Everything Happens for a Reason

Once we were mounted and saddled up, I looked at Laurie one last time to see her silently say the words, "I love you!" I winked and then turned Jessi to follow Sultan with John riding on his back. We rode for a good hour before John smiled and said, "So, tell me about Texas. I've never been there."

"Well, it looks kinda like this in some places, but its hot and dusty in others," I replied.

As he waved his arm across the mountainous horizon, he laughed and said, "There is no place like this, anywhere else on this planet, I assure you, my friend. However, it can be as dangerous as it is beautiful."

"Tell me about this horse that you and Mike were talking about," I cautiously asked.

Instead of answering my question, John pulled Sultan's reins, bringing him to a halt with Jessi following suit. Then, with a solemn look on his face, John took a deep breath and said, "You are about to take a journey, my brother. It is a journey that was taken by many before you. Some came back from it alive, most didn't. But, I feel that you have the heart of a great notaxeo'o (warrior) long gone from this world. He left part of his spirit here and it was poured into you when you took your first breath on the day you were born. I feel it stirring within you now. You have seen many places in this world and fought many terrible battles on the soil of our mother."

Suddenly my mind went back in time and the ghosts of the past began to come back to haunt me. I heard John begin to laugh at what I thought was my obvious distress with what he'd told me. "What are you laughing at?" I asked, irritated and not knowing why.

As John gave Sultan a nudge in the flanks, he began to walk again with Jessi following him. With his back to me, John laughed again and said, "I feel the conflict within you. I'm taking you to a very sacred place, my brother. You will know when the time is right."

"Know what?" I asked.

"You will know," said John, still laughing. I continued to follow where John was leading me. The house and the buildings around it had all disappeared long before the first hour's ride had passed. We were in the mountains by this time, and although there are much higher peaks in the Himalayas; I felt as if I were almost at the top of the world. The air was cool, crisp and clean. I literally felt the life in every breath I took.

Chapter Seven

We'd been in the saddle for three hours now and the view that I was bearing witness to was nothing short of spectacular. Before me lay nothing but green and mountainous landscape as far as the eye could see. I've already stated that there was a reason that Montana was called 'Big Sky Country' but this was a totally awesome sight. While I had been enjoying the scenery, John suddenly turned around atop Sultan and said, "Around this next bend is a very steep incline. We need to dismount and walk the horses down." I could tell that Jessi was apprehensive as we made the slow descent down the steep incline. If I had to guess, I'd say that were talking about a grade of at least fifteen to eighteen percent. Regardless, our trek continued until we slowly made it to the bottom to where a meadow, the perimeter of which was roughly eighteen hundred to two thousand square yards, lay softly before us. Once were there, John suggested we mount up and so, I did. I followed him across the meadow, out to an endless plain and then to a vast tree line that stretched as far as the eye could see on both sides of me. I followed John into the great forest until we came to a small running stream where we dismounted and tied the horses, near the water.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"We're near a very sacred place. It's a place where The Old One (The Devil) is said to live. My father took me there as a boy to see for himself. Two weeks later he was killed by a Grizzly Bear. I knew then that to tempt The Old One meant certain death. But with you I feel something very different. You have a strong spirit and it is the hope of the people that you can defeat The Old One, my brother."

"What're you talking about? What people?" I asked, confused. John reached into his pocket and withdrew what looked like some kind of hand made whistle. Placing it to his lips, he blew twice into it, making two very shrill, high pitched sounds. Within seconds I saw, or thought I saw a large group of Cheyenne Indians suddenly appear out of nowhere dressed in the traditional clothing of their eighteenth and nineteenth century ancestors. Looking at John, I asked, "Who're these guys?"

Pointing toward the men and waving his arm, John smiled and replied, "These are the souls of my ancestors. They have come from the spirit world to help you make the journey across the great plain. There you will fight and defeat The Old One." Then John produced an eagle feather from his saddle bag and I heard a commencement of ancient drums beating somewhere off in the distance. The men began to dance in a circle around us, chanting in Cheyenne. John walked toward me also chanting in Cheyenne. I stood frozen to the ground and the more I tried to struggle; the more solid my footing became. I couldn't move or speak, only breathe. Moments later, John stood before me and touched the tip of the eagle feather to my forehead and the last thing I remember was falling backward over a cliff......

