I found myself in bed and I laid there for a few long minutes. The large room was comfortably cool and lavishly decorated. I quickly got up and ran out into a long hallway and down three flights of stairs. I found a door that led outside and I dashed through it. I stood on the lawn, dumbfounded. I recognized this place; I was back at Spirit Lake.
The white house was gone and it had been replaced by a massive five story castle that jutted from the earth like a leviathan. The castle was new-looking and had been built out of dark slabs of granite, how much it had cost to build was beyond my comprehension. The castle loomed above me, complete with matching turrets and carved gargoyles of all shapes and sizes. I found myself dressed in a smoking jacket and silk pajamas. Before me was a huge pool surrounded by at least a dozen scantily dressed women enjoying the hot sunshine. A gleaming Bell helicopter sat on a concrete apron and a stretch limousine, shiny and black, sat next to it.
“Master Brindle,” beckoned a small man with a white glove, wearing a tuxedo with tails. “Would you like another glass of champagne?”
I shook my head and tried to gather my thoughts. I turned around and walked back up the marble steps and over to the monstrous double doors. I pulled one open and stepped back inside. I stood there in complete awe at the sight of the cavernous interior. Life-sized statues adorned the room and priceless art of all kinds hung from the walls.
“Why Huckleberry,” exclaimed a familiar voice. “I am so glad to see that you made it home.”
I spotted Major Soliah standing at a window that overlooked the pool. He was young and fit with a wisp of moustache under his narrow nose. He was dressed in a silk running suit; in his hand was a champagne glass. “What have you done?” I asked. “I want to go back to where I was.”
“I’m afraid that is impossible,” he said with a smile. “Come over here, I want you to help me decide on what we should have for dinner. Would you like a nice steak? Anything you like, the kitchen here is wonderful.”
I walked over to the window and stared outside with contempt. “I never asked for any of this. I was happier back there, I demand to go back.”
“Go back?” asked another voice and I quickly turned. I stared with astonishment at Man Killer, who was dressed in a silk robe and it looked like little else. She walked to join Soliah and she wrapped her arms around him. “What is he talking about, honey?” she whispered in his ear.
My head snapped back as Soliah pawed at her and she allowed him to do so. She smiled at me as she studied the look on my face. It was obvious she had no recollection of our storied past. I could feel the blood boiling in my veins. Soliah was enjoying every minute of this.
“Why Huckleberry, I do believe you’ve taken a fancy to my best girl. She is called Melody, isn’t that a fitting name for such a beautiful woman?” He then turned to her. “I am afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave us men alone, my sweet. I think I need to remind the lad about what he can touch, and the consequences for touching something that isn’t his.”
“Anything you say, my love,” said Melody, who I knew to be Man Killer.
I grudgingly had to admit that Melody had a much better ring to it. Still, I wanted to throw up. I stood there hyperventilating as I watched her gracefully exit the room. I returned my attention to the almost cherubic face of Soliah. He seemed to be beaming with pride and his eyes shone with triumph. “Anything you say, my love,” I mimicked, curling my lip to him. “You son-of-a-bitch.”
“Ah, my boy, do you have any idea how many years I have been waiting for this moment? Look at everything I have given you. All of this is yours. Do you understand me, Huckleberry? Have you ever imagined such wealth? Let me enjoy it for another second, oh, yeah! I feel so damn good! I never knew that giving would feel this way. Life is great, isn’t it?”
“You’re a monster.”
“Maybe so, but that makes you my little monster and together we’re the luckiest monsters on the planet. I am truly sorry about Melody, but I had to have her as my own. Have no fear; each and every one of those beautiful young ladies down at the pool would be thrilled to be your wife. You have to let go of the past and you can start with Melody. I wasn’t sure that you would recognize her, now that she dresses like a woman and not like a dirty savage. Could you smell her? That perfume cost me ten thousand dollars an ounce. She is magnificent, isn’t she?”
I gritted my teeth and tried to charge him using my explosive movement. I failed miserably and he kicked me in the face and shoved me to the floor. I could taste hot blood flowing down my flattened lips. I got to my feet and charged him again, not caring what he hit me with. This proved to be a great mistake.
