Phantoms Afoot

Book Excerpt: CHAPTER ONE

Springtime?The Rebirth
of Dormant Memories

When given the Master Key, all the rusted padlocks of the mind are sprung wide. All the closed windows and doors open to the sunny Light of Day . . . and the sweet freshness of Awareness, Understanding and Freedom rush in.

     After a long and bitter winter, the gentle thought of early May would normally conjure up Technicolor visions of multicolored tulips, saffron daffodils, delicate magnolias and sweetly scented morning air. Early May would ordinarily present all of these sensual delights to me except for the cold hard fact that I live in the high Colorado Mountains, where Mother Nature frequently tickles her fancy by playing jokes on the mountain folk.
     Springtime in the Rockies sounds a bit melodic?it has a certain romantic ring to it; however, for those in the know, springtime in the Rockies merely interprets as ?snow??occasionally, days and days of heavy, wet snowfall. And dear ol? Mother Nature was staying true to her traditional humor as I prepared for my weekly journey out to No-Eyes? place this early May morn.
     The family was still sound asleep while I quietly dressed and tiptoed about the silent house. While I was brushing my hair, Rainbow drowsily sauntered around the bathroom doorway and padded softly in to greet me. She put her large paws up on the edge of the sink, wagged her bushy tail and gently nosed my elbow. Without speaking to her, I looked down into the anxiously pleading eyes. I knew what she wanted. I patted her silky head and ran the cold water for her to drink from. She lapped for a long while before nudging my side to say that she was finished. I hugged the sweet four-legged person and whispered to her that it wasn?t time for her to be up yet. She gave me one of her pitiful soulful looks and reluctantly moseyed back through the silent house to curl up on the bottom of the girls? bed.

     While I finished getting ready, I entertained humorous thoughts about our ever-faithful canine that was half coyote. She was so much like a real person. She understood so much of what we said to her it was just like she could almost read our minds for, many times, words weren?t necessary for our communications and she would simply respond to certain looks or gestures and, in return, Rainbow communicated her own sensitive feelings just as effectively as the spoken word.
     An amused grin mischievously crept up my face as I thought of how ferociously she protected us whenever strangers came around?even the neighbors and some of our more infrequent visitors wouldn?t come through the front door unless ?that wild killer? was put into the confinement of the backyard. If they only knew how incredibly sensitive and loving she was toward each family member, if they only could see her ecstatic joy as she leaps onto our bed each morning and pleads to be petted and snuggled. And I thought of how she loves games, especially Hide and Seek, where she tries to find where the girls are hiding within the house. Yes, she certainly could be vicious toward strangers. Yet, with us, she was simply another member of the family. And I inwardly chuckled over her apparent Jekyll-and-Hyde nature.
     With growing concern, I spun my fingers around in the moisture of the kitchen window and peered out. The dripping circlet revealed a harsh exterior world. It was snowing heavily. Blowing winds were whipping and gusting down out of a dark and menacing sky.
     I sighed. It?d be nice to romp in an alpine meadow full of wildflowers today instead of having to don my heavy blanket serape and knee-high moccasins. Then again, no place is perfect. Springtime in the Rockies was something I was used to. The May snowstorm was not unexpected.
     When I slowly backed the Chevy pickup down alongside our cabin, a sudden movement in a window caught my eye, almost subliminally. Rainbow, warm nose pressed firmly up against a cold windowpane, had parted the curtains to say goodbye. She?d gotten up on Jenny?s bed to get her head on the windowsill. She would guard the silent house and protect the slumbering occupants until they awoke and she could happily greet them with a wagging tail, wet kisses, and whimpers of pure joy.
     My progress through town was tediously slow. The snowfall had gained its momentum?it had decided to transform itself into a full-fledged blizzard, complete with frequent blinding whiteouts. I was the only traveler to boldly venture out on the roads this cold spring morning, and the massive snowplows were just beginning to warm up their frigid innards and belch out their smoky reluctance into the opaque atmosphere.
     Once I managed to clear the limits of Woodland Park, I silently plowed through an enchanted land of fantasy. The mountains were mystically touched by an adept alchemist, who had metamorphosed the forest greenery into a magical shimmering fairyland of whiteness. Perhaps I did miss out on seeing the crisp, white magnolias, the pink cherry blossoms and the multicolored tulips of the East, but my mountain wonderland also possessed a dazzling beauty that electrified and stunned the senses. I was satisfied and contented with my total acceptance of it. Nature was indeed a fickle Lady, and I liked that spontaneous aspect of her fascinating unpredictable personality.
