Chapter 14: The Shaman

The simple fact that Dr. Hardy and his wife-nurse June were able to knit Mike’s arm, mend his shattered leg, and control infection was a true testament to their skilled and dedicated care. But it was unlikely that the leg would have healed well enough for Mike to walk on it again, if it hadn’t been for the inner focus he’d used during that agonizing night in the rock slide.

Anyone else would have died from massive infection, or barring that, would have required reconstructive surgery and titanium hardware to knit the bone fragments back together. Years of physical therapy might restore walking with a slow, limping gait.

But that was not Michael Peterson. He was a shaman. Modern culture does not recognize what thousands of years of wisdom had taught the healers of remote cultures: human beings are spiritual creatures, by creation and by intent—in our essence, in our souls, in our intelligence, both conscious and subconscious. As such, we human creatures have the capacity to greatly influence our physical bodies, the containers that carry us though a time which is but a short transitory moment in our existence. As a shaman, Mike held the knowledge to heal. His knowledge did not rely on the accepted tenets of western medical teachings which in fact know little and accept nothing of the ancient methods, all discounted as superstitious, ineffective or dangerous.

Michael continued to focus his energies to heal his injuries. He must soon rise from his sickbed and walk as before, easily and strong, with two good legs under him. This was a setback, unexpected and inconvenient, and it triggered a premature beginning. But he would find a way. The boy was unusually gifted and would grow quickly.

A warm afternoon breeze blew through the screened windows of the parlor and fluttered Vi’s lace curtains. Mike lay on his bed. His injured leg was wrapped loosely with a gauze and linen covering. It had been a week since the accident and although he could not yet move his leg, he could sense that the shattered bone splinters were knitting together. The torn and crushed flesh was healing; the toxins were gone and new cell growth was accelerating. He would need long days of mental focus to complete his healing, and more weeks to rebuild new muscle and bone strength. But he would become whole again. His left arm was well-joined. It lay in a sling across his chest and he could feel the bone fusing, new growth bridging the fracture. He had a ravenous appetite and Vi smiled at the challenge. She kept a full bowl of beef stew and a platter of home-baked wheat bread slathered heavily with home churned butter and wild honey by his elbow.

Young Graydon went home the day after the rescue. He agreed to say nothing of it. As far as his family was concerned, he’d enjoyed an uneventful few days of fishing and camping and then returned home as a matter of course. He was catching up on chores and garden weeding, and digging out another irrigation ditch, one to carry more water into the small orchard that was recovering from its long neglect. He told his mother that he would spend the coming weekend at Brightman’s ranch, helping Jim with the hay cutting.

“It’s much too early but he’ll need answers, and soon. He was barely coping with the dreams, and then he’s faced with your accident and the trauma of rescuing you, and on top of that, he realizes that you exist, that you are the man in his dreams! That it’s all real! He’s a boy, for heaven’s sake. All of this—this—it’s just asking too much!”

Jim Brightman twisted his pipe nervously in his fingers, not noticing that it had gone cold long moments before.

“It’s asking too much, expecting him to go along, staying silent without getting answers to all the questions we can see in his eyes!”

“He’ll be fine, trust me. He may be young, but he’s got a patient soul. As long as he can trust his own feelings and the rightness of what he senses and sees, everything will be well with him. He’ll accept it in good time, as it comes. But we must be careful to let him come along at his own pace.”

Mike lay back. He savored the lingering flavor of the tea. He contemplated the season ahead. He must get back on his feet and start upon the path that he and the boy would walk together.

Explosions, the stuttering rattle of machine gun fire and the cries of soldiers on both sides of him crashed in his ears. He was hungry, exhausted and filthy. The stink of his body, of those packed tightly around him, and the stench of death surrounding them nauseated him. He was cold, teeth-chattering cold. Stiff fingers could hardly grip the map in his hands and there was no feeling in his feet. Frozen mud, blood-stained snow, and the gloom of the dark forest, a nightmare scene of shattered trees and shell craters revealed in circles of light from the mortar bursts, the muzzle flashes of the guns on their line and the blinding artillary bursts on the battlefield in front.

He looked down at his arms in olive drab battle dress. A steel helmet covered his head. A man lay to his right, sprawled forward, hanging half out of his foxhole, a gaping wound in the center of his blood-soaked back. To his left, a young soldier with old eyes in a pale white face stared back at him, leaning back against the frozen foxhole mud, his rifle held across his chest, its breech open.

“Sir, I’m out of ammo. I’ve got nothin’ left. It don’t matter. Next time they come, they’re gonna cut us to pieces. Ain’t hardly none of us left to stop ‘em, Sir.”

Graydon could sense sorrow in his mind, but it was not his mind ... was it? Not his eyes ... were they? No time. Infinite sadness, resignation but no fear. A terrible sense of loss: too many good men lost, gone, given up as the butchers bill for a conflict that had not been their choosing, a terrible war that had been thrust upon them. This was no easy walk to victory. This moment had been reached after an endless march of frozen, agonized footsteps, each step bought with a precious life. Now the struggle might end in this frozen-mud waste for this remnant, this bloodied handful of survivors who were his platoon. They had resisted the onslaught, they had regrouped and fought again, and yet again but now they were worn down, cut down, depleted.

His eyes became two crimson orbs, blinded with agony and rage. He stared across the cauldron of Hell, seeking out their tormentors, peeling back their cover. He rose up to confront the battlefield. He flowed forward through the shattered trees and over the torn earth. The black of night shrouded him; he inhaled the stench of death, tasting it, savoring it on his tongue. He tilted his head back, his mouth gaped hugely open. He bellowed a chest-heaving, shattering howl that screamed his anguish:

“Enough! If death you seek, then I am become Death to walk among you!”

He sensed the streaking tracer rounds coming from in front and at his flanks as he flowed forward. Mines exploded in his footsteps; bullets slammed through him as he surged forward, seeking, reaching, lashing out at the terrified souls he could taste within his reach.

Terror! Absolute, disbelieving, mindless terror! He fed on it, savored it, gathered it into himself and sent it back redoubled. He hurled an onslaught of paralyzing horror over those who fought for evil—those poor, wretched innocents sent to fight and die for a satanic regime that had exploded upon an unbelieving world.

They fled: first a few, then by dozens and then by hundreds and by thousands they fled in blind panic. They threw everything aside: weapons, packs, anything that encumbered them. They fled, not understanding but knowing that they must flee or perish in some nameless horror beyond nightmares, horrors from which death would be a blessed relief. They ran. When their legs could carry them no farther, they crawled blindly with torn and bleeding fingers. They clawed their way across the frozen fields away from Hell’s forest.

Lieutenant Michael Peterson came back to his senses in his foxhole. His radio crackled to life. “Regroup! Fall back and regroup! Medics are coming for the wounded!” The exhausted survivors rallied and in disbelief they stared out at the empty battlefield. Moments before, they had faced certain annihilation. Now all was silent. Nothing moved. Nothing lived.

In Graydon’s dream he was a free spirit, soaring toward the light, its brilliance blossoming into a star-filled universe. His awareness flowed to it. A celestial sphere of lights expanded around him; a universe of stars and worlds lay open before him. He knew he was home.

The sense of welcome was overwhelming. He felt acceptance, a sense of belonging, of rejoining, of endless generations of family coming forward to embrace him unto themselves, filling him with exhultation. He rejoiced in his certitude of understanding: why are we here?

“This is our destiny! Our fulfillment! We love!”