Not Without Pain

copyright by John R. Barker (penname for Philip Petersen)

Valerie's mind raced in time to the visual 'click' of regular-spaced palm trees she passed at seventy-five. She slowed down to look for 'Tree Lane'.

'God, that's synchronous,' she mused.

She found herself maneuvering a long, twisted driveway through thick underbrush. The old mansion appeared from behind rows of unkempt hedge, the front walk almost invisible in the overgrowth.

'Unlikely place for a piano teacher,' she thought. The mansion suffered from perennial neglect: unhinged shutters, peeling white paint, and a tarnished brass gargoyle knocker. An unidentified snake slithered past in the long grass.

She knocked timidly at the huge carved door. The act thundered into the interior.

Valerie waited. A blue heron flew by, blue-grey against the pink sunset. She knocked again. The door opened immediately.

Mr. Burntree was a portly middle aged man, whose cigar-clenching, square jaw reflected latent physical power.

"Miss Kristen?" he said.

"Yes. Are you Mr. Burntree?" He nodded. She was taken aback at his attire. He

wore a red satin lounging robe, embroidered with a Japanese maiden carrying a conch shell across a narrow bridge. The bridge spanned a 'bottomless' abyss.

"That's beautiful," she remarked.

"My Mother made it for me," he said, turning and beckoning her to the interior.

They walked through the long bare entrance hall and made a sudden right turn into the den. Valerie noticed that the inside of the house was well-kept, though the furniture was quite old: antique caned chairs, a large fireplace, and a piano.

The keyboard rested in the hands of a fierce demon with a bull's head and a wrathful grin. The beast's body was the body of the instrument: human with eighteen

arms. Except for one on either side of the wood sculpture each finger ended in a key.

There were smaller human heads alongside the bull's, and a smaller peaceful Buddha's

head on top. A string of ivory skulls adorned the beast's neck, as if trophies of his feasting.

"Sit down!" said the teacher.

"Here?" she asked.

"Don't be frightened," he said, "It's Yamantaka, lord of death."

Valerie's seat was a blue oriental rug atop a tree stump. She placed herself cautiously in front of the bizarre piano.

"Middle C?" he suggested.

How did he know she knew what it was? She hit the note. It had a rich tone, as if resonating from the depths of time. Valerie could swear she heard a whole chorus of pianos playing the same note. Was this multiplication only in her mind?

Mr. Burntree smelled of a pine scent, clean in spite of his cigar. It was musky and wooden, elegant like his Japanese robe. He parted his thick black hair much lower on the side of head than fashionable. For a bulky man, his hands were fine, fingers long and articulate.

"Now, let's try some rhythm." Burntree cocked his cigar to the side of his mouth.

With his index finger he hammered, 'da da-dit da-dit da'.

She tried to reproduce the rhythm, but paused in the middle. He asked her to try again. She found herself looking squarely into his determined, deep-set eyes. For a moment she thought she saw a broad river, swans landing peacefully in a line across its still waters. She broke from his hypnotic gaze and played the rhythm perfectly.

She was possessed with the urge to repeat the figure over and over. Her hand trembled as the impulse passed from her brain to her fingers. She played louder and faster with each repetition, until it was so loud and fast she could swear the stars overhead vibrated to the beat.

She felt embarrassed at her impulsive act. Mr Burntree smiled widely in full acceptance of her humanity. New vistas of communication opened. She trusted.

He taught her a few chords, relating each one to feelings. The C major triumphant, D minor mysterious and foreboding. The G major chord was one of unfulfilled longing. For her it brought out her deep capacity to love someone special she hadn't found yet.

"These three chords are easily played using only the white keys," he said.

"Minor chords are sad, major happy. It's not hard to tell them apart."

He showed her how to combine these three chords with a melody and sang:

"Love is caught in the wind, singing along with the sparrow

You are as free as you've been, think not at all of tomorrow

On the river, a sprinkle of silver glow

Love is caught in the wind, singing along as we go.

"Spring is coming along and winter is taking a lover

Sunshine is baking my home, taking me back to my Mother

On the grassland, pheasants may sport for the grain

Spring is coming along and loving is on my brain.

"Up here with fire aglow, taking the chill off the shoulder

Too soon the fire will die, and only the embers will smoulder

So cut some branches, feeding them into the fire

They're just dead anyway, and burning them makes it rise higher."

Valerie surprised herself by learning to sing the song with the chords she had learned. Mr. Burntree explained the songs origin: "I discovered the words in a long-forgotten book of poetry from the Renaissance. I put them to music. Do you like it?"

"I do," she said. "The music is really nice. I can hear an ensemble of Renaissance instruments when you play it."

"You mean saxbut and psaltry?"

"Kind of." She paused and then asked, "Are you going to teach me how to read notes?"

He paused to gather his thoughts. "For me, notes only get in the way of the feeling of the music. I teach everything by ear."

It wasn't what she expected, but the ease with which she learned amazed her. He

taught her to see the keyboard as groupings of black and white notes. This made it easier for her to find her place in a melody. He played a simple Mozart piece and showed her the right hand.

The hour was over. "If you need help, just call me... anytime," he said.

"OK," she said. 'What a contrast,' she thought, 'between the bloodthirsty demon

in the piano and Mr. Burntree. His serene demeanor contrasted the bloodthirsty rage of Yamantaka.' There was something about this she didn't quite understand.

"Here's your coat," he said, uncovering a stuffed pelican in the hall closet.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

"The pelican? My Mother left it to me with the house--when she died."

"Do you live here alone?"

"Quite alone... "

His words left her with an empty feeling in her stomach, as if she had just set out on a journey with an unknown destination. She said goodbye, made her way through the tangled yard, and headed home in the dark.

2.

"Where is your music?" Mrs. Kristen asked her daughter.

"He teaches by ear, Mom."

"I never heard of such a thing."

"Listen." Valerie began a halting rendition of the Mozart piece. Her mother lifted one eyebrow in surprise, but retained a doubtful, mocking smile.

She changed the subject. "Will you be ready for your cousin Jenny's wedding on Saturday?"

"Yes, Mother," she said bitterly. She didn't want to go, but her Mother insisted on things like that. Valerie was also expected to carry on intelligent conversation with friends of the family when the occasion arose.

"Don't forget to pick up your new dress at Nussman's."

"I won't." Valerie chronically found her Mother's demands on her lifestyle offensive. 'Dress well, talk human'--that could easily be her motto. Her Father, Tim, worked long hours as an executive for a summer clothing firm, so she had no dearth of things to wear. However, when it came to her relatives, her tongue twisted into knots. She felt like a hypocrite talking about the world's problems and not doing anything about them.

For Valerie, the wedding came and went in a flourish of boredom. She couldn't wait to be home and out of her starchy dress, back at the keyboard. Several times that week she had played herself into oblivion to escape family tension. Saturday night was no exception. She ploughed into Mr. Burntree's renaissance piece and soon found a smile on her lips. She was so absorbed that she forgot to call her friend, Don back about the outing in the woods she had planned for the next day. He called her.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked.

"You'll see," she said.

"Is it far from the road?"

"A couple of miles."

"Well, at least we'll have a chance to be alone," he said. "That doesn't happen often." They became friends in their first year in high school, but Valerie was wary of too much closeness. Donald Armand was a rebel. She preferred not to mix with his crowd and partake of all his habits. She liked him, though, and they spent a lot of time sharing ideas and opinions. Some of his ideas were expressed in his songs.

"Hey, I just wrote another song," he told her. "It's about a war protester who goes to jail rather than Viet Nam."

"Another protest song. Don't you ever write about love?" Don, and his group, 'Firepower', were well known locally for their angry songs.

"Just give me a chance, baby." Valerie knew very well what he meant.

Sunday afternoon was breezy, threatening rain. Valerie got dressed for the excursion.

"Where are you going?" her mother hollered up the stairs.

"A secret, Mom," she replied in an amused tone.

"If I know you, you're gonna go out in the woods and get bombed with that bum!"

Anne knew well that Valerie didn't do that, but she half wished she would. Her daughter was a little too careful for her taste. Val's father, Tim, was religiously immersed in the Sunday funnies.

"Who's getting bombed?" he asked, rising from a deep philosophical reflection on the antics of Pogo.

"We all are." So saying, Anne pirouetted, ran to his chair and seductively added,

"Right now..."

Upstairs, Valerie found her mother's statement ironically true on another level. Television news stories vividly depicted the loss of young men in the war as a result of bombing raids. 'No one is immune to the suffering' she thought. "We're all getting bombed.'

They cautiously kept to the high ground on the swampy path through the cypress.

Don looked lost and bewildered.

"How much farther is it to your special place?" he asked, his brown eyes darting anxiously to either side of the trail. He felt out of control.

"We should be to the meadow soon."

Twenty silent minutes later they cam to a huge clearing, empty but for a ramshackle

Dutch windmill.

"I don't believe it--a windmill in Florida!" Don shouted, observing the massive rotating blades. Each revolution promised to be the last, the propeller of the strange engine wobbling and groaning in the strong wind. He got the feeling that its feeble churning kept the earth turning.

"This is what I wanted to show you," she said. A C chord sounded in her head as clearly as if Mr. Burntree had played it. She lost her balance and fell clumsily to the long grass.

"Are you all right?" he asked, helping her to her feet.

"I think so, but I still feel very strange." She brushed off. "I've been depressed lately, and I guess seeing my windmill again knocked it all out of me." she didn't want him to know about Mr. Burntree yet, since she knew he would want her to play piano for him. However, she also felt the need to talk.

"I've started piano lessons, and for some reason the rest of my life seems just plain dull in comparison to the music."

"Are you depressed when you're with me?"

"No. Come on, Don, let me show you my mill."

They opened the very low door and stooped to enter. "Must have been made long ago when people were smaller," she said. A small, bug-eyed mouse startled her as it stopped to examine her, and scurried to a crack in the wall. They climbed the narrow staircase, and from the top, they could see the town resting comfortably in the swamp

like whipped cream in the center of a pumpkin pie. It seemed insubstantial enough to be swept away with a brush of the hand.

Every few seconds a blade passed the window and cut the fragile world momentarily from view. It was as if the town, the swamp, and the whole world were merely a film played in slow motion for their benefit.

They both felt as if time had been pulled out from under them like a rug, and reached for each other for reassurance. Don kissed her with his body. She was tempted to surrender, but at that moment she heard a voice.

'I am your windmill,' it said as if the source of the male voice were right next to her.Valerie whirled around to see who had spoken and then realized it was Mr. Burntree.

No one was there. She was upset and let Don hold her, unable to explain how she had heard a voice.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing... I.... just feel strange."

The momentary spell was broken, and Don suggested they leave. They found their way down the stairs, through the meadow and the swamp to his car, leaving as silently as they came.

Don spoke as he opened the door for her, "You've changed. I'm finding it hard to understand you."

She replied. "Thanks for taking me to my mill. Please don't let it bother you. It wasn't your fault." They kissed briefly and he drove off. He was worried about her.

In school the next day, Valerie was introverted and despondent. She didn't absorb much in class. However, one thing made an impression. Her English teacher talked like a Shakespearean actor and was portly dignified in his well tailored suits and neatly trimmed straight white hair. That day he launched into one of his numerous digressions.

"Our friends in the history department," he began, 'would have us believe that writing was invented in Egypt and the Near East about 6,000 years ago. I tend to doubt that myself, in light of the fact that cavemen in Europe were painting excellent representations of deer and bison thousands of years earlier. I'd hate to think of literature lagging that far behind art."

"Hooray for art!" someone shouted mockingly from the rear of the room.

"Ahem... It even makes one wonder whether the cavemen were as primitive as the archaeologists make them out to be. They weren't nearly as primitive of course...

As you scallywags in the back of this room!" He screamed his epithet, causing several of the troublemakers to fall low in their seats. Mr.Chambers had a way of holding a feigned anger in his hip pocket for the right moment.

He continued. "The possibility exists that they didn't use caves as dwellings, but rather as temples for their rituals of the hunt."

"Hail Diana!" Don trumpeted from five seats back.

"Don, why don't you come sit up front here," Mr. Chambers suggested with contrasting coolness. "I want all my literary 'experts' to sit where I can hear their comments." Valerie suppressed a giggle as Don marched forward.

"May I go on? Some 'disreputable' historians suggest that the homes of cavemen were made of something which decayed over the years--like wood or grass--and didn't leave a trace."

"To think that man had been on the earth for at least three million years without building a dwelling is inexcusable. We've all heard of the mythical civilization of Atlantis... I know. Hail, Atlantis!" The class roared.

