Luthecker (24 page)

They all sat in silence.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. I mean, look at the trouble I caused.”

“What the fruit is wrong with you?” Camila barked, loud enough to echo through the desert air.

“You’re being selfish. This isn’t about you. You saved that girl’s life. You did the right thing.”

“I don’t know that. I don’t know that I saved her life. I just said don’t get in the car. And then everything went wrong.”

“We need to find out if she’s alive. And if she is, you need to see her again.”

“No. I don’t-”

“Alex.” She cut him off. “You see what you see, and I see what I see; and what I see, is that because of you she may be alive, and if she is, everything’s changed for her. And because of that, you need to see her again. You need to man-up.”

“Guys.” Chris interrupted. He nodded in the direction of north, and they all saw the silhouette of two men approaching, one with a stride and gait they recognized, that of William Hayes Jr, this time without the shotgun, and the other of a shorter man, with a much more controlled rolling gait along with a noticeable limp, that, combined with a visibly hunched over frame, indicated an individual of considerable age.

As he got closer it became obvious that the hunched over man also wore a flat brim hat, and had a thick braid of hair running down either side of his head. The ember of a pipe suddenly glowed just in front of his face, and as he got close enough to distinguish his features, the flame acted as a mini lantern that revealed the wrinkles and scars of a long life.

He stopped and stood at the apex of the pit and did a brief scan of the four sitting around the fire, before promptly stepping into the circle and plopping down to sit between Chris and Alex.

Chris moved a bit to make some room.

“This is my Grandfather, William “Mawith” Hayes. “Mawith” is O’odham Indian for “Panther”. The younger Hayes announced. He remained standing outside the circle.

Mawith stared at the fire and said nothing.

“He wants to welcome you to our land, and asks, which one traveling among you is what the white man would call the “Medicine Man”?”

They all looked at one another, confused.

“None of us are.” Alex replied.

Mawith looked at Alex a long time. Alex tried to hold the old man’s gaze. The old Indian’s hazel eyes were surprisingly sharp and clear, and he saw what seemed like a thousand years. It almost made his heart stop. All that the old Indian had seen and done, all that he was, overwhelmed Alex in a way he had never experienced before, and he was forced to look away.

The O’odham Indians, like most of the indigenous tribes of North America, had suffered severe hardships at the hands of their European conquerors. Believed to be descendant from the Hohokam Indians, it was a culture that traced its ancestry all the way back to the Aztecs of central Mexico. The Hohokam, a Pima Indian word meaning “That which has vanished”, had all but done so, taking along with them many of their customs and rituals. Mawith was one of the few natives remaining who remembered the old ways. The Hohokam Pima Monument, along with the archeological site of Snaketown, was one of the last remnants of their ancient history. White men were rarely if ever allowed this close to the monument.

“I will return for him in an hour.” Hayes the 3
^rd
announced, before turning away from the fire and disappearing in the darkness.

They all sat in silence a moment.

Yaw finally spoke.

“It’s an honor to meet you sir.”

Mawith looked at him.

“Where are you from?” He asked, his voice raspy and resonant with age.

“Detroit.” Yaw answered.

“No.” Mawith snapped. “Where are you
from
?” He asked again.

Yaw reconsidered the question.

“Ghana. Africa.” He corrected, the strength and pride noticeable in his voice.

Mawith nodded. Took a pull from his pipe, which lit up his aged and wrinkled face.

“Many old tribes from Africa. Tribes from the beginning. Many with strong warriors.”

The old man looked Yaw in the eye, nodded slowly at him, as if to say “Welcome.”

The old man turned to Camila. His gaze made her uncomfortable, and she instinctively shifted her weight away from him. It was as if those deep hazel eyes could see right through her.

“Sister.” He said.

“I, I’m from Tijuana Mexico.” She felt compelled to defend.

“You are from
here
.” Mawith abruptly corrected, a hint of frustration in the old man’s voice. “These mountains, these deserts, they are yours. Your many ancestors, they bid you welcome.”

“Thank you.” She sheepishly responded.

