Missing Chapter: Vision Quest

I crossed the mesa the next morning to Brian’s place at the Pueblo where he welcomed me. Brian wasn’t happy about the whole situation but I was surprised to find him remorseful for his own reactions the other night. Only a kerosene lamp for light flickered, adding eeriness to the scene. I paid attention closely when he spoke, slowly and deliberately, in the dark of his place.

“When we left California we were visited several times like this. We had gone up there to Mahayana Ranch hoping to get away from the hassles of the city. It all broke loose a few years ago... you know, the summer of ’67. Trouble followed.”

“You think it will get worse then?” I asked remembering the headlines... of Goldberg insisting he’d turned over his deed to the ranch to God.... of eviction notices... court battles... of marshals and sheriffs.... of bulldozers tearing down what had been built.

“I’m hoping it will settle down once we get ourselves established. If we do it right, we can be taken seriously. Risingstar seems to have become a magnet for run-a-ways and some shady characters.”

He laughed at what he’d just said, “Look at me. I should talk. I was going to fight Billy last night… all the booze and...”

“Yeh, I’m not that proud of myself either. I came out here to escape that crap,” I said along with my own remorse. It could have been the peyote but I cared deeply about Brian’s contrition.

Brian became fatherly. “I haven’t had much opportunity to get to know you, Max. I hope you find what you came here for.” Brian pulled a book out from his shelf and opened it. I could see it was well worn and a valuable text of some sort. He read aloud a verse in what sounded like Sanskrit or something. Then he recited in English for me… something about change and blissful peace.

“What’s that from?” I was honored to be sitting in this dark room with this mysterious and helpful man. I had been starving for something like that “blissful peace” of the text but had very little idea how it was attained.

“That is from the Diamond Sutra… a Buddhist text.” Brian said without pretense.

I confessed, “You know, the reason that incident last night between you and Billy got to me was...” I hesitated before throwing caution to the wind, “I quit drinking a while back and now I drinking again. I’m not too much different from Billy. I don’t want to drink and it seems I can’t get away from it.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I have been around all kinds of abusive drunks in my life. My dad was pretty bad but you’d never know it. He was a professor of English lit. He had a secret life that only his family saw.” Brian hung his head from side to side and continued, “I swore I would never drink like him but, every once in a while, I drink and I can’t tell what will happen next.”

I told him about my first acid trip in Waikiki and how I’d stayed away from drinking for three or four months after that.

“So, I thought I saw that in you. You ought to go on a vision quest.”

“I’ve heard of vision quests. What would I do?”

Brian gave me a leather pouch with a three or four buttons in it. “Take this medicine and go on a fast. Head up the arroyo to the wilderness area. When hunger hits you… take a bite or two from one of these.”

“Yeh, how long do I go?”

“Go until you have a vision.”

I wondered aloud, “I’ve seen some pretty amazing things… like at the Peyote Ceremony and all… all the coincidences on the way here, but visions? I can only admit to a calm and serene love… a love was at one with other people... with the prickly pear cactus and the sage… and, of course, the goats.”

I had a feeling that what Brian was talking about wasn’t just some more hippy bull-shit. He was talking about a vision… a real vision and it seemed that if anything would make that happen perhaps peyote might.

“There is only one way to find out, eh?” Though Brian was slightly rotund in physique, he possessed an intrinsically mischievous elfish quality about him whenever his face took on a sly smirk like it did then.

I went back to the goat pasture with my pouch of buttons... er, he insisted I call it Medicine. I figured I ought to get the booze and the acid out of my system a few days before doing anything as serious as a vision quest. I was about a day into a fast when, in the morning just before sunrise, a commotion with the goats broke out. There was bleating and some rather furious noises that could have only come from a cat… a big cat. I went out to where I’d heard the ado and saw the evidence of big cat tracks, fur on the ground and a little blood here and there. Charlie had some deep gashes between his horns but he escorted me to the spot where I put two and two together. I didn’t like the idea that a cat could take one of my kids. I did a count and, sure enough, one was missing.

