The Medicine Man


I grew up with the TV as my babysitter. In the late 40's and early 50's the Cowboy Western was the big thing on daytime TV. We could only get three stations back then but it didn’t matter, they all were showing westerns. The Lone Ranger, Hoppalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and Gene Autry the Singing Cowboy are the ones I remember best. Not that I truly remember each and every show; they are all mixed together and pretty well almost forgotten by now. I do remember that I liked the shows with the Indians best. Even at that tender age I was rooting for the Indians. They never won of course but I always had hope that maybe the next time. 

One year my parents bought me a Hoppalong Cassidy outfit for Christmas. I still have a picture of myself at five years old, sitting on a wooden barrel wearing that black outfit with my than blond hair sticking out from under the black cowboy hat. It had silver buttons and a bright and shiny silver cap gun in a black leather holster. Man did I look cool. I was the envy of the neighborhood. 

Whenever we would play Cowboys and Indians, which was all the time back then, I would wear the outfit. It was practically the only thing I wore that whole year. We would break into camps and choose who would be a cowboy and who would be an Indian. Of course by virtue of my magnificent Hoppalong Cassidy outfit I was always a cowboy and the leader of the posse out to round up the heathen Indians and make the country safe for civilized Americans everywhere.

You must remember, that back in the 40's and early 50's, the movies and TV always portrayed the Native Americans as blood thirsty heathens. I think because it was the only way they could justify all the terrible things that were done to them. I believe it was Jay Silverheels’ Tonto that was the first to depict the American Indian with honor and dignity.

I didn’t need Tonto to tell me of the nobility of the Indian. Somehow I always new it, even at the tender age of six. But I had the cowboy outfit, I was the leader of the posse.

The only problem was; I wanted to be the Indian. I wanted to tear off the outfit, draw two lines on my cheeks with the dark brown mud of the earth and run bare chested through the neighborhood. I wanted to ride my pinto pony ( imaginary of course) and shout the Comanche cry "Yeeeiii, Yeeeiii!" for all the world to hear. We had no idea what the Comanche yell really was, but at 5 or 6, that was all we needed to raise our blood and make us feel like true warriors of the great Comanche nation. I never got to fill my lungs with the sweet air of spring and let forth the mighty call. I was the one with the Cowboy outfit.

One summer day while hiding in the tall grass, somewhere out west on the frontiers of civilization, (the corner lot across the street from the big stone house) waiting for the blood thirsty savages to come riding along, the modern twentieth century came intruding into my universe. Some blackguard had thrown a beer bottle out a car window and it had smashed in the field where I had been playing. The pieces had been obscured by the tall grass and I didn’t see them. I had dove for cover right into a shard of dark emerald green glass and received a nasty deep cut right in the middle of my palm. There was nobody else around. They had all taken up positions somewhere else in the neighborhood. The glare of the noonday sun beat down on the black cowboy hat, the silver buttons shimmering too brightly to look at. My deep red blood ran forth, mingling with the tall green grass and dark brown earth. 

I wasn’t scared or panicked. I just sat there for awhile looking at it. I pulled the shard from my hand and wondered what to do next. What would an Indian warrior do if he got cut?

Here I am, stranded in the great frontier of the west. How would I stop the bleeding and treat the wound? These are the things I was thinking when he came.

The Medicine Man came walking through the golden, hip high grass from across the street and stood before me. He was dressed in what was at one time a rather nice black suit. But now it showed the signs of many years of service and was just the tiniest bit too small. There were patches on the elbows that were beginning to show through. There was no mistaking his features. The high cheekbones and the proud and powerful nose. The tan and redden skin of his face and the dark black hair which was over long for that time and looked like he had cut it himself with the horned handled knife he carried. I don’t remember him as being overly tall. But standing straight and proud in front of me, he seemed a giant. 

He bent down and took my hand in his, which made my hand look even smaller than it was, a mere little pink pebble in his. He never said a word but proceeded to wipe the blood from my wound with a red and white handkerchief he withdrew from his rear pocket. He than produced a leather pouch from somewhere inside his coat and extracted a packet of tan powder from the pouch. Wiping my wound once again, he carefully sprinkled it with the tan powder. He looked around him and gathered a handful of tall grass and cut it low to the ground with his knife. He placed a small clump of a brownish mossy looking substance on top of the tan powder and held it in place by tying the grass around my hand. I didn’t feel anything. My hand didn’t hurt nor did the tan powder sting or burn. Everything just felt cool and soothing and the bleeding had stopped. 

The last I remember seeing of the Medicine Man he was walking back through the golden hip high grass from where he had come. Then was gone. Now being only 5 or 6 at the time, I never told anyone. I think for some reason, that is how the Medicine Man wanted it. Sometimes I wonder if it really happened or if it was a delusion brought on by the shock of my injury. One of the reasons I wonder is because of where he walked through the golden hip high grass from across the street from where I was. If you remember, across the street from the lot is a big stone house. There is no field of golden hip high grass. But then I still have his gift and I know he was real.

I think of him often. Especially when I cut myself, which isn’t too often thank goodness. Or when I need to have something or other cut, removed, or repaired by a doctor. You see, he has left me a gift. I heal really fast. Even doctors and surgeons have commented how fast I heal. It’s nothing that would be considered miraculous, but it does draw note. I know in my heart that it is a gift from my Medicine Man.

Now this should be the end of the story and it nearly is. Except for something that happened many years later. As a young man in my twenties I had an occasion to drive across country heading for California. Somewhere out west and I don’t remember where anymore, I stopped at a gas station to refuel and stretch my legs. It was a hot summer day and the sun was beating down from over head. As I came out of the store sipping from the bottled drink in my hand I walked around the side of the station. There, across the street, was the very field of golden hip high grass that the Medicine Man had walked through. The grass in the foreground and the hills in the distance were exactly as I remembered them. I almost expected to see him come walking through the field again. I walked back into the store and asked the middle aged attendant if there was a Medicine Man around here. He said not that he knew and that was that. My memory has faded and I curse myself from time to time that I cannot remember even the name of the state I was in or that I didn’t spend a little more time back then to find the Medicine Man. Maybe one day after I retire, I will retrace my route and see if I can again find the place of my Medicine Man. I don’t know what I would do if I ever found him; maybe just thank him. But somehow I think he knows, for he has never really left me. He is always here, in my mind and in my heart. 

I still carry a scar in the palm of my right hand from the cut I received. Over the years it has faded and is little more than a reddish mark anymore. What is interesting about the mark is that it is in the shape of a feather, with the ‘Life Line’ forming the quill.

C.C.Keiser