Spirit of the Golden Eagle

A young Native American boy's journey

Spirit of the Golden Eagle

[by SR Urie]

“…

I kill where I please because it is all mine.

There is no sophistry in my body:

My manners are tearing off heads-

 

The allotment of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct

Through the bones of the living.

No arguments assert my right:

 

The sun is behind me.

…”           

Ted Hughes " from “Hawk Roosting”

 

                  José was seven years old when his mama brought him to this place of sand and cactus and brutal heat. He found it ironic that after closing his eyes the desert chill of night woke his scrawny body. His mother was a Sioux Indian beauty with soft brown eyes and olive skin who was now married to a New Mexico county deputy sheriff. The single blanket his new stepfather provided just wasn’t enough until the sun brought the midmorning back to the searing desert landscape.

                  José’s new stepbrother was almost three years older. Richard was a white boy with blue eyes and light brown hair, standing almost two inches taller than José. “Rick” was smarter, stronger, and was often cruel, referring to José as his kid-brother. Rick was mean to José’s younger sister Maria too. He pulled her hair and teased Maria about her pudgy cheeks by applying painful pinches near her mouth; she was only four. Maria was more sensitive than José and had trouble adjusting to their new home in Elkins as well.

                  José and Maria were born in a Nebraska Indian Reservation that had rolling hills of grassland and wheat fields. Somehow José’s new stepdad convinced his mama, Anita, to pack up and move to the desert after the family car broke down on the highway to Scottsbluff. For José and Maria the whirling romance their mother had with the lanky white man named Doyle with his cruel eyes and brand new pickup truck was hard to understand. José’s real dad was a soldier in the Army who went to war when José was little and Maria was just a baby; he never returned. The boy remembered little about the man his Uncle John referred to as a Sioux warrior. The friendly man with streaks of white in his long hair used to tell José stories of the old days on dreary afternoons. John would drink from cans of beer and sometimes acted silly as he hacked and coughed in the midst of his cigarette smoke that ultimately led to his death. Anita and her kids were on the way from John’s funeral when her rusty Ford Pinto threw a rod on the highway; Doyle just happened to be driving by that day.

                  The trailer they moved into made José’s mama very happy. It had three bedrooms, a modern kitchen, and a furnished living room; it even had two bathrooms. It was good to be living in a real town like Elkins, New Mexico with a grocery store and a church. The school was only a few blocks away and there was no more having to ride a bus every morning or having to drive over twenty miles every time his mama needed groceries. José didn’t mind sharing a bed with Maria, he always had. It was unfair that Rick got a bedroom to himself where he could be stingy with his toys. Anita told José’s it was important not to make waves, angering his new father by complaining.

                  “You need to be a man about this!” she said one especially demeaning night when José’s stepfather slapped him for crying after Rick abruptly snatched a catcher’s mitt from José’s hands. Rick said that José was too stupid to play baseball. Anita promised to buy a new mitt for his birthday, but it never really happened. Instead José was given Rick’s old bicycle for Rick’s birthday when Doyle bought Rick a new ten-speed for the older boy. The biased principle somehow became okay after José discovered a strange freedom with the old Schwinn. He rode it all over town and into the desert. The bike gave José the gift of motion against the heat from the summer sun.

Three years passed. José went to school and eventually so did Maria. When José’s mom became pregnant, Doyle actually became magnanimous. He purchased a separate bed for José and allotted a weekly allowance of three dollars if the boy was good.

One day José was in the Elkins City Park watching Rick play little league baseball. His bike was securely locked up to a bike-stand. José was drinking from a can of soda pop in the shade of a tree with his back leaning against the trunk. José’s mind drifted to a memory of his Uncle John back on the reservation in Nebraska.

His Uncle John sat next to six-year-old José and spoke of his mojo, of his kindred spirit " the golden eagle.

“The brown eagle is the mightiest warrior of the sky.” John had said, standing up onto his feet and gazing into the vast blue of the sky with a funny smile on his face, ignoring the can of beer he knocked over with his foot. “His mighty wings carry him far above the earth, above the clouds, above the world until he spies his prey with vision that the gods only granted to him.

 “When he detects his target he swoops down from high above like a bullet from the stars and pierces the rabbit, or the snake or the lizard, whatever meal his exalted eyes desire (José would never forget how much he laughed at the belch that interrupted his uncle, from deep within his belly) …hmmmuoorp; …and then the mighty warrior of the air carries his prey to his nest to feed his family.”

