At night, in the desert, you can hear the gods speak. And, sometimes, you can see them.
         Which is exactly what Leon Running Deer did not want to happen on this August night, on this remote high desert mesa on the Hopi reservation in northern Arizona.
         It was the tail end of dusk. Along the distant horizon, a thinning stripe of muted crimson, the remnants of a vivid Southwestern sunset, was yielding to encroaching darkness as nightfall gradually devoured the silhouettes of the surrounding land formations, a series of mesas reaching out like giant fingers from Black Mesa to the north. There was enough distance, and enough folds in this rugged terrain, to block out any hint of the presence of modern civilization.
         Leon Running Deer and Tommy Batts stood side by side, lounging, sipping from cans of beer, leaning back against the rusted, dented grillwork of Tommy's ancient Chevy pickup. An unacknowledged, contemplative silence had extended comfortably between the two men for several minutes, an ease born of a friendship that reached back into their childhood.
         Leon had somehow forgotten how spiritual was this land of his upbringing. At times, this, indeed, felt like the center of the universe as Hopi legend suggested.
         He had been a city dweller for too long, he realized. He had lost touch with this part of his heritage. Or at least, his conscious mind had. But his psyche was experiencing the subliminal pulse of a spiritual experience. Something deep down within him was awakening, stirring.
         He asked himself if it could be any other way, out here in this so very spiritual place. The world overhead was the dark infinity of twinkling stars. Closer to earth, a cool night breeze, silky and pleasant after the heat of day, carried on it the scent of mesquite and the cawing of a night bird. Coyotes howled.
         Yeah, Leon thought, those animal cries could be mistaken for the voices of the gods–or of demons.
         He decided to break the silence. "You sure it wasn't those coyotes out there that you've been hearing, Tommy, instead of the gods talking?"
          His friend grinned and replied, "Maybe they're one and the same.” He sipped his beer then added, "Wait and see."
          The two men could not have been more dissimilar in physical appearance. Leon Running Deer was a clean-cut twenty-six-year-old, casually but stylishly attired in jeans, boots and western shirt. Fine chiseled features made him most attractive to women, including his fiancee in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
          Tommy, the same age as Leon, appeared to be at least a decade older. Stocky, and barrel-chested, he wore soiled jeans, a threadbare T-shirt, and several day's growth of a beard that shadowed his round face. It was obvious that his appearance seemed not to be of any importance to him. Occasionally, he worked as a shade tree mechanic on the reservation but his focus centered on his cultural heritage and his gift of shamistic tendencies, which came to him as easily as breathing. It was almost certain that he would follow in the footsteps of his grandfather as a Bear Clan elder.
          At first–twenty minutes earlier when Tommy had steered the battered pickup off the rough gravel road here and killed the engine–Leon had told himself that he was nuts for allowing his childhood friend to talk him into accompanying him out here into the middle of nowhere. Leon and Tommy had grown way, way apart over the intervening years. Yet, as he became acclimated to the remoteness of this spot Tommy had brought them to, Leon realized that in fact this was exactly what he needed.
          Leon Running Deer had been born and raised less than ten miles from where he now stood. And this was the last night of his visit back to the reservation for the funeral of his mother, who had passed away suddenly at the age of sixty-six. First thing in the morning, he would be leaving to return to the summer session of law school in Albuquerque.
          Most of the preceding week had been spent grieving with his brothers and sisters and their families over the loss of their family matriarch.
          Standing out here with a childhood friend beneath the stars, with only the coyotes and the night wind for companionship, experiencing the oneness with the universe that generations of his ancestors had experienced under this same night sky, on this same mesa...yes, this is what his mother would have wanted him to do while he was back for his brief visit to the reservation.
          Here on this mesa, he found himself experiencing the spiritual sense of a circle becoming complete; a sense of closure at this stage of the grieving process for his mother.
          He decided that it had been way too long since he had last allowed himself to experience this spiritual connection.
          Yes, he must come back more often.
