by Jane Heller
“It’s one of those crystals!” she said excitedly. She was on her hands and knees, scratching and clawing at the shiny piece of quartz embedded in the rock, desperate to pick it out of the ground. “They’re supposed to give off special powers. Isn’t that so, driver?”
The question was directed at Terry, who responded by grabbing Amanda by the elbow and pulling her up.
“You can’t just take something that belongs to the land,” he said politely but firmly. Then he added, in a more playful tone, “The ancient ones don’t look kindly on that.”
“The ancient ones?” Amanda’s eyes widened.
“That’s right,” said Terry. “Legend has it that if you’re caught stealing from their sacred land, they get angry. And if they get angry—well, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to someone as nice as you, would we?”
She stood there, her mouth agape, a guilty child whose hand had been caught in the cookie jar.
I glanced at Terry, once again trying to determine if he was jerking us around or if he believed what he was saying. I couldn’t tell.
“But lots of people have crystals,” Amanda whined, not quite willing to give up. “I hear that Donna Karan keeps one on her desk in her office. That’s why her clothing line makes so much money. Because of that friggin’ crystal.”
Michael nudged me and whispered, “Nutcase.”
“Sedona has dozens of stores where you can buy crystals,” Terry told Amanda, trying to appease her.
“I know that,” she snapped, “but the crystal I was digging up wasn’t mass-produced like the ones they sell in those stores. It would make a much better souvenir.”
“The crystal you were digging up isn’t a souvenir, any more than these mountains are,” he said evenly, motioning toward the red rocks that enveloped us.
Amanda heaved a disappointed sigh. “Oh, all right I broke a nail anyway,” she said, then barked at Tina to arrange for a manicure the minute they got back to the hotel.
We were standing by the car, waiting while Amanda grilled Michael on whether the story he was writing about her would make the cover of Personal Life, when another car drove up—a beat-up blue Pontiac from about 1968. A man waved at Terry, then got out of the car to talk to him. He was tall and thin and wearing the same wide-brimmed black hat that Terry wore, his skin a darker, richer hue than Terry’s deeply tanned face; his hair was coffee brown, glossy and straight, his features reminiscent of that Indian in the commercial.
“Everybody, meet Will Singleton,” Terry said, introducing us to the man and patting him on the back. “Will used to be one of our Sacred Earth Jeep Tour drivers, didn’t you, buddy? Before you went out on your own, huh?”
Will nodded, offering us a reserved “Hello.” He spoke softly and carried a big totem, which is another way of saying he was the strong, silent type. “How come you are driving today?” he asked Terry. “Joe out sick?”
“With the flu,” said Terry. “Want your old job back?”
Will shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”
“You have your own tour company now. Is that it?” I asked, assuming that while Terry had the concession at Tranquility, there was competition for the other hotels in town.
“Not a tour company,” Will said, his speech pattern flat, emotionless, yet not unfriendly.
“Will is Lakota Sioux,” said Terry. “He’s the authority in town when it comes to Native American tribal rites and rituals. I can show you the vortex sites and other sacred places here, but Will is the man if you’re looking for the ultimate spiritual experience.”
“The ultimate spiritual experience?” Amanda said, eyeing Will with new respect.
“I specialize in the teachings of my forefathers,” he volunteered.
“What do these teachings involve and how much do they cost?” Amanda inquired. “I’ve come here to learn.”
“I think you will be fine with Terry,” he said.
“Yes, but you’re an actual Indian,” Amanda said, standing back and observing Will as one would observe a Martian.
“It is true that I am a full-blooded Lakota Sioux. And my wife is full-blooded Navajo,” he said proudly.
Amanda shrugged. “Lakota Sioux. Navajo. Whatever. You know, I’ve always wondered—can you people tell each other apart, looks-wise?”
I was so embarrassed by Amanda’s question that I literally hid behind Marie, who was guzzling something from a flask and didn’t notice.
