For those of you Who know who Wally is I have good news. I am putting the final bit on chapter 1.5 which will soon become known as chapter 2. I am also about half way through Chapter 3 which will become known as chapter 4. also I have almost s complete story line for the next chapter and am almost done thinking up the chapter after that. If i can buckle down and get it all written out I hope to have the first 6 chapters done by May.
For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about I give you a taste.
This is a Corsair, my favorite plane, and the one I have always used in my mind as a base for Wally's plane.
Well isn’t this just the stupidest thing you’ve ever gotten us into. Wally was lying on his stomach looking over the crest of a sand dune. “Did you forget about hosting that 96 hour telethon?” He was looking at a camp located at the entrance of a small canyon about 300 yards away. No I didn’t. I thought it taught you to ask more questions before you took a job but… At first glance it looked like any other camp that might be crossing the desert. They had four three axle caravan trucks for holding people and supplies, two 4x4 jeeps, and three low altitude fliers for herding flocks. Only problem was there were no flocks. The grouping of tents was filled with movement and Wally didn’t even want to try to count the men that might be down there. “Look what we have here.” Wally said to himself as his eyes came across an 18 wheeled truck. It was a flat bed with a very distinctive shaped tarp thrown over it. Looks like trouble. Came the answer in his head. “Why are you always so negative?” he began crawling backwards from the top of the dune so not to be seen. When he felt he was safe he got up and began the long walk back to his plane.
My database is Deadlocked. What that means is that untill it is fixed i can not do much work. out of all the things my database has been before (down, busted, under repair, and locked down) Dedlocked is the coolest.
There is this guy who everyday during his lunch break draws lunch bags for his kids. I have been aware of him for a few months and his website. he recently lost his job and is using his Internet fame to look for a new one. what I love about the Internet is that all the cartoonist who he has honored by drawling their characters on his lunch bags are helping him. today when i checked some of my favorite comic strips they were all asking their readers to pass along job listings to him. I love it.
This story is part of another greater story that I came up with when David asked me about if i would ever write a video game. I took the picture that hangs in my room of the wind horse for inspiration. Also the name Allen Ring is straight up stolen from a Louis L'Amour short story call Four Card Draw. the Allen from that story was and is a favorite character of mine. mostly for the character he showed.
“You know you’re awful white for an Indian.”
“That’s because I’m a cowboy” Allen Ring replied.
The senator did not look amused; to Allen he looked like a snake. “You are one third Indian. You were raised by your grandfather, one of the last practicing shamans in the world. I believe he taught you a great deal about his beliefs and manner of worship and communion”
“Communion?” Allen repeated, “If you mean his rituals and traditions then I do know a little. Most of it is just sitting and meditating with nature.”
“And the dances, did he teach you those?”
“Sir all children who grew up on the reservation know the dances. May I ask what this is all about?”
“It’s about the Wind Horse. You’ve heard of it right?”
“It’s the fastest horse who ever lived, Friend to all Indians and said to never be seen in this world again. Is that the Wind Horse you’re talking about?”
“The very one. I want you to get it for me.”
Allen had to really think about what the senator was asking him before he answered. “So you want me to find the path that is always changing, and follow it to the Indian hunting ground, the one where everyone is whole and never comes back from, find the fastest and truest horse there and bring him back for you?”
“Doesn’t sound too hard to me, you already know how to get there it sounds like.”
“Except that the only way to reach the path that always changes is to die, and once you reach the hunting grounds you can never come back. So how do you suppose I do it?”
The senator just smiled, “well I certainly don’t know, but unless you try you will never work on this ranch again.” The senator almost seemed to laugh at this, like he found it to be some twisted joke. “I guarantee you that unless you try to retrieve the wind horse you will never be allowed on a ranch or reservation again.After all, you’re only 1/3 Indian.” At this it seemed that the senator was moments away from uncontrollable laughter. Now he looked less like a snake and more like a coyote. “All I ask is for you to take a month and honestly try to retrieve it for me. If you do I promise that you will be handsomely rewarded.”
“And if I can't?”