     Just as I had anticipated, No-Eyes had a roaring fire raging within her fireplace?she had stoked it red hot. The thick roiling smoke billowed up out of the ancient stone chimney and was immediately whisked away by the blustering force of the wind.
     I remained within the warm confines of the pickup for a few sweet reveling minutes while a gentle melancholia drifted over my consciousness.
     I surveyed the wild scene of nature that ranted through my friend?s vast backyard of wooded mountains. The tall jack pines and the spired firs were being tortuously bent this way and that. A spectral whiteness swirled in a whipping circle dance around and through the bending sentinels that were reluctantly forced to join in the wild dervish that nature was choreographing.
     I peered through the windshield up at the nearly invisible cabin-on-the-hill that was bravely holding its own?standing in direct defiance of the relentless assaults of the blizzard. And the mountains that towered behind the cabin served to emphasize the small dwelling?s strength of character.
     A sudden force of wind gusted against the truck and rocked it, pelting the windshield with a blast of snow that sounded ominously like sleet. I had to get out and be about my business before I found myself permanently entombed in the vehicle.
     I turned the engine off, snuggled my head down beneath the hood of the serape, and attempted to open the door. It wouldn?t budge. The powerful might of the wind was pushing against it with an incredible counter force. Finally, by exerting all the energy I could muster, I managed to push it open just wide enough to inch out. The door slammed back with a great force.
     All the way up the old woman?s hillside, the Entity of the Storm gnashed its jagged teeth at me as it tested my strength by trying to blow me off my feet and whip away my serape. I lost my precarious balance several times while leaning forward into the wind, and when it suddenly decided to trip me up by teasingly switching directions, I?d fall off-balance onto my face. Eventually I reached the snow-drifted steps and pushed open the frosted pine door. A blast of snow blustered in with me into the toasty warm living room. Immediately the waiting incense of burning juniper wood and pine weighed heavily on my receiving senses. The scent was good?so good.
     The old one was well prepared for me. She deftly whipped off my wet serape and lovingly placed a warmed blanket over my head. Tenderly, she tucked it in around my shoulders as she led me to the crackling fire. The visionary then shook out my sodden wrap and carefully spread it out by the hearth. Steam began rising from the woven fabric. A hot mug of freshly steeped herbs was gently placed in my hands, and I silently watched while my teacher scooted her rocker up to me. She spoke not a word as her coal black eyes bored deep into my soul.
     I slipped the warmed blanket down and off my head and rearranged it about my shoulders as the pitch in the pine logs popped and exploded behind me. I fanned out my hair and combed my fingers through the damp strands so the blaze would dry it quicker. The room was alive with the fluttering reflections of the dancing fire, and the flickering oil lamp that burned brightly on her kitchen table radiated additional beams of golden serenity throughout the tiny cabin. All was protectively mellow and serenely calm within my small schoolroom as the saber-sharp jaws of Nature angrily clamped again and again at the cabin?s exterior. It was deeply comforting. It was incredibly full of an encompassing peace . . . a breathing, touchable peace.
     No-Eyes remained staring into her contented student. Then the eyes twinkled impishly. She spoke. ?Spirit of spring be havin? one good time out there, huh Summer??
     A soft smile tipped the corners of my lips. ?That?s one way of putting it.? That was not exactly how I would?ve described the tempest that raged outside but, then again, the visionary always characterized the Spirit of Nature in a most favorable light.
     The old one made no reply to my statement. A long, extended silence filled more than several minutes before the impaired rocker began to speak as the woman mentally prepared to begin today?s lesson.
     ?Summer, this day we gonna speak ?bout some special kind of spirits. No-Eyes gonna be speakin? ?bout spirits who be stupid dumb.?
     Some obscure subliminal warning signal pricked up and down along my spine. I frowned slightly.
     ?What do you mean, dumb?? Then, before she could reply, I changed the subject rather abruptly after sipping a taste of the flavorful tea blend. ?What?s in this? It?s really tasty.?
