Forbidden Mesa
Thomas Standing-Rock's anxiety
climbed with the upward thrust of the cliff.
Although his quest had brought him safely this far, the thought of going
any further now filled him with dread.
The cave was located halfway up the cliff. The unseen base of the mesa was hidden by a forest of dark,
forboding trees. To dwell upon what was
inside the cave would have stopped him cold.
It was enough just to concentrate upon the forest ahead: its gnarled
trunks and the rocky ground below.
For his tribe, who lived in the
desert, the forest was a scary place to be.
It was filled with ghosts, who inhabited old trees. Since he had always been a poet at heart, he
saw more than the average mind. The
tangled woods were not simply filled with ghosts; they might also contain
goblins, vampires, or ghouls. Appearing
in his conscious mind were all the superstitions buried in his past. The monsters and fiends he had seen so often
on televsion also flooded his overwrought mind. One by one they appeared, from both Indian legends and Medievil
mythology: primitive spirits and Satanic imagery, mingling in various shapes
and forms. Trees, bushes, and even
rocks hid them. They lingered in
shadows and appeared furtively at the corner of his eyes. Lurking deliberately to catch the unwary,
they were always just out of view.
Faintly heard but always sensed, they could imitate nature while riding
the wind.
Always creeping into his thoughts
were those specters from the past. Soul
Catcher, Night Trapper, and Shadow Creeper, and a countless array of other
spooks were just waiting to come out.
Tiptoeing in back of him or flying askance, they now poured out as
demons from hell and wicked ghosts from the land of the dead. Half of him--the Christian side--imagined
demonic and hellish specters dogging his trail. His other half, still influenced by old superstitions, imagined
those creatures from tribal lore.
Together, combining with the sights and sounds of the night, they
distracted him from his quest. He was
not even in the woods yet, and his urge to turn back was already strong.
As he approached the forest, he felt
the presence of evil as he had never felt it before. Was it behind him, or was it in front of him? Had it been following him across the desert
ever since his quest began? Or was it
there now waiting ahead in the shadows of the woods? Who was the presence he felt now: Satan, Night Trapper, God? Or was it something else? Was he being taunted by the Devil or by his
own fears? If the rumors and legends
about this journey were true, he was in for the greatest nightmare of his life
and a great test of his faith.
There was something wrong about this
whole trip. Although he tried to shed
his doubts and fears, they remained fixed in his mind. He therefore remained ready for retreat. Almost immediately, in fact, after reaching
the first gnarled trunk, the presence he had only suspected before seemed to
reach out to him. Soon, he felt beset
by both a warning and a lure. Although
the forest was, as he expected, a dark and unfriendly place, it was part of a
mystery he had to solve. Each
unexplained shadow in the moonlight seemed to be lurking in wait. Each snapping twig and crunching leaf jarred
his mind. After stumbling over rocks
and stepping into chuckholes awhile, he cursed himself for ever starting this
quest. Slipping and sliding finally
down an unseen hill, he found himself momentarily out of control. As his hiking boots eventually found a
foothold in the soft dirt, he realized he had stumbled onto the lip of a great
crater that stretched for hundreds of feet into the woods.
Shining his flashlight as far as it
would go, he shuttered at the thought of what had caused such a hole. A meteorite had struck this spot many
centuries ago. There were trees growing
continuously around it's periphery, and yet there was nothing but barren rock
and dirt evident on its concave slopes.
Standing-Rock's natural curiosity, which rankled some members of his
tribe, was momentarily aroused, as he gauged its size. There were many legends about this
spot. He remembered hearing about them
around the campfire at night. He also
remembered a television program that contradicted tribal myth. He recalled the commentator's voice in the
background explaining the geological history of this region. Meteors of this magnitude, he explained,
were equivalent to an atomic bomb; a city such as Flagstaff or Albuquerque
would have been leveled by its blast.
He could invision the great fiery orb from outer space exploding upon
impact, after barely missing the mesa nearby.
If it had been a mere kilometer closer, it would have smashed the rock
to smithereens. There would have been
no mesa to climb then, only a pile of rocks beside a great black hole. The Anasazi Indians would never have built
pueblos on its face.
