Читать книгу Cougar of Spirit Lake - Linnette MDiv Eller - Страница 4

Winter Woman stirred the embers of the fire and added a few sticks of wood. She pulled her fur robes around her and sat staring into the flames. Another dream. This one she knew had a special meaning. She pondered all that this one could mean but Winter Woman sensed without knowing how, that this dream did not mean something to only her people, this one directly involved her, and of this, she was certain.

She recalled her Grandfather with his sparkling green eyes and ready laughter. At first, her Grandmother had merely been his woman as was the way with so many of the white trappers, but her Grandfather loved her too dearly to let it rest at that. He married her Grandmother not only in the custom of her people but in the way of his people as well, as if to insure himself, she was his in every way possible. Grandfather had not only been accepted among her people but had lived much of his life with them, and his beloved Singing Water. Even now the young ones spoke of them as legend. Their love and honor for one another known to many and admired by all. Grandfather had left for the Spirit World but two summers past. He had lived ninety-six summers he told her that spring. He was anxious to be with his Singing Water, who had passed into the Spirit World six summers before. The twinkle had been taken from his eyes when she had died. Theirs had been a long and happy life together, and both had lived to be very old. The love they had for each other had never left their eyes, regardless of the years they had spent together.

Legend.

Yes, thought Winter Woman, their love was legend, but only part of the legend. Her Grandfather had dreams too. His dreams, as hers, seemed to fly over time and look into the time that was beyond them. The wise leaders of her people had listened to Grandfather's dreams, and held them in great reverence. Not only did he have dreams, but other gifts as well. He sensed things as he called it. He had been known to tell the hunters exactly where to go that day to find the mighty buffalo, moose, or elk. His sense never failed. The hunters never questioned him and would going directly to the place he had described and find exactly what they had been told would be there. The mighty Chief did not question him either. When he went to him and told him the village had to be moved immediately because of a great sickness coming to it, the Chief had acted. That same day, they had left the village. Later, they were told that white trappers had come to the deserted village that day, and all but one had died there of the great sickness.

Grandfather in his later years had told Winter Woman how he had grieved when his only daughter told him she was to have a child. His dreams had shown him his beloved daughter being taken into the Spirit World during the birth of this child, Winter Woman. Although he adored his beautiful granddaughter, he had named Winter Woman, he and Singing Water mourned the loss of their only child, born late in life for them. They carried that grief in their heart for all their years.

They had transferred all their love to their little granddaughter. Winter Woman realized she had probably not missed having her own mother nearly as much due to the love and care lavished on her by her Grandparents. She had grown into a beauty herself, although she was never really aware of her beauty, even now she was stunning. She had known many summers, and this would be her forty-seventh summer. She looked closer to thirty, however. Her life had brought her much happiness, and her gifts of dreams brought her people many rewards.

There had also been times that this was not so. Times when she almost wished she did not have the dreams, because she did not want to see what these dreams beheld. The sense was hers, as it had also been her Grandfather's.

She recalled the day only twelve summers old that she had asked him why he had given her the name Winter Woman. His green eyes looked at her very solemnly for many moments. Then he told her that her dreams would always come as the cold wind of winter came. She had known for a very long time now that this was true. Even in the warmth of summer an unexpectedly cold breeze would chill her body momentarily and then be gone. That same night she would have a dream. It had always been so. The winter wind came, and the dream followed.

She had learned much from her gentle Grandfather about her dreams. In her youth, she had trouble understanding them, and he would always take the time to sit with her and talk of the dreams and explain them. She detested not having him with her now. She missed him so very dearly.

When the time came and Grandfather made his journey into the Spirit World, he was still a figure to behold. His tall body never became stooped or bent. He always stood proud, which made his six foot six height seem even greater. He had broad shoulders and was a man of legendary strength and endurance. Grandfather had once told her that his own father had been a huge man of Nordic heritage. His mother was a petite, green-eyed beauty from highlands known as Scotland. Winter Woman's own son seemed to have inherited his size from her Grandfather.

Yes, she mused, his size as well as those green eyes. Although her husband was a large man himself, Winter Woman was quite small, in fact her Grandfather had told her she was petite, a word used in faraway lands he had said. Her son, however, was the physical replica of Grandfather. Oh yes, her son caused many blushes and whispers as he walked through the village, his looks and size were much talked of among the maidens. Winter Woman knew it was not only maternal pride that made her know her son was an incredibly handsome man. Yet still he had no woman in his life.

Thinking of her Grandfather and husband brought other memories back to her as well. She had loved her husband. A great Chief, and yet a kind and gentle husband.