     Her wide eyes danced and rolled beneath slitted lids. ?No-Eyes put some blackberry in with other stuff,? she cleverly replied, not bothering to define the nebulous ?other stuff.?
     I lowered my head and suspiciously squinted back up at her. It was a teasing sort of gesture of admonishment and trusting acceptance all rolled into one. I gingerly sipped again and playfully licked my lips at the faint underlying taste of the mysterious ingredient.
     I lifted my head and, when our intense eyes met, it was clear that our moment of light bantering had passed. I returned to the subject of the lesson.
     ?You were speaking about the dumb spirits. Dumb in what way??
     The old one leaned back into the rocker and gently allowed the corners of her mouth to lift before becoming serious once more.
     ?As you already know, all peoples? spirits survive physical death. All spirits return to spirit place of remembering and learning. But Summer,? she reminded softly, ?some spirits be stupid dumb. They not do what they know be right stuff to do. They not listen to other spirits who come to guide them through passageway into reality of light and truth.? She then paused.
     I had been thinking while she spoke. I knew exactly what she was saying. ?No-Eyes, do you think that those spirits would?ve done the right thing if their physical minds were more aware of how things really are while they were alive??
     She outwardly balked at the idea and shook her head in clear denial of the theory.
     I went deeper with my line of thought. ?But if people were truly cognizant of the realities of the spirit dimension, why wouldn?t they then be prepared for the afterlife when it came??
     I had been under the impression that conscious awareness in the physical automatically insured the spirit?s quick and natural rite of passage after death. I told her of my thoughts on it.
     A soft sigh escaped from between her thin lips as she closed her eyes and then slowly opened them wide at me.
     ?Not always, Summer. That always depend on manner of physical death. See??
     ?Not really,? I admitted.
     Suddenly the aged visionary mysteriously shifted her sightless gaze to the fogged windows. She appeared to be intently listening for something.
     In the new eerie stillness, I strained my ears. I thought I picked up a slight whispering sort of murmur emitting from somewhere within our silent cabin.
     The wind was creating havoc with the ancient wooden dwelling; the windows rattled, the rafters creaked and groaned, and the massive pines surrounding the cabin were being viciously bent low against it. The terrible din confused my efforts of concentration and compounded my purpose. And as I watched my teacher intently center on the ambiguous sound, I found myself tensing to strain harder and harder to hear.
     I watched as No-Eyes cryptically turned her head in my direction to slowly bend forward and peer at me while her ear remained attentive to the spectral voice.
     My spine tingled with the high intensity of the frozen moment. I involuntarily quivered as though I had been struck by a sudden gush of arctic air, though no such entity brushed against me. My higher sensors detected no negative force within our aura of reality. My eyes remained hopelessly magnetized to her black pools that widened into onyx saucers of expectancy.
     Skin crawled.
     I couldn?t stand the strain. I dared to snap the tension with my whispered inquiry. ?What is it? Who?s here??
     A knobby finger slowly rose to pursed lips.
     I anxiously waited while cautiously sliding my eyes away from those of No-Eyes. I let them perceptively pan the room full of writhing shadows. We were assuredly not alone any more.
     Someone had joined us.
     A slight movement from the rocker brought my attention back to the woman. She had inclined her head further toward the sound. I looked to her side and discerned a faint wavering motion within the darkened shadows on the far wall. Something I couldn?t quite distinguish was interrupting the shadows cast by the firelight.
     There was a definitive outline of a form.
     While No-Eyes was concentrating on the audio facet of the unexpected manifestation, I shifted mental gears to cue in on the video aspect. I intently watched the area directly beside her. My altered perception was working?the form appeared to gain additional substance, although this substance was not due to an actual material solidification, but rather from my own increased rate of awareness.
     My physical tenseness relaxed as recognition of the form registered within my consciousness. It was tall and possessed a formidable and commanding character, yet it also appeared to exhibit a sublime quality of sensitivity.
     I began to comprehend more and more of the form?s details. It was the spirit of a man, an Indian man. My initial thought was that he was Two Trees, No-Eyes? father. Then, I was certain of the direct relationship when he bent down and placed a loving kiss on the woman?s forehead.
