Chapter 4: Advent
There was nothing anyone could do but wait. Tortured by worry, despair, and self-analysis, his face stuck to the ICU glass, Dan Ghostwolf stared at the vast array of IV tubes keeping his daughter alive. When Sara had been transferred to the ICU, hospital personnel had cleared her room, stripping her of the things she loved. They had dragged away her stuffed animals, books, flowers, and balloons. Bareness crept over everything, and no matter how snugly the nurses wrapped her favorite blanket against her legs and body, Sara often cried when negative thoughts invaded her mind. Ghostwolf stayed near his daughter, squeezing his hand into a fist against the glass that held him fast from his daughter’s bedside. Bending her face toward her father, Sara Bravebird, with outstretched arms, tried to sit up.
“It hurts, Daddy.”
“What does, sweetie?” Ghostwolf whispered.
“Dying.” She gasped, forcing the word out.
Sara collapsed; her body remained motionless. The nurse, bringing in a fresh set of vials, became startled by the sight and dropped the tray. The vials fell and shattered on the floor. Oozing silver medicine flowed slowly, meticulously, as Sara lay unconscious. Doctors, nurses, and specialists were now dashing toward the room. Sara could feel herself breathing more freely as she slid away from her body—from the clay container that held her forcibly. Sara’s spirit, now free, darted over the walls and ceiling. She was now feeling blissful, free from pain. Sara circled the room several times before skittering forward.
In the blink of an eye, she found herself in a vast meadow filled with roses, lilies, violets, daisies, and wildflowers. The morning sun projected strips of light and shadow that she gave chase to. There was an absence of fear—no perception of being deserted or totally alone, no panic or thoughts about the bad things that must have happened. Something furry tickled Sarah’s cheek with a touch so soft that she hardly noticed. The gentle presence was a butterfly’s wing. Sarah tried to scoop it up in her hands, but she began to feel shaky and wobbly.
She lay down on the grass and concentrated on breathing slowly. Babies do the same thing, she thinks. Sleep soundly and control their breathing, even when people are coming and going, talking, and moving around. That was the way her life had always been since birth. She had struggled inwardly throughout her entire existence to gain an ordinary composure, trying not to feel tired while at play. She had successfully hid her frequent nosebleeds and shortness of breath while attempting to overcome the pain in her bones and joints. She spent years denying the low-grade fevers, the swollen lymph nodes. Even after the diagnosis, she kept her mind steadfast on remission and recovery. But her determination had changed when her mother was found dead in that terrible storm. Her father became distant, different. He had always been a sweet guy—shy, sexy, popular with various women, and absent. Sara just knew he’d been with someone … many someones. But she loved him completely and convinced herself it was all just a huge misunderstanding. Sara Bravebird could not move, but she realized with her last breath that when you return to someone you love, the love is always returned.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Her body began heaving up and down, desperate for air … dandelions rose from damp metal screens. The white room witnessed the writhing of her life. Time and space soon became mere acquaintances. The cause of death: lymphocytic leukemia. The time of death: 2:40 am.
Daniel Ghostwolf cried at his daughter’s bedside. “My sweet, sweet Sara Bravebird, this is entirely my fault.”
Ghostwolf left the hospital. He had been duly warned; he had not done what he was told. Now, his wife was dead, his little boy was missing, and his daughter had just died. Dan went home to pack his bags and head for New York City.
First, he had to explain all of this to his grandfather.
“Grandfather, I must leave. I have brought great pain upon me and my family,” Dan said to his great grandfather. “There is no peace in my soul, and because of this, my whole family is gone. I do not wish to bring harm to you also; I must leave.”
“Was it another woman?” the great great grandson of Chief Spotted Tail asked.
“No, no. I have not been allowed to tell you. But now … it makes no difference. I was given a great crystal,” Ghostwolf confessed.
The old medicine man stared hard at his grandson.
“It was given to me by Uktena, the Keen-Eyed One,” he revealed in soft tones.
“So … you have the great crystal? The Ulun’suti?” his grandfather mused.
“Sshh … please, do not speak of it, Grandfather. No one else should have to suffer because of this infernal rock.”
“You have not used it wisely!” his grandfather proclaimed.
“No … I was … selfish. I used it to find treasure … bones. Instead I have only found death.” Ghostwolf pushed out the words as his voice filled with fresh tears. “I must go and give it to someone else.”
“You have made bad medicine; you must do what is right.” His grandfather spoke harshly. “You have brought a curse. I can only pray with my sacred pipe …” His voice trailed off as he fingered his Yuwipi stones. “Did I not sing to you to always follow the red road of the sacred white buffalo calf woman?” he questioned. “Go, find your peace,” the pejuta wicasa commanded. “You know where to go.”
Daniel Ghostwolf hopped into his Land Rover and headed east. He pushed the tape into his old cassette player and listened to the sacred music: “Sigh of the Lakota
Seventh generation restores the sacred hoop:
(drumbeats)
I am the seventh generation, the heart of everything that is, the sacred hoop was broken, but now it’s on the mend
(drumbeats)
We are spirit, we are warriors, we protect the sacred tree
whose roots find sustenance on that red road, it will bloom when we are free …
Daniel George Ghostwolf ruminated on the total destruction of everyone and everything he had ever loved in his life. He had nothing left; his only responsibility was to relieve himself of the curse of the Ulun’suti, the stone of portent, before it took his grandfather also. As he recklessly drove toward the east coast of Turtle Island, a thought came to him: he had never found his son, who had vanished with his mother on an expedition to Moose Lake in Minnesota to harvest wild rice and participate in the sacred wild-rice ceremonies. They had gone out with their knockers to tap the delicate rice into their birch-bark canoes when the area was inundated by high winds and flash floods. Ghostwolf’s wife had been found in a shallow pond days later, but his son was never heard from again. Search parties had been sent out into the marshes and shallow lakes around the rice paddies, but his son’s body was never recovered.
As Ghostwolf drove toward Moose Lake, he wondered if the crystal could be used to locate his missing son. He traveled on foot along the marshes, watching groups of people of the Ojibwa tribe row between the rice reeds, harvesting the sacred wild rice. He held the crystal in his hand while wiping it with the blood of a crappie he had snagged by the edge of the marsh, searching the multicolored hues of the marshes for any sign of his beautiful little boy.
He remembered what his son used to say: “I fear nothing!” His son had uttered the words while laughing in his haughty laugh, taking a chunk out of his apple with his rather large teeth. By now, Ghostwolf could remember such bits and pieces without shedding tears. The past one and a half years had worn him to a frazzle, and he drank more often to assuage the pain of his wounds.
Reminiscing, he felt the familiar remorse and knew he would not find the power to forgive himself truly; he felt he never could. The presence of his son lingered in the Minnesota air—the feel of his glare from the tiny gems of his eyes—a sinful reminder. Ghostwolf was to blame—a fact engraved in granite, there to stay forever.
He piled himself back into his Land Rover and once again turned in the direction of the East Coast, searing the final touches of his plan into his consciousness. He listened to the sacred words of
“Canku Luta”:
It’s the red road I searched for, the road to my home,
Wisdom and strength my bow and arrow in the wilderness of roam,
I had seen the far reaches of the tree of life and yearned,
But I wound up on that black road … the path of no return …