The Indian lay down among the rocks, his face turned to the sky. Only his eyes moved. It had been years since he came to this sacred place, and today he came to ask for his name. This name would be given to him by a spirit, a sort of guardian spirit, who would leave a talisman. If the spirit were a bird, it would leave a feather, which the Indian would tuck into his boot. If it were a bear, it would leave a claw.
In the old days humans and animals were the same. They talked freely to each other and helped in times of battle and famine. Sometimes the spirit was a human, the ghost of someone who has passed on to a heavenly place, more often it was a frustrated ghost with chores undone, words unspoken or gestures undemonstrated. And sometimes the spirit never came at all. The Indian would not learn his name and he would wither away and die young, bereft of the taproot of his existence.
The searing Arizona sun climbed higher, slowly higher.
The Indian wondered if he was out of his time. Too early or too late. Perhaps the spirits had been chased away by tourists and the influx of new settlers. But he did not really believe that. He knew they lived. He knew the spirits were everywhere. Always moving, stirring the air. They were here long before the white man came onto the land. They had lived long before a man was nailed to a cross. They live here now, today, in this place. Dozens of them. More. They are the spirits of this place–all the way to the river.