Brian gave me a
leather pouch with three, or four buttons in it. “Take this medicine and go
on a fast. Head up the arroyo to the wilderness area. When hunger hits you take
a bite or two from one of these.”
“Yeh, how long do
I go?”
“Go until you
have a vision.”
I wondered aloud,
“I’ve seen some pretty amazing things… like at the Peyote Ceremony and all… all
the coincidences on the way here, but visions? I can only admit to a calm and
serene love… a love was at-one with other people... with the prickly pear
cactus and the sage… and, of course, the goats.”
I had a feeling
that what Brian was talking about wasn’t just some more hippy bull-shit. He was
talking about a vision… a real vision that you don't have to play Indian to get, and it seemed that if anything would make
that happen perhaps peyote might.
“There is only
one way to find out, eh?” Though Brian was slightly rotund in physique, he
possessed an intrinsically mischievous elfish quality about him whenever his
face took on a sly smirk like it did then.
I went back to
the goat pasture with my pouch of buttons... er, he insisted I call them
Medicine. I figured I ought to get the booze and the acid out of my system a
few days before doing anything as serious as a vision quest. I was about a day
into a fast when, in the morning just before sunrise, a commotion with the
goats broke out. There was bleating and some rather furious noises that could
have only come from a cat… a big cat. I went out to where I’d heard the ado and
saw the evidence of big cat tracks, fur on the ground and a little blood here
and there. Charlie had some deep gashes between his horns but he escorted me to
the spot where I put two and two together. I didn’t like the idea that a cat
could take one of my kids. I did a count and, sure enough, one was missing.
Having no rifle,
I sorely needed one now. I figured Mason might have one because I’d seen a deer
hide stretched out for tanning at his place on the island.
Smoke coming from
the chimney of Mason’s place told me he was home... or nearby.
“Howdy,
stranger!” Mason called out from a rock above the cabin behind me.
Startled, I spun
around to see him coming down off the rock.
Calling out to
him, I watched this wildman bounce gingerly down towards me, “I need to ask you
something kinda irregular.”
“I’ve been
waiting for you to show up. We need to sit down and smoke a bowl over it then.”
Mason went inside and came out with what looked like a classic Indian peace
pipe, beaded and adorned with feathers... like in the movies. The pipe was
packed with Bull Durham tobacco, herbs and sage, but no pot. We smoked and
passed the pipe between us prayerfully before I brought up the goat and the
cat.
“What do you want
to do about the cat?” Mason asked.
“Huh?” How did he
know? “I was wondering if you have a rifle.”
“I know… You want
to kill the cat?”
“Yeh, I can’t see
letting the goats get picked off one by one.”
“You know
anything about cats?” he whispered, leaning towards me like he wanted to keep a
secret.
“Not really. Just
that one of ‘em is eating my kids.”
“Shhh. Didn’t we
eat one the other day?”
“Yeh, we did.” I
took his whispering as a rejection of my request for the rifle. More disturbing
however, I was afraid the whole idea... his mocking... was sour to Mason and I
respected his judgment.
“If you gotta do
it….” Mason paused a few minutes as though he were weighing my character. “Big
cats, they kill in the hour before and after sunset and the hour before and
after sunrise.”
“Very well, then
all I have to do is stay up an hour after sundown and get up an hour before
sunrise… maybe throw rocks or sticks at ‘em if they go for any of my goats?”
“That's Charlie's goats, my friend. And it's likely it
is only one, probably a female cat this time of the year. Rocks and sticks?
Wouldn’t you rather have a rifle?”
“Yeh.”
“You know how to
use one?” he asked earnestly. I liked the idea that he asked me these
questions. It was one of those things I have about guns. I’d been raised using
them and learned to respect and use them safely.
“You know the
rifle that Angelo came into the Peyote Ceremony with?”
“Winchester .44,
lever action, I thought it looked like it was old enough to be at Little Big
Horn.”