When I came to I found myself staring up at the thirty foot ceiling. My body was ravaged with a pain that is beyond description. I sucked air through my nostrils as it was physically impossible for me to open my mouth to breathe. My arms were broken and hung uselessly at strange angles on the tile floor. I could not lift my head to see my feet.
“You brought this on, yourself,” Soliah said harshly, looking like he was beginning to regret what he had done to me. “How could you have been such a fool? The world was at your feet, you and I were going to become great friends and we were to have countless debates. You’ve ruined everything!”
“Help me,” I grunted, but the words were lost in my swollen mouth.
“My grandson, what have I done?”
That was the last thing he said before he bolted out the front door. I lay there in my agony and waited for death to arrive. The room began to spin and I fought the urge to close my eyes. I wanted to face death like a man; it was the way of my people. What I saw next nearly caused me to pass out. Crooked Walker stood over me and gave me a reproachful look. He shook his head and began to chant. The first rat was on me in just seconds.
They were everywhere at once, hundreds of little jaws chewing at my flesh as my muscles cried out in pain. My injuries must have been very serious, because the operation by rat took much longer than usual. Mercifully, they skittered away in a great churning pack, where they found the open door that led outside and they quickly disappeared.
“We have to leave this place,” Crooked Walker whispered, urging me to my feet. “Come on, there isn’t much time.”
I stood up and leaned against him, utterly exhausted and wondering if he were a ghost. Crooked Walker and Dog Breath had been killed, hadn’t they? I followed him down a long corridor that seemed to stretch for miles. The walls were decorated with lavishly painted family portraits, which looked very old and were no doubt, museum quality. I tried not to look, even though I knew deep down that the paintings were of my own ancestors. We found what must have been the back door and I followed him outside.
What I saw then was too much to process at one time. The lawn was strewn with weeds and my equipment shed sat rusting where it had always been. I spun on my heels and the castle was gone and my crummy little trailer had replaced it. But, things weren’t exactly as I had left them. A round swimming pool sat in the middle of my yard, dark blue and above ground, the kind that comes in a single box. The pool was full of frolicking women, except not the same ones that had been by the pool at the castle. These were old women, very old women, and they were dressed in the same skimpy bikinis that the young women had worn. Dog Breath sat in the dirt with his back to the pool, his arms were crossed and he looked very angry.
Odd Whitefeather stood next to the pool, he was smiling and it looked like he was having a serious conversation with one of the ladies.
“Do not look at the women in the man-pond,” Crooked Walker whispered. “They have powerful magic and you will end up like him,” he continued, pointing to Odd Whitefeather.
Dog Breath got to his feet and nearly ran to where we were. “You were able to save him. I did not think that was possible.”
“I was only able to do it because Soliah wanted me to save him. Now that I’m back in this world, I am as powerless as a wood tick. We have to keep looking for a way out of this place.”
>
Dog Breath nodded toward the pool. “How are we to get him away from the sirens?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I know a siren when I see one and those old ladies are definitely not sirens.”
“Soliah has a very strange sense of humor. He wants to make you beg him to take you back. We have no magic here, he has taken it away. He wants you to fall in love with one of those women and have to go back to work, whatever that means. He did tell me that we would never leave this place.”
“Welcome home,” said Dog Breath.
“Oh no,” I said. “We’re going back out to Spirit Lake. I’m already in love and we are not going to let him win. I’ll find a way to get our magic back, you have to trust me.”
Dog Breath was feeling the fabric of my velvet smoking jacket and he looked very impressed. “I would like some breeches made out of this,” he said. “We must find the animal with this skin.”
I was embarrassed, because I was still dressed in the same pajamas I had been wearing at the castle. I pointed to Odd Whitefeather’s ATV. “We are going to have to take that out to Spirit Lake. I don’t know how all four of us are going to be able to ride on that.”
“I agree,” said Crooked Walker, looking over his shoulder at his grandson, who was rubbing lotion on the back of the woman he had been talking to. Crooked Walker shuddered. “It is better to die like men than to end up like him.”
“What type of horse is that?” Dog Breath asked. “We cannot ride that thing. And don’t count on him for any help,” he said, pointing to Odd Whitefeather. “We will never be able to get him to leave. He is in love.”
