Emily's Ghost

by Topher

  Chapter Six

  The village of Chief Floating Cloud was a flurry of activity as they prepared the feast for their strange guests. Emily and Sydni sat on a blanket with the Chief, and the men hauled sticks and logs to the center of the ring of teepees and stacked them in a pile. Small children scampered by, often stopping for a moment to stare wide-eyed at the two girls. One girl approached Emily and reached out to touch her blond hair, her eyes full of wonder. She giggled and ran off.

  An Indian boy pointed to Sydni, then touched a finger to each of his eyes. He whispered to the Chief.

  "He wants to know why you wear clear rocks over your eyes," the Chief said. "Do you use them to see into a person's soul?"

  Sydni giggled. "They're called glasses. I use them to see better."

  The boy touched his eyes again and held out his hand to Sydni. Sydni removed her glasses and placed them in his hand. He examined them, holding them up to the light and peering through the lenses. Placing them over his eyes, he gazed about the village. He started to walk but stumbled and the glasses fell from his face. Sydni laughed and the boy righted himself and handed the glasses back to Sydni.

  "I think your seeing rocks are broken," the boy said.

  Sydni replaced her glasses on her nose and smiled at the boy. "They work fine for me.” He turned and ran back to the center of the village.

  Within a short time, the villagers constructed a roaring fire. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, and the air grew cooler, they gathered about the fire at the center of the village. Emily and Sydni sat next to the Chief on a buffalo skin rug. The village warriors sat close, their attention fixed on the girls.

  Sydni leaned close to the Chief and whispered, "Why are they staring at us?"

  "You are strange to them because your skin is all white, and because you wear strange clothing. They also know you have come from the dream world, so they think maybe you are not real."

  "I'm totally real," Emily said. One of the warriors was gazing at her with hard eyes, and Emily frowned and stuck her tongue out at him. He narrowed his eyes and stuck his tongue out. Emily and Sydni giggled and stuck out their tongues at the other warriors who, in turn, stuck their tongues out. After some time playing this game, the girls were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes.

  "What manner of greeting is this?" the Chief asked. "Why do you display your tongue?"

  This made the girls laugh louder.

  "It's funny!" Emily wiped tears from her eyes. "It's not a greeting, it's just funny."

  The Chief rolled his eyes.

  Soon, the village women brought food to the fire. They set trays of steaming meat and fresh vegetables in front of them. The warriors snatched them up with their hands and began to eat. Emily curled up her nose.

  "Don't we get plates and spoons?" she asked.

  The Chief frowned. "What are plates and spoons?"

  "We use them to eat with," Emily said.

  "Yeah," Sydni said. "We put the food on a plate and use the spoon to eat it."

  "You feed a spoon?" a warrior asked.

  Emily and Sydni laughed.

  The warrior scratched his head. "Is this spoon some sort of animal? Why do you feed it?"

  "We don't feed it; it's not an animal," Emily said. "We eat with a spoon."

  "It's used to scoop up the food so we don't have to use our hands," Sydni said.

  "What's wrong with using your hands?" The warrior held up his hands and looked at them. They were filthy. His nose twitched, and he stuck one finger in his nose and wiggled it around. The other warriors pointed at him and laughed. He looked confused. "My nose itches."

  Later that evening, the Chief gathered the tribe around the fire. Emily and Sydni sat among the villagers. Chief Floating Cloud stood in the light of the fire and looked across the faces of his people.

  There is a story among our people about a white buffalo calf. Two warriors were hunting on the prairie when they saw a white buffalo calf approaching them. One of the warriors prepared his bow to shoot the calf, but the other warrior stopped him. He had never seen a white buffalo, and did not wish to kill it. They argued because they needed meat. The warrior raised his bow to shoot, but then the white buffalo turned into a beautiful woman. They both stared in wonder at her. They had never seen such beauty. The warrior who wanted to shoot the buffalo spoke first.

  "You are a beautiful woman,” he said. “Do you want to come back to my teepee and see my collection of rare arrowheads?"

