Debbie told Danny that she managed to sleep for a few hours, not a real comfortable sleep even with the babble of the brook in her ears. Early in the morning, when it was pretty light but still before dawn, she felt Ellen shaking her awake. "She handed me a roll of toilet paper and pointed me toward the bushes," Debbie grinned. "I took that to mean that I’d better use the bushes while I had the chance, so I realized that there was more to come. A couple minutes later, we headed back down to where we’d had the fire the night before, and I discovered that over the course of the night a small sweat lodge had been built."

The sweat lodge wasn’t large, only about eight feet across, a dome of willow poles bent over and tied together, then covered with tarps and blankets. Over the course of the night, the fire had been built up, and a number of large round rocks had been heated in it. Possibly only a few minutes before, the rocks had been rolled into a pit in the sweat lodge. "Ellen started to take her clothes off and motioned for me to do the same," Debbie recalled. "So, I did. When I was naked, we crawled inside, to find Ruth, Dorothy, and this other woman, Sarah, already there. It was real dark inside, pretty crowded and already pretty hot, but then Sarah took this gourd full of water and dumped it on the rocks. They sizzled and steamed, they were so hot, and it got real stifling, real quick, while Dorothy began tapping with her hands on this small wooden drum. The women started chanting, in Shakahatche, of course, so I had no idea of what was going on. Every now and then Sarah would dump more water from the gourd on the rocks. I don’t know how long that went on but it must not have been real long since when one of the women opened up the lodge and motioned for me to come out, the sun still wasn’t up. Dorothy handed me a pair of moccasins. They were leather. You want to guess why?"

"Natural material, traditional style, just like the gourd, right?"

"Exactly," Debbie told him. "They didn’t even use a plastic tarp for the sweat lodge, they used a canvas tarp, and I was told later the traditional version was buffalo skin or elk skin, but those are hard to come by anymore. If they’d had them, they would have used them." She let out a sigh and continued. "I was also told later that they’d been laying on the drama a little heavy on the traditional side, too, just to get my mind prepared for even stranger things. Well, by this time I was hungry, I hadn’t eaten in eighteen hours, but I knew it was supposed to be a fast. Just as soon as we got outside, Dorothy handed me those moccasins and I put them on while I was still wet and sweaty. All the women gave me a rubdown, not just with their hands, but with ground cedar leaves, sage, and ground pine needles, all pretty aromatic by themselves and strong together. And, all of us were still naked, of course. Dorothy and Ellen and Sarah led me up here. They were still chanting, and Dorothy was still tapping on her little drum, but nobody was saying anything in actual words, of course, and I wondered what was going to happen next."

Danny could tell from the emotion in her voice that she was telling of a heavy moment, and resolved to just sit back and let her tell the story as she got to it. "We got up here, Danny. Right here, where we are now. There were four wood stakes driven into the ground, there, there . . . " she pointed. "All of them had leather thongs tied to them. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing but, well, I figured I knew what they were doing and I’m thinking I’d better go along. Ellen motioned for me to lie down, and I did, like this . . . " she said, lying down on her back, her hands and feet outstretched and far apart. "They tied the leather straps around my wrists and my ankles, not real tight to cut off the circulation, but tight enough that I couldn’t wiggle out. I wasn’t all the way stretched out like a drum, but pretty snug. I could wiggle around a little, but only a little. Ellen checked each one of the lashings, then she stood up, and they all walked away, with the drum still going, until I couldn’t hear them or it anymore."

Involuntarily, a vision of Marsha stretched wide, handcuffed to the bed down in Florida last December, came to his mind. Debbie smiled and looked at him, and he could tell that she could see what he was thinking. "So, what happened?" he said, urging her to get on with her story.

