“He didn’t talk much about his life after thirteen. I can tell you that he left you a key to a lockbox at the bank. His instructions were to give you that key when you graduated from college and not a day before.”
That was just great: I had five or six years to be tormented by the thought of what could be in the bank vault. Mom said she didn’t know what was in it. If she did know she sure wasn’t telling me about it. “You just keep your mind on your books for now. It will all happen when the time is right.” Now she was starting to sound like Grandfather!
It was a long school year of studying to keep my grades up so I could get a scholarship for college.
Then it was time to go with Grandfather to my Dad’s grave again. It was March fourth.
There wasn’t any snow this year, thank GOD! I don’t know if I could have taken another adventure like last year. This year, everything at the cemetery was different; the temperature this year was hotter than normal it was eighty degrees. It was warm for this time of year. My Dad’s grave was cooler, though it was still about seventy-seven degrees. Grandfather said it maintained that temperature year around. It even made him a little nervous when he goes out there. I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed the difference between my Dad’s grave and the others? It sure makes the hair on your neck stand up. We talked about what it could be that keeps Dad’s grave at the same temperature; could it be something or someone was watching over him?
Our visit was too short this weekend; I had to get back to school because of the extra classes I am taking this year. I had a lot of homework to get done before Monday morning.
The next two months flew by and it’s time for mine and Grandfather’s birthdays again. I wondered what he was going to share with me this weekend. I’m seventeen today; one more year of high school left. But what I was most curious about was my visit with Grandpa today. What clue was he going to tell me today? I drove up to his house and there he stood just like last year, ready to go. We went to the river but this time we took the path alongside the river instead of taking the boat. We walked for a couple of hours until we walked out onto the ledge that hung out over the river. He pulled out his flute again and asked me to play along with him. Playing with him was an experience that I will never forget. This time the animals were so close, you could reach out and touch them. Just as before, when we stopped playing, they were all gone, disappeared into thin air. “Jacob, you’re playing as well as I’ve ever heard anyone play,” he told me “I’m proud of the way you have been practicing. I can tell and so can the spirits of the forest.” We must have played for hours by the way the sun was low in the sky, but the time passed by so quickly it was time to go before we knew it.
“Before we leave, I have another clue for you. Do you remember the other clues?”
“Yes, I remember them! I have them all written down in my journal Grandpa.”
“Good man, Jacob.” That was the first time he called me a man.
“Find the book in the hand of the seventh warrior above facing the west. On the twenty-third page of that book on the ninth shelf of the fifth Angel two wings removed from above facing the east has a note telling you the next place to look.”
Then we walked back to the house, where Grandma had supper ready for us again as usual. Before you knew it, Sunday afternoon came, and it was time to go home.
Summertime was here and it was hotter than normal this year. The lack of rain caused the Red River to be lower than I had ever seen it before. Grandfather said it hadn’t been this low in eighty-four years. One day in July, we got in the boat and went upriver to the same rock he took me to last year. Now the river was seven feet below its normal level revealing twenty (ta’-l’-s-go-hi) rocks surrounding a boulder. Each rock had a word carved on the side. The big rock was sitting on what looked like a pedestal. Or it maybe it was covering a tunnel that went back into the mountain?
On the bottom of the largest boulder was a circle with words craved around it: “MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN” (“you have been weighed in the balance and have been found lacking”). It almost looked like a key.
Grandfather said, “Jacob, pull the boat out on the bank and tie it up. I want to show you something. Follow me.” I followed him to the top of the boulder. Grandfather told me to look down at the rocks surrounding the boulder. When I looked down, I noticed words were also written on top of the rocks. Grandfather explained, “The words on the side of the rocks are for those who are young in spirit and in the natural realm of the world. The ones on top are for people who are more mature in the spirit and those words are in the spirit realm. When you add the two sentences together; well that is a narrow path leading to the true spirit world of the Great Spirit. Jacob, my son, few there will be who find this path!” He also showed me a carving at the top of the boulder” “There is only one Great Spirit. All things were created by Him; so, all things are in the Great Spirit (u-ne-qua) and everything has the Great Spirit inside of it!” As I was looking at the carving in the boulder, I thought I saw fossilized fingers protruding out of the stone. Grandfather told me, “These words spoken incorrectly will cause you to sink into hardening of the heart; hardened by pride. Jacob, many of our ancestors made the wrong choice. By doing so their spirits became entombed in the world of deceit, and their hearts entombed in stone.”
The words written on the side of the rocks of wisdom were: (the natural realm) FORGET, LOVE, (tsi-lv-quo-di), BEING, HIGHER, (ga-lv-la-di) ANGEL, (di-ka-no-wa-di-do-hi), HELPERS, (a-li-s-de-lv-di) WINGED, (go-hu-nv-hi) TO, CHOOSE, (su-ye-ta) TWO, (ta-li), WORLDS, (e-lo-hi), INTO, DEATHS, (o-yo-hu-sa a-tsi-la) WAR, (da-nu-wa) OF, ONE, (sa-quu-i) PATH, (nv-ne-hi), CHOSEN, (su-ye-ta) DECAYS, (u-go-sv) SPIRIT, (a-da-nv-do). The words written on the top of the rocks are the (Spiritual Rim). REMEMBER,(a-nv-da-di-s-di), TRUTH, (do-na-te-u) BECOMING, LIFE, (ga-no-du) JOY, (ga-li-e-li-ga) ENGAGED, (i-tsu-la) ON, SPIRITUAL, (a-do-nv-do) WINGS, (go-hu-nv-hi) HELPS, TO, CHOOSE, ONE, (sa-quu-i) PATH, (nv-ne-hi), TOO, (na-s-gi), TAKE,(a-gi-s-di) IN, SPIRITUAL, (a-do-nv-do) TONGUES, POWER.
“It’s a sign that the time is drawing near for—never mind,” said Grandfather. “The river hasn’t been this low since 1897.”
We wrote the words down that were carved into the rocks. Then I took a piece of paper and laid it over what I thought was a key and rubbed pencil lead over it until each detail on the paper was legible. I took pictures for the very first time. Since the river hadn’t been this low since the late eighteen hundreds; I didn’t know if these rocks would ever be seen again in my lifetime. The carvings on the rocks were there for a reason. Why were they in that order? I thought maybe the pictures I took might help me to figure out their meaning. I took them in the order they lay around the rock.
I had a friend that could develop the photos for me because I didn’t trust having it done by just anyone. Grandfather was puzzled by the things we saw today; you could tell he wasn’t comfortable. He kept watching as if he expected something to happen. He poured water over the boulder and all the rocks and washed away any sign of our being there. Then we headed back to the house. When we passed by the ledge with the steps going up to it, the ledge we would sit on where we usually pulled the boat out of the water was seven feet above the water. There was an opening under it, but I couldn’t see how far back it went. “Don’t stop, Jacob, keep going, we will come back at night using the trail so that no one will see us.”
It was a couple of weeks before we could come back. Grandfather got the rope and lights just in case we needed them. We didn’t use the lights until we got down to the river under the ledge at the edge of the river. The cavern underneath the ledge went down forty feet, then we hit the water, which was waist-deep, so it was a good thing we had our walking sticks with us. The water was cold and dirty from running down the clay walls. We waded in the water for about thirty minutes. It was slow-going having to use our sticks to feel the way. There were a couple of places the water was over five feet deep and some places we couldn’t feel the bottom. All at once, the