Dakota Dream (15 page)

Either Mrs. Greene didn't care for my attitude, or she had other things to deal with. She said, “We can talk more about this later. Was there anything else you wanted?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Can I have my pipe back?”

“Your pipe?”

“My ceremonial Dakota pipe. It got confiscated. Since it's one of my most prized possessions, I'd like it back.”

Now she knew what I was talking about. “I think we're finished with it,” she said. “I'll ask one of the nurses to put it in your bolster.”

“Thank you.” That was like a sign. When I left her office, my decision was made: I was taking off. There was no other way. Even if Barb worked her head off to get me the best placement, no one would listen to her; you had to admire her feistiness, but it was because of the feistiness that she would end up getting hung out, just like me.

In group therapy, everything got waylaid when Gary got into a long argument with a patient named Mr. Horderne. I don't know what the fight was about, but it gave me time to think about making a break. The doors at The Elms weren't locked, but you couldn't just walk out without permission; I would have to find a way to sneak out with nobody seeing me.

After supper, I went to the lounge and opened up a magazine. I wasn't really reading it, though, I was watching this supply closet down the hall where an orderly was going in and out. It was somewhat tense watching him, but then he finally made a trip clear down to the other end of the hall. The closet door was open.

As quick as I could, I popped inside the closet. I opened all the drawers of a cabinet until I found one with hand tools, tape, extension cords, et cetera. There were several screwdrivers, so I took the largest one. I put it in the back pocket of my blue jeans and pulled my shirttail down to cover it. Then I closed up the drawers and peeked out to scope the hallway; no one was coming, but my heart was pounding a mile a minute.

I went back to my seat in the lounge, just like nothing ever happened, and opened my magazine. I hoped my outside appearance was calm, but I was real shaky on the inside, and the screwdriver was cutting into my back.

Lights were out at ten-thirty on our wing. I was in bed, but wide awake and with my clothes on. I was waiting until eleven o'clock when there was a change of shift; the night nurses would come in and do some talking with the other nurses, who were getting ready to leave. If nobody did a room check right away, I could be gone a couple of hours or more before anybody knew I was missing.

About ten minutes to eleven, I heard some night staff coming in, and I could hear some gabbing and laughing down the hall at the nurses' station. I got out of bed and pulled the screwdriver out from under the pillow. Gary was snoring away; he was a sound sleeper and besides that, he was on some heavy-duty medication.

You were allowed to have the door to your room closed, so I pushed it, but I was careful not to slam it. Then I slid the screwdriver in between the two doors of the bolster, right where the lock was. I popped it hard, and it broke open with a loud crack.

Gary turned over in bed and lifted his head. “What the hell was that?”

“Nothing, I just crashed into the cabinet.”

“Why are you out of bed?”

“Had to go to the john. Sorry.” My heart was pounding away again. I only hoped to God they hadn't heard the crack down the hall.

Then Gary rolled back the other way. As far as I could tell, he was back to sleep. Anyway, he was quiet. I just stood there for a minute or two, taking deep breaths and trying to get my nerves and my pulse slowed down. Nobody came to our room.

I opened the cabinet door; there was enough light from the bathroom that I could see okay. Right next to my backpack was my ceremonial. I picked it up and held it. It was the final sign; if I needed one last piece of evidence that I was making the right decision, this was it. I was steady. All of a sudden, my nerves were like a rock.

I stuffed everything in the backpack, even the pipe, although it stuck out somewhat. I peeked out to check the hall the nurses were yukking it up at their station, probably swapping a few stories about the weirdos they worked with. What did I care, I had a date with my destiny.

It was only a few steps down the hall to the exit door; I slipped through and made sure it was quiet when I closed it. The stairway was easy; institutional stairways are run by fire codes, so they're real private. I had to go down two flights. The exit door at the bottom took me out into the parking lot, where I had to be careful; there was lots of light and I had to watch out for security personnel.

I got across the street as quickly as I could, onto this residential sidewalk with lots of old trees. It was dark and safe and private.