Having no rifle, I sorely needed one now. I figured Mason might have one because I’d seen a deer hide stretched out for tanning at his place on the island.

Smoke coming from the chimney of Mason’s place told me he was home... or nearby.

“Howdy, stranger!” Mason called out from a rock above the cabin behind me.

Startled, I spun around to see him coming down off the rock.

Calling out to him, I watched this wildman bounce gingerly down towards me, “I need to ask you something kinda irregular.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to show up. We need to sit down and smoke a bowl over it then.” Mason went inside and came out with what looked like a classic Indian peace pipe, beaded and adorned with feathers... like in the movies. The pipe was packed with Bull Durham tobacco, herbs and sage, but no pot. We smoked and passed the pipe between us prayerfully before I brought up the goat and the cat.

“What do you want to do about the cat?” Mason asked.

“Huh?” How did he know? “I was wondering if you have a rifle.”

“I know… You want to kill the cat?”

“Yeh, I can’t see letting the goats get picked off one by one.”

“You know anything about cats?” he whispered, leaning towards me like he wanted to keep a secret.

“Not really. Just that one of ‘em is eating my kids.”

“Shhh. Didn’t we eat one the other day?”

“Yeh, we did.” I took his whispering as a rejection of my request for the rifle. More disturbing however, I was afraid the whole idea... his mocking... was sour to Mason and I respected his judgment.

“If you gotta do it….” Mason paused a few minutes as though he were weighing my character. “Big cats, they kill in the hour before and after sunset and the hour before and after sunrise.”

“Very well, then all I have to do is stay up an hour after sundown and get up an hour before sunrise… maybe throw rocks or sticks at ‘em if they go for any of my goats?”

“It is likely it is only one, probably a female cat this time of the year. Rocks and sticks? Wouldn’t you rather have a rifle?”

“Yeh.”

“You know how to use one?” he asked earnestly. I liked the idea that he asked me these questions. It was one of those things I have about guns. I’d been raised using them and learned to respect and use them safely.

“You know the rifle that Angelo came into the Peyote Ceremony with?”

“Winchester .44, lever action, I thought it looked like it was old enough to be at Little Big Horn.”

Mason went inside and came out with the rifle. I wondered if Mason knew Angelo would show up the way he did at the ceremony. Mason handed me the rifle and a box of ammo holding only five bullets. I checked it out to see if the chamber was empty and was pleased to see it was well maintained, oiled and clean. I found the stamp with the date: 1886 on it. I said, “It looks like this rifle could’ve been handed down from Custer’s Last Stand.”

“If it was there this rifle would be almost a Vatican relic to the Ogalas but Little Big Horn was in the ‘70’s and you see the stamp. It sure wouldn’t be in my hands if it was there,” Mason snorted before he continued, “Now, cats have a range of seventy or eighty miles. But they will carry their kill only as far away as their den. You probably won’t find her anyway.”

Mason went back inside his cabin and turned to say, “Go do what you must and nothing more.”

“With five bullets… I’m pretty safe on that account.”

  Going back to the pasture, I put together a small kit. The vision quest would be combined with the hunt. I had to get going while the trail was still fresh. Not all that sure I was good enough at tracking to find and follow it, I set out anyway. My coat and good Army Surplus boots I’d nabbed while in Spokane as well as a warm flannel shirt and jeans would keep me warm and I only carried a small day-pack.

I launched out at sunrise the next morning. At first there were signs of blood and unmistakable goat hairs on bushes that led towards the arroyo between the Hondo and the mesa. I lost the trail several times as it progressed up through some farm land higher up on the mesa. Pausing in the draw I had been following up, I opened my pouch of peyote the first time since I’d begun the trek. There’d been no sign for at least a half a mile and now I was to cross some acreage owned by ranchers who would not take kindly to a hippy toting a rifle on their property.

