Nell stumbles out of bed in a haze of confusion. In her dreams, she visited White Buffalo again. The white buffalo, from the old Indian legend, stood high up on a bluff overlooking town, steam snorting from his nostrils. He pawed the ground, making dust fly.
She remembers the legend and wonders if this is some kind of omen. As a child, she scoffed at the old stories. Her Scandinavian heritage had its own legends like Thor, the old red-bearded god of thunder; and Loki, the god of mischief. In school, she learned of the Greek gods: Zeus who must have been related to Thor, since he was a god of thunder, too; or her favorite, Eros, the god of love. But the white buffalo seemed so real in her dreams, snorting and pawing the ground, angry, trying to tell her something.
Must be jet lag. Still . . .
“Really surprised me with your call,” says Morry as he and Nell drive the last three miles into White Buffalo. The top’s down on the rental convertible he picked up after landing in Grand Junction. Nell’s fuchsia scarf blows in the wind. Morry’s dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, the most casual Nell’s seen him since his beans and hash law-school days. She also thinks he looks relaxed and distinguished with salt-and-pepper hair framing an outline around his face. Nell’s jeans and pale blue tank top flatter her girlish figure. Her sandals show off a fresh pedicure.
“Changed my mind,” says Nell. “White Buffalo just seemed to call me. You did offer, you know. To come here.”
“Seemed like a good thing to do after retirement. Really glad you came for my party. Kind of like the old days being together there.”
They ride in comfortable silence absorbing the spring-green dotted hillsides. Recent rains left the countryside fresh and inviting.
“How’d White Buffalo get its name anyway?” Morry asks.
“Some old Indian legend. Never paid too much attention to it. There’s an old metal buffalo on a hill above town, you’ll see it, with the words WHITE BUFFALO spelled out in rocks. Rocks used to be painted white and some of the high school kids would shape rocks into the year of their graduating class and paint those, too. Kind of tacky, I suppose.”
“I’ve seen that in other places.”
“Legend has it that back in the Indian days there was a shortage of buffalo and the Indians lost touch with their creator and were starving. Two braves went out hunting in some of these hills. They came upon a beautiful maiden all dressed in white buckskin, and the more unscrupulous of the two made some advances. She turned him into a pile of bleached bones.”
“Serves him right,” says Morry.
“She told the other brave to go back to his tribe and tell them she was coming.”
“So, did she?” asks Morry.
“Apparently. And when she got there she brought some kind of peace pipe and taught them how to pray. Then she rolled over several times and turned into a white buffalo calf.”
“Ah, so that’s where the name comes from,” says Morry.
“Guess so. Ever after, whenever a white buffalo appeared, it was supposed to bring good luck or lots of buffalo to eat, or something like that.”
“Couldn’t have been many albino buffalo around, though, so I suppose there wasn’t a lot of good luck.”
“Don’t know, but every once in a while I dream about a white buffalo. Must be that old legend still rattling around in my brain.”
They round a curve that brings them into White Buffalo, or what’s left of the town.
“Look on the hill over there. Pretty rusty, but you can make out the buffalo.” Nell points.
“Yup. See some scattered rocks, too, but they don’t seem to spell anything.”
“Been too long. No upkeep. Kind of the way the town looks. Drive down that street–that’s Main Street. Just a post office, and what’s that sign say?”
Morry pulls in close to the only painted building with a flag flying.
“Says: Hours 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, daily. Closed Saturday.”
“Hour and a half,” says Nell. “The whole town’s open for an hour and a half a day. Look at that stop sign. It’s hanging upside down. Says ‘pots’ or ‘dots’ instead of stop!” They both laugh.
Within fifteen minutes, they’ve covered the entire area of the town and have seen only a post office, an old jail, one church, a decrepit hotel, and the town hall that look even half-way occupied. Big padlocks hang from the doors of the jail and town hall. Two houses seem to be occupied. They drive up the hill, kind of like a loft overlooking the town. They see the boarded up brick school house. More abandoned buildings string along the one upper street, with only one looking lived-in. From their perch on the hill, they see dust from a school bus that pulls in and stops in front of the post office. Three teenagers step out as the bus pulls away and heads out across the railroad tracks.
“Depressing,” says Nell. “When I was in high school, this was still something of a town. Had a couple bars, a café, dime store, grocery store, and a half-functioning bank. So sad.”
Morry reaches across, pats her thigh. “Can’t ever really go back,” he says. “Nothing stays the same. Want to drive out to your farm land?”
“No. It’s been a long day. I think maybe we’d better head for Williams. That’s close to the farm and they might still have a motel. Tomorrow we’ll explore.”
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