Russel Harman said he lived in a farm house with his son's family and had eight grandchildren. Mark thought that was a wonderful resume for someone who cared for children and was willing to talk with Ronny. They had been introduced through the Nanticoke Indian Association in Millsboro, Delaware. It took a while to make contact, but they had finally spoken on the phone after a long back and forth exchange of information.
Mark had called the Association with his unusual request, saying he wanted to know if there was an elder in the Nanticoke community that would teach a boy about his Indian heritage. The woman on the phone had said she would pass along the request to one of the council members. It had been Chief Jackson who called Doc Malvern to see if this was all legitimate.
And so five days passed before Mark's phone rang, it was Russel Harman, a former council member and an elder in the community.
"I hear you want an old man to teach a boy about his ancestry," Russel said.
"Something like that," Mark replied. "I'm his academic tutor here at the school and the question of his ancestry came up. His mother is from the Oneida people."
"Oneida? That's way up north, you think all us Indians are the same?" Russel laughed.
"No sir, but I think you all have the same spiritual values when you contemplate life and the Great Mother."
There was a moment of silence. "Well…that's refreshing to hear, you must be a very accomplished teacher, Mr. Ryan. How did you know I'm a spiritual healer?"
"Quite frankly I didn't, but when Ronny heard your name he said you would be the one to help us."
"The boy said that?"
"He's more than just a boy, and that's what we need to talk about…he's connected to his ancestors," Mark said.
Again the silence. "You have me intrigued, connected you say?
"He dreams about them," Mark said.
"When can I meet Ronny?"
Russel gave him directions and invited them down the following Saturday. Millsboro was only about sixty miles away and they could take the back roads to get there through Federalsburg and Seaford down to the headwaters of the Indian River.
Katherine was intrigued by the contact and wished them success as they left the campus for the outing. Ronny had been quiet all morning and Mark thought maybe the boy was a little afraid of what he was facing.
"Russel says he has eight grandchildren, a pretty good sized family," Mark said. "Is there anything special you'd like to talk about with him?"
Ronny shook his head. "I'm sure he's a nice old guy."
"All I would ask is that you don't go looking at his thoughts. I assume you can do that with just about anyone."
Ronny nodded. "I won't do that. Maybe we're related, many of the Nanticoke left here in the time before Ohni:ta Pebbles and went north to live with my people. I guess his family stayed, we'll have to ask him."
"I only told him you had a spiritual connection with your ancestors in dreams," Mark said. "You can tell him anything else you want if you think him worthy."
"Can he go fishing with us?"
Mark smiled. "He lives on the Indian River which connects to the ocean. I imagine that fishing has been a part of his life."
"Great," Ronny said.
The Nanticoke Indians of Delaware conjured up images in Mark's head that were completely wrong. While many of them may have lived in poverty for a time this was not the case here with the Harman family. Their farm was hardly little and their pastures were filled with cows while long rows of chicken houses stretched away in the distance.
The family house sat on a rise and once the car stopped they had to get out and look. Down the sloping yard lay the waters of Indian River and beyond it the bay which led to the ocean. This was a working farm and Mark could see several men out cutting early hay in the fields. The house itself was large and comfortable looking, and especially inviting were the chairs that sat out on the front porch.
"Good Morning, I was expecting you," A voice called out, and the screen door opened to reveal their host, Russel Harman.
The man didn’t look the age, but Mark knew he was in his seventies. A long mane of gray hair, a cotton work shirt and jeans. Nothing he wore said Indian, but his face was indicative of a proud ancestry in Native America.
"Welcome," Russel said, holding out a hand to Mark. They shook and then the man turned his face to Ronny. "Shekóli, young man. Do you know the Iroquois greeting words?"
Ronny nodded. "I do…but how did you learn them, don't you speak Algonquin?"
"I know many things, and from what I hear you do as well," Russel said. "Come inside, I made some lemonade."
The living room of the house was a treasure trove of Nanticoke artifacts and artwork. Pottery and woven fabrics gave the room a museum air, but there was even a wall display of arrow points and other weapons. Russel pointed out a few items and then led them into the kitchen.
"Everyone is out working so they leave the old man at home," He chuckled. "Sit and we will talk about what you need from me."
The kitchen was a wonder of modern appliances, but against the far wall sat an ancient four burner wood stove. Ronny took a seat and then smiled as Russel poured the boy a glass of lemonade and then handed one to Mark.
"So, Ronny…where can we begin? I speak the Iroquois language because my father taught it to me when I was young. His family lived outside of Niagara in upper New York State. Do you know the significance of Niagara Falls to the Oneida?" And Ronny shook his head.