"Not much," she said. "Danny, I wish I could tell you what I thought about, what I felt, and really, all I can do is summarize it. I think the first thought that went through my mind was something to the effect of, ‘Oh, shit, this is Wednesday morning, the traditional vision quests were four days, uh, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, are they going to leave me out here like this for all four days?’ And, that kept going through my mind. I tried to just let my mind go blank, but the time passed real slow, no matter what I did. And, the bugs came. At first, the insects weren’t too bad, the sun was coming up and like we talked about, mosquitoes don’t bother me too much. We were through the worst of the black flies, like now, but every now and then one would come along and take a chunk out of my hide, and itch! Marsha with your homemade itching powder couldn’t have itched that bad! I was lying like this, my feet a little downhill toward the east. I was pretty much in the shade of those poplars, every now and then a little sun would get through and some of the light would go over me, but I’m dark enough I didn’t have to worry about sunburn much. I may have dozed off a little during the day, I don’t know, but I know I was sort of spaced out for a lot of it. I thought about Brenda some, and how free she was wearing those handcuffs for two months, and, well, I thought about a lot of things about the way I’d been lousing things up in my life. After a while, I started to get crampy in my arms and legs from being staked out here spread-eagled, but there wasn’t anything I could do but try to move just a little bit."

She shook her head, and sat up, "Danny, I’d have given anything to just sit up like this for a couple minutes, just to clear up some of those aches and pains that had been building up in me, but, nothing. I was hurting. I was crying some, but it was silent crying since I knew I didn’t dare make any noise and disturb the spirits. Danny, think about that last for just a minute. Remember what I said earlier, that I had to reach past head knowledge and into faith?"

"You were starting to believe?" he asked.

"I was starting to hope I believed, that this would be worth all the pain," she nodded. "Eventually, night came, and with it the mosquitoes. Now, they were actually worse back down the hill where I’d spent the night, but I’d been wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and was wrapped in a woolen blanket, and now, Dorothy had even taken the moccasins I’d been wearing. The night passed slowly. Toward morning, the dew covered me, and I licked the moisture from my lips to ease my thirst. I’d had nothing to drink since the morning before, when they passed around the gourd in the sweat lodge."

Cold and stiff, she longed for the morning sun to warm her. Slowly, the sky between her feet changed from inky black to pale, dark gray. The transition was so subtle that she almost missed it. Suddenly she realized that the night had nearly passed and she could not remember much of it. Birds awakened on their roost and began to twitter and call. A breeze ruffled the trees for a moment, then passed. Soon she could make out trees; she glanced around amazed at the transition before her.

If the first day passed slowly, the next day went even more slowly. It was hotter, more humid; the bugs bit harder and she was even more uncomfortable. The little bit of dew on her lips had not been enough to quench her thirst, and she was feeling very dry. The sky had been pretty blue the day before, with a light breeze; today it blew harder, more seriously, moving the trees around her, making the leaves rattle. The sky filled with cumulus clouds, and they thickened. Eventually she could sense a darkness behind her, although she could not twist her head enough to see, but then heard thunder in the distance, coming closer. Eventually the power of the storm washed over her, the gust front of the wind from the storm moving whole trees, making things blow around, making her hair blow around. Then a bolt of lightning hit nearby, with a flash-BOOM of thunder that made her ears ring. And then came the rains, chilling her, but desperately she licked up every drop that she could reach with her tongue, glorying in the rain, glorying in the power, and thanking the spirits for sending the storm to quench her thirst a little.

Eventually the storm blew off to the east and she could see it recede. The sun came out, and it was enough to warm her a little, dry her off a little, but all too soon the shadows grew long, then the light began to fade, and the bugs came again with the night. The night dragged on and on, and eventually a little fog began to develop in the inky blackness, and dew again began to form on her chilled body.

"Now, Danny, I want you to consider this rationally for a minute," she said. "I’d been out here at that point nearly two days, had been bug bit so much I can’t tell you how I had any blood left, no food, and I’d been fasting most of a day in preparation anyway. The only thing to quench my thirst was the rain and the dew that settled on my lips. I was cold, and miserable, and every bone in my body was aching. And I hadn’t really slept any of that time, I was that uncomfortable. Now, I can understand if you want to think what happened was a hallucination or delirium or something. It had every reason to be. Maybe it was. But Danny, I was there, and as far as I was concerned then and now, it was real. It did not seem like a dream or a hallucination or my imagination, even though the spirits may have dredged it up out of my mind. It was real."