John lowered his arms and looked at José with a strangely sad expression. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, kicked the overturned beer can with a bare toe, and grabbed another beer from a bag. After opening it with a church-key he sat back down next to José on the ground with a grunt.

“Little cub (what a nickname José’s Uncle John had given him back in those days), you too must find a mojo, a wild and powerful animal spirit to guide you through the spirit world, through your dreams, and through life.”

John took a long drink from his can of Olympia beer and then he pointed his bony finger up in the air with the knuckles of his forefinger standing out. The smile returned to his face as he reached up to pull the long black hair away from his eyes.

“Like the mighty chieftain of the sky!”

John looked up at what John was pointing at. High above, contrasting a soft white cloud, was a dark colored bird that seemed motionless at first and scarcely visible. Then it seemed to grow in size as it descended. Its dark color changed to dark brown as it approached and the brown color diminished to light brown as the eagle became clearer. The huge bird flew down like a dive bomber José once saw in a movie on TV, like it was about to crash into the sea of the Nebraska grass. The eagle seemed to plow down into the ground and then swooped back up into the air, its brown, black, and gold colored feathers spreading out into the breeze. In its talons the eagle bore a snake, and from the clicking sound it was a rattlesnake.

John jumped up from the ground, spreading his arms out wide with the can of Olympia in one hand and the church-key in the other, his face a study of enormous delight and pride.

“Shawuna-tah!” the proud Native American man shouted at the top of his lungs. José wasn’t sure exactly what his uncle had said to the eagle that just plucked a rattlesnake from the scrubs not twenty feet away from where the he and his uncle were sitting. “Shawuna-tah! You have protected me again from the wilderness, from our bitter enemy the snake!”

As the eagle flew over the rolling hills in José’s memory, a high-fly foul ball abruptly landed three or four feet away from where José was sitting in the shade. His daydream memory of his Uncle John melted in the New Mexico sunlight as José stood up and retrieved the baseball.

He tried to throw it to one of the players but when he did the ball didn’t fly into the unmasked catcher’s mit but rolled over to where a scantily clad lady was sitting in a lawn chair. She had to stand up and bend over to pick the hardball up, tossing it to the catcher. José had little experience throwing and catching baseballs.

“Ah, that’s just my kid brother.” José heard Rick shout from the infield. “He can’t do much, let alone throw a lousy baseball to the catcher.” José heard a lot of people laughing.

Tears welled up in his eyes as José rushed over to his bike, unlocked it, and rode away in such a hurry that he left the lock unlatched on the bike-rack. The tears flowed as he sped away, peddling as hard as his legs could push, and his vision blurred. José wanted the bike to fly away like the eagle of his memory. He ignored the stop sign on Main Street as the Schwinn zoomed away from the embarrassment of the baseball field and the front tire unceremoniously plowed into a Jeep that was just starting to move forward from the stop sign on the opposite side of the street.

José was cast onto the hood and his body was forced up against the windshield, up and over the top of the slowly moving vehicle. Somehow one of José’s hands grasped the flange of the back of the Jeep’s roof, and by the grace of one of his gym teachers at school who had the forethought to show little kids like José how to tumble, his feet and then his body spilled down behind the rear bumper. The boy landed on his feet on the pavement, relatively unhurt save a slight bruise on his side.

The young woman driving the Jeep shut the motor off and rushed out of the driver’s seat to assist the boy she apparently just hit with her car. She found José just standing there behind the Jeep, blankly staring and unscathed. As José stood there his ears were ringing, his heart was thumping in his chest, and a vague apparition caught his attention up in the sky as the lady called to him.

“Oh my Lord, are you alright little boy?” She was on the verge of tears.

“Huh?”

A dark bird was flying, way up in the sky, moving towards him. As it got closer its dark color became a lighter brown color. Suddenly José found himself in the lady’s arms, her bosom mashing against his face, breaking his confusion and reminding him what just happened. José wrestled his way out of the woman’s arms, assuring her he was unhurt. His tears now erupted from her eyes as José walked to the front of her car to check on his bike. Like José the bike was fairly unharmed, except the handlebars were bent a little and loosened. The front tire was miraculously intact, untrammelled.

“Are you sure you’re alright, sweetie?” the lady asked as she wiped her face with a tissue.

“Yes ma’am, I’m fine.” José answered, straddling the Schwinn and fiddling with the handlebars. “That coulda’ been a lot worse, huh?”

“Yes, much worse.” the lady replied as she watched José begin to paddle away on the little bicycle. “God bless you, sweetheart!”