Shines-In-The-Dark, the prophet, would not have used it for his
retreat. It would never have been
chosen as a sacred shrine by his church, which had made this pilgrimmage
mandatory for priests to make. Perhaps
the Old Ones of the church would have found a less hazardous journey for
noviciate priests...If only the meteor had landed a little lower and a little
further west, he would never had to make this dangerous quest.
But he was a truthseeker, soon to be
tested by Great Spirit, Himself. If he
failed now, he could never become a priest.
Right now the entire church was holding its collective breath, praying
that there would be a vision in his quest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While he stood on the crater's rim,
Thomas Standing-Rock contemplated upon his task, realizing that he was not even
halfway done. A warm breeze blew his
way. As if Great Spirit, Himself,
approved of his quest, it blew steadily awhile upon his check, caressing away
his fears as He had done to Whispers-In-The-Wind, grandfather, and
Shines-In-The-Dark, the prophet, long, long ago.
According to tribal tradition, the
crater was caused by Great Spirit's anger against the people who originally
inhabited this land. Who these people
where no one knows, but grandfather said that some of their bones are found in
the mesa above. Thomas had a theory
that these bones belonged to the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians: the
Anasazi. The prophet, himself, found
some of these bones in one of the mesa's caves. A more important landmark for the Imotl people was the mesa,
itself, which had, because of Shines-In-The-Dark, become a part of tribal
tradition. In spite of his misgivings,
Thomas was proud of what it symbolized.
It was up there on top of Forbidden Mesa that Shines-In-The-Dark received
his commission from God. In one of its
caves the prophet's mummy is said to reside, although he has never been found.
As Standing Rock wearily set up his
camp, he wondered fleetingly if he would find anything at all on the mesa. A rush of dread returned to him as his
doubts returned. Although the honor would
give him prestige, he had no desire to find the prophet's remains. What if the traditionalists were right and
his discovery would bring him a curse instead of the blessing promised by the
priests. It would make him perfectly
happy to bring back only potcherds to prove that he was there. He could, with a clear conscious, gather his
evidence, spend the required night, make his obeisance to God, then make the
trecherous journey back down.
But he sensed, with nagging
forboding, that something momentious was going to take place during his
quest. The questions plaguing him now
were basic: when?, where?, and what? Was something going
to happen tonight? Would it be right
here during his sleep? Or was it
waiting for him on the mesa as he suspected all along? If so, was it danger or illumination he
would find?. . . Was it an evil event or something very good? He could not be sure, but he knew that for
him it would be either extreme; there would be no moderations for his soul this
time. Inuwetok and Hoteh, Great Spirit
and Satan, both dwelled in the desert tonight. He was being tested this very
hour by his two halves: dark and light.
He must not fail Inuwetok by giving way to his doubts.
While gathering twigs and walnut
branches to build his fire, Thomas continued praying to himself, glancing
expectantly around, until he found himself absorbed in the crackling
flames. It was suddenly apparent to him
how important a fire could be. He had
read about the significance of this invention; mankind changed drastically when
the first primitive humans learned to use its power. Not only were animals afraid to approach their camps, but it gave
them warmth and allowed them to cook their food. Now, Thomas reflected as he staired into the flames, every living
soul on earth knew it intimitely as both a blessing and a curse. It seemed strange to him now that such a
comforting source of heat could have devasted so much of the world. As he watched it rise from the dried brush
and logs, sending sparks into the moonlit sky, he felt protected against the
creatures of the desert. A mountain
lion or bear would not bother a man sitting by a fire. But a man or a spirit would.
Fingering the helt of his knife
awhile, Standing Rock also remembered that the fire was also a lure. Men were attracted by campfires, often to
the detriment of the camper. Spirits,
on the other hand, cared not whether it was dark or light or warm or cold. These recollections caused him to begin
praying to himself again, as he drew out his knife, his face set in a
methodical frown.
