Ghost Walk

It’s time again, his grandfather told him.

I know, he replied. I’ve felt it coming.

His grandfather nodded.

So they stood together again in that valley near the Black Hills, and the mist began to swirl around them.

Those who thought that native peoples were stoic, that they did not show their emotions, were wrong. He felt, in the deep recesses of the dream, the love that came to him through time, through space. Through the darkest boundary of death.

He woke. And when he did, he sighed, looking at the rays of sun that streaked through his bedroom window.

Nothing to do about it. Go along with his life as it had been planned.

When he was needed, Adam would find him.

Nikki awoke in the morning, feeling oddly exhausted.

She felt as if she had barely slept at all, and she knew it was because she had tossed and turned in a series of weird nightmares.

She couldn’t remember her dreams; she just had the lingering sense of having spent the night in a whirl of very strange sensation. It left her with an odd feeling.

A foreboding.

Oh, man!

She tried to shake it off. It was a beautiful morning. The sun…she could just see it peeking in through her drapes.

She rose, thinking it must have been the conversation with Mrs. Montobello and then Contessa’s reading.

This sense of unease wasn’t something she usually felt. Even when the “ghosts” were around. The ghosts were benign…faint indentations upon the present that simply lingered. There was a sweet nostalgia to what she saw and felt, something that made her feel even more affectionate toward her home, reassured her that New Orleans was special.

But there had been something about the dreams last night. Something…

Something that was malignant rather than benign.

Something that seemed to be a warning.

“Hey, it’s a beautiful day,” she said aloud, and went into the bathroom, where she splashed her face with cold water.

Suddenly she was afraid to look up. Afraid to look in the mirror above the sink. If she looked into the mirror…

Would someone else be looking back at her?

She had to look up, of course. She couldn’t remain in her bathroom forever, bent over the sink.

She looked up. And felt like a fool. There was nothing there but her own reflection.

She gave herself a shake, got ready quickly and left the house.

And still…

That sense of foreboding clung to her, like a gray mist, damp and chill against her flesh.

3

“At first man wandered the earth with little thought as to the great beyond, to right or wrong, and the way that he should live. Then came the White Buffalo Woman. Two hunters were out one day, and she appeared. She was very beautiful, dressed in white skins, and she carried something in a pack that she wore on her back. Now, when I say beautiful, she was stunning. And one of the hunters thought, ‘Hmm, now there’s a woman I would like to have in my tepee,’” Brent Blackhawk said, scanning the eyes of his audience.

“Have in his tepee?” one of the older boys teased lightly.

“Do you mean date?” asked one of the girls.

“Something like that,” Brent said dryly. “But, you see, she was the White Buffalo Woman, and not to be taken lightly. She saw that the hunter had designs on her, so she crooked her finger toward him, and thinking himself the big and mighty hunter and warrior, he approached her. But as he did so, white fog rolled out around the both of them. And when it dissipated, the great and mighty warrior had been turned to bone. And as the bones fell to the earth, they were covered with snakes that writhed and crawled among them.”

“Ugh!” cried one of the younger girls.

“What happened then?” asked the older boy who had heckled him before.

“Ah, well, the other hunter was naturally amazed—and more than a little afraid. But the woman told him to hurry to his village and tell the elders, chiefs, shamans and all the people that she was coming, and that she had a message to give that all must heed. The hunter hurried to the village and relayed his story, and everyone—from the great chief to the smallest child—dressed in his and her best and gathered in the great tepee as if for a council, and awaited her. She came, beautiful in her white, carrying the bundle that she had previously worn on her back.”

“And what then?” asked a boy of about eleven.

“First she took a stone from the bundle and set it on the ground. Then she took out a pipe. It had a red stone bowl, the color of the earth, and she said that it stood for the earth. There was a calf carved upon it, and the carving stood not just for the calf but for all the creatures that walked the earth. The stem of the pipe was wood, and that stood for all things that grew. There were beautiful feathers attached to the pipe, and they stood not just for the hawks and eagles, but for all the birds that flew in the sky. When she had explained all this, she said that those who smoked the pipe would learn about relationships—first, with the Wakantanka, had come before them, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, and those who would follow, sons and daughters. All relatives were bound as one and meant to be honored. All the earth was sacred and to be cared for. All were to be respected.”

The boy of eleven looked troubled.

“What is it?” Brent asked.

“We’re not supposed to smoke,” the boy told him solemnly.

Brent smiled. “You’re Michael?” he asked, trying to remember all the names.

“Michael Tiger,” the boy said proudly.

“Michael, you’re right. Smoking isn’t just very bad for your health, it’s an expensive and annoying habit.”

“Then how can anyone smoke the sacred pipe?” the girl at Brent’s side asked.

Brent lowered his head, smiling. “The sacred pipe is now part of a ceremony. There are very specific times when the pipe may be smoked among the Lakotas, you see.”

“You never finished the story,” another of the girls pointed out.

“Ah, yes,” Brent said. “Well, the rest of the story relates to what we’re saying now. The stone that the White Buffalo Woman put down at first had seven little cuts in it. They indicated those very special times when the pipe might be smoked, ceremonies to honor all that she was teaching. They would be part of the relationships that the people must learn so that they would not be like animals, wandering the earth, without care for it or those around them. When she had taught them a bit more, she walked a few steps away. Then she turned into a brown and white calf. Again she walked, and this time she became a white calf. After a few more feet, she became a great black buffalo. She left the council tepee and walked up a hill and there she bowed to the four corners of the earth, north and south, east and west, and then…”

“And then?” Michael Tiger demanded.

“She vanished,” Brent said.

“But…why did she come, if she was only going to disappear?” Michael asked.