Gabriel's Stand Read online

  The trawler rocked slightly. “Alice, you okay down there?” It was Gabriel’s voice from the deck. “I’ll be out in a minute!” she shouted. “Don’t spear a whale without me!”

  Alice stepped out of the galley facing the stairs to the deck; then she hesitated. Damn. Her reverie wasn’t quite done with her. She sat on a small storage chest.

  Gabriel. A noise outside her hospital room had pierced her foggy mind. The doorway to her room was open. A bandaged man was sitting just outside. With a start she recognized her husband, Gabriel, in a wheelchair. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his left shoulder was in a sling. Her daughter was standing next to Gabriel in a purple sweatshirt and jeans. The girl’s long, raven hair framed those arresting gray eyes from which nothing seemed to escape.

  Then Alice had glimpsed John Owen, their old friend from Seattle. John was standing behind Gabriel and Snowfeather, gripping her husband’s wheelchair. The three crowded in the doorway to Alice’s room, pausing for a seeming eternity. The image of the three of them, inexplicable and poignant, would forever be engraved in Alice’s mind.

  Snowfeather broke the spell, holding the door open while John pushed Gabriel just inside the doorway. “Hey, Mom, you’re awake!”

  Dr. Owen immediately walked to Alice’s bedside and studied the vital signs monitor. She could feel him gently check her wrist. “Do you know where you are?” Suddenly puzzled, Alice gave him a panicked stare. “This is a hospital, Alice. You and Gabriel were injured by a robber. You’ve been in and out of it for several hours. You do know who I am, right?”

  “John,” she had whispered.

  Dr. Owen leaned over. “Alice, you have some guests,” he said gently. He motioned back at Gabriel who was still in just inside the doorway. “Do you recognize this motley pair?” Gabriel’s face was stricken with worry. Snowfeather was grinning. Alice managed a smile and raised one hand in greeting.

  “You can come in guys,” John said. “She won’t break.”

  It took Alice several minutes to connect all the dots and even longer to see the picture they made.

  John began speaking. “Alice, two nights ago, when you and Gabriel were going out to dinner, four muggers attacked you in front of an ATM. Gabriel had been waiting in the car. He jumped out, got into a fight with them, pulled two of them off you, disabled one, then…” John paused. “One of them shot him.”

  “My God, Gabriel,” Alice whispered, “how badly…”

  John held up a gentle hand to Gabriel, mouthing, “Let me tell this…” Gabriel nodded. “Your husband is a tough old Injun, Alice, and a damn lucky man. He took two shots. The shoulder wound wasn’t serious: the bullet just missed his collar bone, a clean in and out.” Then John shook his head in wonder. “And there was a miracle. Gabriel survived a grazing head wound. The bullet actually cut a crease in his skull.”

  “What?” Gabriel made a face.

  Dr. Owen shook his head, a small smile appearing. “It really was a miracle…or a damn good imitation. Gabriel only lost consciousness for a few minutes. Not even a concussion. You were the one we’ve been worried sick about. I didn’t get your good news until we got off the plane this morning. But when Snowfeather and I left Seattle, you were on the endangered species list. By the way, Rachael, Elisabeth and Josh send their love.”

  “I’m no snail darter with the Sierra Club on my side, but I guess I’ll live,” Alice murmured. She looked at her husband, and with a stronger voice, she asked, “How is my man?”

  Gabriel leaned forward and took her hand. “I’m doing fine, Princess. I thought I’d lost you…” Gabriel was fighting tears.

  “Who would do this to us, Gabriel?”

  “The usual DC street thugs, I guess.”

  “And you took them on?”

  “I had no choice, Princess. Hey, I know, I know.” Gabriel said. “I should have ducked sooner.” Gabriel grinned.

  “Not funny,” Alice said.

  “Takes more than a thirty-eight to kill a bear,” Gabriel said.

  “Don’t talk like that, Gabriel. We could have both been killed.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “We need to get away from this terrible place.”

  “You mean the hospital or DC?”

  “Yes, both.”

  Gabriel nodded again, tears streaming down his face. “We will,” he said.

  “Promise me,” Alice demanded.

  “I promise.” Gabriel said.

