Home>>read People of the Lakes free online

People of the Lakes(2)

By:W. Michael Gear


Heroes? They’d inspired this carving, whoever they were.

The crow hopped to a wheelbarrow handle no more than an arm’s distance away. It clucked to get his attention and studied him with one round black eye, then the other, as if measuring his soul.

The stone canoe felt warmer in his fingers.

To the crow, Bill said, “I’ve spent my entire life studying the Hopewell people, always living in my head with the ancestors, M Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear trying to hear their ghosts, to learn from them.” He smiled faintly. “Maybe it’s time I go and share my efforts with some living people who care about something besides money. Do you think the Navajo will want to know about the Hopewell? Their roots are Athapaskan, from the Northwest, not Eastern Algonquian.

Tell me, crow. Will they care … and can I do it?”

The crow launched itself and dove right in front of Bill’s face, forcing him to backpedal. Then it flew one big circle around the administration office before heading due west.

Bill gazed back out across the site. The ghosts had gone quiet, somber. His eyes narrowed with thought. “Thank you,” he said, “for guiding me.”.

He tightened his grip on the stone canoe and thought about the adventure that lay ahead. In his heart, he sensed that these heroes from the past envied him.

A very, very old story was told in the dead of winter, late at night, when Owl hooted across the frozen forests. Like all stories, it carried a lesson and a truth for the people. Some say the story came from the High Heads; others, that it was born of the wind and nurtured of the soul … Once, long ago, in the time of the ancestors, people had refused to care for the Dead, and the earth was filled with ghosts who committed every kind of mischief. Finally, in desperation, the ghosts had appealed to First Man, explaining their plight.

First Man heard their plaintive cries and sent his twin brother, Many Colored Crow, to help them. In those days, Crow possessed feathers so bright they made the painted bunting look dull and lusterless.

Many Colored Crow walked across the land, telling the people about the Dead and their troubles. He explained that if the people would honor and care for their ancestors, the Spirits would reciprocate. They would help the living by bringing messages from the Spirit World. The ghosts would cease harming people and quit playing tricks on them. Everything would be better.

The people heard the words of Many Colored Crow and began to care for the Dead. But so many ghosts walked the land that Many Colored Crow had to do something more. He had been passing through the forest when he found a high hill.

Around the base of the hill, he gathered piles of dry brush. Then he climbed to the top and built a fire in a clay pot. He prayed for four days, Singing to the four sacred directions, and the ghosts heard. They came from all over the world to see what Many Colored Crow was doing. On the day of the winter solstice, all the ghosts had finally arrived.

At last, one of the ghosts—a warrior who had died in battle and whose body had been cut up—asked Many Colored Crow, “What are you doing up here on top of this mountain, Singing and Dancing? We have all come to see.”

Many Colored Crow raised his hands to the morning sun, saying, “I have brought you here to Sing you to the Land of the Dead. But you cannot go as you are now. You are full of anger, trouble, and evil. You must be cleansed of this before I Sing you to the Land of the Dead.”

And saying that, Many Colored Crow picked up the pot with the fire burning inside it and whirled it around his head, scattering the burning embers into the dry brush. The brush instantly caught fire, and the whole mountain was engulfed in flames.

The ghosts cried out and tried to escape, but the fire completely surrounded them. In the end, all that remained were ashes.

These, Many Colored Crow collected and carried with him to the Land of the Dead, where the souls were finally freed. All the wickedness had been burned away.

In the process, however, Many Colored Crow’s brilliant feather colors had vanished, all of them burned a deep black— which is why, to this day, Crow has black feathers.

Prologue I was young then, foolish and wild. I traveled into the forbidden territory of the High Heads. There I climbed their sacred mountain.

Searching … I knew not for what. The voice in the Dream told me to go … to search for something. I found a rock overhang on the northern side of the mountain where the sandstone had been undercut. A dead man sat there … long, longtime dead, and dried out.”

Grandfather’s words filled Mica Bird’s memory, mingling with his fear.

The young warrior walked in a world of dappled green, where the forest floor cushioned each step. Damp leaves, yellow, brown, and matted, crushed under his moccasined feet. Around him rose the sturdy boles of trees, thick and dark, creating an interwoven maze on the steep slope he climbed. The musky scent of the forest intensified. Vines of wild grape hung like impossible strands of rope, some of them as thick as a man’s leg.