“Well we’ll see. It really depends on how hard you try.” The senator pressed a button on his desk and another man came into the office. He was a full blood Indian, Allen could tell. He didn’t seem to have any expression on his face at all and looked more like the old Indian statues that people put up outside of stores than a real person. “This is … I can’t say his name but I was told it translates to September Worker. He had been studying with your grandfather when he died and has volunteered to help you. “Allen looked over the Indian and then looked at the senator again.
“I don’t really have a choice in this do I?” Allen let out a long sigh and thought it over some more. “One month of trying is the absolute most I am willing to give. After that I’m sending you’re Indian back to you with or without a wind horse. Winter is coming on and I have a lot of strays to catch before the first frost comes.”
“Good good,” said the senator as he got up and went to the side door where September Worker had come in from, “as you will see here we have brought everything we think you will need to get the job done.” Allen followed him into the next room which was filled with all sorts of Native American artifacts. There were all sorts of drums, and headdresses, along with bows, arrows, spears and shields. On one table Allen found bottles of face paint and incenses, along with a black jar with a medical label on it.
“What’s this?” he asked holding up the jar.
“Peyote.” Replied the senator. Allen put it back down. “You might be interested in what’s over here. It’s what we could get from your grandfathers place on the reservation.”Allen walked over to where the senator indicated and found a pile of familiar items. There was a blanket, and bowls along with some baskets and an old drum. Allen put the drum and the bowls on the blanket and rolled it up.
“This is what we will need. Anything else will be provided by the spirits if they truly want this to happen. Make sure those baskets are still here when I get back and you won’t have to pay me. Come on September, we need to find you a horse and get on our way.” Allen left the ranch house with September in tow and headed out to the stables.
He lit out about an hour later heading towards the mountains at the far end of the ranch. The senator sat in a rocking chair on the porch with the foreman and they watched him go. “You know,” said the foreman, “we were all surprised 8 years ago when he showed up here. Most young men don’t leave the reservations, or when they do they go to the city. You know he’s the only hand we have working the southern plains, just him and his dog. We call him the last Cowboy. The man lives in the 1890’s not the 2440’s like the rest of us. We made him take a vacation about a year ago and sent him to Santa Fe. He got in three fights and caused a traffic accident in five days. Cowboys just aren’t made for our modern cities I guess.”
“Well he’s going out there a cowboy but I hope he comes back something else.”
Allen and September rode out to Allen’s camp near the base of the mountains. The next morning Allen gathered up supplies and led them up into the mountains. They traveled in silence and it was almost noon before Allen realizes that he had yet to hear September speak. “So September you knew my grandfather?” September just nodded. “Studying shamanism was it?” another nod. “Can you talk at all?” he nodded once again. “So how do you think we should go about this?’
There was a pause as September considered the question before answering in a heavily accented voice. “Well sir, I am at a loss. I probably would have taken the peyote.”
“I’m starting to think you are right.” Allen let out a long sigh as he leaned back in his saddle and looked up at the sky. “We will have to start with a cleansing ceremony, it will get any bad spirits lingering about and help us get our minds right. Both of us should do that one. Then I think I will start a fast, but just me. If any of this works I may be sending my spirit far away and I need you to look after my body.” Allen looked over at September just in time to see him nod. “Did my grandfather teach you how to call on animal spirits for guidance and assistance?” another nod. “Good because I haven’t done it since I was 17. We are going to call on all of the spirits we can think of, and we might make up a few. Now if after about a week we don’t seem to be getting anywhere I’m going to stop sleeping. That always gets some sort of results. Now how does all this sound to you?”
“I think we need the peyote.”
“You’re a funny guy September, you know that?”
They spent the next two days on the mountain cleansing them selves. They did every type of cleaning ceremony they could think of, bathing in rivers, steam huts, and lots of incense. And at night they would sing. Allen would beat his grandfather’s drum and the two of them sung the tunes of their forefathers. September had a marvelous singing voice and all the songs came very natural to him. Allen on the other hand was struggling to remember the songs and often stopped entirely just to listen to September.