     My gaze went to No-Eyes? face. The countenance was most serene, and the glint of tears began to fill her eyes. I looked away, feeling as though I was intruding on their private moment of touching. Closing my eyes and leaning contentedly back against the warm fireplace stones, I reveled within my happy heart that No-Eyes was adept enough to experience such a mystically beautiful touching with her wise father. My heart was glad for them. And I became lost within the soft tranquility of the esoteric feat?s beautiful mood.
     Suddenly, a sharp creak rent the downy fabric of my restful reverie. My eyes shot open to see No-Eyes timing the meter of her rocker, a satisfied smile on her creviced face. She was alone. She was staring into the bright flames that illuminated her face.
     I relaxed. Again I closed my eyes until the old one?s mood was ready to accept the spoken word. I didn?t have long to wait.
     In a soft voice, she asked, ?Why Summer not stay with us??
     ?Stay? Oh no, No-Eyes. I felt like some kind of voyeur. I didn?t want to intrude upon such a beautifully tender moment?it was way too personal.?
     She turned her head slightly to squint down at me out of the sharp corner of her eyes. ?Tsk-tsk,? she admonished playfully. ?No-Eyes have many, many times like that. If it been so private, he not even come now when Summer be here.?
     Her mischievous smile widened. ?Peoples think No-Eyes be so all ?lone up here in this old cabin, but I got many visitors they not even see!? The black opals twinkled at the thought of what people didn?t know.
     I grinned at her childlike mirth, and then returned to the subject of her father?s visit with more seriousness. ?No-Eyes??
     Her gaze had returned to the dancing flames. She stared deep into the blaze. ?Mmmm??
     ?Can I ask a question about what just happened??
     The chair began to rock, and then it stopped. ?Summer sure she want to ask this??
     ?Yes.?
     The woman?s head eerily rotated in my direction. The firelight limelighted the stray hairs of her head like a glowing silver halo. ?Summer can always ask, but Summer not always like answer.?
The visionary?s mood had greatly altered. Now she was being gravely cryptic. I had to carry it through.
     ?Why did he choose this time to come? I mean, while I?m here??
     ?Don?t you know?? came the soft whisper.
My spine tingled. My head was full of a million splintered ideas and thoughts . . . none of them gave me any comfort at all. Over and over the same scene kept replaying a flashback in my head. For some crazy reason, I kept seeing Brian Many Heart sitting in front of the fire instead of the old woman. That day I spent with him in this very room left a sour taste in my mouth and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the day he tried to talk me into helping lost spirits and I?d have none of it. I closed my ears and mind to it. I?d even gotten up and closed the door on him. Now that same old sour taste and sinking feeling was back, because I?d just remembered he?d said that No-Eyes would one day change my mind on the subject. And I had the awful sensation that my hour of reckoning had just arrived.
     My eyes slid up to meet hers. ?No-Eyes??
     ?Mmmm.?
     ?Did the visitation of your father have anything to do with me??
     ?Should it??
     ?I don?t know; that?s why I?m asking.?
     Silence.
     Waiting.
     ?What so! He been here many times before.?
     ?But never when I?ve been here with you.?
     Silence.
     ?Are you going to answer me??
     ?Yup.?
     ?Well??
     ?No-Eyes gonna answer.?
     I patiently waited for more to come. Nothing followed. I sighed and looked to the fire, wondering just what exactly all this senseless verbal circling was about. The silent moments ticked endlessly on as the flames drew my full attention into their hypnotic movements and the totality of my consciousness became completely absorbed within the warm entity of the fire. I was completely at peace.
     ?Summer gonna walk out on No-Eyes??
     The softly spoken words crept into my peace. They answered my question. They confirmed the reason for my former sensations of warning. I continued to stare into the licking tongues of orange.
     ?No, No-Eyes, I won?t slam the door on you.? Then I turned. Our eyes met. ?It?s time for that talk, isn?t it??
     ?Yep, it be that time now, Summer. Two Trees say it be right time to tell Summer ?bout those dumb spirits she an? her man gonna see?gonna help be on way.?
     At her words, the blood drained from my face. I had been secretly dreading this moment since the day Many Heart said it would one day come. My first impulse was to balk, to place my usual objections in my usual animated manner, but somehow I knew I wouldn?t do that anymore. Deep inside, I knew those sudden outbursts were over.
     I allowed a heavy sigh to escape as I defeatedly slouched back against the fireplace stones. Outside I could hear the cruel wind laughing at me?the wild heart within me had been finally tamed.

Continues...