As the crow flies

7

I blinked my eyes and stared around the interior of the teepee just to make sure what I was seeing was what I was seeing-nothing.

The dirt altar that had made up the center of the ceremony floor was still there, even the indented road of the moon, the cigarette butts, the drum. The peyote bowl, spoon, and jug of tea were all there, all of it untouched, as if the participants had suddenly been called from the teepee and had left me behind.

The fire was blazing away as if it had very recently been stoked, but everyone was gone.

I continued to breathe deeply and sat there waiting for I’m not sure what. I blinked a couple of times and started to get the feeling that I was being made the butt of a joke. I found it hard to believe that the Old Man Chiefs would just get up and head out, but evidently they had, leaving the white guy in here to think about things.

I started to think about standing up when I noticed something on the ground leading to where I sat. Leaning forward, I poked a thumb and forefinger into the dirt and picked up a piece of rough twine, the kind that merchants used to use to tie up brown paper packages. I remembered the stuff from my youth on spools in dry-goods stores but hadn’t seen it in years. Where had that come from?

I picked up the end of the twine and watched as it traced its way across the floor, underneath the teepee flap, and out.

Leveraging myself into a standing position, I lumbered toward the center of the circle and stood there beside the fire with the piece of twine in my hand. It was strange, because the fire didn’t appear to be putting out any heat. I did a half-circle in both directions just to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything or anybody, but I was definitely alone.

I stood there for a moment and then noticed more strings lying on the ground, each one leading to where someone had been sitting, all of them disappearing under the flap.

I moved toward the door, kneeled down, and put the twine between my teeth-I could swear I could taste the peyote in the jute-so that I could have both hands free to open the flap. The job was made easier because the tips of my fingers were glowing. I pushed the flap away.

It was daylight outside, which explained everything-I must’ve fallen asleep, and the others had left me there in the relative safety of the teepee. I lowered myself into a three-point position and pushed my way through the opening.

I was no longer in the land of the Northern Cheyenne.

Sand dunes, strangely red, furled into the distance like rollers in an ocean. The sky was a pale blue, and there was moisture in the air as if the sun had just risen even though it stood at midday.

I took the twine out of my mouth and looked to the horizon, but I couldn’t see anything except the wind-drifted sand. I turned back-the teepee was exactly as it had appeared last night, my hat with the sidearm inside still next to the door with the handkerchief draped over the top.

I was just about to reach over and pick up my things when the forgotten string in my hand gave a tug. Startled, I almost dropped it but then saw that it made a beeline over the nearest dune and disappeared. I glanced around and could see the other strings that had come from the teepee-they traced off in all directions, but none of them appeared to be moving.

The string yanked at me again, so I started following it, the sand potholing under my boots as I wound the twine around the flat of my palm.

The going was surprisingly easy, and I could see the perfect outline of the Bighorn Mountains with the brutish hump of Cloud Peak and the jagged molar of Black Tooth in the distance; but there was nothing else except the red desert and the frosted sky.

The twine tugged at me again, this time strong enough to pull my arm away from my body. I stood there looking at it and noticed that the line appeared to be heading toward the dominating marker of the mountains.

I set off again, the roll of twine getting larger around my palm as I walked up and down the gentle slope of the dunes, developing a rhythm not unlike that of the drums I’d heard last night. I’d even started to hum the chant in the back of my throat as I continued on.

I wasn’t sure what was really happening but figured it had to have something to do with the peyote. I guessed this was what happened when you took the stuff. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but I felt disassociated, as if I were outside myself and watching my actions from far away.

I stopped singing, but the song continued. I listened to make sure it wasn’t some sort of echo, but the tune persisted without mine. Standing there at the point of one of the dunes, this one knife-edged by what must have been a powerful wind, I turned my head and could see what looked like a swale that curved like the crescent of a moon; at the top, an enormous black bear was hunched over and striking at something.

