“C-c-come with us,” Ed said to me from the window of his pickup truck.  His voice cracked like etched glass from the news that Camille detected blood in Lela’s apartment.  His hands were shaking like a freshly caught trout as he reached for the steering wheel.  He grabbed tightly and bore down on his intentions.  “I’m taking Harry to my sweat lodge.”

“Your what?”

Ed’s chest rose with conviction as he explained.  “Whenever I have troubles, I go to my sweat lodge for spiritual guidance and clarity.  A good sweat will help us find Lela.”  I climbed into Ed’s truck and rode between Harry and Ed in silence for what seemed like an eternity.  We drove south out of Jackson, zig-zagging across the backroads of sprawling ranches outside town.  As we continued to climb the plateau, the foliage changed from greenery and pine to drier earth and sagebrush.  After driving for a half hour, Ed took an abrupt right turn.  “Our ranch is one of the l-l-largest around.  It starts here at the fork in the road and goes for thousands of acres.  We will s-s-stop and pick up my two nephews to help us with our ceremony.”

We stopped at a small rectangular house about a half-mile up the road.  Ed summoned his nephews, who jumped in the back end of the truck, holding on to the roll bar as we traversed the rocky and winding road to the top of the plateau.  “Here is sacred Shoshone ground.  You are invited here as Shoshone guests.  You will speak to no one of these practices, for they are sacred to our people.”

We emerged from the truck and followed Ed to what looked to be a campfire pit.  “This is Flying Cloud,” Ed said, pointing to his nephew on the left, “and this is White Buffalo.”  Both nephews were busy gathering large logs and placing them into the fire pit.  “The sweat lodge is like the white man’s church.  It is built of earth and it is here that natives worship.” 

Flying Cloud placed the longest planks of wood in the middle of the three-foot wide pit while White Buffalo scattered pinecones, kindling and pine nettles on top of the solid layer of logs.  “Use the wood Lela g-g-gave me last week,” Ed said.  Flying Cloud nodded.  Ed turned to Harry and said, “Lela hauled that huge pile of wood out here last weekend.  She said it was from some crate business she was involved in.  Since Lela t-t-touched this wood, it will bring us close to her spirit.”  Harry nodded as we watched as Flying Cloud piled large, round rocks in an upside down v-shaped dome over the wood, forming a teepee in the fire pit.  After the rocks were carefully placed, they were covered with another layer of smaller logs making the pile about five feet high.  Flying Cloud set the kindling on fire and within a few minutes, the enormous blaze erupted before us.  After time, it started shrinking down to campfire size.  Meanwhile, White Buffalo was busy helping Ed tie together long branches from nearby aspen trees into criss-cross patterns, which eventually were set into a dome shape.  As the fire continued to burn down, the men dragged the dome on top of the pit and then covered the dome with large tarps.

“Scrub your b-b-body with these before you enter,” Ed said, handing Harry and me a handful of kindling.  “Sage and cedar cleanse your skin, opening your spirit for purification.”  Ed, Flying Cloud and White Buffalo removed their shirts and started rubbing their chests with the sage and cedar chips.  Harry watched them for a moment, and then followed along.  I was unsure whether I was expected to take my shirt off in front of these men, so I waited and watched.  “You may go to the trees and scrub.  Some tribes require that you s-s-sweat naked.  Shoshone are modest.  You may leave on your undergarments.”   Relieved, I ducked behind a tree and removed my running shirt.  Leaving on my jog bra, I scrubbed myself with the sage before returning to the sweat lodge, where all of the men were now inside.  I opened the small flap and entered into the pitch-black dome. 

After I closed the flap behind me, I couldn’t even see my own hands in front of my face.  The heat was stifling and sweat immediately formed on my forehead.  I could smell the sage permeating my skin as the dry heat embraced me.  Fighting the feeling of suffocation, I struggled at first to catch my breath, feeling as if I were in a sauna.  It was easier to take small breaths through my nose than to breath through my mouth.  I could hear the faint crackling of the firewood at our center and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could focus on the dim hew from the burning rocks. 

“Chanting is our way of c-c-communicating with the spirits.  We chant to summon the spirits of earth, air, fire and water to come to us to help us c-c-connect with the spirit of Lela.” 

Silence overwhelmed us for a minute, and then Flying Cloud and White Buffalo started a rhythmic humming.   A few seconds later, Ed started in, chanting phrases in a foreign tongue.  The chant grew louder and then softer, like the peaks and valleys of the Tetons.  As the first chant grew quiet, White Buffalo doused the fire with a bowl of water, causing an eruption of steam and heat from the fire pit.  The rocks hissed in protest, releasing a fury of intense humidity, making a simple breath a great struggle.  Flying Cloud opened the flap for a second, allowing a blast of cool air to redeem our lungs.  I gasped for more of the fresh air, cooling the burning sensation in my nostrils.  Then White Buffalo doused the fire again with water and the heat intensified to an even greater degree.  This heating and cooling process was repeated six times, all the while, Ed continued his chanting.  When the chanting stopped, there was a moment of complete silence where even the fire refrained from hissing. 

