Round Top Register - Texas Fun Travel Guide - The Courtjester
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Chapter Twenty-one
My fingers wrapped hard around the bark that hung like shredded fabric off the ancient cedar. Na Na had told me to follow the tree's roots. He had sent Angel and me into the wilderness with only a single skin of water, a buckskin bag of mescal paste and four buttons of peyote. We were to seek power from the earth and could not return until we had done so. "In this Ucca Tom, you and Angeles are the same. You draw power from the earth through the tree. Your body knows the language of the tree even if your mind does not. Angel sat across from me on a limestone ledge. He pulled his guitar over his shoulder, and began to pick at the strings. The music spilled softly over the lengthening shadows that crept slowly down the ragged mountainside. We had walked for two days towards the southwest, and climbed most of the afternoon. Water was scarce in this broken country but we had been lucky and stumbled upon an area in one of the ravines where a streak of green led to a hidden spring. We set up camp and began to explore the surrounding countryside. Our survival secured, at least temporarily, we had decided to climb the towering bluff that filled the sky above the small oasis, eat the peyote and await the spirits. It had been a hard climb, but after a short rest, I was ready for more. The amazing conditioning of my body no longer surprised me. In the five weeks of furious activity since we had entered Uzzen's keep, we had all reached a startling level of fitness. I took on tasks that would have daunted me even during my college years. James, Johnny Loco and the little chiefs were merciless in their demands. I complained, but for all my grumbling, I liked who I was becoming. As Angel played, I looked back towards where we had come. I was having a hard time recognizing the terrain from the high vantage point. "Great view, but I don't know where in the hell we are." I muttered half to myself. The music paused. I heard rocks scatter as Angel crawled off the ledge and walked towards me. "They say nothing good comes from the north." He stood beside me, looking off into the gathering dusk. "When Killer-of-Enemies and his brother Child-of-the-Waters left their mother, and went to seek weapons from Father Sun to fight the monsters that plagued the land, their mother told them to go any direction but north. Of course that's the first place they went." He had the kind of smile that forces you to grin back at it. "Worked out okay though. They found Father Sun," He raised his eyebrows. "...even got to date his daughter." I really liked Angel. We had grown close in the time we had spent together. "Did the old man help `em kill off the monsters?" "Yep, we're talkin' complete monster genocide. After that, they say, Killer-of-Enemies came into these very Guadalupe mountains. Some say he lives here still." He was only half kidding. Angel takes his N'de mysticism seriously. A little too seriously for Na Na. The old medicine man says that knowledge only matters if it brings power. He says Angel carries a white man's seriousness and that it is his weakness. Being a less than serious white man, I wouldn't know. Angel's mom left the reservation when he was seven and moved to Texas. He had been raised on the largely Hispanic eastside of Austin. I had left The University of Texas and the Austin counterculture, and was well on my way to yuppie oblivion in Houston before he made it to the hill country, but just the fact that central Texas had marked both our paths, gave us something in common. That and music. He and I had very similar tastes in tunes. He was more into new wave and less into new age than I was, but I chalked that up to my grey hairs. The youngster had a remarkable knowledge of 60's and 70's music. It was great to have another addict to talk to. I told him I had horsed around with song lyrics in the past but, since I didn't play an instrument, and sang like a wounded buffalo, I had no way to express my fantasy. He asked me to recite them. I did, and he liked my silly rhymes. I was honored. He was a strange soul, Angel Colorado. His darkly sensuous face, direct and challenging, carried an exotic quality people were attracted to. He was always polite and respectful but somehow withdrawn. When I addressed him, I often felt that I was interrupting, as though I had caught him in the act of composition. Sometimes when he talked, his thoughts were like gliding clouds, drifting in and out of the heavens. He lived his art, always dragging his guitar around as though it was a part of his body. I suppose it was. He could certainly say things with it he could not have said another way. His voice was nothing extraordinary until it was merged with guitar and song; then, a magic was produced that was more than the sum of the parts. He could reach inside you, into your heart of hearts. At times like that, he would give me myself and I would love him more than my own children. We stood together and searched the northern sky, each imagining our own private heroes and monsters. After a while, I turned to him. "Na Na says you have an imaginary friend. I wanted to talk to you about it. He stood quietly for a moment. "You wish to know about Gouyen." He said quietly. It was a statement rather than a question. There was a sudden chill on the mountainside. "Is that your friend's name?" I asked. "We do not say her real name...Gouyen means wise woman. It is the name I use for my spirit guide." His eyes turned sharp and penetrating. "What do you think will be achieved by talking about our spirit guides?" The N'de believe that words can dilute spiritual power. I had learned this from Na Na. I was careful with my answer. "I also have a guide as you know..." He nodded. "I know no other adult with one. My friend says they are very few, less than the fingers on two hands. Uzzen must have a purpose in putting us two together. Perhaps we can discover it and put the wind at our backs." He nodded again...then turned and looked over to his left. He seemed to be thinking and talking to himself. I looked away to give him a chance to settle his thoughts. Almost immediately he spoke. "Gouyen says it is good and I should answer your questions...and ask mine." I was startled. "Your friend is here now?" "Yes." He replied "Where?" "Down in that valley, about three hundred yards." He pointed. I followed his finger but could see nothing but rock and brush. "I can't see anything." I said. "What does she look like." "She looks like a coyote." Once again I was surprised. I had never asked any of the children what their friends looked like. I had assumed they were all human in appearance. He smiled at me. "You will not be able to see her just as I cannot see your little black boy." I jumped. "How did you know that my friend is a little black boy?