Mason went inside
and came out with the rifle. I wondered if Mason knew Angelo would show up the
way he did at the ceremony. Mason handed me the rifle and a box of ammo holding
only five bullets. I checked it out to see if the chamber was empty and was
pleased to see it was well maintained, oiled and clean. I found the stamp with
the date: 1886 on it. I said, “It looks like this rifle could’ve been handed
down from Custer’s Last Stand.”
“If it was there, this rifle would be almost a Vatican relic to the Ogalas, but Little Big Horn
was in the ‘70’s, I think, and you see the stamp. It sure wouldn’t be in my hands if it
was there,” Mason snorted before he continued, “Now, cats have a range of
seventy or eighty miles. But they will carry their kill only as far away as
their den. You probably won’t find her anyway.”
Mason went back
inside his cabin and turned to say, “Go do what you must and nothing more.”
“With five
bullets… I’m pretty safe on that account.”
Going back to the pasture, I put together a
small kit. The vision quest would be combined with the hunt. I had to get going
while the trail was still fresh. Not all that sure I was good enough at
tracking to find and follow it, I set out anyway. My coat and good Army Surplus
boots I’d nabbed while in Spokane, as well as a warm flannel shirt and jeans, would keep me warm. I only carried a small day-pack.
I launched out at
sunrise the next morning. At first there were signs of blood and unmistakable
goat hairs on bushes that led towards the arroyo between the Hondo and the
mesa. I lost the trail several times as it progressed up through some farm land
higher up on the mesa. Pausing in the draw I had been following up, I opened my
pouch of peyote the first time since I’d begun the trek. There’d been no sign
for at least a half a mile and now I was to cross some acreage owned by
ranchers who would not take kindly to a hippy toting a rifle on their property.
Sitting there for
over an hour, resting after taking a bite from the medicine, I was inspired to
head over north to the Rio Hondo. Peyote cat-thinking, perhaps the cat would
not like crossing farm land either, my feet moved. Crossing the rim road that
coursed its way towards the Carson National Forest above the Rio Hondo, I saw
several perfect paw prints in the dusty shoulder of the road. Where there had
been dust on the weeds, it was clear to see a trail. The weeds were bent and
absent of dust too. My vision was sharpened, “I see where you are going now,
mama,” I said softly to the winds.
I followed that
trail down a draw into the arroyo. The landscape awoke with a most pleasant
clarity. It wasn’t so much that I saw colors that weren’t already there, but I
saw in the colors a heightened intensity while my spirit passed the junipers
and pinions. Their presence was extended out from them with an aura or
vibration that was actually felt as I passed... melded into that flow. Like a
wake left by a boat through water, the path the cat had taken led me. Near the
waters of the Rio Hondo I cupped my hands and swallowed the fresh cold
molecules that tweaked my senses all the way down my throat. The rocks took on
an aura too and I sensed what was meant by the biblical prophets declaring;
“the rocks would preach if I don’t.
By night fall I
found a comfortable spot to curl up on my haunches but didn’t sleep. I listened
instead to the sounds of the night. The coyotes in the distance and the soft
flutter of an owl swooping down to grab a field mouse. Indeed, the hills were
alive around me.
Vision...
perhaps... I saw, or dreamt... Pleiades in the clear sky above... but I was
awake... it was one of those Kachina dolls dancing... a cat in a ceremonial
coat open to Pleiades, all seven sisters, standing... stomping a rhythm... the drum in the peyote
circle... chanting.
The second day I
had finished off one piece of the medicine and started on the second. The wake
of a trail left by the cat led me up a steep canyon. I felt as though my boots
were too harsh on the earth. It was as though the earth was lifting up to
cushion my feet; they found their way around the sharp edges of the stones or
gently folded around them like a snail would on the razor’s edge. The higher I
went the more snow was on the ground but I rarely saw any sign of the cat in
the snow. The cat knew better and I sensed that the cat knew I would follow
her. My feet felt no chill or cold and I kept following slowly through the next
night up into the forest.
The third day,
after a night of sitting and listening, I approached on the far side, down-wind
of the canyon. The Kat-china told me to strip off the rest of my clothes
wearing only a rope sash to hang my medicine bag and the rifle sheath strapped
over my shoulder.