"The fact that the myth exists must mean that there is some reality behind it. We tend to single out our cycle of civilization as the only one that has ever devastated the planet, but we know the Earth has been here a long time."

Valerie intuitively felt he must be right. What also could explain the great secrets 'ancient' civilizations kept hidden from their average citizens? Why all the tales of lost continents and strange unaccounted-for figures filtering down through the art of the ages? She vaguely promised herself she would find answers to these questions , but the darkness of her depression obscured the resolve in her memory.

On her way home her thoughts started to clear. She realized that her piano playing was a threat to her life as it had been. Her relationships would have to change to make room for the hours she wanted to spend on her music. Her depression stemmed, as she saw it, from apprehension. She had entered the musical garden of pleasure and was afraid of the reaction of others to the change. How could she fulfill her obligations and become fully immersed in music?

The day ended with little resolution to this question, but at least she had found the question. She could call Mr. Burntree, but it seemed inappropriate to relate to him on

a new level for now.

When she got home, she laid down her books and purse and went straight to the piano. She cried softly. No one was home.

3.

The next morning the sun penetrated her Mandarin orange curtains and woke her much earlier than usual. She opened her window, pulled back her long blond hair out of her nightgown, and gazed longingly at the day. Palm trees bristled in a swift breeze. The sky was entirely cloudless, the sun so bright she felt she needed Eskimo sunglasses.

She got in some early morning practice before school. With her second piano lesson approaching, she still had trouble changing chords fast enough. However, she was determined to improve, and vowed to practice regularly in the early hours of each morning.

As a watched pot never boils, she felt like her after-school lesson would never come. It was an eternity before she was wading through the weedy front lawn of the Burntree estate. She noticed a little more about the house and grounds this time. The main building paralleled a wide river at a distance of a hundred yards. She presumed from its width that it was an inlet from the ocean, which was a few miles away. Ducks were chattering on the banks and swans lay motionless at the edge of the swift central current.

The mansion itself was antique white with dull green shutters. Two wings led to the river on either side of the main entrance. Untrimmed hedges led to the pillared portico, giving the impression the grounds were being absorbed into the wilds.

A Buddha seemed to glare at her through a ground floor window from the interior dimness. His finger was gently arched, pointing to cryptic writing hanging on the back wall of the room. A polished wooden surface beamed a few diffuse rays her way.

Burntree was soon at the door, smiling his almost extravagant smile and smoking a thick aromatic cigar. He was dressed, as before, in his red robe and an aura of absolute serenity.

"Why are you so sad," he asked, as if she were his little girl.

She was surprised by his intimacy, but managed an answer. Somehow she had no fear of her mentor. "I think I really want to devote myself to the piano, but don't know how to handle the changes in my life."

"That'll take care of itself," he assured.

As they passed the dining room, the door was slightly ajar, and she could see the 'Buddha' smiling wistfully at her. She would ask to see more of the house later.

As they entered the den, he questioned her, "Have your parents given you any trouble over my methods?"

"A little. My Mother wondered where my music was."

"Well, maybe we can satisfy her this time." He began to scribble the Mozart piece

onto a piece of paper. "When you left, I felt uneasy about not having given you something written. This is the first time I have ever felt moved to study musical notation. It wasn't so much the difficulty I have gone through with my other students in teaching by ear, but more the special talent I sensed in you."

Valerie blushed and turned her head, but was pleased by the special attention. What he said was awkwardly delivered, but was from the heart and to the point. It was as if he knew the effect it would have on her devotion to the piano and her mentor.

The second lesson flowed more than the first. When she played his melody for him, she did it without pausing for chord changes. His presence seemed to transform her clumsiness into confident clarity. She couldn't recall a single person having such an effect on her.

He refined her technique, demonstrating glissando and arpeggio figures, using a simplified Brahms piece to illustrate. When he had demonstrated the work and she repeated it successfully, he asked her, "Are you still afraid of devoting yourself to the piano?"

"I see now that I don't want my family and friends to think that the piano is more important to me than they are, but I do also see how my music can be a gift to many others."

"They'll make it through the change. Maybe they will benefit from seeing somebody passionately devoted to their art."

"But what am I in for if I take the plunge?"

"You already have. Ask yourself about music. What makes it move the soul? Is it the artist, the work itself? The most communicative works of art are a result of necessity rather than plan."

"Look at Van Gogh," he continued, "Did he want to paint sunflowers? No, he had to paint sunflowers or go mad." Valerie pictured herself with tousled hair, hunched over the piano, hopelessly involved in a soul-scraping composition, the way she often thought of Beethoven.

"Will I go mad?" she asked.

"In the eyes of the world, that's what it takes. That passion, that devotion, that labor. The spirit of the works you play will possess you in a sense. Be careful of what you play. The spirit behind real art is eternal and unchanging."

Valerie could grasp the deep feeling behind what he said. He continued, "No war could ever destroy this spirit; famine could never starve it to death; no chemical could ever choke it; no dictator rule it."

She felt an almost primitive surge passing from Mr. Burntree to her, like thousands of compressed notes passing through her body and filling it with the desire for more.

As she gazed at his half-closed eyes, she saw a glow about him she had not seen before. In the protective silence, his face shone with a radiance far more real than its features. For an instant, his face was obliterated by the penetrating light.

She felt uncomfortable, and broke the reverie. "How old were you when you started to play the piano?" she asked.

He smiled broadly. "I was five when I took my first piano lesson. Although my Mother played very well, she thought it unwise to teach me. I was sent to a Mrs. Clayburn for private lessons. She taught me out of a book, and I watched her hands carefully. I remembered how the music sounded and how her hands went, and practiced without reading the notes. I hated the idea of relying on notes."

"Soon the assignments got harder, and in about three months I was in over my head. Although the teacher appreciated my agility, my mind could hold only so much music at once. Four part pieces taxed my memory, and when I stared blankly at the music script, she saw I wasn't reading it. She gave up."

"What did you do then?"

"For about five years I played only occasionally. One day, though, I happened to put on a record of Brahms pieces. I was unusually relaxed, and lay on the floor. I was deeply moved by the music. It was playing my body. I transcended it, feeling my soul expanding to the limits of the universe. My interest was rekindled, and I started to play again, this time imitating records, and grilling my Mother for the techniques she had mastered."

More of Burntree was visible to Valerie, but she hungered for greater understanding. "Could you show me the house?" she asked.

"Why not?" he said, walking her to the dining room. She immediately saw the wooden surface she had glimpsed was a coffin. Between the coffin and the portrait was an open flame burning in a hammered gold cup. It was cold in the room.

"Is that the Buddha?" she asked, avoiding the casket.

"No, that is Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage of the Tao. This coffin contains a portion of his remains my Mother was given by a Taoist monk. One of my favorite sayings is from his Tao Te Ching:

'Lazily I drift

as though I had no home

All others have enough to spare

I am the one left out

I have the mind of a fool

muddled and confused

When common people scintillate

I alone make shadows

Vulgar folks are sharp and knowing

only I am melancholy

Restless like the ocean

blown about I cannot stop

other men can find employment

but I am stubborn; I am mean

Alone I am and different

because I prize and seek

my sustenance from the mother!'"

(Translated by R. B. Blakney.)

Burntree intoned each word with power and bell-like clarity. She felt the outpouring of his soul, his pain, and his triumph. She understood the significance of the coffin and lapsed into a silent reverent mood.

Without talking, he sensed her mood, and walked her to the front door. "Take it easy." he said, giving her a fatherly pat on the shoulder.

She left, vowing that next time she would get up the courage to ask more about the terrifying Tibetan god carved into the piano. It was clear that it was tailored to fit the keyboard and works of the instrument. It's black arms flowed into the keys. Could Burntree have made it himself? She halfway hoped he hadn't. The ferocity of the face of the bull-like head haunted her as she drove home.

Driving into the setting sun, she had difficulty seeing. Several times she adjusted the visor to block the glare. Suddenly a cow darted out into the road. Turning the wheel to avoid it, she slammed on her brakes. The car spun in a tight arc, the tail just clearing the cow's hind end. She came to a halt beside it. It continued peaceful across the road. 'How strange' she thought, 'it acted like it didn't notice.'

It then stopped and turned to look at her, finally bellowing in fear, and mirroring the features of the Tibetan bull. Shaken, she drove away. As Mr. Burntree suggested, she took it easy--all the way home.

4.

Valerie found the Brahms piece difficult, but the 'spirit' of the music kept her cemented to the bench until she mastered it. She locked the room so she could feel more alone with her work.

She listened to all types of music: rock, classical, folk, jazz. They all had meaning for her. There was so much surfacing as she plunged into her interior world. Music became a tool for self discovery.

Her friends were puzzled to find her in class: glassy-eyed and staring into space, sometimes tapping her fingers to the euphonies of the universal voice.

Friday after school Don approached her, "I'm sorry I didn't catch your mood last Sunday at the windmill. I figure you've been goin' through changes with music and all."

"It's all right," she replied. "We out to get together and play sometime. I know I'm not very good yet, but maybe you could help me figure out some pop stuff I've been dying to learn."

"Right, no prob babe. Say, how about a party tonight? The band's puttin' on a benefit over at the Gates' Mansion."

"A benefit?"

"Yeah, for all the freaks in the area."

"Does that include me?" Val had never turned on, in spite of Don's persistent nagging.

"You don't have to use dope to be a freak." They laughed a little. She gave him a gentle punch in the belly.

"Maybe you're right" she said. "My behavior lately probably fits in just right."

"See you tonight at 7:30," he said on the run. "I've got my Chevy hot and runnin' for a big date."

"With who?"

"Some mad piano freak."

The grounds of the Gates place were humming with sound, the flickering light creating a sense that time was hip-hopping along at a jolty pace. Inside were hundreds of candles melting into oddly-shaped, layered pools on the old hardwood floor.

Randal met them at the door. His eyes beaded out from his brow and his smile was

cheshire-like, but placed slightly off to left of center. He had short stubby hands and

sported a shine on a balding front pate. Known as a quite pleasant elementary school teacher during the day, his night reputation among the 'freaks' was quite different. Don

knew him as a guide to psychedelic heaven. His place was called 'freak central'. He had connections with the town officials in some way nobody quite understood. Somehow he evaded losing his position at the local school.

'Something strange about him,' Val thought, at first meeting.

The band was already rocking the center of the large hall-like room. Don's lead guitarist was singing, "Followed my conductor to his respected place, pity and starvation's seen on every face..." This was Don's arrangement of 'The State of Arkansas', a rock version of a folk tune. He watched his band without joining in.

Other things occupied his mind.

"Hand me one of those cigarettes...," he motioned to Randal. He fired up a thick joint rolled in sticky brown paper. "How about it Val?" he prodded.

"I don't know. The way things have been it might send me to the funny farm."

"Maybe you'd see things clearer. It does that for me sometimes."

She took the stubby cigarette and imitated Don, inhaling and holding. She released the smoke, blue in the lighting, and coughed a little. The warm smoke curled sensuously in flowing ribbons in front of her.

She felt mellow and danced close to Don. The band pounded a steady blues rhythm,

while the guitarist ran the range of the instrument, gyrating as if animated by imaginary lightning bolts.

"As they danced Val found Don's scent intoxicating. He smelled of oranges, marijuana, and patchouli with a bit of car grease mixed in. The oranges reminded her that he worked part-time in a citrus co-op to be able to live in his own place. Though she never had before, she found herself wishing she could go home with him.

His body melded into her. She shuddered as he held her even closer and kissed her gently at the base of the neck.

"Why don't we go upstairs?" he asked.

"Isn't it a little early?" She weakly resisted what she knew was inevitable.

"You don't mean it, baby."

"You're right, let's go."

Don borrowed a reefer from a tall sad girl in the corner, took a drag, and handed it to Valerie. The extra boost made her numb with pleasure. They circled up the staircase, found an empty room, and bolted the door. A few records and a ragged mattress lay scattered on the floor.

Alone with Don, she found herself unsure of what to do. "I'm losing my virginity in two ways in one night," she said. "I wish we had a nicer place."

"I knew you were the one ever since I saw you." Don caressed her silken hair gently.

"I never thought I loved you," she said. "But now..."

His hands took a while to work their way to her breasts. He gently caressed a nipple. "Help me get undressed," she said. Her clothes were soon scattered over the room, filling in the empty places of the collage. She stretched out self-consciously on the bed. "Don, I'm cold," she said, shivering uncontrollably.

"I'll make you warm." Quickly he undressed himself, and lay down beside her.

Her shivering stopped. Her hands stroked his back. All barriers gone, they moved slowly with desperation, Val feeling every part of her body responding. She was soon the focus of a web of color, binding her to his body in neonescent electricity. It was over.

