The Cedar Man also began looking familiar, and I recognized him as Willis Weist, who had disappointed my mother; she had observed him going to as many as four white-person church services each Sunday. A confirmed Methodist, she’d finally asked him which one he liked the best, to which he had responded, “Pentecostal.” My heartbroken mother asked why. He’d shrugged, “Because they have the best potluck dinners.”
There were four big chiefs in the Cheyenne nation and three of them were here. The Old Man Chiefs were a kind of loose Council of Elders, of which I knew Lonnie Little Bird to be a member (Lonnie most likely purposefully avoiding the ceremony because of his close association with me). Like Lonnie, when asked if they were chiefs, they would deny being such; they must exemplify modesty, and you could bet that if a Cheyenne told you he was one, he was pulling your leg.
It was a life of service, which few could live up to and from which many resigned. The old joke was that if you wanted to know who was the real chief of the Northern Cheyenne, look for the guy with the empty wallet on the road standing beside a car that was out of gas. That would be the chief: broke from giving all his money away and broken down from running food from home to home and providing a sounding board to the people’s miseries.
This is not to say that the Old Man Chiefs had no power-their word was final on any subject of contention because they had proven beyond question that they had the people’s best interests at heart. Big Medicine.
A few more words passed among the three men, at which point the Fire Chief approached the Road Man and received a number of bundles that included sage, tobacco, and corn husks, and a dried, powdery substance of which I could only guess.
The Fire Chief passed the sage around the circle first, and I watched as the members drew the bundles across their limbs, the trunks of their bodies, and then their heads in an initial purification ceremony.
I did as I’d seen the others do and watched as Albert smiled a nod of approval, did the same, and then passed it on. When everyone had smudged themselves, the Fire Chief took out papers and a simple tobacco pouch which he passed to the others, who in turn scattered a little of the tobacco into one of the small sheets and rolled themselves a makeshift cigarette.
It had been a while since I’d tried to roll with fixings and attempted to remember how Hershel, the old cowboy back on the Powder River, had rolled his. I fumbled with the paper. Albert’s patient hands took the assembly from me, deftly rolled the thing up, and licked the edge with spit that was like Super Glue.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and handed it back to me as the Fire Chief stoked the flames and pulled a short log, about four inches in diameter, from the fire. He handed the smoldering stump off to the participant to his right, who lit his home-rolled cigarette and passed the “lighter” on to the next.
I was able to light my ceremonial smoke without assistance and carefully handed the glowing log to Albert.
The others were now talking in subdued voices, and I could make out from the tone that they were praying. The older man curved his shoulder into me and quietly spoke. “These are the prayers of smoke and are a way of clearing your intentions for the ceremony.”
I nodded. “What if I’m not sure what my intentions are?”
He smiled, the wrinkles in his eyes joining with the ones around his mouth like the ripples in a pond. “Then you need to think about why it is you are here.”
“I guess I’m concerned for my family.”
Albert’s eyes played around the circle. “A lot of people are here because they have concerns for their families, including the woman who brought you.” He studied me. “You don’t have to lend voice to these prayers; you may keep them to yourself if it’s more comfortable for you.”
I nodded and focused on the fire, trying to remember when I’d last prayed for anything. My mind went back to the spring before last, and a time in Philadelphia when I’d sat in a hospital at my daughter’s side. I’d prayed then-like a theological car salesman, I’d made deals, counterdeals, and threatened the very heavens themselves if they didn’t release my daughter from the swollen solitary confinement to which a terrible accident had sentenced her.
Thinking about my daughter and her daughter, I found my lips moving. The words weren’t important, but the thoughts were of hope that their lives might be spared the kind of trials that mine had held; that somehow the prices that I had paid in losing my wife and numerous others would balance the bill in their favor. Just keep them safe was all I finally asked, just keep them safe from all the things out there that would do them harm, and if that was not possible, at least give me a crack at those things before they had to deal with them.
When I became aware of the teepee again, I realized that I was the only one in the circle speaking.
The Road Man raised an eyebrow at the Drum Carrier and they both nodded. “ Haho.”
The entire group chanted the one word back, me included.
The Fire Chief collected the butts from around the circle and carefully placed them alongside each other at one end of the crescent-shaped berm. It was then that I noticed a groove along the ridge of the altar and remembered Henry’s remarks about “sitting behind the moon” and “traveling around the moon.” I assumed the ridge was meant to represent the road itself.
The Fire Chief stoked the flames, and I watched as the sparks rose and ascended through the opening at the top of the teepee like lightning bugs attempting to escape into the cool dark of night.
When I looked down, there was a bowl being held under my nose that contained a powdered substance with clumps. I’d seen pictures of the stuff, but never seen it live and up close. I took the bowl and watched as the person next to me placed a spoonful of the powdered substance into his mouth and then handed me the ornate spoon with a carved bird on the handle.
I sat there, an individual whose experience with drugs had so far mostly been limited to those in pill form- aspirin, Benadryl, and the occasional Vicodin.
Staring at the powder, I took the spoon in my hand.
It wasn’t so much that I was intimidated by the thought of taking a psychoactive drug that held me still; I’d known Henry my entire life and knew he wouldn’t allow me to be involved with anything that might harm me in any way.
It was me.
The dried cactus is said to set the user on a reflective road for eight to ten hours, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to meet me there. It was all a question of letting go, of allowing myself the freedom to see who and what lay on the other side. My experiences on the mountain had prepared me, and in some ways superseded anything the peyote might provide, but-
There was no pressure from the faces surrounding me, just smiles and looks of reassurance. Even the Old Man Chiefs who sat on the back of the altar were specifically there for my protection.
Henry’s words kept thrumming in the back of my head, “It is a great honor.”
I looked around at the faces again. Taking a small amount of the powder onto the spoon, I slipped it into my mouth.
It tasted horrible, bitter and dry, and my first response was to spit it out, but I figured that would’ve been worse than not ingesting the stuff at all. The saliva in my mouth began reconstituting the powder and, if possible, it started tasting even worse. A moment later, the man to my right handed me a small cup and filled it with a dark liquid, steam rolling from the opening of an earthenware jug.
I studied the small cup with a blue and white stripe near the lip and especially the brewed contents, and figured it had to taste better than what was in my mouth.
I was wrong. It was worse.
Swallowing the contents, I fought back the urge to gag and quickly handed the jug and cup to Albert. If I was going to throw up, I preferred not to throw up on the sacred items. Taking a few deep breaths, I felt a little better.
I found myself looking at the people in the circle and thought about the honor that had been bestowed on me. I felt an odd familiarity with the light; the glow from the fire filled the teepee like the golden one that sets off the sunset on a high plains summer evening. We were well past that time of day, but I basked in its warmth as I looked at the Cheyenne circling the teepee, with their heads bobbing and their mouths uttering the sing-song rhythm of prayer.
Other than a mild sensation of nausea, I really wasn’t feeling anything, but I’d heard that that wasn’t an unusual response to the stuff I’d ingested. Just a slight stomach upset. I was beginning to think that my size and
