Chapter 16: Epilogue

With my passing, I felt myself elevating above my body, and was able to look down on the scene below me. Each of my wives was kneeling around me, one hand touching me. I felt their prayers buoy me as they prayed to the Deity or Deities they believed in for my spirit to make the journey safely to wherever they believed spirits went.

When Audoflede finished her prayer, she walked to the window and closed a black curtain I hadn’t known was there. Barely a minute later, bells in the tower of the nearby church began tolling solemnly, quickly joined by the other church bells in town. I experienced bells starting to toll, spreading out across the Empire from Valencia like a wave. I began rising again, suddenly aware of the presence of the spirits of Ragnachildis and Ambre, as well as other concubines and slaves who had gone before me and who came to meet me. Unlike the somber mood below, they were rejoicing.

Unsure as to where or why, I felt myself drawn somewhere, and followed the feeling. Ragnachildis, Ambre, and the others followed me. When we got there, I found that I had been drawn to the Okan, a major ceremony where all four tribes of the Blackfoot Nation came together each year. They were just completing this year’s Sundance Lodge where the men would dance. Normally, men who wanted to dance would wait until the day after finishing the lodge to begin their spiritual quest. I was here, now, and decided that my spiritual quest would begin today.

My first song and dance were a prayer to the Creator, thanking him for the beauty and generosity of Mother Earth and Father Sky. Then I sang my thanks for everything my parents had unselfishly done for me, especially knowing that I would be taken from them. I thanked the Creator for the good health I had enjoyed during my life and for the unique opportunity I had been given. I prayed for all life on the planet, hoping that the things I had done would have a positive effect on the world. My prayers of thanks expanded to the other Spirits. Then I began singing the story of my life.

I told about my upbringing, about finding myself in a strange time and land, about the battles I had fought, and about my efforts to bring a better way of life to the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia. I told of the hopes and worries I had started with, the shortcomings in my life, and my hopes for the family I had left behind in Valencia and elsewhere.

I ended by telling about the painful decision I had made not to travel back here to the land of my birth. While I had helped to develop a vaccine for smallpox by using cowpox, I hadn’t managed one for measles. Our medicine hadn’t advanced enough to halt the wide scale death that the presence of Europeans would unleash among the peoples native to the Americas; too many other diseases remained unconquered.

Time had no meaning to me as I sang and danced. Subconsciously I noted the day ending, a new one beginning, and then ending. The longer I sang, the faster the days flew by until the effect was like a rapid strobe light. Unlike previously, there were now people in the Sundance Lodge who weren’t dancing. Always before, only the men who danced had been allowed inside. I couldn’t make out faces because the people were moving as if they were on super-fast forward.

When I finally finished, I felt compelled to repeat my performance. Over and over, I repeated the performance, noting changes in my surroundings as I did. Several times, the Sundance Lodge grew larger. That was unusual since the tribes had always abandoned it at the end of the Okan each year, building a new lodge the following year. Still, I continued to dance and sing. I noticed women in the audience now, possibly because I sang of my love for my wives and other women in my life and gave thanks that their spirits were allowed to be here with me watching as I sang, danced, and celebrated my life and loves. I also noted that, eventually, the spirits of all my wives and concubines had joined us.

Each time I finished, I felt more energized than the previous time. Finally, after one last time, I felt literally ready to burst with energy. Somehow, I knew it was time to stop, and did so. When I stopped, the spirits of each of my wives hugged and kissed me emotionally one final time. When they finished, their spirits soared skyward. Finally, I walked through the door of the lodge, and was forced to squint because the sunlight was so bright.

-----.-----

“He squinted!” The words blasted through my consciousness. With those words came the awareness that I was lying down with my eyes closed.

“The patient has regained consciousness,” a computerized voice intoned.

“Get the doctor,” another female voice exclaimed excitedly. While not able to place the second voice right away, I knew it was familiar. The first female voice was also familiar.

“The doctor has already been summoned,” the computerized voice informed her.

The next sounds reminded me of someone dialing a cell phone. “A cell phone?” I wondered. “Wait, they’re not speaking Frankish. They’re speaking the Blackfoot tongue,” was my next thought.

“He’s waking up,” the first voice exclaimed.

“Dave, can you hear me?” the second voice asked. The female the second voice belonged to was squeezing my hand, so I returned the squeeze.

“He squeezed my hand,” she cried out jubilantly.