The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back in an open prairie, looking up at the clear blue sky. I stood up to find myself wearing only a loin-cloth with buckskin breeches and moccasins. At my feet lay a bow, a quiver of arrows and a very large knife. Suddenly I heard a woman scream and the sound of something very large heading my way. After picking up the weapons, I ran toward the sound up a small hill and when I reached the top; I was sickened by what I saw below me. United States Calvary soldiers were riding into a peaceful village and slaughtering men, women and children left and right. I saw children the being shot and decapitated, the men being disemboweled and the women being raped and then mutilated. At the top of my lungs and with every ounce of strength I had, I raised my arms to the heavens and shouted, "STOP THIS MADNESS...IN THE NAME OF GOD!!!!!" At the mention of God's name, every soldier stopped and looked at me standing on the hill. That's when the fire began to rise up right in front of me. I saw it burning but felt no heat. I put my hand into the fire and felt nothing. Yet, when I looked down at my hand, it looked as if my flesh was boiling and dripping right off the bone. "This is such Bull Shit!" I said, aloud. And the moment I spoke, I found myself being transported somehow and left standing on the top of the biggest mountain I'd ever seen. I looked out at the horizon and all I could see were clouds. I couldn't tell where the heavens stopped and the earth began. Suddenly, the top of the mountain began to tremble and shake, finally exploding into flames, casting me off it's top and down into a fiery pit below me. I fell for a long time until I landed on my back in the middle of what looked like an arena of some kind. At one end of it sat a huge chair with a red linen canopy mounted on poles, extending high over the top of it. I looked around and thought, "I'll bet John put something in my canteen to make me sleepy and I'm having a dream. Well, if this is my dream then it's going to go my way!" I saw people filing into the arena all dressed in long buffalo skin cloaks, with the buffalo heads still attached and sitting atop their own heads. Then began the drums again only this time they were much louder, so loud in fact, that I could feel every beat all the way down to my bones. Again the fire blazed, temporarily blinding me. However, when the flames receded and my sight was regained, I found myself standing before the largest man I've ever seen before in my life. He stood, what I would say was, at least fifteen to twenty feet tall with eight to ten feet across the breadth of his chest to his shoulders. He was the most hideous creature I'd ever seen as his skin looked as if he'd been burned very badly and his face was the most disturbing sight I'd ever beheld. The fire had left a gnashing terrible countenance that endlessly dripped mucous and blood. He looked like what was left of an old Indian Warrior, long gone but, the only recognizable feature that would determine his Native American heritage was his long braided hair.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my kingdom?" the creature growled.

I wasn't afraid of what I consciously knew was a dream, albeit a very vivid one, but a dream none the less. So I looked at the creature, and laughing, said, "Jeez! You sure are one ugly mother-fucker," and continued laughing. Before I had a chance to say anything else, I felt something huge grab me from behind. As it lifted me off the ground, I could feel the flesh being ripped from my body. The pain was indescribable and it was then I knew that I wasn't dreaming. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew I sure as hell wasn't supposed to be able to feel pain in a dream. The next thing I did was the only thing I knew to do. I grabbed the knife I'd stuck in my belt and began stabbing wherever the creature was holding me. I finally fell back onto the ground and when I caught sight of what I'd been stabbing, I was terrified beyond all control. I was face-to-face with the biggest grizzly bear that I believe ever existed and there was no mistaking the fact that he was pissed off....at me. I could literally see his eyes burning a bright red, like the embers of an evening fire and I knew that if he got his gigantic paws on me, I was a dead man. So, when he lunged at me, I ducked and moved swiftly beneath him, cutting him as deeply with my knife as I could, all the way down the front of his body as I passed under and behind him where he stood. The creature screamed like nothing I've ever heard before, and as he turned around to face me, I saw his body laid open with flaming sulphur and ash flowing out of the wound and onto the ground right before the beast fell dead.

