Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

  “You need to learn a lot,” Walker said.

  Slightly confused as to where the conversation was leading, other than mere introductions—and he felt like it was leading somewhere specific—Lew kept quiet, waiting for it all to be revealed.

  In a moment Night Walker stood and threw his excess tea into the fire. “We have separated from our people. Their beliefs have changed over the years. We have many of our own beliefs, but have pulled much learning from our ancestors.”

  “It’s been passed down,” Lew said.

  “It has come direct,” Walker told him.

  Lew laughed. “From the dead?”

  Walker nodded once, with authority. “Through Running Wolf.”

  “Then, you five constitute this…this Vision Quest group thing?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Nothing is,” Lew said, rudely.

  “You only believe you understand,” Night Walker said.

  “Yes, you said I need to learn a lot.” Lew finished the last of his breakfast. “So, when do we begin class?”

  Leela touched Lew’s arm tenderly and he turned to look into her eyes. “You,” she said, “must first realize that you chose to come here. Learning is difficult if you believe others sent you.”

  “It is only by accepting your choices that you begin to pay attention,” Strong Elk whispered.

  “Yeah, like I wanted to hike up here with little water, no food, and no hiking boots.” Lew held up one foot to illustrate his lack of proper attire. He scoffed, rejecting the thought that he would choose such an assignment.

  “By choosing, you do not have to create action only from yourself,” Leela said.

  “And what does that mean?”

  Night Walker raised his hands, palms up, and said something that sounded like a chant. Then in English he said, “You have called us to you, you have come to us. All actions are decisions.”

  “I don’t think you have the right to tell me I chose this. I think I would know if I had.”

  “It was a spirit choice,” Walker told him.

  “And what do you think, Running Rabbit? You’ve been quiet all this time. Maybe you’re not too sure about this band of…of…”

  “…Lunatics?” Running Rabbit finished Lew’s sentence with the word. He smiled. “I think you’re an asshole, and as far as I’m concerned, we could kill you and leave your carcass in the woods. But then, I’m still learning, too. I know that there is something I must learn from your being here. I, too, have drawn you to me, and I must consider what it is inside me that brought you here.”

  Lew tried not to show his puzzlement over Running Rabbit’s words, yet his next utterance came through waveringly, meekly. “So, what is it I must do?” He just wanted to get to it, get the whole thing over with.

  “Running Wolf has told you one thing. Listen! You must act on his words as though they were your own beliefs. When he returns, follow,” Leela said.

  “We will try to help you,” Walker put in.

  Lew looked over at Running Rabbit.

  “Even he will be asked to help,” Walker said.

  Lew looked up into Night Walker’s face, searching for signs of compassion. “Help?” he said.

  “Running Wolf has gone. When he returns, his message will be known only to him. Your trials will be unique to your needs. He may open a path to you or lead you through fire. He may use pain or he may use words.”

  “A lecture?” Lew laughed uneasily. “I’ll take that.”

  “I’d use a knife,” Running Rabbit said.

  Although his words drove fear into Lew’s heart, he could not keep quiet. His way, he told himself, was to stand and fight, even through fear. In fact, fear kept his adrenaline high, making him feel more powerful.

  “Don’t listen to Rabbit, he screams out his own fears,” Walker said.

  Running Rabbit shook his head, then leaned into Lew’s face. “I have become your mirror, Wolf Cub. Look at me.”

  Lew shook his head and turned to Leela questioningly.

  “He says what the spirits tell him to say,” Leela told Lew. “Listen.”

  “First, I’m told don’t listen, then you tell me to listen. Which is it?”

  “We all listen, but each hears differently, interprets through his own personality,” Walker said. “We do not always talk with spirit. You must learn to know the difference. You must learn to hear spirit.”

  “I don’t want to hear my dead grandmother, all she did was nag,” Lew tried to laugh, but failed, making himself even more uncomfortable. Still very unsure of where all this was going, he tried to continue the conversation: what about his purpose in coming to this place.

