APACHE BATS
By Gary Every
Art—David Castleman
How does magic take to war?
Mildred and James were walking home late at night, nervous. Mildred dreaded walking through the forest in the dark. She listened for owls, wolves, and the other familiars of witches. The last thing she was worried about was the political events in Europe . The year was 1941 and the war seemed more than a million miles away. These wars were so different from the types of war which the Apache had fought for centuries.
Many of the elders still remembered the days of raiding under great chiefs like Diablo, Cochise, or Geronimo. The war being fought in Europe with airplanes, tanks, and artillery, had little in common with the battles the Apaches had fought for centuries.
The twins would not have missed the dance at Grasshopper Point for anything. Mildred had worn her best beaded moccasins and James' cowboy hat held a golden eagle feather. Beneath the watchful eyes of the elders, they had spent the whole evening dancing with Apache teenagers from other villages. Mildred teased her brother, “Who was that girl you danced with all night long?”
“What girl?”
“The one with the butterflies in her hair…Jennifer something.” Mildred giggled.
James replied, “Wasn't that Stanley Two Dogs I saw you holding hands with during the circle dance? You looked like you wanted to do more than dance.”
Mildred showed great embarrassment at her brother's suggestion of impropriety.
A shrill screech filled the night, causing Mildred to cling fiercely to her brother. It did not comfort her when her brother clung back. They waited for an attack from a supernatural being. It sounded again, sharp and shrill. Still, nothing happened. It was Mildred who unattached first and searched the immediate vicinity. She held up an acorn with a hole in it. She placed it to her lips and blew through it like it was a whistle. “It was just the wind.” They both laughed, shattering the darkness, then resumed walking the steep winding path. The night was late and the way was long.
“I am tired of walking,” James declared. He began to sing loudly, his voice echoing through the forest. His songs were beautiful ones, melodies bouncing off the canyon walls. They were about horses, with colors, wind and lightning flashes in them. Just off the forest path, a horse emerged from between the trees. It was a beautiful black stallion with a white star on his face. Mildred froze in her tracks while it turned to look at her. James walked toward it and scratched it on its white patch. He shrugged and explained, “I was tired of walking. Do you want a ride home?”
Mildred stood there, jaw agape, stunned at the power of her brother's horse magic. She shook her head, ignoring his extended arm, fearful of being in the presence of so much sorcery. “Suit yourself,” James said, smiling. He mounted the horse and galloped home.
Mildred watched the black horse disappear. She listened to the clippety clop of the hooves until the echoes faded softly away, then resumed her wary watch for wolves, walking far into the night, all alone, her legs weary from dancing.
A great horned owl leapt from a tree branch. The giant bird flew toward her, long wings beating powerfully, an explosion of wind striking her face. She waited for her heart to still, wondering if James were home and already in bed. Mostly she wished that Stanley Two Dogs was walking with her, keeping her safe.
The trail entered a small and narrow canyon where the air was moister and cooler. The foliage was thick here and the trickle of a tiny waterfall could be heard but not seen. A patch of fog hovered between two boulders. The wind pushed the fog into a corner. There was the smell of cinnamon in the air. She listened closely to the wind as it whispered, unaware that the sorcery came from the fog. As the fog gained shape and body, she saw the ghost of her dead Aunt Agatha, crying, hair and clothing soaking wet. With tearful eyes, her dead aunt reached out for a watery embrace as if it were terribly lonely in the afterworld. Mildred screamed and ran.
Mildred never traveled alone thereafter and she always walked in sunlight. The fearful girl refused to stray far. One day, her grandmother convinced her to harvest wild plants.
“Grandmother,” she asked, “Do you remember Aunt Agatha?”
“Child, it is rude to talk about dead people.”
“The other night I was walking through the forest when I heard an owl, then I saw the ghost of Aunt Agatha in the fog. What does she want? How did she die?”
“Agatha was my sister. She died during a terrible storm, caught in a flash flood.”
“What does she want?”
“ Ssssssh, ” Grandmother scolded. “It is rude to talk about the dead.”
The two of them climbed rocky slopes throughout the day, gathering greens, lettuce and berries. Mildred carried the burden basket which gradually grew heavier and heavier from their harvest. Grandmother leaned upon her Naichee cane, the bells jangling as she walked, eagle feathers waving in the breeze. She announced that she was going to take a nap. She recommended that Mildred pick some flowers for her hair; it would be nice to smell beautiful.
