Puye Prophecy
Things get a bit hotter in this chapter when Big Crow with Little Feet informs Kat they are going to the Puye cliff dwelling ruins. The line between what is real and what is not becomes hard to distinguish. Kat meets Shadow Eagle in a very intimate and very personal way, and there is no proof that it happened…until she discovers a dream catcher he had been wearing…hanging around her neck.
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Chapter #6 – Dots Connect
“Going there for what purpose?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear his answer.
He ignored her question and said, “They were hunting for rabbits and other small game for the wedding feast when a band of blue legs attacked and murdered everyone in the hunting party.”
Kat’s hand came to her mouth to stifle the scream that lodged in her throat. Dots just connected; her dreams were precursors to everything that had happened. The Puye Princess-to-be, Dew on Flowers, was one of the women she witnessed murdered by the soldiers, and her groom was probably one of the heads lying in the dirt.
“Did they live near the ruins?” she asked.
“No,” he said “They lived two days travel to the east from their home encampment. While they were at Puye, the encampment was raided, and many were massacred.”
Kat said with no hesitation, “I know.”
He stopped talking and looked at her steadily in the mirror. She did not tell Big Crow she had witnessed the murders, but his eyes said he already knew.
“You were there, Katherine. To you, it seemed a dream. There, you received the spirit of Dew on Flowers when she was killed.”
“But…but…why me?” she protested weakly.
“Because you are a pure, caring woman, Katherine.”
Kat laughed sharply, “That’s it? Pure and caring?”
“Yes,” he said, “You demonstrated caring when you investigated…”
She interrupted him and spoke in a near whisper, “Investigated Massacre at Sand Creek and Puye. But how did you know I did those things?”
“My spirit was with you in the dreams,” he said, “You heard the words you were supposed to hear, and you witnessed what you were supposed to see. Your caring showed in the tears you cried silently as you read about the massacre and the reaction to murders of women and children.”
A tear ran down her cheek as she listened to his words. This whole thing could be a dream, but it was not. Things melted into a place where it did not matter. She pondered silently, Me carrying the spirit of a murdered Puye Princess? No way!
“Yes,” he answered the question she had just thought about. “You are an essential connection for two people who were murdered over 160 years ago, destined to wander until they found one another. You are their connection.”
Tears formed and broke free, streaking down both cheeks as she cried silently. In her mind, her heart won, and when the heart wins, the mind figures out what to do about it. She committed right then to do whatever was necessary to bring these two spirits together. Her tears were a potent blend of compelling confidence and acute fear of the unknown.
“So, what’s next, Big Crow with Little Feet?” she asked, her voice softening and respectfully using his full name.
He instructed her on what she needed to do to facilitate the joining of two lost spirits.
“Umm, Big Crow?” she asked, the mirror showing concern in her eyes and brow wrinkles. “That sounds a lot like there’s going to be some sex involved. Am I hearing this process right?”
“It will be a spiritual union. You have nothing to fear, Katherine,” he said in a soothing voice that calmed Kat’s growing angst.
Still, she had plenty of angst in reserve; it seemed a mystery how she had become an unwitting and unwilling participant with no power to say no…to suddenly becoming willing and accepting the role just because she cared. She knew and feared it meant plunging deeper into the highly undesirable state of being out of control…again. Kat did not like being out of control, and she especially did not like the inability to do anything to regain it once it was lost from her grip.
After one final instruction, she pulled into a parking lot off Indian Service Road 611, where she saw the massive Puye cliff dwellings where the Puebloan Indians lived centuries ago. Kat turned in her seat to ask Big Crow with Little Feet a question, and the back seat was empty. He was no longer there. Vanished. He was simply gone, and so had the smell of smoke.
She had frequently glanced at him in the rearview mirror but never saw him exit. He was just gone. Her medicine man was a ghost or some Indian Spirit. Despite being alone, she felt his presence encourage her to complete this mission. He was in her head. In silence, Kat exited the car and began walking zombie-like toward the ruins. The late afternoon sun had touched the horizon, and all scheduled tours and random foot traffic had ceased. Kat walked right up to the base of the ruins, stepped over the rope barrier, and began to climb. The sensation was like watching herself from inside her eyes. She watched her limbs move, watched herself climb, not knowing the next step until she knew when and where to take it.
