THE KILLING SPIRIT: Dream Reader (11)

CHAPTER THREE
DREAM READER



He dreamed of Marie every night.

Every night he called her name and she came to him. She came to him on a floating red stallion, hair glowing in sunlight, eyes shining in moonlight, her smile radiating a vast horizon, her warmth melding to his.

Every night he tried to speak of his unending sorrow, the guilt and shame he thrust into his own heart, his yearning to live those few days, hours and minutes over again, to undo what had been done, and every night she placed her finger across his lips, silencing his mourning cry and easing his suffering.

Every night they let their bodies speak for them, finding words they could not find in life, finding oneness with the wind and sun, finding solace with all creatures of the earth, allowing themselves to be swept away in waves of liquid warmth.

Every night he bathed in her beauty. He received the gift of her lips, her breasts, the nape of her neck, her abdomen and thighs. He gave himself away and yielded to the relentless pull of her womb. Every night he lost his name, his sense of standing, his identity and shame. Every night he forgave himself in the soft comfort of her eyes.

Every night he held her as if he could stop the day from coming, as if the sun, the moon and the stars were tied to the beating of his heart. Every night he felt the rhythm of Marie’s heart become his own or his become hers and every night he believed she would never leave. He felt her breath, the calm of her embrace, and listened to her peaceful sigh and believed it would never end.

Every morning he awoke. Alone.

This night, as he lay by her side, holding back the cruel awakening, he sensed another presence. How can one describe a thing that has no substance yet it invades consciousness, shadowing all thoughts, obscuring all desires, until it alone is dominant?

Jerico’s anger began as a seed of discomfort and grew like weeds in an untended garden. How can you fight something that will not show itself? How can you answer that which does not speak? This darkness (for that is the only word that invites description) had found its way to his most sacred and private place.

His greatest fear was that he would never again be alone with his love.

The dream of the Mound Builders was unique. Jerico was unsettled by it but he was profoundly disturbed by his dream of Marie, a dream he had dreamed with only slight variation for a fortnight.

Some dreams come from deep within the psyche. They speak to fundamental needs within the soul. They arise out of basic desires. They are deeply personal and address wounds, chasms of the soul, which can only be healed in the great expanse of time.

Other dreams, like the dream of the Mound Builders, spring from a deeper well. They are manifestations of ancient memories, the collective consciousness of an entire people, the instinctive knowledge that is given voice in the stories and testimonials handed down from generation to generation.

Jerico had often dreamed of his ancestors, so often that he felt a direct link, a blood bond that connected him to Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Big Foot and others, but never had these dreams crossed over to other tribes and other native peoples. His were the people of the plains, of the buffalo and open skies. The seven tribes of the Lakota-Nakota-Dakota came from the north and migrated westward in a futile attempt to escape the white man’s advance. Only Tecumseh of the Shawnee had ventured from the north to the tribal kingdom of the mounds. Born under the sky of a great comet, Tecumseh tried to unite the tribes for a final assault on the European invaders. The enemies of the Lakota were not the Spanish conquistadors but the armies of the English, the French and the bluecoats who called themselves Americans. The people of the south did not answer Tecumseh’s call for they still believed they could make peace with the Great White Father. It would be many moons before the truth of Tecumseh’s vision was known and all tribes would unite in their common hatred of the invaders. It was a hatred that came from a very deep place, from the soil of the earth and the blood of her chosen.

Now it seemed the dream of the Lakota was the dream of all native peoples and the darkness had invaded both realms, the dream of the people and the dream of the self.

When Jerico was a small child he would hide in the tall grass, behind trees and rusty cars, where he watched Grandfather burning sweet grass, drawing lines in the dirt, as he read the dreams of others. He watched their faces as they struggled with Grandfather’s reading. When he was older, he would pound the drum or the keep the fire burning. He would do the same for his father before the white man’s sickness poisoned his spirit and stole his gift.

Dreams were everything to the Lakota. They were gateways to the overworld, windows to the soul, doors to a hidden universe of spirits, and bridges to ancestral gardens. Crazy Horse, who lived in two worlds, was one of the greatest dreamers and visionaries of all the Lakota but he was also a reader of dreams. His father taught him the wisdom and importance of interpreting a dream properly, in the tradition of the old ways.

As Jerico followed the winding road at a snail’s pace, the forest growing richer, smells more pungent, the air ever thicker, he contemplated his dreams and he knew where he must go. He had heard stories from travelers about the voodoo priestesses of New Orleans. As the black robes condemned them as practitioners of the dark arts, blood sacrifice and devil worship, Jerico considered them brethren spirits. He remembered how the priests and ministers tried to convert him to their church with the promise of heavenly paradise. Their voices were soft and gentle and he listened until he realized that their god would condemn his grandfather to eternal damnation. He understood then that the white man’s heaven is for white men alone.

Grandfather said: Keep your eyes wide open. Look to Father Sky but keep your feet planted on Mother Earth. The red road is revealed only to those who walk in a sacred manner.