As she slept, Mildred moved swiftly until she came to meadows carpeted with orange poppies, blue lupine, desert primrose, fragrant lavender, and mariposa lilies. Each flower was attended by a different butterfly. There were morning cloaks, sara orangetips, swallowtails, and blue sisters. Her flower hunting expedition soon turned into a butterfly stalking adventure. She loved to wear butterflies in her hair. She reached out with clumsy, grasping hands but the winged insects fluttered just beyond her fingertips, remaining elusive.
She let the butterflies come to her. She closed her eyes, listening to the songs of the world, swearing she could hear the rustling of their wings. The Apache maiden stood perfectly still, feeling the breeze from their tiny wings caress her skin. She could sense the presence of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of them hovering all about.
She was awakened with a kiss. Startled, she fluttered open her eyes and discovered herself in the arms of Stanley Two Dogs. He held her close and smiled. She melted as he leaned forward to kiss her again. She savored the caress of his long black hair against her cheek. She kissed him again and again as the butterflies hovered about, hundreds and hundreds of them surrounding the young lovers. She couldn't help it, she was so happy she tilted her head way back, laughing out loud and nearly swallowing a butterfly. With head tilted back, she looked up into a sky spectacularly blue except for one tiny cloud. It raced closer. The wind gusted, scattering the butterflies. The cloud swooped down like a bird.
“MILDRED! MILDRED!” The wind screamed, blowing chill. She looked into the cloud and saw the face of her dead Aunt Agatha.
A lightning strike erupted from the tiny cloud, landing between the two young lovers. Although it left them unharmed, the force of the blast was enough to send the butterflies tumbling in all directions. Mildred fainted. Stanley Two Dogs screamed and ran off as suddenly as he'd appeared. She awoke to find herself alone in the meadow.
“Nervous?” Mildred asked her brother.
“Nope,” James replied as he watched the other rodeo contestants.
She had to admit her brother looked the part of a dashing handsome Hollywood cowboy, even if he was an Indian. He was wearing his snakeskin boots, best denim jeans, and his cowboy hat with the golden eagle feather.
“If Grandmother catches you competing in the rodeo,” she scolded, “wearing your Easter best, there will be heck to pay.”
“If the horse doesn't toss me, the clothes won't get dirty.”
She was quiet. He always won the bronc busting events. “What about the hat?”
“You're right. It would be a shame if my eagle feather got crumpled.”
He walked over to Jennifer Peaches and asked her to hold his hat for safekeeping. She slid it atop her long black hair. She had to tilt it way back on her tiny head, but once she did you could see her eyes glow. “Good luck, James,” she said, her voice as lilting as the song of an oriole. The loudspeaker announced him as the next contestant.
Inside the chute, a horse named Ball of Smoke kicked and bucked. He scrambled up the split rail fence, placing a single leg across the back of the irate equine. The horse snorted. He took a deep breath, lowered himself onto the back of the enraged beast, and began to sing. When the chute opened, the horse came charging out, kicking and twirling. It spun and leapt while James hung on tight. It kicked its back legs into the air one, two, three times and still James kept riding. The buzzer sounded as he continued to sing. It calmed down, allowing him to ride all the way back to the pen while the crowd cheered. The judges awarded perfect scores. James fetched his hat from the smiling Jennifer Peaches and went to collect his money and champion's belt. He took the check straight to his father.
“Congratulations,” Mildred offered her twin brother.
“Thanks. But wish me luck, the bull riding is next.”
Mildred was amazed. “Your horse song works on cattle too?”
“No,” James replied calmly. “I'm just really good.”
When it came James' turn to ride he was tossed high and far. His clothes got really dirty. Grandmother was angry. The bull charged from the chutes, spun right, then left, tossing James high in the air. He landed in the mud. The enraged bovine lowered his horns, preparing to finish him off. A burst of red streamers raced between the fallen Apache and the charging bull; the rodeo clown honked his horn. The bull chased him. He rolled a barrel toward it and the bull attacked the barrel. They both escaped over the fence and James shook the clown's hand.
“Don't you recognize me?” the clown asked, his painted face smiling.
He was Willie Neal, Cibecue's most famous shaman.
Mildred was making something to eat for her grandmother and herself. She looked into a cup of tea and saw the reflection of Aunt Agatha, hair and clothes soaking wet. She trembled, spilling the tea.
“Child, what is the matter?” her grandmother asked.