“Thanks ma’am.” José replied. “Bless you too.”

The young mother climbed back into her Jeep, crying to herself without restraint as she checked on her twin toddlers strapped in the back seat. As she finally drove away she noticed the enormous, light brown colored bird flying about twenty feet above her car; the golden eagle. José didn’t remember the eagle as he rode his bike back home. He never mentioned the incident to anyone.

 

More years passed. Doyle earned a promotion and rented a house with four bedrooms. José was forced to share a new baby sister with Rick. Maria was delighted to have a baby in the family.

The winter months weren’t as cold in New Mexico as it was in Nebraska, but it did get chilly despite the lack of snow. José was eleven when Rick received a .22 caliber rifle for Christmas; José received a BB gun. It was a rifle, like Rick’s ‘22.’ After Rick completed the sublime “Hunter Safety” course, he spent a lot of time hunting rabbits out in the desert. On occasion he bagged one or two. Finally, after a lot of pleading from Anita, Rick took José with him and allowed José to shoot the 22. It was a cold February morning, a Sunday.

The rifle had a kick to it and was very loud, unlike the measly BB gun. As the morning passed the two boys started an argument about some football game they’d watched on TV the night before. Their voices rousted some rabbits in the brush and Rick shot two of them, raising renewed envy in José’s mind. Rick gathered his last kill and he handed the rifle to José to hold for a little while. As Rick perused the carcass of the third rabbit, José heard something rustling behind a stand of cactus thirty yards or so away from where Rick was. He saw what looked like dark brown fur among the thorns. José took careful aim and fired.

Rick stood up, holding the jackrabbit by the ears, and watched a fullgrown golden eagle fly away from the stand of cactus. José saw the bird and looked away from its light brown feathers, unwilling to comprehend that he’d just shot the revered bird. His mind closed in on itself. José endured being belittled by his older stepbrother for years. He wasn’t as strong or adept at sports as Rick by any means. José also had the black hair, brown eyes, and dark facial features of the Sioux Indians frowned on by white people. Now the possibility of shooting the golden eagle was more than José could bear and he squatted down to the cold sand, silently weeping. It was uncanny how understanding Rick had become in his maturing pubescence. He walked over, dropped the dead rabbit next to the other two, and put his hand on José’s shoulder.

“Hey, don’t worry about it bro.” Rick said calmly. “You probably didn’t hit him, and if he dies it could just’ve well been me that shot that eagle as much as you.”

“Really?” José asked. “Ya’ think so?”

“Sure man.” Rick replied. “It’s alright man.”

Rick’s father had grown to care for José and Maria a great deal, especially after little Sarah was born. Doyle had come to the conclusion that they’d all become a family; abandoning an otherwise callused attitude toward the Indian children they were sharing their lives with.

“Come on Joey.” It was another nickname José liked. “Let’s go home.”

The hunting incident was forgotten for months. It lurked in the back of José’s mind until one night his stepfather came home with a significant tale of woe.

“We found a golden eagle today.” the deputy sheriff said as he sank his teeth into a leg of fried chicken at the dinner table. “Magnificent. Wing span over five feet, beautiful feathers, dead as a doornail.”

“Dead?” Rick asked, sitting next to his father with a similar drumstick on his plate.

“Yeah.” Doyle replied. “Shot with what looks like a .22 caliber bullet.

“I’d love to get my hands on the lowlife who would shoot such a majestic creature.”

Rick glanced across the table at José, who set his fork down on his plate. José lowered his head and closed his eyes.

“Do you two know anything about this?” Doyle asked nonchalantly.

“No sir.”

“No sir.”

Doyle didn’t press the issue. Although the boys didn’t answer in unison, they were of one thought. Somehow it got into Rick’s mind that the trouble they’d get into for the misfired rifle shot would be bad. Neither said anything to each other or to anybody else. It was obvious that José and Rick were to blame for the eagle’s death, yet neither could shoulder the responsibility. Nevertheless there was a consequence.

 

Two more years passed. The baby girl grew to walk and to speak. Maria grew into a lovely young woman, and the two boys discovered the bountiful mystery of the fairer sex. Rick’s birthday had arrived. He was now sixteen and Doyle provided him a beautiful new ten-speed bike. José inherited Rick’s old ten-speed and the two rode their bikes all over the place together.