Only once had he yelled at her and only once did he strike her. She had seen this coming in a dream before it happened too. That dream she had scoffed at. That dream she had told no one except Grandfather. He had shaken his head and looked at her sadly when she tried to convince him as well as herself, that this had not been one of her special dreams. This dream did not count; it could not be true she kept telling him.

Grandfather had told her the dreams did not always show what we wanted to see, but they were true no matter how hard we might try to dispel them from our minds. At the time, she could not even imagine her husband being with so much anger that he would ever strike her. This was not his nature. Sadly, in the end the dream had proven to be true as her Grandfather had said it would.

When her young son was only nine summers old, Grandfather told her he must be sent away to learn the ways of the white man. She had not agreed with him, and they had one of the few arguments then that ever made a shadow across their lives. Grandfather knew the boy would go to the white man's schools though, and he finally admitted having seen many things about this in a dream. It was necessary that the boy be taught both cultures, he said, because he would walk his life among both worlds and another world of gifts that they both knew.

When she had told her husband this, he had railed against her. He was a Chief. His son would become a Chief after him. There would be no white man's school for his son. The argument between them had continued for three more days, until he actually had been angered enough to strike her in his rage. In the end, their son had gone to the white man's school, but things were never to be the same between her husband and herself again.

Two summers later, her son returned to spend the summer in the village with his people. She could still remember her excitement to have him back with her again! She had sorely missed him. The moment of his return she had felt the cold wind, and had shivered, knowing she did not want this dream to come unto her that night. As the dreams are not brought forth by the desires of the dreamer, neither can they be wished away. That night her dream came, but had she known the term nightmare, she would have called it that rather than dream.

Shaken and frightened by her dream, she had awakened her husband and told him of it. Since the time their son had left the village, two summers before her husband had treated her dreams, and those of her Grandfather with scorn, and something akin to hatred. So it was on that night. He scoffed, then became angry and rolled on his side, placing his back to her. She did not sleep that night, weeping silently until the morning dawned.

Three days later, as the dream had been so it was.

Her husband took their son to Spirit Lake. A great storm rolled over the mountains and lightning flashed across the Lake. The Chief had taken his son out upon the great Lake to speak to him of the many things he should have been teaching him during his absence from the village. The Chief became enraged when he saw the storm coming across the mountains, as Winter Woman had told him it would from her dream. He became so determined to break the truth of the dreams of Winter Woman, that he made a fatal error of judgment. One that before his son had been sent away, also because of the dreams, he would not have made. The great storm took her husband's life that day. As she sat in the village, she sensed the moment it happened and began weeping softly and quietly to herself.

True to her dream, her son met with his namesake that day. The huge tawny Cat with the all-knowing green eyes, had pulled him from the frigid waters by his buckskin shirt, and saved his life. The men from the village had raced to the boy after seeing across the lake, the Great Cat actually jump into the waters, something they had never seen before. The Great Cat had stretched his large body out beside the boy and warmed his chilled body, so dangerously cold from waters of the Lake. He never moved, protecting and keeping him warm until the men arrived from the far side of the Lake. When the men arrived, the Great Cat rose, put his nose to the forehead of the boy, looked closely at his face again, then turned and padded away into the forest leaving the men awestruck.

This served to verify that his name had been given with meaning. Grandfather had named her son the day of his birth, Cougar of Spirit Lake. There had been those that had hidden smiles over this great name given to such a tiny baby. The smiles, replaced with awe the night he was born, when the Great Cat had walked into the village, looked into where Winter Woman and her new son were sleeping, and started a rumbling purr. After a moment, he turned, surveyed those who had stopped what they were doing to stare, then turned and walked nonchalantly away.

On the day her son left for the white man's school the hunters saw the Cat sitting on a rock high above the Lake. As her son and her Grandfather rode away they heard the Cat scream as it paced to and fro. The chilling sounds of the screams echoing across the water and up into the mountains for what seemed like hours. The Great Cat was not seen again for many moons. On the night before her son returned from school its voice could be heard echoing across the Lake once more.

Her husband had seen the Cat lying on a rock above the Lake the morning he went out upon it with his son. His last mistakes on this earth were ignoring what Winter Woman had told him from her dream, and ignoring the Cat known as the Spirit of the Lake. He looked up at the tawny Cat, frowning down at him, green eyes narrowed, and looking angry. The Chief dismissed this thought, disgusted at even allowing it, since everyone knew a cat could not frown or look angry.