"The Falls…Nee-ah-gah-rah, means Thundering Waters in the Iroquois language, and that's certainly true. Sacred waters since the beginning of time, so sacred it is said they sacrificed a young maiden to the falls every year. I'm not sure we know the truth, but that's where the legend of the Maiden of the Mist comes from. It was believed that she was joined with the Great Spirit and lived in the mist at the bottom of the falls."
"They killed someone? That's terrible," Ronny said.
"Maybe, but they would have believed it brought them closer to the spirits that controlled their lives. All native people believe that every form of life is sacred. It follows that by sacrificing that which is most important to us it will gain the attention of the Creator."
Russel smiled. "Not everything I can teach you is pleasant and there are some harsh realities to be learned in the ancient traditions. I returned here to the roots of my ancestry to discover something about myself. The Nanticoke went through some hard times not too many years ago, but we have recovered our dignity. And in those times I discovered the spiritual needs of my people."
"You said you were a spiritual healer, what exactly does that mean?" Mark asked.
"In the past several hundred years we have been inundated by those who would take away the old beliefs and bring us to Christianity. The early missionaries came to save us from ourselves and change our pagan beliefs, or so they said. In many ways it was worse for Ronny's people because these men of the cloth had free access to the Iroquois villages from the north.
"The first thing that occurred was disease. Thousands of people died since the natives had no immunity like the Europeans, even a case of chickenpox could be fatal, but smallpox decimated entire villages. The missionaries treated the sick and converted many who survived. Then the French turned around and burned everything they could find until the Confederacy rallied and drove them out. The English colonists did much the same to us here."
"But you came back…why?" Ronny asked.
"The Nanticoke have never left these lands because these are sacred places to us. But I came back to find a wife, and I did. I have three sons and a daughter all grown up now. But I had a college education, I'd made a little money and I bought this land to farm…you can see what we've accomplished."
"And what about the spiritual healing?" Mark asked.
"Yes, sorry, I got sidetracked. We live in a time of all this New Age discovery, Indian is the in thing. So much of what might be read is fiction and the spiritual roots of the people have been trampled by this business. And it is just that, a business, there is money to be made by the fakers in artifacts and what they want people to believe are real rituals and ceremonies.
"I had to wade through all that to discover what it meant to be a Nanticoke, and along the way I discovered much about the other native people of the Americas, including the Oneida. So you lucked out in finding me…but then you said Ronny told you I was the one."
Russel set his gaze on Ronny. "Your teacher says that you would like to learn something about the Oneida because you dream about them. I believe in dreams, the spirits speak to us in our dreams. So as a healer I work with people to help them understand their dreams and to heal their way of life. I have white clients too, I don't discriminate."
Ronny nodded. "I dream of a time long past, it's like a movie that plays in my head. I can understand what they are doing but I just don't know why this has come to me."
Russel nodded. "Understanding anything has to be in context with other things. We must understand before we can believe. The Oneida were a very spiritual people. It was something that affected their daily lives for a long, long time. Are you familiar with their spiritual markers, the standing stones?"
Ronny looked at Mark, and then back at Russel. "I've seen them."
"You have…in your dreams? That's very interesting, do you know their meaning?" Russel asked.
"No…do you?"
"Many of the stones originated before the Oneida, from ancient times, maybe thousands of years ago. Back then I imagine the stones themselves were objects of worship representing the Creator. By the time the Oneida joined the Iroquois Confederacy the stones were little more than sacred totems for the clans. What exactly did you see in your dreams?"
Ronny closed his eyes and began to describe the scene. "The Bear Clan gathered around this tall standing stone, it was easily twice as tall as I am and bigger around than a telephone pole. But it was covered in strange writing, shapes of birds and animals. Only the spirit leaders were allowed to touch it, my Grandmother Pebbles was one of them." And the boy opened his eyes.
Russel sat quietly and then nodded. "How interesting. From what I know most of the sacred stones were plain granite rocks without any decoration, this would be an exceptionally rare stone. Grandmother Pebbles…you see her as your grandmother?"
"In my visions…she is my grandmother," Ronny said.
"She must be very old…do you know how long ago that was?"
"No."
"There were British soldiers in his dream, this was prior to the French and Indian Wars I think," Mark said.
"And there was a standing stone there? The clans had a standing stone?"
"Yes," Mark said.
"You've seen this too?" Russel asked.
"I…I have, Ronny put it in my head."
Russel turned back to Ronny and studied the boy. "Your mother was Oneida, your father was not?"
"My mother's name was Sally Pebbles, she's related to the great spirit healer, Ohni:ta Pebbles."
"The woman you call Grandmother…I'm missing something here, something you haven't told me."
"It's hard for him to explain," Mark said, "There was a boy who came to be known as Fierce Beaver, he was the grandson of Ohni:ta Pebbles, and she spoke a prophecy…"
Mark went on to explain what he knew of those words which spoke of the Spirit Warrior and Russel listened. If the man had been skeptical at first he was now caught up in the vision Ronny held in his mind.