It was only when my hand was drawn from my side in sharp yanks that I realized he was pawing at the twine attached to my hand. I froze and then began backing down the opposite side of the dune, rapidly unwinding the string.

I felt the pull again and started untangling myself at a higher speed, when I heard someone speak to me in the standard Cheyenne, man-to-man expression.

“ Ha’ahe!”

“ Ha’ahe!” Having used up a good portion of my formal Cheyenne, I spoke again, this time in English. “Hey, I’m not sure where you are, but there’s a bear over here, so I’d be careful.”

“Is it a black bear or a white bear?”

I remembered that the Cheyenne old-timers used to refer to grizzlies as white bears and yelled back. “He’s a black one, but as big as a grizzly.”

The twine that I had unrolled in my scramble to get away began retracting at an incredible pace as if it were on a fishing reel, yanking me toward the summit of the dune where the gigantic bear towered on his hind legs.

“Good,” the bear said. “For a moment I thought we were in trouble.”

The bear sat next to the crescent dune and grunted to himself as he wove the twine between his enormous claws like a cat’s cradle. “The line is connected to you.”

I was still trying to get used to the idea of carrying on a conversation with a bear, but he was pleasant enough. I stared at him and figured that it was all a part of some kind of dream. His voice sounded familiar, but I kept getting distracted by the fact that it was a bear talking.

He grunted again. “Of course, it is only your line in the sense that you picked it up.” His massive head turned toward me, and I was struck by the smallness of his eyes in the context of his enormous head, but the eyes seemed familiar, too. “Why did you choose this string?”

I shook my head, unsure. “It was the closest.” I studied him for a moment as he played with it. “Do you mind telling me where I am?”

“What?”

“This place, do you think you could tell me where it is? I mean, I can see the mountains, but I’ve never seen sand dunes like this out in the Powder River country.”

He nodded but said nothing.

“Are we in the Powder River country?”

He shrugged.

“I mean, from the angle of the mountains…”

He suddenly growled and shook his great head. “How should I know; I am a bear.” He glanced around. “This place is not mine, it is yours.” He nodded at the string, threaded through his claws, and I noticed that he did not hold the end of it, that the one end was wrapped around my hand but the other disappeared over the next dune. “Perhaps it is the one that interested you the most?”

“What?”

He sighed. “The string.”

I answered carefully, aware that I might not want him agitated. “I suppose.”

The furry hump shifted. “Have you considered what is on the other end?”

“Not really.”

He smiled with close to fifty teeth, some of them exceedingly large, and I noticed that there were strands of gray in his fur. “This is the strength of your character, and you do not know?”

I looked down at the twine still wrapped around my palm and closed my hand into a fist. “The strength of my character is string?”

“The strength of your character is in following this string.” He adjusted his forelegs, and the twine sprung loose. Then he rolled onto his front legs and lifted himself up on his hind ones like a running back, turned toward the direction of the disappearing twine, and sniffed the air. “The string is like the bread crumbs in your mind, consumed until the mystery of this thing becomes a part of you. You have no choice but to follow it until it gives a secret up to you or reveals another mystery, both equally irresistible-it is your nature.”

I stood and walked past him, taking up the string as I went and thinking about what he was saying. “What if I don’t like what I find?”

His voice echoed through me. “There is always that chance.”

I nodded. “This quest you are talking about is not why I’m here, you know.”

He studied me but said nothing.

I took a deep breath and climbed up the side of the dune, pulling the twine out of the sand. “I don’t have time to follow strings; I’ve got things to do. My daughter is getting married.”

“Yes, she is.”

I turned back to look at him, now only a couple of yards away. “And I’m standing in an imaginary desert with a talking bear.”

He nodded but now refused to speak, his feelings hurt, I guess.

“What if I just let it go?”

This got a rise out of him. “You will not.”

“But I could.”

“It is possible, but what would become of the living thing that is on the other end-have you asked yourself that?” His wide head canted in a quizzical manner. “The mystery, the story of whatever is on the other end, would be lost forever.”

