Awakening the Alpha

by Carolina Valdez

  Or maybe I won’t.

  Like a hunter’s arrow piercing his brain, the realization struck Logan that he and Bernard didn’t belong together. They never had. Their only connection had been hot, driving, urgent, and satisfying sex, but never about who they were or what interests they shared. As the relationship continued, Bernard became more and more clingy until he’d turned into the demanding person Logan had just spoken with.

  I may call because I said I would, but if I do, it will be to break up with you.

  Showing his Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood at the gate, he was waved through without paying an entry fee. Logan could have well afforded the fee, but, despite having been raised in a big city almost as a white man, he honored the Indians’ small victory by taking what was due him. Over the long history of this country, the government had taken far too much.

  He’d been fourteen the last time he’d been in the park, just before the huge fires of 1988 had reduced a third of it almost to wasteland. He drove past areas of dead lodgepole pines, standing sentinel like slashes of charcoal across an artist’s paper. At least they rose from thick carpets of green regrowth of shrubs and bushes. It caused a sharp pain in his chest to see such devastation. Despite scenes such as these, there were still large, healthy areas of forest and wildlife.

  Although the main thrust of this journey wasn’t to revisit the park but to drive through it to spend time with his grandfather outside Yellowstone, he detoured for a quick look at something he remembered from his childhood. As an artist, he had particularly loved it.

  As he followed the road to the Old Faithful geyser, a line of stopped cars loomed ahead. Logan slowed and braked behind them. Traffic in both directions on the two-lane road to the world famous geyser was stalled because three imposing brown bison—the largest in front and the others behind—were standing as still as bronze sculptures in the roadway.

  Horns blared, and some people yelled at the beasts in hopes of getting them to move, but the buffalo stood motionless. It was far too dangerous to get too close to one of these wild animals because they’d killed some people who did, so visitors sat in their cars and talked to kill time until the huge beasts decided to amble across the street. One woman in short shorts and a blouse got out and took a photo with her iPhone before returning to her automobile. Logan wondered if she’d used an insect repellant, because if she hadn’t, all that exposed skin was going to become mighty uncomfortable when the mosquitoes came out this evening. Everything in Yellowstone was big, including its biting insects.

  After a time, when his patience wore thin, Logan left his car and walked with soft steps to the first car blocked. Standing on the berm, well away from a wild animal that might whirl and gore him in an instant, he spoke in quiet, singsong Shoshone to the lead bison. It was what his great-grandfather would have done.

  In the odd, five-note range of his chant, he shared tales of how important its ancestors had been to the Native peoples. How it had provided warmth, clothing, and shelter with its hides, food, and horn from which Logan’s own ceremonial knife had been carved. It was why he’d been given the name Buffalo Knife in his secret naming ceremony.

  I honor the mighty buffalo, but it is time to leave the road that wears down your hooves with its hardness. Graze on the sweet grasses below instead and slake your thirst with fresh, cold waters from the flowing river.

  The big head turned, and one big black eye zeroed in on him. The horn on that side had been broken in half. Logan froze, bowed his head, and lowered his gaze in respect, holding his breath as he focused on the sharp hooves a few feet away so he could get behind the car fast if they struck out. It was a bull, with huge gonads, and Logan thought it was a good thing this wasn’t mating season or it might have been horny and very cantankerous when a man approached.

  The shaggy, humped creature took a measured step forward. Took another. As slow as the flow of tree sap in winter, the others followed.

  Logan breathed again and smiled. Bison had been clocked running forty miles an hour, and he wondered if they had a humorous, stubborn streak when it came to inconveniencing the humans who had long ago invaded their territory.

  Soon the road cleared, and cheers rose from the stalled cars as motors turned over and they rolled forward. As he approached his car and clicked, the driver’s door opened and lifted like a wing.

  The woman with the iPhone snapped his picture. “Thank you!”

  “Not a problem,” Logan called back and waved.

