He doesn’t remember when that undying love turned to resentment and then to rage. Eventually, he couldn’t even look her in the eye anymore as she slipped deeper and deeper into the bottle and the needle. He would find her passed out in their filthy shithole of a trailer with a tourniquet still tied around her arm or leg and a bottle of vodka spilled all over the floor next to her. When she finally woke up, with her legs wide open and her bare used up sex hanging out, she would be pissed off because she spilled her ‘juice’, not at all ashamed that her only son had found her like that.
She’s dead now. John buried her today, on his birthday, and he never thought he could hurt any worse than he had his whole life…but he was wrong. Losing and then burying his mother was agonizing torture. His mind had gone from guilt, to anger, and now a sadness that he never thought would end. He wanted to throw himself in the grave with her and scream for the sweet woman who had held him and covered him with kisses. The woman who told him he was God’s little angel sent to her for her to love and adore.
Why??!! the scream echoes through his agonized mind. I would have saved you, taken you away from here, if you’d just held on a little longer!!
The only outward sign of the turmoil going on inside him is his jaw clenching and unclenching. He’s become a master at hiding his emotions, he’d had a lifetime to perfect it.
Chief Standing Bear steps out of the structure and converses with the elders who had joined them on their walk. Outside a fire is raging, heating rocks for the coming ceremony. The chief steps away to prepare himself and the others watch the fire and fill buckets with water. A few moments later, several men enter the lodge carrying hot stones, which they place into a hole in the center of the structure. No one speaks as the hole is filled with glowing, hot rocks. Finally, after a bucket of water has been placed beside the pit, the chief returns accompanied by the tribal Medicine Man, Flying Eagle. The chief is holding a burning bundle of sage in one hand and a big white feather in the other. He begins to waft the smoke around John with the feather while he and Flying Eagle begin chanting in their native tongue, some of their words becoming louder while others are barely a whisper. Their eyes are closed and their bodies moving rhythmically, as if they were falling into a trance.
John begins to melt, to fall into the smoke, as someone scoops water over the hot stones. The madness consuming him begins to splinter and scatter like shards of glass, releasing him from its grip. The pain and anger fall away and what replaces them is a glowing white light, emanating from inside of him. In this moment, he is not awake but he is not asleep, he’s somewhere in between, in the place behind the veil.
Chief Standing Bear’s voice is inside his head now, in this place, not of the living and not of the dead. This is the place where the Shamans walk with the spirits.
It is time for your animal guide to lead you, my son. This is your right of passage, to become one with him. He will always be with you, under your skin, as much a part of you as your heart and your mind. Trust your guide, he knows what is best for you. You will know when the time comes, he will lead you and you will conquer…together.
John begins to convulse but he doesn’t awaken. His body seems to become boneless as he collapses backwards onto the floor. The chants become louder and more insistent. Chief Standing Bear falls to his knees, on the floor beside John’s now still body. He takes a pinch of ash from the end of one of the sticks of sage. Using the soot, he draws a symbol of a bear on John’s forehead, and sits beside him, where he will be on guard until he regains consciousness.
*
“Hey you little pussy, you gonna be ok without me for a week?” John shouts at Brian Daniels, his basic training partner in boot camp.
John joined the Marines the week his mother died. There was nothing left for him in that cesspool of a reservation, nothing except Chief Standing Bear. When John told the chief that he had enlisted, he’d looked into his eyes, his stare so deep and intense it was as if he were peering into his soul and seeing all that lay ahead for John. John trembled under the force of his look but he stood solid and still, allowing the chief to see what he was looking for. After several minutes, Chief Standing Bear relaxed, placed a hand on John’s shoulder, and gave him a single nod.
Chief Standing Bear had secretly hoped to train John to take over as the tribe’s chief when he left this world. However, the chief knew deep in his soul that John was a warrior, and that calling would always burn in his blood.
“Hah, you’re just jealous of all the pussy I’m going to get when I go home.