"Now I understand your dilemma, how can you explain this? I've never encountered the belief in a Spirit Warrior, but then the Oneida held mystical beliefs they didn't share. You've had dreams for how long?
"I've been seeing things for a long time," Ronny said. "Mark is the only one I have shared with, I trust him."
"I've had two dreams…vivid, it's like I'm there," Mark said.
"And these people speak English in your dreams?"
"No, not always…but I can understand them. Are you translating, Ronny?" Mark asked.
"Translating? I don't speak Iroquois."
"Now I'm freaking out," Mark said.
Russel said nothing for a long time and then he sighed. "I don't have the answers to any of this. You have to admit it's hard to believe."
"I could show you the stone," Ronny said.
"And how would you do that?"
"Close your eyes."
Russel looked at Mark who nodded and said, "This you can believe."
Russel closed his eyes and felt his body relax as the image of hundreds of Indians standing with their heads bowed came to him. An old woman in an ancient dress covered in beads and feathers reached out and touched…a standing stone.
The detail on the stone was stunning, and just as Ronny said there were birds and small animals carved on it, but there was something else. The writing Ronny spoke of, he could see the shapes and they looked like…
The vision vanished and Russel opened his eyes. "Great Spirit Mother," He said. "It exists…the stone is real."
Mark smiled. "Welcome to the believer's club."
Russel's daughter-in-law arrived shortly after that to fix them all some lunch. One of the sons and a handful of grandchildren arrived to eat and all were curious to meet the guests. One dark haired boy of about twelve stared at Ronny and then Russel introduced them.
"Ronny, this is Thomas, my daughter's boy."
"You’re Indian too," Thomas said.
"I'm from the Oneida people," Ronny replied.
Thomas was a stout young boy. Working on the farm seemed to agree with him. But like the others he quickly sat at the table and the food was carried in. Fried chicken, slaw and potato salad, along with three large fruit pies and pitchers of fresh milk. The family ate large at midday Russel explained, they had been up since dawn working on the farm. Even the kids had chores, and after lunch they all left.
"Come…let's walk," Russel said.
He took them out in the back yard where there was a large garden to feed the house. The corn was only three feet high, but it looked healthy.
"Corn, the source of life and the finest gift the Great Mother ever gave us. All across the land our native people have grown corn, it's one of the few things we have in common. It figures prominently in our culture. We know the seasons because of corn, we dance to celebrate corn, and we pray to the heavens when it is planted and then harvested."
They walked down the sloping hillside to the water where a small dock stuck out into the water. A long rowboat was tied up, but Russel led them to a small grove of trees that held a gazebo and he motioned for them to sit.
"This is my place for thought…and you sure have given me a lot of difficult things to think about," Russel said.
"I'm sorry," Ronny said.
Russel smiled and yet shook his head. "Never be sorry in your quest for knowledge. These thoughts were given to you for a reason and we must discover what they mean. The spirits of our ancestors dwell within us and I think you are blessed to be so close to yours."
They sat quietly for a while and watched the sea birds swooping down in the shallows.
"I didn't mean for all this talk of spirits to take over our thoughts," Russel said. "Here we are on nature's doorstep and we ought to have some fun this afternoon."
Ronny smiled. "I've never been fishing."
"I can tell," Russel said. "My grandchildren head straight for the water when they come down here, would you like to do that?"
"Please."
They took the rowboat with Mark sitting in the bow and Ronny on the stern bench with Russel's tackle box between his feet. Mark begged off any fishing, suggesting that Ronny was the one who needed the lessons. What he avoided saying was that he didn't have a license to fish, but Russel guessed that.
"I haven't bought a fishing license in twenty years, and Ronny is underage. Still, it would be a damn fool ranger to come all the way over here from the seashore park to bother us. They have a major problem over there with people tearing up the beach with their four wheel drive vehicles."
Russel rowed the boat with ease. Just a short ways out in the bay and then back into a cove surrounded with undergrowth. He looked around and positioned the boat before dropping a stone anchor over the side.
"This is probably my favorite spot. We get those sea bass up in here, maybe even the occasional flounder. Hand me that box, Ronny."
Russel opened his tackle box and Ronny looked down on all these strange items. Hooks and weights he understood, but the lures mystified him.
"Nice thing about a bass is he'll bite at most anything, especially if it's shiny. I remember as a kid we used to tie a pop top off a soda can on the line with a hook and catch bass like crazy. Now this is called a bucktail lure, works well up here in the coves because it won't snag itself on the sea grass."
"How did you learn all these things?" Ronny asked.