The band had gone on a twenty minute musical escapade in the middle of the song,

and the singer was bringing the piece to an end. They lay in bliss and could hear the

last verse:

'Going' to the Arizona Territory, gonna live outside the law

Say goodbye to the farmers in the state of Arkansas

If you ever see me back again it'll be by tooth and claw

Haveta see me through a telescope, from hell to Arkansas.'

As they dressed, Val felt deep inside of herself, and could see herself through Don's eyes. She experienced him admiring her graceful movements.

"Do you love me?" she asked, putting her fine yellow hair in place.

"I'm thinkin' I do," he smiled. Unexpectedly he catapulted off the mattress and held her tight, his naked body against her fully-clothed one. "Id like you again."

"I'm all dressed."

"Does it matter?"

"No."

This time they moved more in tune, with a taste of deathlike agony. The end was like switching on a light in a dark room. Valerie just couldn't come down.

Don had to help her dress, and she was still writhing as they descended. She leaned on him for support to keep from stumbling. He was tired.

"Must be the grass," she mumbled, "I can't get myself together!" There was panic in her voice.

"Try this," Randal suggested, appearing out of nowhere. Before she knew it she had taken a long toke and was steady again, in a corner fixed by 'candle city' in the corner of the room. Boom--the hundreds of candles split into thousands of fiery fragments.

She turned, and there were millions of Randals glowing in her mind.

"Randals and candles," she muttered and fainted to the floor.

Don carried her to his car and tried to revive her. He kissed her. She awake singing,

'Oh waters deep, keep me in sleep." Don hadn't heard the melody before. "I want to go home," she said, garbling her words like a midnight drunk.

Don took her home. She went inside and to bed, dreaming of cats, broccoli, and sword-fighting mice.

Morning: toast and marmalade; coffee, corn-fritters, and tupelo honey. She felt a lot better. In fact, extraordinarily good, as if her adventure had lightened her load.

Her father was out watering geraniums, and her mother wrestled with a crossword in the living room.

"My God," she said, "I'll never do that again."

'At least the dope,' she thought. Her girlfriends told her Don was good, but she never imagined how good.

Sharp shouting came from across the street. Her father came in from the garden.

"They've cornered an alligator in the vacant lot!" he said with excitement.

As they crossed the street to watch, they heard a primitive dinosaur-like roar. A D chord sounded in Val's head.

Two sheriff's deputies tried to lasso the animal's legs. They missed several times,

and the gator seemed annoyed, as if he had been wakened from a long nap. He wasn't in the mood to move.

One of the tin star cowboys deftly dropped a loop of his jaws and tightened it. He jumped back like a frog when the beast gave a twitch.

She and her father moved closer. Her mother stayed on the safe side of the road, pencil and newspaper still in hand.

The alligator lurched forward and stepped into a rope loop waiting for him. Pulling it taught, one of the sheriffs bound the two front legs together. Carelessly Val moved forward to see the final capture.

"Get back--watch the tail!" the sheriff yelled. Wham! Val was laid flat on the swamp grass. They took the gator away in their wagon, and a couple of the officers tended to Val.

"I can't move it. I think my it's broken!" She pointed to her leg. The officers carried her to her parent's car, making a seat with their arms. Val was in pain. All the way to the hospital she recalled Burntree's words, "Take it easy, take it easy, take it easy..." At least now she would be able to.

It was a dreary Sunday. Valerie munched on gingered pears and fingered the piano. Her heavy cast rested on a red pillow underneath the instrument. 'Gloom, gloom, I live in a tomb,' she muttered, playing a dirge. Don called. It helped a little. She was tempted to fall into the clutches of the 'vampire television', as she called it, but resisted.

The passionate music of Brahms flowed boldly into the wet Florida air.

5.

Val became more devoted to her piano and to Mr. Burntree. Each visit opened new musical vistas. Classical techniques, modern composers, and even ragtime and the blues became accessible.

"Whenever I feel down, I play a little ragtime--it's as infectious as popcorn--it can't help but make you feel good" he told her.

One of her favorites was 'When You're Down and Out'. When he played it, she sang in a husky female voice words she had heard in a coffeehouse version.

"Not Bad!" he exclaimed to her throaty rendition. "I'll show you how to compose

originals." He gave her a sense of how to experiment with chords and words. "My mother used to sing quite well," he added.

"Tell me about her," Val requested.

"My Mother was a generous woman who had a lust for the wandering life. In her travels, she encountered mysteries which led her into the labyrinth of religion."

"My Father made a huge fortune in tobacco, and when he died, she gave away most of his money to charity, and took off on a world-wide journey. Were he alive, he would have fought her philanthropy to the death. She got on very poorly with him in his later years, and she left home, often for years at a time. My Father, of course, managed to live it up while she was gone."

"One of her early journeys led her to a lost tribe in the New Hebrides islands. This tribe made a practice of worshiping each other. The ritual was quite elaborate. The natives would pick one of their number by lot and leave him in a hut without food or water."

"Sounds cruel," Valerie remarked.

"They knew what they were in for," Burntree continued. "They then adorned the outside of the hut with all the food they could find: carcasses of a type of ground hog strung on poles, tapioca roots, bananas, and so on. The decoration was all the food they had gathered on that day. Meanwhile, the rest of the tribe lived on mango juice, routed from its skin with a spear point, and ground to a pulp in coconut shells."

"On the second day, the tribesmen gathered brightly-colored cloth to cover the horrendous, smelly coating of food. Oranges, reds, and greens were the dominant colors. The door to the hut was carefully watched to insure that the 'worshipped' one didn't get at the eats."

"I'd be famished by that time," Val commented.

Burntree shifted a little in his seat and went on.

"The third day a giant head was made out of palm leaves woven in a tight ball, using whole coconuts for eyes. Holes were bored in the coconuts so that sticks could be used to attach the eyes to the head. A bulbous root was the nose, and the mouth was formed by the skin of a black snake, hunted for the purpose. Tree trunks were attached as arms and legs, and the beast was worshipped in an elaborate fire ceremony in which the name of the chosen tribesman was invoked as if a god. A large wheel was set on fire and whirled after being attached to the belly of the beast, and the natives danced, passing as close to the flames as possible. The fire was thought to impart magical powers."

"The morning of the fourth day the hut was opened, and each time they performed the yearly ritual, the inhabitant of the hut was gone. They could find no trace of the 'worshiped' one inside, except for the red loincloth he was wearing. My mother had a valet watch while she slept to make sure the native inside hadn't skipped town."

"What did she think about that?"

"She was mystified. She never saw any signs of reappearance. Never, that is, until two years later in Tibet."

"Isn't that a long ways from the New Hebrides?" she asked.

"Quite. Her meandering took her two years to reach it. She had heard that the 'worshiped' one would reappear somewhere else in the world, at a location only hinted at by omens. To help her in her search, she drew an accurate sketch of him during the ceremony."

"She was led to trace contacts of merchant ships with the island shores, and managed by probing conversations with Japanese sailors to limit the possibility of escape to a trading ship whose home port was Canton, China. It was rumored that the

native could teleport first only upon the island, then knowing his destiny, he would leave for points unknown."

"Her next stop was Canton. The head of the trading company had nothing to say about a mysterious New Hebredian passenger, but Hilda felt he was lying. She managed to contact the tax overseer in the province, who told her that a caravan had gone inland, carrying with them a suspicious slave."

"So she followed the caravan and caught up with him in Tibet?" Val was guessing.

"Not exactly. His description matched her drawing, so she began to trace out the steps of the caravan into the Chinese mainland."

"While enroute, an old man led her to the grave of Lao Tzu: a beautifully kept garden surrounding a markerless mound of earth. Elephantine vines grew protectively above small plants and flowers. The caretaker was evidently meticulous in his efforts to honor the sage. Nevertheless, he had his eye on her fancy jewelry and offered to sell a handful of Lao Tzu's ashes for a sum of nearly one thousand pounds. The ashes were probably worthless, but my Mother was charmed by the beauty of the place. She carried the remains in a small jewelry chest, giving the rest of her jewels to a poor farmer in the neighborhood, hoping to redeem her desecration of the sage's grave."

"Where did she go from there?"

"Her journey continued into the cold Tibetan highlands. The hardships along the way were many, but my Mother, with the help of a native guide, walked, or should I say limped into Lhasa."

"Did she have an accident along the way?"

"Yes. She wasn't hit with a flying alligator tail, but she did receive a bad scrape

when her horse bolted on a mountain trail."

"What caused it to bolt?"

"Lightning struck a tree about a hundred yards ahead of her. The animal panicked, banging its side and Mother's leg against the jagged rocks along the trail."

"Thanks to the guide's application of a medicinal herb, her leg healed to walking strength in a few days. She managed to complete the trip, much of it on foot.

Like you, she limped for quite a while."

"Two miles from the city, she was unexpectedly greeted by couriers of the Dalai Lama. They took her to his golden palace, and there the Pope of Tibet told her the following story. I hope you don't mind if I dramatize it a bit."

"'Mrs Hilda Burntree,' he said in a high oriental wail, 'our oracles have predicted you would come in search of a solution to a puzzling situation. They did not, however,

tell us the nature of the problem. They saw an American woman in her forties, carrying a jewelry case containing sacred relics. Do you have such a case?"

"'Yes,' she answered nervously, 'it contains a portion of the remains of Lao Tzu, the Chinese sage.'"

"'May I see it?' Handing him the box, Hilda was gratified to see him peer into it reverently. Of course, he was only trying not to offend her, as he knew the relics could not possibly be genuine."

"'What is it you seek?' he asked."

"'I am trying to find a certain native of a certain tribe in the New Hebrides.'She showed him her sketch and described the miraculous disappearance."

"'Summon Lama Gon Ting.' After a short wait, a tall stately young lama was ushered into the hall. He was dressed in the traditional saffron robe and had his head shaved, but Mother immediately recognized him as the young man in her drawing."

"The Dalai Lama explained. 'Thirty years ago, one of our very special Lamas passed from this body. The oracles agreed that rebirth was immanent ten years hence, and described a certain island in the great ocean. Anxious to reinstate our Lama to his rightful place as the Abbot of To Ling, we sent our envoys to the island when he was a full-grown youth, and secretly arranged to have his lot drawn in the ceremony.'"

"We had a tunnel and trap door constructed inside the hut by which he escaped to the trade ship and China and Tibet. That particular tribe had penalty of death for anyone leaving the village for good. That is why we had to make such elaborate arrangements.'"

"'Now he stands before you--Lama Gon Ting, Abbot of To Ling.'"

"My Mother was astounded that her quest found such sudden success, and in time she came to know the Abbot well. His friendship instilled religious curiosity in her, and soon she was initiated into the delicate rituals of the Tibetan Tantra."

"What is this Tantra?"

"Tantra is a system of rituals for arousing the dormant forces of the mind so that their energies can be applied toward spiritual goals. Kind of a 'dangling the carrot before the horse' procedure."

"You mean the horse gets to look at the carrot, but doesn't get to eat it."

"Sometimes. And meanwhile the cart reaches its destination. In Tantra, though, there are cases where the horse is allowed to eat the carrot, but only if this would help him go faster."

"What spiritual goals was your mother seeking?"

"Aside from seeking her own Buddha nature, she also had a temporary interest in some of the occult powers."

"Which ones?" Valerie had heard of some of the amazing feats of yogis in the East.

"She eventually became such an adept that she was able to rearrange the atoms of certain materials by the power of her mind alone. Wood was one of those substances."

"With my own eyes, as a small boy, I saw her transform the trunk of a large tree into the piano you see here today. She had the workings of an old piano brought into the den. Some workmen put the tree trunk through the window. We left her completely alone in the room for two days, and, allowed into room, I saw the tree had been transformed into the wrathful Yamantaka."

"Are you sure she didn't just carve out the demon?"

"She wouldn't have had time, had no experience in woodcarving, and the outline

of the demon extended beyond the limits of the trunk." Valerie glanced at the piano and noticed the fierce expressiveness of the bull's mouth. She grimaced when her eyes touched the macabre necklace of human skulls.

"What's the significance of those?" she asked.

"The skulls belong to a band of robbers, according to Tibetan legend. A sage who was about to achieve liberation was meditating in a cave, when he was disturbed by

a group of men who had stolen a cow. He watched at a distance as they slaughtered the animal, and was caught and slain by the robbers to prevent him from telling the authorities. They cut off his head as well, but the rage of the monk went beyond death, and he raised up his body, placed the bull's head on his neck, and killed the robbers.

