Wayne really didn’t believe that.
His hands beginning to shake, he slowly cocked the hammer back on his revolver.
The next lightstick also flickered and went out.
Legs trembling with fear, he started slowly backing up. He stayed close to the wall, his gaze focused on the last lightstick.
The final lightstick was only about twenty feet away. Wayne watched as it, too, flickered and went out, leaving the corridor in complete darkness. In that blackness, two eyes suddenly appeared--two slanting yellow eyes--glowing with a light all their own. The eyes turned his way and stared at him with unblinking curiosity, watching him with an intelligence so strong he could almost feel it. Beneath the eyes a mouth appeared, lined with a double row of glowing green teeth...
The son of a bitch is eating the lightsticks!
The Crota seemed to laugh in delight.
Wayne screamed.
Chapter 17
The stew hissed and boiled, chunks of carrots, potatoes and meat rising slowly to the surface to dance with the bursting bubbles. Outside the tiny cabin, the wind picked up, blowing stray tumbleweeds across the South Dakota prairie. Somewhere in the distance a coyote howled his lonesome cry.
Jay Little Hawk sat cross-legged on the bare wooden floor, his back resting against the wall. He tried to ignore the wonderful aroma of the stew, but it wasn’t easy. He hadn’t eaten since leaving Missouri. The plane out of St. Louis didn’t serve meals and he’d barely had enough time to grab a cup of coffee while changing airlines in Sioux Falls. Thirty minutes later, he’d landed at the Pierre Municipal Airport. He had been met at the unloading ramp by two Lakota Indians, Lenorad Firekeeper and Lenorad’s younger cousin, David White Cloud. Both followed the medicine path.
Almost ten years had passed since Little Hawk last saw either of the two men, so the reunion was a happy one with lots of hugging and backslapping. The long ride back to the Rosebud Reservation gave the three of them a chance to exchange information about family and friends. Not wanting to cloud happy conversations with unhappy shadows, they deliberately avoided talking about what brought Little Hawk to South Dakota.
Hawk opened his eyes. David White Cloud and Lenorad Firekeeper sat across the room from him, their backs against the opposite wall. The blanket the men sat on was an interesting weave of bright reds, blues and greens. Their grandmother had made it when they were still toddlers, many years before her eyes yellowed and went blind. Lenorad and David shared the blanket equally, neither trying to claim total ownership. It was their most treasured possession.
Just to Hawk’s right sat Charlie Grey. Charlie was a big man at six feet four inches tall and a little over two hundred thirty pounds, but he was easygoing. He always had a smile and a kind word for everyone, and he could tell a joke like no one else could. Even if he flubbed the punchline, his comical expressions made you laugh. But Charlie didn’t seem so happy-go-lucky tonight. His shoulders sagged heavily, and he nervously tugged at his braids. It wasn’t an occasion for joke making, so Charlie kept quiet. Maybe a few funny stories is what they needed.
To the right of Charlie, practically dwarfed in the big man’s shadow, sat an Apache named Sam Golthlay. Sam was ten years older than Charlie, less than half his size, thin and wiry with a hooked nose and narrow face. He was considered an elder, but he never let age slow him down. Sam had already outlived three wives and fathered at least a dozen children.
The last man in the room, Jim Hightower, owned the house they were in. Like most reservation Indians, Jim was dirt-poor and couldn’t afford much. Still, the two-room shack he called home was clean and comfortable. What little furniture he owned had been moved into the bedroom in preparation for the ceremony to come. Like the others in the room, Hightower was also a medicine man.
When he arrived earlier, Hawk had lent a hand in covering the windows and doors with heavy blankets. The smallest flicker of light was not to be allowed in once the ceremony started. Nothing shiny could be in the room either; therefore, all pictures and mirrors had been turned towards the wall, all eyeglasses and watches removed.