For several moments he just sat
there by the fire,
his
face glowing and gray eyes blazing with inner turmoil. The first discomforting pangs of hunger were
a welcome distraction, though they reminded him that he could eat only enough
raisins and beef jerky to sustain him through his quest. As he began munching on the prescribed
snacks grandmother had packed for him, he listened to the sound of the fire
crackling and managed to tune out the surrounding night. Inwardly his thoughts traveled as his gray
eyes staired vacantly at the fire.
He was, he realized, a mere mote in
God's gaze. And yet he was certain that
he had a purpose in His plan. He was a
halfbreed, an object of scorn to many members of his tribe. From the time that he was child, he had been
treated as if he were an outcast by many of them. But according to grandfather, his two halves are the best of two
worlds: the Whiteman and the Indian.
Because of his grandparent's love and his membership in the Native
American Church, his physical difference became his strength. He truly believed that he was special. He had known this always, even before his
was old enough to join his grandparent's church. In his blood was the turmoil of two great races, but it was his
Indian half that he felt the most now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beyond the mesa, there was an epoch
tale of a nomadic people who had been transformed into agriculturists and
builders, whose ancient monotheistic religion, carried on for thousands of years,
was now planted in this desert soil. He
could remember his grandfather telling him about some of the great leaders of
his tribe. Whispers-In-The-Wind, during
his tribe's pre-Christian days, had led them out of the wilderness in order to
escape starvation. The Bureau of Indian
Affairs had given them a small segment of land near a Pueblo reservation. For several decades his tribe suffered
persecution from both their neighbors and the White Man living in nearby
towns. But the great sage Whispers-In-The-Wind
held them together and made them proud of who they were. Before he died, he had a vision that told
him that the White Man's Christ was also their Christ and that the
Judeo-Christian God worshipped by nearly half the world was another name for
Inuwetok, who was also the Great Spirit worshipped on the Plains.
During the early part of the
twentieth century, their arose a religious movement on his people's land. At the forefront of this movement the was
the nephew of Whispers-In-The-Wind, Shines-In-The-Wind, who had been his
grandfather's best friend. Under
Shines-In-The-Dark's influence, the simple vision of Whispers-In-The-Wind
progressed from a religious movement to an established parrish within the Roman
Catholic Church. Although it was called
the Native American Church, the Old Ones who were the overseers of the parrish,
were actually priests and nuns who shared the responsibilities of its
organization and missionary work. Where
their church differed from the White Man's version of the faith was in the
mixture of the ancient monotheistic belief of their forefathers and the
existing ritual of Roman Catholicism.
It was Shines-In-The-Dark who first practiced the vision quest to
Forbidden Mesa. His revelations of his
tribe's destiny had made him a saint within the mother church. It had never been made clear to his people
who was parent and who was child, but the prophet made it plain that Inuwetok
was far more ancient than the Judeo-Christian conceptian of God. So it seemed obvious to Standing Rock and
the other clerics that the term mother church was strictly a organizational
term.
It was because of this tradition
that Thomas Standing Rock was taking his last test for service into his
church. All his studies in the siminary
and specilized training peculiar to the Native American church would come to
naught if he failed tonight.
As he sat by his fire scanning the
darkness beyond, he saw a light that seemed to come from the mesa, itself. From such a great distance, the faint glow
could be almost anything: a helicopter, small plane, a mountain climber's
campfire, though he found this latter possibility hard to believe. No one but a truthseeker such as himself or
a fool would be on top of Forbidden Mesa, especially at night. The light appeared to remain steady on its
topmost horn for just a moment and then move out slowly to the west. After eliminating a camp fire from his short
list, he therefore also decided that it could not be a plane heading his way. It moved too slowly at first. For that matter, if it was a helicopter, it
was acting in a bizarre and erratic way.
Instead of merely huvering around a spot awhile then gradually moving on
as helicopters normally do, it descended straight down toward the earth in one
abrupt move and sat there at the far edge of the crater, huvering as a firefly
by its rim.
Suddenly Forbidden Mesa's dark
silhouette no longer dominated his attention.
Something unexplicable had come out of the sky, . . . something that had
nothing to do with his mission tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Drawn to this specter but afraid to
leave the security of his own fire, Thomas Standing Rock rose slowly from the
ground and remained frozen on his feet. . .
Stay tuned for more!