No time had passed before the tall Indian man stood before me in a rage, saying, "Now it is time for you to die, Ve'notaxeo'o (White Warrior)!" All at once, the ground began to shake and red and yellow fireballs began to rain down, striking the ground all around me. The creature reached down and knocked me through the air with just a wave of his arm. I landed against the far wall of the dark arena with the breath knocked out of me. When I came back to my senses, I was being restrained by the shoulders by a skeletal hand. I looked back over my shoulder to find a skeleton wailing in hideous laughter. I grabbed his hand only to have it come off of his body, releasing its grip and freeing me to fight. The beast was upon me before I could move and knocked me across to the other side of the dark arena. I raised my face to the heavens and shouted, "GOD, HELP ME, PLEASE!!!!!"

Suddenly a brilliant bolt of ice blue lightning came thundering down to strike me and I thought that I was going to die. However, as opposed to killing me, the lightning bolt gave me a sudden and endless burst of energy and the drumbeats I heard earlier in the forest were ringing in my ears, mind, soul and body. As soon as the beast made his move, I side stepped him and rolled a good distance away from him. Before he could get near me again, I reached into my quiver, withdrew an arrow and with my bow, let loose the arrow, to seek its dark target. The arrow hit the creature directly in the heart making the world, as I then knew it, explode all around me. All I saw was fire and all I heard were terrible, animalistic screams. I curled myself into a ball and the pain was so intense I passed out and then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw John before me smiling and saying, "Welcome back, my brother," while wiping my face with a wet rag.

"Where am I and what happened?" I asked, in a daze.

"You took a dangerous journey and came through the other side alive, my brother," replied John, patting me on the chest. As I looked up and saw the stars on a moonlight canopy, I realized that I had been out for a long time. But before I could say anything else, John added, "Our ancestors told me that you defeated The Old One and sent him and his devils back into the pit of darkness to dwell forever."

I laughed and replied, "Bull Shit! You put some kind of old Indian recipe in my canteen when I wasn't looking, didn't you?"

After rolling me over on my back and running the wet rag roughly across my skin, John rolled me back on my side and showed me the blood soaked rag that he was wiping me with and angrily said, "Now that you've witnessed the spilling of your own blood and the claw marks across your chest, do you believe?"

I raised my head, and with John's help and by the light of a fire that he had apparently started while I was out of it; I saw broad claw marks streaking bloody trails across the front of my entire torso. "Oh shit," I said, and then passed out again.

The next morning, I opened my eyes and as I began to move, I experienced a pain like nothing I've ever felt before in my life. As I groaned loudly, John looked across at me and said, "I have medicine that will heal you, ve'notaxeo'o!"

"I heard that in my dream or....whatever it was I had last night. What does it mean?" I asked John.

He looked at me like he'd seen a ghost and said, "Did the Old One call you that?"

"Well, I dreamed.....or at least I remember this real big son-of-a-bitch. He had to be at least fifteen to twenty feet tall and half as wide in the chest. He called me that and said it was time for me to die and then I shot him in the heart with a bow and arrow!"

"Then my vision was true. You are the ve'notaxeo'o (White Warrior), the chosen one who will come and make things right between the men in Washington and all the people," replied, John, with a lone tear slowly rolling down his right cheek and a gigantic smile across his face. Then he rolled me over onto my stomach, and taking something from a medicine bag that, I can only assume he brought with him; I felt something tickling my back. As I turned my head to look at him, John was sprinkling something across me. Then he stood me up and did the same thing to the wounds upon my chest, followed by wrapping my torso in white linen bandages and taping them closed. Patting me on the shoulder, he smiled and added, "Come, we have a wild stallion to tame, my brother."

As we went to saddle our horses, Jessi was acting differently toward me today. "Aw, what's wrong, girl?" I asked, softly stroking her neck. She leaned her head against me and I know she didn't speak with her mouth, that's impossible, but, I heard her heart tell me that she loved me very much. It was a very touching moment for me and I relished in it. John stood by smiling while he silently watched the exchange between Jessi and me. After Sultan and Jessi were saddled, we began a long and arduous trek into the high pastures of Mike's property. As before, the scenery was absolutely breathtaking and the more I rode, the less I seemed to feel the pain.