The walk to Barb's house took me forty minutes. It was only a couple of miles, so I could have made it faster, but I was keeping to the side streets to avoid public places with serious lighting. I approached her house from the back, by way of the alley; I had to be alert, in case any cops were cruising the neighborhood.

Her garage wasn't locked; it was only pegged with a dowel shoved down through the hasp. I slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind me. I laid a quarter-inch sheet of plywood up in front of the one window so I could turn on a trouble light without it being seen from the outside. Then I went to work on Nicky's Kawasaki.

I didn't give it the kind of attention it deserved, but then I didn't exactly have a lot of time to spare. I cleaned the fuel filters and the fuel lines, I cleaned the points and set the gap. I had to pump up the back tire. With the pressure to work fast, and being in the closed-up garage, I was sweating like a dog. I took five or six essential hand tools from the workbench so I'd have a basic tool kit to take with me on the road. Using the gas from the lawn mower can, I made sure the tank was full.

I didn't feel proud of the fact that I was about to take Nicky's motorcycle, but I was in this real get-on-with-it head. I knew that I was taking off, I knew how to go about it, and I wasn't in the mood for a lot of reflecting on right and wrong or consequences. Besides, he never paid any money for the bike, and he never took the time to work on it himself. Not only that, I planned to ship it back to him from the reservation, in much better shape than it was now.

I got the house key from the nail and went in Barb's house through the back door. After I drank about a gallon of water from the sink, I took half a loaf of bread and a half-full bottle of apple juice from the refrigerator and wedged them inside the backpack.

I wrote out a long note to Barb. I told her I was only taking off because they were about to hang me out again, and I hoped she would understand and not hold it against me. I told her not to worry because I was only going home to my destiny.

I left the note on the fireplace mantel. It ended up next to the picture of her son, who was dead, and her husband, also dead. I got some wholesale guilt out of this. In fact, this was the point where I almost lost my nerve. But instead of chickening out, I was inspired to write a P.S.:

I just want you to know how much I appreciate all you tried to do for me, especially the log. You are a very quality person.

Signed, CBC

By the time I went out the back door, it was a little past two-thirty in the
A.M.
I stood in the yard for a few moments looking at the log, but then I began to feel the guilt again. I got the motorcycle out of the garage and closed the door.

I walked the bike about three blocks to the Clark gas station. There was nobody at the gas station, of course, and all the streets were totally silent. I sat on the bike and got ready to fire it up. The first two times I kicked down on it, nothing happened. I got a sliver of panic. I felt real conspicuous, but it was too late to think about turning back. The bike
had
to start.

It started on the third try.

I got out of town as fast as I could and headed straight north on a country blacktop. It didn't take long for my eyes to get used to the dark. The cornfields whizzed by.

I could have been uptight about a lot of things, if I wanted to. The bike wasn't reliable, I was driving with no license, there was no headlight, I might run into a county lawman, and so on. The Pine Ridge Reservation was 800 miles away and I only had forty dollars in my pocket.

But I wasn't uptight at all; in fact, I was the opposite, which I guess would be ecstatic. I was free, like a bird, with the current carrying me. I was Charly Black Crow, and destiny was just ahead.

CHAPTER NINE

The fourth day of my
hanblecheya
was amazing. I went into a completely new mental zone, where all my emotions were numb; I didn't care what happened to me, but I didn't
not
care, either. I was awake, but I wasn't thinking; my mind was like a receiver.

Maybe it was from being so hungry and so tired. Maybe that was the idea of the
hanblecheya
, to break you down, so you were ready to receive your vision. Anyway, I just sat there like a stone, more or less. I saw pictures without thinking; my brain was like a screen for somebody's slide show. This was not a head I tried to get into; trying had nothing to do with it.

I crawled out of the cave and up on top of the mound, where I just eased down into the pine-needle carpet. It was almost like I wasn't there, I was just part of what was already there. I don't think words can really describe it.

