The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (2 page)

“I’m just not sure what to do next,” Charlene’s associate had pressed. “She has a sister, I think, somewhere in New York.
You
don’t know how to contact her, do you? Or anyone else who might know where she is?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t. Charlene and I are actually rekindling an old friendship. I don’t remember any relatives and
I don’t know who her friends are now.”

“Well, I think I’m going to file a police report, unless you have a better idea.”

“No, I think that would be wise. Are there any other leads?”

“Only a drawing of some kind; could be the description of a place. It’s hard to tell.”

Later he had faxed me the entire note he had found in Charlene’s office, including the crude sketch of intersecting lines
and numbers with vague marks in the margins. And as I had sat in my study, comparing the drawing to the road numbers in an
Atlas of the South,
I had found what I suspected to be the actual location. Afterward I had experienced a vivid image of Charlene in my mind,
the same image I had perceived in Peru when told of the existence of a Tenth Insight. Was her disappearance somehow connected
to the Manuscript?

A wisp of wind touched my face and I again studied the view below. Far to the left, at the western edge of the valley, I could
make out a row of rooftops.
That
had to be the town Charlene had indicated on the map. Stuffing the paper into my vest pocket, I made my way back to the road
and climbed into the Pathfinder.

T
he town itself was small—population two thousand, according to the sign beside the first and only stoplight. Most of the commercial
buildings lined just one street running along the edge of the stream. I drove through the light, spotted a motel near the
entrance to the National Forest, and pulled into a parking space facing an adjacent restaurant and pub. Several people were
entering the restaurant, including a tall man with a dark complexion and jet-black hair, carrying a large pack. He glanced
back at me and we momentarily made eye contact.

I got out and locked the car, then decided, on a hunch, to walk through the restaurant before checking into the motel. Inside,
the tables were near empty—just a few hikers at the bar and some of the people who had entered ahead of me. Most were oblivious
to my gaze, but as I continued to survey the room, I again met eyes with the tall man I had seen before; he was walking toward
the rear of the room. He smiled faintly, held the eye contact another second, then walked out a back exit.

I followed him through the exit. He was standing twenty feet away, bending over his pack. He was dressed in jeans, a western
shirt and boots, and appeared to be about fifty years old. Behind him, the late afternoon sun cast long shadows among the
tall trees and grass, and, fifty yards away, the stream flowed by, beginning its journey into the valley.

He smiled halfheartedly and looked up at me. “Another pilgrim?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a friend,” I said. “I had a hunch that you could help me.”

He nodded, studying, the outlines of my body very carefully. Walking closer, he introduced himself as David Lone Eagle, explaining,
as though it was something I might need to know, that he was a direct descendant of the Native Americans who originally inhabited
this valley. I noticed for the first time a thin scar on his face that ran from the edge of his left eyebrow all’ the way
to his chin, just missing his eye.

“You want some coffee?” he asked. “They’re good at Perrier
in the saloon there, but lousy at coffee.” He nodded toward an area near the stream where a small tent stood among three large
poplars. Dozens of people were walking in the area, some of them along a path that crossed a bridge and led into the National
Forest. Everything appeared safe.

“Sure,” I replied. “That would be good.”

At the campsite he lit a small butane camp stove, then filled a boiler with water and set it on the burner.

“What’s your friend’s name?” he finally asked.

“Charlene Billings.”

He paused and looked at me, and as we gazed at each other, I saw a clear image in my mind’s eye of him in another time. He
was younger and dressed in buckskins, sitting in front of a large fire. Streaks of war paint adorned his face. Around him
was a circle of people, mostly Native Americans, but including two whites, a woman and a very large man. The discussion was
heated. Some in the group wanted war; others desired reconciliation. He broke in, ridiculing the ones considering peace. How
could they be so naive, he told them, after so much treachery?

The white woman seemed to understand but pleaded with him to hear her out. War could be avoided, she maintained, and the valley
protected fairly, if the spiritual medicine was great enough. He rebuked her argument totally, then, chiding the group, he
mounted his horse and rode away. Most of the others followed.

“Your instincts are good,” David said, snapping me from my vision. He was spreading a homespun blanket between us, offering
me a seat. “I know of her.” He looked at me questioningly.

“I’m concerned,” I said. “No one has heard from her and I just want to make sure she’s okay. And we need to talk.”

“About the Tenth Insight?” he asked, smiling.

“How did you know that?”

“Just a guess. Many of the people coming to this valley aren’t just here because of the beauty of the National Forest. They’re
here to talk about the Insights. They think the Tenth is somewhere out there. A few even claim to know what it says.”

He turned away and put a tea ball filled with coffee into the steaming water. Something about his tone of voice made me think
he was testing me, trying to check out whether I was who I claimed.

“Where is Charlene?” I asked.

He pointed a finger toward the east. “In the Forest. I’ve never met your friend, but I overheard her being introduced in the
restaurant one night, and I’ve seen her a few times since. Several days ago I saw her again; she was hiking into the valley
alone, and judging from the way she was packed, I’d say she’s probably still out there.”

I looked in that direction. From this perspective, the valley looked enormous, stretching.forever into the distance.

“Where do you think she was going?” I asked.

He stared at me for a moment. “Probably toward the Sipsey Canyon. That’s where one of the
openings
is found.” He was studying my reaction.

“The openings?”

He smiled cryptically. “That’s right, the dimensional openings.”

I leaned over toward him, remembering my experience at the Celestine Ruins. “Who knows about all this?”

