PROLOGUE

 

 

The year was 1950. The place; the Badlands, a southwest region of South Dakota known for its unique, rugged terrain with stark eroded buttes and canyons. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, located within the Badlands, served as the home of the Oglala Sioux Lakotas, an esteemed subgroup of the Great Sioux Nation. The Sioux Lakotas were renowned for being formidable warriors, fiercely protective of their sacred burial grounds.             

    Through a mysterious time travel, a sixteen-year-old boy named Eddie Shavers found himself standing over a sacred burial ground plot located within the reservation. The African American teenager, son of a successful Louisiana seafood distributor, had been living with his father and grandmother in a restored Colonial mansion located a few miles outside of the city of Leesville, Louisiana and set deep in the woods down a narrow gravel road off US Highway 190. The mansion, which was originally an eighteen-thousand-square-foot plantation, had been previously purchased from the state and remodeled into a mansion by a tobacco farmer named James Ramsey. Ramsey had sold it to the Shavers family in 1960.
    Eddie had dreams of becoming a star on his high school football team. But to achieve that glory, he would first need to go through a transformation to uncover deep secrets about his heritage; secrets that would teach him valuable life lessons and forever change the course of his destiny.

    It all began when his beloved grandfather suddenly died, but returned to the mansion as a ghostly spirit, encapsulated in a tall standing mirror in the mansion’s attic. After learning of Eddie’s dream, the ghost used a mystical power to tunnel Eddie through past decades to the Badlands and back to 1950.

    The time travel had ended when Eddie landed on an open field right before a twister was about to sweep across the land.

    But through a mysterious encounter with a border collie-bloodhound mix, they got led Eddie to a nearby mountain cave for safety until the twister passed. The dog subsequently led Eddie for miles until they reached the safe confines of a campsite, which just happened to be the staging site for the illegal excavation team. There, he was introduced to members of the excavation team and their nefarious antiquities dealer named Archibald “Hawkeye’ Shavers. He also met a local Indian travel scout named Johnny Red Moon and Dottie Shavers, the wife of Hawkeye Shavers, who was in the process of delivering a baby. Little did he know that these two people would be instrumental in his journey of discovery.

    The next day, shortly after the excavation team had departed to begin their illegal dig at the burial ground, Eddie, with the help of the collie-bloodhound mix he named Butch Cassidy, decided to secretly trail the team to the site, hoping he would find a way to get home.

    Eddie arrived at the site in time to be greeted by Johnny Red Moon who led him from nearby woods up to the gravesite. Hawkeye and Eddie watched as Johnny Red Moon helped diggers uncover a mysterious, inscribed medallion with unknown powers.

    Meanwhile, local tribesman had learned of the diggers' plans, which violated a long-standing treaty between the Sioux Nation and the U.S. Government to respect their sacred burial grounds.

    The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1968 had been established to safeguard the Great Sioux Reservation, encompassing areas considered sacred by the Sioux people. The Sioux warriors were already upset over the U.S. government’s repeated failure to uphold its promises to protect sacred sites to include burial grounds. Although the treaty didn’t include the Badlands and was limited to the Black Hills, this intrusion by this excavation team had just added fuel to a long-burning fire by the entire Sioux Nations against violations of their land.

    The warriors decided to mount an attack against the diggers to drive the intruders away from their sacred land. Their plan was to ambush everybody in sight to send a message to future prospective diggers.

    As an attack loomed, Johnny immediately received a spiritual sign from the spiritual Gods. So, he proceeded to secretly keep possession of the excavated medallion while other diggers were busy securing their finds. He managed to sneak Eddie away from the burial ground, right before the attack ensued, and escorted him to the safe confines of a nearby abandoned barn. At the barn, Johnny Red Moon led Eddie to a stable where he’d left his horse and a newborn baby swaddled in a baby basket, nestled safely on top of a haystack. Johnny had taken the baby from Dottie Shavers, Hawkeye’s wife, per her request, to save the baby from being in the crossfires of what she feared would be a follow-on attack by the warriors on their campsite. But Johnny had other plans than to take the baby to safety. This baby was a spiritually appointed child with a divine mission that would forever change Eddie’s life.