Big Crow with Little Feet’s spirit guided her path to ascend through the ruins and reach the top of the mesa. Steps had been carved into the stone in places, multiple ladders pointed upward, and she walked and climbed in a trance-like state. When she reached the top of the mesa, she was winded, and breathing came hard. She bent at the waist to catch her breath, but the only thing she caught was a shadow that flashed over her, causing her to look up in time to see a huge eagle soaring on the evening thermals. The eagle screamed like eagles do and passed over her again and again from far above. As she stood there staring at the great bird, she began to feel the heat of arousal begin to build within her. The intensity increased, and she felt her breath catch in her throat, paralyzed and unable to move her feet.
The eagle banked hard and swooped downward toward where she stood at the mesa’s edge. Enormous wings stretched out to slow its descent as it glided toward her, flapping hard to push against the air, tail feathers flaring to slow his approach as talons reached down to land on the mesa’s edge. Kat stood frozen and pinched her eyes shut, waiting for the impact of the enormous bird. She fought to step back but could not move; her breath was frozen. She could not scream. Her feet remained rooted despite the compelling desire to run and escape.
Her eyes suddenly opened when she heard or sensed a deep voice speak, “Duwit chonah mowna jawneek.”
The eagle was not in front of her; a man had taken its place, a very naked man who spread his arms to embrace her. His eyes were black pools that beckoned to her. Long black hair whipped across his face in the early evening breeze, partially hiding a broad smile and gleaming white teeth. His chest was smooth and powerful, and her eyes locked onto a dream catcher pendant hanging from a leather cord around his neck. Panic set in, and breath froze in her throat when she sensed herself levitating into the air.
Kat tried again to scream when she realized she was naked too, and slowly was placed into his arms no matter how hard she fought; her legs encircled his hips to make the most intimate of connections. This was happening against her will, but the sensations rushing inside of her were not her own. This had to happen for them, and she would do her part. Her body shuddered in that instant within the grips of a surging cosmic climax reminded her of the moment on the floor at the diner. She had nothing to do with that, and this was no different, but she embraced it and did not fight it in the absence of control.
Deep inside, she had a tremendous sensation of completeness. He held her tightly, and they vibrated together, riding wave after wave of calming sensation. He threw his head skyward and began to lean back with her still trapped in his arms. Leaning beyond the point of balance on the mesa’s edge, gravity claimed them in its embrace as they plunged over 200 feet, locked in an unending embrace, toward the rocky ground at the base of the cliff.
Kat heard sharp cracking sounds. Were those the sounds of her bones breaking as she experienced death on the rocks? How could she hear if she were dead? Once again, the cracking sounds pierced her ears several more times. Like emerging from a dream, her eyes opened to intense white light. Was this heaven? Was she dead? Why was there no pain?
“Ma’am, are you alright? Ma’am, talk to me. Are you okay?” asked a worried Park Ranger with an urgent look on his face. He pointed the tactical flashlight away from her eyes when she turned her head to face him.
She was alive, but how after falling from a mesa so far above? “I’m…I think I’m…I’m okay,” she replied groggily, “I must have fallen asleep.”
“That’s fine, ma’am, but you cannot stay overnight here in the park. Have you been drinking, ma’am?” he asked.
“No, absolutely not. I told you I must have fallen asleep. I had no intention of sleeping here overnight. I don’t even know…what time is it, officer?”
He answered, “Nearly ten o’clock, and you must leave, or I will be forced to write you a citation.”
He shone the flashlight beam back onto her face just as his radio chirped, and he received a call over his earbud to leave immediately for another emergency. With a stern look, he said, “It’s your lucky day. I have to leave right now, ma’am, and so do you. Are you okay to drive?”
“Yes…yes, I am. Thank you for waking me up. I’ll leave right behind you,” she assured him.
He climbed into his jeep, turned on the flashing light bar, and tore from the parking lot, spraying up a cloud of dust and gravel. After a few minutes, Kat fired up the limo and pulled onto the service road to retrace her path back to the interstate.