Sitting there for over an hour, resting after taking a bite from the medicine, I was inspired to head over north to the Rio Hondo. Peyote cat-thinking, perhaps the cat would not like crossing farm land either, my feet moved. Crossing the rim road that coursed its way towards the Carson National Forest above the Rio Hondo, I saw several perfect paw prints in the dusty shoulder of the road. Where there had been dust on the weeds, it was clear to see a trail. The weeds were bent and absent of dust too. My vision was sharpened, “I see where you are going now, mama,” I said softly to the winds.

I followed that trail down a draw into the arroyo. The landscape awoke with a most pleasant clarity. It wasn’t so much that I saw colors that weren’t already there, but I saw in the colors a heightened intensity while my spirit passed the junipers and pinions. Their presence was extended out from them with an aura or vibration that was actually felt as I passed... melded into that flow. Like a wake left by a boat through water, the path the cat had taken led me. Near the waters of the Rio Hondo I cupped my hands and swallowed the fresh cold molecules that tweaked my senses all the way down my throat. The rocks took on an aura too and I sensed what was meant by the biblical prophets declaring; “the rocks would preach if I don’t.

By night fall I found a comfortable spot to curl up on my haunches but didn’t sleep. I listened instead to the sounds of the night. The coyotes in the distance and the soft flutter of an owl swooping down to grab a field mouse. Indeed, the hills were alive around me.

Vision... perhaps... I saw, or dreamt... Pleiades in the clear sky above... but I was awake... it was one of those Kachina dolls dancing... a cat in a ceremonial coat open to Pleiades standing... stomping a rhythm... the drum in the peyote circle... chanting.

The second day I had finished off one piece of the medicine and started on the second. The wake of a trail left by the cat led me up a steep canyon. I felt as though my boots were too harsh on the earth. It was as though the earth was lifting up to cushion my feet; they found their way around the sharp edges of the stones or gently folded around them like a snail would on the razor’s edge. The higher I went the more snow was on the ground but I rarely saw any sign of the cat in the snow. The cat knew better and I sensed that the cat knew I would follow her. My feet felt no chill or cold and I kept following slowly through the next night up into the forest.

The third day, after a night of sitting and listening, I approached on the far side, down-wind of the canyon. The Kat-china told me to strip off the rest of my clothes wearing only a rope sash to hang my medicine bag and the rifle sheath strapped over my shoulder.

I felt the presence of the Kat.

She was very near me.

There was no fear.

Coming to a place on the shady side of the draw, I could see a collection of rocks that had an overhang making a sort of entrance to her den. The rifle came out of the sheath strapped over my shoulder. Looking down the sights I saw Mama Puma looking straight into my eyes from her spot in the cave. She crouched and turned suddenly to give her attention behind her. There I observed one cub, then another. She gently pawed them back out of sight. Mason’s words came to me then, “Do what you must but nothing more.”

The chamber of the rifle was loaded and I had a clear and easy shot. She was no more than a hundred feet away but my heart saw mama and I understood: She’d killed the goat-kid to feed her cubs. The kid carcass was probably stashed somewhere nearby. Her breasts had done the job up ‘til now but it was time to feed her cubs some meat. I lowered the rifle and stood… not being sure what she would do at that juncture... whether she would attack me to protect her brood.

 Not able to do anything but turn my back to her, I walked away. Throughout the day, I hiked down the canyon and felt her presence behind me at times… ahead or along side of me. I caught a glimpse now and then. She let me know she was escorting me away from her den. A special affection grew, like the love that filled my heart after the peyote ceremony. That love never left me for that cat. After all, as Mason said; we, at the communal feast, had eaten one of the kids too. As far as I was concerned the score was even.

I neared Mason’s cabin. Mason was standing at the door grinning. Fully dressed now, I handed over the rifle to him. Reaching into my day pack, I passed over the box of ammo.
 “Still five in it,” Mason observed.

“Yeh, still five in it.”

“You found her though?”

“Yeh, I found her.”

“Did you have a vision?”

“Yeh, you might say so.”

“You might write it down someday.”

“Yeh, once I figure out what it was, I will.”

“That might take some time.”

“It will.”