I couldn’t think about that right now. I needed to get a closer look at the muddy ATV. I walked over to it and spotted the trailer hitch mounted at the back of the machine. I then continued walking, directly up to the equipment shed. I found the little trailer where I had left it five years ago. I could immediately see that the tires were flat, but I thought I had an old bicycle pump around there, somewhere. I walked up to the filthy workbench, which had begun to rot, and I began scanning the junk that surrounded it. The tire pump was sitting in a milk crate that was filled with the scavenged parts from my previous life. I picked up a rusted cable hook, capable of holding a five ton wrecking ball. My adopted father had given me the hook, and it caused me pain to see it in its present condition. I tossed it back into the crate, hefted the tire pump and walked back to the trailer. I filled the tires, which thankfully hadn’t broken their beads and still held air. Then, I lifted the tongue and maneuvered the little trailer out into the sunshine.
Dog Breath and Crooked Walker were standing a respectful distance from the stout Polaris ATV. They looked at it in wonder. I wheeled the trailer to the ATV and connected it to the hitch. Satisfied, I told them to climb aboard. Not surprisingly, both shook their heads and backed away. I sat on the seat and thumbed the ignition. The engine roared to life and I quickly shifted it into gear. I then pressed on the gas and instantly found more horsepower than I had been counting on. The ATV leapt up on its back wheels and threw me back on the seat. I shot across the yard in one long wheelie before I was able to regain control. The trailer was the only thing that kept me from flipping over backwards.
I looked at the old Medicine Men and they stared at me with amazement. They spoke with each other as I pulled next to them. Crooked Walker looked a little angry. “I wish to ride the iron horse,” said Dog Breath. “He does too, but I am older and it is my right to go first. How do I keep it from trying to buck me off?”
I was surprised at how quickly they took to riding that thing. They took turns riding it around the yard and up and down the road, just like two teenagers being introduced to a new toy. They quickly talked me into disconnecting the trailer. I left them like that, determined to take my grandfather away from the old woman who held him in a spell. I walked over to where he stood and he didn’t even seem to notice me. The other women did, and soon I was completely surrounded by them. I stared up into the blue sky and did my best to ignore them. I wasn’t going to take any chances. “Grandfather,” I called. “It is time for us to leave this place. Come on, we need to go back to Spirit Lake.”
If he heard me, he never said a word. He continued to stroke the old woman’s withered back and she seemed to be enjoying it. He looked at her as if she were a Hollywood starlet. The other women began to grope at me and I quickly moved away, careful not to knock any of them over. I quickly got an idea and ran up to my shed and began to search.
The nitrous oxide had been left behind by a dentist friend at a birthday party, a long story that I won’t get into. I checked the gauge and saw that it was still nearly full. I hoped that it hadn’t lost its potency over the passing of time. I grabbed the tank and the hose and went in search of my respirator. I used the respirator when I painted and I found it next to my paint gun. I picked it up and walked outside.
I doubted that I was going to be able to put the little dental mask on Odd Whitefeather, which was why I brought the respirator. I would wear the respirator, remove the mask from the hose, then open up the valve and spray my grandfather until he was sedated. In theory, it sounded like a very good plan. And, it may have been if I had only done it as planned.
I was able to put on the respirator and then I removed the mask from the hose to the tank of nitrous oxide. That much was simple. I then tried to move closer to my grandfather and everything got a little crazy.
The old women, seeing that I was up to no good, formed a protective barrier between Odd Whitefeather and me. Again, he didn’t seem to notice me. I squinted my eyes and was careful not to look at any of them. I then opened the valve and began to spray them as if I held a fire extinguisher and they were burning. The effect of the gas was immediate and a little bit unnerving. The old women began to howl with a crazy laughter and some even dropped to their knees, where they held their bare bellies. I moved into the fray and worked my way up to my grandfather. I held the hose up to his face and moved it back and forth between him and his new lady-friend.
A woman clutched at my respirator and it was ripped from my face. She laughed at me like an escaped lunatic. I let go of the hose and tried to get it back from her, but she was a lot stronger than she looked. Her grip was like steel and she had no intention of giving it back to me. I never noticed one of the other women turn the hissing hose on me. I did notice that everything suddenly became very funny. I still held enough of my wits about me to hustle Odd Whitefeather away from the women and over to the trailer.