As she drove in a mix of half panic and uncertainty, the gravel surface and rocks rattled and clanged off the undercarriage and exhaust pipes. Still in somewhat of a trance and unexplained residual effects of her encounter, Kat did not hear the racket. The panic seemed to wash away as her last recollection struck her like a runaway train; she had been naked – totally naked in the arms of a powerful man, equally nude, and he had been inside of her, filling her to limits she never knew about and still, at this very moment, his presence remained. The sensations had been cosmic, something she had never experienced and knew she would never again when they fell into the open air like they were flying into oblivion. When they fell, she remembered being unable to scream and, at the same time, not caring.
As Kat returned deeper into clear consciousness, a strange sense of mission accomplishment flooded over her and grateful acknowledgment of being in the presence of reconnected love. She knew she had only been a facilitator, but there had to be a deeper explanation. High beams highlighted scrub grasses and mesquite standing guard as she drove in the darkness. She felt him then, Shadow Eagle, and his presence inside her. That was real, not a dream. Questions flew at her. If all this reconnecting had happened, how did she wind up sitting behind the wheel, sound asleep…with her clothes on? How could this be? Had it been another dream? Was it spiritual?
Absently touching her lips, she attempted to make sense but failed. The scent of wood smoke invaded her senses. Kat sucked in her breath and jerked the steering wheel toward the edge of the road, and jammed on the brakes, sliding to a stop. Nearing complete panic, dust stirred by her sudden maneuver enveloped the car, sweeping in front of the headlights. She whirled around to see a dark, shadowy profile of someone wearing a crumpled top hat whose white teeth grinned at her from the backseat.
“Katherine, you have done well,” said Big Crow with Little Feet.
Kat turned to face forward to offer a colder shoulder and growled, “I’m not sure if I should thank you for finding me or if I should curse you and that stupid hat on your head.”
He continued to grin at her from the rearview mirror and said in an even tone, “It would be premature for you to thank me, Katherine.”
Warning bells clanged in Kat’s head, warning her not to ask the next question, “Premature?”
She whipped around to deliver her best death stare and found an empty back seat.
She sat in complete panic as a dust cloud stirred in her sudden stop and enveloped the car, sweeping in front of the headlights. Kat could barely breathe as she struggled to make sense of what had just happened with the old Indian. Had it really taken place? The voice in her head crescendoed in what should have been a righteous shriek had she been screaming, and she was getting close to doing just that.
Nervously picking at her lower lip, no answers to any of her questions came to her. She absently dropped her hand to her chest and threw her hand away from whatever hairy thing was on her chest. After turning on the dome light to determine fight or flight from whatever was on her chest, she saw it and opened her mouth to scream but never did. There was no hair, but feathers dangled from a dream catcher on beaded strings. As soon as she saw it and the leather cord around her neck, she unleashed the scream. The dream catcher was identical to the one that had hung around Shadow Eagle’s neck. Smoke wafted into her nose, “You will be fine, Katherine.”
She had no energy left to say anything. The smoke was suffocating, blackness crept into her field of vision, and she passed out in the front seat of an otherwise empty limo.
When Kat recovered from whatever had knocked her out cold, the only thing resonating in her head was one word he said, premature, and nothing else mattered but the answer of what it meant. Her consciousness forced her to wonder. Thoughts poured into her head. Had she completed her mission to reconnect two ancient lovers lost in the ether? Had she connected spiritually with Shadow Eagle even though it looked a lot like fucking? Why was this whole thing so satisfying? Was she crazy for thinking any of this really happened?
Not having answers weighed heavily, mainly because the source of the questions hung around her neck.
The smoke touched her nose again, “But what if it was Katherine?”
Shaking her head in a futile attempt to clear her thoughts, she climbed out of the car and looked up into the heavens, scanning a blazing blanket of stars. She drew a deep breath, clutched the dream catcher in both hands, and unleashed a scream. Kat did not hear herself screaming, or maybe she did not want to hear what came out of her mouth. Regardless, she drew another breath and screamed again until her lungs emptied of every shred of her terror and apprehension, a scream that only eagles could scream.
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Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Quite a bit more story to share, so keep checking back. Would love to know what you think so far gdogwise@live.com
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G.