    Johnny saddled the baby upon the horse and instructed Eddie to ride to a spot in the Badlands’ open country where he could expect a miracle to happen. But what was the miracle, and how was Eddie to be led there?

    It wouldn’t be a person that would lead him to that spot, which was over thirty miles away. Johnny instructed Eddie to follow a moving cumulus cloud they observed in the sky outside the barn, a cloud with the image of Eddie’s late grandfather, Phillipe (Pepe) Shavers, embedded in it.

    Eddie climbed onto the Nikita horse, secured the baby basket across his lap, and rode after the cloud, leaving behind the barn and the Pine River Reservation. As he rode for over an hour, he became sore from the constant bumping of the horse’s left hip against his bony buttocks. He had no prior experience riding horses. Thus, he didn’t have the wherewithal to find the soft spots on the horse’s hip to cushion himself for a long ride like most cowboys.

    After following the cloud for an hour, while enduring the sweltering afternoon sun, he glanced and noticed that his late grandfather Pepe’s face had suddenly disappeared from inside the cloud and it was now just a puffy merging of cumulus circles.

   This must be the place, he murmured to himself as he pulled back on the reins of the bridle to halt the horses’ trot. Then he surveyed the immediate ground below his horse’s hooves. It looked different than he remembered when he first woke up days earlier from his time travel.

    He quickly dismounted the horse and checked the basket to see how the infant was doing. Little Phillipe was crying, having suffered a headache from the bumpy ride... He assumed the infant was also crying because he was hungry since he hadn’t been fed since his mother Dottie’s morning nursing. It was now mid-afternoon, and he feared the infant would soon become sick or dehydrated if he didn’t get the infant to a safe place or back to his mother soon. But Johnny Red Moon had instructed Eddie to trust him and stay at the location upon arrival. But what’s supposed to happen, now he murmured to himself, wondering.

    He’d checked the saddle bag and found nothing to soothe the infant, no pacifier, no bottle of milk, no teething ring, nothing. Suddenly, he felt himself in a panic. He was out in the middle of nowhere with a two-day-old infant and nothing but a canteen of water and some beef jerky, which the infant couldn’t consume even in small bites without teeth. Even if little Phillipe could swallow, the last thing he wanted was for the infant to be aggravated by a stomach ailment. He had no experience of taking care of a newborn, which now terrified him.

   Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the sky turned black, and the wind began to blow strongly. It was like a solar eclipse had emerged in the middle of the day. Simultaneously, Eddie felt very drowsy. He dropped to his knees and then fell to the ground. He felt like all his energy was being ripped out of his body and all the oxygen from his lungs. Knowing he was responsible for the infant’s safety, he struggled to keep his eyes open and mind coherent.

   Then, he heard the infant make a gurgling noise. With all his composure, he rose and groggily stumbled over to the horse. He stared into the baby basket and saw a wide, cute smile on the infant’s face. Little Phillipe had stopped crying and had shockingly managed to calm himself. Eddie was elated that the infant recognized him.

   Suddenly came a warm sensation in his jeans right pocket, where he was carrying the medallion that Johnny had given him. He pulled it out and held it in his right palm. The medallion felt warm and was glowing. What mystified Eddie the most was that the medallion appeared to have become larger when Johnny first gave it to him, after digging it up at the burial ground. Eddie could sense that something strange and supernatural was about to happen.

   He glanced again into the basket and heard the infant utter the word, ‘Lakota’. Eddie’s eyes bugged out with shock. How is this even possible? A newborn baby can’t talk, he stammered to himself. He did not know that the son of Archibald and Dottie Shavers was born with both a unique talent and a distinct purpose.

    At that moment, the area around him began spinning. Eddie became dizzy and disoriented. He felt himself losing his balance and he experienced a sudden sense of weightlessness, like gravity no longer existed.

   Then, before his eyes was a flashing of blinding, white loud, followed by a loud whooshing sound. He felt himself being propelled backwards and spinning upside down. Then he felt himself being sucked into a centripetal force into what appeared to be a white, hurricane-like funnel.