  When Alice finally broke out of this reverie and climbed onto the deck of the trawler, she noticed John Owen and her husband studying her. Promise kept, Alice thought. John Owen smiled as if reading her mind.

  No one was talking at the moment; each passenger seemed to have retreated to his or her own private space. It’s going to be that kind of an outing, John thought as he looked out to the open water and slipped into his own memories.

  John Owen was starting medical school at the University of Washington when he first met freshman Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. Despite the age difference, it was an instant buddy relationship that became a lifelong friendship.

  Gabriel seemed to carry his depths with him guilelessly, like a child taking his Marvel comic book on his father’s mountain lion hunting trip in order to hide a volume of Kierkegaard. It seemed that Gabriel’s outer toughness was always betrayed by something suddenly soft or funny or startlingly deep…a lingering glance, a turn of phrase, a stance. John had long ago concluded that Gabriel Standing Bear carried more real depth than any guy he had ever met.

  On a recent visit to DC, Dr. Owen had noticed a new painting in his friend’s office. Senator Gabriel Standing Bear was looking out from the wall. That stocky torso, the white shirt, the bolo tie and Gabriel’s gray braided hair were perfectly rendered. Like a modern Chief, John had thought. Gabriel’s close-set, brown eyes were lit with the irrepressible twinkle John had seen so many times before. As John had stared at the painting, he imagined his old friend launching into another story. He noted the artist’s signature: ACH. He later asked Gabriel who that was. “He really captured you, Gabriel.”

  “It was my Alice,” Gabriel had said, glowing with pride.

  “John? Earth to John.” Gabriel was waving his hand at his friend from his seat on the boat.

  John Owen smiled. “Sorry, I was just remembering…our history together.”

  “Like?”

  “Oh…like when the doctors cleared Alice for release, and Snowfeather and I met you for pancakes before our flight back to Seattle. You didn’t look that much worse for wear. That’s when you told me you’re going to have that crease in your skull filled in.”

  “You said I wouldn’t want to damage my hard-headed reputation.”

  “Thick-headed.” The two men smiled. As John stood to stretch, he caught Gabriel with a direct look. “There was something more you were going to tell me about your skull surgery?”

  “Yes.” Gabriel also got up. “Dental surgeons do something like it but I will be supplying the filling.”

  Snowfeather had been quietly standing behind the two men when Gabriel made his “bone” announcement. She made a face, and Gabriel patted her on the shoulder.

  “Using your own bone?” John asked.

  “No, but it’s sort of in the family,” Gabriel said.

  “Please, Dad, can I tell?” Snowfeather was gleefully impatient. Gabriel nodded and winked. “It is from the skull of a bear Grandfather Tall Bear killed in Montana.” Snowfeather dramatically rolled her eyes—she was enjoying this moment.

  “Oh boy,” Dr. Owen remarked. “I’d love to see the look on the face of that surgeon.”

  Chapter 3

  Gabriel’s skull surgery took place a month after their Seattle boat trip with John and his family. After a call from Dr. Owen, the surgeon used a bone graft made of powdered bear bone, neatly filling the furrow left by the bullet.

  A few months later, Gabriel and Alice kidnapped Snowfeather from school for a long weekend in Northern Idaho where
they would meet the family’s old friend, Fred Loud Owl, a Navajo tribal healer. Gabriel’s skull had healed quickly. Some new gray hair had grown back over the spot. Fred Loud Owl’s reputation as a shaman and a healer had gained a wide following in and outside the Northwest and Southwest tribes. At Fred’s direction, a sweat lodge had been dug out of the earth and roofed with lashed willow branches and pine logs on a private preserve leased to a foundation owned by The Native Americans of Idaho.

  It was autumn in Northern Idaho, several hours before sundown. Inside, Gabriel Standing Bear sat cross-legged on a pile of fresh pine needles and sage. Heat was heavy in the air, and the mid-afternoon sunlight leaked through cracks in the logs overhead. The deerskin stretched over the frame entrance glowed softly, making a webbed lantern covered with backlit symbols for fire, sun, earth, the bear, the bison, the hawk and the eagle.