It was on a Sunday morning that Rick invited “Joey” to accompany him to visit his new friend Chip. Chip was a guy who lived alone by the graces of his mom. He had long hair, cool hippie clothes, and a thirty-year-old woman he’d been “banging.” He had his own small trailer nearby his mom’s house and when Chip answered the door that morning he had red eyes and a goofy smile. Rick and Joey (José) sat on Chip’s couch, both in awe of the Jimi Hendrix poster’s vivid colors on the wall, along with the cool Rock-and-Roll music playing on the brand new stereo. It seems Chip’s mom was a woman of means.

When Chip lit up a joint, the smell of the marijuana was alien to José but as enticing Chip’s independence and affluence. Unlike Rick he didn’t smoke any, but soon all three teens were laughing at Chip’s description of his “old lady’s” nude, bodily affections. José didn’t understand what was happening to him as he achieved his contact high. All he knew was that he had to go to the bathroom and that he wanted to watch the new TV show “Kung Fu” that was going to be on at noon. So he told Rick he wanted to go to the park and look at the girls and the women whom sometimes sunbathed. It was a concept that brought guffaws of laughter to Rick and Chip; Chip was rolling another tiny joint.

“Go for it bro.” Rick said. “Try my new bike. It runs smooth as butter and you should enjoy it. Just be careful where you ride. If you get a flat on that thing I’ll kill you.” And he burst back into laughter.

It was an expression of humor that José finally understood. His stepbrother was laughing with him, not at him. The camaraderie Rick showed was really cool to José after so long.

“My old lady’ll kill me if we smoke all her stash.” Chip added, and all three boys were chuckling as José stepped out of the front door of Chip’s trailer.

He climbed onto the brand-spanking-new ten-speed. It was smooth and sleek and shiny. Its gears clicked erotically as the bike travelled down Chip’s gravel driveway. José reached the paved road adjacent to Chip’s place and decided to take a shortcut on the highway. It would not only get him home faster but would give him the opportunity to show off Chip’s new bike to people on the road. As José turned the sleek bicycle onto the two lane state highway he was proud, happy, slightly stoned (a new sensation for him), and he had to pee like a racehorse.

He thought about what street he would turn onto to get to his neighborhood when he heard a long, deep honk from behind him. His world imploded into his mind as the small pickup, that was going sixty miles an hour instead of just beginning to move forward from a stop sign as the Jeep had years before, plowed into José and his older stepbrother’s brand spanking new bike.

 

The soft blue color of the sky transformed to dull grey. His ears filled with a droning buzz, a calliope of agitating noise that flowed all over his body; darkness filled his eyes, wetness flooded his groin. Flashes of light and snippets of voices interrupted his dreamy bewilderment, suddenly interrupted by the frightening sound of somebody screaming in clear agony. José didn’t understand what was happening as the world flashed on and off again in syncopated shadows and flashes of searing light, brighter than the sun. Through it all came the terrible screaming that climaxed and lulled back into the agitating buzz in his head.

His mind abruptly became aware of strong hands grasping his shoulders, and the frightening awareness of the terrible screaming that was now coming from his own mouth. Darkness erupted, exploded behind José’s eyes, from the depths of his dreams, from the bottom of his soul. A Sioux war lance of pain rushed into his chest and the awful screaming stopped.

He found himself rising up into the air, pushing himself up with arms that were now broad, dark wings with golden brown feathers that caressed the morning breeze. As his new avian body soared over the highway he banked to the right and saw a traffic jam on the two lane highway.

There was an ambulance with its lights flashing on the shoulder of the road. Just before José flew up high into the sky his keen eyes saw Rick’s brand new bicycle in the gully bellow the ambulance. Its center bar was bent into a severe angle and the front tier was similarly ravaged, the spokes of the tire mangled.

The last thing that José’s spirit saw before it was drawn up into the heavens was the ambulance backing up, turning onto the freeway, and racing away with lights flashing and siren blaring.

 

Anita finally arrived at the Roswell General Hospital with Rick sitting next to her in the back seat of Doyle’s police cruiser. Her mind was numb. As they walked into the front entrance a terrible noise assaulted their ears. The screaming echoed through the halls of the fairly large hospital building. Once the front desk nurse realized who Anita was she escorted Anita, Doyle, and Rick to a waiting room on the main floor. She’d been directed to keep the family as far away from the treatment room one floor above as possible, yet within reasonable access to the doctor who was setting José’s shattered thighbone. The seats in the small room were fairly comfortable, nevertheless wisps of José’s agonized screams still made their way to Anita’s ears and tortured mind.

Anita wept in bitter sobs.