“How do you know Master Winn?” Aldrich asked the old man.

Mawith looked at him. He took a long pull from his pipe, the glow of the ember casting long shadows beyond the edges of his face.

“You.” The old man started, pointing an accusatory finger at Aldrich.

“You are from the conquering tribe.” He finished, the smoke from his breath drifting around his jaw and into the desert air.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Chris replied defensively, his reaction taking everyone by surprise.

The old Shaman didn’t answer, letting the sudden tension hang in the air along with the smoke of his pipe.

“He’s one of us.” Alex defended firmly, not only to Mawith, but also to anyone else among them who may harbor any doubts.

“I want to know what the hell he meant.” Chris said to Alex, unexpectedly getting to his feet, escalating the tension.

“You are not your father.” Alex answered Chris, haunting and resolute, before anyone else could speak. Aldrich’s jaw dropped in disbelief. He just stared at Alex.

“How- “

“You are one of us.” Alex gently reiterated, cut him off. “Now please. Sit down.”

Chris stared at Alex, visibly stunned. He slowly sat back down with the group.

Yaw and Camila looked at one another, knowing an exchange just took place between Chris and Alex, but unsure as to what exactly it was.

Mawith looked at Alex, and smiled for the first time. It revealed aged teeth, stained and uneven, mixed with gaps along the gums from several pulled or lost long ago.

They all sat in silence for several minutes before Mawith finally spoke.

“The one you call Winn visited with me when he was a young man. Much energy, many questions. He too, was on a quest. Long ago, before any of you were born.”

Mawith turned his pipe towards the sand, banging it gently against a rock, letting the ash fall to the desert floor. He carefully placed the pipe in the top pocket of his old and worn flannel shirt.

“We had a vision, he and I, before he left. A vision that this day would come.”

They all looked at one another.

“What are you talking about?” Yaw asked.

“He has sent you on a quest, no?”

“Yes. He has. A very important one.”

“Indeed. And it is very important that you fulfill it, for the act itself will set off a chain reaction. You must do this, no matter what happens to any one individual among you.”

“What the fruit are you trying to say? Is something going to happen?” Camila reacted.

Mawith looked at Camila.

“Have you ever wondered why? Why our Native people suffer, yet survive?”

She met the old man’s gaze, trying hard not to be intimidated.

“We survive, because it is our duty. We suffer, because we are not of the darkness. And that is how it must be, for it is our fate to nurse the Mother back to health, when the darkness passes. And pass it will.”

No one said a word as the Indian’s words faded into the desert, the only audible sound, the crackling of the fire.

They all watched as the old man stared into the flames, the light dancing across his timeless face, as he lost himself in both the light and a distant memory.

Then the old man began to sing, soft at first, but growing louder, a clear and rhythmical voice, the words of another language, another time, and the four visitors could almost feel the pounding of the feet, the echo of the ceremony, from hundreds of years past.

The sounds Mawith made were simple and repetitive, a spiritual chant, something similar to what they had all heard in the past from Master Winn, when he meditated. The rhythm was seductive enough that they all instinctively repeated the mantra-like phonetic string in their heads, and soon joined the old Indian in its chorus.

A sudden calm came over the circle, and after about ten minutes of the chant, Mawith stopped. Mesmerized by the man, they all kept their eyes on him as he reached into his pocket, pulled his pipe free once again, along with a small pouch of tobacco.

He said nothing as he carefully lit his pipe, and took several puffs.

“Is Alex like you?” Camila finally asked.

The old man turned to Alex. He tried to avert his gaze, but Mawith’s eyes wouldn’t let him.

Alex couldn’t believe the number of things that he saw. The lines on his face read like rings on a tree, and he calculated this man to be ninety-three years of age. The timber of his voice indicated he once was a strong leader, but now of quickly fading health. The scars on his arms and shake of his hands indicated that he had been very physical when he was young, and had had many violent confrontations. Many he had won. Others he lost badly, one particularly brutal occasion being the source of the man’s limp.

