Chapter 12. Easter Peyote Hunt

I found comfort in the solitude of the goat pasture. I had plenty of time to reflect on what it was that had happened when Sunflower showed up that day. The fact that she moved on meant something to me too. I didn’t know what it meant but I knew it meant something to digest about love, relationships, and my spirit, she saw as large, shrinking because I had been grasping to appease the loneliness of that same spirit. She saw it and loved me for it. Why couldn’t I?

I spent my time exploring the arroyos and mesas around the property and venturing up the road to Arroyo Seco, the village on the way up to the Taos Ski area. Arroyo Seco was more than a stop for skiers. It had an old hacienda style house where there was an art school. I’d spent a few days watching artisans throw pots on a wheel or making equally precise and beautiful pots with a coil technique smoothed over and burnished the way pots have been made for millennia before the wheel.

I had always wanted to study art and learn some of these techniques but I knew it would take a considerable commitment in time and discipline that I would have to try at a later date.

I knew I was on a quest. I wasn’t sure what it was a quest for either but I sensed that this quest had some further exploring to do before settling in to any demanding discipline. I simply understood that there was no rush and that if I didn’t get it in this lifetime perhaps the next one would do it for me. I love you Sunflower.

Down at the Dome, Stan and the girls had quite a thing going for them. The three of them were a tandem team and Stan always had a shit-eating grin on his face. He had completed his mission in life and there was nothing else for him to do but enjoy the blessings of the day. I went down occasionally to visit. The Dome had a fifty-gallon-drum wood-burning stove like the kiva. The bed was situated on a loft built about eight feet above. Hot air rises so it didn’t take much to heat the loft. However, to visit the place, it was colder below the loft. Visitors were more comfortable climbing up into the loft and sharing the bed. It was an especially cozy arrangement conducive to all kinds of hanky-panky if that was the inclination. However, I had little desire beyond curiosity to try much of anything, even though I was invited to. It was apparent that Stan had sewn up that threesome and, as far as Deborah and Leah were concerned, that was it… they loved Stan and Stan was young enough, with libido enough, to handle it.

Occasionally Stan would show up at the A-frame to chat a spell, or just plain take a breather, but he nevertheless seemed to have his mind back there at the Dome.

I was curious whether such an arrangement was one that could be sustained. I had to ask, “So, how’s it going with the girls, Stan,”

“Man, you wouldn’t believe it.” he groaned.

I had to laugh at the sheepish look on Stan’s mug, “You holding-up okay, pal?” 

“Well, the first few nights were one big fuck-fest but we have settled into a routine. These girls are twisted, man.” There was barely a hint of complaining… it was more of a simple realistic appraisal.

I goaded, “Ain’t your pecker raw?”

Stan took a serious pose, “You can only do it so many times before the urge slows down.”

I changed the subject, “Say, I hear Mason, Joe and one of the Injuns from the Pueblo are taking that jeep to Laredo and harvest some peyote.”

“Where’s Laredo?”

“Texas… way down on the border… Mexico. I understand the desert’s the only place where peyote grows in the USA. It takes some guts and luck to get the stuff out of there.”

“It just grows wild? Why don’t more people go ta’ get it? There can’t be that many cops around the desert.”

“You got the Texas Rangers, Border Patrol and banditos… they have a lock on the area. You know, if a van full of hippies comes out of the desert they are sure to get noticed and checked out. That is why you kinda have to have some Injuns with you… religious freedom and all that.”

“What do you mean… religion?”

“You heard of the Native American Church?”

“Naw, can’t say as I have.” Stan had the endearing quality of being honest about what he did know and what he didn’t know.

“Well, Mason says peyote is a sacrament in the Native American Church…”

“No kiddin’, like bread and wine?”

“Yah, Stan, like bread and wine. I’m gonna go with ‘em. We want to bring some back for Easter.”

I had been mulling it over… the risks and all, but my talk with Stan erased some of those fears. I knew nothing of the laws around peyote and depended on everyone else’s knowledge in this case. I looked forward to spending some road-time with Mason and Joe… and, hell, a real shaman type dude, Marcos, from the Taos Pueblo.

We started out at daybreak after eating some peyote. The shaman was a regular looking guy in his fifties with close-cropped salt-n’-pepper hair, a pair of silver tipped walkers and a black Sundance Kid hat with silver around the hat-band. His name was Marcos. Marcos held three dried pieces from a pouch of the sacred cacti to the sky and, before passing them to us, he prayed, “Grand Father, we thank you for protecting and guiding us,” and to the Chief (a piece of dried peyote he held from a pouch), “We thank you for a safe return trip home. We will respect your house and take only what we need…”

The jeep rolled out through Taos and cut over at Albuquerque and on down the eastern side of the State through Roswell and Carlsbad where the caverns are. I felt the peyote moving me to stay silent and listen as the others spoke haltingly. We took turns driving, only stopping to gas up, replenish our water or take a leak. We had a bucket to puke in if the peyote made us nauseous, and it did. The highway took on a kaleidoscope of vivid electric color as the desert opened-up to us. I felt especially protected and trusted these men with my life in a way that I hadn’t never trusted anyone. Mason turned to face me while driving to ask, “Max, how you doing?”