A large rectangle was drawn on the floor in chalk, leaving enough space between it and the walls for the participants to sit comfortably. A different-colored flag hung from the ceiling at each corner of the rectangle. At the western corner a black flag represented darkness and night. A red flag, representing the sacred pipestone and the blood of the people, hung at the south corner. The yellow flag at the east corner stood for the rising sun, while a white flag represented the north.
A wooden staff, standing in a clay pot, had been placed between the north and west flags. Painted red and black, with four eagle feathers fastened to its top, the staff stood before a small altar of powdered earth. To the left of the altar sat two gourd rattles.
As though an unseen signal had passed through the room, the quiet whispers died down and Jim Hightower hurried to open the door. The others rose to their feet. The one they were waiting for had arrived.
The man who entered might possibly have been the oldest man alive. His face was creased with rivers of time, and the braids hanging over his shoulders were white as new-fallen snow. The ends of those braids were wrapped with soft brown beaver fur, held in place with pieces of red cloth. A golden eagle tail feather hung from the left braid, the feather’s quill beaded with turquoise and red beads. About his thin neck he wore a bone choker, while a blue and white blanket was draped carefully over his shoulders.
Though the man’s body was old, his eyes burned with a fiery intensity. When he moved, it was not with the feeble shuffle of someone frail and weak, but with a straight-shouldered bearing that demanded and received respect.
There was no need for an introduction. Everyone in the room knew George Strong Eagle. There probably wasn’t an Indian on the reservation who hadn’t asked for his help at one time or another. Everyone knew Strong Eagle; everyone respected him. He was a tribal elder, a council leader, a chief and one of the last of the truly great medicine men. If there was a problem, he would know what to do about it.
Strong Eagle hugged Jim Hightower as he entered the room, handing him a leather-wrapped bundle to hold. He then hugged the other men, greeting each with a word or two in Lakota. Eagle didn’t speak any English, and it saddened him how many of the younger people spoke only the white man’s tongue.
Little Hawk, who could speak Lakota almost as well as he could speak Cherokee, was the last to be greeted. Strong Eagle not only spoke to him, but hugged him longer than all the others. There had always been a special place in Hawk’s heart for Strong Eagle. They’d known each other for a very long time. After Hawk’s return from Vietnam, Eagle had adopted him as a son. It was quite an honor. The act had been made official by a special ceremony in which they were covered with a buffalo robe and tied together with thongs, symbolizing their togetherness for life.
The others waited patiently for Eagle to sit down before taking a seat themselves. He sat midway along the end wall, in the place of honor, forming the central point of those gathered in the room. Across the room from him was the fireplace, where the stew boiled. To his left was the wall occupied by Lenorad Firekeeper, David White Cloud and Jim Hightower. To his right were Little Hawk, Charlie Grey and Sam Golthlay. Before sitting back down, Hightower returned Eagle’s bundle to him.
Eagle carefully opened the bundle. It contained three smaller bundles wrapped in soft deerhide. The first bundle was his medicine bag. In it were a necklace of bear claws, several different kinds of dried roots and plants, seven twisted braids of sweetgrass, sage and numerous things the Great Spirit had given him over the years.
He handed two braids of sweetgrass to Lenorad Firekeeper. Lenorad lit the end of each braid and walked around, waving the sweetgrass back and forth so the fragrance filled the room.
Next the old medicine man passed around a small tobacco pouch filled with sage, instructing each man to put a sprig behind his ear or in his hair to please the spirits.
&nbs
p; While the sage and the sweetgrass were going around, Jim Hightower removed the pot of stew from the fire and set it next to the altar. Alongside the stew, he set a bucket of cold well water.
The Yuwipi ceremony was ready to begin.
Stripping naked to the waist, Eagle stood before the altar. Lenorad Firekeeper and David White Cloud stood just behind him. Placing his arms behind his back, Eagle told the two men to tie his fingers together with a length of rawhide cord, starting with thumb to thumb. After tying his fingers together, he had them bind his wrists and arms.
