The Eye in the Sky

Monday night

I took off in a sprint across the prairie, put my arms out, and soon I was soaring like a hawk. I could feel the thermal winds in my fingers, and could bank and swoop with the slightest adjustments.

Although I was having a great deal of fun, this wasn't just a pleasure cruise; I was on a mission. After a while I arrived at my destination. I pulled my arms in and landed with my feet in a branch of a tall tree next to a rustic cabin. (Some birds in the tree were startled by my arrival, and got out of the way.) Some Indian (Native American) men were milling about outside, and I had to remain hidden; they might shoot me if they saw me. They were dressed in a mixture of styles; their shirts and pants were made by whites, but they also wore bandanas and jewelery.

I wasn't there to see the Indians, however. I had come to see a baby Caucasian boy who was being kept inside. I flew by periodically to check on him, to see that he was all right.

Some time later, when the boy was about 2 years old, I had somehow arranged to get him out of the shack; presumably, I had adopted him. At the end of the dream the kid was sitting on a bench outside the general store, and he was wearing a bright white sweater. I was standing next to him, and we were waiting for the stagecoach that would take us to our new life together. In the meantime, I had my portable boom box with me, so I hit the play button, and he and I did the Twist to "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors.

*****

I was flipping through a magazine the other day, and noticed a photo of a room that contained a cardboard cutout of John Wayne. Last night I may have been thinking of his film "The Searchers," in which Wayne's character and some others chase after some Comanches who may have kidnapped his niece after a raid that killed her family.