I was traipsing around in my own head, both the conscious and the unconscious, and pretty sure that the events of late were all products of my mind, but they seemed so real that I was becoming distracted. He was watching me when I looked back up. “Have you ever heard of a fellow by the name of Virgil White Buffalo?”

His smile broadened. “I knew him well.”

“I bet you did.” I chewed the inside of my lip. “How about Henry Standing Bear?”

“I know him, too.” He grinned, but I’m not sure if it was a smile or if he was just showing his teeth. “But not as well.” He looked off into the distance, away from the mountains.

I had a feeling that our time together was coming to a close and I was sorry for that, in that I was enjoying his company, cantankerous as he was. I held up the hand with the twine wrapped around it. “So, you’re saying that whatever I do I shouldn’t let go of the string?”

He shrugged again.

“Well, what use is a talking bear if you’re not going to carry on the conversation?”

The lips curled back, and he continued to smile.

I lifted my hand, clearing the string from the edge of the dune. “Are you coming?”

He shook his enormous head and finally spoke. “That is not my nature.”

I nodded. “And if you don’t mind my asking, what is your nature?”

He lowered himself to all fours and slowly ambled back in the direction from where I had come, pausing at the top of the dune to look over his shoulder. “To question.”

The bear picked up his pace, and I was left there with the twine wrapped around my hand, trying to fight the feeling I was a puppet. I could follow him, I could stay, or I could go on. I stood there for a moment more, knowing there really wasn’t a choice in all of this-the decision had been made when I’d picked up the end of twine in the teepee. As the Bear had said, our natures are our natures.

Kneeling down, I tried to get a general idea of the size of the bird that had made the tracks-something not too small but not too large either. The bird moved easily on the ground, which led me to believe that it was comfortable walking, and there are only a few of those.

There was a hop, however, and this time the bird’s talons were buried deeper in the sand. There must have been some sort of threat, and I could see where the wing tips had brushed the ground and where the edges of the pinfeathers had swept the sand.

Bigger than I first thought-a large wingspread, two and a half feet at least.

There were no more tracks-it must have taken to the air-so I just followed the string. Sometimes you just had to follow blind. Beyond the next few dunes I saw an outline of a burned-up cottonwood, rising out of the sand like a grasping hand.

The tree stretched out a good hundred feet and was twice as high, with gigantic limbs and branches that reached up to the sun.

The tough bark was matte black and covered with soot, and I could see where my twine circled the trunk and then disappeared. I walked around it a few times until the string was freed from the main body and swung up into the high treetop.

I leaned back, trying to make out what held the twine, and raised my hand to block the sun. I sighed and pulled on the string a little, in the hope that whatever it was would reveal itself.

I’d just started tugging when she called down to me. “Do you mind not fucking doing that?”

I looked up through the scattering of branches breaking up the sky like shattered glass. “Sure.” I looked for the source of the voice but still couldn’t see anything. “Hey, could you help me? I’m not sure what it is I’m doing here and was wondering if you might know where we are or what it is I’m supposed to do?”

It was quiet for a moment. “Do you have the other end of the string?”

“I’ve got a string; I thought maybe you have the other end.”

There was a sultry laugh. “Well, sort of…”

I stared up into the sun again. “If you come down here, maybe between the two of us we can figure this out.”

“I can’t.”

I looked at the string. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Maybe you should come up here.”

I stared at the sooty surface of the burnt tree. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

It was quiet, so I figured that there wasn’t any other option. Circling the trunk, I found a limb that was within reach and stuffed the twine in my mouth, still tasting the bitterness of the peyote, wrapped my hands around the heavy branch, and swung my boots up toward the trunk.

I wedged an ankle in the crook and pulled myself around, the soot and grime turning my clothes black.

“Well, hell.” Taking the twine out of my mouth, I fed it back under the limb and checked the direction it took around the main body of the tree-under another branch and then up.

I rested a foot and tried to circle, the trunk being far too wide for me to reach around. Placing my boot on another branch, I continued climbing, following the string as it weaved its way through the tree.