“We splash water on the rocks six times – for grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, the earth, and now for our Lela.  We summon the spirit to guide us to her.  We give thanks to our sweat, for it has served us well.  You will leave now and let me alone with the spirits.”

I followed Flying Cloud out of our cramped quarters, shocked by the brightness of the mid-day sun.  My shirt was soaking wet from sweat and I could feel the chill of the evening air overwhelming my goose-pimpled skin.  Harry climbed out after me, his bare chest glistening in sweat and his damp hair matted to his head.  I reached over and grabbed my sweatshirt and put it on. 

Ed emerged from the sweat lodge about five minutes later in a complete daze.  His eyes were rolled back and he held his hands to the sky.  He fell to the ground before us and let out a loud scream.  Flying Cloud rushed to his side and knelt before him.  I thought he was going to give him CPR, but instead he pulled a sharp knife from the strap around his leg and held it to the sky.   The blade of the knife shown brightly, reflecting the moon’s glare.  He held the blade up high and flicked it in a jerky circular manner and then, to my horror, plunged it into the Chief’s chest.  Instinctively, I dashed to stop him, grabbing for the knife.  White Buffalo grabbed my arm and held it steady, as he gently guided my face in his direction.  When he had my full attention, he held up his other hand to me.  White Buffalo gently steered my body in Ed’s direction and whispered in my ear.  “It is okay.  Chief is okay.  He must be cut open to release Lela’s spirit to Mother Earth.  She will guide Lela back to us.”  I looked back at White Buffalo, seeing the wisdom and belief in his young and expressive eyes. 

I watched as Flying Cloud took the sharp blade and sliced two more slits above the Chief’s nipples.  Blood dripped from the slits as Flying Cloud pulled the skin away, slipping some kind of a clasp beneath the skin of each slit.  He joined the two clasps together with a horse-hair rope in the form of a “Y” and then tied the conjoined ropes to a tree about twenty yards away.    Flying Cloud heaved the rope taught to the tree and then vanished into the thick forest.

Chief Ed Washakie Duran started chanting again, but this time the chants were loud, like the howling of a coyote after a kill.  As the howling increased, the Chief pulled back away from the tree, cinching the rope tighter.  The slits in his chest ripped wider, causing blood to flow like wine from a barrel.  Ed howled and yanked back again, until finally the clasps ripped free from underneath his skin.  As blood gushed from his wounds, he shook his head violently and yelled out “Lela!” 

For the first time in minutes, the Chief appeared lucid, as if he’d been freed from captivity.  White Buffalo handed him a rawhide blanket and the Chief wrapped himself tight, like a newborn.  He rocked back and forth for a time, humming a faint rhythmic tune.  In time he spoke. 

“The p-p-piercing released my spirit in submission to the Great Spirit, which is in charge of all other spirits.  The Great Spirit will guide Lela’s spirit b-b-back to me.  I had many visions on my journey, thanks to the Great Spirit.  I saw water rushing.”  And then Ed turned toward Harry and narrowed his eyes.  “J-J-John was in my vision.  He was standing next to Lela.”

Harry turned pallid; as if he’d been awaken from his own trance.   “What does that mean?”

“It means that the Great Spirit connected John to Lela.   John must know where she is.”

“How would John –” Harry started and then stopped himself.  “John would never hurt Lela.  Tell the Great Spirit that it is wrong!”

“The Great Spirit is n-n-never wrong.”

* * *

Chief Ed Duran drove us back to town in silence.  When we arrived at Harry’s house his wife, Jane, and John were waiting for us in the living room.  When Harry explained that Lela was officially missing and that her apartment had been declared a crime scene, John was visibly shaken, like a child left out in a storm.  He paced back and forth in the living room, his six foot five inch frame pounding the floor with each step, and with each pounding step, his formerly firm belly giggled like Jell-O.  John had been a physical specimen in high school – leading the football team to a state championship.  He’d been crowned Homecoming King, but his glory days were just that – his past.  Despair was the only crown he wore now.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Harry asked in an accusatory tone.  John looked at Harry in surprise, fumbling over words to defend himself.  Just as John was about to respond, Jane stepped between them.  Her rail thin body seemed larger as she wedged in to diffuse what looked to be another fight starting between her husband and her son.

“Leave him alone, Harry,” Jane said, brushing her short brown hair back behind her ears. 

“I have reason to believe that he had something to do with her disappearance.”

“Reason to believe?  How lawyerly of you.  What makes you think he had anything to do with Lela alleged disappearance?  Hell, she’s only been missing for a day, Harry.  Maybe she’s out on one of her wild weekends, for God’s sake.”  Jane crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Harry, waiting for his next move.  Her two-carat emerald-cut diamond glistened in the overhead spotlight, drawing my attention to her recently manicured nails.   Jane’s disrepute for Lela was not cautiously guarded.  Lela’s grasp on her son’s heart left a scar only a mother could savor.