He was so angry at being deprived of enlightenment that he hung their skulls in a garland around his neck and terrorized the countryside. This continued until he was subdued by Manjusri, the white, peaceful human head on top of the piece. The whole

sculpture represents a wide assortment of human characteristics. The bulls head indicates the animal nature. Combined with the human body, it produces the demonic

Yama, master of death. This demon when subdued by the higher nature of active compassion, yields the godlike power of the whole figure: Yamantaka, the slayer of death."

"Does this figure have a significance in the religion of Tibet?"

"Yes. Those who are given this figure as their protector attempt to become on with its nature. In order to understand the animal nature, one must let it show through. My Mother did just that. Sometimes I would hear angry, almost fitful music coming from the den where she practiced. She later reassured me that this was a time when she had merged with Yama to become the embodiment of rage itself. She became a beast-human, angry at the sins of her fellow men. Later, with the help of correspondence with her Lama, she was able to completely destroy the image of the demon in her mind and go into spiritual ecstacy. This particular device works best for someone who has repressed anger as an obstacle on the path."

"Well, I guess I've repressed a few things," Valerie admitted, " but the carving still frightens me. I wouldn't want to use it as an enticement toward some spiritual goal."

"You'll get used to it," he said. Mr. Burntree was right; his description had already taken a lot of the mystery out of the demon. She could at least look it in the face with

fearing its effect on her mind.

6.

Don taught Valerie how to play his brand of folk-rock, as well as joining her in the blues. They spent frequent evenings pounding out chord progressions in the Kristen

den.

The winter passed with them finding every opportunity to be together, making love and music until the two flowed into one another. Sometimes they went to his little house across town, sometimes the woods. Val liked the privacy of indoors, while Don liked nothing better than to feel the wind at his back and see the sun on her well-formed, youthful body.

Don sometimes expressed an interest in Mr. Burntree.

"You don't tell me much about your piano teacher," he said. "Is he any good?"

"Can't you tell?" she replied, looking down at her hands in position on the keyboard. "I haven't told you because you haven't asked."

"Has he made any advances toward you?" he asked with a tinge of jealousy.

"He's forty-five years old, you snoop. And besides, our relationship is different."

She told him about Burntree's mother and her New Hebredian adventure.

"That piano sounds unbelievable," Don said. "I have a feeling it's possible to change matter with the mind, but never heard of anyone who could do it."

"I'm sure Mr. Burntree is telling the truth as he sees it, but he wasn't actually there when she did it."

"Guess what?" he said, changing the subject. "I finally wrote a love song--for you."

"Can you play it?"

"I'll try." He unplugged his hollow-body Martin, and fingerpicked a delicate pattern. It was almost a calypso melody:

"Now this world it holds no greater treasure

Than the one I hold in your embrace;

I seek but I can find not pleasure

Like looking on the love-light in your face;

And at times when I just feel so empty

I think of the fullness of you--what can I do

But wait for you...

"Other worlds I live in

Are nothing like the world I find

When my love I'm giving

To the woman who takes my mind,

And in hours of despairing

You lead me to the joy that is you--what can I do

But wait for you...

"The loving you so freely give me

You've given me without regret

So fully and so deeply and completely

Beyond the other women that I've met,

And if I ever leave you

I'll leave you for the folly in my soul--how could I go

When you'll wait for me."

Valerie liked the song, but didn't know whether to trust its sentiment.

"Can I sing it with you?" she asked.

"Why not?"

He led off and her voice trailed behind his for a few verses. Soon she was singing a clear harmony line, right in synch.

"I didn't know you could harmonize," he said. "It makes me think more than ever that we ought to live together."

"I'd like to, but what about my parents?" She had just turned 18, but didn't want to hurt her father and mother.

"You could explain it. They're kind of liberal, aren't they? They don't seem to mind that we hang out together."

"I guess I'll try. Just give me a few days, O.K.?"

"Sure."

"Could we get an old piano?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I have an friend who wants to sell an old upright."

"You won't fool around on me , will you?"

"Not if you don't," he offered.

"Me--fool around? Where would I find the time.?"

"I don't know, but I do know I won't give you any." Don put his cool hand up her blouse and caressed the warm skin of her breast. She shivered. They were sitting face to face.

"I feel so alive when you do that. I've been dead so long, Don. Did you know that?"

"I guess I did. I feel something new myself. Like I'm sitting with you on a piece of cardboard at the edge of a grassy hill--ready to slide."

"You used to do that too?"

"Yeah backwards." Both had lived in hillier states than Florida, Val in Colorado

and Don in the mountains of Georgia.

It was a big week for Val. She had to tell her parents she wanted to move in with Don and she had a dinner invitation from Mr. Burntree.

She didn't tell Don about the dinner date.

She spent long hours completing her first composition. In it she explored a dream she had, hoping to share the completed work with Burntree on Tuesday night. The dream centered around a mysterious old friend. He was a solidly built man in an ochre robe, whose face was rendered invisible by a dense cloud, hovering above his shoulders. His voice and hands were familiar, but no face presented itself.

After a few comforting words, he stopped speaking and handed her a pen, gesturing as if her wanted her to write something. In his other hand he held a brilliantly-faceted diamond. He held it perfectly still, as it was an object of meditation. She felt herself absorbed into the lattice of its reflected light, then woke up.

The next morning she recalled an experience she had as a young girl. Walking in the woods alone, she came upon a thin, weathered old man sitting in a rocker on the porch of a run-down shack. His smile was radiant, as if his life of poverty was no burden upon him at all. He just sat, smiled, and rocked. His contentment made a deep impression on her, and now she felt that he and Mr. Burntree had something indefinable in common.

Tuesday evening found her at 7 Tree Lane once more. Burntree met her at the door.

"I'm waiting to hear your new song," he said.

"Won't it interfere with dinner?" she said, trying to catch her breath.

"No. Not at all. It has to simmer for a while anyway."

"Well, O.K." she said as they retired to the den.

She sat nervously in front of Yamantake's hands and started to play. The first few chords came out wrong, she stopped, and resumed:

"Last night as I fell on my pillow, I fell into a dream

Or so it seemed, that some kind friend, left behind did say,

'You can live to spin unseen like a willow

In the forest all alone

By each passing wind your thrown,

But growing, ever growing to the sun.'

And to this day

I seek the long-lost friend

I want to tell him of my dream

While we spin unseen

"The face of that lost friend was a mystery

And clouded by the mist, a clenching fist

Held a pen to bid me now to write

And if I ever see him I will know him

For his hands are hands of peace, they hold but one belief

That sparkles like a diamond left unseen.

"One day in the back woods I thought I found him

As I walked down some back road I caught a hold

Of a glimpse of an old man with idle hands

And turning quick around I chanced to see him

Smiling just a bit, and he always there will sit

On a rocking chair 'til all his years are through

And to this day

I seek the long-lost friend

I want to tell him of my dream

While we spin unseen."

She told Mr. Burntree about her dream and her walk in the woods. She connected the old man on the porch with the 'long lost friend' in the song.

"Can you write out the music?" he asked, handing her a pen.

The man in the ochre robe flashed momentarily in Burntree's place. The voice, the hands, and the fact that he was handing her a pen all seemed to fit.

"If you are the long-lost friend, what about the diamond in my dream?" she asked.

He smiled and said nothing. It was as if he knew something that she wasn't ready for yet.

They wrote down the melody to her song together, and then moved into the dining room to sit down to the Indian dinner he had prepared for her. They sat face to face across the middle of a long table, a warm fire flickering behind her, and two tall yellow candles burning in front of her. The food was exquisite: triangle breads stiffed with a hot vegetable mixture and sweet saffron rice with nuts and raisins. Curries and coconut, yoghurt and chutneys were neatly arranged in small bowls. She tasted a little of everything first, being wary of hot food.

She noticed that there was no meat in any of the dishes and asked him about it.

"Meat? I don't partake of it. Some people need it for the minerals."

"Doesn't it supply protein?"

"Yes, but nuts, beans, milk, vegetables, and whole grains do very well to substitute,

in the right combinations. Cholesterol and uric acid, two disease-causing elements abound in meat. Besides, eating flesh makes one prone to violence and anger. You only have to look at the difference between a tiger and an elephant to see what I mean."

"But if you eat vegetables, won't you become just that--a vegetable?"

"Perhaps," he admitted, "but wouldn't that be far better than becoming a dead cow?" His ironic image reminded her of the bull-headed demon sitting in the next room. Was the inference intentional?

She enjoyed the meal, however, and was almost too full to eat the desert--a creamy pink pudding that tasted like roses. That she could get behind!

"You're a good cook," she joked. "You'll make someone a good wife."

The cliche seemed quite funny in light of his devotion to bachelorhood, and they both had a hearty laugh.

Over spiced tea she brought up her telling her parents about moving in with Don.

"What will I do?--I have a feeling they will resent it, even if they let me go."

"You mean they'll feel cheated that some guy's taking their daughter away without marrying her?"

"Exactly."

"It does seem to me that you really want to do this. Maybe it will be good for you sense of identity. Most people waste their lives as slaves to what others think. This may be your chance to begin to step out of the rat race. He knew the risks, but was reenforcing a decision he knew she must make.

Enjoyable conversation continued until ten o'clock, when Valerie realized she must leave. He got up and saw her to the door.

"What happened to your pelican?" she asked seeing the empty hall closet where the bird had resided.

"I changed my mind about him. I used to think of him as a reminder of the remarkable way pelicans fly, but finally gave him away to a taxidermist because I was getting too attached."

"How do pelicans fly?" Val asked, never having watched them closely.

"Several times I've seen groups of them--ten or so--fly in a perfect sine wavealong the shore. Kind of a collective consciousness. Every so often one would dip into the surf and come up with a silver minnow, then fall back into formation."

"It seemed to me a beautiful example of how harmoniously animals live in nature. Some day humans may learn to live in that harmony too." She saw that his eyes were no long looking outward. They became narrow slits, and a smile flashed for a moment across his face.

"Val," he said, "why don't you bring Don over sometime? I'd like to meet him."

"O.K.," she said, hesitating, wondering how they would get along.

"Oh," he said, "if I ever don't answer the door, feel free to come in and look for me."

Valerie left, half elated that she could share Mr. Burntree with Don, and half afraid Don's jealousy would close him off when they met.

She just couldn't seem to bring herself to tell her parents that week. What made it double difficult was that she also had decided to stop eating meat--sh couldn't spring both changes on them at once.

She decided she would wait on the meat thing until she had moved in with Don, but she planned on telling them eventually.

Saturday afternoon she told her mother she had a date with him for the evening. Anne was beginning to suspect they were more than friends.

"You see enough of that guy to be living with him," Mrs. Kristen remarked.

"Mom...," she said warily. "I'm going to move in with him."

Anne's face took on a look she had seen only once before: when her grandfather was finally laid to rest in Pine Grove Park. "Live with him?" she managed. She considered his long hair a symbol of irresponsibility. Although she knew he had a job working for the Citrus Coop, she doubted he would ever amount to much.

"Mom, I'm 18 and know what I want to do!" She stood her ground.

"Val," her father broke in. "Go ahead, if that's what you want. Try it, but while you're at it try supporting yourself too. You'd better find a job." She didn't suspect he would be so agreeable. "You'll come and see us sometimes, won't you?"

"It's not like I', moving out of town," she said. "I'm just moving out of the house--to see what it's like on my own."

"Do you love him?" Mrs. Kristen asked.

"I think so--but that's what the arrangement is for--to find out if I really love him."

"What if you have a baby?" Anne continued.

"We'll be careful," Val promised. She was surprised her mother was so touch on that point, since she had been a leading advocate of abortion reform.

Don came to pick her up and her parents stayed out of the way.

"Did you tell them?" he asked as they got in the car.

"They made it easy," she said.

"Then it's all set?"

"Like two kids in a cardboard box," she said.

7

She climbed slowly out of bed, dawn light streaming through her upper story window. Her head felt like an apple being pressed for next years cider, a little fermented from the Liebfraumilch she had shared with Don the night before. She groped through the blinding morning to the bathroom sink, and splashed heavy water over her high cheekbones.

She made her way back to bed. Yamantaka was tickling her toes with all eighteen hands, she could swear. However, when she opened her eyes, there was only the gold mirror--with the Baroque frame--reflecting the light blue ceiling. "Salt!" she said out loud, cupping her hand over her mouth in recognition of her sleeping parents next door.

Tiptoeing down the stairs, she got the Morton's out of the cupboard, poured some on her palm, and wrenched her face for the shock. "Ack," she said, crawling back upstairs to the womb of her blankets. Val slept until mid-afternoon.