Strong Eagle was then covered with a large quilt and tied up with a rope. Once tied, he was placed face down on the floor within the chalked rectangle, his head to the altar. Technically, he was dead. Like his ancestors, who were wrapped in blankets and placed on scaffolds at the time of death, Eagle had ceased to be. With the symbolic death of his body, his spirit was free to wander, to seek answers to questions that could not have been answered otherwise.
Lenorad Firekeeper and David White Cloud stepped back out of the rectangle, resuming their places along the wall. They were not allowed to reenter the sacred area until after the ceremony. Jim Hightower waited until the two men took their seats and then turned off the lights. Blackness swallowed the room.
The darkness was an ally, helping each man to concentrate on what was transpiring, adding strength to their songs and prayers. Little Hawk started off the singing. Though he could speak the Lakota dialect, he sang in Cherokee:
In a sacred way I am living.
In a sacred way I am praying.
The spirits they are coming.
The spirits they are coming.
Come spirits, come listen to my song.
No sooner had Hawk finished his song than Charlie Grey started in with his deep-throated lyrics. And so it went, each man singing a different song or prayer when his turn came around. They were halfway through the second round when their songs were answered. The spirits had arrived.
Bright sparks of light twinkled and popped in the inky darkness of the room. At times they appeared as little more than the soft winking of starlight on a balmy summer night. Other times, the flashes were as bright as the strobe of a camera.
The walls and floor groaned and shook as separate entities announced their arrival. Rattles shook and unseen objects flew through the air, crashing into the walls. Little Hawk heard the murmur of whispering voices. The voices grew in number until it sounded as if many people were crammed inside the tiny room. The rattles continued to shake, but now they were accompanied by the hollow beating of a drum. No one had brought a drum to the ceremony. The spirits must have brought their own.
Cries of different animals echoed off the walls and the strong, musty scent of dung and fur filled the air. A woman spoke, asking about the welfare of a relative.
Something flew into Hawk’s left shoulder; a feathered wing brushed his cheek. Suddenly, a misty cloud of light appeared before his eyes. It began to swirl, grow solid and take on shape. As he watched, the patch of light formed into the head of a great buffalo. Hawk could feel the beast’s hot breath upon his face, smell the dusty fragrance of the open prairie. The buffalo came closer, blurred and passed completely through him, leaving behind a longing for days long past.
“Hurry, turn on the lights!”
Hawk squinted at the sudden brightness. He looked to the spot where he had last seen Strong Eagle, but the medicine man was no longer there. Instead, he was sitting cross-legged before the altar, completely unwrapped and untied.
Eagle smiled and nodded to those in the room. He listened carefully as each man spoke of his experience during the ceremony. Several also took the opportunity to ask personal questions which were answered by the medicine man. Little Hawk did not ask any questions; Eagle already knew what was on his mind.
Strong Eagle carefully unwrapped the piece of deerskin encasing his second bundle. Everyone was quiet as the old man spoke.
“It is customary that the Yuwipi ceremony be ended with the pipe, as are all our important ceremonies. The pipe used is always that of the person conducting the ceremony, but the spirits have told me not to use my pipe tonight. Instead, they have given me another to use in its place.”
Hawk’s mouth dropped open. Several of the others gasped as Strong Eagle revealed what was in the second bundle.
The pipe’s bowl was pipestone, blackened with age, its stem the lower leg bone of a buffalo calf, wrapped in buffalo wool and red flannel cloth. Tied to the stem were eagle feathers, four small scalps and a couple of bird skins.
There was no mistaking the pipe, because there wasn’t another one like it in all the world. The pipe was called Ptehincala Huhu Canunpa, Buffalo Calf Bone Pipe, and it was the most precious heirloom of the Sioux Nation. It was the same pipe that White Buffalo Woman gave to the tribe centuries ago, the original pipe of the spirit woman who taught the people how to pray.
Eagle carefully picked up the pipe and filled its bowl with kinnikinnick. Store-bought tobacco would never be smoked in such a pipe; it would be like drinking Kool-Aid in the name of Jesus.