After an hour or so Doctor Samuel Butler arrived at the waiting room in his greenish scrubs, wiping his hands and forehead with a towel. His diagnosis was not pleasant, any more than his bedside manner.

“Your son’s femur is fractured in two. He has a radial fracture in his left arm, and both his wrists are broken.

“We’ve set his leg and placed the limb in traction, but the boy has a sever concussion so we’re unable to give him anesthetic.”

Anita’s dazed mind and widely staring eyes gave her the appearance of a homeless bag lady.

“No anesthetic?” Doyle asked. Unlike his wife’s overwrought stare, his eyes glared at the rude doctor with animosity. “Why no anesthetic?”

“I was just getting to that, sir.” the doctor replied, sitting down and lighting a cigarette. “With such a major concussion there’s the definite possibility of a hematoma, an oversized blood clot in the brain. Pain killers can cause the surrounding tissue to relax, allowing the clot to separate and enter your son’s bloodstream, which with kill him toot-sweet.” Doctor Butler spoke about José’s condition as if he were describing sentence structure in an English class. He lounged in his chair, taking comfort in his smoke, and he actually smiled.

“Toot-sweet!” Rick said, enraged yet keeping his temper as he stormed out of the room. The echoes of José’s screams had subsided.

“I have other patients.” the doctor said as he stood up and nonchalantly strode out of the room, leaving Anita sobbing into Doyle’s chest.

José’s stepfather looked at the back of the doctor with hatred as the door closed behind him. Doyle had failed to purchase medical insurance for his family.

 

José’s vision faded, darkness enclosed him as the stinging noise of the ambulance dissipated. An eerie pinpoint of light flashed in front of him in a blur. He tried to concentrate as the light became more distinct, focused, and it moved toward him growing in size.

As the light grew into a brilliant beam, dark figures became visible to José’s eyes. The beam became brighter, larger, and the hazy figures " dark and shadowed clouds of blackness " came to focus. José recognized the faces of long forgotten people who were once giant grownups when he was very young. One figure especially caught José’s attention, a very familiar face that peaked out from long black hair that cascaded from the top of the transforming figure of his Uncle John.

His face was like the smudged figure of a doll in a comic book at first. John had a lost, confused expression. His vacant eyes looked at José and John’s face sharpened, materialized from the obscurity as the shadow dropped from around him. The weird cloud of black, dusty haze fell away from his shoulders and chest, and José finally recognized his uncle’s smile from years before.

He wore the same shabby white tee shirt, faded jeans, and tennis shoes he had the last time José saw him. The fact John’s clothes were phenomenally ragged did not obscure John’s recognition of José who was now six years older. José’s arms reached out to John, but the image of John’s spirit raised his palms up forward and he stepped back. Still his doting smile grew.

“Little cub.” José heard the apparition say. “You’ve been growing into such a strong little bear, and I would love to welcome you here in this place of darkness and light. But the Great Spirit has given your mojo to the golden eagle, so have I.”

José looked at the spirit of his Uncle John and he put his hands up onto his face.

The golden eagle, that magnificent bird, that mighty warrior of the sky that he himself had accidently murdered that chilly Sunday morning flashed through his mind. His being filled with grief, with remorse, with the abominable disgrace that horrid morning planted on José’s shoulders. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head, running his fingers through his hair. He looked up at his uncle.

“Uncle John, I can’t …” José cried. “Do you know what I’ve …”

John raised his palms again. “José, the eagle you killed was an accident on your part.”

“But Uncle John!” José’s face filled with angst.

“It was that eagle’s time, little cub.” John replied, his arms spreading wide as if he had a can of Olympia in his hand once again. “Its mighty spirit was required, to look after you, to connect with yours. It has been with you ever since; it always will be.”

José’s face filled with the same lost dilemma his arrival removed from John’s. He stood and looked at his uncle face to face. The very same eagle that José watched fly away from the cactus after being shot by the 22 rifle fluttered down from the black abyss, landing on the Native American spirit’s shoulders, digging its talons into the tattered tee shirt. After shifting its stance and ruffling the feathers of its wings, the golden eagle’s piercing eyes gazed into José’s.

“There is still so much for you to do, little cub; to overcome in the land of the living.”

John spoke in celebration, in encouragement, the eagle’s claws having no affect on him whatsoever. It was just like that day the eagle had soared down from the sky before their eyes, snatching the rattlesnake and carrying it away from the bushes so close to where John and José once sat in the Nebraska brush.

