Nobody's Lost (Rescue Me Saga #5) (24 page)

“Sometimes the more they change, the more they stay the same. The tarp is only a means to an end. The important work is what happens underneath it.”

“Well, one thing I know is that I need to change. I don’t want to run scared and hide out another day in my life.”

“The elders are pleased that you are taking this step. They tell me they have sent many prayers up to the Great Spirit for your healing and peace of mind.”

No doubt those prayers had helped lead him here today. “I can be a little dense sometimes.”

“True. Stubborn, as well.”

Ryder smiled along with Carlos. His friend didn’t feed him any bullshit. Knowing The People had been praying for him made him see the need for this ceremony even more.

“They know you respect and understand many of our ways because of the time you spent here with me. You also have provided every week for our elderly and infirm in the community.”

“Thank you for being here for me—not just today, but way back when I was a lost and angry kid in high school, too. Honestly, though, providing for others has given me a sense of purpose. I need to be needed. Knowing someone was expecting me to stop by with a freshly dressed rabbit or a mess of fish kept me going on days when I wanted to just put an end to the demons in my head.”

“You scared the shit out of me so many times, man.”

“I didn’t mean to—I just didn’t know how to stop hurting. You know your people are my family, too. Ever since your grandmother took me in as one of her own, I’ve been at peace here. Thank you for giving me this place to stay in after I came back to New Mexico.” Ryder clapped Carlos on his bare back. “You saw I was lost and gave me a safe place to regroup.”

“I didn’t expect you to use this as a hideout, though. As you go through this quest ritual, I hope you will remember some of what you have been taught on the pueblo. No man is an island. These past few years I have feared having you becoming another casualty of war. We’ve lost too many already.”

As they neared the fire where the grandfather and grandmother lava stones were being heated, Ryder recognized the fire tender as one of Carlos’s cousins and nodded in his direction. In between the fire and the lodge was the altar barrier. Rather than a buffalo skeleton, he guessed this one was of a cow, long bleached by the sun in the desert. At the base of the altar were offerings of sage, sweetgrass, and feathers he and others left during the construction of the lodge.

Most of the other men standing around waiting to begin were strangers to Ryder, and only a couple of them had native features. One looked to be closer to sixty years than forty. He wore a baseball cap identifying himself as a Vietnam vet. The younger men had likely served in more recent conflicts, most since the Gulf War. Like Ryder and Carlos, they didn’t wear anything to identify when and where they had served. And yet all were brothers having served their country, most having seen firsthand the horrors of combat.

When the purification lodge leader instructed the nine men to prepare themselves, each man queued up on the tobacco-lined path to the entrance. Carlos, serving as the doorkeeper, explained that the tobacco represented the umbilical cord—and the lodge, the womb of Mother Earth herself.

Before leaving to take his place at the door, Carlos hugged Ryder. “Find your peace, my friend. Use your medicine. Your
verbal
medicine. Don’t keep things inside any longer.”

Unable to speak from the welled-up emotions, Ryder simply nodded and hoped when the time came to offer his prayer in the ceremony, the words would come.

Soon he stood before the lodge leader, being brushed down with the eagle fan and smudged with burning sage. Ryder bowed in humility to the Great Spirit and re-entered the womb of Mother Earth following the man before him. Each crawled around the circle from left to right just as the sun moved across the sky and sat cross-legged facing the center pit. The last man to enter was the sweat leader who instructed Carlos to close the flap at the doorway.

The sun had set by this time, and the lodge interior became dark as pitch.

The purification ceremony had begun.

*     *     *

“You are free to leave at any time if you cannot endure a round,” the leader announced. “There is no shame in listening to your body and meeting its needs. If you must leave, speak out
‘Mitakuye Oyasin,’
or ‘All my relatives’ in English, and everyone will be asked to move forward to allow you to pass behind them in clockwise fashion to the entrance where I will signal the doorkeeper to allow you to leave.”