Her mother let her borrow the car for her move, and began to pack and load it herself. She didn't want Don to help. Her parents were upset enough as is. She put a few things in a cardboard box, threw her music and clothes into a suitcase, and dragged it all downstairs.

Don was still sleeping when she arrived at his place.

"Get up, Don, you're late for church."

"Good. Then they won't need me to fix the sun." He rolled over and faked a convincing snore. Valerie contemplated tossing a cup of cold water, and decided instead to sit on the edge of the bed and strum his guitar. Don betrayed his feign. She lunged, reproaching him for sleeping late.

"You bad boy--momma will just have to send you to bed without supper."

"Not a bad idea." He rolled over on top of her.

"Wait. Wait," she exclaimed. "I have to move in first. It has to be official."

"Oh, no," he complained. "You women are all alike."

She sat up suddenly still, and let a smile creep over her like hot fudge on a sundae.

He redoubled his attack. The 'enemy' fell.

The sun was below the horizon before Valerie was officially moved in.

Val got a job as a ticket taker at the Rocket Ballroom where Don's group regularly performed. It meant giving up some of her weekend social life, but she found consolation in her roommate.

Don borrowed an old pickup and carted an old upright into his living room. The piano looked as if it belonged in his run-down shack. The inside walls being unfinished, made it look like piano guts were put together to make his home.

The instrument had a couple of cat-bodied gargoyles glued to the front panel. Valerie loved it like a new child.

Don practiced with his band almost every evening at the Gates mansion. Randal was acting as their agent. He came home smelling of marijuana, but she abstained, both from it and alcohol. She didn't like the effect on her mind.

Finally, Val convinced Don to visit Mr. Burntree. They knocked at the door, but there was no answer. Val knew from her conversations that he never left the house.

"Maybe he's around back," she suggested.

They went around the house and found nothing but three red lounge chairs, the river, and a few swans. Opening the kitchen door, she led Don into the house.

"Are you sure it's OK?" he whispered.

"Sure. He said so. He's probably wrapped up in something." She didn't hear any music, and searching the first floor, they found no Mr. Burntree.

They mounted the staircase and entered a small door at the end of the first flight.

The door swung open quickly, and there was Burntree, sitting in an old rocking chair, in some kind of trance. He wasn't breathing.

"Is he dead?" she breathed, an image of the demon Yamantaka carrying him up the stairs flashed through her mind.

The room was completely empty except for a small table sporting several silver lavers and ornaments and an odd bell-shaped object. Keeping watch over this altar was an elaborately-dressed Buddha, seated on a large pink lotus flower. He stared questioningly from his home on painted cloth. A black and red oriental rug graced the floor.

Valerie approached him to see if he was alive, and his eyes opened. They widened to two narrow slits, as if he had been sleeping in a dark room.

"Hello," he said, beaming generously. "Don't worry about interrupting me. I'm glad you're here." The bass tones of his voice resonated the room.

"Mr. Burntree, this is Donald Armand."

"Hello. Hello. Valerie has told me about you. Are you two living together now?"

"Uh, yes." Don could sense his approval and relaxed.

"Good. Good. I'm glad to see Val going for what she wants."

"So am I," Don said.

"Now that your here, perhaps I should show you around." Val could tell Burntree completely accepted Don. His eyes sparkled with joy. "Let me show you my 'museum'. My Mother traced more incarnations of the New Hebredian 'worshipped ones. Does Don know?" Valerie nodded.

Burntree turned a brass doorknob across the hall. "A guru in India, a Zoroastrian

priest, and a New England white 'witch' were among the finds." The door opened to a small compartment, revealing a statue of a half naked man with an elaborately curled beard.

"That looks like Zoroaster," Don commented, having seen his likeness in a history book.

"It is. As you may know, he is the founder of a religious sect now called the Parsis.

His conception of good and evil have influenced the development of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity." At the foot of the prophet were models of short, flat circular towers with miniature skeletons arranged on the top of the structures.

"Are those human skeletons?" Valerie asked.

"Yes. Accurate in every detail. The stone structures are called 'towers of silence'. Instead of burying the dead, the faithful let the vultures pick at the corpses on top of the towers. They hoped to protect the earth from the decaying flesh."

Valerie winced as Burntree suddenly turned on a bright light. "It looks like the sun," she said. A globe of fiery light was suspended in midair above Zoroaster's head.

Flames leapt like lightning from one portion of the globe to the other. Vortices illuminated the interior of the globe, reminiscent of sunspots.

"One of my scientific endeavors," Burntree explained. "Shall we go on?"

He led them out of the room, the globe still glowing in their vision. The sun through the south windows seemed to glow brighter.

The second room was larger. On a sand colored mat, grass appeared to be growing, and above it a living figure was suspended about six inches from the floor. A turbaned yogi seemed to be deep in meditation and levitating. Burntree passed his hand through the fakir's body as if it wasn't there.

"Swami Durgananda," he said, "another 'worshipped one', projected holographically. The idea is that the yoga was seen in later life to have this same etheric property. He was known as the disappearing saint. Often invisible, and sometimes intangible but visible to his disciples.

"What is the story behind his reappearance?" Don asked, familiar with the Hebredian ritual.

"After he died, his body was put on view for several days. On the second day, it disappeared. His closest disciple was directed by the master's voice within to search for him in the islands. He found him and arranged for his escape in the same way as was done for the Abbot of To Ling."

"You mean they found his reincarnation?" Don was curious.

"Yes, and the Swami returned to India and his disciples only fifteen years after he shed his previous form."

"Then he must still be alive."

"Perhaps, but no one know where he is. Seven years later he disappeared for good, at least it seems so."

"What about the Zoroastrian priest?" Val asked.

"Again it was the case of a previous incarnation, but he realized it himself, and arranged his own escape, only to be reinstated among the white-smocked Parsi clergy."

The third room was on the second floor as well. They entered and smelled something like burning flesh. "What is it?" Val asked.

` "A simulation of a witch being burned at the stake. Another 'worshipped one'. She

is a good friend of mine in her present body."

Don gazed at the wax statue.

Burntree continued. "She died by burning in the seventeenth century after being dunked a thousand times in Flint's Pond in Massachusetts. Her heinous offense was to burn candles in the likeness of herself. She lived in a small hut in the forest. Some of her candles were as large as the one you see. As she became more proficient at making them, her spiritual presence 'waxed'. It was said that instant healing could be attained by a mere glimpse of her form. In spite of her gift, she avoided people, and never gave them a sign of healing. She never admitted a part in any of the miracles."

"Why yellow wax?" Val asked.

"Burning a yellow candle was reputed to increase her wisdom. Also in her room is a remnant of her robe. Found in her hovel, it was placed with her ashes in her grave. Mother discovered it in a private museum in Boston and payed a fortune for it."

"Could we see?" Val asked.

"Yes." Burntree stooped to a small table and opened a miniature chest. An irregular grey cloth lay in the bottom. Valerie reached down to touch it.

"Don't" Burntree exclaimed. "It may fall apart."

He closed the box and led them out of the room. Valerie's headache was gone. Was Burntree protecting her from something?

Ascending to the third floor, Valerie's leg acted up, but she managed. At the top, they entered a large room, it appeared to take up the entire floor. Reduced to circular shape, they found themselves in a cylinder, full of statues, murals, and paintings.

Partitions radiated inward, separating six compartments. At the hub of this enormous wheel was a wheel itself, a kind of carnival "Wheel of Good Fortune' spinning with a clacking sound.

"A Tibetan prayer wheel," Burtree expalined, his sonorous tones reflecting from the wall and lending the illusion of a vast hall. "We slightly modified the idea to make it more comprehensible."

"We?" Don asked.

"My Mother and I put this room together just before she died. This room is another kind of wheel: the Tibetan Wheel of Life. In a sense, it is like a wheel of fortune. Each time a being dies, the wheel is spun and could land in an of the six sectors, or types of existence. This wheel, however, is governed by the laws of Karma, not chance.

"Karma?" Val asked.

"Yes, whatever you do, good or bad, for which you reap a like return."

"What are the types of existence you mentioned?" Don asked.

"Let's start with the humans. That's what we are--I hope." He pointed to a sector on the North side of the room. "These figures represent man's urge for accomplishment--his attachment to action, you might say. Mother took the figures from the original Tibetan frescoes and gave them Western forms: a man with a suit with briefcase in hand, a woman with a dust mop, and several other busy figures--all half- sized to give a feeling of separateness. All of them are ignoring the beggar who walks among them. He symbolizes the way of liberation."

"You mean we all should become beggars?" Don asked.

"No. He is symbolic of renunciation, that is, renunciation of attachment to worldly action and its fruits. This doesn't mean to stop acting. It means stopping the grasping

in acting."

"What does that mean?"

"Our essential nature is like that of the beggar, free from the taint of desire."

"Isn't it a good idea to try to help others?" Valerie asked.

"Yes, but not to dwell on them or be attached to helping. To be an actor in the cosmic play--'in the world but not of it'. Very few ever realize it. Most are too involved in getting a family, a house, a name, or this or that, to recognize that it's all a drama."

Valerie was beginning to see why Burntree lived alone, unmarried and unknown.

She recognized the same thirst for isolation in herself. Her song 'Spin Unseen' indicated that, as an echo of her dream. 'But even this aversion to worldly life can be a clinging,' she thought.

"You are right," Burntree said, as if in response to her thought. "Let's move on.

Within the human realm some live like animals, some like gods. Others are thirsty for things they cannot get and lead ghostlike lives. Other use power to get what they want.

And so we have the other realms of rebirth. At opposite ends of the room we have heaven and hell: both limited modes of being."

The heavenly sector was peopled by smiling robed figures, while the sector of the 'damned' pictured naked bodies in all forms of torture. The warring gods were pictured by generals in modern military garb shouting orders to their shrinking inferiors. Opposite to them, ghostlike filmy veils hung from the ceiling as if out of touch with the world of material objects. Artificial air currents lent them a restless motion.

"What are these animals all about?" Val asked, pointing to a mosaic inlayed with a circle on the floor around the prayer wheel.

Burntree replied. "These are the symbols of the three root causes of bondage to the wheel of life: the red cock symbolizes greed, the green snake hatred, and the black pig

ignorance. These three perpetuate one another, and are shown biting each others tails,

running round in a circle."

"What happens when someone goes to the realm of heaven?" Val asked. "Do they stay there?"

"No karmic reward or punishment is permanent. Once the spirit of good deeds is exhausted, the inhabitants of heaven must fall into another of the six realms unless they achieve liberation. Heaven is not a place of permanent happiness."

"Is there such a place?"

"Yes."

"How do we get there?" Don asked, imagining a road-map to the place hidden under Burntree's silk robe.

"By overcoming the illusion of ego--separateness."

"How?"

"By transcending desire, through unselfishness."

"What's wrong with wanting something?"

"It creates a state of blindness," he answered. "Here, let me show you." He pushed a black button on the wall and projected figure of a blind woman appeared above it.

"The slides I am going to show you are all links in the continuous chain of becoming. Spiritual blindness could be considered the result of the chain, or the cause--it doesn't matter." An elderly lady was being led across a busy street by a seeing-eye dog.

"Next in the chain comes the potter." An old craftsman was giving a kick to his wheel. "We form our lives from patterns, patterns we make ourselves."

"These patterns are represented by a monkey jumping vine to vine, just as our own consciousness jumps from object to object."

"The two persons in the boat in the next slide are 'mind' and 'body'. The body is formed by the patterns held over from the previous life."

"Why do I have a woman's body?" Valerie asked.

"Either you were one in your previous life, or your karma or desire required it."

"You mean I might have been a man?"

"In your case, I doubt it, but it is a possibility." He smiled reassuringly.

"The next step is the body 'coming' to its senses. To the five senses, we have added the sixth sense--thinking. These are portrayed by a house with six windows."

"The senses experience objects--two teenagers hold hands. This experience leads to a feeling symbolized by a man whose eye has been pierced with an arrow." The last slide was taken from a Tibetan painting.

"The eighth link in the chain of becoming is the thirst for life arising from the feeling of contact." An old man was being served a drink at a bar by a waitress. He looked wrinkled and dried up, like a salted plum. "This thirst leads to a clinging to objects, as a man clings to the fruit on a tree to pick it."

"Clinging, in turn, leads to becoming, a condition you see here pictured in the sexual union of a man and a woman." This slide was graphic.

"The next step is rebirth." A mother was pictured, naked from the waist down, holding her newborn child in front of her pelvis, the afterbirth trailing behind and the umbilical cord still intact. Valerie felt a churning sensation in the pit of her stomach.

It wasn't altogether unpleasant.