“Aunt Agatha…”
“Hush. It is rude to speak of the dead.” She grabbed both of Mildred's hands. “I do not know what my dead sister wants. She was a very sweet person in life but who knows how the afterworld might change a person? This will ward off witchcraft.” She placed a red coral bean in Mildred's right hand.
A galloping horse approached grandmother's wickiup. James was on top, running his steed swiftly. “I was listening to the radio at the Peaches' house,” he blurted out.
Mildred smiled. He'd been there because Jennifer was teaching him how to dance.
“I was listening to the Glen Miller Orchestra,” he said, “when a special news bulletin cut in. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and sank a ship called the USS Arizona.”
The next time the sorcery visited Mildred was in a dream. While grandmother slept, a single lavender butterfly flew into the wickiup, landing on Mildred's sleeping mat. The tiny butterfly whispered into her ear. She dreamt the scenes the butterfly was describing. She was high atop a mountain meadow, harvesting flowers. Rows of different-colored flowers were growing alongside a babbling brook, the blossoms waving in a gentle breeze. Every time the wind blew, hundreds of butterflies were lifted into the air, satin wings shimmering in the sunlight. The wind gusted, blowing so hard she was forced to hold down the hem of her skirt. Her hair flew away from her head like a flag. Hundreds of butterflies were blown into the air, circling all around Mildred like a cyclone of winged insects.
Suddenly a shadow blocked out the sun, not a cloud but a giant butterfly. It had the torso of a human being and a pair of antennae stretched up from his head. From behind the shoulders two huge wings spread, twice as large as the man. It landed gracefully in the meadow. As soon as it touched the ground, all the butterflies fluttered towards him. They knelt down with wings upraised. “I am the butterfly king,” the voice announced.
Mildred swooned. The butterfly king caught her and encouraged her to climb on his back. The two giant wings began to beat in long slow powerful strokes, gradually lifting them into the air. The butterfly king surfed the canyon breezes, soaring just above boulder and tree. Mildred giggled from exhilaration. They flew over mountain peaks, through clouds, and raced eagles. She hung on with a tight bear-hug while they swooped and soared. Where grandmother remained, the wind whistled through the forest, calling the name of the dreaming girl. “Mildred, Mildred…wake up, Mildred.”
The sleeping girl ignored the voice, preferring to stay in the dream world where she was atop a mountain peak, surveying the entire kingdom of Apacheria . She could smell the scent of every flower in the world. The wind dried her name in a high-pitched shrieking wail. She ignored it, puckered up to kiss the butterfly king. In the clearing outside the wickiup the wind rustled, tossing leaves and pine needles in the air. It spun and circled, lifting small stones and twigs, growing larger, twirling itself into a dust devil, ripping the grass thatch roof off grandmother's wickiup. Grandmother and Mildred were tossed from their sleeping mats. Mildred reached out and grasped reflexively, fingers closing on the red coral bean. The dream ended suddenly.
The tiny cyclone did not. It raced along the edge of the beaver dam, tossing sticks and mud in the air. The spinning wind hovered above the pond, sucking up water from the surface. Inside the waterspout there was the shape of a liquid maiden. It was Aunt Agatha, soaking wet and crying.
Father had taken the wagon into town and missed the miniature cyclone. It was left to Grandmother and Mildred to rebuild the wickiup. The beaver repaired his tiny dam. They worked all day and when father came home, he pitched in too. They finished just before sunset. Mildred leaned against the door, sipping from her ocotillo flower tea while a purple-chinned hummingbird hovered above her savoring the fragrance of steam. Weary, Mildred closed her eyes, eager for sleep, hoping the butterfly king would revisit.
The clippety clop of approaching horse hooves could be heard. The horse could not be seen; there was only the thundering hooves charging ever closer. Mildred huddled inside Grandmother's protective embrace. The horse snorted, running towards them. Father grabbed his agave stalk lance and stepped outside just as a beautiful black horse arrived at Grandmother's door. The horse was holding a letter in his teeth.
“It is for James.”
Father put his lance away. Mildred stepped outside, taking the letter from the horse's mouth. As a twin, she had privileges other siblings didn't. James did not always agree with this theory but wasn't there, so she opened the letter.
“James has been drafted.”
“Dang Ginger Biscuit!” Father cursed. “We need that rodeo money.”
“We can cut expenses,” Grandmother said.
“We can cancel the Naichee,” Father returned.
“What?! We will not cancel my granddaughter's Sunrise ceremony.” She retrieved her crooked cane and waved it at Father. “I am old but I can still climb mountains because I have my Naichee cane. Let me beat you with this cane and we will see if your head is stronger than Naichee.”