The leader held the sacred pipe, known as
chanunpa
, in his hand and filled the bowl with tobacco as he continued. “You may need to leave between the four rounds, as well, and are encouraged to take a dip in the river to revive yourself. Each round will last about half an hour unless we find more we need to talk over. I will explain the significance of each round as we proceed tonight.”

After the brief silence where each man was asked to contemplate why he was here, the flap was raised, and the fire tender asked to bring in the first heated stones from the sacred fire. One at a time, a total of seven glowing rocks were placed in the pit that had been dug in the center of the lodge, with the final one being placed in the middle of the others representing the Grandfather. Carlos was instructed to close the flap again. The glowing rocks permitted the men in the circle to make out each other’s forms now. Heat reached Ryder swiftly, enveloping him in warmth and taking the chill off the night. Then the leader poured water over the stones, and steam filled the enclosed space.

Wet. Dark. Mother Earth. The womb.

The leader invoked:

Grandfather, Mysterious One,

We search for you along this

Great Red Road you have set us on

each in search of the right path for himself.

Ryder drew a deep breath, momentarily distracted, but a moment or so later heard:

Give us the strength and the will

to lead ourselves and our children

past the darkness we have entered.

Teach us to heal ourselves,

to heal each other,

and to heal the world.

Overcome with emotion, tears burned the backs of Ryder’s eyes.

Shake it off.

Ryder’s body shook as he tried to listen to his mother’s advice and rein in his weak emotions, but just as he hadn’t been able to remain stoic around Megan, he couldn’t hide from the Grandfather, Grandmother, or the Relatives, either. A dam burst as a sob broke free, and the Vietnam vet seated to his left, a man he didn’t even know by name, placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

Rather than feel a need to hide in embarrassment, the older man’s reaching out left Ryder feeling accepted and supported, just as Megan had done when she’d held him as he’d cried in the kitchen a few nights ago.

Spirits invoked, the
chanunpa
passed from one man to the next, each offered up his personal prayer. Some gave their names and told why they had come. Two men asked questions seeking advice on achieving their goals, and the leader answered as best he could before inviting others present to share their wisdom.

Ryder found new understanding and truths of his own in hearing each man’s words. All were equals. A sacred band of brothers. Lost souls all seeking to be reborn as the pure beings they once had been before the trials of the world had been unleashed upon them.

When the pipe passed to Ryder, he thanked the lodge leader and the Relatives for this opportunity to be here. “I am grateful to the Great Spirit for bringing me through to this point in my life and hope that I will find the lessons I needed to learn from my experiences. But I have hurt many people I loved out of fear and anger over the past several decades. I ask the Creator for guidance and to forgive me for hurting those I love.”

A vision of a smiling and radiant Megan swam before his eyes.
Jesus, how he loved her
. She might not be able to forgive him for the way he’d pushed her away, but he would have to ask anyway. She’d brought into his dark world her innocence and joy for living, and he’d stomped on her heart.

Forgive me, Baby.

He passed the pipe to the veteran on his left who held it a long time before speaking. “My name is Joe, and I’ve spent the last thirty-eight years trying to kill myself with drugs and booze and a lot of other reckless activities. I haven’t been able to forgive this country for the way it left us to have to fight our way home, too.” Ryder reached over and squeezed his shoulder, much as the man had done for him a few moments earlier. He cleared his throat before continuing. “I have grandkids now. I don’t want them to have to go through what I did, and I don’t want to screw up their lives by being a bad role model. I’m here to ask God to help me be the warrior I once was and to fight off the enemy—the enemy within.”

Ryder hoped the man found his peace. Some day he’d like to be a father, maybe even a grandfather, and he didn’t want to shame his family any more than he had already done by shutting them out. When he finished his quest, he wanted to get together with Marcia, and even Mom. He didn’t expect to ever know where his dad had gotten to, but could still forgive him. Some people weren’t cut out to be parents.