    It would be Eddie Shaver’s last memory of the Badlands region of South Dakota.

 

CHAPTER 1

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     On a humid August afternoon in Louisiana, a thunderous BOOM rang out inside the attic of the Shavers' mansion. A thick plume of smoke filled the room, followed a heavy thud sound, as a body landed hard on the attic floor. Eddie Shavers groaned as he regained consciousness. The teenager gradually strained his way to a sitting position as he began to cough out prairie dust from his lungs. He stared around the room, recognizing that it was his family's attic. For a moment, everything was blurry as he felt disoriented. But then, as his vision cleared, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He dropped his hands to the floor, confusingly feeling for prairie grass. But his knuckles contacted the hard flooring. He realized what had just happened. He’d mysteriously time-traveled back from the Badlands of South Dakota to his home outside of Leesville, Louisiana. 

    What’s happening? he murmured to himself. He struggled to his feet and dashed over to the attic’s entry door. He reached down, pulled open the hatch, and shouted, “Grandma, are you in this house?” He shouted a second time louder, “Grandma, are you here?”

     There was no answer, no voices, no sounds. The entire mansion seemed erringly quiet.

     A look of extreme disappointment emerged onto his face, followed by a lamenting prolonged sigh. He remembered that his grandmother Nellie had been missing for days before he’d time-traveled to the Badlands. Suddenly, he felt a deep sense of fear as he became worried.

     He tiptoed cautiously over to the standing mirror located in front of the center wall of the attic. There was a large plume of smoke surrounding it. As he stood there brushing prairie dust off his clothes, he waited patiently and motionlessly for a moment. Then, the smoke began to disappear from the room, and the entire mirror’s front surface became clearly visible. Suddenly, a well-dressed elderly man’s body appeared encapsulated inside the reflective surface.

     It was the ghost of his grandfather Pepe, looking the same as before the time travel.

     With a wide, cheerful, grin on his face, the ghost of Pepe asked him, “Did you enjoy your trip back in time, grandson?”

     Eddie glanced down at his pants leg and brushed away the residual dust, which he realized was the dust he’d brought back with him from the Badlands. He also picked prickly sandburs off his socks. Now, any remaining thought that the entire episode in 1950 was just a prolonged bad dream was wiped out of his mind. He realized he’d time travelled and was relieved to be back home.

     There was a little space between the mirror’s reflective coating and the wood edges, so he eased over and saw part of his own reflection. It made him realize that what he was experiencing was real. But something about his own appearance had changed. Eddie realized his once full, throw-back Afro was now much shorter.

    “My Afro! What happened to it?” he asked the ghost.

    “Things happen to your body when you move through time,” the ghost revealed to Eddie. Are you upset by this?”

    Eddie sighed and replied, “No, I guess I should be glad I came through in one piece. I’m still trying to process all this.”

    The ghost chuckled and added, “If you must know, you passed through the 70s in your travels and left your Afrostyle hairdo behind. These kinds of things happen during time travel. Fortunate for you, it wasn’t your hands or your toes.”

    Eddie sighed, shook his head in acknowledgement, and replied, “Word! “Is that why my Apple Watch’s GPS was working initially when I first woke up in South Dakota, then it later stopped?”

    The ghost smiled and replied, “You’re very inquisitive, my grandson, and you are correct.”

    Eddie quickly shifted his tone and inquiry. “Now that I’m back, where is my grandma?

    “Nellie is fine,” the ghost responded warmly.

    Snappy, Eddie retorted in a demanding tone, “That’s not what I asked, grandpa … or the ghost of grandpa, whoever you are. I need to see her, to know that she’s okay.”

    The ghost sighed heavily then replied, “I will tell you where Nellie is, but first we must talk about what you learned on your time travel adventure.”

    Eddie resigned himself to the realization that the ghost was still in charge, and he was served best to play along if he wanted to see his grandmother soon. So, he moved over and flopped down on the bean bag. “I’m exhausted and totally stressed out by all this,” Eddie revealed to him. “So, can we cut to the chase here?”

    The ghost folded his arm and said, “I’m waiting on you.”

