Tantric Coconuts (28 page)

“I think, too …” Ted hesitated. What he said next came from an emotional place. “She will be the very best human being any of us could ever want to know.” He took Angel’s hand in his own. “She only has two flaws.”

“Yes?” Angel innocently asked.

“Not being fully of this selfish world, I would not expect her to excel in selfish pursuits. The world might seem like a very confusing place for her.”

“You said two things were wrong with her.”

He took Angel in his arms. “She would have a hard time
knowing how to reach out to the ones she so desperately wants to heal. She might be reduced to rather strange methods of transmitting her message.”

“For example?”

“Well, she might have to drive around in a beat-up bookmobile with advertising signs painted on the side. None of which would be that bad except for the fact that she can’t drive worth a damn!”

Angel held Ted tightly. She was not sure if Ted had really grasped the sixth level, but he’d made a very decent stab at it. She was sure of this: what Ted had said was a sweet declaration of love. She whispered in his ear, “Thank you.”

The next morning, Angel suggested that they take the dogs on an overnight hike. When they got back, they could leave for Pierre to visit Aunt Lilly. Ted had no problem extending his vacation for a few more days. Still, he offered a few conditions of his own. “I’d like to fly-fish. Also, I’m still hoping to catch sight of …” He wiggled his index fingers above his head.

“
Tatanka
?” Angel asked.

Ted nodded, pleased that Angel had followed his Lakota so well.

She pointed to the trailhead. “The best way to find buffalo is to look for them.

Angel had spent many hours in Custer State Park with Larsen, her mother, and her brother when she was young. Less than one hundred miles from her childhood home near the reservation, it was the largest state park in South Dakota and boasted not only the beauty of the Black Hills but also one thousand head of free-ranging buffalo.

The reservation lands and the adjoining park grounds were not heavily trafficked by human feet. There were still trout in the streams and it was not unusual to come across
ancient bones and arrowheads unearthed by a heavy rain. There was a strange harmony between the meadows and the forest-clad hills. It was as if grass and trees took turns dominating the landscape of the Black Hills, each providing a captivating backdrop for the other.

Ted exited Bertha with a pack on his back and Argo by his side. “I’m ready.”

“There’s a swimming spot by the river where my father took me when I was a little girl. I’d like to try to find it. Absent a buffalo stampede, we should be able to make it well before dark. It would be the perfect spot for camping and fishing.”

“I’d like that very much.”

With their packs slung over their shoulders and their dogs tagging along, Angel and Ted set out on their hike in the early-morning sun. Although the hiking was not strenuous, Ted found a sturdy pine branch resting on the ground and quickly fashioned a walking stick. As they proceeded along the barely trodden trail, Angel sang familiar tunes and Ted joined in on the choruses when he could. Periodically Angel would stop, position herself toward the east, and tilt her head back so the sun was on her face. “Ahh, how nice is that?”

Ted believed that for each human being there is a moment, or perhaps several moments for the particularly lucky ones, where life simply gets no better. On that day everything was aligned for joy. He too tilted his head back and reiterated her sentiment. “Perfect sun! Perfect day. Perfect spiritual consultant. What else could I ask for?”

Angel took Ted’s hand and held it close to her chest, asking,
“Me?” With that small gesture, she suggested that things could hypothetically get even better for Ted Day.

Several hawks circled high above them in the sky. The sight of two humans and two dogs walking across their hunting grounds was disturbing enough to send the birds gliding away to range elsewhere. The path slanted to the west, in the direction where the elevation and timber increased. In another quarter of a mile the trail intersected a creek. Angel and Ted walked along the creek for about thirty more minutes. The trail generally followed the water and then turned north, where, after several more miles, they came to an even larger stream. Angel hesitated but turned right and followed the river back to the east. After an hour of hiking, she was concerned that her memory of the clear lagoon was faulty, perhaps an amalgamation of several different trips. She was about to give up on finding it when Ted did something strange. He stopped, looked about, and set his pack on the ground.

“I’ve been here before. I can sense it.”

“You’ve never been to South Dakota.”

Ted looked at Angel. “That’s true, but still I feel like I’ve been here before.”

“Let’s stop, then. It’s as good a place as any.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to find that place?”

“This is better.” Angel was excited for Ted. He was tapping into something intuitive, transrational, and more than that, he was trusting that his world might not always add up. He was letting go of his need to know. His reality was not fixed. “Do you want to fish?” Angel asked.

“Yes, but first I want to gather firewood. We’ll need a fire to cook.”

There had not been much rain. The stream was running low and Angel doubted very much that Ted would need the fire to cook. It was not a good time for fishing. Still, she had plenty of granola bars and that was good enough for her.

Ted undid his pack and carefully set out his fly reel. “Come on, Argo, let’s get a pile of wood together.”

While Ted found firewood near the shore, Angel set up the rest of their camp. From the first armload of wood Ted brought to her she decided to get a small fire going. She rummaged through her pack for matches and went to work.

Angel had the fire well established when Ted began to fish. To her surprise, he got not one quick hit but three. In fact, as sunset approached, Angel and Ted were lying on the ground laughing. The fish seemed to be jumping onto his hook. It was one of those days.

Angel stared at the stringer. “I don’t get it. This is not how fly-fishing works. You spend an entire day slapping at the water and, if you’re lucky, you catch one or two. What’s going on here?”

“I’m a natural—what else can I say?” Ted couldn’t figure it out, either. He looked about and knew only that there was something magical about this spot.

Angel grabbed the rod from Ted. “Enough fishing. Let’s eat.”

Ted cleaned the four largest fish and released the rest of his catch. The fish, roasted over the flames from pine boughs, made a nice meal—slightly bland but, after the hike, fine dining.

