How the hell did I survive these last few weeks? Ha, ha, man, it’s great to be alive. I’m still alive. Yippee yi yo kayah, beer and crackers and a well-worn trail.
At times I felt I was bouncing down the valley, my thoughts and feet light and free. Why not? After being blessed by the help of a jaguar guide, and now with a magical drawing of a winged creature pointing the way, my vision of the mountain was steering me back to Teresa, to bring her a miracle. I felt special, as if somebody had taken me in hand and was holding a mystical door open in invitation. The universe wanted to share its secrets with me.
The sun filtered through low-lying mist as I munched on my crackers and hand-scooped fresh river water for breakfast. My earlier mood of joyous freedom had lessened from sheer physical exhaustion. I set out with an eye open for a place to rest for a few hours. My guess was Charlie wasn’t following behind me, but I didn’t want to risk taking a break on the community pathway.
Around mid-morning, I came to an area where open pastureland rolled down between forested highlands, ending with a gentle slope by the river’s edge. The water was shallow, only inches deep where it rippled over sparkling rocks. There were hoof prints on the other side’s muddy shore. The sight of a large herd’s tracks overwhelmed me with a sense of expectation and welcome, causing me to sniffle back a tear.
I’m going to make it. Nearly home.
I crossed the ford and climbed the gradual rise of grassland, setting myself down by a lone tree about a hundred yards from the river. I leaned back, waving away a bumblebee as my eyelids fluttered shut.
A gentle jab to my shoulder awakened me. A slight, grizzled man with a gap-toothed grin squatted in front of me, poking at me with the tip of a machete.
Charlie’s weapon. Next to me. Gone.
The old man’s face broke into a wider smile.
He stood up, and after waving the jungle cutlass with a theatrical flourish, flipped the machete high into the air, spun gracefully around on one foot, caught my eye with a mischievous glint in his own, and stretched his arm out in a sweeping invitational gesture as if presenting the meadow to me.
Something hypnotic gripped me.
Beyond his arcing motion, the green pasture stretched, edged by trees and granite at the feet of two long arms of a mountain. At the far end of the valley, low rolling terrain turned rugged and sharp, forging into steep cliffs with deep ravines. A waterfall cascaded down through a cleft, disappearing into a scrabble of boulders, then reemerged as a thin waterway meandering between grassy slopes.
Even as my eye roamed from tree to hill, from mountain to grass, from water to rock, my mind became aware the metal blade had reached the apex of its flight. The long, flat knife hung expectantly in the air, and I believed in that moment gravity had been suspended above me, stopping the weapon’s descent, allowing me to appreciate the surrounding pastoral beauty without disruption.
My attention snapped into focusing on the man’s hand when the machete finally plunged earthwards. The old guy snatched at the steel—it seemingly striking his palm. I jumped up, startled, thinking his hand would be sliced open. He held the blade up. He was pinching it, the sharpened edge a half-inch from the loose folds of skin between his thumb and index finger. Cackling with laughter, he gripped the handle and flung the weapon towards the river.
“Hey, man...” I stopped my protest to watch in disbelief as the machete flipped through the air, soaring farther than I would’ve thought possible.
Did I just see this dude catch that? And man, he threw it as far as the river.
He held up a finger and beckoned me to follow him.
After a month in the mountains of Venezuela, a wariness guided my thoughts and actions. I shrugged my shoulders and turned my palms upwards, questioning him why I should heed his request.
Something not quite right about this guy. Strange intensity about him.
Closing one eye, squinting the other, he leaned his upper body forward to inspect me. He frowned, disappointed in what he saw of me, and spun out a rapid string of words that I couldn’t follow, but I felt mocked me.
I scratched the top of my head, weighing my situation. Not feeling comfortable alone in the isolated valley with the odd little man, I decided to get back to the main trail. Turning away, I raised my hand in farewell.