The round ended, and several men went outside, but Ryder and Joe remained along with the leader as the old stones were replaced and new ones brought in. Ryder and Joe asked the leader for more ideas to overcome the darkness in their lives.

In the second round, each man was recognized for his courage, endurance, strength, and other honorable characteristics. Accepting their positive words and prayers helped put his feelings of shortcomings into perspective.

By the time the third round of rocks had been brought in, Ryder became lightheaded as sweat poured from his body. The fast had probably helped to accelerate the process. As the leader recognized knowledge and wisdom and prayed that each man would follow along their paths in all their endeavors, Ryder saw Gino D’Alessio’s face before him. The man looked the way he remembered him before his first deployment. Eager. Fresh. Innocent.

Tears welled in his eyes again.

“Forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive. You were there for my brother when he fell. No telling what would have happened if you hadn’t been there. Marco needs a keeper.” Gino laughed.

Ryder smiled. The brothers had some kind of rivalry going on back when Ryder had known Gino. The first D’Alessio brother he’d met had told him about a woman they’d fought over, but from what Ryder recalled of those nights in the bars in Oceanside, Gino hadn’t loved the woman. He’d only wanted to protect his brother.

True brothers. Just like Carlos and Ryder. Ryder wouldn’t let anything come between him and his family again, including Carlos.

“Stay strong, brother. Not your fault.” Gino said before the vision faded away.

“I will. You, too.” He didn’t understand what he meant about something not being his fault, but he hoped Gino and Sergeant Miller were at peace in the afterlife.

Deciding to listen to his body, Ryder took advantage of the opportunity to break after this round. Carlos didn’t speak to him as he left, but nodded his encouragement. Ryder took a plunge in the river, the water near freezing in comparison to the heat of his skin.

Invigorated, he shook off the water and returned with the others who had left as the fourth and final round began. After being reminded of each of the earlier rounds, the circle was completed with a focus on growth and maturing, from which healing comes.

In conclusion, the leader spoke about how all who walked the earth were related. “What happens to one of us will inevitably impact many others of us.”

Ryder saw how his inability to forgive himself for his shortcomings—and even things beyond his control—had made it impossible for him to move on the fulfilling path intended for him in this life.

Ryder prepared to leave the lodge ceremony with a newfound connection with his spiritual side. He’d gone through the motions for years—meditation, nature hikes, time alone in the mountains—but the mental blocks he’d surrounded himself with had kept him from finding understanding and peace within his world.

Crawling out of the lodge, Ryder experienced the sense of being reborn. Just as on the day his mother had birthed him, the future was wide open with endless possibilities. He’d shed the past hurts and mistakes just as he’d shed the sweat from his body.

He would no longer allow shame, anger, and other negative emotions to overshadow everything good in his life. Nothing in life was black and white. No person was all bad or all good.

Before rejoining Carlos for the drive back up the mountain to complete two more nights in his vision quest ritual, he stopped to speak with Joe. After learning the man hadn’t chosen to do a vision quest, he knew it was time to say goodbye and told him if he ever wanted to just come and hang out up on the mountain, the door would be open as long as he lived there. He didn’t have anything to write his address or number on, but told him to just ask the lodge leader or Carlos. They’d know how to find him.

With a gruff voice and red-rimmed eyes, Joe replied, “Thank you, brother. Same goes for me. Any time. Today’s the first day of a new life. Let’s make the most out of our new paths.”

*     *     *

On the fourth day of his vision quest, Ryder sat cross-legged on the mountain. He’d been in and out of consciousness the past few hours. Spirits of the living and the dead visited him to impart their wisdom, their forgiveness, and their love.

He reached for a bottle of water from the pack Carlos must have left recently, judging from the temperature of the cold water. His friend had watched over Ryder during his quest, ensuring his safety, but they had not met face to face since the night of the purification lodge. Ryder did leave several stones for Carlos in a spot between the house and the ledge where they had agreed upon, letting Carlos know they had a bond as old as the Earth.