Hawk sat to the right of Eagle, so he lit the bowl for the old medicine man. Once lit, the pipe was raised to the Great Spirit, then lowered to Mother Earth and offered to the four different directions. The pipe was then passed to Lenorad Firekeeper to start it on a clockwise journey around the room. Strong Eagle waited for the pipe to complete the circle back to him before speaking.
“The spirits have decreed that we were to use Ptehincala Huhu Canunpa tonight, because tonight’s ceremony is of great importance.” He turned to Hawk. “Little Hawk comes here tonight asking for help. He does not ask it for himself, but for the entire race of man. A great evil has been released upon our world, an evil not known since the times of our great-grandfathers. I know these things. The spirits have taken me to the dwelling place of this evil one. I have peered down into the dark and forbidden lair it calls home. I have seen it, and I know its name. So too did my grandfather know its name, but even then it was a very old name, an almost forgotten legend. But I tell you this: this evil one is no legend; it is as real as you or me. Its name is Crota.”
Hawk stared at a spot on the floor. A few of the others shifted nervously under the intense gaze of the old medicine man.
“Little Hawk, I know that you seek a way to destroy this creature of darkness. I must caution you that this evil one is of stronger magic than you can imagine. It will not be easy to destroy a creature such as this. It will be very hard, but not impossible. Nothing is impossible as long as there is courage and faith.”
Strong Eagle looked around the room, then continued: “Still, Little Hawk, I don’t recommend that you challenge this creature by yourself. While you may have courage and faith--as I know you do--you lack the experience of wisdom that comes only with age. Unfortunately, the Crota will not wait for you to mature. And if we wait, while you will grow wiser, it will grow stronger. No, you cannot wait, but neither can you defeat this thing by yourself. That is why I am going with you.”
You could have heard a snowflake fall, so silent did the room become. No one moved. No one swallowed. They were all in shock from what Strong Eagle had said. Not once during his long life had the old medicine man set foot off the reservation. Little Hawk started to speak, but the old man held up his hand for silence.
“Do not question what I have said or what I am about to do. We all know there are strange forces at work in the universe. The spirits have shown me the path I am to follow. I am not one to question the ways of the spirits and neither are you. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to eat. I am hungry and there are many things I must do before I leave, and there are only a few hours in which to do them.”
Jim Hightower quickly served bowls of stew to each of the guests. The ceremonial stew was thought to bring good luck. Little Hawk and Strong Eagle each had seconds. They were going to need all the luck they could get.
Chapter 18
It was a good thing
they were leaving a trail of lightsticks, otherwise Corporal Randy Murphy would have been hopelessly lost in a relatively short time. The narrow stone alleyways and footpaths they followed twisted and turned like a serpent, often ending at a courtyard or high wall, forcing them to backtrack and start again.
They were in the process of exploring what had apparently been a communal food-storage room, pieces of broken pottery lying everywhere, when a scream echoed through the cavern. Randy reacted automatically by jacking a round into the chamber of his shotgun. Professor Fuller turned away from the pictographs he was studying. He didn’t speak. Like Randy, he was trying to determine which direction the scream came from.
“Unit Three, this is Unit One. Over.”
Randy made a fumbled grab for his radio. “Go ahead, Lloyd. Over.”
“Did you yell?”
“Negative.”
“Can you tell where it came from?” Lloyd asked.
“No,” Randy said.
“Me neither. Unit Two doesn’t respond. The stone walls must be interfering with radio transmissions. What’s your present position, Three?”
“We’re...” Randy looked quickly to the professor.
“West,” Steven Fuller whispered.
“...on the west side of the city. I’d say about three or four blocks from where we split up.”
“Roger, Three. I figure I’m about four blocks north of you. Get back to the main avenue. We’ll rendezvous there.”
“Roger, One. Out.”
Randy looked around. He wasn’t buying the part about the stone walls interfering with radio transmission. Unit Two not responding could only mean they had run into trouble. The scream meant it was serious trouble.
He turned to the professor. “You heard the man, let’s go.”
“We’d save a lot of time if we cut across the roof tops,” Steven said.
Crota Page 14