“I went to the sweat lodge with Ed Washakie Duran.  He had visions of John with Lela -”

“A sweat lodge?  Visions?  You’ve got to be kidding me, Harry!  You’d accuse our son of being involved in something based on Ed Duran’s visions in a sweat lodge.  That’s what you’ve been doing all day?  Smoking God knows what and hanging out in a teepee conjuring up ways to further drive a wedge in between you and your son?  Are you out of your mind?”

“We weren’t smoking anything!  How dare you even suggest such a thing?  This is serious, Jane.  We think that something terrible has happened to Lela.”

“We?  Who’s we?  You, Mac and Ed?  Now that’s a threesome –”

“Mom.  Dad.  Stop it.  Please stop fighting over me.  That’s all you two ever do.  Please stop,” John said, stepping out from behind Jane.  He shoved his hands deep into his faded Levi’s, shuffling his feet back and forth in his tattered Nikes. 

I took John’s interruption as an opportunity to quietly excuse myself from the family discussion. 

* * *

I headed back to the office and sat down at Lela’s secretarial cubicle.  Lela had two large, gray metal desks:  one with her computer, printer and fax machine, the other with stacks of files, papers, binders, pens, and post-it notes.  I picked up the photograph of Lela’s parents holding a little girl on their lap – a little girl who looked similar to Lela.  The picture next to it was of Lela and the same little girl – a few years older, perhaps.  And the final picture was Lela with Sheila, arm in arm, sitting on a campground picnic table each holding a bottle of Budweiser with wide smiles that only drunken friendship stirs.  Lela had changed since she hooked up with Sheila – that was for sure.  Before Sheila stepped into the picture, Lela was the most dependable employee imaginable.  But since she started partying with her long-lost high school friend, Lela started showing up late for work and often misplaced or misfiled things.  

I set down the photographs and continued searching.  Lela kept track of our master calendar by using a giant blotter that covered most of the surface area on her desk.  The master calendar contained all of our deadlines and court appearances, as well as Lela’s personal appointments.   I looked at this past week’s appointments, noting that Lela had a “movies with T” on Tuesday; “dinner @ B’s” on Wednesday followed by “S after work”; “drinks @ SDB with girls” on Thursday; and “lunch with Dr. M” on Friday.  I wasn’t sure whom the initials belonged, but I figured that Tim Marshall might be interested, so I made a photocopy of the calendar and our client list for Tim and headed through Town Square toward the police station.   

* * *

Jackson’s Town Square is the most unique city block I’ve ever seen.  Centered in a quintessential western downtown, it is flanked on all four corners with four giant arches made from hundreds of elk antlers.  I watched the children running in the grass and climbing century old trees, while laughing and signing.  As the front door to the police station closed behind me, the children’s’ voices were replaced with ringing telephones.  A dispatcher was talking into a microphone, fielding the constant barrage of calls.  Focused on the sounds before me, I didn’t hear Tim Marshall saunter behind me.  When he tapped me on the shoulder, I almost jumped out of my skin.   

“Mind if we step outside a minute?” Tim asked, holding up a cigarette.  “I’m overdue.”  I followed him out.

“I brought you a copy of our client list.  Maybe you can run the list through the system and see if you can find something.”  

Tim inhaled deeply while staring at the list of names.  “Thanks,” he managed, while exhaling a stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth.  I dodged to the left to avoid the smell.

“I also photocopied our master calendar because Lela kept track of her personal appointments on here.  I’m not sure to whom the initials belong, but I have my guesses.  Sheila could probably help us out.”  

“What about ‘Dr. M’?” Tim asked, pointing to Friday’s note.

“Probably Dr. Miller, the dermatologist that Sheila mentioned.  Now that I think back on it, Lela was often gone during her lunch hour on Fridays.  She usually worked through lunch or ate in our break room the rest of the week, but thinking back, she was usually out on Fridays.  Again, Sheila would know.”

“What’s Sheila’s number?”

I pulled out my Blackberry and gave it to him.  “Is there anything else I can do on this end to help with the investigation?  I am so worried about her, Tim.  She is more than just a secretary to me – she is my friend.”

“I can tell that you care about her a lot and we are going to do everything possible to find her quickly.  I’ll let you know if there’s anything else I need.  Right now, it’s just a waitin’ game,” he said, smoke billowing out his nose and mouth.

“Waiting for -?”

“Waitin’ for forensics to come back.  Waitin’ for Lela to show up somewhere.  Waitin’ for a phone call.  I doubt anythin’s gonna happen today.  You should get some rest.  You look beat.  Let me drive you home.” 

“Oh, thanks for the offer, but I’m okay.  I feel like I should be doing something -” 

“The best thing to do now is get some rest and pray that she’s safe.”

That night, I wanted to pray.  I even tried to pray, but I had prayed for twelve years for God to bring my daddy back, and it didn’t work, so I wasn’t confident that my prayers were heard.  Therefore, I fell asleep that night the way I did most nights – with my head propped on pillows and a book folded on my chest.  But was differentiated this night from most others was that within minutes of falling asleep, I wok up with a start.  The book felt like it was made of stone – compressing my chest like an anchor on the bottom of the sea.  I felt like I was drowning in the heaviness of words.

I set the book on my nightstand and turned to sleep on my side.  However, the heaviness in my chest did not go away.