Will seemed unperturbed. He was probably used to such indignities. “Each tribe has its own set of customs,” he explained, not bothering to address the they-all-look-alike slur. “What I do as a teacher is to give my students an intensive course in spirituality.”
“An intensive course. That’s perfect, because I’m only in town for a few days,” said Amanda. “When I’m through with this Jeep tour at four o’clock, there would certainly be time for—”
“Will conducts Vision Quests,” Terry cut her off. “I don’t think you came to Sedona for anything that heavy.”
“Heavy?” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?” She turned to Will. “Now. What is a Vision Quest?”
“A true Vision Quest, in Native American terms, is a journey, both of the mind and spirit,” Will replied. “For us, it is the traditional rite of passage, the threshold we must cross to prove our strong character, and it is quite involved, quite serious. The Vision Quests I perform for tourists are a scaled-down type of journey, sort of the Cliff Notes version, you might say.”
“Go on,” Amanda urged, becoming intrigued.
“If you sign up for a Vision Quest, I take you to an isolated place, way up into one of the cliffs, meditate with you, chant with you, and then depart.”
“Depart? You mean, leave without me?” she asked.
“Yes,” Will confirmed. “You would remain at the site by yourself.”
“Goodness! For how long?” said Amanda.
“Twenty-four hours,” he said.
“An entire day by myself! What would happen to me during that time?” she said.
“I could not say for sure, because each person’s experience is different. But I do know that you would be alone at the site, without food or water or comforts of any kind, alone with nature, alone with the elements, alone with the land and the animals and your own thoughts.”
“Good Lord. I don’t think I’ve been alone for twenty-four hours in my entire life,” Amanda laughed. “You see, I’ve had a rather large staff since the day I was born.”
“Whenever that was,” Michael whispered to me, referring to Amanda’s well-documented tendency to slice years off her age.
“In a Vision Quest, it is the aloneness that brings about self-awareness,” Will continued. “When you are stripped of everything you have come to depend on, you are likely to experience visions, and these visions lead you to new understanding of yourself and your connection to our Creator. After you have become one with your aloneness, your life takes directions you never expected.”
“Directions I never expected!” Amanda squealed. “That could mean my own clothing line after all. Or, at the very least, a line of costume jewelry.”
“If that is what Spirit intends,” said Will.
“Well, count me in, sign me up, book me,” she told him. “I’m ready.”
“You’re not serious?” said Billy, amazed. “You’re gonna let this guy take you up some mountain and leave you there? Overnight?”
“Why not?” Amanda challenged.
“Because you’re scared stiff of the dark, for one thing,” Billy countered, causing me to wonder how and when he had come upon that information.
“And this gentleman mentioned going without food and water,” Marie pointed out. “How will you manage, Madame, without a good meal and a nice bottle of wine?”
“He also mentioned you’d be out there with animals—and you despise animals,” Tina muttered, “judging by all those fur coats in your closet.”
“Animal
s do roam the cliff dwellings at night,” Will conceded. “There are the coyotes as well as the javelinas.”
“Javelinas? What are they, snakes?” I asked, thinking I would definitely skip the Vision Quest, self-awareness or no self-awareness.
“No. They’re wild pigs,” said Terry. “They travel in packs, and since they can’t see, they detect each other by their smell.”
“Which isn’t Chanel No. 5, I’ll bet,” I said.
“No,” Terry laughed.
“Forget about the pigs. This Vision Quest would make a fabulous jumping-off point for the New Age book I’m planning to write,” Amanda maintained. “In fact, I can envision a tie-in television documentary based on the experience. Perhaps even a feature film—a Gorillas in the Mist sort of picture.”
“Mrs. Reid has an incredible knack for marketing, as well as a yearning to enrich the lives of others,” Jennifer prattled to Michael. “Her mind is so fertile.”
Maybe because of all the manure she shovels, I thought.