The beat of his heart was slow and controlled, his breathing measured. Despite the man’s turbulent past, he had come to peace with its reality. The lines on his face sloped noticeably downward, the angle telling Luthecker that this man had also lost many family members, some to cancer, some to drink, and some to violence. He noticed an occasional flicker in the man’s eyes. They went distant, to Alex indicative of guilt. It connected to a memory, an occasional remembrance of a question the old man asked himself more and more with age, and only recently resolved: Why did he survive, when so many of his brothers and sisters had perished?

The old man suddenly looked away, as if he felt Alex had seen enough. At that moment it dawned on Alex, that the man had killed another in the past, in self-defense, and it had weighed heavily on him. It was the one unresolved question.

There was another part of the old man, however, a complex series of patterns that Alex could not fully comprehend, that he had never seen in anyone before. It was completely timeless, an aspect hard to describe, patterns filled with colors, warmth, and comfort. There was a distinct rhythm to it, a harmonic that existed outside of the man but seemingly connected to him by what he saw as the old Indian’s own rhythm, his own sound and movement, his own heartbeat. Alex noted that the old man was barefoot, his tough and cracked feet evidence of having pounded the sand in this very circle during countless dances that had mimicked the same distinct beats, the graveled voice from the singing and chanting of many songs in the same harmony. All this behavior of rhythmical noise and motion had somehow strengthened the connection this man had to this peculiar extrinsic harmonic, this pattern of his experience that had no beginning, middle, or end that Alex could identify.

The old man would also die tonight. Alex saw this, and knew that there was no stopping it. A heart attack would be the physical cause, the man’s arteries long since clogged and hardened, but he sensed that there was more at play here. The man himself was actually aware of the fact, and he had made peace with it already. It was as if he knew that this evening would be his last moment, his last impact on the patterns of others. It dawned on Alex that this man’s self-awareness might in fact have a direct connection to the unquantifiable patterns of warmth and color that Alex saw surrounding this man’s life. It dawned on him that it might be a direct connection to the momentum.

“You see visions.” Mawith stated, interrupting Alex’ thinking.

“No. No, that’s not what I see at all. I see patterns. Countless details that fit some sort of formula in my head. I see them in people, in nature, and in most systems of existence. It’s mathematics and memory. That’s all. There’s nothing more to it than that.” Alex stammered in defense.

His heart began to race a bit. No one had ever called him out so bluntly.

His friends all looked at him. In their collective two years of knowing Alex, they had never seen him stammer in the face of anyone or anything.

“You see visions.” Mawith asserted again. “Of things you believe cannot change.”

“No. That’s not what I do.” Alex continued to defend.

The old man pointed a crooked finger at Alex.

“You spend your life in hiding.”

“No. I don’t want to interfere.” Alex kept backpedaling.

“You are a coward.” He stated, harsh and matter of fact, surprising them all.

“You must lead. Or they all die.” The man’s voice rang out into the night, louder and with anger.

The effort seemed to weaken him.

“Grandfather?”

They all turned to see William Hayes the 3
^rd
standing just outside the circle.

“It’s time to come in.”

Mawith struggled to get up, wincing in pain from the effort. Yaw immediately got to his feet and gently helped the old man up.

“Thank you, warrior from Ghana.” The old man said, as he carefully stepped from the circle and took his grandson’s arm.

“Mawith.” Alex softly called out.

The old man looked at Alex.

“Thank you.” Alex told him.

The old man nodded.

“Safe travels.” Alex added, gentle and knowing, and the old man smiled back in acknowledgement.

Mawith turned towards his grandson and never looked back, and they all watched as the younger man carefully guided his grandfather into the darkness, towards the small mud hut about a hundred yards away.

Yaw sat back down, and they all sat in silence, uniformly mesmerized contemplative by both the fire and their exchange with the old Indian. It remained unspoken, but they all felt something had just happened here, but they were unsure as to exactly what.

Yaw finally spoke up.

“I say we sleep here tonight. In this circle. Lets get the blankets and our packs from the van. And come morning, we’ll be on our way to New York.”