In Our Dreamtime

By James Burrill Angell

In Our Dreamtime is a homage to Hemingways Nick Adams stories. From al Qaedas attack on the US Embassy in Kenya; to a Carlos Castaneda experience gone awry in the Arizona desert; to a cold night under the stars atop a barren Baja peak; to meditations on the Mayan ruins of Palenque; to a calculating female hitchhiker in Wyoming; to the exhumation of Native American burial grounds amidst the chaos of California; to exploring the Himalayas; to intriguing diplomatic courier missions throughout Africa, Afghanistan, China and the Caucasus, join Nick as he experiences the theater of the absurd across the planets surface..

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 16, 1999
• ISBN: 9781469786704

James Burrill Angell

James Burrill Angell received an M.A. in English literature from San Francisco State University and a B.A in English from the University of Oregon. While posted with the Foreign Service overseas, James Burrill Angell has lectured for the University of Maryland Asian Division. His work has appeared in The Foreign Service Journal, The Sun, The Pinehurst Journal & online at AmericanDiplomacy.org.

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Contents

the bone collector

eleuthera

a yankee way of knowledge

shenandoah

starlight over the crevasse

tortuguero

chiapas: part I

iquitos

chiapas: part II

carderock

medicine bow

asuncion

the dig

negev

the edge

bamako

solu khumbu

jhelum

the great game

abyssinia

the iron rooster

lalibela

caucasus

suomenlinna/shahjahanabad

kaleidoscope

starlight over the crevasse notes

About the Author

the bone collector

Later, Nick Barnes remembered sealing classifi ed pouches in the embassy vault when a small explosion, followed by the crack-crack of gunfire, shattered the silence. He’d been sure it was another robbery and recalls stroking his charcoal beard while moving to the garage entrance to see which Nairobi bank was being hit.

The vault where classified material was stored was secured behind a five-inch-thick metal door located in the subterranean parking garage of the chancery building. After exiting through the vault door, he strode up the entrance ramp ten feet away for a view of the fi refight amidst seething humanity just outside the embassy perimeter.

This is all he remembers of what followed: a mammoth explosion hurled him cartwheeling into something hard. He later theorized his body was blown back through the vault door into the only soft items the garage held, classifi ed diplomatic pouches piled against a rear wall. If the blast had slammed him into the wall instead of the pouches, he’d be dead.

He later learned details of the explosion. It had been one of the first attacks carried out by al Qaeda in revenge for American military bases on Saudi soil. The attack had killed twelve of his colleagues and more than 200 Kenyan civilians. The initial bang had come from a grenade tossed by the attackers as they drove a truck full of explosives toward the access gate to the underground garage. The al Qaeda strategy was to tail the mail car that made a daily run into the compound through the gate, then enter the garage and detonate the device. Apparently frustrated at being thwarted by local security guards, the terrorists threw a grenade, hoping to kill the guards and open the gate themselves. When they realized the tenacious Kenyans had stymied their plan, and with time running out, they panicked and set off the truck bomb some distance from the embassy building. Th e glancing blow killed employees inside and outside the embassy, but the majority of casualties were inflicted upon the Kenyans crowding the streets alongside the mission.

After regaining consciousness, he found himself slumped like a contortionist against the orange diplomatic bags: legs splayed, shirt shredded by the heat of the blast and right arm crushed. He moaned instinctively for help, but knew it was in vain: he learned complete silence immediately follows horror. A dull ache began in the stomach so he lifted his left hand to feel for damage. The sticky ooze welling from the belly told him he was in serious trouble. He’d have to save himself.

When he rolled onto his left side the right arm fl opped lifelessly beside him. The pain was excruciating. He pulled himself to his knees, then propped his unsteady body on the left arm. He’d lost his glasses in the explosion and dust fi lled the air, so only a vague rectangle of light outlined the vault door. Shuffling in the direction of the light, he stumbled over bomb debris. He steadied himself against the doorjamb, then lurched into the carnage.

He hobbled toward the garage entrance and daylight through chunks of concrete. The left hand stanched the flow of blood from his abdomen. The seepage was steady, so he staggered alongside the obliterated building to where the embassy’s front entrance and Marine post were located. The short journey was an obstacle course through hell: an incinerated city bus filled with dead lay blackened on the side street bordering the perimeter, while hundreds of corpses littered the area around it. He came around what used to be the corner of the embassy building and saw a colleague emerge from what was left of the front entrance. She was guiding the wounded through an apocalyptic debris field, loading them into one of the few embassy vans the blast had not destroyed. After she helped him to the van, he passed out during the high-speed ride to the central hospital.