  Logan started the motor. Had his chant truly released the big buffalo to move? He had no way of knowing. It had been so long since he’d experienced being Shoshone that a fierce feeling of pride in it and how he’d been able to speak the ancient language surprised him. He hadn’t felt right about this part of who he was in so many years he’d forgotten what it was like. After this small experience, it felt good. Oh, it wasn’t as if he’d return to live on the reservation. He wanted to continue living as white men did, but he no longer wanted to ignore the old ways of his heritage. That may have been part of the unconscious reason for coming to visit his grandfather.

  Reflecting on the bull’s humongous sex paraphernalia made him curious as to what the bulge in Blaze Canis’s worn jeans hid in his crotch. The urge to slip his hand inside those jeans and inside his shorts to cradle the fullness and heat there flared inside him. Go away, Coyote. Shoo! Stop giving me thoughts like this.

  He took the road up to Old Faithful in the upper geyser basin, parked, and waited fifteen minutes or so until its hot waters spewed high into a deep blue sky free of even the hint of clouds. He walked past some of the other thermal pools, finding it a little unnerving to know a small one could spontaneously open up beneath him at any minute.

  Most people came here to enjoy Old Faithful’s show, see the wildlife, and view the other hot pools around the park. They didn’t know they were walking on Yellowstone Caldera, an active supervolcano, with more geothermal features than anywhere else in the world. If you thought about, it could be very disturbing. Only the footsteps of the ignorant and the brave echoed here.

  Chapter 4

  Ahead of Logan, a group of visitors was following a young park ranger dressed in a dark green uniform. He tagged along behind, eager to see the beautiful Morning Glory Pool, or hot spring, and the color that had enthralled him as a teenager. Maybe artists saw color more vividly than others, but he wanted to see this color again so badly that he was even robbing himself of a little time with his grandfather.

  What the guide led them to he hadn’t seen since then. Disappointment swept through him, and he couldn’t repress his response.

  “The last time I saw it, I was fourteen. I remember it as a deep, rich blue. The color was unbelievable. Now it’s aquamarine, not a true blue, and I don’t remember the earth around it being red and orange. Am I wrong?”

  The ranger said, “I’m glad you asked that question. I’d say your memory is excellent. Heat-loving blue bacteria are responsible for that color, but people have tossed items into the pool that have blocked the entry of the thermal waters and lowered the heat level. So the blue bacteria have given way to those that cause the ring of orange and red. For a time, we created mini earthquakes with small amounts of dynamite to open the blockages, but then we realized it might be dangerous to tickle an active volcano.”

  A rumble of amused agreement rolled through the group.

  “Has this ever erupted like Old Faithful?”

  The ranger nodded. “A few times, but only after an earthquake.”

  While people chuckled over the wisdom of not tickling a volcano, Logan agreed. “I’d say letting a volcano sleep makes a helluva lot of sense.”

  Checking his watch, Logan realized he’d spent enough time here, and now he’d have to backtrack to the gate and take another road through the Lamar Valley and Mammoth to the Wyoming exit.

  As he drove, he thought about his connection to the ancient peoples who had been nomads following the seasons and the migrati
ng buffalo herds. He could imagine them struggling through the dense virgin forests here with their possessions in hand—the men carrying the poles and buffalo hides to make their tipis, others carrying spears, bows, arrows, and bearskins for bedding. They would set up their shelters, then hunt, fish, gather berries and seeds, and slake their thirst drinking the pristine river water.

  Because the sensual connection with Blaze Canis had opened up all sorts of thoughts about sex, which was seldom far from his male mind anyway, he wondered if the couples had had sex under bearskin covers while their children slept nearby. Maybe single young men and women wandered off into the woods to satisfy their need for bare skin against bare skin and hands roaming over butts and breasts.

  He suddenly realized he was now in the Lamar Valley, and visitors had pulled over to photograph a distant grizzly through telephoto lenses. He’d forgotten about bears, wolves, and coyotes. He smiled to himself, thinking maybe a good fondle and fuck in the woods hadn’t been easily achieved in the old days.