"Rebirth to death." A mummified corpse appeared, challenging them with a serene smile.

"It's seems like one big merry-go-round of suffering," Valerie commented.

"Indeed." Burntree took on a consoling look. "But there is hope. We can learn to accept it all and do what we think is right. That's the path that the Buddha in the alcove is pointing to." A robed figure was gesturing toward the river.

"Why did you bother with all this?" Don asked on the way down to the den.

"My Mother's way of initiating her disciples," he said.

"And she really made the piano...?"

So saying, Don turned the corner and faced Yamantaka himself. They all remained in silence for a few moments. Burntree clasped his hands gently behind his back.

"Where did she get the power?" Don managed.

"In India they call is Samyama, or concentrating the mind on an object until you become absorbed in it. In her case, it was done in conjunction with a mantra, or chant." They had both heard about mantras from their meditating friends, but Don had always thought that repeating the same words over and over was a waste of time. Now he was beginning to wonder.

"What was the mantra your mother used?"

"There's nothing secret about it. She just repeated, 'Om mani padme hum'"

"What's the story behind it?"

"An ancient king was so wrapped up in materialistic pursuits that a sage came from the forest to convince him of his folly. He told him of a greater treasure that lay beyond the objects of his desire. This fascinated the king, so he took the sage into his court as his personal guru. The guru gave him the mantra, having first experienced its vibration in deep meditation. To aid the ruler in his quest, the sage materialized a bracelet set with a large diamond. Since the king was quite attached to his own jewelry, it was difficult for him to keep his eyes off this magnificent stone."

"The king was told to repeat the mantra while gazing into the gem, and told that he could visit the guru in the mountains when he had found the real treasure in the stone."

Valerie was reminded of the diamond in the hand of her long lost friend in her song.

"The king practiced long and hard, until one day he saw light shining from deep within the stone, the light of infinite spirit. He journeyed to the guru's cave to ask for further instruction. The sage told him to repeat the mantra and visualize the diamond as resting in his heart. He asked him to let it disappear and its essence to appear. This was the way in which the king was led to the greatest treasure of all, the divine Self."

Don thought about the words to his song: 'This world holds no greater treasure than the one I hold in your embrace.'

"This story is one of my favorites," Burntree continued, "because it illustrates a way, though dangerous without a proper guide, of overcoming materialistic urges. One merely has to concentrate on an object one is attached to and repeat the mantra."

They tried the phrase together a few times, then Burntree taught them some breathing exercises to go along with their meditation.

"Begin the meditation as soon as you decide on an object. If you practice twice a day, you should be able to feel the results in a short time. Before you go, I have something for you." He reached into an ornate Hindu wooden box and handed them a thin pamphlet with a turbaned yogi on the cover. It was the same floating fakir in the room on the second floor. 'Sayings of Durgananda', it read, but from the expression on his face it seemed as if he could have never said anything.

Don read from the booklet that night:

'My fondest dream is to have a love affair with the whole human race. To live in heaven with all of you, a heaven on earth where there are no obstructions to the flow of love, where everyone who feels love expresses it appropriately, and where anyone who is an object of love receives it.'

'What simpler way to overcome the passions than by each one fulfilling the other in all ways. To me this is the infinity of love: to give and receive at the proper time. Give and receive: to all and from all, always and everywhere.'

'The heart, after all, is a circle of giving and receiving. One moment giving, the next receiving. Though Christ said, 'it is more blessed to give than receive',' I say that giving and receiving are equally blessed, and that receiving is giving, giving receiving. They are each a part of the same circle: the circle of the heart.'

8.

Meditating came naturally to Val and Don. Val repeated the mantra, visualizing her piano, and Don visualized her. He soon found himself with no desire for liquor or marijuana. He was ensconced in the joy of the Buddha. His new 'straighthood', however, didn't leave him in very good graces with his band.

That spring they both graduated, leaving them free to pursue their music more vigorously. Don stopped playing with the band, and he and Val started playing singing jobs, first as second acts to the stars, and then as headliners. Val had an offer from her Mother to finance a college education. She refused, explaining that she wanted to devote her time to music and Don exclusively.

Once a week they visited Mr. Burntree, and when the weather was good they worked on their spiritual practice down by the river. Their teacher told them more.

"There's a Hindu legend," he began slowly, "that if you leave a swan a mixture of milk and water, he will drink the milk and leave the water." His eyes were fixed on a large white bird preening itself on a grassy island in the swift current. "If we could be just as selective of our thoughts, the possibilities would be endless."

Valerie got it into her mind to test the legend. She went into the kitchen and mixed water and milk into a carved wooden soup-bowl.

"If this works, I'll do your dishes for a week," Don promised.

"And if it doesn't, I'll do yours," Valerie responded. Mr. Burntree almost spilled the milk.

They left the mixture on the riverbank and retreated to the dining room to watch. The swan leisurely finished its careful search for parasites, and then cautiously plodded toward the bait, pausing every few seconds to stare fixedly to the left, as if danger only came from that direction. Then craning his neck into the mixture, he then lifted his muzzle high into the air and shook his head. He looked like someone who has just swallowed too much horseradish. He repeated the process several times and waddled off down river.

Valerie was first to reach the remains. "The bowl is empty," she said disappointed.

"Oh no, it isn't! I just couldn't see the water at first. He really did it--drank the milk and left the water.

"I hope you don't mind paper plates," Don groaned.

Don was on fire for his study of the occult. Though he worked full time to support them, he spent every spare moment they weren't playing music reading and practicing the mantra. In his readings, he found several references to an underground society called the Agartha. This mysterious cult was said to inhabit an elaborate network of caves in the Tibetan highlands. Accounts varied, but some authors described a membership of millions, thousands of Lamas, yogis, and scientists allowed access to its innermost secrets. These were contained in the Agartha library and in devices hidden in secret caves, the writing said.

Finally he asked Burntree about these statements. "Yes the Agartha does exist," he replied, "but descriptions in the literature are exaggerated and distorted beyond belief.

One of the reasons for the distortion is that the society is a lot more exclusive than the author's claim. I dare say none of them is an initiate. Only those who show some progress toward occult powers and who have the proper moral credentials are considered for admission. They also must be recommended by several members of the group, and pass a rigorous initiation ritual. Once a member, an initiate has access to all the books and archives relative to his progress on the path. The books and manuscripts are closely watched, however, and may not be removed from the library.

"Was your mother an initiate of the Agartha?" Don asked.

"Yes, because she had been an adept in previous lives, she began to show prowess in mind over matter a few months after tutelage under Lama Gon Ting. She could change letters on the written page by concentrating on them one at a time. This talent was soon developed to the point where she could 'write' with her mind; that is, she could think words and have them appear in neat script on paper. She could only work with paper with writing on it already."

"You mean she kind of made old newspapers into new books," Valerie asserted.

"Right. She was never able to create something out of nothing, only use what was there in a new way."

"Could she destroy matter with her mind?" Don asked. "I've heard that Tibetan books were carved out of wooden blocks. It would save time if this was done mentally. "

"No," Burntree replied, "destroying matter involves resolving it back into the primal energy. To do it completely one must first create a replica of the object out of antimatter from existing materials, superimpose the two, then disperse the energy rapidly. Otherwise the effect would be similar to an atomic bomb. So you see that one must know how to create in order to destroy."

"I had no idea it was so scientific," Val said.

"Oh yes, the occult does not refute science, it only completes it."

"How did your mother get into the Agartha?" Don continued.

"Lama Gon Ting himself was an advanced initiate and arranged to have her demonstrate her word-making power for several others. She was soon granted admission to the initiatory tests."

"One of the vows she had to take was to never divulge the nature of her initiation to an outside. I remember her glazed, almost frightened look when I asked her about the rite."

"Can you tell us anything about what she learned when she was admitted?" Don asked.

"For reasons of secrecy, she was not allowed to instruct me in the secret teachings of the Agartha. However, she did initiate me into Tibetan Tantric ritual. She thus qualifies as my guru."

"Have you learned anything about the teachings from other sources?" Valerie was curious too.

"Only what other authors have written. One author, whose opinions I respect, tells of a race of men with knowledge far beyond our own spiritually and technically, who inhabited the earth nearly one hundred thousand years ago. When a 'great flood' threatened their existence, they created several 'time capsules'. These were placed in the mountains, to preserve their knowledge for later civilizations. There are said to be three major ones, two of which remain hidden to modern eyes. One is located in a cave in Mexico and another somewhere in Africa."

"The third cave, in Tibet, is accessible to a select few. Most of its secrets have not yet been revealed to the world at large. The Agartha holds a tight grip on this information, awaiting the spiritual progress necessary to hand such revelations."

"Are each of the caves pretty much the same?" Don asked.

"No, and that's the fascinating thing. Each of the caves is different in scope, reflecting the civilization in that part of the world."

"Where did these superhumans come from?" Val asked.

"Although there are references to the source in the literature of every religion, the truth is shrouded in fable. A clearer picture can be reconstructed from oral legends."

"In the Andes there is such a tradition which describes a lady by the name of Orejona."

"I remember reading about her," Valerie said. "Didn't she come to earth in a spaceship?"

"At least a mindship. How did you come across that?" Burntree asked.

"I was inspired by my English teacher."

"The legends indicate that she possessed the secret of antigravity and certain other devices. In fact her spaceship, some say, is written into the inscriptions on the Gate of the Sun in Peru."

"After landing on Earth, Orejona is said to remain in the mountains to have air light enough to breathe. Soon she grew lonely and mated with tapirs (genetic manipulation?), producing the first giants in the earth--represented by the immense statues on Easter Island."

"I myself doubt the validity of the story, but as far as the source being another world--that tickles my fancy. Just the fact that so much of this knowledge has been lost or hidden through the ages, indicates the Ancients thought it wise to conceal it from men who needed to evolve to handle it. Make sense?"

"Yes," Val said. She had often wondered how the pyramids of Egypt were built, for example, and why we couldn't do it today with all our scientific knowledge.

"But then again," Burntree continued, "knowledge is not wisdom. Although I am fascinated by the scientific mysteries in the caves, I am more enthralled by a possible discovery of an ancient religion from an advanced civilization. Today we have so much scientific knowledge without the spiritual ability to handle it."

"For this reason, I went down to Mexico to look for the cave there. Studying geological writings and maps, I decided on the Eastern Range of the Sierra Madre. Portions of this mountainous area have survived many ages of prehistory--floods, inundation of land masses, and volcanic action. This is not true of most of the rest of Mexico."

"If a truly great spiritual secret were concealed in the cave, I figured the locals would reflect it in their own spirituality. I set off for the mountains in hope I would find a haven of spiritual natives. It was kind of like using a divining rod to find water."

"I found what I was looking for in the mountains on the road to Mexico City just

north of a town called Jacala. That stretch of about 50 miles is the highest in altitude on that highway."

"I never thought of Mexico as mountainous," Valerie countered.

"That's par. Most think of it as flat desert. I guess that's from all the cowboy flicks filmed near the border. However the Eastern Sierra Madre is rather like the Andes--green hillsides, terraced crops, and snow-capped peaks."

"The Indians I saw in the area all seemed to have the slow gait and joyful serenity of the mystic--living close to the land, they seemed to thrive on the thin air. In fact it felt as if they knew what I was looking for, and were observing me to find out if I was worthy to know."

"When I mentioned the caves--cuevas to the Indians--they led me to several sanctuaries dedicated to the body of Christ and the Holy Virgin. My guides didn't quite get it, apparently. I found only statues of Jesus and Mary and hundreds of candles."

"Did you have any idea what kind of a cave you were looking for?" Don asked.

"Not really. All I had was a mantra my Mother gave me for 'opening doors'. I tried it everywhere I could--with no success." Valerie got the amusing picture of Mr Burntree shouting strange words at stone walls, while Mexican guides stood around giving each other 'isn't he crazy' looks.

"Frustrated by my progress among the natives, I set off on foot into the mountains, carrying seven day's food and a lantern. I crossed a high ridge just off the road and walked parallel to it, a few thousand feet below the summit. I found only a few shallow caves where animals apparently had found shelter. Giving up this pattern of search, I descended a precipitously steep valley to a fast-flowing mountain stream. I assumed it was the wiggly line on the map. I waded the rapids and ascended the other face of the valley. Signs of human life were not evident. I went in that direction for two days, flowing with the current of my intuition, until I came to a large high-altitude lake. Seeing a young Indian tending sheep in the green pasture near the waters, I asked him

about caves in the area. He told me I could find what I was looking for up on a rocky ledge, a kind of platform that could be seen thousands of feet above, overlooking the valley."

"I thanked him and started to climb. Gradually the wall of the canyon steepened.

