Chapter 9: Legend and Illumination

"No sir, I don't think the Pasayten Pete stuff has got much to do with my dreams," Graydon explained. "I mean, there hasn't been much sense to the stories that Purdy and Patch told me, except that nobody agrees on anything. There's only those ideas about somebody or something that they call Pasayten Pete. It seems that the only thing in common is that he -- or it -- is supposed to be bad, scary bad."

Jim Brightman and Graydon relaxed in the front room while Vi busied herself at the kitchen table, mixing and kneading a batch of bread dough.

Jim smoked his pipe, hazy tendrils of blue smoke rising up while he mouthed the stem. The old man pulled the pipe away; a smile flickered across his face while he gazed out the window at the snow-blanketed field above the house. Graydon wondered what he was thinking. Jim seemed gripped in some self-amusement. Maybe he knew his own version of the legend, something he hadn't told Graydon.

"Well, don't let it get overblown in your mind. People love to take a little bit of nothing and blow it up to something wild and improbable. But your dreams have this one person in common?"

Graydon had briefly shared his dreams. He explained his confusion and worry. He worried that he might be going a little crazy. He'd never heard of anyone with dreams like his: wild, ghostly, full of danger and death and mystery.

"Yes sir. There's been this one man ... it's his eyes, his face, and his long hair. Strange hair, like it's in ribbons of black and gray, almost white. First time I saw his face, he popped out of a thunderstorm. That is, I was dreaming and this big storm came up, and then I was standin' next to the creek and this person, an old man, in buckskins and paint ... he kinda came out of thin air and stood there, and held out his hand like a greeting. Then he disappeared.

"Well, I kinda figured, later, that was just some weird dream because we moved here and I'd been reading about the Indians and history and such. So I kind of forgot about it."

Jim sat nodding, nursing his pipe.

"Then I had that long dream, after I got in the fight and the trouble at school. That dream was like something out of a movie. This man with his rifle came up on some bad guys and he was in a gunfight with them. I'm standing at one side, like a ghost, watching it happen. We're in a hot desert, there's sand and cactus and this fight's going on in a dry wash. He shoots the guys who're shooting at him, and he get's 'em, kills 'em. Then I see he's saved these two Indian kids. The boy, he's younger, and he's hurt; and the girl, she must have been the boy's older sister, she's got her clothes half torn off and she's scared really bad. This guy helps 'em, he patches 'em up and covers her up, and then these two Indian men ride up. Then they all ride off, and this man looks at me ... just like he sees me! ... and it's him! The same guy I saw in the first dream, only he's young and he doesn't have that long black and gray hair ... but his face ... it's the same face!"

"And you say that last night, you had the worst dream of all ... one that has you seriously frightened now?" Jim asked, reaching out with his pipe to tap it into the ashtray at his side.

"Yes, sir! I spent last night at the old lodge, the one I told you about, at the base of the ridge across the way."

Graydon had shared his secret with two people-his mother, and Jim Brightman. He'd said nothing about it to Purdy or Patch, or anyone else, and most especially not with his stepfather, Alex Sr. He knew that his step dad would throw a raving fit about something like that.

Graydon went into considerable detail about the dream, finally telling Jim about the disturbing ruckus raised by the coyotes that circled the lodge.

After Graydon guessed he'd told it all, he sat back and rested his arms on the soft overstuffed chair, his head laid back against one of Vi's crocheted doilies. He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the visions brought up by that dream. Nothing more was said. There was only the rustling of Jim's tobacco pouch while he refilled his pipe, and the scratch of a wooden match when he re-lit it. More moments passed. Jim sucked air through the glowing ember in the pipe bowl, and exhaled small clouds of bluish smoke.