Dog Breath stood there and stared at us. “What is so funny?” he asked.
Odd Whitefeather and I looked at each other and we nearly fell over with laughter. I looked up toward the pool and the old women were huddled around the tank of nitrous oxide, like junkies huddled around a bagful of illegal drugs. Crooked Walker putted over on the ATV and looked at us as if we’d lost our minds. “Drunk,” he said to Dog Breath, pointing at us.
Odd Whitefeather and I roared with laughter, totally incapable of controlling it, but aware that we needed to get away from this place. I hooked up the trailer and climbed aboard with Dog Breath and Crooked Walker. It was a tight fit and we were just able to find room to sit down. Why we decided to let Odd Whitefeather drive was a mystery, I remember thinking that it was very funny. He pulled the trailer out onto the road and we headed towards town. Both sides of the highway had been clear cut and that was also very amusing.
Why I continued to laugh when the ATV roared to top speed is anyone’s guess. Dog Breath and Crooked Walker certainly weren’t laughing. My grandfather was and his maniacal laughter rose above the sound of the screaming engine of the ATV.
The squad car pulled next to us just before we reached town. I didn’t recognize the man, but I did recognize the gun. Suddenly, nothing seemed very funny. I don’t know how long he had been behind us, but the cop looked very angry and he was aiming the gun directly at Odd Whitefeather. Wisely, he pulled to the shoulder of the road and shut off
the ignition.
The cop left the lights flashing on the car; they were red and blue blazes, mixed with hot white strobes. The lights fascinated my companions in the trailer but I kept my eyes on the policeman. The man was every stereotype of a speed cop; he wore dark glasses and his teeth were bared in disgust. He looked at us like we had lost our minds.
I felt another spasm of laughter and I couldn’t hold it in. I wondered what he was thinking, seeing me there in my pajamas and smoking jacket, accompanied by two old Indian men who were dressed as if they had stepped from the pages of a history book. Odd Whitefeather must have been thinking the same thing and he began to chuckle in amusement. We both quickly composed ourselves, we were in serious trouble. He walked directly to my grandfather.
“License and registration, please.”
I could see that Odd Whitefeather was trying his best to look serious. I could also see that he was losing the battle. The laughter came in great waves and the cop stood back and pulled out his gun.
“Down on the ground!” he ordered. “I want you to dismount that machine and get down on the ground. Do it now!”
Odd Whitefeather only continued to laugh.
I watched as the cop leveled the gun at my grandfather. He drew back on the hammer and got into a firing stance. “I am going to give you to the count of three…”
I wanted to scream, but I could only laugh in the face of this clear and present danger. He was going to be shot, and all I could do was laugh about it. Dog Breath and Crooked Walker quickly turned away as if they had just spotted a hungry bear. I turned to see the old ladies running down the road with incredible speed. They too were laughing. They ran past the trailer and stood between the gun and my grandfather. A long moment passed before the young cop dropped his gun.
The cop looked as if he had fallen deep into a trance and he smiled drunkenly. His head lolled back and forth as the old women beckoned him away from the road and into the woods. He followed them as if his life depended upon it. Odd Whitefeather started the ATV again and we were soon moving. The first of the tires had gone flat while we sat on the shoulder, the second one followed, soon after. We rolled through town at a walking speed and now all four of us were laughing. We had shaken the old ladies and had shed ourselves of the angry policeman. Life was suddenly good again, except the town was quite different than I remembered it.
The people from town stared at us as if we were on parade. Some even waved, and the three of us stood on the back of the trundling trailer and waved back at them. That was funny, but not in a nitrous oxide way, but in the way that you should’ve been there. We were quite a sight.
With the little city of Carlton at our backs, we continued toward Spirit Lake and whatever waited for us when we got there. The first thing I began to notice was the lack of trees. The stretch of highway between Carlton and the reservation had also been clear cut. I remember feeling incredibly sad, as if I had lost an old friend. I would soon find out that I had lost a great many old friends while I had been away.
Chapter Thirteen