The old guy began walking away from me while pointing off into the distance and talking animatedly. As if in response, a herd of about twenty cows came over a hillock—grazing, munching, curious. A large white bull with a brown mottled pattern across his back materialized from out of the group. He took a few determined steps in my direction, then paused to glare at me, clearly not pleased with my presence.
I continued towards the river, guardedly. The bull lifted its head high and, pinning his eyes on me, began to trot. A quick calculation told me his route would bring him to the river ford, cutting off my way out of the valley. I picked up my pace, seeing a slight chance of beating him to the crossing if I hurried. A misty spray shot from his nose as he challenged me with a threatening snuffle and an antagonistic toss of his horns. His tail cracked back and forth. He veered purposefully to compensate for my change in speed, dirt and grass flicking up from his back hooves.
Man, this is going to be close. He’s really pissed. What am I going to do even if I do cross the river first? He could still go after me on the other side. It could be he doesn’t want me in his pasture, but there’s more room to maneuver here.
I slowed, making my way towards where rocky cliffs dropped into the river rather than trying to beat the beast to the ford. The bull high-stepped belligerently towards the same area. When I reached a sharp incline, I scrambled along its base looking for an area to scale but was forced away from the river by the terrain and the bull, who now stood guard fifty feet away. His broad chest and curved horns blocked my passage as I walked backwards down into a grassy hollow partially ringed by boulders.
The old man’s laughter echoed around me. He was sitting on the top of a large outcrop of rock jutting up from the grassland. He scampered down and signaled for me to follow him.
I nodded my head and motioned him to lead the way.
The bull slowly wandered down into the grassy dip between the rocks and the cliff, lowering his head, nipping at the green shoots.
The old man and I walked deeper into the valley for a few minutes before stopping. He began talking, pointing to different locations. His teeth chopped at and his tongue rolled over whatever language he was speaking. It didn’t really sound like Spanish, but I made out the word casa as he pointed back to the river crossing. When he paused, I pointed in the same direction and asked, “Casa? Tu?”
“Si, Si.” And then he became incomprehensible again.
He pointed at a large pile of cow manure we were standing next to. He knelt down, and danced his fingers above seven thin mushrooms sprouting up from the cow plop. They were delicate, about two inches tall, with light brown, downward-sloping tops. The old guy picked one and popped it in his mouth and gestured for me to do the same.
Wary, I acted out as if I was throwing up. After screwing up my face into a sickly grimace and holding my stomach, I raised my eyebrows and spread my hands, questioning him if the mushroom would make me ill. He waved away my concerns and reassured me with smiles and gestures they were safe to eat.
I remembered Ham Sherwin back in New York telling me about psilocybin mushrooms and peyote and strange jungle concoctions in the Amazons. Was this tiny frail fungus in the middle of cow shit what he had been talking about?
I plucked one and bit the top off.
The old guy smiled and his eyes welcomed me. I heard him say clearly, “You’ll never leave.” In an instant, I understood it wasn’t a threat, knew I had just planted my soul in these mountains, and saw that his mouth wasn’t moving while I heard his voice in English inside my mind.
Small events caught m
y attention. I became involved in listening to a group of ants discussing a project to move three dead beetles around a large rock. I stood and walked towards the nearby cliffs, knowing without even considering how, exactly where the bugs were. The little vociferous creatures scurried around the iridescent bodies, pulling and pushing, their exclamations and instructions pealing inside my skull.
The air felt exceptionally sensuous. With each breath, I could feel the textures of the valley soak through me. Stone and dirt, grass, trees, and water were assimilated by my blood and skin. A slight breeze blew down from the mountain, and with it, I felt a cool ripple of air touch every small blade of green in the valley.
I noticed slight shimmering waves of light pass through me and could hear my heart pounding deep inside the mountains around me.