  The doorway slid aside, the sunlight lancing through the dim lodge space. Then the lanky silhouette of Fred Loud Owl filled the opening, carrying a large heated stone in forked branches. He slipped in almost soundlessly, and the deerskin closed behind him. Gabriel blinked as a rush of cool air was swallowed in the heat—sweat was trickling freely down his face.

  A fire outside filled the nearby air with the pungent smells of burning pine, sage, and willow. Gabriel closed his eyes. In the hot gloom, he could hear the heavy click of the final stone, and Fred’s soft breathing. In the remote distance, a dog barked.

  ——

  Fred Loud Owl sometimes described himself as a neo-orthodox shaman. Raised in New Mexico as Navajo Catholic, Fred had absorbed all of the modern permutations of the North American aboriginal experience, soaking up a full century of cultural fads and developments. From his father and grandfather, he memorized stories of the Red Power movement of the 1960s, their disparaging jokes about the aborted “God is Red” movements of the 1980s, even the casino syndicate scandals and the reservation welfare revolts.

  As a young man, Fred joined in the pan-tribal movements in the early 21st century. In his thirties, Fred Loud Owl became a leader of a more thoughtful and serious effort to knit the authentic common threads of the old traditions. His mission was to keep the Indian sense of life alive and relevant. For Fred, the “Indian Way” was a deep, rooted counterpoint to the rootless, fragmented postmodern culture and to the self-centered hollowness of the New Age. Just in time, he believed.

  As a teenager, Fred Loud Owl had been standing with Gabriel’s father and mother during little Gabriel’s naming ceremony. It was a reinvented tradition, a partly adapted, partly made up ritual, born of necessity. The ceremonies were well guarded, because of ersatz re-naming rituals abused by opportunistic whites attempting to cash in on “the Native American thing.” The special naming rituals for children of Native Americans remained a closely held family practice that gradually grew in acceptance among the tribes, completely under the white culture’s radar. It was thought to be a matter of necessity because most 21st century Native Americans had so mixed their bloodlines and so commingled and diluted their tribal traditions that the continuity of old names was rapidly disappearing.

  On that private occasion, little Gabriel’s naming ritual was a joy, the magical day when the sturdy little boy’s baby name, Little Bear, became Standing Bear, a man who would become a great leader.

  In the sweat lodge, Loud Owl thought of Gabriel’s naming when he began to chant an ancient Navajo song about the tribes and the earth, the animals and the stars. While Fred was silent, Gabriel simply sat, breathing very slowly, feeling the heat penetrate his bones. Finally Fred asked, “How is your bear?”

  “Awake. But worried…haunted even,” Gabriel said softly. He studied Fred Loud Owl’s lined face the dim light.

  “Bears don’t worry much.”

  “Bears don’t get mugged very often,” Gabriel said. Fred nodded, keeping an attentive silence. “This haunted bear is thirsty.”

  Loud Owl passed Gabriel a small stone cup. The water, surprisingly, was very cold. “Let us talk to the Great Spirit.”

  Outside, another hour had passed as Snowfeather and Alice Canyon Hawke waited in a steel-reinforced teepee near the lake. Several small trout were wrapped in wet willow leaves, roasting on a bed of coals. A pot of coffee bubbled, balanced on a stone. Nearby, Alice’s stallion, Thunder, snorted and shifted his weight. More time passed, and then Alice heard the heavy tread of two men walking on gravel. She looked over at her daughter, and marveled at how grown up and beautiful she was now. Snowfeather smiled back, her eyes already wise beyond her years.

  The sunset cast a golden light across the camp. It had been six hours altogether. Gabriel appeared first, walking over the crest of a small hill. His face was shining, his bare skin still making steam in the chill air. Snowfeather ran to her father, holding out Great Grandfather Fat Bear’s ceremonial blanket. Gabriel kissed her on the forehead, wrapped the blanket around his torso, then continued striding toward his wife. Snowfeather walked along happily at her father’s side, while Loud Owl hung back at the crest of the small hill. As Gabriel reached the camp, Fred Loud Owl waved briefly in the distance. “Be well, old friend,” he called out, and dropped out of sight.

  “I have my Bear Brain back,” Gabriel announced, and he took Alice into his arms.

  Alice laughed as she hugged Gabriel fiercely. “You better be smarter’n the average bear,” she said. “Or we’re suing the surgeons.” Gabriel pantomimed a bear face and growled. “No change there,” she said, laughing.

