Chapter 18 - Revelations

When he returned home, Jack spread out all of the things he had purchased on the Rez on his bed for his wife to take a look at. She looked them over with her appraising eye, asking him what he was going to do with all of it.  He shrugged and told her that he had no idea.

They started talking about Jack joining the board of directors, and she asked why he thought Ted wanted him on the board.  Jack started telling her what Ted had said to him.  He wanted some new blood, fresh ideas and drive to get things done.  He wanted someone with vision…

As he said that word – vision – his eyes fell upon the picture of the cloud warrior.

Like a shot it hit him that he had seen the cloud warrior before.  He knew the man in the painting.  His heart started pounding and his palms started sweating.  He couldn’t breathe.

“I know that guy!” Jack exclaimed.

“What?” his wife asked.

“That Indian!  I have seen him before!”  Jack was a bit freaked out by what he was seeing.

“That’s the guy I saw back in Infantry School! I’m almost certain!”

Karen was not as freaked out as Jack was. She had a higher trust in miraculous things happening, and this didn’t seem too out of the blue for something that God might arrange.

Jack went to look for his old journals from his USMC days. It took some digging and some time.  While he was searching he thought that perhaps he was just throwing coincidences together.  Maybe it wasn’t the same Indian he had seen back in 1992.  Maybe time had warped his memory just enough that the man in the painting looked similar to the one Jack had dreamed about.  

Then he found it.  Two old, battered notebooks looking like they had seen much better days.  Jack started flipping eagerly through the entries. It didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for.  In one entry he described setting up for an ambush. Lying there for hours needing to stay awake. Watching the inky blackness containing the multitude of stars.

He read about how he had fallen asleep, saw a sky turned rusty red.  Next to him an Indian, dressed in a breechcloth. The Indian had long black hair with a feather in it.  His face was painted red from midline at the nose up. He held a spear and a shield that was green with lightning and some spots on it. And he was a friend.  Jack read this entry to his wife as they looked at the picture again.

 

“What on earth am I supposed to do with this?” Jack thought. “What is going on?”