Far away, I heard a thunderous rumble and understood it was a signal, a call being put out to me. Trying to locate its source, I saw the ground around me turn into a field of faraway stars. Beneath my feet, galaxies spun in the vast void of space. Carefully, I took a few steps, not sure whether I would fall into the dark vacuum or stub my foot on a sun or planet, crushing it or knocking it out of orbit. My thoughts were clear but operating in a realm I had never been in before.
High up one mountain wall, near the waterfall, I could hear voices whooping and cheering and saw vibrations of bright color popping and sparking out from a grove of trees. A lively melody with multiple harmonies, mixed rhythms, and a harp-like chorus emanated from a rock covered with a deep purple moss.
Hypnotized, I began to sway to the music’s steady, rolling drive. My eyes closed. My hand twitched. I felt my feet lose touch with the maze of stars.
Man, that purple rock can really play guitar.
My eyes fluttered open. I was standing in a part of the valley I had never seen before. A bumblebee buzzed nearby in a slow zigzag pattern, about a foot off the ground, stopping and inspecting various grasses and weeds and flowers.
How did I get here?
The valley itself answered, “Practice transfer.”
Did I just dissolve, fly around, and reappear here? Felt like it.
The herd of cows rose up from behind a low hill.
The old man appeared with the cows, walking among them. He patted one, stroked another’s muzzle, lingering among them as they grazed. The whole time, he stared in my direction. His gaze was demanding, challenging me to pay attention, accusing me of being naive. Then, in perhaps the most astonishing moment in a life full of magical witnessing, I looked at him as if a surrounding veil had been lifted.
He had goat legs.
Covered with a course brown hair.
His feet were now large gray hooves. Two horns curled up from the sides of his head.
I stumbled backwards, in shock, trying to assimilate horns and hocks and hooves on the body of a man. One of the cows bellowed impatiently, and he touched a hand to it protectively. The sky was still blue, the grass green, the mountains sat patiently while the rippling sound of the river continued. Nothing had changed. Mushrooms peppered a pile of manure next to me. I had become involved in a trip that was beyond mere hallucination. The goat-man nodded his head in affirmation, and I knew he was not human, knew that I saw him as he truly was.
His face now appeared as granite, hardened and forged by volcanic fire. His man-like arms and body had been shaped by winter’s bite and summer’s blast. In a flash, I understood him to be standing in many times and places all at once. He had the talent to scan eternity, and his gaze had centered on me. He was communing with me in the flesh, but I recognized him as a traveler capable of consciously jumping into and out of any dimension, place, or thought throughout all of infinity.
He’s one of the Gods.
“Pan?” The thought passed from me to him.
“Glad you came to visit. Welcome.”
“I’m going to go see who’s into that cool groove up by the waterfall.”
The telepathy came without effort, was the only normal way to speak, but still had a flavor of astonishment surrounding it.
“Good idea.”
Instinctively, I picked up a distinction in our voiceless communication. My conversation appeared without forethought while he understood how to control and create his words.
“Deets?”
“Yes?”
“Try to stay calm.”
“Okay.” I plucked one of the mushrooms by my feet and munched on it, wondering if I should behave differently in the presence of a god.
But everything seemed so normal, the way things were meant to be, even when, walking up the valley, I bumped into a mass of solidified air. I rubbed at my sore nose and jaw, then investigated the invisible wall, tapping and knocking at it, feeling for openings. I found none.
Strange. It’s blocking my passage. It stretches across access to this side canyon. Wonder why?
Continuing to feel the festive pull from the far end of the pasture and despite the inconvenience of the clear, impassable wall, I made my way towards the shower of music and color tumbling from the waterfall.