Mildred tossed and turned far into the night. The thought of James fighting in a war on another continent in countries she had never heard of frightened her. That night she made sure to wear her medicine pouch to bed, warding sorcery away. The ghost of Aunt Agatha did not haunt her but the butterfly king did not visit either.
“Father?” Mildred asked, as she lay awake worrying. “Where is James?”
“He is hunting with Stanley Two Dogs.”
The two young men sat around the campfire, enjoying a meal of fresh venison. Stanley nudged James with his elbow. “You like Jennifer Peaches, huh?”
“She sure is beautiful.”
“You want her? I can help you have her. Ever smoke butterfly?”
“What does it do?”
“It gives you the power to cast love sorceries. Jennifer Peaches could be yours.”
James hesitated. Grandmother would not approve. “No, thank you.”
“Fool,” Stanley chuckled, taking another hit.
After four nights without a visit from the butterfly king, Mildred went to bed without her medicine pouch. That night she had a terrible nightmare. She was walking beneath a clear blue sky. It was the bluest she'd ever seen, yet suddenly it was riven by lightning. The spears of electricity came from opposite ends of the horizon and where they touched in the middle of the heavens a single dark cloud appeared. It was a tiny thunderhead, the type that is filled with weather. The lightning did not come from it but shot into it. Every time the lightning spears pierced the cloud, it grew larger. Thunder rattled the earth, the wind gusted, and that single cloud grew until it stretched from horizon to horizon. Everything stopped for just a moment and there was a silence so startling it nearly awakened Mildred. Then the storm began falling from the sky in a drenching downpour. More rain fell than she'd ever seen or imagined. The earth began to flood. First valleys and soon even mountaintops were submerged beneath the rising waters. All the animals drowned. Her family, friends, and all the Apache people were washed away. The only creatures left were birds, circling the storm-tossed skies. Their wings tired as they flew until they succumbed to weariness one by one, plunging into the floodwaters.
There was only one surviving creature. This lone survivor, a human being, a woman, was floating on top of a giant piece of abalone shell. She was lying face down on it, exhausted and soaking wet. Mildred found herself wanting to comfort this wretched woman. She knew from the old stories that this was White Changing Woman, the mother of us all. White Changing Woman was shuddering with tears, devastated at being all alone.
The prostrate figure on the shell looked up at Mildred, reaching out with both arms for a wet embrace. As she looked into her eyes, Mildred realized that White Changing Woman was wearing the face of Aunt Agatha. Mildred screamed, waking everybody else.
“That old man is full of nonsense,” Stanley Two Dogs declared. The blasphemy made James nervous. Stanley explained, “We have to report to Boot Camp soon and I am not going to waste time with some crazy old coot. I have beautiful girls to chase.”
Willie Neal had requested that all the Apache boys who had been drafted meet at the base of Mt. Baldy . James and six other boys, everybody except Stanley Two Dogs, sat around a clump of boulders waiting for the famous shaman. Suddenly he was sitting on a granite boulder as if he had been there all along. He silenced their questions and led them scrambling up the granite cliffs. They reached a ledge and sat near a small cave. They waited until sundown. Then the cave came alive like the opening of a hell mouth. A great burst of wind and commotion came rushing forth. Willie alone remained calm as the bats flew past with a furious flapping of wings, thousands of them. “I'm going to teach you bat magic,” he said. “When we're done you'll know how to flutter, bob and weave so that the bullets will not find you.”
James' journey by train took him farther away from the Apache lands than he'd ever been before. He kept his forehead glued to the window, watching the landscapes roll by—birds he'd never seen, unknown mountains, new flowers and trees. The whistle would blow while the trainload of soldiers rolled down the tracks. He'd never seen so many people of so many different colors before. At least he didn't have to take the trip alone. Stanley Two Dogs rode alongside him, sleeping through the trip, grumbling about food.
James liked the food. There was lots of it. He liked the uniform. He liked everything about boot camp except the haircut. That made him cry. He wondered for the first time how he'd ever get home.
To prepare for her Naichee ceremony, Mildred had spent months beading her beautiful buckskin dress. She would dance while Willie Neal sang and the band played. The village was welcoming Mildred into the community as an adult. After four days of intense purification, Mildred had temporarily become the perfect incarnation of White Changing Woman, whom she'd seen in her dreams, who had passed magic to her. She closed her eyes and wished hard.
