The voice of the Native American Shaman chanting floats around in his head as he evoked the Great Spirit of his ancestors accompanied by the flute and the native drums. He imagined the flight of an eagle flying high circling the buttes and the mesas below while the coyote howls from every direction and the Jack rabbit skittles for their burrows in the ground as the red fox slid by unnoticed by the family of prairies chickens. The sun was setting leaving behind a blazing hue of warm colors that filled the skies from horizon to horizon and the Grey Wolf sits on top of the spirit rock witnessing the fading of yet another day in the desert lands of the Sonora that stretches from the foothills of the Organ Pipe Mountains into the desert lands of the Northern Mexican borders with the United States. Except for an occasional visitor, this is practically a no man's land of deserted prairie landscape that stretches south into the Sonora Desert of Mexico.
Grey Wolf was on his second Vission Quest having spent almost a week all by himself doing his meditation and chanting to the rhythm of the small drum letting his spirit rise to meet the Great Spirit Wakan Tanka. The Spirit of his ancestors the Apache and of all the Plains People, the Lakota and the Sioux, the Navajo and the Cheyenne and of all those tribes that had been practically wiped out from the face of the earth by the Whiteman throughout the American History. A good number of his forefathers man women and children lay buried in a small cemetery at what once was Fort Bowie and today is just another roadside attraction for any tourist daring enough to have visited these remote areas at the furthermost Southern tip of the US in the State of Arizona. The insignificant grave marker reads, "Here Lies the Wife and son of Geronimo," The boy was brutally murdered at the age of nine along with his mother and other tribal members. Fort Bowie is now another tourist attraction rarely visited by anyone except those who have an interest and affinity with the Native American History of the Wild West till this day and age.
Grey Wolf, not a name he was born with, had changed his name after a spiritual experience he had on his earlier Vision Quest, that of a Grey Wolf that had appeared before him and laid down and eagle feather then walked away followed by long and hair raising howl into the night. Grey Wolf had shivered in cold sweat after this experience and as he reached out and picked the eagle feather from the earth before him he felt a great energy surge that engulfed his whole being till he passed out. Upon relating his experience to the the Tribal leaders at his lodge at Navajo Reservation, the Spiritual Leader of the Tribe gave him the name Grey Wolf, last of the Apache Warrior.From henceforth he was no more Danny Lightfoot. The Eagle feather was kept hanging from the ceiling of the Spirit Lodge attached to a Dream Catcher that his mother had designed. "This Feather has come from the Great Spirit and it gives strength and energy to you as well as to the tribe, it will be here when you need it one day." the old Shaman had whispered to him.
To be Contd...
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