The Removed(41)

There was once, in a small town called Quah, a quiet boy who lived near a dark river. One day the boy ran away from home after disobeying his father. The boy went to the river to swim, not knowing it was the home of a giant snake, e nah dah, who was known to leap out of the water and drag people to an underground world full of darkness. The snake opened its mouth wide and grabbed the boy as he was swimming, pulling him down into the land . . .

Wyatt held his hands up like claws and made a face, which reminded me, oddly, of Ray-Ray. Such a strange expression, it occurred to me. Now I could understand what Ernest was seeing in him, or at least how he resembled Ray-Ray in this particular way. His face, the way his lips curved downward, the way he talked and smiled. I could see it.

. . . and the boy looked around to see he was in another world, the Darkening Land. All around him were other people who had been pulled under by the snake. He saw dead buzzards and dead fish along the side of the road. He saw a cloud of vultures in the sky. Nobody would look at him or talk to him. In the distance, he heard gunshots.

“Someone help me!” he called, but nobody answered.

So the boy ran. He didn’t know where he was going, but he ran until he came across a group of people. He saw a few men holding rifles, following a group of people who were walking and falling. The men with their rifles kicked and yelled, making the people walk and walk, even when they fell.

The boy hid behind a rotting building and watched, feeling helpless. He saw birds gathering, making noises. He saw rain lifting from earth to sky.

The residents were all entranced. Wyatt was so charismatic. That he resembled Ray-Ray so strikingly in this light was bewildering. I was reminded of when Ray-Ray used to do his impersonations, gesturing broadly with his hands, so entertaining. Wyatt talked with the same mannerisms, had the same ornery smile, even as he recounted a story of such despair and pain.

Suddenly a giant eagle, bigger than the boy, landed in front of him. The eagle spread its wings, then turned into a man with long silver hair. The man approached the boy and told him not to fear what he saw. “Their suffering is for you,” he told him. “Now go home.”

“How do I go home?” the boy asked.

“I’ll take you,” the man said. Then he turned back into an eagle and told the boy to climb on his back. Carefully, the boy climbed on, and they flew westward into the pale sky.

Wyatt closed his notebook and looked out at the kids.

“Wait,” one of the boys said. “That’s it? What happens?”

“I have one more story for you,” Wyatt told him.

I saw Wyatt now as a reflection in the sky, dreamy and mystical, surrounded by kind spirits. He was an eagle soaring in the clouds one minute and back in the shelter the next, a boy entertaining deprived kids. I had a vision of him in a hospital with the sick and disabled, the addicts, the mentally ill—the dead with self-inflicted gunshot wounds, scars on their wrists and necks. I saw him comforting our people who had died of sickness and fatigue along the Trail, the young and the elders. And now these kids were all there listening to him, our strange and wonderful Wyatt, the boy who could seemingly do anything.

There was a man named Tsala, a Nunnehi.

“What’s a Nunnehi?” a girl asked.

“A spirit. An immortal who lives everywhere,” Wyatt said.

One day, he searched for a beautiful woman to become his wife. He searched every opening in the woods. He walked and walked but never found her. That night he had a dream. A giant hawk appeared before him. The hawk spread its wings and told him, in a voice he recognized as his own: “Go forth to a mountain far away, and there you will find the woman who will become your wife.”

“Who are you?” Tsala asked, but the hawk flew away into the night.

Wyatt outstretched his arms like wings to illustrate the bird flying away. Again I pictured Ray-Ray, could almost remember him in this exact room, making the same gesture with his hands. A déjà vu. And yet I knew that Ray-Ray had never come to the shelter with me when he was alive. I tried to remember a time when he had fluttered his hands like birds, but I couldn’t recall. He was in an elementary-school play once—maybe that was it. The vision dissolved as quickly as it had come.

Late the next morning he awoke to find himself surrounded by a group of children. They were all looking down at him, their eyes wide in wonder. One of them said, “Are you Tsala? The man who will save us?”

“I’m looking for my wife,” Tsala said. “But first I will help you find your way home.”

He began to lead the children back toward their village, determined to return them safely. They walked past the mountain where the Yunwi Tsundsi lived, then followed a trail through the woods. They walked under dark clouds, thunder sounding in the distance. Soon a light rain began to fall. By the time they reached the village, the thunder grew louder, and the rain was coming down harder.

“I have to go,” Tsala told them.

“Beware of the soldiers,” the children warned him.

“Wait,” a boy said. “Who are the Yunwi Tsunsdi?”

“The Little People,” Wyatt said. “From old Cherokee stories. But that’s all for today. Now go and think about what I told you.”

I was a little stunned by listening to him, almost entranced myself, even as Wyatt got up and returned to playing Ping-Pong. The rest of the time at the shelter, Wyatt seemed like a normal kid again, talking about movies and music with the others.