"So you had a vision," he nodded quietly. "What happened?"

"Danny, I was laying here, and somehow I began to feel like I was being watched," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "Not necessarily by a person, but by . . . something. I mean, I was just about scared to death anyway, but this was really eerie and scary. Then I became aware of this big animal walking up the path toward me, up the way we came. I looked down, and here was this huge bull elk. As far as I know, there haven’t been any elk around here for a hundred years or more. I’d never actually seen an elk, but I’d seen pictures, and this was a huge elk, and had a huge rack of antlers, the biggest I’ve ever even thought of. And, he was glowing in light, standing out of the darkness, really eerie and spooky. He walked up to me, taking his own time, and sniffed at me, sniffed all over with his nose. I was expecting to get stabbed by that rack, but it never touched me. After what seemed like forever, he stepped over me, with his front hooves right by my armpits, his back hooves down beyond my feet somewhere, and I thought, oh shit, Debbie, brace yourself, you’re going to get raped by an elk."

Danny wanted to giggle but Debbie was so damn serious that he knew he didn’t dare. "He bent his neck down, put his nose in my face," she continued, "and I swear I could smell the clover cud on his breath, all hot and nasty. And he said to me, ‘What is your name?’"

All of a sudden, Danny remembered her talking about the power of a name, back at the party at Jennifer’s months before. "He spoke to you?" he said gently, "In English?"

"In Shakahatche," she said. "And I hadn’t even begun to learn it yet, but I understood what he was saying in my mind. He was talking in a real low voice, down and rumbly, kind of like James Earl Jones but even deeper and rougher. Well, believe me, I was scared and I couldn’t say a thing. ‘What is your name?’ he said, even louder and more serious. I told him, ‘Debbie.’ I don’t know if I said it with my mouth or with my mind."

Danny looked in her face, but could see that her eyes were far away, remembering, so he kept his silence as she continued.

"‘What is your name?’ he said again, even more pissed, and all I could do was tell him Debbie again.

"‘WHAT IS YOUR NAME?’ he shouted at me. ‘Debbie,’ I told him. ‘Debbie Elkstalker.’

"He relaxed a little and said, ‘You have stalked me and I have found you. Now come with me.’ I was still staked out here, but in an instant I found myself on his back. I could look down at my body staked out on the ground here, but it was only my body. My spirit was riding him, like he was a horse and I was Lady Godiva, riding him through the streets of Coventry, holding on for dear life to the ruff on the back of his neck. He took two or three steps, started running down the hill, took a huge leap and all of a sudden we were flying over the forest. It got to be a little light, like dawn was breaking, and we landed in a little clearing.

"There was another elk grazing in that clearing, just like him, and all of a sudden I became aware of a man, hidden off in the bushes with a really primitive bow, trying to sneak up on the elk in the clearing. I knew from looking at him and in my gut it was an ancient man, someone from before the whites. I sat there on my spirit elk’s back, and we watched this man patiently sneak close to this elk for, oh, I don’t know how long. A while, maybe a long while, but time doesn’t mean quite the same thing when you’re with the spirits like that. The man didn’t show any signs of seeing us; his attention was on the elk. It was very wary; he’d put his head down to eat for a second, then raise it and look around like he sensed something was wrong, but I don’t think the elk in the clearing was aware of us, either. After a while, the elk put his head down for a bit longer than normal, and the man slowly eased his way up to a bush that was a little closer. My spirit elk and I watched for, well, I don’t know how long. A long time. Finally, the man got close enough to try for a shot. He got set, nocked his arrow, pulled back his bow and raised it, then shot."

She sat silent for a long time. "Did it hit?" he said finally.

"I don’t know," she said softly. "At the instant he shot, my spirit elk took a huge leap and we were flying back across the forest, and the next thing I knew my spirit was back in my body, staked out right here, and my spirit elk had his nose in my face again. He asked me again, ‘What is your name?’ then turned and walked away.

