him and see the different scents given off by the flowers and the trees and even the wind that stirred the land with its caress. He truly felt as if he were not just a part of the world but the world itself.

  During the mid-afternoon, another spirit approached him, and with joy he welcomed his Grandfather.

  “Greetings, my son,” Grandfather Deer Catcher said to him as he sat down cross-legged across from him.

  “I did not expect to see you,” White Wolf admitted.

  “It was you that summoned me.”

  White Wolf nodded. His mind and spirit were in the process of healing themselves along with the body they inhabited. It made sense to him that he would reach out to the one man with whom he had made a strong bond with at the spiritual level.

  “How fares Grandmother?” he asked respectfully.

  “She is more beautiful than ever. And if it can be believed, her cooking has greatly improved.”

  “The hunting, then, is good, I take it.”

  “The Great Spirit is very generous.”

  “Why did I call you, Grandfather?”

  “Maybe you should ask yourself that, my Grandson? Let us start with your desire to take this vision quest. What is it that you hope to succeed?”

  “My last case disturbed my equilibrium, Grandfather. I was forced to do things that went against my nature.”

  “And what is your nature, my Grandson?”

  White Wolf had to think about the question for a moment. “I’m not sure. When I lived with you, my Grandfather, and Grandmother, I believed I knew my path. But when I was transplanted in the White Man’s world, my path was changed drastically. I have had to walk a very thin line. Sometimes I do not know which world I am a part of. Perhaps I am not a part of either world, and that makes me feel very alone.”

  “And what does your Buddhist belief tell you?”

  “That it does not matter where I walk as long as I am true to myself.”

  “Do you think the Great Spirit has found fault with you?”

  White Wolf shook his head. “I cannot truly answer that question, Grandfather.”

  “The Great Spirit has given you strong medicine. The spirit of the wolf has protected you during a war where many of your comrades did not come home. He blessed you with a loving wife, a strong wife. She is not one of the People, nor is she a White Woman. Yet, she compliments you as a perfect mate. He has placed you in a position to protect the people that you naturally hate because of their ignorance. You will remember what the village Medicine Man told you when he found you among the wolves: you were chosen for a purpose known only to the Great Spirit. It is not our place to question the Great Spirit why He chose the path for us but for us to ask the Great Spirit if we are still walking that path.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather. Your words of advice have always been true to me.”

  “Good-bye, my Grandson. I await you in the Happy Hunting Grounds. It will not be for a long time. Time no longer matters to me. I will not take notice of the wait. Until then, may you walk with the Great Spirit.”

  “And you, Grandfather.”

  “Oh, one last thought: perhaps I should talk to the Great Spirit. It would be a wondrous thing if He allows your wife to enter the Happy Hunting Ground with you. She serves you well. I know that she will complete your happiness in the Land where there is no sorrow.”

  White Wolf looked into his Grandfather’s eyes, noting the vitality and the warmth that the afterlife had restored to him. He also saw his Grandfather’s pride in his Grandson just before his Grandfather’s spirit returned to the other realm. White Wolf then thanked the Great Spirit for sending perhaps the only true advisor who knew him so well besides Himself.

  The last visitor to talk to him came during the last hours of his quest: the she-wolf that had extended her protection to him while he was a child running away from his parents and the Great Spirit’s plan. She sat down on her haunches, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as if she were laughing at him and yet glad to see him.

  “You have grown, young pup,” she growled in the language of the wolves.

  “I thank you most of all, Mother. Your protection has allowed this body to continue to exist in this world so that my soul may continue to perfect itself in the next.”

  “You have much life left in the world of men, young pup,” the wolf told him. “It is no great effort to extend my protection to you. I will always be there for you. The two-legged beasts are no better than the four-legged animals. Many are worse. But do not despair, they will not be able to harm you.”

  “Again, I thank you, Mother.”

  “I will be behind you and in front of you and above you and below you. Never fear. Not even the day when you must finally construct your own spirit ladder and join your People who have gone before you.”

  “I will remember, Mother.”

  “Have you accomplished your tasks? Have you learned what you hoped to learn from your quest?”

  “Yes, Mother. I believe so.”

  “Then it is time for you to return to the world of men.” The wolf vanished, and White Wolf heard the sound of Running Bear’s car coming up the road. He looked down at the offerings of food and gifts that he had laid out for the spirits. The food and water had all been consumed, and the gifts had been completely removed. He prayed one last time to the Great Spirit for giving him this opportunity to commune with the universe before he started down the hill.

  “Your vision quest was successful,” Running Bear concluded, noting the lively gait White Wolf set as he approached the car.

  “The spirits were willing to share with me and open up things in my mind that had been hidden from me by my own worries and concerns.”

  “It’s good to clear out the junk in the attic from time to time,” Running Bear rejoined. “We go back to the village.
I imagine that you should be very hungry.”

  “A little,” White Wolf admitted.

  “You will not be coming back to the reservation after this trip,” Running Bear made a declaration as he drove back to the village.

  “Each time I come back, there is a greater interval of time from the last. When I was still very young, I used to run away from my real Father’s house and hitchhike my way back to the reservation. It used to make my Father very angry to quit work and come looking for me. Then as I grew older, I would come only for the summer. Then I joined the Service and was sent to Korea. That had been the longest interval that I had not returned to the reservation. Now, it has been another five years.” White Wolf was silent for several moments, deep in contemplation. “But I believe you are right. I have chosen the path the Great Spirit laid out for me. I do not think I will ever come back to the reservation, but the People will always remain in my heart and be one with my spirit.”

  “It is good that you know your way. You have great medicine, White Wolf. You are a credit to the People. The White Man will not recognize the great debt they will owe you, but the Great Spirit keeps His own accounting. And in the end, it is His will that counts, not the fleeting moments of men who walk on two legs and think themselves superior above all creatures.”

  “May you walk with the Great Spirit, Running Bear.”

  “And with you, Sam ‘White Wolf’ McLeod.”

  THE END

  Copyright © David J. Wallis 2012

  Cover art by Lester Banzuelo and Adam David

  ePub design and production by Flipside team

  eISBN 978-971-9951-16-2

  This e-book edition published 2012

  by Flipside Publishing Services, Inc.

  Quezon City, Philippines

  flipside.ph

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Dedication page

  Preface