In the middle of a clear blue sky, a double rainbow stretched from mountain to mountain, prismatic stripes covering the sky. Willie Neal's jaw dropped in amazement.
“I wished for James to come home from the war safely,” Mildred explained.
James was terrified as he looked out the airplane window. He had never flown before and this was nothing like his dreams. The plane was loud, bouncing from cloud to cloud. Looking at the faces of the other soldiers, he could smell the fear. The tiny plane was buffeted by the wind. Stanley Two Dogs was turning an unusual shade of green.
The staff sergeant began barking orders and although James could not hear him over the roar of the engines, he marched to the door in a line with the rest, anxiously awaiting his first skydive. One by one, the recruits were shoved into the air by the sergeant. James had no idea where he might find the courage. The wind ripped through the open door and terror gripped his heart. Then in the middle of a clear blue sky, a double rainbow appeared. James could not say exactly why but he thought of his sister, of the White Changing Woman, and a calm washed over him. He jumped. The parachute opened and as James floated down to the earth, it felt like flying in his dreams.
Mildred stared at the tines, trying to remember which was the salad fork. It seemed so strange, so pointless, and yet she had a job to do. She straightened her apron; she was a Harvey Girl and that meant offering the best service possible when the next train disembarked. During the war years, the only trains that stopped at Winslow , Arizona were the ones with soldiers. Mildred always tried to offer them a kind word, thinking of her brother.
She returned to the reservation for a rodeo. It was good to see friends and family again. Many of the children had grown noticeably taller. With James gone and unable to defend his title, many of the young men had entered the bronc busting. The boys also took advantage of his absence to flirt with Jennifer.
She spent a depressing night at home. A storm came up. Lightning ripped apart the heavens and thunder rattled the earth, striking the center of the beaver pond behind the wickiup. The thunder boomed so loud that it stopped Grandmother's snoring and waked her up. A strange scent filled the air. Grandmother and Mildred both sniffed. “Cinnamon,” Grandmother stated. “Agatha loved to wear cinnamon in her hair like perfume.”
“It is a beautiful smell,” said a voice in the pond.
“Agatha?!” Grandmother rushed to the water. Mildred followed behind, trembling. Aunt Agatha's reflection shimmered atop the beaver pond. “You should know better than to travel a narrow canyon road during monsoon season,” Grandmother scolded.
“I was bewitched,” Agatha explained. “I was chasing butterflies when suddenly a wall of water overwhelmed me.”
There was a pause and then Grandmother asked, “What is death like?”
“Lonely.” The wet witch began to cry, reaching out with both arms.
Then Grandmother did something Mildred could never have imagined. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes misted. Then tears began to fall. Mildred had never seen her grandmother cry before. She'd never even thought such a thing was possible and yet here she was crying like a little girl.
“I miss my sister,” Grandmother sobbed.
Two hands reached up from the pond. Grandmother stretched out in response. Mildred tugged on the hem of her dress but Grandmother plunged into the frigid waters. When Mildred tried to pull her back, Grandmother knocked her hand away and shouted, “I want to spend eternity with my sister.”
She kept marching until the water was over her head, smothered in her sister's embrace. The two women hugged tightly, sisters sobbing with joy, bubbles rising up to the surface as they kissed. Mildred sobbed and turned to go when Grandmother shot back up suddenly, breaching the small pond and blurting out with her last gasp, “Mildred, you have the power to control the weather. That is what Agatha has been trying to tell you…and stay away from Stanley .”
As he fell from the sky, James sang bat songs. The sky was vast and wide and the bullets could not find him because James knew how to flutter, bob and weave. He sang the bat songs louder. Many of the soldiers around him screamed as German bullets ripped through their torsos, ending their lives in the middle of the sky. James continued to bob and weave. He could hear the bullets whiz past and some even pierced the fluttering parachute canopy but James remained unharmed.
He landed hard, stumbling to his knees. The parachute tangled in the stiff breeze, dragging James along behind. The enemy continued to shoot. American soldiers continued to scream and die in a withering crossfire. James cut his chute, rolled to his feet and returned fire. It seemed futile; there were so many German soldiers and so few American paratroopers had survived. James cursed in Apache as he fired again and again, shooting until he was out of bullets.