He saw to his pony’s needs, fuel, water and rest, and then he let her find her stride on the open highway. They rode with the ghosts and shadows of a moonlit night, hitting the long bridge where the waters of the Mississippi scatter into the marshlands of Lake Pontchartrain at sunrise. He had never been so far south where the six and eight legs flourished and rabid plant life covered every inch of space. He had never breathed air so thick it covered the body with the sweat of the land. He had never felt the heartbeat of the earth slow to near stillness.

It began to rain and it rained so hard the wipers could not clear the way. Slapping back and forth at a furious pace, as if Lala sensed the danger, Jerico let go and allowed her to carry him to safety. She rode into the heart of the great city, the source, womb and birthplace of the continent, pulled to the side of the road and waited for the rains to ease.

New Orleans: Even the name suggested promise. New Orleans, city of jazz and vampire lore, was a dream of endless night where women bared their breasts on the streets, where swarms of masked and bearded people celebrated and danced, making love in store fronts, drinking until they passed out where they stood. It was a fantasy of sex, hustle and grime but it was a long way from Mardi Gras and the city that greeted them now was fresh and clean, washed by the torrent of rain.

He parked on the embarcadero, not far from the cathedral where a man in white with long brown hair, drenched from head to foot, summoned the ancestors with his magic flute. He walked through the courtyard down to Bourbon Street, gazing in windows crowded with trinkets like those the white man used to buy Manhattan, ignoring barkers pimping strippers, watching Bourbon Street irregulars perched on bar stools with chicory scented coffee, catching their breath and gearing up for the next wave of tourists.

A raven called from atop a wrought iron balcony and Jerico knew he had arrived. He stepped into Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo and there, amidst a cornucopia of charms, potions, fetishes, crystal balls and misshapen dolls, he asked to see the dream reader. The man at the counter sized him up and asked for twenty dollars, a discount for their native brothers. He was escorted through a wall of beads and a delicate jingle of bells announced his presence. A dark skinned woman dressed in layers of orange, yellow and black, matching bandana wrapping her head, sat behind a round table, draped in blue velvet, and gestured to the chair opposite her. She introduced herself as Madam Vouland, psychic, master of spirits, palmistry, tarot, voodoo and reader of dreams.

She spoke in a thick Caribbean accent and moved in the slow, deliberate manner of ritual or dance. The scent of jasmine permeated and the sound of distant waves caressed the senses. Jerico observed her in silence as she examined the space surrounding him, gazing into the air as if seeing what could not be seen.

“Bad juju,” she said. “Tell me your dream.”

He told her the dream of Marie as she played a deck of Tarot, hardly raising her head, hardly appearing to listen.

“This is not difficult,” she said. “You have lost a loved one, your soul mate, very likely. She is gone to the other side but she is here with you. She is with you now.”

“And the darkness?” said Jerico.

“It is your guilt,” she replied. “If Marie could speak to you now, she would tell you, you are not to blame. The earth spins, the spirit lives on, and the living must go on living.”

Jerico knew that she was not what she appeared and the reading she had given was no different than what any dime store gypsy would have offered, yet he remained where he was for he sensed that she possessed the gift.

Madam Vouland looked up, a little surprised that he was neither impressed by the generic reading nor departed. Time is money.

“Was there something else?” she asked.

Slowly, he began telling the dream of the Mound Builders. Slowly, he carved the image and placed it in the crystal ball of her memories. Slowly, he pulled tears from her eyes and drew at the gift she carried deep within her.

Madam Vouland knew this dream. She had dreamed it this very night. She had placed herself in the role of the chief’s daughter and her tears were real. She dropped the accent and folded her hand to his, speaking now as sister to brother.

“I know you,” she whispered. “I was there.”

He looked into her dark eyes and saw her truth.

“I was your child and you were my chief. The darkness that follows you is strong, more powerful than any I have known. You cannot win. There are centuries of history behind it. It cannot be defeated. Like the chief and people of the mounds, you can only run. You can only hide.”

She bowed her head and told him the story of her people, the Indio of the Caribbean, the people of God. The Europeans took them from their islands and made them slaves on the mainland. They took the people of the mainland, the tribes of the Natchez, to make them slaves on the islands but the mainland Indians revolted. They died rather than become slaves. “That is what ties us together,” she said, “and splits us apart: the slave trade.”

He asked if she knew the place of the seven mounds. She did but she did not wish to reveal it. “As sure as my tears are warm, it’s a trap,” she said. “This darkness is an evil spirit and it has chosen you for a reason. It wishes to own you as a man may own a woman or a woman may own a man. It knocks on your door at night. It crawls into your bed. It enters your dreams. It will find your weaknesses and exploit them. Run away. Or better yet, find an exorcist.”

She looked into his eyes and knew that he would do neither.

“Follow the Natchez Trace,” she said. “It’s about a hundred miles north.”

She pulled a charm from her neck and held it firmly in his hand. “You’ll need it,” she said.

She gave him back his twenty dollars and refused to hear his protest. Jerico understood. She wanted no part of the battle that was his and his alone.