          But he did not want to see the gods, or hear them. Not this night, thank you very much.
          Leon was in the home stretch of earning a law degree in Albuquerque. His fiancee, Elaine, was a Jewish girl from New York and a fellow law student; a bright, artistic, strong-willed young woman whose father happened to be the senior partner in one of the most prestigious law firms on Wall Street. Leon and Elaine had moved in together only a month earlier and marriage was in their future plans. A man could do far worse than having a wife like Elaine. And marrying her would as good as assure Leon Running Deer a position with her father's law firm. This was how it was done in the white man's world; the world he was determined to succeed in. He wished that he could make Tommy Batts see the potential that each of them had–how it was possible to reach high goals with focus and hard work. Leon was on a winning track, to his mind, and this had been accomplished through his leaving his past behind and focusing on the future. He wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was thirty-five and damned if he did not have a good shot at it.
          In no way was he ashamed of his Native American roots. His innate pride in his heritage was projected in small but significant ways, and yet he intuitively knew, and it was driven home powerfully to him, standing here with Tommy on this mesa...he had indeed left more behind here on the reservation than mere memories of a chronological past. He had left behind a part of his soul, and tonight he was touching that space once again. He had been so busy living in the city, angling for his shot at that first million before he was even out of law school, and that pedal-to-the-metal single-minded focus had, yes indeed, made him forget what this was like.
          The problem for Leon, of course, was that he really did want those power goals he sought: the first of hopefully many millions of dollars and everything that went with it; the beautiful wife, the prestigious job in a most high octane law firm.
          A winning track, yes.
         Which is precisely why he hoped that his buddy Tommy was just full of too much beer when he spoke of gods appearing and speaking out in the dark night.
          No, Leon definitely did not want to hear the gods speak tonight. Uh uh. If the gods spoke to him, Leon was vaguely fearful of what they might say. He harbored a lingering guilt that he could be following the wrong path in life.
          After he earned his degree, passed his bar exam...well, there was plenty of good a lawyer could do on the reservation, representing tribal affairs. The catch, naturally, was that tribal attorneys did not become millionaires, much less have power suites in prestigious New York law firms.
          This inner conflict had bothered Leon. But thus far, not enough to make him change his career strategy or his goals, which included a high rise condo in Manhattan and winter vacations somewhere in the sun, not barely making gas money in Second Mesa, Arizona.
          Would the gods of the Old Ways approve?
          Leon was not sure he wanted to find out.
          Then a thought occurred to him. Maybe Tommy was right. Maybe the gods had already spoken in the yowls of those coyotes and on the night wind.
          Leon Running Deer decided then and there that he would make a point of returning to the reservation more often, no matter where his life took him. He would proceed without surrendering either his career strategy or his roots, or his appreciation of the Old Ways that taught that the gods could speak. He would start coming home maybe once a month or so and hang out like this with Tommy, and with his siblings and their families. He would visit his mother's grave and walk these grounds of his tribal ancestors.
          His mind traveled back nearly twenty years to that young six-year-old boy who was undergoing his initiation into the Kachina Society–the kachinas–the respected spirits of all the universal invisible forces of life and who had been with the Hopi since their Emergence from the womb of Mother Earth. He remembered the excitement, wonder, and fear, all mixed into one emotion as he and the other children had gathered with their faces upturned to the ladder opening of the kiva, the underground ceremonial chamber, and waited expectantly for the knocking on the kiva roof. His heart was beating fast as he heard the curious falsetto yell and the shake of a rattle. The spirits had arrived from the night sky and they began their decent down the ladder. Colorfully masked figures, some grotesque and strange, others almost beautiful in their masquerade, danced and sang in unison and perfect synchronization and he could still now hear the song of the spirits as they descended into the mortal world.
          The eagle’s feather he had been given that night during his initiation was still with him, too.
          He finished his beer and dropped it to the ground, idly flattening the can with a boot heel before tossing it into the bed of the pickup.
          "Guess I owe you another one, Tommy."
          Tommy had just popped a fresh can. "How you figure that, bro?"
