Brindle's Odyssey

I woke up to a different world. I was lying in a bed and looking out an open window. The sky was once again blue and the air felt cool on my scorched skin. I could feel that my face had been bandaged and I was looking at the world through a slit in the bandages over my left eye. I had absolutely no idea where I was and I lay there contemplating my situation.

  “You’re awake,” exclaimed Abe Steinman. He crossed the room and began brushing the top of my head with his wrinkled hand. “We’ve been worried sick about you.”

  Theresa and the three girls rushed into the room and stood over me, looking both happy and full of pity at the monster lying on the soft bed. Me. “Does it still hurt?” Theresa asked. “It’s a good thing Abe brought you here, I’m a nurse and Amanda here is pre-med. We’ve been feeding you with a tube and giving you morphine. You’ve been sleeping for nearly a week.”

  “How did I get here?” I asked; my tongue feeling like an old chunk of shoe leather.

  “I brought you here,” said Abe. “You would have died if I had left you behind.”

  “What about everyone else?”

  Abe looked away and faced out the window. Even with only one eye, I could see a cloud of sadness cross the old man’s face. “They are in the fight of their lives.”

  I sprang up from the sheets and the room began to swim. Pain shot through my body with such intensity that I lost the ability to scream. I clawed at the air and fell back on the pillows. The world once again became a dark place, one without dreams or sense of time.

  It might have been a day later, or a week, I never knew. I opened my eyes and examined my hand. The bandages had been removed and I found that my hand had mostly healed. I held up the other one, and it too looked to be nearly as good as new. I tenderly felt the side of my face and it felt like I was touching the surface of the moon. I recoiled at the sensation, realizing that my right eye was still staring straight down. In all of my years I had never felt so much self pity. I groaned as the tears fell.

  I was alone and the house was quiet. I slowly sat up and could feel the pull of tubes that had been inserted into my body. I pulled them free with an audible plop and rose to my feet. I wanted to find a mirror, and I didn’t want to find a mirror. I had never felt such fear.

  I looked at the walls of the little bedroom. They were decorated with old photographs. A bookcase occupied one wall and the shelves were crammed with dusty-looking copies of hard-covers. I walked out the door and into the hallway. A steep set of stairs lay to my right, a short hallway stretched out to my left. I could see the bathroom down at the end of that hallway. I took a deep breath and headed towards it.

  I found the light-switch and flipped it on. The bathroom was small, with just enough room for a single occupant to conduct their business. I stepped inside and faced my reflection in the mirror.

  And I began to scream.

  I stumbled out of the bathroom with my hands over my distorted face. I don’t know what I had expected, but I certainly hadn’t expected to see that I’d become the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I took the stairs two at a time, wanting to get out of the house and as far away from there as possible. I was out of the game and only cared to somehow find my way back to the here and now, and with any luck I could go back to my old life. I told myself that if I went to bed back in my trailer, I might actually wake up and find out that this had all been some kind of an epic nightmare. I hit the bottom of the stairs and walked straight for the door. I nearly screamed again when I opened it to find Crooked Walker standing there.

  “Yikes,” he said, looking at me with wonder. “I’ll bet that must have hurt.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I stammered. “I want to go home.”

  “But we need you,” Crooked Walker said flatly. “Odd Whitefeather and Man Killer are in the middle of a great battle. Would you abandon your wife and grandfather when they need you?”

  I brushed past him without a word, and sitting on the porch with his back to the house was Abe Steinman. He smiled and gave me a friendly wave. I stopped and turned back to Crooked Walker. “What can I possibly do to help them? I keep making things worse.”

  “You still have the earrings,” Abe said in a soft voice. “That is what Soliah really wants. They are more powerful than you know.”

  “Yeah?” I said, turning on Steinman. “Well, they certainly haven’t done anything for me.”

  “That is because you do not know how to use them,” Crooked Walker said, pointing to a wicker rocking-chair. “Sit down and let us explain. Do not interrupt us.”

  Like a child obeying his father, I reluctantly sat down on the rocker and stared straight ahead. I would listen, but after that I was going home. I was a beaten man.

  Crooked Walker gave me a hard look and began to speak. “Long before the white man arrived to our land, there was a great bear that lived in these woods. He was called One Ear, because of an accident he had as a young cub. One Ear grew to be as tall as ten men and when he walked the ground would shake.”

  One Ear was beginning to sound a lot like Barney and I listened as Crooked Walker chronicled the life and times of One Ear. Like Barney, this bear was a good friend to have on your side and a terrible enemy. Crooked Walker told the story of how the bear befriended a small band of Ojibwe who were locked in a deadly battle with the Lakota Sioux. One Ear found the Lakota camp and devoured their Medicine Man. His name was Hollowfoot. What he didn’t know was that the Medicine Man was very powerful and that he would live inside his belly for many years. Crooked Walker went on to say that the earrings were cut from One Ear’s mouth after he died. They were the tips of his canine teeth and contained great magic.

  “They still do,” agreed Abe. “You just need to believe in their power.”

  “That is right,” said Crooked Walker. “You need to believe in the spirit of Hollowfoot and One Ear. You need to believe that good will overcome evil and that the Great Spirit will guide you to the right places, but it is up to you to make the right decisions. Do you believe that?”