  “Your job is merely a vehicle, it means nothing now,” Walker told him. “Forget it. Concentration hoarded in such a place will not help you here,” he said.

  “Right. Well, how long do we wait here?”

  “Until Running Wolf returns.”

  “Once he gets back, how long will this excursion take place? This training?”

  No one spoke.

  “Can I call home?” Lew asked.

  Leela turned away. The others remained silent.

  Lew knew the answers to his own questions before he asked them, but asked anyway. “I have responsibilities,” he said in way of convincing them. He felt alienated. Now he felt disconnected from his familiar world. There was nothing he could do. It had already been two days. No one back home had heard from him.

  He took refuge in concern for his job. Frank would want some kind of contact, some kind of update. He wished he could call Joe. There was no one he could turn to. Rabbit frightened him; the others confused him. He wanted Running Wolf to return so they could get started with their quest, get it over with.

  Here he was in a camp of three hogans with four complete strangers and no way to contact anyone. It was as though he had fallen off the face of the Earth. He tried to think back, for only a moment, to any time in his life where he had been so removed and could come up with nothing. He looked around. No one spoke. They eventually got up and started milling around, cleaning the area. Strong Elk went into the woods and Lew wondered if the truck was out there somewhere, only several hundred yards away. He imagined high-jacking their truck back to town, wherever that was. Eventually he sat near the breakfast fire alone.

  The sun climbed and the long, deep shadows of early morning had dissipated into softer light. Lew breathed the scent of thick foliage, and watched as the leaves moved easily in the wind. Bird sounds were loud, like people talking at a party. There was something pleasing as well as strange about being in the woods like this. Everything moved slowly and naturally. Trees did not hurry their lives. The wind had no destination.

  Lew brushed his hand through his hair and abruptly remembered that he hadn’t taken a shower, or shaved, or brushed his teeth in days. He stood up and walked over to Leela’s and Walker’s hogan and stood outside. He lifted his fist, but where do you knock on a hogan? So, he lowered his head and spoke firmly. “Hey, you in there?”

  “Yes, come in,” Leela said.

  Lew bent down and pushed the flap open with his hand, letting it slide over his arm and back as he entered. “Nice place you have here,” he said jokingly.

  “What do you want?” Leela said, obviously annoyed by his comment. She was working with some cloth and thread and set it aside to talk with him.

  “I’d like to clean up. Is there any chance that I can get my suitcase?”

  “Strong Elk went to get it.”

  “So, you’re ahead of me again.” He turned to leave, then turned back. “I know you people don’t like me, but…”

  “We don’t understand you. You don’t understand us. That’s all. We are trying.”

  Lew stood still and breathed deeply. Something in their earlier conversations, or the calmness of the morning, eased his anxieties at least for a while. He couldn’t remember feeling that calm since he was a child; even then, his father would say or do something to
disrupt things, just to agitate a calm situation.

  “I haven’t made it easy,” he said. He waited for a response and got none, so he turned and left.

  Knowing that Strong Elk was to bring his stuff, Lew assumed there would be somewhere to clean up nearby. He looked at his watch, tried to figure Strong Elk’s approximate departure time, figuring about fifteen minutes per mile average. That would tell him how far away the truck was. He couldn’t remember, though, which direction Strong Elk had entered the woods, so he paced the camp waiting to see from which direction he returned. He imagined himself an imprisoned wolf, planning his escape. If he concentrated on such things, it kept his mind occupied. By early afternoon, Strong Elk appeared back in camp, empty-handed. “I thought you went out for my suitcase,” Lew said upon seeing him.

  “It’s in your hogan.”

  Shit, Lew thought. He’d have to become more aware of their movements. He ran back to the hogan and, sure enough, his suitcase lay at the foot of his bedroll. He opened it and pulled out his shaving kit and clean clothes. He had no soap because the only hotels he ever stayed in always provided soap and shampoo. He’d have to compromise. He exited the hogan with his clothes under his left arm, the shaving kit dangling from his left hand.

