Chapter 9: Legend and Illumination

"No sir, I don't think the Pasayten Pete stories have got much to do with my dreams," Graydon guessed. "I mean, there hasn't been much to the stories that Purdy and Patch have told me, except there seems to be a lot of confusion. Nobody seems to agree on anything, just that there's some stories about somebody or something that they call Pasayten Pete. Seems the only thing in common is it's s'posed to be somethin' bad, scary bad."

Jim Brightman and Graydon sat comfortably in the front room, while Vi busied herself at the kitchen table with baking, mixing and kneading a batch of bread dough.

Jim rested quietly, tendrils of blue smoke rising from his pipe as he idly mouthed the stem. He lifted his hand, moved his pipe away, and a smile flickered across his face as he gazed off at the snow-blanketed field above the house. Graydon wondered what he was thinking; the man seemed gripped in some self-amusement. Maybe he had his own "take" on the legend, something he hadn't yet told Graydon.

"Well, don't let it get too overblown in your mind. People love to take a little bit of nothin' and blow it up to somethin' wild and improbable. But you say these dreams have this one person in common?"

Graydon had unburdened himself with a brief telling of the dreams. He hadn't gone into much detail or explanation. He wanted to share his confusion and worry; at times it seemed he might be going a little crazy. He'd never heard of anyone with dreams like he'd been having: wild, ghostly, full of danger and death and mystery.

"Yes sir. There's this one man ... it's his eyes, his face, and his long hair ... it's strange, like it's in ribbons of black and grey, almost white. First time, he just popped out of a thunderstorm. That is, I was dreaming and this big storm came up, and then I was standin' next to the creek and this person ... old man, I guess, in buckskins and paint ... he kinda came out of thin air and stood there, and held out his hand like a greeting. Then he disappeared.

"Well, I kinda figured, later, that was just some weird dream 'cause we moved here and I been reading about the Indians and history and such. So I just kinda forgot about it."

Jim sat nodding, nursing his pipe, quietly.

"Then I had that long dream, after I got in that fight and the trouble at school. That dream was like something out of a movie, a western. There was this man with his rifle, came up on some bad guys and he was in a gunfight with them. I'm just standin' at one side, like some ghost, watchin' all this happen. It's in the hot desert, there's sand and cactus and this fight's goin' on in a dry wash. He shoots these guys who're shootin' at him, and he get's 'em. Kills 'em. Then I see he's saved these two Indian kids. The boy, he's younger, and he's hurt; and the girl, she must have been the boy's older sister, she's got her clothes half torn off and she's scared near to death. This guy helps 'em, patches 'em up and covers her up, and then these two Indian men ride up. They all ride off, and this man looks at me ... just like he sees me! ... and it's him! The same guy as I saw in the first dream, only young and he doesn't have that long black and grey hair ... but his face ... it's the same face!"

"And you say that last night, you had the worst dream of all ... one that has you really frightened now?" Jim asked, reaching out with his pipe to empty it into the ashtray at his side.

"Yes. I spent the night over at the old lodge, the one I told you about at the base of the mountain across the way."

Graydon had shared that secret with two people; his mother, and Jim Brightman. He'd said nothing about it to Purdy or Patch, or anyone else, most especially not his stepfather, Alex Sr. He knew that his step dad would throw a raving fit about something like that.

Graydon went into considerable detail about the dream, then told him about the strange event of the coyotes circling the lodge and raising such a noisy ruckus, even for coyotes.

After the long telling, Graydon guessed he'd about told it all and he sat back, resting his arms on the soft overstuffed chair, his head laid back against one of Vi's crocheted doilies. He closed his eyes, trying to shut away the visions of that dream brought up by his telling of it. The room was silent except for the rustling of Jim's tobacco pouch as he refilled his pipe, and the scratch of a wooden match as he re-lit it. More moments passed. Jim sucked air through the glowing ember in the pipe bowl, and exhaled small clouds of bluish smoke.