“Yes, I’m bound and determined to take this Vision Quest,” Amanda announced, nodding her head. “The only question is when. I’ll have my assistant telephone you to make an appointment when I’m ready to go forward, Mister—”
“Singleton,” said Will.
“Singleton,” Amanda mused. “You don’t have one of those other names, too, do you? The way the Indians had in that movie Dances with Wolves? You know, like ‘Hikes with Tourists’ or something?”
I hid behind Marie again. She took another swig of her magic potion.
“Will Singleton is my name,” he told Amanda. “As for calling me to book the Vision Quest, I do not have a telephone at the cabin where I live.”
“No telephone?” said a startled Amanda. “How do you function?”
“Will has chosen to live simply, the way his ancestors did,” Terry interjected. “His cabin is very primitive, very rustic. No phone. No TV.”
“You could call my wife at her job and leave a message,” Will offered.
“I’ll have Tina do it. Where does your wife work?” asked Amanda.
“At the Sacred Earth Jeep Tour office,” he said. “She’s a secretary there. Terry is her boss.”
My former husband flashed me a see?-I-told-you-so grin. God, you’d think he was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
“Listen, Will,” he said. “After lunch, I’ll be driving everybody over to Cathedral Rock. Why don’t you meet us there, if you’re not busy? You can lead the group, just like the old days. It’ll be fun if my friends here could see you in action. I’ll even pay you twice what I used to.”
“I do not care about the money, you know that,” said Will. “I care about enlightening people. And some people need enlightening more than others.” He looked at our sorry bunch. “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”
We ate lunch on picnic tables in an area the locals call Indian Gardens Vortex. Set along Sedona’s Oak Creek, the narrow body of water that meanders throughout the town, Indian Gardens was the geographical opposite of the cliffs we’d just visited—lush, verdant, relatively flat land. Over our chicken salad sandwiches and Evian water, Terry told us that the spirits of famous Indians—from Sitting Bull to Cochise—were said to show up in the Gardens from time to time. “Since this is a vortex, you get interesting energy here,” he explained. His comment prompted Amanda to abandon her sandwich, which she had termed “pedestrian” anyway, and announce that she was going exploring. She dragged the other members of her group along with her, most of whom were still in the middle of their meal.
Once they had all scampered off, Terry and I were left alone. Neither of us said anything for a minute or two. I tried to chew my sandwich, which had suddenly turned to cardboard; Terry stared at the ant that was feasting on what was left of his. The situation was awkward, not unlike the Sundays I spent with my father.
“Tell me—how’s Howard?” Terry asked, breaking the ice.
I laughed. Maybe everybody in Sedona was psychic. “Dad is his same warm, demonstrative self,” I said.
Terry nodded knowingly. He had witnessed the way my father had treated me. He had seen the detachment, the disinterest, the apathy. And he had seen my anguish over it, how personally I took it, how, instead of saying, “Buzz off, Dad. I’m not coming to visit you anymore if that’s the way you’re going to act,” I worked even harder to win his love. Yes, Terry had seen it all and had tried to get me to separate my father’s opinion of me from my opinion of myself. And I had always told him to buzz off.
“His health is okay?” Terry asked. “He must be getting up there. Eighty-something, right?”
“Eighty-two, and he’s in perfect health,” I said. “Unless you count his disposition.”
“It still bothers you, obviously.”
“What does?”
“Your father’s attitude toward you.”
“Well, sure it bothers me. Wouldn’t it bother you?”
“Look, Crystal. What bothers me is that you sound like you’re stuck in the same rut you were in twenty years ago.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t believe this. Terry Hollenbeck, the former boy wonder who had turned out to be the world’s most disappointing husband, was psychoanalyzing me?
“You and your father. That rut,” he explained. “You used to keep chasing after his approval and not getting it and then feeling like you could never do enough, never measure up, never prove yourself to him. I hated watching that.”