  ——

  Fred Loud Owl drove to Seattle the next day, having detoured there for an afternoon of sightseeing before rejoining his group on the trek home to New Mexico. The next morning, through a fine rain, Fred noticed a coffee shop near campus, a warm oasis of light, comfort and heat. As he entered, he took in the scene: a group of kids, probably all students, were gathered in the corner near the triple-paned window that looked across the street into an upscale tattoo and body piercing salon.

  Coffee in hand, Fred drifted toward the clutch of students, his ears tuned to the conversation.

  “We’ve gotta junk all the high tech clutter, get back to basics. I mean ALL.” The speaker was in his mid-twenties, holding court, surrounded by several students about the same age. “Too many people in the world.” The members of the group were dressed alike in deliberately shredded jeans and chinos, their puffy, insulated vests hanging on chair backs. Fred Loud Owl noticed their survival watches with multifunction telecom capabilities, the high-end running shoes and hiking boots, and the expensive earth-colored sweatshirts.

  The speaker was stockier than the rest. His swarthy, wide face bore an eager, almost fierce expression, and he wore a thick napped tee shirt with the slogan, “TECHNOLOGY SUCKS.” Below the words, a cartoon picture of Mother Earth was struggling under a load of gadgets. A thought balloon carried her plea, “HELP!”

  Loud Owl approached, carrying his tall cup of black coffee. “Mind if I listen in?” he asked.

  “No problem,” the speaker said, pointing to a chair by the next table. “Pull up a seat. Glad to have a ‘man of the earth’ join us.”

  Fred nodded, keeping his expression opaque as he slid the chair next to a freckled young woman. Man of the earth?

  “I mean my dad is one of the worst. He actually makes this high tech stuff.”

  “Oh. What does your father do, exactly?” Loud Owl didn’t like prying but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

  “My father’s the CEO of General Advanced Technologies.”

  Fred nodded sagely. “I have actually heard of Edward Gosli. You have a famous dad. Sorry to interrupt.”

  “Famous asshole.” The girls tittered. “As I see it, we’d be better off without all these modern developments. We charged ahead without a clue what we were doing to the earth. I say dig a huge hole and bury all this stuff.”

  “That’s a pretty big hole,” Loud Owl said. “So we should go back to a simpler time?”

  “Exactly.”

  �
��Sort of like my great, great grandfather enjoyed, I imagine. Just how far back do you have in mind?”

  “Before all the ecological trouble started.”

  “Wow. That’s quite a ways. My people wiped out the mastodons and the saber tooth tigers using Paleolithic technology.”

  Ed Gosli, Jr. frowned. “Look at the harm we Europeans have done since we got beyond sticks and stones.”

  “True enough,” Fred said. “Aren’t there any technologies you’d want to keep?”

  There was a pause as if Ed Gosli’s son hadn’t thought that through. “I think dirt bikes are okay,” he said.

  “That’s a good one. I’m fond of my music collection. Can I keep my digital player?” Most people tended to miss loud Owl’s irony, and young Gosli was no exception.

  “Sure,” he said, smiling. “Music is harmless.”

  “How about modern outdoor clothing?”

  “Of course. It’s the mechanical things, the large, intrusive machines I hate.”

  “Hiking boots?”

  “Sure. They don’t burn energy.”

  Obviously the kid doesn’t have a clue about manufacture and transportation, Loud Owl thought. “It’s a pretty long walk from here to the mountains,” he said.

  “Horses are a good thing.”

  “I have three Appaloosas. But no way will they agree to take me between here and New Mexico. Not in their lifetimes.” A couple of girls laughed. The Gosli kid scowled, having momentarily lost the stage. “But I see what you mean,” Loud Owl said.

  “I mean people did travel before jets and cars.”

  “True. But you do get a sore butt after a few days on a horse,” Loud Owl said.

  “I imagine.”

  “Visited a doctor lately?”

  “Well…I get that. I suppose we’d have to keep the doctors, of course.”

  “A very good idea. My great grandfather died at about your age because he didn’t have one. Of course, it helps if the doctors know something about medicine and have some basic tools.”