Acceptance of Fate: Part 2 Purple Eyed Dream

By: Alex Sitz

In a bison hide teepee, a fire cracks and snaps as a stew in a pot, suspended by cooking sticks, boiling over it. Smoke rises from the fire and wafts out the hatch in the top of the structure, as a single beam of light shines down onto the animal hide floor. A man sitting cross-legged next to the fire, leans over to stir the pot suspended above it. His long black hair, tied into a braid with multiple painted feathers sticking out of it, runs down his brown colored bare back. Behind him, a shaggy blonde man lays under a buffalo hide blanket asleep. His bearded face is worn from a life of physical work, with a scar from a past battle placed under his left eye, and his left arm wrapped in a white cloth bandage stained with blotches of red blood. His torn and blood stained shirt hangs at his feet, with his rifle and antler-handled bowie knife, stained with blood, resting underneath it.

It was the trapper. Suddenly, his eyes shoot open, and he wildly looks all around the teepee. He did not know where he was or what had happened to him, with only one question entering his mind. 

“I’m alive, but how?”

Instantly, the events of the last time he was conscious rush back to him. The trap for the bear. Everything going horribly wrong. The shot of his rifle, leading to unimaginable pain. Drawing his knife. Deep cutting stabs to the bear's head, then its fall, and finally, its death. Propping himself up against a tree. The darkness taking him. But how he came to be here was a question he did not have the answer to.

Outside, he can see the outlines of two horses and a mule against the teepee wall. On the other side of the teepee, there is a large hide leaning up against the wall, tanning in the sun. Through the small entrance, he can see a small welcoming meadow, lined with tall pines that cover the ground in shadow at its edges. 

Now scanning the tent, he notices the man slowly, but deliberately stirring the clay ceramic pot with what seems to be a hand carved wooden spoon, seemingly not paying any attention to him. Under the man's braids, a scar that stretches sideways from his right shoulder to just under his left armpit is visible. Each mark expands and contracts with the native's breathing. 

Trying to sit up, the trapper is suddenly aware of a great pain in his abdomen. He grunts slightly as he gets to a full upright position and puts his hand down to his stomach feeling the white bandage around him, where the pain is originating from. The native obviously hears the grunt, but doesn’t react to it in any way except for the fact that the Indian starts to speak.

“You’ve been asleep for a long time.” He says, speaking his own language, but having lived long enough in this land, the trapper recognizing it to be Shoshone, and understood it well. “It has been five sun ups and five sundowns since I found you.”

The native’s voice gave the sense that he knows a great many things, as though he has lived a thousand lives while not being much older than the trapper himself. The trapper, upon hearing these words, looks down at the buffalo hide blanket covering him. Removing it to take full inventory of the damage, the trapper finds a third blood stained cloth around his upper right leg. As he did, the Indian, without looking, somehow knows what is happening behind him and speaks again.

“You were in a great fight with a beast that has killed men before, you were lucky to bring it down, and that I was close enough to find you in time.”

Finding his voice, he replies in Shoshone, “Where am I?”

“In the land of the Sheep Eaters, the tribe of which I belong to, days ride from where I found you.”

“We are in your village?”Asks the trapper as he tries to rub his tiredness out of is face.

“No, I am what they call a lone wolf, a man that lives outside the order of the tribe, but still follows their traditions and religion.”

“Who are you?”

“They call me Aagwayq Hoagande, meaning Bear Warrior, but some French trappers called me Seul. They told me it means "alone”, you can call me that if you wish.”

As he says this, Seul grabs a small wooden bowl off a grizzled brown fur rug, that must be from an old grizzly, and using the wooden spoon, methodically scoops some soup into the bowl. He then turns and hands it to the trapper, and for the first time, the trapper gets a good look at his face. It was just as he expected. Suel is past his youth, but not quite an old man yet. His dark brown eyes show years of knowledge and hard work, with a fiery speckle of Shoshone brave spirit within them. He is of average build, with lean arms and a full chest. As he hands the bowl to the man, their hands touch and the trapper discovers how rough they were, but with a gentle touch to them. 

“And what do they call you, where do you come from?” Aagwayq Hoagande asks curiously.

The trapper pauses for a brief moment. No one in a long time had been around or had reason to ask him that question, he had also forgotten. Finally finding the words he answers.

“Martin, my name's Martin Jean. I came here from a fort back in the Dakota territory.”

“Why did you come here, Martin Jean?” questions Suel in a concerned tone.

“I was looking for beaver and any other kind of fur I could sell,” Martin answers in between sips of soup,“but that bear put a damper on that.”

As he finishes his sentence, a sharp stabbing pain that feels almost as if he has been shot in the gut, enters his stomach right in the center of the bandage around his stomach. Martin doubles over in pain and lets out a groan, dropping the bowl of soup that spills across the buffalo hide. His vision blurs with pain, as Suel helps him lay back down. Suel says something, probably trying to soothe Martin, but the trapper can not make a syllable of it out. As his head hits the ground his vision goes from blurry to almost black, until the darkness consumes him with the last thing he sees is the face of the Shoshone Indian man hovering over him.