Every once in a while I had to pull slightly on the twine, and when I did there was a small cry from above. “Oww.”

“Sorry.” I peered through the naked branches, and even though there was no foliage, it was hard to see. I placed the roll of string under my arm and wiped the black from my hands onto my jeans as I leaned back on another stout limb. “How much further are you?”

“Quite a bit, actually.”

“Can you see me?”

“Yeah.”

I looked up. “How come I can’t see you?”

“Well, I’m smaller, and you’ve still got a ways to go.”

I sighed and traced the path of the string as it worked its way in and out of the assorted branches. “Straight up?”

“Yeah.”

I lodged another foot in the crux of a limb and lifted my other leg, continuing to climb with the string in my mouth again. The trunk split at one point, and I could see where it peeled off to the west and straightened out toward the mountains. I was getting pretty high and could feel the tree creaking as it responded to my movements.

The string led me to the western route, but the branches were becoming sparser and I was afraid that if I traveled too much farther on the limb, it might break. I took a chance and glanced down, immediately regretting it. It was a good hundred feet to the sand below, and there were numerous back- and head-breaking limbs between. I swore to myself and wrapped my legs around a little tighter. “Maybe it’s only a dream.”

It was about then that I raised my eyes and saw her-a good-sized crow.

Farmers and ranchers don’t care for the birds, but I’ve always thought that they are beautiful creatures. They are also capable of more than two hundred and fifty distinct calls, which did nothing to explain the very female human voice in which this one spoke to me.

“How you doin’?”

“I guess I’m all right.”

I considered her predicament. From my perspective, I could see that the twine was wrapped around one of her legs, then her body, and finally had trapped one of her wings against the limb from which I now hung. “You mind if I ask how you got like this?”

Her dark head shifted, and a beadlike, tarnished gold eye drilled into me. “Isn’t that just like a man to ask a fucking question like that.”

“Sorry.” I studied the distance between us and the diameter of the limb. “I’m not so sure I can get out there to where you are.”

Her dark, feathered head shifted. “Don’t you have a knife with you?”

I thought about the Case I carried back in the real world and figured it was probably still in my left back pocket. “I think I do.”

“Then just cut the string.”

I thought about it. “I don’t think I’m supposed to do that.”

“Why?”

“Well, a bear told me that I wasn’t supposed to let go of the string and I’m guessing that includes cutting it.”

The crow continued to look at me. “A bear.”

“Yep.”

She flapped the free wing and picked at her feathers with a pointed beak, gleaning them straight, finally turning to look at me. “You’re fucking kidding.”

I sighed, thinking about how I was now having a conversation with a profane crow nearly at the top of a burned out cottonwood tree. “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

“Well, then, you’re going to have to come out here.”

I looked down at the ground again. I’d heard that if you fell in your sleep it was okay, unless you hit, and then you supposedly died. It sounded like hooey-I’d probably heard it from my mother, who gave credence to those types of things.

I edged my way out. I was getting coated in the graphite-like soot, and the fine powder didn’t make it any easier to hold on. I gripped the branch and pulled myself another arm’s length before hearing a tremulous cracking noise somewhere back down the trunk.

The crow and I looked at each other, and she was the first to speak. “That was worrisome.”

“Yep, and you’ve got wings.”

“I’m also tied to the limb your lard-ass is resting on.”

I glanced down. “I wouldn’t exactly call it resting.”

Trying to ignore the sound and fury of the splitting trunk, I took the twine in one hand and passed it under the limb a few times, finally freeing it enough to untangle the crow’s body, which allowed her to get a talon onto the limb. “Can you pull the string enough to get your wing loose?”

She tried, but it was obvious she couldn’t. “Why don’t you just let go of the fucking string?”

“I told you, he told me not to do that.”

“You usually take the advice of blathering bears?”

I sighed. “It’s a habit, like trying to save cursing crows.”

She cocked her head, and if it was possible, she smiled. “I need more slack.”