    Eddie raised his voice in anger, “Okay!” Eddie sighed heavily, then asked, “Am I supposed to say that I learned to trust the right people... like I trusted Johnny Red Moon? I could’ve learned that lesson without all this drama.

    The ghost chuckled, shook his head, and argued, “I beg to differ that you wouldn’t. Think about what happened to you on and off the gridiron.”

    Eddie replied, “No. Those were my failures, and I own them. What did that have to do with you sending me back in some stupid time travel to meet you in another life and in the form of a dog, a baby, and a cloud?”

    The ghost chuckled, “If it was only that simple. Look inside your right pants pocket.”

    With that prompt, Eddie raised up off the bean bag, walked back over to the mirror, and stared inquisitively at the ghost. Suddenly, Eddie’s pants became warm, like he’d urinated in them. He reached inside the pocket and pulled out the medallion. It was bright yellow and glowing.

    Eddie’s eyes lit up with delight. His expression quickly returned to a frown. “This thing is cool and all, with its magical powers, but what does all this mean? Why was it important for me to keep this? Why did Johnny Red Moon give it to me?”

    The ghost was about to reply when Eddie interrupted him as another worrisome thought entered his mind. “Wait, I want to know how this all happened. One minute I was standing by this horse with this baby in a basket tied to the saddle and then, WHOOSH, I’m back here.”

    The ghost chuckled softly, then responded, “Now that you’re back, I will answer all your questions in time, but first. . . .”

    Eddie interrupted again, with anxiousness. “Look, I’m not cooperating with all this until I know that what happened to Johnny Red Moon, the baby Phillipe, the dog I called Butch Cassidy, and that fine Nikita horse. Are they all safe? They became my friends.”

    The ghost continued, “Why don’t I just show you. Just come close to this mirror and watch. Don’t be alarmed at what’s about to happen, just stay steady and watch.”

    Suddenly, smoke appeared in the mirror as the ghost’s image disappeared. Eddie cautiously eased back away from the mirror. As the smoke disappeared, a round screen appeared in the center of the mirror, which encapsulated the sight of the Badlands in 1950. Eddie’s eyes bugged out in shock. It was like being at a movie theater. He momentarily thought to himself, How is this possible? But he quickly composed himself as his curiosity overshadowed his bewilderment. He realized everything was possible with this ghost and subliminally reminded himself to just go with the flow and not be intimidated by anything happening. He felt if anything he was witnessing was going to do him harm, it would’ve happened by now.

​

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CHAPTER 2

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As Eddie squatted down on his knees in a more comfortable position, the circular screen encapsulated in the mirror began playing a video, taking Eddie back to the land he’d left, the Badlands in 1950.

​

    Johnny Red Moon noticed three Lakota warriors on horseback rapidly approaching the barn’s east end. Their intent was to burn it down in revenge. Johnny bolted out the back door and managed to sprint over to the nearby woods without being seen by the approaching warriors. He stopped inside the tree line to catch his breath and then glanced back at the barn. He witnessed the three warriors approaching the barn’s front door. One of them dismounted from the horse and proceeded inside the barn, holding a bottle of alcohol with a rag hanging out. The warrior lit the rag on fire, then tossed it into a large stack of hay located in a stall. The entire barn was instantly set ablaze and began quickly burning.

    Johnny had to react quickly. He jaunted through the woods undetected and began jogging until he reached a clearing. It was the spot the ghost had taken Eddie to disengage with that time.

    He paused for a moment to catch his breath. In the distance, Johnny noticed the baby basket laying in the open grass area. Next to it was the dog named Butch Cassidy and the Nikita horse. He was astonished and relieved to see that neither the horse nor the dog had left the basket’s side. Amazingly, they were standing guard over the baby, to protect it from any predators until a human arrived to take possession of it.