  Because driving through the park was slow, it took over two hours for him to reach the reservation. After showing his ID at the reservation gate, he drove to his grandfather’s frame house and found him sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, smoking his pipe as he anticipated Logan’s arrival. He stood and came down the steps.

  Logan smiled as he pulled up and left the car. He knew his father’s father hadn’t been on the porch long. No, something in the older man would have told him when his grandson would arrive. Although not a medicine man, healer, or shaman, he was nevertheless the epitome of the mystical powers often associated with being Indian.

  “Nian kenu,” Logan said. My grandfather. The Shoshone words slid from his tongue as if it hadn’t been four years since he’d said them in person.

  His grandfather opened his arms in greeting. Logan flushed with guilt for having written or called so seldom in all that time. He was here now only at his parents’ urging, but the welcome told him he was forgiven for his neglect. That was, after all, what love was all about, wasn’t it?

  Logan stepped into the hug and for a moment was a boy on the verge of manhood again, wrapped in the strength and unconditional love of the man who had taught him to be Indian. From this man, not his citified father, he’d learned to track, hunt, and shoot, to dance at sings and powwows, to honor the earth and all its creatures.

  He’d also explained what his father had seemed too embarrassed to discuss. Things like wet dreams, erections, sex from behind, sucking cock, keeping himself clean and disease free, and what sexual intercourse with a woman was all about. Sometimes Logan wondered if he’d suspected his sexual preferences because Kenu had also spoken about men who loved men, and of berdaches, meaning womanly men and manly women.

  He owed this man much. Beyond love, his respect, and honor.

  They broke the hug, and his grandfather said, “You will be thirsty, my son. I have lemonade.”

  “That would be nice, Kenu. It was a long drive.” It was always lemonade among these Natives. He’d forgotten. At least it wasn’t Kool-Aid, as with some tribes. He hated the sugary stuff.

  His grandfather stepped into the small kitchen to fetch the drinks, but not before Logan noticed how much he had aged in the years of his absence. He must not wait so long to see him again.

  Logan stretched and looked around, inhaling the scent of cedar and cinnamon that hadn’t changed over the years. The frame home was smaller than he’d remembered, clean and furnished with items his father or grandfather had crafted. There were colorful rugs and throws woven by his late grandmother either by hand or on the loom standing folded and silent against one wall.

  Kindling, crumpled paper, and logs in the stone fireplace awaited the touch of a match or a flint and stone. Outside the back door would be a stack of wood cut by his axe-wielding grandfather, who was in his eighties.

  Logan drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Kenu had been devastated over the loss of his wife four years ago. The same tight bond between his own parents was evident. As he often did when thinking of their love, he wondered why he’d been born gay, why hard chests, narrow hips, and asses made his dick take on life as an aching, penetrating cock which zeroed in on men to suck and fuck.

  Fact was, if his grandfather and father hadn’t loved women, he wouldn’t be here. He rolled his tired neck from one shoulder to the other and ran his hands over his face. Sometimes there was no explaining the universe.

  Who did instructor Blaze Canis want to fuck? It would be nice if it was a man rather than a woman, and doubly nice if it were a Shoshone with the secret name Buffalo Knife.

  The memory of gold spinning a strand that encircled his cock flew into Logan’s head. Oh crap. Where is all this coming from? I’m feeling so horny, I may end up holding the guy hostage at gunpoint so I can have my way with him. This was crazy, mystical stuff. It was Coyote, the Trickster, stuff. From the mists of time, Natives had known about the tricks the physically weak but clever Coyote god pulled on men. Sometimes humorous, they were more often deceitful and cruel.

  Cool it, Indian. You can’t be masturbating in your grandfather’s house, not even if you shoot into a condom. The odor would still be there. Despite his grandfather’s ease in discussing personal issues with him, Logan would feel embarrassed if he jerked off in this home.

  Kenu returned with the drinks, and immediately Logan focused on his grandparent as they sat in the living room and talked as they drank.