Mildred tried to practice the special magic Aunt Agatha said she possessed. The ability to control the weather. She made it lightning. Ka-Boom! There was a summer storm rolling in and it was probably going to thunder anyway. She made it rain but it was hard to tell if it was magic or an overactive imagination. She wished the skies clear but then that is how monsoons work, sudden storms followed by clear skies. She still wasn't certain. She made it snow in the middle of the summer in Winslow , Arizona . She was certain. These powers were amazing. She filled the night sky with rainbows in circles and rows, dancing rainbows. Lightning flashed and flashed. A huge ominous cloud gathered. It grew larger as Mildred began to grunt from strain. From the monstrous thunderhead a funnel cloud swirled, descending towards earth. They disappeared instantly. She wished for a soft gentle wind. This pushed the clouds over the horizon, revealing a full moon.
To her surprise a picture began to unfold on the surface of the moon almost like a movie. There was chaos, violence and death. She could hear gunfire and screaming, the roar of airplanes and bombs. There was James, screaming in frustration and throwing his gun at the enemy because he was out of bullets. She screamed as loud as she could but James could not hear her. Instead, a sniper was showing anticipation. Without understanding how much magic she really controlled or how far it could reach, she used her newfound powers. A lightning spear zigzagged across the sky until it struck the center of the moon. Sent all the way from Arizona , it landed in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. It hit the earth so hard the ground shook. A tall tree was instantly incinerated, trunk and stump burning. The incredibly huge thunderbolt blinded everybody for an instant, just long enough for a well-trained sniper to miss. The German soldier shot millimeters high and James' hat tumbled from his head. Mildred fainted from the effort.
Mildred was awakened when a butterfly landed on her nose. The lavender butterfly landed softly, using the wind of its wings to awaken her. She had to cross her eyes to look at it. It appeared to be weeping. Mildred looked up into the face of the moon and saw Stanley Two Dogs as he clutched at his chest, staggered and toppled over. The butterfly vanished.
Mildred watched the moon where James rose up from beside a fallen horse and ran into the forest. The German soldiers chased after him.
James ran for all he was worth. Flutter, bob and weave. He ran between the hills, cut behind trees, and splashed upstream. He would surely have outdistanced them, but the sentries had motorcycles. Atop their mechanized steeds, the German soldiers quickly closed in on the renegade brave.
Horrified, Mildred made a drenching downpour which rendered the motorcycle tires useless in the soft deep European mud. James continued to flee, but the German soldiers dismounted and chased their quarry on foot. Mildred made it rain harder, so that it made the sky as black as night. Exhausted, James staggered for a hill, weaving between the boulders. The freshly dismounted soldiers closed in on him.
James collapsed, hiding behind a large boulder, his heart pounding. The rain fell so hard that it obscured vision. James sat behind the boulder, gasping for breath and soaking wet. He needed a place to hide.
The highest-ranking German soldier barked orders. James could not understand a word but the intent was clear. The soldiers split up and spread out, covering the countryside more efficiently. As they patrolled the field, he cursed his luck. There was no place to run. Mildred watched the scene. With tears in her eyes, she screamed as loud as she could, but it did not change the movie on the moon. She closed her eyes and made another thunderbolt.
Ka-Boom! The spear of lightning struck the German officer in the chest, killing him instantly. The German troops were thrown into disarray. During the brief flash of illumination, James turned his attention to the sky and at the top of the hill he saw a tiny flying creature…flutter…bob…weave. A tiny bat had flown from the crevice between two boulders near the top of the hill. It surely meant that the crevice opened wider into an overhang or small cave suitable for a bat roost.” With the soldiers temporarily distracted, James burst uphill. Sure enough, there was a cave. He crawled inside as deep as he could.
Mildred made it rain so hard that droughts followed for months. She caused hail to fall. Hailstones ricocheted off the soldiers' helmets. The new commanding officer ordered the soldiers to return to the sentry post to avoid the turbulent weather. They were only too happy to comply. James sat in the cave, safe from the war, sheltered from the storm, dreaming of home.
Mildred's experience at the Harvey House had made her curious about the outside world. After the war was over she ventured to Phoenix and enrolled at Arizona State University . After graduation she returned home, taking a role in tribal government.
James, returning from the war, married Jennifer's little sister and they resided in a modern government housing project complete with electricity and a radio. James learned to hate the radio, especially when the kids grew old enough to tune the dial themselves. They listened to new-fangled noise called rock and roll. It drove James crazy. His wife insisted the house be surrounded by peach trees. James ran a successful horse ranch and sang at work all day long. They were mostly as happy as you could expect, but in his old age James wanted something more, to contribute something to the tribe to keep the culture alive. He opened a studio for rodeo clowns. Every semester he began his first lecture for the new students with words the shaman had told him: “It is all about tradition.”