Stone Junction

‘But you stood up in court and said I was a relative – perjury is illegal.’

‘The cops couldn’t prove otherwise,’ Tilly said, ‘so how do you know you’re not kin? We got big families on both sides, and both share the same motto: One Hand Washes the Other. Besides, we got tired of being so straight.’

As they pulled into the ranch just after dark, Owen pointed to his left. ‘You’ll be staying in that cabin down there past the feed barn. You see it there, got the light on?’

‘I see two lights,’ Daniel said.

‘The little cabin’s Wild Bill’s, your teacher – he pulled in a few days ago. Tilly and I’ll get the house warm and some chow on the table while you go down and say hello.’

‘If you want to,’ Tilly added.

‘You see who runs this outfit,’ Owen groused, but it was plain he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Nobody answered Daniel’s knock. He knocked louder, and when there was still no answer he opened the door and called, ‘Hello?’

When a voice squawked ‘What?’ he went in. Wild Bill Weber was sitting cross-legged and naked on the floor, slowly and methodically hitting himself between the eyes with a large rubber mallet. ‘Pleased to meet you, Daniel,’ Wild Bill said, continuing the rhythmic mallet blows. ‘I’m Bill Weber. We’ll be working together.’

‘You’re my teacher?’ Daniel said, not so much incredulous as nervously perplexed.

Wild Bill threw the mallet at Daniel’s head.

Ducking, Daniel heard the mallet whiz by his ear and hit the wall with a dull thock, the wooden handle clattering as it rebounded across the floor. He started to pick it up and hurl it back, but instead turned on Wild Bill and demanded, ‘Why did you do that? What are you doing?’

Wild Bill was watching carefully. After a moment he said, ‘Daniel, let’s get it clear right from the jump: I’m the teacher. I work on the questions; you work on the answers. So you tell me why I chucked my brain-tuner at you.’

‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘No idea.’

‘Good,’ Wild Bill nodded. ‘That’s the right answer. But from now on there are no right or wrong answers.’

‘I’m not following this at all,’ Daniel admitted.

‘You probably won’t for about a year, so just relax and do what I tell you and maybe we can both get through without much damage.’

The year passed quickly for Daniel, the time greased by routine. He woke at 4.00; did his dawn meditation; joined Tilly, Owen, and Wild Bill in the main house for breakfast at 5.00; worked until 4.00 in the afternoon; did his evening meditation; ate dinner at 6.00; did the dishes if it was his turn; had free time from then till 9.45; received formal instruction from Wild Bill between 9.45 and 9.50; and then did his dream meditation and went to bed at 10.30. The diversity of the routine saved Daniel from boredom.

The day’s work was anything from branding cattle to scrubbing the kitchen floor. Daniel fixed fence, fed stock, and cut wood. They planted and cut hay and did special projects, like building a smokehouse. He usually worked with Owen or Tilly, for Wild Bill flatly refused any direct contact with the cattle, dismissing them as ‘twisted critters and dumb insults to wild spirit.’ Tilly and Owen argued otherwise – persuasively, Daniel thought – and the subject caused some strain. But one winter night some lightning-spooked steers broke down the corral. Wild Bill saddled up and rode out with the rest of them in the storm to herd the cattle home, bringing the last strays in well after breakfast.

Owen grinned hugely as Wild Bill rode in, enjoying the sight of Bill working cattle as much as the return of the steers. ‘Well, well,’ Owen had greeted him, ‘git along li’l dogies.’

Wild Bill reined up sharply, barking, ‘Don’t be getting no goddamn notions now. I might be a fanatic, but I’m no purist. As long as I’m living here, I’ll lend a hand when you’re truly pressed. Don’t mean I’m joining the fucking Grange.’

Daniel’s three daily meditations, like the ranch work, shared only a structural formality. Wild Bill’s instructions had been brief: ‘Morning meditation is to fill your mind; evening meditation is to see what it’s filled with, and dream meditation is to empty it. You’ll figure out right away that filling it, seeing it, and emptying it are the same, but keep in mind that they couldn’t be the same unless they were different. So it’s not so much concentrating on the purpose, as concentrating through it. This first week we’ll sit together and I’ll show you the postures and breathing and such, but after that you’ll do them alone in your cabin. I’ll check on you whenever I want. The first time I find you not doing your meditations, I’m through as your teacher. So if you ever want to quit and don’t have the guts to tell me so, all you have to do is let me catch you fucking off when you should be sitting.’

After showing Daniel the postures and appropriate breathing for each meditation, he’d explained, ‘Now the most important thing is to get your mind dialed in on Top Dead Center, focus down for depth, and put the needle right through the zero. I’ll show you what works for me.’

Wild Bill went to the closet, explaining over his shoulder, ‘I’m going to my audiovisual department. Can’t hardly call yourself a teacher these days without some audiovisuals.’ And had stunned Daniel by reaching in the closet and pulling out a human skeleton.

Daniel, though he flinched, didn’t say a word.

‘Okay,’ Wild Bill said, holding the skeleton by the spine, ‘before every meditation you do this little exercise called “Counting the Bones.” Probably the oldest psychic woo-woo practice in the world – goes all the way back to the Paleolithic shamans as far as I can follow. What you do is simple: You imagine your skeleton, and then, starting with the toes, count your bones. And I don’t mean that “one, two,” shit – just see each bone clear in your mind and move on. You go up the body from the toes, both legs at once, join at the pelvis, shoot up the spine, swoop across the ribs, run out the arms, sail back to the shoulders, up the neck to the skull, and then right to the center of your brain.’

‘The brain isn’t a bone,’ Daniel said.