  Logan was a professional artist, a very successful one, and he had brought a large, framed charcoal drawing of his grandmother working at her loom. It was signed Logan Swift Rider. He excused himself and went out to his car to bring it in and present it to his grandfather.

  The older man stared at the gift for a long time without speaking.

  “It’s as I remember her,” Logan said, throat tight with emotion and the fear that Kenu might not be pleased with it.

  “She was a beautiful woman,” his grandfather said, his voice soft.

  Logan’s throat relaxed. “Yes. Kind and loving too, but strong.”

  Kenu nodded. “Yes. Strong.” He took the drawing and placed it on the stone mantel. “Everyone who enters will see her. I am pleased with your gift.”

  Logan didn’t need an uttered thanks. Thanks were a white man’s way, and his father’s father was Indian in all his ways. To have placed the drawing in a place of honor and to say he was pleased was his way of showing his deep and abiding gratitude.

  They stood for a moment without speaking. Logan broke the silence with, “I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  Grandfather wagged a finger. “No. There is a potlatch we must attend. This one honors those who have moved away and have returned for a visit.”

  “Kenu, why didn’t you tell me? I have no gifts.” A potlatch was a party, and everyone provided the same gift, no matter how small, to everyone. He would embarrass this man he loved by appearing without gifts.

  “I have them. I have food too. Your auntie has prepared potato salad and fry bread for us to take.”

  Logan shook his head and smiled. “You’re amazing.”

  “I know.” It was said with simple assurance and not an ounce of arrogance.

  As it turned out, his gift for the potlatch, prepared by his grandfather, was a four-by-six-inch print copy in color of one of his most famous works—that of an ancient Shoshone chief in his regalia. Logan’s clear, bold signature was on it, adding value to the gift.

  His grandfather had carved small wooden black bears and strung them from leather thongs as necklaces as his gift. Bears were considered good medicine to most Native Americans, no matter their tribe, and the older man must have carved for months to have enough. He slipped one over his grandson’s head before they walked to Auntie June’s house.

  Logan hugged the woman who had been his grandmother’s friend and wasn’t a blood relative. She’d been in his life while he’d lived here. He thanked her for the food, and they exchanged news
as they walked together to the celebration in the gymnasium-cafeteria of the local high school.

  Logan’s stomach growled as the aroma of fry bread, beans, and barbecued chicken assailed him the moment he stepped inside the multipurpose room. Memories of this room when he’d lived here flooded him with the noise he and his friends had made while eating lunch or cheering their pathetic basketball team nights.

  This evening, the women had decorated the room with potted palms borrowed from a nursery, and there were brightly woven cloths and bouquets of flowers on the tables where people could sit to eat and visit.

  “Logan!”

  “Rudy Yellow Feather! How are you? I haven’t seen you in what…a dozen years?”

  “Just about.”

  They shook hands. They had been best friends, and, like Logan, Rudy was a big man, but at forty, his frame already carried too much weight. Fat, lazy Indian…Logan had heard that comment used too often about his people. It echoed in his head, and he felt bad for Rudy, who worked as hard as any white man he’d ever known.

  “How’s your wife?”

  “She stayed home with the kids, but we’re all fine. And you?”

  “Still single and doing okay.”

  Several of his middle school friends were there, even some who, like the two of them, no longer lived on the rez. They hugged and laughed as they remembered how it had been during the four years he’d lived with Kenu.

  One thing they did not speak of was the poverty here and how people either survived or went down under it.

  There were only seventy or eighty people at the potlatch, and the food quickly disappeared. Their chief, intricate feather-and-beads headdress in place, welcomed Logan and the others who had made the journey to be here. Gifts were exchanged among much chatter

  After they’d eaten, a dance team in full regalia performed two of the sacred dances, and the wooden floor sent the vibrations of the accompanying drums up through Logan’s feet. He’d forgotten the sensual feelings it had always created in him. He would take that emotion with him and use it when he sketched the portrait forming in his mind’s eye of a Native drummer.