Falling Star by Philip Chen

belt, with an intricate buckle of hammered silver.  On the third finger of each hand was a silver ring in the shape of an eagle about to strike.
    The chill of the early morning did not deter him from the duty which he had done every morning for many years.
    The carefully opened sacred bundle, the symbol of his faith and his position, lay on his lap.  His ceremonial pipe rested next to his right knee.  Before him, traced in the hard soil of the mesa, was a circle displaying the four points of the compass, the four cardinal directions.
    Johnny Thapaha faced the rising sun, encroaching warmth he could only feel but could not see because cataracts had taken away his sight a long time ago.  He yearned to know and to understand what had been and what would surely be.  Johnny Thapaha's blindness served to intensify his mental capabilities on the painful images.  Lasting images that had been given to him by the traveler so many years ago.
    Even at his advanced age and on this lonely windswept mesa, his head was held high and straight.  His eyes remained fixed to some distant point only they could see.
    Suddenly, Johnny Thapaha's face tightened.  His aged chin lifted toward the rising sun.  His sightless eyes focused.  His arms rose outstretched as if in welcome.  Over the horizon came the long awaited sign.  A single shaft of golden light.  It was disturbing.
    "Cha-le-gai!" bellowed the old man into the solitary ray of rising sun.  The sound of his voice reverberated through the hard-surfaced mesas and the canyon below.
    The old man's face sagged in exhaustion.  His arms dropped limply to his legs.
    A tear formed in the corner of the old man's right eye, coursed over his weathered-bronzed cheek, hung on the hard edge of his jaw, and finally fell onto the breast of his shirt.  The aged head dropped forward, avoiding the rising sun -- the giver of life, the messenger of things to come.
    The quiet voice of a child came from the shadows just below the crest of the mesa.  "Grampa, it's cold and it's getting late."
    "Yes, Little Dove, it is getting late.  We must prepare to leave."
    Only his grandfather called ten-year-old Jimmy MacLaren by his Navajo name.  Jimmy's Navajo heritage was evident in his brown skin, his straight black hair, and his deep-set, dark eyes that seemed to glow in the morning light.  Shivering in his nylon parka, jeans, and running shoes, Jimmy could have been any kid in any neighborhood in America, but he was here on this bleak mesa participating in a ceremony that was as old as his people.
    The old man rose slowly.  He stretched out his left hand to search for the secret place while clutching the sacred bundle and ceremonial pipe to his breast.
    His efforts to locate the secret place were at best struggled and guided only by instinct.  Jimmy studiously avoided looking at his grandfather.  Even at this young age, Jimmy knew that only the medicine man can know the sacred place.  With some effort, the practiced hand found the familiar rock and Johnny Thapaha started to return the sacred bundle to its resting-place.
    He hesitated and, in a furtive move, placed the sacred bundle inside the loose folds of his shirt.
    "Little Dove, please take my hand."
    Slipping the gnarled, callused hand of his grandfather into his own smooth hand, Jimmy started down the worn path to the ground below and the warmth of his grandfather's hogan.  Johnny Thapaha followed with a labored gait, his back bent by the weight of too many seasons.
    The hawk caught the first rising thermals caused by the warming air and soared higher and higher.  This would surely be a good hunting day.

     
     
    1993: The Coffee Shop

    0730 Hours: Thursday, June 10, 1993: In a Small Coffee Shop along Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    The two men sat in the booth in the back of the small coffee shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Each had a mug of steaming coffee in front of him; purchased at the counter.
    There was a steady flow