“Gee, I’m sorry I put you through such a terrible ordeal,” I said dryly.
“I meant that I didn’t like seeing you hurt, okay? Besides, I knew how you felt. I’d been in the same position.”
“You?”
“Yeah. It’s no fun turning yourself inside out chasing after someone’s approval. In the end, it’s your own life you’ve got to live, your own personal satisfaction that really matters.”
“And I always thought you had such a good relationship with your father.”
“I did. But I wasn’t talking about my father.”
“Then who were you—”
“Never mind. Let’s talk about your job instead,” he cut in. “You loved talking about work, as I remember. It was your favorite subject.”
“Work didn’t let me down, unlike other aspects of my life.”
“It didn’t keep you warm at night, either.”
“Actually, it did. It kept the heat on. The electricity, too.”
Terry smiled. “I see you’re stuck in that rut, too, huh?”
“Some things stay with you.”
“Only if you hold onto them. Personally, I think it’s a good idea to let them go after a while.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really. I say, hang onto the good parts and let go of the rest.”
Another sermon. “I’m getting the feeling that you’ve decided—after spending literally three hours in my company—that I still resent you.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He smiled again, this time holding his hands up in surrender. “I don’t blame you, Crystal. I was an irresponsible kid when we were married. It’s a wonder you put up with me for twelve whole months.”
Twelve whole months. His tone was sarcastic, as if he were implying that I had pulled the plug on our marriage too soon; that I should have given him more of a chance; that I should have loved him enough to let him find himself, no matter how long it took.
“I’m teasing you, sport. I was an irresponsible kid. I understand why you dumped me. I would have dumped me, too. But people change. Some do, anyway.”
I looked at him, studied him, made sure I wasn’t conjuring him up. It was so odd, our trading remarks at that picnic table in Sedona, so thoroughly improbable. In the dark of my bedroom, in the privacy of my car, in the quiet of my office after everyone else had gone home at the end of the day, I had traded plenty of imaginary remarks with him. But now that we were face-to-face, living the conversations, the experience
was very disorienting. On one hand, Terry was my old pal, the guy who knew me when, the guy who’d seen me through the best and the worst of times. On the other hand, he was a complete unknown; I had no idea what his life had been like up to that point, what events had shaped his views of the world, what perspective, if any, he had gained about me, about our marriage. Maybe he had changed over the years. Maybe I was the one who hadn’t.
“Hey. Why the long face?” Terry asked.
“No reason,” I said, shaking off my doubts. “I was just trying to guess what it was that finally made you settle down here in Sedona, start a business, and stay with it.”
“As I said, people change.”
“Yes, but why did you change? What provoked the change?”
Terry was about to answer the question when we heard Amanda and her troop heading in our direction.
“It’s a long story and there isn’t time for it now,” he said as he rose from the picnic table and began stacking the paper plates and cups and throwing them into the garbage.
“Wait a minute, mister. You’re not getting off the hook that easily,” I said. “You can at least tell me what—” I stopped, wondering if it was a woman who had reined Terry in, a woman he was willing to change for, a woman he loved more than he’d loved me. I felt a pang of jealousy and tried to mask it with a playful, casual tone. “I get it now,” I said, nodding. “I’ll bet this long story of yours boils down to a female. An extremely fetching female. Am I right?”
Terry glanced up at me. “Extremely fetching.”
Chapter Twelve
Cathedral Rock, which was about midway between Airport Mesa and Bell Rock, was yet another vortex site, according to Terry, but unlike the other red rock formations he’d taken us to, this one cost money to climb. It was a tourist attraction of major proportions—a mind-boggling cluster of towering peaks which, when viewed together, did resemble a cathedral or sacred monument.
“See the rocks in the shape of a man and a woman?” Terry said, after we had marched behind him, out of the parking lot, through a grassy field and up toward the cliffs.
“They’re right in between those peaks there.” He pointed into the sun. We squinted.