Large boulders made the going difficult, and loose stones forced me to lose a step for every two I gained. It was two hours before I reached my goal."

"My shins were badly scraped from sliding on the loose rock, and by the time I pulled myself over the sharp edge of the escarpment I was raw with pain."

"The view from my new vantage helps me forget my wounds. I could see the round lake resting beneath like a silver dollar in a gambler's palm. In the distance, I could see, over a distant mountain ridge, the central high plains of Mexico. The silver blue of the lake and the iridescent sky seemed of a similar alloy, and the pale green valley flowed around the lake like a swarm of chameleons."

"What about the cave?" Valerie asked.

"Oh yes. My revery at the view had to be cut short, owing to the lateness of the hour. I turned to a circular entrance a little lower than my head. I now realized that I might not be able to explore the cave and return down the mountain before sundown.

I resigned myself to a night on the ledge. Lighting my miner's cap, I entered the hole.

A winding passage led for about a hundred feet to a vast room whose length eluded the penetration of my light. I walked in the black hall until I came to its end, and there against the stone, facing me, was a mammoth crucifix. Apparently the statue hadn't been tended for some time. Made of wood, it was suffering from water rot, and part of it was powdery to the touch. The source of the damage was a trickle of cave dew, dampening the cheek of the suffering Christ and falling to his feet below."

"The vault was barren except for the remains of candles in small burnished alcoves at regular intervals along the cavern walls. The adorning statues had probably been long since removed. Why had such an awesome cathedral been abandoned by its parishioners? A chill swept through my loins as I considered the possibility of a curse on the cave. If it were true, then why no warning from my friendly shepherd boy? In search of some clue, I began to look for tributary passages. Then I remembered the mantra. With the reverence demanded by my position, I intoned the magic syllables into every corner of the place--with no result."

"I left, carefully examining the winding tube I had first entered, finding nothing, and screwing up my courage for the night on the ledge."

"Night was shading the sky by degrees, and as I turned around to look at the opening I noticed something I hadn't seen on the way in. Earlier in the light of day, the rock I saw must have blended with the stone around it, but now the light of my own lantern revealed a slightly darker stone. Etched on it was the form of a llama."

"It would have been a surprise if the llama had been of the Tibetan human variety;

but, unfortunately, it wasn't. It was in fact the animal that inhabits the Andes and high Mexico alike."

"What troubled me was that there are llamas in almost all regions of the world where evidence of pre-flood civilizations has been found."

"You mean there could have been a parallel between llamas and the Caves of the Ancients?" Don asked.

"Yes, and I had nothing else to go on. All that was left was to tend to my scrapes and slip into my sleeping bag. As I fell asleep, I had a vision of massive stone doors parting to a high-pitched whine, but sleep soon swallowed that."

"The next morning, a fine mist hung over the valley. As I stared out into this kind of microcosmic Milky Way below me, my inner voice began to speak clearly, as if mocking me, 'Can't you see?' it said, 'the only fog is in your mind. It hides the valley, just as your own ignorance makes you blind to the secret of the Cave of the Ancients.'"

"'The devil take you!' I cried. 'I'll find out!' I felt I was in position to make the discovery, but never did. Since then I have been waiting for someone who could remove the ignorance, weighing so heavily on me that day."

"Broken, I went down the mountain, retracing my steps: passing the lake, crossing the river, ascending and descending the high ridge. All the way back to Florida my Mother's 'opening' mantra kept echoing in my inner ear--the way it did in the chamber. If I could only figure out how to use it!"

"Mr. Burntree, could we help you?" Valerie offered. "I mean help you find the cave?"

"Would you be interested?" he asked.

She and Don agreed to the possibility. Don piped up, "It sounds exciting, but I'm not much for sleeping on rocky ledges."

"We could bring a double sleeping bag," she winked. "Will you come with us?"

She asked Burntree.

"I had a dream not so long ago that the cave would not be found with me along--in fact it was my Mother who told me so. This makes me hopeful for you two--if you go alone. I'll help you plan the trip, if you like. In fact, it would be useful for you to be initiated into Tibetan Tantra at this point, if you are willing."

They agreed, and he gave them a warning. "At the outset, let me say that the performance of ritual for a selfish purpose was regarded by Buddha to be one of the main hindrances to liberation. Ritual should be performed with detachment, not just as magic rites to give the adept power. The main purpose of assigning deities is to take away the ego's claim to progress in meditation, and to arouse dormant forces in the mind."

"The first step is to assign you each a Yidam, or personal deity for your own practice. The Yidam is an emanation of your own mind and must always be regarded as such. I'm afraid I must talk to you each alone for a few minutes."

"Valerie went first, and Don went for a walk by the river. "I'm going to initiate you into the Vajrayana," Burntree said, "or the sect of the diamond vehicle. The diamond symbolizes the elemental pure essence of the mind; and as a diamond refracts light into all colors, so does our myriad universe proceed from the pure mind within you."

He assigned her the Yidam Vajrasattva, the diamond vehicle, as embodied in the guru Rimpoche; and then sketched the outline of her sadhana or practice. He gave her a written description of the rites she was to perform.

Valerie saw that it would be formidable task to learn this sadhana properly, and questioned her own ability.

"You have a powerful mind" he replied, and left it at that. His smile was her reassurance. He gave her pictures of the deities and symbols involved, and recited a mantra of blessing.

Arya Tara, the embodiment of compassion, was chosen as Don's Yidam. Similar in spirit to the Virgin Mary or the Hindu Divine Mother, she was a beautiful female who commanded love and respect, a deity appropriate to Don's emotional temperament. Both their rituals involved internal manipulation of word symbols and eventual identification with the deity.

He spoke a few final words to both of them: "These rituals will prepare you for receiving the mysteries hidden in the cave, should you find it. I'd suggest you also make yourselves look as straight as possible to avoid problems with the authorities."

Don agreed to cut his hair.

"When you're ready to make the trip, I'll explain the highways and give you maps. You'll need some caving and hiking equipment--I'll send for that immediately. I'd suggest that while you are searching for the cave or exploring, you carry a week's food supply. Take your packs with you when you leave the road." He also showed them how to avoid Montezuma's revenge--dysentery.

"Should we get a Land Rover or a Jeep or something to cover the rough ground?" Don asked.

"I would go the rough territory on foot. Do you need a better vehicle?"

"My old Chevy just wouldn't make it," Don said.

"Come out to the garage," Burntree suggested.

The left by a rear door and followed him down the driveway about two hundred yards. In a red barnboard structure, peering out at them through half-opened doors was an old green Ford pane truck.

"It's a '49, but in good condition. I haven't driven it much in 20 years." Burntree climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine on the first crank.

"That's not possible," Don remarked, but there it was--an ancient green monster, growling after a 20 year hibernation. It was in far better shape than his Chevy, read only 20,000 miles on the speedometer, and was roomy enough to sleep in."

"Why don't you drive it home?" Burntree suggested. "I don't have any use for it."

Burntree told them to keep it, and said he would sign the papers over to Don.

"Can I give you a ride back to the house?" Don asked.

"No, I'll walk with the river a piece." He looked troubled by something unnameable as they drove away. He was looking up to an approaching thunderhead in the West. Halfway home the rain came down in wind-driven sheets.

9.

Don christened the truck, 'The Green Drölma', another name for his protector goddess, Tara. Burntree's camping order provided them with light packs and sleeping bags, foldaway cooking and eating utensils, a Coleman stove and lantern, and caving caps with carbide lamps. Ropes, pitons, and hammers also came in the bundle, but Don hoped they wouldn't need them. Burntree also gave them each a vajra bell and scepter, implements to be used in their rituals. Don constructed a table behind the front seat of the truck as an altar.

In a goodbye visit to his mother, Don discussed the mission with her. She wished him luck and then said, "Don't let yourself get mixed up with any wild animals down there." This brought to mind a lucid nightmare from childhood. He had sworn there was a black panther behind his bedroom door, and he wouldn't leave his room until his father took it away.

They left for Mexico on a cloudless day with Valerie reciting Allen Ginsburg, "Now the mind is clear as a cloudless sky. Time, then, to make a home in the wilderness." On the front seat they had a large brown paper map Burntree had made for them.

He told them to "follow the Gulf of Mexico around to Brownsville, Texas. Cross the border there and stay on Route 101 until you reach Jacala." Compass directions on the map were indicated by pointing fingers of a kind of four-armed Vishnu Burntree had drawn himself.

The summer sun seemed like a parallel world of light to Valerie. Somewhere on that world was another Valerie, another Don, leaving on a similar journey. Valerie felt somewhat nauseous as they pulled out from the driveway, and during the trip stopped several times to empty her system. Thinking about the batter-operated organ she had purchased for the trip seemed to settle her a bit.

Pensacola pines whizzed past. As they crossed the bridge into Mobile, they saw a whole flock of swans flying upstream. Night fell as they drove into Louisiana, kept awake by a tapestry of frog sounds, and feeling happy-sleepy. Don began to sing:

"If I had wings like Noah's dove,

I'd fly the river to the one I love

Fare thee well, oh honey fare thee well."

Valerie took the second verse:

"One of these mornin's and it won't be long

You'll look round for me, and I'll be gone

Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well."

Don shivered in the evening cool. Valerie handed him his jacket. He let go of his fear,

and released himself into the sounds and smell of the bayou.

They spent the night in New Orleans with Jackie a long-time musician friend of Don's. Jackie was a jazz trombonist and had a lot to do with interesting Don in music.

Don used to tag along to Jackie's gigs, somehow avoiding the fact that he was to young for bars. The B girls in the clubs used to joke with the boy, and he had his first lovemaking from a generous streetwalker named Lorraine. It was her image that filled his mind as he stepped onto the landing of Jackie's apartment. Small dark hair flowing long in front of her tiny bosom, a perpetual smile, and one eye that didn't quite look straight at you. She told him that love was best taken 'slow and easy, like in a dream'.

Jackie beamed when he saw who was at his door.

"Don! Come on in man!" He had shaved his head since Don last saw him, and seemed a little older, wearier. "How's your guitar?"

"I pick at it. Write songs," Don said.

"Who's your friend?" he asked, giving Valerie an approving up and down glance.

` "Valerie. Her thing's piano."

"I hope I can hear you sometime. You remember Lorraine?" he said. "She died of an overdose two months ago." Don tried to hide his concern.

"The three of us had some great times," he said.

Valerie was feverish, and hardly noticed Don's reaction.

"You don't look so good," Jackie said.

"Could I just go someplace and lie down?" she asked.

Don took her to the spare room and rolled out her bag for her. The two old friends went into the livingroom to reminisce. A few hours later, Don went in to sleep.

Valerie was sitting up. Her eyes communicated a strange mixture of joy and fear.

'Almost like an LSD high,' Don thought. "Some kind of light is rising up my spine", she said unsteadily.

"Must be the Kundalini, Val." Don had read about the rising of the vital energy in

yoga books, but only experience a glimpse of it once, on peyote.

"This is painful." she said.

Don knew that the best thing to do was to remain silent, and just 'be' with her. In a few minutes, she rose slowly and made her way to the bathroom. Don could hear the shower.

She came back radiant. "I know what it is--creation," she said.

"Where is the light now?" Don asked.

"Up... Up to my neck. Oh Don! I feel like I'm gonna die!"

"You won't die," Don said. He hoped he was right. He took her hand and felt her pulse race in random bursts.

"Got to slow down," she mumbled.

Don noticed an immediate change. Her pulse was normal again, but her breathing was sporadic and extremely rapid. Soon, though her breath normalized. Valerie sat up straight and closed her eyes. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Her golden hair tumbled across her shoulders, and she sat perfectly still and breathless for several minutes. Don knew the breathless state as Samadhi, the yogic trance. He saw only joy

emanating from her face. 'Death is nothing like this,' he thought.

Soon her eyelids fluttered as if after a short sleep. Her face shone in the moonlight.

"It still hurts," she said, her body falling limp like a deflating balloon. "Did you see him?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Mr. Burntree."

"I didn't see anyone but you," he said. He went to sleep, convinced she was all right now, but Valerie was up all night, absorbed in contemplation and bliss. Morning came, and she still had no thought of sleep. "Let's get going," she suggested.

They had breakfast and said goodbye to Jackie. "You sure you're ok?" he asked.

"Look, if you need any pills, I've got just about everything."

"No thanks," she said with a warm look, "all my problems have been solved."

They drove through East Texas, Valerie in meditation most of the time. Don did all the driving. They went past Corpus Christi into Mexican America, prairie lands, sparsely populated, low lying scrub, occasional straw hat.