He was lying on a gurney in a crowded hospital corridor next to wounded and dying Kenyans. Blood was everywhere, even smeared on walls and fl oors. The acrid smell of burned fl esh filled the air. He remembers being glad to be off the fl oor and somewhat removed from the dirge of pain. When the overwhelmed doctors finally got to him they bandaged his stomach, said it had been punctured by shrapnel, then set his fractured humerus. Later that night he was loaded into a C-141 for the eighteen-hour flight to Andrews Air Base. From there, it was a short trip by ambulance to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he spent the next month having metal plates affi xed to his upper right arm and bits of shrapnel plucked from his gut. He knew he was one of the lucky ones.

Physically sound for the most part, Nick arrived back in Nairobi three months later. The temporary embassy building abutted the bucolic expanse of Nairobi National Park. Th e first weekend back in Kenya he drove his ‘86 Chevy pickup into the Rift Valley. He found the drive from Nairobi over the forested hump of Kikuyu land and down the cactus covered escarpment into the parched Rift cleared the mind, so he made a habit of it. Each weekend following the inaugural drive, he donned his black fishing hat and explored the dirt roads of the valley, with Little Richard, Elvis, Fats Domino and other greats blaring from the pickup’s speakers, sending giraff e, zebra, gazelle and baboon scampering for cover in a trail of billowing rock and roll. The bones of animals were everywhere, especially along dry creek beds. But they were never complete. He would always stop and look for the odd animal bone. Often he found impala, eland, gazelle and topi skulls with the horns still attached. Most of the time, though, it was scattered leg, spine and rib bones he’d toss into his pickup. He would take these remnants back to Nairobi.

On one journey he had halted amidst thick acacia under the bulk of volcanic Mount Lorgunono to observe a family of elephant cows and calves feeding, when a slender, barefooted Masai draped in red cloth emerged from the bush. Th e Masai, who grasped three thin staff s, introduced himself as Ezekiel. Ezekiel noticed the collection of bones in the pickup and offered to show him where more complete skeletons might be found, including a lion carcass.

Ezekiel’s ulterior motive was to get a ride to his village, but he hadn’t been lying about the lion. After they’d bounced and scraped the bottom of the pickup for a half hour, careening down rocky tracks bordered by contorted cacti, Nick was beginning to have doubts about his Masai friend. Then, he saw beside the road a dull, white skull with tufts of tawny mane still attached. Its teeth were set in an eternal growl. Elvis was fi lling the silence with All Shook Up as they leapt from the pickup and circled the grimacing beast. Ezekiel shouted for him to take it, because a territorial rival had killed the creature and animal bones were only protected in the parks. He let out a whoop before hefting the lion’s skull into the back of his pickup with the rest of the collection. Ezekiel pointed out a few leg bones scattered deeper in the bush, and blamed hyenas for the dismemberment. Together they sought out each bone and tossed them into the pickup with the prized skull. He smiled for the first time in months when Ezekiel mentioned the tail was back at his hut.

Called a manyatta, Ezekiel’s home was a one-room stick frame daubed with cattle dung, surrounded by a fence of acacia thorn branches to keep out predators. Ezekiel’s barefoot children, dressed in rags, ran to greet them. Maria, Ezekiel’s wife, emerged from the smoky darkness of the hut wearing the same red cloth as her husband. Hundreds of multicolored beads hung in chokers around her neck while wire triangles decorated with beads dangled from her elongated ears. She held a newborn in her arms and smiled broadly at their visitor. She didn’t speak English, but Ezekiel translated for her. She offered Nick tea. They sat on a fallen log under the shade of an umbrella acacia, sipping the lukewarm liquid. Neighbors stopped by to meet him. In the distance, young boys holding slender staffs moved herds of cattle through the bush as vultures spiraled overhead.

As afternoon wore on, the body ache that intruded when he’d overdone things began. He wanted to return before the carjackers swooped down upon all who dared drive the streets of Nairobi after dark. When Nick made a move to leave, Ezekiel entered the hut’s depths then reappeared holding the well-preserved tail of the lion. Nick insisted the skull was enough, but Ezekiel urged his new friend to take it as long as he promised to return.

He reassured Ezekiel, then coiled the tail on the passenger’s seat and eased in beside it for the jarring drive home. When he pulled away from the manyatta in a cloud of dust, a tape of the Surfaris singing Wipeout was playing. The Masai children waved goodbye wearing huge smiles. He remembered a bag of hard candy in the pickup’s glove compartment and pitched handfuls out the window as the pickup bumped through the sere landscape. In the rearview mirror he watched through dust clouds as kids dashed toward the wrapped crystal miracles, then leapt elatedly as they found and savored one after another.

He carried the lion’s skull to the bungalow’s front porch and placed it next to the collection of gazelle, topi, eland and warthog skulls. Behind the row of skulls a menagerie of spine, leg and rib bones leaned against the house. He added the lion’s mighty femur and tibia to this arrangement, then uncoiled the tail and took it inside, hanging it on the wall beside an assortment of beaded Masai gourds, rongbus and staff s.

His weekend drives into the Rift became necessary. Even when the rainy season arrived, he forded torrents that had been dry a few weeks earlier to watch increasing numbers of game fill the valley, then would visit the Masai. On these trips, he always brought small gifts for the family. In return, Ezekiel gave him fine skulls discovered by his cattle-herding sons.