  Strong Elk’s hogan stood to Lew’s left, so he crossed where the breakfast fire had been and firmly asked for Strong Elk by name.

  The flap opened and a partially toothless face peered out at him. “East.”

  “There’s water?”

  “Due East,” Strong Elk repeated, then pointed. “The sun rises from there.”

  “I know that,” Lew said.

  “Then don’t look surprised.”

  Lew turned and walked away in anger. “They always think I’m stupid,” he said under his breath. Behind him, Strong Elk and Running Rabbit were laughing about something. He heard them bantering in their own tongue.

  As Lew walked among the Douglas fir, oaks and hackberry trees, he listened closely to the sounds of birds and how they silenced as he entered an area and began chirping again as he left it. For all the bird sounds, he saw very few. He came upon several squirrels playing among some fallen trees, heard their chattering, and watched their puffed-out tails as they ran along the ground. In most areas, there was little underbrush, the canopy being so full as to keep the nourishing rays of the sun to a minimum. The day was warm, yet cool breezes ran along the forest floor where Lew walked. Twigs cracked under his feet and leaves bunched in front of his cross-trainers when he didn’t lift them high enough. The pleasant morning had no traffic sounds attached, only natural noises. Beeping, people yelling, loud air conditioners kicking in over your head—all were missing. Lew didn’t miss those sounds as much as he thought he might.

  Lew heard the sound of running water and tried to walk making less noise. As he approached, he realized that the creek was flowing pretty quickly and wondered where he might bathe. The breezes coming from the direction of the water were much cooler even than those from the forest, promising a chilly bath.

  When Lew came upon the creek, he found a calm eddy where he could wash. Out further from the bank the water bounded and tumbled over some large protruding rocks. A large white oak stood near the inlet. A strong, thick lower branch stretched almost to the rapids, turning up near the middle of the creek, reaching for the sunlight, its leaves alive and brilliant.

  Lew undressed next to the oak, left his clothes hung over the branch and took his shaving cream with him, wading into the chilly water. He used his shaving cream to lather his hair and body. When he was through, he rinsed by diving into the shallow water and came up fairly soapless the first time. He splashed to shore and traded his shaving cream for toothpaste and brush, then sat on a rock and brushed his teeth thoroughly. Finally he retrieved his shaving cream and razor, found a place in the water where he could see his reflection, and shaved. Rubbing his hand along his face, he found unshaven areas and swiped them clean and smooth with his razor. The air was felt cold until his skin dried and warmed in the direct sunlight. Lew dressed in clean clothes after rinsing his dirty ones and hanging them loosely over some bushes near the water’s edge.

  Finished with his morning chores, Lew climbed far out onto the oak branch to a spot where the sun felt strong, then lay back with his hands under his head and his feet dangling off either side of the branch.

  The trees, water, sounds, and smells pulled all his anger from him, leaving him totally at peace. He knew deep down that it would not last, that he was acclimated to the rat-race. The moment the thought of peace entered his mind he pushed it aside and replaced it with the familiar edginess. It tightened inside him like the wound spring of an alarm clock ready to go off.

  He could lie in the sun no longer: He had rested long enough. He sat up and pounded his fist on the branch, its rough bark hard against the muscle at the heel of his clenched hand. He wanted things to get moving. He crawled back to the trunk of the tree and climbed down.

  It was well past noon and he was hungry. To prepare as much as possible for Running Wolf ’s return, Lew jogged back to camp. He put his things away and went straight to Leela’s hogan. He yelled for her.

  She stepped outside instead of letting him enter. “You are hungry,” she said.

  “Of course I am. It’s past noon. Did you eat lunch already?”

  “We do not eat by the clock, but by our hunger.”

  “Well, I’m damned hungry.”

  Leela nodded and walked towards the fire pit, which still smoldered.

  “I have a lighter,” Lew said, “in my shaving kit.” He turned to go get it.