I answered, “Who’s this Chief? Are we meeting him there?”

There was laughter from Joe and Mason. Mason explained, “Peyote grows in clusters. There’s always one from which all the others originate. He’s the Chief.”

“Then the Chief’s a peyote button.”

Marcos corrected me gently, “Buttons are something you put on a shirt. To be respectful of their power, we call their spirit, medicine.”

It was the middle of the night by the time the jeep pulled off the highway and came to a stop in the desert where Marcos busied himself with gathering a stick here or there of deadwood. We rolled out our bags around the small fire. I worried about rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions. Marcos seemed to have read my mind: “You have nothing to fear. We thanked Grandfather for protection already.”

I kept my boots inside my bag anyway. I didn’t want to stick my feet into a scorpion stinger in the morning. We picked up where we left off on the Interstate and then south to the Mexican border as the sun rose in the east. We were in Peyote Country and Marcos knew exactly where we would turn off the highway down a dirt road and head out on foot with burlap bags folded up under our arms. We walked through the dust and sandy landscape. The rocks and creosote bushes vibrated with molecules in the air around them. Everything was resonating harmony.

About a quarter-mile from where we parked the jeep, Marcos stopped. Mason and Joe froze in synch with Marcos but I still took a few more steps. Marcos spoke quietly, “See Max, Grand Father led us here and his spirit is in the Rattler.” He pointed about ten feet in front of his silver-toed boot with a stick he’d been carrying.

A huge, eight-inch thick, rattlesnake was coiled up and his tail rattled a warning. I realized that the place in which the snake was coiled was a clump of cacti of an olive-green color with a grayish fuzz. “There’s the Chief.” Marcos said barely above a whisper. They waited. I was in no hurry to challenge the rattler for the medicine and Marcos had no intention of disturbing the rattler any further. Eventually the rattler moved off as Marcos prayed: “Thank you Grandfather for leading us to the Chief and thank you for this blessing.”

The rattlesnake watched from aside, sunning on a rock, as the bags were filled with his medicine. Three bags were for the various pueblos around Taos and one bag was for the Risingstar commune. Each bag had a different Chief kept separate from the rest. But the second biggest Chief was going to the Taos Pueblo. Now the trick was to get the bags back to the jeep and then back to Taos.

The riskiest part of the trip was from where we were in the desert to the route that joins the highway from Laredo to San Antonio. It was there that we had to cross empty desert watched by the Border Patrol and the Texas Rangers. None of these law enforcement agencies had any respect for the 1^st Amendment Rights of Native Americans at the time even though the Native American Church was guaranteed those rights whenever taken to court on the matter. What would happen if we were stopped would most likely turn into a confiscation of the “contraband” and we could, all four, end up in jail for an undetermined length of time, awaiting a decision from a judge who would have read, and understood, the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The plan was make it to the well-travelled I-10. From there we would be okay if we stayed within the speed limit and drove sanely. On the way, however, we found ourselves surrounded by several vehicles with Texas Ranger and Border Patrol markings.

Out of nowhere they appeared! I was sure I’d spend the rest of my life in a Texas jail or Federal Prison. Marcos, Joe and Mason seemed to be unmoved by any of the shouting and commands coming from behind pulled guns of the various agencies. “Show your hands and come out with them clasped behind your heads!” called out a voice from a bullhorn.

We complied as we, one by one, came out of the jeep spread-eagle, face-down on the desert dust and sand as the officers talked back and forth in low murmurs for what seemed an eternity. The three burlap bags of peyote were in plain sight as Marcos looked at me saying, “Don’t worry… remember? They belong to our Grandfather.”

Since Marcos was driving, he was asked if the vehicle was registered to him. He answered no but Mason butted in, “It’s in my name.”

“Do you have a valid driver’s license?”

Mason answered, “Yes.”

“How about you?” the Ranger asked Marcos.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing out here?” The Border patrol officer asked Marcos.

Several minutes passed and, so far, they hadn’t looked in the jeep, nor had they asked to be shown Mason’s license or registration of the vehicle. Marcos answered, “I am showing my friends my Grandfather’s house.”

I couldn’t figure what it was that saved the day but, as suddenly as we had been surrounded, the officers got back in their vehicles and tore off into the desert.

“See what I mean, we have Grandfather’s protection,” Marcos grinned for the first time the whole trip. “This has happened before.”

When we got back to Risingstar, I was on another plane of existence. I wasn’t sure what I believed but I was sure that something was happening on that high altar of the earth called Taos. Something was happening and, it seemed that the more I tried to define it, the more elusive it was. There was a hand in all of this for sure. I couldn’t wait to tell Stan and the girls about it. I rushed to the Dome full of excitement and bubbling with enthusiasm. The peyote hadn’t worn off yet and everything was still vibrating when I related the whole story of the peyote Chief, the rattlesnake, Grandfather, the Border Patrol, and the Texas Rangers. Stan was looking at me like I was nuts. I caught myself babbling on and wondered too if I hadn’t completely flipped.