          "I already owe you my life."
          Tommy looked at the ground, embarrassed. His slight slurring of his words gave away his intoxication. "Aw, Leon. That was a long time ago, dude. We was just kids, man."
          Leon nodded. "Yeah, we were, and we had no business playing around that old mine shaft. When I fell in and broke my damn leg, there was no getting out and I'll never forget the rattlers on that ledge a few feet below me. I wouldn't be standing here today if you hadn't gone for help. I owe you my life, Tommy. But bringing me out here tonight..." Leon placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder and gave a brotherly squeeze. "It's good being out here with you, man. It made me think about some things that I needed to think about."
          Leon paused for a response, and realized that Tommy no longer appeared intoxicated ...and no longer appeared to be listening to a word he was saying.
          Tommy stared into the darkness as if transfixed, as if seeing something that Leon could not see.
          Tommy said, "It's going to happen."
          It happened before Leon could phrase a reply.
          There was a bright flash on the horizon that seemed to originate from the point at which Tommy had been staring.
          And now Leon was staring in that direction too.
          It all happened with incredible swiftness. The bright flash became a group of colored lights, pulsing and flashing–low in the sky and approaching at an astonishing rate of speed.
          There was no time to do anything. In the instant that followed, Leon's mind was a jumbled riot of confused thought. Should he hit the ground? Those pulsing lights were zooming in straight at them, almost upon the pickup truck before Leon could even form a lucid thought out loud, it happened so fast.
          Tommy remained placidly leaning back against the grillwork of his pickup truck, holding his can of beer and watching the approaching something as if he fully expected this to happen.
          Leon, who had certainly not expected anything like whatever this was, did have time to duck his head as something huge and incredible whooshed by overhead. The gigantic whatever was cruising at what would be treetop level. Leon craned his neck around, watching it pass by close enough for his widened eyes to see that the pulsating lights encircled a silver-colored sphere which Leon Running Deer estimated to be nearly six hundred feet in diameter. There was an eerie silence. Leon barely discerned the slightest sound as the thing barreled at them.
          Then it hovered for five or ten seconds.
          And then, even before the amazement of any of this could sink into Leon's stunned mind, the whatever became gone, disappearing in a straight path tracking southwest, fading out of sight into the darkness in no less than another five or ten seconds.
          Leon Running Deer murmured "Holy shit," in a tone of mixed awe and reverence
          Tommy said soberly, "The gods speak. The old Ways live."
          Leon's rational mind was grappling with what he'd witnessed. "We always saw military aircraft flying over when we were kids," he said. "The bombing ranges in Utah and New Mexico–"
          "You think that was a military aircraft, bro?"
          "I don't know what it was."
          "I'll tell you what it was," said Tommy. "It was two drunk Indians full of too much brew." His eyes focused on Leon. "You want to keep your nose clean, lawyer man? This never happened."
          Leon found himself wondering what indeed had happened.
          The whole event had transpired, start to finish, in hardly more than thirty seconds, tops.
          The night again belonged only to the night breeze carrying the scent of mesquite and the howls of coyotes beneath a black infinity of starlight
          It was as if nothing had happened!
          And what exactly had happened, Leon pondered. Something, something very beyond the realm of normal human experience, had happened here tonight. Had the gods appeared and spoken to him here on this remote mesa on this night? He was left with nothing but fleeting impressions of what he had seen and heard.
          He could believe his eyes and ears, couldn't he?
          He found himself wondering how often people saw things like he and Tommy had just witnessed, with no one believing them. Or were such people afraid to say anything because they knew that no one would believe them?
          Leon stopped staring after the point at which the "whatever" had vanished. He reached for another can of beer.
          "Yeah, you're right," he said soberly, thoughtfully, staring again off to the distant point where the lights had disappeared. "Just a couple of drunk Indians."
          He did not know what to make of what had occurred. But something had definitely occurred, yes. Hell, yes.
          And Leon Running Deer found himself wondering when it would happen again.