  “No, thank you,” Leela said as she brushed the cold ashes away, exposing the bright red of burning wood underneath. She stripped bark from a log that lay near the fire and placed it over the coals; it ignited into bright yellow flames. She tossed two dry logs on the fire.

  As she poured what looked like ready-made bread dough into a pan and poured soup into a pot, Lew questioned her. “Why don’t you work as other Indians around here, selling and manufacturing authentic wares?”

  “You are at my job. I work in these woods.”

  “No, I mean it. This isn’t work, really.”

  “You must do what the spirits tell you.”

  “What if you don’t?”

  “Then they do not speak.”

  “So, this little band of Navajos you’re with…they all have the same spirits talking to them?”

  “We’re not all Navajos.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  “Strong Elk is Lakota. Running Rabbit is Apache.”

  “And Running Wolf?”

  “Cherokee.”

  “The Trail of Tears,” Lew said.

  Leela looked into his eyes. “Many spirits speak to Running Wolf.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not vigilantes, knowing what little I do of his ancestry.”

  “We come together in peace. All clans, all tribes must come together. The White Buffalo brings a new vision, a bringing together. All races must learn to listen to spirit.”

  Lew found himself almost believing Leela’s words. Possibly it was the atmosphere, the alienation he felt that made him wish to believe. New sensations began to creep into him. They frightened and interested him, but what would he do with them? “Sounds like bullshit to me,” he said waving his hand.

  Leela turned back to the food.

  Lew suddenly felt alone, not like she had turned away, but as though she had actually left the area. “Fine,” he said, wishing to bring conversation back, “then how can I learn to hear spirits?”

  “Did you listen to the waters while you bathed?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course. You couldn’t help it.”

  “What did they say?”

  Lew made a puzzled face.

  “Then you did not hear the water speak.” She said definitively.

  “Do you?”

  From behind him, Strong Elk said, “You must know yourself in order to feel t
he Great Spirit in nature. Then, you will hear the voice of the tree, the water, and even the small animal. Snake will not bite you. Deer will feed you. All things will change.”

  Lew jumped at the sound of Strong Elk’s voice. “You always just appear, like you’re not real.”

  Strong Elk smiled at him, the gap in his teeth showing darkness beyond. “I walk like a cat.”

  “You sneak around, you mean,” Lew said.

  “You will never hear me until you know who you are,” Strong Elk said, implying that he, too, was part of nature.

  “I know who I am. I am Wolf. And even if I can’t hear you, I’ll sniff you out and hunt you down,” Lew said arrogantly.

  “You do not like to be told things,” Leela said.

  “I’ll tell him something,” Running Rabbit said from behind.

  Lew turned quickly to see Running Rabbit coming at him with a knife pulled. He jumped up, but Running Rabbit already held his shirt in a fist, the knife-point pressed against the skin under Lew’s chin.

  “Do you know what Apache means?” Running Rabbit hissed into Lew’s face.

  Lew didn’t move for a long time. He didn’t speak. He just stared into Running Rabbit’s eyes and waited, anger rising inside him like a smoldering volcano.

  “It means Enemy,” said Running Rabbit. He shoved Lew with his hand, flipped the knife through the air and caught it by the blade. He held it out to Lew, handle first.

  Lew snatched it away quickly and lunged towards Running Rabbit, who stepped aside, grabbed Lew’s arm and pulled him through the lunge into a place of imbalance. Lew stumbled, catching himself just before falling to his face.

  “Wolf turd,” Running Rabbit said. A second knife materialized in his hand.

  Lew crouched down, his face red.

  “Enough!” Night Walker stepped into camp from behind the hogan where he and Leela slept.

  Running Rabbit slipped his knife into its sheath at his waist and walked up to Lew. He spread his arms, “Last chance,” he said.

  Lew stood, letting the knife hang to his side loosely in his hand. “Lesson one,” Running Rabbit said, “do not fight out of anger, only self preservation.”

  “You attacked me. It was self preservation.”