“But Uncle John, …”

José didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay in this place with the man who’d been so good to the little boy José once was. But his uncle didn’t let him finish.

“No, little cub.”
                  John’s voice interrupted José’s plea; so did the golden eagle clutching the spirit’s shoulder with a loud “CAWW!”

“The eagle’s spirit brought you here, protected you from the dangers of life.” John continued. “The mighty eagle will continue to protect you. It will also take you back to the land of the living …”

Suddenly the eagle leaped from John’s shoulder towards José, its wings surrounding José’s face. José was thrust back into the scary black oblivion, back into an uncontrollable motion. This time he was strangely moving in the opposite direction, yet he could see nothing. All his mind could hold onto was the sound of his uncle’s voice.

“… back to the world of men, of busty women and money, and pain.

“Remember me little cub. And remember the spirit of the golden eagle.”

José’s existence became a world of silence, of darkness; of nothingness until he abruptly woke in a groggy, numb stupor.

 

He could not move his leg and his arms had plaster on them, seizing any movement. Calling for his mama, José became enraged at the predicament of the casts on his arms, the contraption that held his leg at bay, and the big nurse with dark skin that was pushing down onto his chest, insisting that José remain calm as he demanded to get up from the hospital bed and that they take the casts from his arms. Remembering nothing of his little spin on Rick’s bike or the encounter with his uncle and the eagle, the following weeks became a living hell.

A pin, a screw a quarter of an inch in diameter and over a foot in length, had been thrust in just above José’s knee, right through the bone, holding his leg securely in traction. The casts on his arms were thick, heavy, and before long caused a terrible itch on his skin. José was forced to pee in a plastic pitcher and having to use the bedpan was more degrading than anything he’d ever experienced.

One day, as José was laying there in the hospital bed, watching a game show on the black and white television mounted on the wall, Doctor Butler walked in and asked if the scab on José’s left ankle hurt or itched. José shook his head - no - and the doctor reached into the pocket of his white lab coat, withdrawing something that looked like a weird pair of pliers; a hemostat. Bending over in front of the traction apparatus that imprisoned José’s leg, the doctor perused the ugly scab about the size of a quarter that had grown over a third of an inch in thickness. Doctor Butler took the hemostat and grasped the edge of the scab with it.

“You’re sure this doesn’t hurt or itch?” he asked José.

“No, not at all.”

With a twist of his wrist the doctor yanked the ulcerous scab from José’s ankle, sending a flash of sharp, searing excruciation up José’s leg that rose to his body and into his head. José cried out in measure of the unfamiliar pain; tears welling up into his eyes. Seeing José’s plight, the doctor looked at José and smiled.

“Felt that, did you?

“Good.”

José was developing intense hatred for the pudgy doctor and his balding head as Doctor Butler strolled out of the room without another word. There was no offer of apology or any empathy from him at all. Doctor Butler had become completely unsympathetic for any pain or anguish of other human beings because he’d been around so much of it for so long. The large African American nurse arrived shortly afterwards. She dressed José’s ankle with a bandage and hugged him with her enormous breasts. She apologized for Doctor Butler and was verbally understanding for everything José was going through. José grew to love Nurse Amber very much.

Eventually the awful doctor removed the cast from José’s right arm and replaced the left cast with another one that at least gave José’s left hand some semblance of motion. The next day Nurse Amber brought José flowers, a set of pencils, and a sketchpad. José remained in traction for two more weeks and when he was put in a body cast from the top of his belly to the tip of his left toe, José had well begun his education in drawing pictures. Not only did the portly woman have a huge bosom, which José started to readily admire, she had minored in Art when she went to college.

José endured the body cast, and the embarrassing need for a bedpan, for almost five months. He spent the rest of his life learning to sketch, to draw, and later to paint portraits. His interest in sports dissipated as much as his love for his ten-speed. After he graduated high school he was able to serve a tour in the Coast Guard. He met a woman of similar stature to Nurse Amber and had a family. His love for his wife and kids surpassed his great love for art and music. Still one thing always brought a smile to his face.

To this day whenever he drives down a country road José’s eyes tend to scan the sky, watching for that growing dark shape of his Uncle John’s mojo, for that spirit helper that watched over the Native American both in life and in the midst of the land of the dead. Whether it’s a flaw in his character or the remnant of a very high price he had to pay for accidentally murdering such a magnificent creature as the golden eagle, José seems to always be searching for that growing dot in the sky, for the mightiest warrior of the skies colored dark and light brown that scans the world below its wings for prey with which to feed its family.

 

SR Urie