More carefully this time, I slithered a little forward and was happy not to hear anymore disconcerting noises. I extended my arms and threw her a loop that trailed over her wing. She picked at it with her beak and was able to pull it partially loose, but I was going to have to get out there a little farther, perhaps a yard and a half from her.

The limb was getting narrower, and I was feeling a little tippy as it was. I grabbed the next arm’s length and gently pulled myself out farther. There wasn’t any sound, but I waited, just to make sure. I pitched the twine again and was rewarded with a loop that went past her wing this time with enough slack to allow her to scramble loose and hop up onto an adjacent branch that faced me.

“Thanks.”

“You bet.” I continued to look at her and noticed that the twine was loose but still attached in a bow to what appeared to be a bracelet wrapped around her leg. “The twine is tied to the bracelet?”

“Yeah.”

I readjusted a little, the pressure of the limb against my chest becoming a little uncomfortable as I studied the silver chain just above her talon. “How did you get the bracelet caught on your leg?”

“It was shiny, and I liked it.”

I studied it a little closer and noticed it had a medical symbol on it. “I guess we have to make a decision.”

She cocked her head and with one quick movement hopped onto my arm. “Yeah.”

“Can you pull it apart and free yourself?”

She shook her swarthy head, the feathers gleaming blue-black. “Nope-tried.”

“So, if it gets done, I have to do it?”

She shrugged a winged shoulder, pumped up her breast in a provocative manner, extended her wings, and then refolded them; I could feel a slight sway in the limb beneath me.

“Maybe you’re supposed to stay here.”

She looked off toward the mountains. “And never fly again?”

“The bear said I wasn’t supposed to let go of the string until I found the living thing attached, but he didn’t actually say what it was I was supposed to do once I found you.” Maybe it was all just a mass rationalization, but I figured not allowing birds to fly was a crime in any reality. “Hop up here on the branch where I can hopefully use both hands.”

She did as I requested, landing with the encumbered talon closest in an attempt to make the job just the tiniest bit easier.

I loosened my grip and rested my wrists on the branch, trying to retain some sort of balance. I held the tab ends of the bow and laughed, mostly to myself. “Something’s going to happen when I pull this apart.”

“Yeah, I’ll be free.”

“No, something more than that; I’ve got a feeling.”

She studied me. “Then don’t do it.”

“After all this?”

Her head movements took on a more animated quality, and I could tell she was a little annoyed with me. “I’m not fucking around; if you don’t think you should do it or something bad is going to happen, don’t.”

I thought about what the bear had said about our natures; about how we did what we did because of who we were.

I pulled both strings.

There was a thunderous crack, the tree trunk split, and I slapped against the limb, causing it to fall even faster with my rebound. The crow exploded in a battering flush of wings, the feather tips swatting me as I was jarred sideways. I slipped to the side and attempted to grab hold of the falling limb-for what reason, I have no idea.

My face turned toward the chill of the sky, and I could see her frozen there with her wings fully extended, the tiny chain bracelet still hanging from her talon. I watched as she hammered the air with those black wings like two, massive blankets thrown into the wind, and then she flew toward the mountains like a razor-as straight as the crow flies.

I tried to get my eyes focused, but it was as if I was looking up from inside a well. I felt a jolt in the core of my body and found that I could move. Everything ached, and I wondered if I’d hit the ground and been knocked unconscious. My muscles were sore-even my rear-end hurt-but it was more the dull thrum of inactivity than the aftermath of impact.

I jerked a shoulder loose, followed by an arm, and then watched as my hand came up and rested on Albert Black Horse’s shoulder. “Whew.”

His face cracked into a wide grin. “We were worried about you.”

I took a deep breath and blew the stale air from my lungs. Looking past him, I could see the entire group from inside the teepee had gathered around with concerned looks on their faces. “I think I need to stand up.”

He placed a hand on my arm and carefully helped me get to my feet as the top of my head bumped the canvas and I leaned inward. “And go outside.”