They spent the night on Padre's Island, Just off the tip of Texas. Insomnia caught up with Valerie on the beach. She fell asleep and Don contemplated the moon for a while.

In the morning, Val woke to see a crab the size of a softball peering at her from atop her bag, its beady eyes extended toward her on tentacle-like projections. She half laughed, half screamed, and the creature scurried away on spindly legs.

"Fiddler crab," Don said, "must be a good musical omen."

Sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico was glowing pink, the sun beaming from behind an immense cloud that dominated almost half the sky. They left, passing what seemed like endless red-brown sand dunes. They soon saw Brownsville in the distance.

Val bought a used Brownie camera, before they crossed the border. "I just want to know someday how you looked in Mexico," she said.

They crossed the short bridge over the Rio Grande, dodging scores of Mexicans headed in the same direction. They came to a large white stucco building on stilts.

"Looks like an airplane," Don commented.

"Bureau Turismo," Valerie read in a phony accent. "That's what we want."

They ascended a steep flight of open stairs and entered the office through swinging glass doors. There were forty or fifty Chicanos and Mexicans waiting in different lines. Only a few white Americans bustled as well, most tourists not wanting to travel this poorly-paved route to Mexico City. They were soon ushered to a generously mustached official seated behind a cluttered desk. He asked for their driver's licenses

and birth certificates and asked their destination.

"Jacala," don replied.

"Going to live with the Indians a while, eh? Well, don't eat any of their mushrooms, or you'll get a stomach ache. How long do you plan to be in Mexico?" he asked in a scratchy voice.

"Not more than a month or two," Don answered.

"Temporary pass... How old are you?"

"Both eighteen."

He looked at them obviously faking an expression of doubt.

"Es su esposa?" he asked.

"No she's not my wife," Don admitted, slipping the officer a five dollar bill. He completed the forms.

"Hasta la vista," he said, "Good trip niños."

They got Mexican insurance and drove around to the side of the building. The officials had him open the back doors, and selected one backpack and their suitcase for examination. The asked about the altar in front of the truck.

"Religiousa," Don replied. They stood with respect, perhaps mistaking Tara for the Virgin Mary, and went about their business.

They boarded the truck and cruised down the slender byway, Mexico 101. After a half a dozen turns following arrows and signs past Coca Cola billboards and green and pink houses, they realized that the first '101' sign had been their last. They blindly followed the same road to the edge of town. Instead of clean, bright-colored stucco, they found hovels formed of mud, sticks, and old boards. Children were begging for pesos. They handed them a few Mexican coins and asked the older boy for directions.

He responded in perfect English, "Turn right at town hall," and pointed back the way they came. The truck turned around into a cloud of dust, taking them back a few miles to a large white building. They turned right.

Hundreds of hand-drawn carts and battered trucks were backing from every direction into the wide dirty thoroughfare. The sound of engines was punctuated by impassioned shouting, and the street was so pocketed by rainholes that it was a wonder that the whole crazy mass kept moving. Not one of the well-worn vehicles had trouble. The rocking and socking of the chuckholes seemed endless, but disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. The highway was paved again. On the right was a marker. '101' it said. They cheered.

They passed half-clothed children and stick huts. Each hut had a very lean cow and several skinny chickens in its yard. They passed an old man driving three or four pigs with a piece of gnarled wood. The desert sun beat down on the green plain.

They passed the deep Mexico check station and drove on through flatlands for about 200 miles. The desert terrain was vacant except for a few white cows of the Brahma variety, whose shoulders protruded high above the usual cow, and who were free to ramble at will.

The monotonous landscape changed gradually into rolling hills, purple mountains on the distant horizon. They looked almost like the triangular cuneiforms children make in imitation, they were so steep and pointed. The plant life also gave indications of an increasing supply of water. They saw banana trees and cornfields, suggestions of yellow amid the deepening green.

Ciudad Victoria appeared from behind a hill, surprising them with its neat, whitewashed buildings. They stopped for gas and asked the white-smocked attendant whether there were caves in the area.

"Cuevas? Far in the mountains," he replied, pointing up to the rapidly rising ground

which was the city's dramatic backdrop.

10.

The road out of town led steeply up the side of a mountain. Climbing a few thousand feet, they came out onto a highland plateau. Nightshades tinted the landscape in blue. They had been nibbling from their stores all day, but now they craved a real meal.

The highway lay in a plain between buttes, whose origin was volcanic. Bare spots in the vegetation appeared at the side of the road. As the sun slid behind a cone-shaped mountain, they turned off into one of the clearings.

Valerie threw together some vegetables and Moroccan wheat and they feasted heartily. The texture of the manna-like grain soothed their dusty throats, and the food and the aroma of desert sage left them happily high.

They conquered their fear of the wilderness by sleeping on ancient magma instead of retreating to the truck. When the sun woke them, Don went into the woods to urinate and on the way back found a small clearing hidden from the road for setting up their ritual altar.

They had only enough water to wash their faces. Doing so, they sat and did their chanting and meditation on an Indian blanket. The Mexican air came alive with the calls of birds, and the piquant fragrance of mesquite added a refreshing quality to their

chants.

After breakfast, the decided to climb the 'volcano' behind them. Winded by the time they reached the peak, they surveyed the vast panorama of buttes and desert. In the distance they made out the forms of a new series of higher mountains. In a clearing they found a heap of cow bones. 'Perhaps the poor creatures come up here to die,' Valerie thought. 'Maybe the mountain is sacred to them.'

The sun seemed to welcome them with arms of light as they plunged down the steep hillside to the 'Drölma'. They drove on chanting, 'Om mani padme hum', as the wheels whined against the blacktop.

The road became a roller coaster ride up and down mountains where corn grew terraced against the slopes. They descended into tropical valleys reminiscent of Africa with their round thatched huts and banana trees. Children held out hands which Don and Val filled with cookies and candy. Smiles were everywhere, even on the faces of those loaded with inhuman bundles of firewood. The road curled up the edge of a plateau and revealed another city--Ciudad Valles.

"Vayez," Don said, over-enunciating the syllables.

"Sounds like Val's to me," Valerie joked.

Their shared a boisterously jovial mood as they passed through the colorful town,

past an ornately pavilioned square, and back out onto the plateau. Their gaiety was interrupted by a man in a large black Pontiac sedan who crept up behind them and motioned for them to pull over. The car had Texas plates.

He was dark, with short-cropped hair and a fashionably-trimmed beard. He looked more American than Mexican, and sported a pistol slung in a holster hanging low about his gabardines. He wore sandals, and aside from the gun, there was no sign of

anything official.

He asked them to get out of the truck. 'Uh oh, a narc,' Don thought, but since he was carrying no drugs, his momentary fear evaporated.

"What do you want?" Valerie asked politely as they stepped to the pavement.

"Where are you headed?" he asked, sticking his thumbs inside his pistol belt.

"Jacala," Don replied.

"Show me your passes." They did what he asked without question, but felt he was perhaps out of line questioning them in Mexico.

"All right," he said, handing back their papers, "you can go on." He went back to his car, passed them, and drove away.

They sat stunned for a few minutes.

"What do you think he wanted?" Val asked.

"Maybe he's just a Texas lawman on vacation showin' off his authority," Don suggested.

"But he doesn't have any right down here, does he?"

"I'm not sure." don scratched his head. He still felt uncomfortably bald after cutting his hair for the crossing, but was glad he looked a little more 'straight'. "What if the Mexicans have a deal with the American narcs?"

"You mean allowing them to investigate in their territory?"

"Right."

"Then why didn't he search the bus?"

"You got me." Don was beginning to think the bearded interrogator was just a nut.

"Could be he's just keepin' an eye on us."

Valerie took the wheel, and the beauty of the unfolding spectacle soon made them forget the puzzling encounter.

They climbed again, the road uncoiling like a lazy serpent, leading them through dozens of vicious hairpin turns. The tropical trees gave way to scattered pines. Rocky slopes were interspersed with a deep orange soil. Dense mists hung over portions of the road, forcing slow progress. The pavement was not as wide as before, and there were holes in it where the rain had washed it away.

Suddenly two Indian girls appeared out of the mist and flagged down the truck.

Fortunately they had slowed for the fog. The girls approached Don and held out large shiny crystals of quartz.

"Cinco pesos?" the older one asked, as she displayed a stone the size of a golf ball.

"Dos pesos?" the younger one cut in, reaching around her competition with a bony arm and holding up a marble-sized crystal.

Instead of giving them money, Valerie suggested they give them a loaf of the bread she had baked for the trip. They had more than enough.

"Pan?" Don asked, and the young one shook her head with an eager "Si."

The older one held out, but when Valerie held out two loaves of whole wheat, her eyes brightened.

"Dos para los dos," Don said, indicating he would trade two loaves for two crystals.

"O.K." the older one agreed, and accepted the foil wrapped loaves. As they walked away they noticed how they were dressed. The older girl had a grey towel-like shawl draped across her head. Her white blouse abounded withe embroidered sea urchin-stars, and she sported a wrap-around brown flannel skirt--no shoes. They walked to the road's edge, sat down, and tore generous hunks from the loaves, eating and laughing.

With Don at the controls, they flew up the incline above the clouds and into the bright mountain sunshine. A young Indian man, red bandanna under his small straw hat, bright blue serape across his broad shoulders, tended a herd of sheep and a few small llamas.

"Llamas!" Valerie bubbled. "Just like on the cave entrance."

"We must be close." Don senses were honing their rough edges on the mountain air. Flowers alongside the highway seemed intensely fragrant, and the gaping deep green ravines made the heights seem higher. It was as if they were magically transported to the high Andes.

The mood deepened, and around a bend appeared a weathered grey stone fort, suspended over a light green valley--an obvious remnant of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Don easily imagined Spanish solders ala Pizarro peeking over the top of the structure.

"I wonder why there are no tourist signs in Mexico?" Valerie asked.

"I guess they feel everyplace belongs to everybody," Don said. "It certainly lends an air of mystery to things."

They pulled over and entered the dark doorway. There were seven or eight stone rooms, and names had been carelessly initialed over a recent coat of plaster. One was far from brief. In block letters ascended a particularly garrulous 'Jose Maria Guiermo Jesus Garcia Valdez 1957. Viva Elvis!'

"At least these Mexicans achieve a unique identity," Don remarked. "No other person by the same name has ever or will ever walk the face of the earth." They came to the end of the main hallway. A steel-runged ladder was embedded in the wall. Don

climbed and motioned for Val to follow. She declined, and decided to go outside to see Don's conquest of the fortress. He soon appeared on top.

"There's a deep round hole in the roof," he said from two stories up, "like a well."

"Do you think it's a dungeon?" She had visions of poor conquered Indians huddling in the corners of a dark stone prison.

"More like a water storage bin," he answered.

Val took pictures of Don playing Spanish soldier, and they left, stopping every so often to pick multicolored mountain flowers on the way. They took a 'Sayings of Durgananda' pamphlet out of the back and set up an instant shrine on the dash, offering their 'garlands' to the grinning yogi. A sandalwood joss stick added its scent to the flowers. All was peace, and they met no one else on the road.

The stillness gave Valerie opportunity to think. Already had experienced so much:

Jackie, the border, the smiling native, the girls with the stones--all these images flashed through her consciousness like flipped pages in a book. She had an idea for a song. She asked Don to stop the truck, and he swerved to a gravel ledge high above a riverbed. On one side was an almost vertical drop of thousands of feet, and on the other a solid grey rock mountain. Don went off alone and left her to write her song.

The wavelike music of the portable organ flowed like a surging sea into the deep valley.

"Well, we didn't mean to leave you, bound off for Mexico.

We've got lots of things to see to, lots of things to do you know.

One thing that's restin' on my mind:

I'm a wonderin' what we're bound there to find...

In the mountains of Mexico."

She wrote down five verses and looked out the back door of the truck. The mountain mist was settling in again. She felt a heavy pressure in her temples and was just about to lie down to rest, when she heard Don's voice:

"Val!" he called out excitedly. "Come out and see what I've found." She was weary, but could tell he was onto something. She climbed out into the white foggy air.

Only objects near the road could be seen through the soup, and a Don led her down the hill she had to tell herself it wasn't a dream. The stone out of which the highway was hewn haunted her like misty phantoms from another world.

The last thing she wanted to see was a graveyard, but there it was--a level plot of ground on the lower side of the road. Planted in the soil were crosses and wooden markers, each decorated with brightly colored strips of cloth. The strips rippled in the gentle mountain breeze as if spirits had been awakened.

However, Don's discovery was more importantly something else. He motioned for Valerie to cross the pavement, and together they clambered up a thi