Woods. Thick, deep, pine tree woods. The giant lodge poles tower over the thick vegetation, made of mostly unflowered and fruitless huckleberry bushes covered in a thin layer of mist. The looming trees block out most of the sun, casting an eerie appearance across the forest seeming to silence the forest, for no sound can be heard within it. No sweet chirping of birds, nor caws of crows. No songs of elk or squealing of squirrels. No humming of buzzing bees or tricking of water. Not even the wind blows through to rustle the leaves. The silence of the forest gives any visitors a wary feeling.

A man. A tall, shaggy blonde headed man stands naked, except for a buck skin loin cloth that hangs down around his waist, amongst the foliage. The greenery of the forest floor covers him up to his hip so that only above his waist is visible. His white skin and blonde beard contrast against the darkness of the green woods makes him look completely out of place. From where the man stands, the woods have seemingly no end, but only disappear into darkness.

He stands staring out into the where the green disappears into dark blur. His gaze breaks and he looks around, taking in all that he sees. While looking around, his head jerks as something rusting in the undergrowth out toward the edge of the darkness. The rustling starts moving on a straight line closer to him. The man watches intently as it does, moving nothing but his eyes. The movement continues closer without stop or pause. Finally about 20 yards from the man, a brown fur back appears through the foliage, moving through like a beaver through the water. Its shoulders move up and down as it strides closer. Its round ears point out at an angle emerging  over the greenery, and then its head, both much darker brown compared to its body. Its black nose on its pointed snout sniffs the air curiously. Its ribs collapse and expand with every breath of its round body.

Now ten yards, the man still watching the animal, understands that this is a bear. But not just a bear, a brown phased black bear. Less than ten feet away, the bear stops and stares up at the man. The man can hear its every breath and see every hair on its body. Its hair is not just brown, but has a thin blonde streak going down along its spine.

“Probably female,” thinks the man, “Probably a young female.”

While being so close to an animal that is normally unpredictable, the man feels no fear towards the bear. For a moment, the man and young bear lock eyes. Looking into the bear's eyes, the man notices how her eyes were not as a normal bear’s eyes are. Her eyes are deep and caring, full of life and youth, yet knowledgeable and mystic, but more than that they look closer to the eyes of a person than a bear. They are not human colored though. They are purple. Purple like freshly boomed lavender in the spring. Gazing into those deep purple eyes, the man found himself getting lost within them. Mesmerized, the man looks into those purple eyes for a long time and they look back into his.

Then, without a sound or reason, the bear takes a step back into the undergrowth and begins to stand up on its hind legs. Just as her front paws raise from the ground, a haze falls upon her that clouds her from the view of the man. The man watches as the smoke and haze rises and grows to his eye level where it stops. The haze then begins to dissipate starting from the top, cascading down the length of the form that was the bear and mists off into the greenery it is standing in. As the smoke falls and mingles into the fog among the overgrown huckleberry bushes below, it slowly reveals what it was finding; a woman.

Not just any woman, a beautiful native woman dressed in her buck skin ceremonial dress. The dress in question was well made and complements her slender build with a simple design, fringed all around its edges, with the fringes on the arms flowing down the length of her body. Blue beads, the color of robin's eggs, lined with pearly black beads, are woven across her shoulder and all the way down the tops of her arms as they sit elegantly at her side. Her black hair, done up in a single braid, drifts down her neck and onto her back, stopping just below the line of beads. Though she seems to be clothed finely, she wears no shoes or moccasins, so her feet sit bare on the earth, yet are completely clean of all dirt or mud. Her face glowing with youth while showing no signs of blemishes. The only way the man could tell that this native woman was once the bear, is that her eyes are the same shade of purple, but they show even more brilliantly against the young woman's stunning face. Even though the forest is cast in shadow, the woman has a radiance about her.

Her lavender eyes gaze straight into the man's eyes and his back into hers just as the bear’s did. For a moment she does not move or sway, only looks at the man. Then out of nowhere, her lips move almost catching the man off guard.

“Martin,” she calls him by name eloquently, but continues with a tone of warning, “when the moon is full over the great river valley of the burning mountain, the Spirit of the Thunder Bird will touch the earth. There, he will scorch the earth as to renew it, but it will first have to destroy all upon it and all in its path.”

Martin puzzles over her words then pauses briefly before asking,

“Why are you telling me this?”

But she goes on, as if his question was irrelevant, “When the flames come down upon you, look for me to guide you out. Do not falter in following me otherwise you too will be destroyed.”

Again looking into those purple eyes he asks her, 

“Why do you tell this to me?”

“I tell you this to let you know that your journey will not end there, you are meant for more than you know, but you must trust me, do as I say, for if you do not, you too will be destroyed. I will guide you through the renewing flame as long as you follow me ”

“Meant for more than I know?” repeats Martin more to himself than to her. 