Albert nodded and ushered me toward the flap that was propped open with the lacings trailing down to the ground.

I stepped into the wooded clearing that I’d remembered from last night. It was morning, and a few members were preparing breakfast in a Dutch oven and a frying pan. An old, porcelain percolator squatted on a log by another campfire. Albert was beside me again and placed a hand on my back as I swayed a little in the clear, flat light of early morning. “You’re all right?”

“I think so.”

I took a few unsteady steps under Albert’s careful inspection and placed a hand on the rooted part of the old, fallen tree. I cleared my throat and spoke to the large man who looked up at me with a cup in his hand. “I’d gladly kill somebody for a cup of that coffee.”

He laughed, plucked another tin cup from the ground, twirled it by the handle like a gunfighter, and picked up the percolator without benefit of a pot holder. He poured me a cup and stood as he handed it to me. “How was your trip around the moon?”

“I am never doing that again.” I looked around, just to make sure the desert of my dreams hadn’t crept up on me. “How did I get back in the teepee?”

He looked puzzled. “You… never left.”

I lifted the mug up, but a slight flip in my stomach caused me to pause. Glancing over to the opening, I could see my hat still laying there with the handkerchief draped over it. “I was in there the whole time?”

The Cheyenne Nation looked at Albert, still standing beside me, and the older man nodded. “You took the peyote, and it was the strangest thing we’d ever seen. You looked around for a bit, and then you just froze and stayed like that for…” He paused to look at his wristwatch and for some reason it reminded me of the bracelet around the crow’s leg in my dream. “Coming up on ten hours.”

“My ass feels like it’s been sat on for ten years.” I forced myself to sip the coffee, and it started tasting good. I glanced at the Bear, who looked a little tired. “You were out here all night?”

“I was.”

I took another sip and approached vaguely human. “You must need a nap.”

“I do, but we have errands to run.”

I looked longingly at the bacon sizzling and popping in the frying pan and could imagine the golden biscuits rising in the Dutch oven. I sighed. “No breakfast?”

“Not unless you can talk Mrs. Small Song and Albert here into a breakfast sandwich to go.”

I chewed the biscuit as we made the turn on the trail into the opening at the base of the hill where Lola, Henry’s ’59 Thunderbird convertible, sat like a chrome-bedecked spaceship. There was somebody I knew in the back, and he wagged his tail and stood with his forelegs on the sill to meet me face to muzzle.

I ruffled his ears. “Are you happy to see me, or are you just happy to see my biscuit?” He didn’t answer, and I was just as pleased to be around an animal that didn’t talk. I turned to the Cheyenne Nation as he slid in the front and slipped the key in the switch. I fed Dog the remainder of my breakfast. “We’re traveling in style today.”

He smiled and closed the driver’s-side door. “We have to pick up Cady and Lena in Billings.”

A major organ in my chest did a flip as I pulled out my pocket watch by the Indian Chief fob just to make sure we had enough time for what I had planned. “Oh, boy.”

“Oh, yes.”

I returned the watch to its pocket, straightened my hat, and placed my hands on the passenger-side door, resting my weight there. “I have failed miserably.”

He barked a dwindling laugh. “We’re making progress.”

“That might not be the way they are going to see it.”

I stood there like that, and he watched me readjust the pancake holster at my back and snap the safety strap on my. 45, his face becoming even more serious as his eyes narrowed like the aperture of a scope.

He turned and placed a forearm on the steering wheel. “There is something else?”

I slid a hand across the gleaming, powder-blue surface of the vintage automobile the Bear had inherited from his father, the hand-buffed paint dancing stars of sunlight. “This is one beautiful car,” I sighed. “And I’m about to utter something I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d ever say: can we trade Lola here for Rezdawg for just about an hour?”

I patted the chrome trim of the Thunderbird and glanced off in the direction of Painted Warrior, where Audrey Plain Feather had met her untimely demise. “We’ve got to do some four-wheeling.”