Ted ate both of his fish, but Angel pulled off pieces of her second trout to add to the dried dog food they had carried in for No Barks and Argo.

When the sun was fully set and the meal was behind them, Ted had no desire to speak further of spiritual matters. It had been such a delightfully carefree day that he just wanted to continue in the flow. They had no cards, so Ted just lay down on his bedroll, stared up at the emerging stars, and tried to let whatever was welling up inside him bubble to the surface. A barely perceptible grin came across his face as the idea emerged—from where, he did not yet realize.

He had never once uttered these words, not once in his life. Maybe the ghost of Astaire forced him to do it. Ted leaped up from the ground, grabbed Angel’s wrist, and said, “Let’s dance!” He waited for her to respond.

She looked at him, rather surprised. “Ted Day dances?”

“He does now!”

Angel was hesitating, so Ted pulled her up into his arms. They both closed their eyes and swayed to the rhythm of nature: the wind, the stream, the distant cry of the coyote. They were all part of the band. Angel started dancing in a very free and rhythmic swaying motion. Ted did his best to imitate her moves. The lighting was just poor enough that neither of them needed to feel self-conscious about their movements. The dogs sensed the excitement and began jumping up and down, wanting in on the action. Ted allowed No Barks to jump up and place her front paws on his chest. He led her around the fire prancing about on her hind legs. Ted tried
a quick two-step with the wolf dog. He looked at Angel and said, “Two-legged moon dancing!”

Angel laughed. “My dog is jealous! She wants you all to herself.”

Ted let go of the wolf’s paws. “You can cut in if you’d like.”

“No. I think you two make a nice couple.” Angel couldn’t resist the urge to dance around the campfire like an elated Lakota. Like a Lakota in love. Like a Lakota in her element. Like a Lakota who enjoyed life down to its sugary fruit-cocktail core, along with her sweet place within it. She shuffled her feet in small, quick steps and danced around the fire pit, tipping her head first down and then back up again. Both dogs followed behind Angel, apparently equally in the moment. The pine logs popped and crackled and the scent was life itself. Angel began a Lakota chant.

Angel’s song stirred something within Ted. It was as if her notes were plucking the strings of his heart. He watched the red embers pop, rise, and disappear into the starry night sky. Angel stood and looked at Ted. She was quivering, but it was not cold.

Ted snuggled in close to Angel. He found his hands reaching behind her head, which she gently tilted back, but this time not to accept the warm rays of the sun. Ted smelled everything good on Angel. Coconut soap in her hair, the pine scent from the fire on her shirt, and the fresh stream water on her lips as their mouths found each other, first softly and gently and then excitedly. As the lyrics of the moon slowly fell silent, they fell to the ground, wrapped in each other’s arms. Angel’s space and Ted’s space was now their space.

When the moon was high in the night sky, Angel interrupted Ted’s bliss to describe her dream from a few nights past. “I was reading to the children on the floor of Bertha, but she had been restored to a bookmobile. What do you think?”

“Even I know what that means.”

“Really?” she asked without hiding her surprise.

“Sure, don’t you remember what Singleton said?” She didn’t answer, so he continued. “He said that our schools desperately need a spiritual curriculum. That must have triggered your dream.”

“Did I ever tell you how Bertha came to Aunt Lilly?” Angel asked.

“No, but now that you mention it, I was wondering.”

“The children on the reservation are very spread out. Many parents don’t have cars or other transportation, so they can’t drive their young ones to a library, and there is certainly no money for books. Years ago there was a grant for the bookmobile, but the money went away and the school district had to sell the bookmobile for scrap. Lilly bought it to live in, and one of her husbands helped her to convert it into a residence. That’s where it came from.”

“Good for Aunt Lilly, bad for the children on the reservation.”

“The reservation desperately needs teachers. I only need one more semester to get a degree. Perhaps Bertha was trying to tell me I should be a different kind of teacher.”

“I think you would make an excellent teacher, but what about the other part of the dream—restoring Bertha to her former glory?”

“Restoring Bertha would be impossible. It would cost too much money.”

“How much is too much?”

Angel rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Maybe twenty or thirty thousand dollars? On the reservation that would be a fortune; might as well be five million.”

Ted tugged on Angel’s
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necklace. “What better teacher than you … the ultimate spiritual consultant? When you get home, you should check into this. Remember …”

“Yes?” Angel asked.

“Bertha knows best!”

There were quiet whispers under the moonlit South Dakota sky. A mile west, six hundred head of buffalo bedded down on the prairie. Angel and Ted sensed that their experience together was as rare and valuable and natural as buffalo bedding down for the night.

Angel held Ted like she never wanted to let him go. Ted held Angel just as tightly. He was certain that nothing on the face of the earth could possibly compare to this day and now this night. His life now seemed like a long march with a sweet ending. Both dogs rested close to the fire, equally content and in their element. As far as they were concerned, each day was the best day.

Angel fell asleep quickly. As usual, Ted struggled. Instead
of the pesky bolt on the floor of Bertha, he was now dealing with several poorly positioned rocks. Just after midnight, when he should have been falling asleep, he was watching the embers from the dying fire rise into the sky. Ted sat up and nudged Angel until she opened her eyes. “We need to talk. Now.”

“What’s wrong?” Angel asked.

“I figured it out.”

“You’ve figured out enough for one day. Go back to sleep.”

“No, you have to listen. It’s important.” When he was confident he had her waking attention, he continued. “Bertha has given another message! When you put me in that finger-rubbing trance at the campground back at Perfect Prairie, I had a dream while I was resting in Bertha. It had you and me dancing around the campfire with the dogs. It had these woods. Everything was just like what happened tonight. Nothing like this has ever happened to me. Dreams cannot predict the future.”