  The woman rolled her eyes at this. The warrior was not happy about her reaction, so he approached her and tried to touch her. The woman drew back her foot and kicked the warrior between the legs. The warrior fell to the ground in a cloud of dust and had nothing more to say. The woman turned to the other warrior.

  "Do you have something you want to say?"

  The warrior saw his friend lying on the ground gasping for air, and he fell to his knees.

  "I will be good!" he pleaded.

  "Then return to your village," the woman said. "Tell your people I will appear to them in four days."

  The warrior dragged his poor friend back to the village and described the incident to the other villagers. They laughed at him. Obviously, he and the other warrior, who was still unable to walk or speak, were just making excuses for returning from a hunt with no meat. However, four days later, a white buffalo wandered into the village. When it reached the center of the village, it turned into the beautiful woman. Many of the warriors stared at her, wondering over her great beauty, but the warrior she kicked warned them, so they behaved themselves.

  The woman stayed in the village for four days and taught them the sacred ceremonies that we perform today to honor the Great Spirit that created the world and all of us. On the fourth day, she gathered everyone in the center of the village.

  "I must go now," she said. All the warriors were very sad that she would be leaving, but their wives were very happy.

  "I will leave you with a sacred package." She presented the chief of the village with a peace pipe. "This pipe is the symbol I will look for when I return so that I will know you are my people," she said. Then she became very stern. "Do not lose this pipe. Bad things will happen if I come back and you have lost it."

  With these words, the woman turned back into the white buffalo calf and left the village.

  "That's a cool story." Emily said.

  One of the warriors leaned over and whispered, "Yeah, except that we lost the pipe."

  "What?" Emily gasped. "You lost it?"

  "It was lost three generations ago when the pipe was entrusted to a young warrior," the Chief said. "The warrior was foolish, and did not understand the value of the pipe. He traded it with another tribe for a bow and some arrows."

  "You should ask for it back," Sydni said.

  "Unfortunately, the Chief of the village became very angry with the warrior. The warrior thought he would be killed, so he ran away," the Chief said. "I have gone to the dreaming place every summer. In the visions I have, I am hoping that one day I will find the sacred pipe, and I will be able to bring it back to our village."

  Once the party broke up, the girls were led to a teepee where they could sleep. They curled up under buffalo skins and soon fell asleep. The next morning, Chief Floating Cloud woke them and took them back to the dreaming place.

  "I had a lot of fun visiting you," Emily told the Chief.

  "Me too,” Sydni said. "I hope you find the pipe so you don't get in trouble with the white buffalo woman."

  "And so do I," the Chief said. "I know I must find it or our people will suffer greatly when she returns."

  As Emily and Sydni stood in the dreaming place, a tiny whirlwind began to form on the ground in front of them. The whirlwind grew larger and larger tearing tufts of prairie grass and dust and hurling them through the air. The girls hunched down on the ground and covered their faces as the whirlwind engulfed them.

  A moment later, they were back in the garage in the s
ame spot they had been the day before. There was no sign the whirlwind had even been there.

  "Wow," Emily said. "That was crazy."

  "Oh no," Sydni gasped. "We are going to be in so much trouble."

  Emily's eyes grew big. "You're right. I didn't think of that. We've been gone all night. Mom will be so mad. I don't know what I'm going to tell her.”

  "Tell me what?"

  The girls whirled around and saw Emily's mom standing in the door of the garage.

  "Didn't you hear me calling you for dinner?"

  "Dinner?" Emily said. "What time is it?"

  "It's dinner time,” Mom replied.

  Emily rolled her eyes. "Ok, but what day is it?"

  "Friday," Mom said. "Are you feeling ok?"

  Sydni giggled. "Yeah, we were just playin' a game in here."

  "Ok, but dinner is ready, so you two get inside."

  "We'll be right there," Emily said.

  Once Mom left, the girls looked at each other.

  "It's like we were never gone," Sydni said. "We spent the whole night in the Indian village, and we came back to exactly the same time we left."

  Emily grinned. "That is so cool!"

  The girls left the garage and walked back to the house.

  "We need to help the Chief find the pipe," Emily said.

  "How are we gonna do that?" Sydni asked.

  "I don't know," Emily said. "But we need to try."