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't until now. She told me to say that. Gouyen is a trickster. She likes to make people surprised and fool them." He gave me a sympathetic look. "She is much like grandfather, not very serious. I am often the butt of both their jokes." He cracked a shy smile. "I am glad she is choosing another victim. Maybe she will leave me alone for a while." "I know how that works." I grimaced "My friend is a real smartass too." I shuddered at the prospect of having another invisible companion jerking my chain, then wondered, "How could you talk to her if she is so far away?" "She talks in my mind. Doesn't your little black boy?" I had never thought about it. When the little urchin showed up, he always seemed to move and converse like a regular child. Of course, being imaginary, it did seem logical that he was talking in my mind. "I guess so," I answered "but he always stays close to me, likes to crawl in my lap and pull my nose." Angel seemed shocked by my statement. "He pulls your nose?" "Yeah, and tickles me. He even licked me in the eye and blew a raspberry at me, got spit all over my face." Angel uttered an indrawn gasp, then exploded in laughter. "Spit, Spit all over you!" He roared. "Your spirit guide spits on you." I found the whole reaction irritating and embarrassing and was about to say something nasty when he jumped back like he had been struck and cried out "Damn!". He staggered backwards choking, cursing and brushing his hands over his chest and body. It was a strange and sudden display. I backed away involuntarily. Finally he contained himself, walked over to me muttering under his breath and squatted on the ground. He looked like he had been sucking on a lemon. "What the hell was that all about?" I asked apprehensively. His expression went from one of anger to one of humiliation. "Gouyon spit on me." He grumbled. "All that, cause you got spit on?" It seemed a bit of an overreaction. "It was a lot of spit!" he snapped. "Gallons!" His nosed turned up "...and it stinks." He settled into a pout. I looked over at him in disbelief for a few moments, then the absurdity of the whole situation finally hit home. I fell over backwards screaming. I rolled in the dust, pointing at him, laughing so hard I couldn't speak. He glared at me at first, the corners of his mouth twitching as he fought off his own hilarity, then with a sputter, he melted like a fudgesickle in the sun. It felt good to laugh. We rolled in the dirt like a couple of school boys, slapping each other's backs and howling, retching and spitting like psychotic housecats. As our guffaws grew, I started getting a cramp in my stomach and tried to calm myself but found that I couldn't. The laughter kept building and cresting until I felt uncomfortably out of control. I looked over at Angel and saw a hint of panic in his eyes. The two of us squirmed on the rock shelf like epileptics in mid seizure; a giant hand held us like insects to the ground as we screamed our laughter towards the sky. My muscles started to heave and freeze like they were suffering an electric shock. The forced laughter became real pain. Then, suddenly, it stopped. We sprang onto our knees, fear on our faces, grappling with our new freedom like fat ladies for whom congress had repealed the law of gravity; relieved, but expecting the weight to come back. I looked nervously over the side of the bluff and saw two small figures standing together, close to our base camp. I turned to Angel. "I see them." he choked. The coyote and the little black boy waved at us. My vision tunneled like I was using a fist telescope. Somehow I could see them more clearly than the distance should have allowed. As we froze in apprehension, they sprung into action and began running in different directions down the rocky ravine. They moved with impossible speed, and in less than a minute, were over a half mile apart. Then, in unison, they turned and began to hurtle up the side of the low peaks across from us. Like mountain goats, they leapt from rock to rock with total abandon, moving up the rocky face until they simultaneously reached the tops to their respective cliffs. There, like tourists on a sightseeing trip, they turned to wave, and sauntered over the top out of sight. I felt a dizzying sense of unknown dread. The real world of plant, rock and sky was collapsing into a confused, uncontrolled disarray. Angel must have felt the same. He moved closer to me and grabbed onto my arm. A sudden breeze sprang into being, and in seconds, building like a prairie fire, it became a fitful gale. He slung his guitar over his back and hustled me over to the limited protection of the big cedar, as twigs and small rocks jumped like swarms of crazed grasshoppers around the mountaintop. We cowered beneath the old tree, with our backs to the freak wind, feeling small and fearful. The wind gained strength until it had swollen into a dry, slashing maelstrom, then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped, leaving only a dull humming in the distance. I looked over at Angel. His knuckles were white where he had hugged his guitar to his chest. His hair was wild and full of cedar needles and twigs. His eyes were wide. "Bad magic," he said "don't want this..." He looked as scared