"Most things came the hard way. You try something and it works or fails. Believe it or not you tend to remember the failures best and that makes them easier to avoid. I bet there are a hundred lures I lost sitting on the bottom of the bay out there."
He tied a lure on the line and showed Ronny how the knots were made, and then the boy was shown how to cast.
"If you take a canoe like our ancestors might have done and just drag a line out behind it would be pretty easy to catch a fish. But most used nets cast out in the water or built traps in the moving water of a stream to direct a larger number of fish into a net. I'm sure the white man thinks he invented all these fancy lures but we had them first. Now you go on and cast that lure out there and we'll see what happens."
Russel turned around to look at Mark and gave him a wink. Ronny cast out his lure and it landed about fifty feet away from the boat.
"Good going, now reel it in slowly," Russel said.
Ronny did as he was told and ten seconds later there was a tug on his line.
"Slow down…let the fish get interested," Russel said.
And then the rod bent as the fish went for the lure.
"I got a fish," Ronny yelled.
"Reel him in slowly," Russel said.
Ronny did what he was told and the fish fought back, pulling more line off the reel. Russel reached over and increased the drag as Ronny kept on turning the handle.
"Where is he?" Ronny asked.
"He dove for the weeds, but you got him now," Russel said. "See, there he is…a good sized one too."
Russel reached for his net as the boy reeled in a nice fat bass. By the looks of it the fish was all of ten or twelve pounds. As the fish came close to the boat Russel reached out and swept it up in the net.
"That's a beauty," Russel said.
Ronny was all smiles as he watched the fish struggle in the net. "Doesn't it hurt him to be out of the water? We ought to throw him back."
"Your first catch and you want to throw him back?" Russel asked.
"I don't need the fish…we aren't going to eat him. Let's put him back," Ronny said.
Russel reached in the net and grabbed the fish, quickly slipping the lure from its mouth and holding it up for Ronny to see.
"The first is one you will always remember. The Great Mother will thank you for returning it to the waters." And with that he let the fish go.
Mark had said nothing. He sat observing Ronny's mood changes. The anticipation changed to joy and then anxiety until the fish was released. The way he responded to Russel was pleasing and the man really knew how to guide the boy well.
"That was great," Mark said. "I should have brought a camera."
Russel nodded. "There will be other times for that. This was Ronny's personal moment of triumph. There are lots of things he needs to learn from here."
Ronny caught two more fish before Mark realized that Russel hadn't even cast out his line. This cove had to be filled with fish, but it seems the man wanted Ronny alone to feel the excitement and it sure worked.
They had been out a couple of hours and the sun was hot so Russel rowed them back around the point to the dock. They retired to the gazebo where it seems the daughter-in-law had anticipated their return and left a fresh pitcher of lemonade.
"A long time ago, before I returned here to help restore the legacy of the Nanticoke, I worked hard to understand the ways of our people," Russel said. "I went to school in Buffalo and realized I was surrounded by lands that were once occupied by the Iroquois Confederacy and so I studied them.
"I would like to spend more time with you both, perhaps I can share some of the lessons I learned about nature and the ways of the spirit world."
"I think we'd both like that," Mark said.
"Ronny, I assume you will continue to have these dreams and share them with Mark."
"I will…why do you ask?"
"Because in time things will become clearer to you both and we can delve into the meanings of what you both see. This is not the first time I have heard of your standing stone, Ronny…it's a missing artifact.
"There are accounts of it in journals and reports from the French Jesuits back in 1650 who tried to convert the native people. They saw it as an abomination, but they dared not touch it. The Seneca occupied much of that land, and along with the Oneida they were probably the strongest people in the northeast.
"What I'm trying to say is that your stone is real, and in that brief glimpse you gave me I find confirmation of what was reported by the journals. You see, I recognize some of that writing on the stone, it is far older than you can imagine…and it does not have a native origin."
"What are you talking about?" Mark asked.
"The words are in an ancient language, runes…futhark they are called. It's an ancient Scandinavian alphabet of Germanic origin, and it was used in around the first century AD. I can't be sure because I've only seen examples of it. But those were also carved on stones…in Sweden."
Mark laughed. "Sweden? You mean the Vikings, the Norse people?"
Russel nodded and looked right at Ronny. "They say the runes concealed the formulas for great magical power. Maybe this Spirit Warrior your grandmother spoke of isn’t of native origin."
"My father's family is of Swedish ancestry," Ronny said.
"His last name is Boden. Oh no…it couldn't be that simple," Mark said.
"Why not? I believe stranger things have happened," Russel said.
"You think because Ronny is the product of a Swedish and Oneida mix that he has this…this powerful gift from his ancestors and they could be Vikings?"
"Mark, its only speculation on our part. There is only one person in this whole world that has the answer, and he sits here just as confused by it as we are," Russel said. "In time we will know the truth."