“Very few people. So far it’s all rumor, bits and pieces of information, intuition. Not a soul has seen a manuscript. Most
of the people who come here looking for the Tenth feel they’re being synchronistically led, and they’re genuinely trying to
live the
Nine Insights, even though they complain that the coincidences guide them along for a while and then just
stop.”
He chuckled lightly. “But that’s where we all are, right? The Tenth Insight is about understanding this whole awareness—the
perception of mysterious coincidences, the growing spiritual consciousness on Earth, the Ninth Insight disappearances—all
from the higher perspective of the other dimension, so that we can understand why this transformation is happening and participate
more fully.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

He looked at me with piercing eyes, suddenly angry. “I know!”

For another moment his face remained serious, then his expression warmed again. He reached over and poured the coffee into
two cups and handed one to me.

“My ancestors have lived near this valley for thousands of years,” he continued. “They believed this forest was a sacred site
midway between the upper world and the middle world here on Earth. My people would fast and enter the valley on their vision
quests, looking for their specific gifts, their medicine, the path they should walk in this life.

“My grandfather told me about a shaman who came from a faraway tribe and taught our people to search for what he called a
state of purification. The shaman taught them to leave from this very spot, bearing only a knife, and to walk until the animals
provided a sign, and then to follow until they reached, what they called the sacred opening into the upper world. If they
were worthy, if they had cleared the lower emotions, he told them, they might even be allowed to enter the opening, and to
meet directly with the ancestors, where they could remember not just their own vision but the vision of the whole world.

“Of course, all that ended when the white man came. My
grandfather couldn’t remember how to do it, and neither can I. We’re having to figure it out, like everyone else.”

“You’re here looking for the Tenth, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Of course… of course! But all I seem to be doing is this penance of forgiveness.” His voice became sharp again, and he suddenly
seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. “Every time I try to move forward, a part of me can’t get past the resentment,
the rage, at what happened to my people. And it’s not getting any better. How could it happen that our land was stolen, our
way of life overrun, destroyed? Why would that be allowed?”

“I wish it hadn’t happened,” I said.

He looked at the ground and chuckled lowly again. “I believe that. But still, there is a rage that comes when I think of this
valley being misused.

“You see this scar,” he added, pointing to his face. “I could have avoided the fight where this happened. Texas cowboys with
too much to drink. I could have walked away but for this anger burning within me.”

“Isn’t most of this valley now protected in the National Forest?” I asked.

“Only about half of it, north of the stream, but the politicians always threaten to sell it or allow development.”

“What about the other half? Who owns that?”

“For a long time, this area was owned mostly by individuals, but now there’s a foreign-registered corporation trying to buy
it up. We don’t know who is behind it, but some of the owners have been offered huge amounts to sell.”

He looked away momentarily, then said, “My problem is that I want the past three centuries to have happened differently. I
resent the fact that Europeans began to settle on this continent
with no regard for the people who were already here. It was criminal. I want it to have happened differently, as though I
could somehow change the past. Our way of life was important. We were learning the value of
remembering.
This was the great message the Europeans could have received from my people if they had stopped to listen.”

As he talked, my mind drifted into another daydream. Two people—another Native American and the same white woman— were talking
on the banks of a small stream. Behind them was a thick forest. After a while, other Native Americans crowded around to hear
their conversation.

“We can heal this!” the woman was saying.

“I’m afraid we don’t know enough yet,” the Native American replied, his face expressing great regard for the woman. “Most
of the other chiefs have already left.”

“Why not? Think of the discussions we’ve had. You yourself said if there was enough faith, we could heal this.”

“Yes,” he replied. “But faith is a certainty that comes from knowing how things should be. The ancestors know, but not enough
of us here have reached that knowing.”

“But maybe we can reach this knowledge now,” the woman pleaded. “We have to try!”

My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of several young Forest Service officers, who were approaching an older man on the
bridge. He had neatly cut gray hair and wore dress slacks and a starched shirt. As he moved, he seemed to limp slightly.

“Do you see the man with the officers?” David asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “What about him?”

“I’ve seen him around here for the past two weeks. His first name is Feyman, I think. I don’t know his last name.” David leaned
toward me, sounding for the first time as if he trusted me
completely. “Listen, something very strange is going on. For several weeks the Forest Service seems to have been counting
the hikers who go into the forest. They’ve never done that before, and yesterday someone told me they have completely closed
off the far eastern end of the wilderness. There are places in that area that are ten miles from the nearest highway. Do you
know how few people ever venture out that far? Some of us have begun to hear strange noises in that direction.”

“What kind of noises?”

“A dissonance of some kind. Most people can’t hear it.”

Suddenly he was up on his feet, quickly taking down his tent.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I can’t stay here,” he replied. “I’ve got to get into the valley.”

After a moment he interrupted his work and looked at me again. “Listen,” he said. “There’s something you have to know. That
man Feyman. I saw your friend with him several times.”

“What were they doing?”

“Just talking, but I’m telling you there’s something wrong here.” He began packing again.

I watched him in silence for a moment. I had no idea what to think about this situation, but I sensed that he was right about
Charlene being somewhere out in the valley. “Let me get my equipment,” I said. “I’d like to go with you.”

“No,” he said quickly. “Each person must experience the valley alone. I can’t help you now. It’s my own vision I must find.”
His face looked pained.

“Can you tell me exactly where this canyon is?”

“Just follow the stream for about two miles. You’ll come to another small creek that enters the stream from the north. Follow
this creek for another mile. It will lead you right through the mouth of the Sipsey Canyon.”

I nodded and turned to walk away, but he grabbed my arm.

“Look,” he said. “You can find your friend if you raise your energy to another level. There are specific locations in the
valley that can help you.”

“The dimensional openings?” I asked.