as I felt. "...mountain spirits...chant a prayer of protection for Uzzen...tried to steal my guitar." He sounded almost incoherent at first but then I realized it was my own fear that made him sound crazy. He was telling me something. "..not over...chant the prayer of protection you learned from Na Na...stand..." I couldn't hear him. There was some kind of noise building, a roar that blotted out all other sounds. I spun around and looked back towards the ragged hilltops where the coyote and the little black boy had disappeared. Angel grabbed me from behind and tried to turn me around. He was yelling something but I couldn't hear him. It didn't matter. Something else was happening of much greater importance. There, at a point directly above where each spirit guide had disappeared, shady swirls spun lazily towards the sky, spinning faster and faster as they climbed into the darkening sky. The burgeoning roar came from the heart of each of the spirals. Angel and I looked at them in horror. "God help us!" I screamed "Twisters!" It was true...and impossible. Two tornadoes were forming like points on a compass directly to the northeast and northwest. I knew consciously that it made no sense, that it couldn't be happening, but that didn't matter, they were there and the wind was beginning to blow again. Angel grabbed me from behind. "Strip." He yelled. I thought he had gone crazy and shook him off. "Take off your jeans!" He was already removing his long buckskin loin cloth. With gestures he made me understand what he was doing. I started pulling off my blue jeans in a mad panic as the twisters built in intensity and slowly began to move towards us. He tied his buckskin wrap to one of my jean's legs, and then wrapped the whole apparatus around the massive cedar. He tied the other end together, completing the loop, and we both crawled inside the makeshift safety belt, clasping our hands together around the circumference of the tree. Locked in this embrace, I lay my face against the body of the tree. The ropy bark flayed my cheeks as it flapped in the screaming wind. I could see the twin tornadoes moving slowly towards us. The tempest increased in intensity, throwing large branches around and stripping the countryside. The air was moving so fast I could barely breathe. It was like the breath was being ripped from my lungs. I held onto Angel's wrists desperately as the mindless gale tore at my body, actually lifting me occasionally from the ground and slamming me back down. As the massive funnels drove down upon us, I felt myself lifted into the air, my legs pulled out from under me and out into the crazed cyclone. I wrapped my arms around the safety belt and held onto Angel as the wind began to swing us round and round the great tree like junebugs on a string. My arms cried out in agony with the pain of holding on. I sobbed and screamed. I threatened and begged. I cajoled and promised, fumed and fought, loved and hated...it made no difference. We were kites in the wind, tossed and turned like leaves, the fluttering whims of Aeolus. Finally, after every ounce of resistance was used up, I lost all hope and surrendered. I no longer cared to save my self and let go of Angel's hands, allowing the wind to carry me aloft like a gull tumbling on a hurricane. I sang though the currents of the atmosphere, naked and vulnerable, spinning slowly like a top just beginning to wobble, listing first this way, then that, like a small craft in heavy seas. It felt like I was flying, and when I wasn't immediately dashed on the rocks, I began to enjoy it. I even began to control my body on the currents, picking updrafts and crying out in excitement as I dove through the cold thermals only to fall into a cushion of warm air and rise once again. It seemed that I had always done this. It seemed like I had been flying this way forever, as though flight was not something I was doing, but something I was, something inherent to my being. I was a meridian, a latitude, an invisible line above the earth, dissecting the heavens. It was wondrous. When I awoke, I lay naked under the old cedar. Angel still slept a few feet away. Our clothes were knotted and wrapped around the tree. I smelled something acrid and realized I had thrown up. My body felt like someone had dropped it off a building to see if it would bounce. I sat up and fought off a wave of nausea. "Christ," I thought "I'm too old to do drugs." My head pounded as I tried to untangle my Jeans and after a fight, I slid back into them. I lay back down for a minute to quiet the drum solo in my brain, then staggered to my feet. Angel moaned but didn't waken. I decided he could fend for himself. "All an illusion," I told myself. "The whole thing was just a peyote induced dream." My realism made me somehow sad. I lay on my back and looked up at the stars. The night was startlingly clear. The sky shimmered. I wondered to myself if the crystalize sky was an after effect of the hallucinogen. As I lay there, gazing at the heavens, slowly putting my reality back together, I felt a small movement inside my left pant leg. I reached down and pulled up the cuff. My heart froze. A scorpion scrambled up my leg into the shelter of the denim. I panicked and jumped into the air, throwing off my pants like they were on fire. As I stood there on that roughshod cliff, thanking the heavens that I had not been stung, I slowly poked at my pants with a stick, trying to run off the deadly insect so I could get dressed. Suddenly I saw it and struck with all the force of my adrenalin charged veins. When I was sure it was dead, I turned up my trousers and shook them out on the ground. There it was, dead all right, not a scorpion, but an odd shaped piece of cedar bark. As I cursed that crazy night under my breath, I thought I caught sight of a yellow dog out of the corner of my eye, slinking through the shadows, but when I turned...nothing...only a vague sense that someone was laughing in the distance...laughing like running water. |
Copyright 1996 - Christopher K. Travis
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