Winter Woman allowed her son to stay with her for several more summers after losing his father. Grandfather finally came to her and said the time was again at hand for Cougar to return and finish his education. She wept softly into her furs that night, even though she knew this was meant to be. Again, the village heard the Great Cat sending his screams across the Lake as Cougar and her Grandfather rode away.

Cougar returned a man. Winter Woman felt cheated that she had not been able to watch this happen. She had sent away a boy of thirteen summers. A young man of seventeen summers, tall and lean had returned for a summer, and again left. Finally, a man of twenty-three summers had returned.

The village had awakened earlier than usual the day of her son's return. His return was not expected. They were all ill at ease when the Great Cat could be heard echoing across the Lake. They wondered why the Cat was behaving in such a manner. It was not for them to wonder long because shortly before the sun reached mid sky Cougar of Spirit Lake rode silently into the village and strode to his Mother and smiled down into her eyes.

Coming back to the present Winter Woman absently stirred the fire. Cougar had returned over five summers ago now. He was the Chief of the village on the shores of Spirit Lake. She worried for her son. She could see the loneliness in his eyes, and yet he had not taken a wife. Winter woman knew the answer to this. The answer was in her dreams; she just did not want to believe it, even though she knew the dreams would be what was to be. As it is to be, it will be. She knew this.

There had been the first dream about this nearly nineteen summers ago. It was not a bad dream. She did not understand it, and spoke with her Grandfather, but he had told her this was not for him to explain. This dream's meaning would be shown to her in time. Still, she mulled it over in her mind over and over because this dream stayed with her, all these years, and it was still as clear as the first time she had dreamed it. It came into her mind again this night as she sat before the fire.

She had dreamed of a white woman with hair like corn silk, and the gentlest blue eyes that Winter Woman had ever seen. She sensed her to be a very kind and gentle woman. She was giving birth to a tiny baby girl. The birth brought much joy to the new parents. Suddenly, in the dream, the Great Cat appeared sitting at the foot of the bed. Then the white woman kept softly saying to the child a word Winter Woman was not familiar with, although at Grandfather's insistence, she was very fluent in English. She had to ask him of this word, and this, he did explain. It was a name. It was a girl's name and the name was Jessica.

Tonight, her dream had again been of this beautiful woman. Winter Woman had felt the woman's Spirit step over into the Spirit World. The husband of the woman was so overwhelmed with grief that when she saw his eyes she knew he was no longer with this world. She knew the white man's mind had gone from him when his wife had slipped into the Spirit World. Winter Woman felt much concern for the innocent ones she could sense needed this man. They were his children, and they too were grieving deeply over the loss of their beloved Mother.

Suddenly, the sound of the Great Cat echoed through her dream, and she saw him sitting on the ground looking up into a window of a house, of the type white men lived in. The Great Cat also seemed disturbed and was flicking his great tail about and staring at the window. She looked in her dream at the window and saw what she thought to be a kitten, thinking it to be an off spring of the Cat she looked closer. It was not a kitten, no; it was a girl, nearly a woman. She had the most unusual hair, flowing about her to her waist in glistening beauty, streaked with a color close to that of the Cat's. The girls’ eyes shared their luminous green color with the Great Cat.

Winter Woman was bewildered, and wondered what was wrong. Why did she keep confusing the girl with the Cat? She could see huge tears falling from those eyes, staining the delicate cheeks of this girl. Her grief and mourning were so great it nearly overwhelmed Winter Woman even through the dream. It was heart rending to hear her small mewling sounds, like a kitten, but these were the sounds of muffled crying, of trying to keep silent in her grief.

The Great Cat could also hear the sounds, and he was making sounds of his own. They were horrible sounds, echoing through the valley in sympathy to the muffled grief of the girl. Winter Woman became confused yet again when she saw her son. She looked from the Cat to the girl to her son and could not understand how it could be that they all had the same eyes.

She knew that the girl and her son and even the Great Cat were somehow bound together. Even after the dream was over, the sound of the anguished cries of the Great Cat echoed across the strange valley where the girl lived. She knew without knowing that this valley was far, very far indeed from this village on the shores of Spirit Lake.

Perhaps mused, Winter Woman staring into the fire, the dreams to come to her from this night forward she would await with eagerness. She wanted to unravel the mystery of these dreams. Her one great comfort was that when she had looked into the eyes of her son while he had looked up at the girl his eyes no longer held any loneliness. Oh, if only her Grandfather were here, perhaps he could be persuaded to help her with this dream.

At last, as the first rays of the new day came upon the village, Winter Woman slept. It was a peaceful sleep and without dreams, a soft smile gracing her beautiful face as she slumbered.