  I put my face in my hands and thought about that. I had seen enough to believe what they said about Hollowfoot and One Ear. I just had a hard time believing that the Great Spirit had guided me to the right places. I had always tried to do the right thing and where had it gotten me? Was all of this my true destiny? Was I supposed to be happy about my life? I pulled my hands away and a chunk of flesh, the size of a silver dollar stuck to my left hand.

  “Oh,” said Abe. “You really shouldn’t touch your face while it’s healing.”

  I shook my head as Abe quickly got to his feet and rushed over to me. He gently peeled the skin from my hand and placed it back on my cheek. He pressed it back into place, adjusting it with a little twist. Satisfied, he returned back to the bench he was sitting on. I sat there, too numb to think of anything but my own self pity.

  “You did not answer the question,” exclaimed Crooked Walker. “Am I wasting my breath? This is a big moment for you, Huckleberry. Do not let it slip from your fingers.”

  I stared at the old man in his buckskins and the Red Wing boots. His deeply lined face was deadly serious and his brown eyes seemed to look right through me, directly into my soul. That was the moment when I let go of my troubled past, ruined face and all. “I do believe in all of that,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’ve only been thinking of myself.”

  The smiles on their faces were bright enough to light up a large city. “Grab a hold of the earrings and repeat what you just said,” Abe said, excitedly. “Hurry, there isn’t much time.”

  I looked to Crooked Walker; he was nodding his head enthusiastically. I took an earring in each hand. “I believe in all of that and I ask for forgiveness.”

  “Oh my,” said Abe. He was staring at me with wide eyes. Crooked Walker actually backed up two steps.

  Something was happening, my head began to swim and I closed my eyes. I felt a sudden surge of unbelievable energy and heard something that sounded like the glorious notes of a trumpet. I sat like that for the bet
ter part of a minute. When I opened my eyes I looked at the old men in front of me. They looked utterly shocked, yet very happy. I examined my hand and found that it had completely changed. The burns were gone and I was no longer wearing the cotton dressing gown. My arm was bare and there were muscles in places that there had never been. Thick veins stood out like cords and my skin was the color of an old penny. I quickly reached up and gently touched my cheek, it felt baby smooth and undamaged. A tear fell from my eyes.

  “How do you like that?” Crooked Walker said to himself. “Go in the house and find a mirror. The Great Spirit has spoken.”

  “He certainly has,” Abe added. “My room is a mess. You can use the one in the bathroom.”

  I quickly stood up and realized that I was wearing nothing more than a breechcloth and a pair of moccasins. My legs looked like they had been sculpted by Michelangelo. I further examined myself, my chest was broad my stomach was as flat as an ironing board. I let out a little yip of excitement and bolted into the house. I nearly slipped on the wood floor as my feet slid like bald tires on ice. I laughed as I regained my balance and I headed down the hallway into the bathroom. I threw on the light and stood before the mirror in shock.

  My face had completely healed and I now looked almost completely different. My hair was long and as black as coal, I wore three white eagle feathers on a leather headband. My nose had grown some and my chin jutted out solidly. My eyes and mouth were the same, just enough so that I could still recognize myself. There wasn’t a whisker to be found on my face and my teeth were brilliant white. What really took my breath away was that I had grown nearly a foot taller and that my body was solid muscle. I flexed my arms in the mirror and gasped. Could this possibly be me?

  “That’s enough of that,” said Crooked Walker from the bathroom door. “We do not want you to fall in love with yourself.”

  I was guided back outside and it seemed like I was walking on the clouds. I remember Crooked Walker showing me how to aim the bottom of the earrings at things. “Like this,” he said, taking one of them in his fingers and pointing it at a garbage can. “Imagine now that the big bucket is Soliah.” I did and the “big bucket” exploded into something that looked like a steel banana peel. I grinned like a schoolboy with his first rifle.

  The three of us continued on like that for the rest of the afternoon. When Crooked Walker tired, Abe was right there to show me something new. They complimented each other perfectly, like two car salesmen showing me the unlimited options of the ultimate sports-car. We had barely finished when the familiar sky-blue Saturn rolled into the driveway. The look on Theresa and the girl’s faces was priceless. They got out of the car and stood there, their mouths hanging open in shock. The three of us walked over to join them.

  “Mr. Brindle has made a remarkable recovery, hasn’t he?” asked Abe.

  Theresa stepped forward and gawked at me. “All right, somebody has some explaining to do!”

  “Sorry girls, there is no time for that. Crooked Walker and Mr. Brindle have something to do and I have taken up enough of their time. What’s for dinner?”

  “What’s for dinner?” asked Theresa, looking wildly at Abe. “What the heck is going on around here?”

  “We had better go,” said Crooked Walker. “Nice to meet you…”

  Crooked Walker turned to leave and I followed him on my new legs. I wanted to go, to run, and to jump. But mostly, I wanted to fight. New muscles can sometimes do that to a man. Crooked Walker walked into the woods and I followed him as Theresa viscously grilled Abe for information. I had a good laugh about that.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight