~ Dream Chasers ~

by

Jim Green

(This is a poem I wrote for Mrs. Goldstein’s English class about that old Indian pot I found--actually, it’s only the first verse.)

THE OLLA

By Robert Harkins

Speak to me, oh, pot of mystery,

Speak of savage ghosts and such,

Burning reeds and flaming torches.

Sing the songs of Hohokam--

(Man! Was I embarrassed when I had to read it to the class.)

I found it in the bottom of a sandy wash that Saturday morning. It was all dirty and cruddy-looking lying in the sun, and when I picked it up, it felt so hot I almost dropped it.

B. J. Dalton and I were south of the river driving our quads next to the mountains, doing some hunting, you know, rabbits and stuff. Only two weeks had passed in September, and B. J. was already sick of school--B. J.’s what everybody calls him except his sis... and me when I’m fooling with him. Then it’s Buford Jackson. Can you believe it? Laying a tag on a guy like “Buford Jackson Dalton?” How could anybody look at a little baby all dressed in those tiny clothes, lying in a crib, and name him “Buford Jackson Dalton”? That’s crazy!

Anyway, I’d already spent half the morning trying to talk him into not becoming a “high school dropout” and all that bull crap, but he had a pat answer for everything I’d say. In a while I motioned for him to stop in the shade of this scrubby mesquite tree so we could cool off a bit. It’s still really hot in Phoenix in September, you know.

“Okay, Buford Jackson,” as the engines came to a sputtering halt, “how are you going to stand not seeing Lacy give oral reports in English class? Huh? You tell me that!” We’d parked, sitting high on the bank of that deep wash I told you about. It was too steep to negotiate, so we had decided to laze around a bit, then climb down and explore. B. J. was taking a bead on a rotten barrel cactus fifty feet or so away. When I mentioned Lacy’s name, he stopped, planted the stock of his old twenty-two pump in the dirt like the wimpy ROTC guys do after marching around the flagpole at school. He looked off into space, thinking--and I knew who he was thinking about--then he let out this big sigh.

“If Lacy Richards walks up to me,” he said all serious like, “and says, ‘B. J. Dalton, honey... ’” then he changed his voice to sound like she might sound, “‘would you please not drop out of high school? It would break my pretty little ol’ heart,’” and he reached out as if to squeeze an invisible chin soft like she might do. “Well, I just might reconsider.” Like a flash, he shouldered his rifle, drew another quick bead, and fired again.

Lacy Richards is about the best looking girl in the whole state of Arizona, maybe even the world, and every guy in the entire school has this thing for her. “You know, she just friggin’ might,” I said.

We’d driven nearly three miles up toward the big peak called Butterfly in the Estrellas that lie south of the valley. Every time we’d stopped, B. J. had ripped away with his twenty-two and had already zinged nearly two boxes of ammo, but we hadn’t had any real luck.

The truth of the matter is, everything was dry as the American history lectures in old man Newmann’s class, and that’s dry, I’ll tell you. Besides, with the noise of our quads and his constant and indiscriminate firing, I knew there wasn’t much chance of us even seeing any game, so I felt I had to come up with a new strategy.

“I think we ought to walk a bit if we’re going to get some good shots. Don’t you?”

At first he didn’t want to. B. J.’s lazy like that, but I finally convinced him that we had to be a little quieter.

Anyway, you know how guys are. When you get out hunting, you mostly want to shoot at anything. It feels really good to have a rifle kick your shoulder or a pistol fight your hand, to hear that loud noise and get a good whiff of gunpowder while you watch the dust fly far away. Then when you kill something, you can stand around laughing and cussing and slapping each other on the backs like you did something big. Part of me says it’s crazy, but another part says it’s fun and important, and I really wanted to get some good shots.

Sometimes I wish I’d lived back in the olden days so it could have been for real. When I’m carrying that Colt pistol of Pop’s and wearing his leather holster, I can always picture myself as a Ranger or an Indian fighter. But I can’t hit much with it unless what I’m shooting at is slap-dab in front of me.

All of a sudden this long-eared jackrabbit shot from the bushes in the bottom of the wash disappearing around the next bend. That’s all it took. “Let’s go!” B. J. yelled as he slid on his butt down the side and to the sandy bottom below.

This desert wash sat a good ten feet deep, stretched as wide as a country road, and was feathered with paloverde trees and mesquite bushes along its edges. I don’t know how B. J felt, but I remember feeling like I was a scout hunting wild renegades, the same way I used to play when I was a little kid. B. J. was walking all crouchy-like, stalking the long-eared jack and probably feeling the same way I felt, only we didn’t tell each other because you don’t pretend like that when you’re sixteen. You want to act like it’s really important.

We’d followed this dry wash toward the foot of the big peak, shooting and whispering and cussing and stuff, killing maybe a hundred savages or more, when I saw this thing lying right there in the sand in front of us. I turned it over with the toe of my boot, reached down, and picked up an old clay pot... you know, an old Indian pot about the size of your everyday coffee pot.

It was mostly brown with some red lines painted on it, and there were figures molded into its sides. You could tell it was really old because it looked old, all covered with crusty dirt, and it even felt old. It had a top and a handle, and it was pretty heavy.

“Whoa, B. J., would you look at this?”

“What’s that, Bo?” He fired three quick shots at imaginary enemies in the trees and bushes along the edge of the wash.

“This pot, this Indian pot! Would you believe it? I haven’t ever found anything like this before. I wonder where it came from.” I always keep my eye out for potsherds when I’m hunting or working in the field. I’ve found a couple of arrowheads and some spear points and stuff. I guess the entire Salt River Valley around Phoenix was covered with Indians hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago. While working on my research paper, I read that’s why they named it after that fiery mythological bird.

When I picked up the Indian pot, it was so hot I almost dropped it. We found some good, thick shade and plopped into the sand. I set the pot between my legs and tried to pull off the top, but it was cemented tightly.

“Wonder what’s in it? I can’t get this lid off.”

“Who cares? Go set it up on that rock. I’ll blow the top off for you.”

“I swear, B. J.! You’re stupid sometimes! First, you want to quit school and never see Lacy Richards again, and now you want to shoot a valuable artifact. I can’t believe you.”

“What do you mean valuable?” He was taking out his tin for a pinch.

“We studied about this in anthropology last year in old man Baroldy’s class. This is a true-life artifact. It may be worth a hundred dollars or more!”