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 water got warm and shallower as we went along. The tunnel branched off five different ways. We found words carved into the rock of each tunnel that looked like the same words that we saw a couple of weeks ago carved on the rocks. “Grandpa, which tunnel do we take?” I asked.
He asked me if I had brought my flute. “Of course, you told me to always carry it with me.”
“Play it and see if anything happens.” When I started playing, three of the tunnels started glowing and we heard voices of ancient ancestors singing. I didn’t know if they were saying “Go away” or telling us which tunnel to follow. Grandfather asked me to stop playing and, believe me, I was more than happy to stop. He said it was time to go back now.
“But we’re so close, Grandpa, why can’t we go on?”
“Because this is as far as they will let us go without the correct words repeated for each tunnel. It would be the end of the line for us and we aren’t ready.”
“OKAY, that’s good enough for me.” By the time we got back to the mouth of the tunnel where we came in, it had started raining and water was running into the mouth of the cave. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when we went in there, and no rain in the forecast for a week.
“Grandpa, what is going on?”
“The voices we heard were warning us to leave until the time was right and to return when you had grown more. Learn the ways of the words that are carved on the rocks we have found.” The next morning Red River was full again.
The weatherman on TV was baffled as to where the rainstorm came from because our county was the only one in the state that had any rain last night and there wasn’t a cloud anywhere else in the state.
High school was starting next week. All I could think about was what Grandfather and I had done all summer and I wasn’t ready to go back. But I had no choice because I had one more year of high school and four years of college. At least I was a senior this year. School was boring after the summer I had just spent with Grandfather.
The school year moved kind of slow it seemed but finally it was New Year’s Day and school was half over. I kept practicing my flute and worked on figuring out the words we had written down from the rock and the words in the cave. It looked like there were three, four, or maybe even five different languages combined.
I wanted to start the New Year off right by getting in touch with the spiritual side of life. I knew Grandfather usually used the sweat lodge on New Year’s Day.
I called him to ask him if he would get the sweat lodge ready for me to use today. Grandma answered the phone and told me that he was in it now. It was late when I got there; the lodge was halfway up the mountain and only big enough for four people. Grandfather and I were the only ones that used the lodge anymore, so it was big enough. You could see the steam seeping out from in between some of the branches. My Great-Grandfather had made it out of switch cane woven together and covered it with buffalo (ya-na-s-se) hide to help hold the heat in. Being inside was like stepping back a hundred years, which probably wasn’t too far from how old it was. The pit of rocks was in the middle of the room if you wanted to call it a room. He had the heat going pretty well. By the time I got there, it must have been a hundred and forty degrees inside. It was a great feeling to sit there and meditate, having visions of the past and the future with my Grandfather sitting across from me. It was one of the many things I enjoyed doing with him. We would sit and meditate for a couple of hours. Afterward, we would talk about the vision we saw or if there was anything unique about our experiences. Maybe you believe in that sort of thing or maybe you don’t but, whether you do or not, it does exist. Everyone has had a dream that’s come true or heard of other people that have had their dreams to come true. I know I’ve mentioned it before: There is a world that we see but, at the same time, there is a spiritual world that exists. Every once and a while you are blessed to be able to peek into it. Very few people will even talk to you about it, but most people think it’s nonsense. Nonsense or not, I know the truth and it isn’t nonsense. After Grandfather and I were through using the sweat lodge we walked over to the old horse trough, stepped inside, and dunked ourselves to rinse the sweat off. After we dried off, we headed down to the house to help Grandma with supper. Grandmother had most of it ready. She had sweet potatoes baking in the oven. Oh, what wonderful smells filled the house. Between the sweet potatoes and the fresh bread baking, my senses were in overload. I didn’t realize I was so hungry. No one was as good of a cook as my Grandmother!
CHAPTER TWO
Jacob’s Graduation
“Grandpa, how long has this land been in the family? I know you have been living here since you were born, and your father built it in 1867, but I don’t know any more than that.”
“Jacob, this land has been in the family since 1774.” He told me that he added on to the house in 1907 and made a few changes, but these changes couldn’t be detected by anyone from just looking at the house. “Your Grandma and I are the only ones left that know of these changes. One day you will know about these changes if you listen to me. It will all be revealed in due time, when the time is right and not before. There is a time for everything; have patience, Jacob, the time will come for you.” I knew he was right but sometimes it’s just hard to wait.
Anyway, it was time to go back home and I had to get ready for school. I had to study for my SAT test; I wanted a high score so I could get a scholarship at a good university. It was important for me to get one because Mom couldn’t afford to pay for my tuition.
The days flew by over the next few months and it was March before I knew it, time to go and visit Dad’s grave again. I left early this morning to pick up Grandfather so we would have more time together this year. The weather was closer to normal – it was about forty-seven degrees today. When we drove up to the cemetery, everything was the same as every other year. It was seventy degrees around Dad’s grave. “Grandpa, do you remember last summer when we went down into the cave?”
“Yeah,