    Johnny was temporarily gassed and stooped lower to the ground to inhale more air. Suddenly, his ears picked up the vibration of rumbling horse hoofs. He rose up and looked toward the top of a ridge to his north and observed two more Lakota warriors on horses cresting the hilltop about two hundred yards away. He quickly reached into his bag and pulled out a hand-held spyglass he’d received as a gift from a traveler. Peering through the scope, he noticed the warriors pointing in the direction of the baby basket. He glanced around the area and saw nothing but open prairie. So, he assumed they had spotted the basket in the open and were ready to take off in that direction to seize it. He realized he had to reach the basket before the warriors got there. He assumed that if the warriors reached the basket fi rst, the horse or the dog would attack them to protect the baby, and then they would be shot.

​

Eddie was beginning to shake with fear as he watched, knowing he had no control with the outcome of the situation but terrified at the thought of horse and dog being hurt. But he had no choice but to try and control his nerves and watch the story play out.

​

    Desperate to reach the baby before the warriors, Johnny began sprinting towards the horse at breakneck speed, faster than any human had run before.

    Johnny made it to the horse before the warriors. But they were about a hundred yards away and closing fast. One of the warriors discharged a warning shot in his direction, narrowly missing him. Johnny stayed focused. He quickly lifted Butch Cassidy up into his right arm, and then the baby in his left, threw himself onto the horse, pulled strongly onto his reins, and the horse galloped away.

    The warriors rode up to the spot, noticed the horse galloping away toward the east. The same warrior who had fired at Johnny before, aimed and fired again in Johnny’s direction. But again, the firing warrior missed his target. All three warriors stared, befuddled. The shooting warrior was a pistol expert and known to be the best shooter of the three. Being Natives of a spiritual land, they wondered if there had been some mysterious divine intervention. But before he could fire another round, his warrior mate grabbed the pistol from him. Speaking in the Lakota language, the two warriors reminded the shooter that pursuing the fleeing Johnny Red Moon and the baby wasn’t their current mission. They had been tasked by the tribal elder to stop the invaders and not allow any illegal grave digger to escape. So, they rode off in the opposite direction towards Pine Reservation burial ground.

​

Eddie sucked in a big sigh of relief as the screen within the mirror went blank. He still wondered deeply where Johnny was heading with Baby Phillipe but was relieved that he’d taken possession of young Phillipe in time to save him from the warriors. The sincerity that Johnny had displayed to him gave Eddie some confidence that Johnny would be taking the baby somewhere safe until his mother Dottie could come back for him.

   Suddenly, with another loud whooshing sound, smoke surrounded the mirror and a few seconds later, the ghost of Pepe reappeared, encapsulated in the glass.

   “That’s it?” Eddie asked, unsatisfied.

   “That’s all you need to see for now,” the ghost replied. “Aren’t you happy with what took place?” the ghost asked him.

   “Of course!” Eddie replied with his voice cracking. “Thank God they’re safe. Then, Eddie asked in rapid succession, “But what happened at the burial ground? Did the diggers all get stopped by the warriors? What about Miss Dottie? Did she survive all this?

   “I’m afraid I can’t show you the end to that tale. You might find it too disturbing,” the ghost admitted. “I didn’t say that anything bad happened to them,” the ghost responded, withholding. “You will find out their fate, in time. But you must trust me for now that you don’t need to worry. You must learn the power of trust.”

   “Alright,” Eddie replied, shrugging with confusion. Then, he asked, “So, what’s coming next?”

   The ghost then said, “You should be more interested in the power of the medallion and what it can do to help you reach your destiny.”

   Eddie, not satisfied, grabbed the medallion out of his pants pockets, and held it in his hand. He asked, “Is this the same medallion as the one you gave me before the time travel?”

   The ghost replied, “No, it’s not the same one. This one is more powerful. The one you buried with me only enabled you to go back in time. The one in your hand enabled you to return and will inevitably lead you to uncover secrets that will change your life. But success will only come if you trust in it, show patience, and accept its intervention.”

    Eddie stood silent momentarily and stared at the medallion with curiosity. He didn’t understand the ghost’s cryptic replies, but he was now too invested to question the ghost’s directions. As the medallion’s glow vanished, Eddie placed in back into his pants pocket. Then Eddie said to the ghost in a strong tone, “Look grandpa, I’m not leaving this attic until you tell me everything about his medallion and what happened to Johnny and Dottie. This conversation has done nothing but made me more confused.”