Just then, I heard several more people entering what I now assumed was a hospital room. “Wait, we don’t have computers or cell phones,” flashed through my mind.

A brighter light flashed through my eyelids. I squinted and tried to raise my hand to cover my eyes. “Turn down the lighting,” a male voice ordered. A couple of seconds later, the light dimmed.

“Are you in there, Dave?” the man asked.

I tried to answer but my mouth wasn’t cooperating. “Mmmmmhmmmmm,” I managed a closed-mouth moan.

“You’ve been in a coma for a year,” he explained, and then told someone to give me a little water. Someone pushed a thin straw between my parched lips and squirted a small amount of water into my mouth while I wrapped my mind around the information that I’d been in a coma for a year. If I’d been in a coma, then everything had been a dream. That made me sadder than not getting to tell my parents goodbye. I felt tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

“Drimmmm?” I tried asking aloud.

They continued giving me sips of water until my tongue was moist enough to wet my lips. “It was a dream?” I asked as the tears continued to flow.

“No, it really happened,” the second female voice answered. I could hear emotion in her voice now, too.

They gave me another sip of water.

It took another minute for someone to clear the dried crud out of the corners of my eyes and for me to get my eyes open. The tears had evidently helped. When I could finally focus, I saw both of my parents standing together at the foot of the bed. My mother had tears streaming down her face even though she was smiling. Dad had his arm around her shoulder and a few tears had escaped his eyes, too. Denise was the one holding my hand. Maggie was right next to her talking on some sort of device that I assumed was a cell phone, reporting on my awakening. The doctor was on my left, and the Tribal Elders were present behind my parents.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Here or there?” Denise queried. I guess my facial expression told her that I didn’t understand what she meant.

“What happened here is that you were in a car crash a year ago and have been in a coma ever since. Everything is different now from what you remember. Even though your body remained here, you were sent back in time to live, and changed everything. When you died in the summer of 534, your spirit traveled to the Sundance Lodge and started dancing and singing. You told of everything that had happened in your life.

“The assembled chiefs quickly realized how important the information was that you were giving them. They remembered what they could understand of what you told them and began to make changes based on the things you sang about. They realized that you were a powerful spirit sent to help them learn new ways. Forty years later, one of your great-grandsons arrived here, following the maps and the directions you had left. The Blackfoot Nation welcomed him and his companions. Your great-grandson was stunned to hear your spirit still telling your life story.

“They helped teach us about the things you sang about that we didn’t understand. Hearing about the powerful spirit, several other native nations allied themselves with the Blackfeet, until most of the tribes eventually united. The people in this room now are the only ones who remember what the world was like before your accident. Everyone else knows something changed because of your journal, but they don’t remember what it was like before. The night of your accident, we went to sleep in the old world. When we woke up the next morning, everything was different. Those of us who remembered the old world instinctively knew everything about the new world. It was as if we had been born into it and lived our lives in it.

“Excerpts from your journal are read by every child when they are in elementary school and your entire journal is read and discussed in high school and college. Clovis will never be forgotten, but you are revered by everyone. When your spirit disappeared from the Sundance Lodge yesterday, it made the news everywhere. Half the people thought you were dying. The rest of us were sure that you’d wake up now and many hurried here. Even now, tens of thousands of people are gathering outside the Sundance Lodge, hoping to see you after you wake up,” Denise explained.

“Most of them are good looking girls hoping you choose them as a wife or consort,” Maggie chuckled.

“Can’t imagine many parents being happy about that,” I retorted. My attempt at levity brought on a coughing fit instead.

They gave me more water and raised the head of the bed, so I was sitting up.

“Dave, things have changed dramatically from what you remember. I imagine that most parents would be ecstatic if you chose their daughter. I think Maggie and Denise are hoping you choose them first, before choosing any other wives,” Mom chuckled.

“Wives?” I asked.

“Very dramatically changed,” Dad reiterated, almost able to contain his knowing grin.

“Wives?” I asked again.

“As many as you want,” Denise promised sincerely as she clutched my hand to her breast.

“Not sure I can afford even one, right now,” I chuckled. This time there was no coughing fit.

“You’re probably the wealthiest person in the world,” Mom said. “When your great-grandson listened to your spirit, he said he knew you would wake up in your original body someday. Since then, your descendants have set aside ten pounds of gold and a hundred pounds of silver, or the equivalent value, every year for nearly 1500 years. You literally have hills of gold, silver, copper, platinum, jewels, pearls, and ivory,” she explained.