Star Dancers!

I’ve been working on what will be the 6th novel in the Lawman Series called Deadman.

It’s coming along pretty good. Part of the challenge is my central character, Will Diaz, has already reported some of this. That said, Will isn’t always privy to what’s gone on behind the scenes.

In one Chapter, RJ and Pam have gone up into the high mountains above Platero Colorado to do a body recovery. Along on the mission is Will’s old friend Max (This happens before the events in Event Horizon) and a new character nicknamed Indio. Indio is supposed to be a real live Native American and he leads the county Search and Rescue team.

Picture it. The sun has set and they’re sitting around a campfire. The sky is awash with stars.

The campfire has been a touchstone in humanity for tens of thousands of years. Around that little bubble of warmth, our ancestors looked up into the heavens at the stars. They connected the dots and saw people and animals in the heavens.

And they made up stories.

In one chapter, I share one of those stories.

The fire crackled as the flame reached a small piece of dried resin in the wood. It exploded up into sparks that drifted lazily up into the sky and merged in with the stars.

Indio pointed up at the heavens, and he sang a small song. The words rumbled and echoed across the night. As his voice echoed across the mountains, Animals paused in their nocturnal activities. They looked towards the voice and then the stars. Even the wind seemed to hold it’s breath and stop blowing. Eternity seemed to freeze at the magic of the words. And the heavens drew closer and the spirit world closer still.

The words caused a shiver to go up Pam’s spin and she followed his gaze and pointed finger up into up into the star frosted heavens. The sparks had drifted up, merged into the haunting star cluster and faded. Or maybe they’d gone on to become new stars.

When he finished singing, RJ asked, “Indio, what was that you were singing?”

He pointed up to a group of stars. “I was singing to them?”

“The Pleiades?” Pam asked.

“That’s your name for them. What other names do you have.”

“The Netted Stars,” Pam said. “The Seven Sisters. The Hen and her Chicks. What do your people call them?”

He said a word Pam couldn’t repeat. It almost sounded Chinese in origin. “Tso-aa,” he said. “What do you know about them?”

“Well, most people can only see six, but some with exceptional eyesight can see eleven,” Pam said. “I know some of the old star maps showed as many as thirty. A telescope will show you hundreds of them. They’re all gravitationally bound and rather young stars.”

“A cold description for something so beautiful,” he said.

RJ admitted it was and said so.

“Then tell me your people’s story of them,” Pam urged.

He smiled. “Once, there were several maidens who went outside the camp where they started singing and dancing. The Great Spirit saw them singing and dancing and was pleased. But then a bear came out of the woods and tried to attack the maidens. In fear, they climbed up on a rock that barely kept them out of reach of the bear. It would try to climb and slip down; it’s claws ripping chunks out of the rock.

The maidens cried out in fear and the Great Spirit heard them. And the rock started to grow higher and higher into the sky until the maidens were safe.

“The bear continued to try to climb the rock and does so to this day to get at them. If you go to Wyoming, you can see that stone. It’s where they made that movie.”

“Devils tower!”

“We call it Mateo Tipi,” Indio said.

“And what happened next?”

“The girls joined the dance of the stars.”