"Danny, I was left lying here spread-eagled, tied with leather thongs by my wrists and ankles to the stakes in the ground, and I realized that my spirit elk asked me the toughest question I’ve ever faced, and he’d only given me a hint to the answer. What is your name? Think about that question for a moment. What is your name? What is your name? What is your name? What is your name? It sounds at first like a simple question, one that shouldn’t take two days and two nights staked out naked on the ground to start to answer. Yet the simplicity of the question is its point. The simplest questions are often the most difficult. Across cultures, one of the most important life tasks is to discover your own true nature. Who am I . . . really? What is my true name? What is my purpose in life? Why am I here? Am I doing what I came to this world to do? Out here, in the wilderness, alone . . . What is my name?" She let out a sigh. "Danny, I’m still working on that. I probably always will be."

She was silent for a while, and Danny couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. It had obviously been a powerful vision for her. After a while, she said softly, "I lay here pondering that, re-examining it, trying to make sense out of it. I only slowly became aware that the sun had come up, and Ellen had come to untie my wrists and ankles. I didn’t want her to, because I felt like the answer was right there but I just couldn’t quite get to it, but I couldn’t say anything. I knew I wasn’t supposed to say anything. She was naked, too, like she’d been before. She helped me sit up, and I could barely move, you know all pins and needlely, and all over. She had to massage my arms and legs so I could move, just to get the blood flowing again. She didn’t say a thing; she didn’t need to say a thing. She gave me a drink of water out of a gourd, and I just sat there, trying to pull everything together, but she knew that I’d found the vision I’d come for. Eventually, she helped me to my feet, and she walked with me back down the hill to the sweat lodge. It was all hot and ready to go, and she just opened the flap for me, I got in and she got in with me. Just her and me this time."

She shook her head. "I figured that she’d heated it up before she came up to untie me. I didn’t know till much later that it was a couple other kataras who had done it, that either Ellen or Dorothy, mostly Ellen, had been up there on the edge of the hill,"– she pointed – "All the time I was out here, out of my sight, watching over me and praying silently."

"Did she see the elk?" Danny asked softly.

"No, she didn’t," Debbie shook her head. "It was my vision, not hers. I tried to tell her a little about the vision in the sweat lodge, but I guess I wasn’t real coherent, but she knew I had one, and it was my vision. It was a while before I told her all of it. You’re the only other person besides Ruth I’ve ever told. But Danny, that was the day I really became an Indian in my spirit, not just in my body. And that was the moment that I started to become a katara."

"It was obviously a very powerful experience for you, a true life-changer," he said gently. Inside, Danny was appalled, impressed, curious – and now was aware that he was dealing with a muchdeeper person than he ever believed.

"Yes, it was," she said. "When Brenda wore her handcuffs, she was seeking understanding of Carole, of Wendy. She wasn’t looking for a life-changing experience, but she got it. It was different for her, but it’s different for everybody. Danny, didn’t you sort of have one at the Redlite Ranch, even though you weren’t looking for it?"

"It was part of one, but it started with finding Marsha," he nodded. "It changed my outlook on a lot of things. I mean, not quite as blunt as ‘What is your name?’ but yeah, it caused me to examine what I was doing with my life, where I was going. The process is going on; it probably always will go on. I felt stalled for years, Debbie, going nowhere, hopelessly stuck in the sand. I don’t feel that way anymore."

"I’m sure you don’t," she smiled. "You know what’s sort of funny? When you were telling me last weekend about what you’d done to Marsha, I was thinking about . . . well, right here, three years ago right now. I mean, right today. I can’t help but wonder if she got a vision or a life changing experience out of it, too."

"No way of telling, and I’m not planning on asking," he smiled.

"We can hope," she smiled. "But Danny, one other thing. I told you I lay out here naked for forty-eight hours with all the mosquitoes and blackflies, and I was itching and in pain like mad, just like Marsha must have been. Like you, I’m a little impervious to mosquitoes, I don’t notice them much unless they get real bad and they were real bad a lot of the time, but I get torn up pretty bad by blackflies. I didn’t realize it until I got out of the sweat lodge and started to get my clothes back on, but when Ellen untied me, I didn’t feel any bug bites on my body, and I never had a sore or anything. My spirit elk may have been a hallucination, but the lack of blackfly bite sores wasn’t."

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