me when he was gone.
Several months went by before I saw Grandpa again. But he would call me and talk to me every week, asking me to study hard. “But don’t let people influence you, making you think too small,” he would say. “What if the Wright brothers had let people influence them? People laughed at them and said if a man were meant to fly, they would have wings. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone would never have been more than a kid’s toy. Your dreams are important to no one but you because they are your dreams and your dreams alone. Yes, there will be people that believe in you, but there will also be those who are jealous of you and your accomplishments. Those are people who say they believe in you but don’t really, and you can tell by the way they either encourage you or they say it’s already been done. This is what to listen for when people claim to be your friend or they are just fair-weather friends and they are too busy being concerned about themselves.”
“Jacob,” he would say, “you need to care more about others than you do yourself and serve others before yourself and you will go further than you could ever dream possible.”
My sixteenth birthday was coming up soon. It was only a couple of months away. I couldn’t help but wonder what was in store for me this year with Grandfather. I thought about the last three years, about the clues he wanted me to remember, the library, the forty-eight warriors facing twenty-eight Angels. I had no idea what he was talking about. But I did remember what he said as he asked me to. In early March, we went to visit Grandfather again. It was an unusual spring because we had three consecutive snowfalls of seven inches in just three days.
This visit was a little different than most. We went to the cemetery where Dad was buried. It was March fourth, my Dad’s birthday. Dad was born in 1916. He passed away on January 3rd, 1969, the year I turned thirteen. Dad was up in years when I was born. Dad and Mom said I was their miracle child because I was born so late in their lives.
The snow was so deep that the tombstones were all covered. Everyone’s but Dad’s -- it was eerie. I asked Grandfather why Dad’s grave was the only one that didn’t have any snow on it, none at all. It is as if we were in a greenhouse, the grass was still green and the flowers at the base of the headstone were in full bloom. The temperature was twenty-eight degrees outside. It didn’t make sense. The temperature on Dad’s grave was a warm seventy-seven degrees. “What is going on here Grandpa?” He told me that it only happens on my Dad’s birthday and that he didn’t understand it either. He had discovered it five years ago, the first year Dad had been buried, but had never told anyone what he had discovered. Grandpa told me that Dad found the cave when he was about thirteen and went inside to explore it alone. “To this day, I don’t know how he found it without my map that I have kept hidden for fifty years. Your Dad hadn’t seen the map and he didn’t know about my journal of my own findings yet. Your Dad was a person that was centered spiritually at a very young age. He saw things that most people wouldn’t ever believe were possible. If they had seen them, they would have denied it as their imagination running wild. After your Dad found the cave, he was never the same.”
When we left the cemetery that day, I was frightened and had an uneasy feeling about my Dad’s grave. Was there a connection between him and the cave? It wasn’t like anything my Grandfather had ever seen or had no explanation of why. What did it have to do with the cave? Did it have anything to do with the cave he had explored when he a young boy?
If it did have something to do with the cave, then what was it? What did my Dad discover that my Grandfather and his friends didn’t seventy-five years earlier? Could my father have anything written down in a journal of his own about his experience from the time he was in the cave? Did he ever go back to it? I had a lot of questions for Grandfather and my mother. I didn’t know where to even start. Everything around my Dad had always been kept quiet except that he was a good man.
Today is my sixteenth birthday. I haven’t seen Grandfather, since March fourth, my Dad’s birthday.
That was when Grandfather and I drove out to visit my Dad’s grave and he told me about Dad finding the cave. What was he going to share with me this time? What was he going tell me that would go with the other clues he had already given me? The library, the twelve warriors facing the seven Angels and what did that mean anyway?
I had my own car now -- freedom! Mom didn’t have to drive me out to see Grandfather anymore.
That was a great thing for a sixteen-year-old boy to have his own car. When I pulled into the driveway, though it was more like a road to nowhere, I saw him standing out by the barn. He was getting things ready for us. It was time for another lesson, another clue to where his journal was hidden.
When I got out of the car, he handed me a wooden flute. It was worn from use and he told me it was time to start learning how to play this tune. This piece is called the song of the ancestors or the ancient ones. He pulled another flute almost identical to the one he handed me and started playing. The tune sounded like it was two hundred years old. It was the most beautiful tune I had ever heard. I never knew Grandfather could play a musical instrument. The flute was about two feet long and there were three eagle feathers hanging from it. On the side were seven words carved from the mouth end to the end of the flute. On the other side were twelve more from the end of the flute going back to the mouth end of the flute. It was a language I didn’t recognize. “Grandpa, what do these words mean?”
With a chuckle and a twinkle in his eye, he told me it was all in his journal. “One day it will all come together. Do you remember the other clues I have given you, Jacob?”
“Yes, I remember!”
“Good!! Let’s go down to the river again.” We got in the boat and headed up the river one more time. We pulled the boat out onto the rocks by the steps and walked up to the ledge that hung out over the river. We sat down and Grandfather started to teach me the tune on the flute. He played for a few minutes while I just sat there listening and watching him play.
It was like magic. It was mesmerizing; it took me to a place of peace like I had never felt. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the animals of the forest gather around to listen to my Grandfather as he played this mystifying tune. I turned my head to see deer, turkey, squirrels, bear, fox, and birds of all kinds sitting in the trees as he played. When he stopped playing, the animals were all gone without any sound; they disappeared without a trace. On the way back to the house he gave me another clue.
The third warrior below facing the south seven feet up is looking at the seventh Angel from above facing the north two wings removed under his halo lies the key that opens the book that the seventh warrior from above facing the west has in his hand. Under his halo lies the key that opens the book of what you need to search for in order to find my journal.
“The number of warriors and angels are the key to everything, don’t forget that, Jacob. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. I hope I’m here long enough to help you with this life’s quest.”
I knew Grandfather was old; he was born in May of 1877. This was 1972, so he was ninety-five years young and he got around better than most people in their sixties. But I was old enough to understand what he was telling me. We fished for bass on our way back home that day, hoping to catch a few for supper that night. It was the first time in a long time that we had fished together.
We hunted and fished together every opportunity that came our way, any opportunity to spend time together. We caught twelve bass that day on our way back home. They sure did taste good for supper that night. Grandma fixed fried potatoes, pinto beans, and fried okra to go with the bass and of course buttermilk cornbread. Grandma sure did know how to cook. To be ninety years young they sure did get around good. They said it was from good eating and good strong family genes. It still got a little cool at night in the mountains, so they built a fire before we went