I felt the
presence of the Kat.
She was very near
me.
There was no
fear.
Coming to a place
on the shady side of the draw, I could see a collection of rocks that had an
overhang making a sort of entrance to her den. The rifle came out of the sheath
strapped over my shoulder. Looking down the sights I saw Mama Puma looking
straight into my eyes from her spot in the cave. She crouched and turned
suddenly to give her attention behind her. There I observed one cub, then
another. She gently pawed them back out of sight. Mason’s words came to me
then, “Do what you must but nothing more.”
The chamber of
the rifle was loaded and I had a clear and easy shot. She was no more than a
hundred feet away but my heart saw mama and I understood: She’d killed the
goat-kid to feed her cubs. The kid carcass was probably stashed somewhere
nearby. Her breasts had done the job up ‘til now but it was time to feed her
cubs some meat. I lowered the rifle and stood… not being sure what she would do
at that juncture... whether she would attack me to protect her brood.
Not able to do anything but turn my back to
her, I walked away. Throughout the day, I hiked down the canyon and felt her
presence behind me at times… ahead or along side of me. I caught a glimpse now
and then. She let me know she was escorting me away from her den. A special
affection grew, like the love that filled my heart after the peyote ceremony.
That love never left me for that cat. After all, as Mason said; we, at the
communal feast, had eaten one of the kids too. As far as I was concerned the
score was even.
I neared Mason’s
cabin. Mason was standing at the door grinning. Fully dressed now, I handed
over the rifle to him. Reaching into my day pack, I passed over the box of
ammo.
“Still five in
it,” Mason observed.
“Yeh, still five in it.”
“You found her though?”
“Yeh, I found her.”
“Did you have a vision?”
“Yeh, you might say so.”
“You might write it down someday.”
“Yeh, once I figure out what it was, I will.”
“That might take some time.”
“It will.”
I was able to
breathe in the experience of the vision quest at my A-frame in the goat
pasture. The rest of the time I was there I never lost another kid to mama cat.
It was as though some sort of cosmic agreement had been made between us on that
spring day in the canyon. Some people would say that it was just a coincidence
but I felt that I knew better. I drew pictures with lines in the dirt near my
fire pit of the cat and the two cubs. I filled in the lines in with different
color soil and offered up a prayer. I thought about it after that and, as time
passed, felt a bit embarrassed at the superstition. I could never shake the
impression that a special bond had been formed with that cat in particular, but
with the spirit of cats in general. Years later I see a cat; whether it is a
mountain lion, a house cat, or a tiger, I sense a bond. I came to understand
this was a bond with a form of spirit-guide: like the ones spoken of by shaman
and medicine men or healers almost universally. It was most certainly the high point
Something else had
happened to me on this quest. I wasn’t compelled to tell anyone about it. Part
of the way out into the wilderness I had taken note of all the wonders I had
experienced and couldn’t wait to get back to civilization to tell someone about
it all. There was a point where I had merged so totally with everything around
me… that I was in it so deeply… there just wasn’t any way to describe it with
words. Once I did want to tell someone and I went to Brian to sit with him an
hour… I couldn’t say much of anything.
I would start,
“Uh… yes. Trees breathe… I saw them.” And Brian would simply nod in agreement:
he’d already been there.
“I was there breathing
with them.” I picked up where the nod left off.
“Do you think this
experience will amount to anything that will affect the drinking we talked
about?” Brian seemed to be curious about it himself. For so many at that time,
LSD and psychedelic experience was the cure-all for everything.
Brian seemed to
have gone past those surface beliefs and I appreciated his experience since he
had been around acid from the beginnings in the early sixties. He had been
right there with the “Beats” in North
Beach
“I don’t know…
truthfully. I would have believed so after my first experience but I can’t say
that hitting on the godhead at the mountain-top is enough to do the trick. I
can’t drink and I can’t stop. No matter what spiritual reality I encounter,
eventually I forget and then it is all over. I no longer even want to quit.”