As the words pass his lips, the woman turns from Martin, back toward the darkness at the edge of the wood, and starts to walk away. Her walk must be the most graceful thing the man had ever seen; she seems to glide through the underbrush as she goes, cutting through the bushes like a knife. The man watches her every move as she goes, almost studying her. For a moment he feels as though he might recognize her from some distant past life, but the notion quickly passes as he watches in awe as the haze returns over her in midstride. The smoke, with its hidden form, lowers back into huckleberry bushes, where the vapor wears off to reveal once more the young brown coated black bear.

Martin tracks her with his eye, until she disappears back into the underbrush of which she came. As soon as the bear leaves the man's vision, an ear splitting screech breaks the silence amongst the pine, the kind of screech that could only be made by a great bird of prey. For the first time, Martin moves more than just his head, making a full circle with his body searching the canopy for the raptor responsible for the noise. Seeing nothing more than trees fading into black, the forest fades back into silence. But Martin continues to look harder and more frantically all across the woods, scouring the trees for anything that could have made that sound, yet all that is left is quiet. 

Still looking, another noise cut through the silence. Not sharp and high pitched as before, but deep, low, and rolling, starting out rather quietly then gaining in volume before fading away again, as if it was passing over the man. It reminded Martin of the sound made by a far off herd of raging buffalo trampling across the plain. He knew exactly what it was though and it was no animal. It was the unmaskable sound of rolling thunder.

As soon as the man recognizes the sound, a bright static flash of light hurls down through the trees, landing directly in front of Martin, met instantly by a much louder boom than the first. The force of the lightning bolt throws the man backwards into the woods past the darkness where everything turns to the blackest night.

A crashing roll of thunder joins a flash of white light across the night sky, springing a shaggy blonde headed, bearded man awake. As the thunder rolls over and fades away, the sound of falling rain on buffalo hide replaces it. The man’s bare chest expanding and contracting rapidly as though something was chasing him in his sleep. Two old bandages wrap tightly around his old wounds; one around his abdomen, another around this left forearm. From a glance, it is quite obvious that he had been in some great battle. His blue eyes on his scarred face scan the room, trying to figure out where he is. Recognizing the inside of the teepee with its small fire still burning, illuminating the clay pots sitting next to it and various animal skins laying about, he breathes a sigh of relief, calming him down.

Finally calming down, the man notices the native sitting near the entrance of the dwelling, staring at him with a look of concern on his face. His body, half shining in moving light with the other half being cast in moving shadow from the fire, is positioned in a way that suggests he had been watching the storm for some time. 

“Same dream, Martin?” Asks the Indian in a monotone voice, speaking the Shoshone language.

“Yep,” replies Martin bluntly.

“Same girl?” Questions the native again.

“With the purple eyes, yeah,” replies the man once more, slightly less blunt, seemingly a little more responsive.

The Indian nods then turns back towards the opening in the teepee to watch the rain. Another streak of lightning flashes across the sky, making Martin look up as it lights up the inside of the teepee, imprinting the shadows of the nearby pines upon it. A roaring boom of thunder accompanies it quickly revealing how close the strike was. The native, apparently unfazed by the light and noise, keeps his focus on the entrance. Martin looks back down towards the patient native. The Indian, noticing Martin is still looking at him, turns back towards him. He can tell something weighs heavy on Martin's mind.

“You did more today than you have in quite some time. Let me check your wounds.” Says the native trying to come off caring, but sounds more blunt than anything.

He crawls over toward the blonde man, as the blonde man takes off the buffalo hide blanket covering him, revealing the rest of his naked body except for an animal hide lounge cloth around his waist and a third bandage around his leg. Reaching Martin, the native leads down slightly to untie and unwrap the old bandage. Martin lifts his leg, bending it at the knee and propping it up so the native could get underneath it. The Indian unwinds the bandage, passing it back and forth between his hands fluently until it exposes the wound. Using the light of the fire, the native inspect the wound, while the blonde man looks down with a troubled look across his face. In the dim glowing of the fire, the once was gash looks almost completely healed over with only a small slit running down the middle of a forming scar.

“It is almost healed,” speaks the Indian, with the faint sound of joy and surprise in his voice, as he begins to rewrap the wound in the same manner he unwrapped it. Even with the good news about his leg, Martin's look of worry remains. Before the native finishes wrapping the bandage, Martin looks up just enough to see his care givers face.

“Suel, what is going on? What could this dream mean? I’ve had the same damn one five different times now,"asks Martin worryingly.

Suel takes a moment to sigh, then speaks, almost disappointed with his own words,“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you, but I am not a Medicine Man. Only time will be able to tell you. For now you need sleep.” 

Too tired to contest, Martin listens to Suel. Recovering himself with the blanket and laying back down, as Suel crawls back toward the opening of the dwelling to continue watching the storm in the same way he had been before. As his eyes begin to close, another streak of lightning lights up the teepee with only a brief pause met once more by a clash of thunder booming all across the mountains. The noise joliets the Martin awake, but he scare only lasts a moment, before the rhythmic drumming of the rain overtakes Martin, sending him back into his sleep.