It was after a lengthy meander through the bush one Sunday afternoon when Ezekiel told him a friend had discovered the complete remains of an elephant. They could take the pickup only so far, Ezekiel said, then hike into a canyon where poachers had most likely killed the bull. Journeying up the newly green flanks of Mt. Lorgunono to an eroded gully of basalt towers, they set off on foot into a canyon of crinkled lava flows. After scrambling for five minutes over jagged magma, they came upon the elephant carcass. Not only had the skull, which was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, been picked clean to a blinding white, but it was attached to a skeleton complete down to every rib of its cavernous cage, with only a few bits of withered skin rustling in the breeze. Its tusks were all that was missing.

He quietly circled the monumental creature while Ezekiel leaned against a staff near the skull, grinning. Ezekiel said he could get neighbors to help load the behemoth into the pickup, but since the bones were so huge they could only do so a few pieces at a time. Ezekiel assured him it would take several weekends, but they could get the beast back to Nairobi.

A month later, with the complete jumbo splayed in the driveway under a basketball net with faded Confederate fl ag backboard, he sat on the porch admiring the array of skull and long bones. He had found the gunshot that killed the bull behind the right ear of its massive cranium. He considered donating the remains to a museum when he left Nairobi so others might be inspired.

Since the bombing it was hard to fill jobs at the embassy, so Nick was able to keep extending his tour one year at a time. After almost being killed in Kenya, the country’s astonishing wildlife, stunning landscape and generosity were reviving him.

eleuthera

nature is the greatest abstract expressionist creating deep blue tidal cuts between convoluted land forms tailing off into capillary like rivulets that dissipate into lighter blue bordering on white shallows offshore puffs of stationary white sand underwater clouds fl oat in azure shallows while cumulus shadows race along the smooth surface eying the sea fl oor for galleons

a yankee way of knowledge

datura / n(NL, genus name, fr. Hindi dhatura jimsonweed) : any of a genus (Datura) of widely distributed strong scented herbs, shrubs, or trees of the poisonous nightshade family

Spring break had fi nally arrived. Nick grabbed a cold beer in celebration and walked into the heat of the backyard. He settled in shade cast by a towering saguaro growing fl ush against the adobe. Other cacti in the yard were ablaze with color. A blue-throated hummingbird darted back and forth between pink, white and purple blossoms, then vanished. Nick raised the bottle moist with condensation to the heat of his brow, then lowered it and took a long satisfying gulp. He knew he needed to get away from the heat and dust of the city. The semester had not gone well. The university was killing his spirit.

The phone rang. Nick moved reluctantly to the kitchen. It was Carl.

-Up for some campin’ in the canyon?

-Nah. Heading off alone tomorrow.

-Don’t want to hike solo in this country, my friend. Never be seen again. Be heaven in those cold pools. Remember?

-Twist away, Carlito! An awesome spot for sure.

-That a yes?

-Too awesome. Okay, you do the shopping; I’ll pick you up around seven.

-Right on.

-Just a couple days now. Need time to sort this university shit out.

-I’ll get the basics and see you here. Bring that mescal we didn’t finish for the ride up.

Nick retreated to the yard with a second beer. He collapsed under the saguaro, ran a hand through his wiry brown hair and contemplated the cloudless sky. The waters of Aravaipa would be invigorating before venturing into the drier Chiricahuas later in the week, he mused. With the moon out it wouldn’t matter what time they got there. He savored each cold swig as desert shadows lengthened.

His backpack was always at the ready for spontaneous trips. After the beers he searched for a crusty pair of sneakers needed to hike the creek. He found them decomposing on a table near the back fence. Since Carl was doing the shopping, Nick was ready. He grabbed what remained of the mescal and strode to the decrepit Bug. He popped the trunk and tossed in the pack and sneakers. His sleeping bag was already inside, partially covering a well-worn copy of River Notes.

After winding through a labyrinth of streets, Nick found the driveway of Carl’s pseudo-adobe. He admired the clarity of the Santa Catalinas as he ambled to the door. Their route would take them around the northern end of the range. Overhead, he noticed wispy cirrus moving in from a disturbance to the Southwest. There would be a classic sunset at twilight.

Nick rapped hard on Carl’s front door, but there was no response. The door was locked, so he yelled through an open window. From deep within he heard a muffl ed, Okay, okay! Back door’s open. Carl was in the bathroom. Nick went around back and let himself in. He strolled through a kitchen deep in dirty dishes then flopped on a dilapidated couch in the living room. A pale Carl entered soon after.

-You all right? Look like you swallowed dog shit, said Nick.

-Ate some jimsonweed.

-What?

-Munched a few flowers from the bush next to the store.

-Dumb fuck. You’ve read Castaneda’s books!

-Be okay when we get on the road.

-Not