I climbed a dry section of the rocky face beneath the purple, acoustic boulder. Reaching the top of the cliff, I sat down. Swinging my legs in rhythm over the edge, I looked out over the pasture. Pan’s herd of cows cropped grass, leaving cow patties scattered wherever they wandered. To my right, the stream from the waterfall ran beside the forest of trees that hugged that arm of the mountain. Immediately on my left, the valley twisted its way past me, climbing higher up a rugged slope of woods and rocks. This was the region blocked by the curious wall. Before me, the cliffs that ran along that same side of the pasture were steep and smooth. Near them, far down the open and undulating grassland, stood the tree where I had first fallen asleep. Beyond that, lay the path and river ford of the adjoining main valley. A white structure, tucked among trees, sat on a hillside on the other side of the river, overlooking the entrance to this magical pasture.
When I became aware of Monkey Man sitting in a tree a few feet from me, it seemed like I had always known he had been there.
The telepathy was automatic. So it wasn’t Pan, but the mushroom that brought on the ability.
“Where’s Fish Man?”
“In the pool at the base of the falls.” His mental communications had a screeching, hurried chirp to it, but was understandable to me.
“What are we doing here?”
“Waiting.”
“Sounds perfect. Who else is going to show?”
“Just watch for now. Remember what the Bovid God Man told you. Stay calm.”
Chapter 30
As I looked out over the land, my mind drifted from dream to memory to fantastic thoughts. My old friend, synchronicity, spoke with a fresh voice, introducing me to new revelations about communing with mystery and the rudiments of controlling magic. It wasn’t explained in facts and precise terms, but I began to glimpse that I had a mystical capability to shape events near me. It started with me wishing I could see where the white bull was. Instantly, he plodded over the rise of a hill into view.
That’s cool.
He began munching on a patch of daisies and my mind leaped to picture Teresa wearing yellow flowers in her hair. A large section of pasture bloomed like a pale sun all at once.
“Nice, you’ll get the hang of it.”
I wasn’t sure who had said it—someone, something, like maybe a rock or a mushroom in the valley.
A scream stopped my heart, and I felt my bones shatter. Jerking around to seek out who had just killed me, I watched as bright red feathers sticking out from between Monkey Man’s lips snapped in pieces. His teeth cracked them, and his tongue sucked the nibs deeper in jerky gulps. His jaws worked on a mouthful of the thing that had shrieked inside me. Blood drooled out onto his hairy chin.
Monkey Man swallowed, then spoke aloud in English, “Tasty. Got
anymore, Deets?”
“Me?” Suddenly I recollected dreaming of a red bird inspecting the cliffside, hopping from rock to rock, searching for insects to eat.
Monkey Man snatched it and killed it.
“I was starving.” He burped slightly.
Did I cause that? Lure that hungry bird to be eaten? Holy God, that’s frightening.
I began to worry about the power of my thoughts, connecting them with the pains of people I knew. Directly below me, at the bottom of the cliff, some boulders began to smolder.
Oh man, I’m doing that.
The smoke thickened, surrounding me. I wrestled mentally with the dark rock pile as it fumed and flamed, taunting me, accusing me, reminding me of cruel mistakes. My mind turned to a blackened, burning mass as I tortured myself with my inability to foresee the impact I had created on people I cared for.
Over and over, into the night, I watched Teresa’s tears, Sam’s disillusionment, an unknown child, Mai’s fear, Johnny’s death, and Betsy’s smashed-in skull, all crackling before me, sparks leaping.
I just don’t know how to free myself from my own head. I’m paralyzed with remorse.
The fires inside my thoughts left me parched. Finally, I climbed down to drink some water. The stones reeked of sulphur. Wisps of gray matter that used to be my brain rose and swirled like smoke from the volcanic sludge that lay before me.
Pan stood nearby. A god can relay enlightenment, news, a blessing, or a curse at any time and in any way they choose. I recognized him as a twin to my blistered rock. His face was forever scarred, echoing the tumult and lava of the birth of this mountain range we stood in. He had witnessed the fury of another god who had squeezed fire from the earth, hurled stones through poisonous clouds, and scratched out lightning paths that had seared the atmosphere. It had not been Pan’s way. It had hurt.
“I was never young, Deets.”
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 19