I saw the Stone Boy legend complete. The pictures just came into my brain, real slow, one after another. I couldn't tell if I was watching him or if I was inside of him.

Stone Boy tracked his ancestors to the savage hunting ground of
Iya
, the Evil One. The Evil One sent showers of boulders, but Stone Boy dodged them all. Then the thundering herds of the Buffalo People came, but Stone Boy ran them into the sea, where they drowned.

Then
Iya
took the form of the ferocious serpent tree. Every limb was a huge serpent. Stone Boy hacked away serpents with his spear, but new ones grew in their place. Bigger ones, and more of them.

Stone Boy limped back to the hovel of Old Woman, who gave him food and shelter. She gave him a small, broken mirror and told him to take it with him to fight
Iya.
But Stone Boy laughed; he had a strong shield and a sharp spear. What good would it do to have a mirror?

The next day he cut away more serpents, but again they grew back. And the day after, the same. Stone Boy realized that destroying the serpent tree meant more than destroying something
Iya
sent; it meant destroying the Evil One himself. Understanding this made him very discouraged. He couldn't deal with defeat because he was used to the successes that come to a hero.

That night, Old Woman said again, take the mirror. So he did. He went the next morning to the serpent tree, carrying the mirror. He held it up to the tree and one of the serpents devoured itself; it shriveled down into a small, dead twig. Then another, and another. Stone Boy danced around the huge tree, holding up the mirror; he watched one serpent after another devour itself until the whole tree was only a small, dead stump.

It was amazing. Stone Boy laughed. With
Iya
destroyed, all the ancestors returned to life. They rose from the dead, and there was a huge celebration.

The same pictures of the Stone Boy legend kept passing across my brain, in the same order. The pictures were clear and consistent.

After that, I guess I went to sleep. Or half asleep, maybe dozing in and out. I kept having these dreams about the Stone Boy sequence, only everything was distorted. The serpent tree was now
The System
, and the serpent faces were replaced by the faces of Mrs. Grice, Mrs. Bluefish, Mr. Saberhagen, Mrs. Greene, and Mr. Wagner.

I kept rolling over, awake and asleep. I wanted to wake up for good, but I didn't have the strength. The dream was nasty, and I didn't want it. Stone Boy hacked away the serpent head of Mrs. Lacey, but Mrs. Greene grew in its place. All their faces and you couldn't cut them out, no matter how hard you tried. I had this terrible headache and I wanted to wake up because the dream was bad; but I couldn't stay awake and I couldn't sleep in peace.

I don't know how long it went on. When I finally came to, I was back in the cave, right at the mouth; I didn't remember going in there, though. Donny Thunderbird was holding my arm, and I could smell burning sage. Since Donny was crouching right at the cave's entrance, he was mostly a silhouette, with bright blue sky behind him.

He was asking me if I was okay and could I sit up. When I finally did sit up, he helped me scoot out into the light. I was so weak, I felt like a baby; I was all plastered with sweat. I could hear Delbert Bear's chanting voice. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was up on top, burning sage and chanting to
Wakan Tanka.

Donny had some soupy mash in a thermos. It was mostly rice, with little scraps of chicken mixed in. I ate six or eight spoonfuls. It tasted delicious, but it gave me a low-level stomachache. Then he gave me a thermos of tea, which was lukewarm, about room temperature.

“I wish it was iced tea,” I said.

“A drink with ice in it would be bad for you. It would give you a headache.” He was rummaging in my backpack. He got out my blue jeans.

“If you feel like you're up to it,” he said, “I'll help you put these on.”

I remembered I was naked. “I'm up to it,” I said. Then I had my pants on.

He gave me some more to eat, but slowly. He told me I should be real proud for lasting the whole four days. The food was delicious, but it was giving me this warm, dizzy feeling. I guess it might have been a little like getting drunk, but I've never been drunk, so I really wouldn't know.

I probably had another half pint of the food before Donny took it away. Then I drank some more of the tea. I asked him if we were going back now and he said, “Not yet; you're not ready.”

“Are we going back to the sweat lodge?”