Breaking the beautiful silence like the shattering of glass in a church sanctuary, I heard the painful sound of a horse's whiny. Actually it sounded more like the scream of a frightened child to me, but the moment I heard it, John pointed ahead of us and said, Look! There he is."

Standing on his hind legs, three hundred yards ahead of us, was the most beautiful stallion I've ever seen. He was solid black, with a small but, brilliant white star in the center of his beautiful face. Then the stallion came down on all four legs and took off at a dead run, heading directly toward us. "He's gonna try to charge us," said John, as he reached for his rifle. I suddenly felt the stallion's heart. He wasn't evil; he was simply angry and afraid. He was angry because somebody killed his mother when he was young and he was left to fend for himself and now he was afraid and trusted no man. And the men that he'd supposedly killed, had all died either accidentally, or as a result of their own stupidity. I don't know how I knew this but somehow I just knew it. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name.

As John raised his rifle and aimed it toward the animal and while still keeping my eyes on the charging stallion, I grabbed his arm, causing him to lower his weapon and said, "No, John, please don't," and then I dismounted Jessi and started walking directly into the animal's path with my arms outstretched. I ignored John's pleas for me to get out of his line of sight and kept walking toward the animal. As the stallion drew closer, I could see the fear and anger in his eyes. He came to a halt not five feet in front of me and stood on his hind legs before he slammed down, tearing at the ground with his front hooves. I looked into his eyes and could now feel what he was feeling. I don't know how it happened at the time, but the stallion was able to feel what I was feeling and in that moment he came to know that I wasn't going to hurt him because he calmed right down, and then slowly walked up close enough to me to nuzzle me with his nose.

I slowly raised my hands and began to gently stroke his head and neck and said, "It's okay now, boy, I'm not going to hurt you." Then I looked back at John, and softly said, "Drop a lead line on the ground in front of you and then take the horses and back slowly away." After what he'd just witnessed, he dropped a line, holstered his weapon, and then grabbed Jessi's reins and slowly backed away with no argument whatsoever. I stood talking to this majestic and misunderstood animal, and the more I talked to him, the more I felt that he trusted me. People say that horses can't understand us, but, they're dead wrong. It was like a movie that was playing in my head, seeing the things that this poor animal had been through in his troubled life as his heart took mine through a journey from his first memory until now. I knew that I simply had to protect this beautiful creature. I was not going to let anyone turn him in for the reward that the Montana Cattlemen's Association put on him. All they wanted was to see him dead. Besides, now that he'd shared his memories with me, it was clear that he was only protecting himself when those men were killed. I walked over to where John had left the lead line and bent over. Right before I could reach the line, I felt the nose of a horse on my behind, knocking me over and gently whinnying as I fell over. Aw, the stallion wanted to play with me so I grabbed the piece of line, and with a laugh, took off running away from the horse. Of course he was on me in no time gently nudging me with his muzzle and knocking me softly to the ground. Once I went down, I got tickled and began to laugh uncontrollably. It wasn't long before the stallion was bowing his head to help me up off the ground and I took his offer gratefully. I slowly took the line out of my pocket and, while softly soothing him, ever-so-gently slipped it around his neck. Once the line was secure around his neck, I knew then that I would forever have this animal's unabated trust as he allowed me to lead him to John and the other horses. I never intended to violate that trust either, even if it meant going to jail or, worst case scenario, giving my life to save this animal; I would do it.

The look on John's face was priceless as I appeared leading the stallion which I had now named 'Mo'. It was short for mo'ehno'ha, the Cheyenne word for horse. Mo sidled right along side Jessi as I hopped on her back and tied him off to the saddle horn. It was sweet, the way that Sultan and Jessi nuzzled and showed affection for Mo and took him right in as one of their own. Unlike humans, horses trust one another implicitly and do that sort of thing. We could sure as hell learn from them; that much is certain. Although we weren't expected back for another day, me and Jessi, and John and Sultan headed back, taking our new friend, Mo, with us.