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been washed down the stream with the freakish storm. Once the rain stopped she
would go hunt for it.
But the storm didn t stop. It was like nothing she d ever seen in her life. The thin
little creek had swollen to a tumbling river of mud as the storm poured enough water
onto the mountainside to wash half of it to the flats below, making her have to seek
shelter in a still higher cave that the water didn t reach. Lightning and deafening
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thunder assaulted the mountain throughout the rest of the day and she was almost in
total despair of it ever stopping.
She settled into a niche in the back of the wide-mouthed overhang to stay out of the
blowing rain. And then she heard the ominous deep rumbling as huge rocks loosened
by the torrential rains uprooted from their high perches on the slopes above and began
to slide and roll. She gave a little cry of terror. The spirits must be royally pissed off that
a stupid little wasicun wakanheya had dared to try to change her world.
She began to chant, closing her eyes and begging them to let her live. She decided
she d go home and completely forget about wanting to be something she wasn t and
then a huge boulder crashed into the top of the rock shelf that was sheltering her and
rocks inside started to fall like the rain outside. She rolled toward the rock wall behind
her and covered her head with her arms as sharp granite and crumbled feldspar
pummeled her. And then the rock split right where she was lying and a large piece
toppled in almost slow motion to rest against the rock at her feet. She gasped in fear as a
big shard of granite pinned her left leg in the crevice.
She could still feel her foot and realized she was still in one piece, nothing broken,
although her leg was trapped between two immovable pieces of stone. As the
realization of her horrifying predicament became clear, she closed her eyes and tried to
picture her mom and Frank.
Because she probably would never see them again.
The rain continued for many more hours and when a little trickle of rainwater ran
down the face of the granite to her side, she leaned in and cupped her hand under it,
bringing it to her parched mouth. It tasted slightly dusty and metallic but she drank
thirstily until the source ran out. She was unsure how many hours had passed before
darkness filled the cave, and she tried to adjust her body so that she could prevent the
circulation in her trapped leg from being cut off. She wriggled her toes and flexed her
muscles to keep the circulation up.
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Fran Lee
Morning s light brought the sun and even though it never reached into her dark
little crevice, the warmth it brought to the air was welcome. She was so hungry she
even considered trying to catch one of the chipmunks that occasionally poked its nose
between the rocks to blink at her before scuttling away. She shifted wearily, unable to
even muster enough strength to cry.
The third night in the cave she heard the sounds of a large animal outside the
entrance, snuffling about, deciding whether she smelled like prey or some pesky
human. She bit her lip and sang out as loudly as she could, filling the cavern with a
plaintive, echoing chant that must have sent the creature off into the night, searching for
something that didn t sound so big and aggressive.
By the fifth day in the cave, she was out of her mind with thirst and hunger and
was just praying she could go to sleep and not feel so scared anymore. She could barely
make a sound come through her dry throat but she sobbed and began an odd singsong
chant that came from deep inside her one she didn t remember and couldn t even
understand. A deep peace settled over her weary body and the light filtering in from
the narrowed cave entrance seemed to flicker and became a brilliant glow that
surrounded her.
She must be half dead and she had no doubt that it was simply an hallucination, but
as she sang her strange, keening chant she heard the high-pitched cry of an eagle and
felt a breeze from the fluttering of wings. She rolled her head to see a great golden eagle
less than an arm s reach from her, ruffling its gleaming feathers and cocking its head to
one side as it appeared to be looking her over for a possible meal.
She laughed aloud and asked the eagle if it meant to eat her or if it could maybe do
her a favor and get her out of the cave. The bird ruffled its feathers and edged a trifle
closer. Without thinking of those deadly talons or that wickedly curving beak, Chy
reached out a hand and touched the bird s amazingly silken chest feathers.
The eagle gave another shrieking cry and hissed oddly before hopping and
spreading its massive wings with a great flapping sound and lifting from the rock floor
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Woman on Fire
of the cave. She begged it to stay and grabbed at it, catching the tip of one wing before it
squawked and took to the air, vanishing into the light beyond the cave s entrance. As
she dissolved into tears a quiet voice spoke to her and she blinked up at a wavering face
that seemed to shimmer in the brightness around her.
Why do you cry? You have been strong. You have been brave. The spirits have touched you.
Why are you afraid? He spoke in Lakota. The man smiled at her quietly and took the
eagle feather from his hair ornament and placed it into her outstretched hand.
 I don t want to die all alone, she whispered. The image reached out to touch her
tangled, filthy hair and she felt an odd easing inside of her, as if he had taken some of
her fear away with that brief, gentle touch. He seemed to be moving away, and she
croaked,  Don t go! I don t want to be alone anymore!
Don t be afraid. I found you once. I will find you again. You will never be alone.
And as she caught at his shimmering hand, he dissolved into the brightness
surrounding her and the cave slowly went dark again.
She felt a warmth filter through her and found the courage and the strength to
sing loudly. And she sang until she thought her lungs would give out.
* * * * *
When Frank and the search party that had been combing the area for days had
heard the sound of her voice echoing up from the crevice, they had been overwhelmed
that they found her. It had taken ten men and a pair of ton jacks and lots of hastily built
shorings to extract her from the back of the almost buried crevice in the rocks, but she
had been virtually unscathed though nearly starved and suffering from severe
dehydration.
Frank had accompanied her to the hospital in the life flight they d called in and her
mom had met them as the chopper had landed and she had fallen into a deep,
untroubled sleep under the tear-filled gazes of her parents, her arms threaded with IV
tubes.
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Fran Lee
Her mother had brokenly declared that if Frank continued to encourage her
daughter with his Indian stories and his myths and legends, she would leave his sorry
ass and take her daughter back to Fargo, where she would never again be subjected to
such harebrained schemes as vision quests and medicine dreams.
Frank, afraid of losing the woman he adored, ceased teaching her about his people
openly, but later on he would answer her many questions and he would tell her stories
when she begged. Just not in front of her mom. And after a while, her mom relented [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]