With the songs and the stars and their fire up on the mountain Allen returned to the days of his youth. He watched the fire and saw the shapes the flames made; the shapes of the mustang, of the buffalo, and the hawk. He followed the hawk up into the smoke and found the stars of the sky.It was the same sky of his ancestors; he found the familiar constellations and remembered the stories. Allen felt for the first time that it might be possible to find the wind horse.
The next morning September cooked breakfast, the last meal Allen would eat for at lest a week. “Are you going to begin you’re meditation now?” asked September.
“Yes September, I am.” Allen unrolled his grandfather’s blanket and sat upon it.
“Your grandfather taught me a few methods for beginning meditation, would you want me to talk you through on of them?”
“Thank you September that would be great.” September took a position behind Allen and told him to breathe as he breathed. For several minutes Allen cleared his mind and followed September’s breathing. It was very rhythmic and helped to calm him.
“Is you’re mind clearing and are you calm in body and spirit?” September asked.
“Yes, I believe I am.”
“Good,” commented September. Then he bashed Allen in the head with the frying pan. Then he tossed the pan to the ground and mumbled to himself about how peyote was faster.
Allen didn’t wake up or gain consciousness, but became aware. First he became aware of darkness, and then of standing on solid ground. His thought process began to come back to him and he became aware of his thinking. He decided that he was somewhere and it wasn’t where he was before. Then he became aware of a presence. It was far but coming near. Light and color were coming into his awareness and he decided that he was defiantly somewhere he had never been before. He became aware that he wanted to find out if anyone else was here too.
“hello.” He called out, but to no reply. “Hello” he shouted again.
“You have come far traveler.” Boomed a large voice from behind him. Allen turned to face a giant man dressed in full Tradition Indian dress with a Coyote mask covering his face. “You have come seeking the Wind Horse. But know this, the journey that you seek to….. You know what? I can’t do this anymore.”
Allen was stunned. Here was what he was pretty sure was a god and he was acting and talking just as he had always imagined, but now he was sounding more like the senator.
“I’m going to come over there, do you mind?” Allen shook his head to show that he didn’t and this god seemed to come closer and shrink down to man size. Then when he was standing right in front of Allen he took off his mask and reveled himself to be September.
“September, what are you doing.” Allen was furious. “Why the hell are you pretending to be a god, and did you hit me on the head with a frying pan?”
“Yea I’m sorry about that Allen but you were just taking so long to get ready. I tried to tell you the Peyote was faster but you didn’t listen. Oh and I’m not pretending to be a god, I am a god.”
Allen let out a laugh, “you a god? That’s a good one. But seriously what is it that you and that senator have going on. I got a lot of work to do and if I don’t have to spend a month screwing around with you two then I better get back to my cows.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this but I am a God, and the senator is working for me. We have a very important job that only you can do and we have very little time to get you ready for it.”
“Wait what are you saying?”
“Ok Allen I didn’t want to do this but you leave me no choice. I am a god now watch. I’m big now I’m small. I am an animal now I’m invisible. Thunder, lightning, and all that.” And just as he said all of those things happened.
“Who are you?”
“I am Coyote. And I was chosen out of all the gods in this land to find a person to take a journey. Out of all the people in this land, only you can take this journey.”
“Why me?”
“Because Allen you are a cowboy and you are also an Indian. The journey is dangerous and long and you will need both parts of you to see it to its end. The only thing holding you back is that you deny your Indian self. You must learn to embrace it. Become an Indian and a Shaman of your people. Only then will you be able to see the unseen and walk undisturbed in the land of your enemy. Also become a cowboy, the last cowboy. Only then can you stand steely eyed in front of the unknown and conquer every challenge. You will be an Icon of this land, both of the old and the new, both of the spirit and the body.” Allen stood there taking it all in. “you don’t really get it do you?” asked Coyote. Allen shook his head no. “That’s ok we have a whole month to get your head wrapped around it. By the way you were right, there is no way to get the Wind Horse. It was all just a ruse to get you out there. Sorry again about the head.”
