The Last Pendragons: Book II - The Oracles at Painted Mesa

Angels."

EXHIBIT 1

[The following document, written in Buck’s own hand, appears to have been intended by him to serve as the Introduction to what follows. The notes are mine. PJT]

Initial Speculations

In the beginning, God said: Let there be light.³

In the beginning was the Word.⁴

How is this contradiction to be reconciled? Were there two beginnings? Or one? If two, which came first? Or were they simultaneous? If one, did it begin with sight or speech?

Of course, Light is not sight, and Word is not speech. But Light is the essence of sight (literally and figuratively), even as Word is the heart of speech. And mind, the foundation of each, is in them clearly implied. Yet, all are metaphors, either constructs of mind or creations of God. And mind and God are themselves metaphors.

Metaphors beget metaphors in the rhythmic reproductive cycle of sacred texts.

But where did the begetting begin? With God? With Light? With Word? Is Light God? Is Word God? When God called forth Light and revealed Word, was God creating God? Revealing God? To whom? For whom? Why?

In the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God.⁵ And the Word was the life and light of the world.⁶ And the Word became flesh.⁷

But in the beginning (the original beginning), did Light precede truth? Did Word precede meaning? Which came first? Metaphor or molecule? Sperm or egg? Are they co-eternal? Co-equal? Co-conspirators? Identical? Can we know? Does it matter?

Clouds of questions blow fiercely across the skin of the seven seas of consciousness as slippery meanings race madly, mischievously, beneath undulating waves and particles. Slick symbols rise swiftly toward the surface, speed through occluded shafts of chiaroscuro that play upon their shifting shapes, then dive again to unfathomable depths. In the waterless deserts, too, the breed rushes on—wild, precarious, often unpleasant and poisonous, invariably tenacious, always obscure under hot rocks, behind prickly saguaros, beyond dry clicking winds.

In wastelands and in oceans, their natural habitats, meanings and truths so rarely break the surface of sand or sea, emerging never in sunlight and rarely in moonlight, that those insomniacs catching glimpses of them in dreams, memories, or reflections are habitually disbelieved and discounted, while the conscious and conscientious few who pursue them systematically are predictably dismissed in peer reviews as unreliable or unholy.

Stalking the elusive assumption is ever painful and painstaking, a work of heavy burdens and scant benefits with never a payoff even for the persistent, the stubborn, the zealous. At least, almost never. There are small, scarce, extraordinary exceptions (anomalies, really)—unique, immeasurable, non-demonstrable, unverifiable—materializing in knotty, unruly, subversive narratives that confound the sacred and the profane and give rise to conspiracy theories and ghost stories.

What follows is one of them—anecdotal evidence that proves the rule of naturalistic positivism⁸ by confirming itself as the exception.

The first documented and published references to the mystery we have sought to unravel appeared in a small, Arizona weekly alternative newspaper, The Reservation, under the byline of its stubborn and impossibly skeptical editor, Jack Millhouse, Jr., now both [editor and paper] defunct.

³ Gen. 1:3.

⁴ John 1:1.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ John 1:4

⁷ John 1:14

⁸ Buck was probably referring to logical positivism (also referred to as logical empiricism, rational empiricism, or neo-positivism), a school of philosophy that combines positivism (i.e., that authentic knowledge must be based on empirical evidence) with apriorism (i.e., that some propositions can be held true without empirical support). A central tenet of logical positivism, which arose in the 1920s and 1930s out of Moritz Schlick’s Vienna Circle, is that metaphysical, theological and ethical sentences are meaningless except to express the subjective feelings or desires of the speaker and that only mathematical, logical and scientific statements are literally meaningful or have truth values.

EXHIBIT 2

[The following news story appeared in The Reservation, in the July 4-5, 1996, issue and was stapled, probably by Buck, to the last page of his handwritten Initial Speculations. PJT]

HOPIS CONTEMPLATE CHAPTER 11 TO SALVAGE TRIBAL LANDS

July 4-5, 1996

TUBA CITY, AZ. The Hopi Tribal Council is contemplating filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy to prevent private interests from acquiring ritually significant lands at an upcoming state auction. The land in question, called Painted Mesa, lies outside the southwest corner of the Navajo Reservation, east of Flagstaff along an imaginary line connecting Wupatki and Walnut Canyon adjacent to the Painted Desert.

For several years the Council has attempted, without success, to correct an error of law resulting in the exclusion of approximately 660 acres of land, known locally as Painted Mesa, from the 102-year-old treaty establishing the Hopi reservation in the center of the Navajo reservation. Recently, Hopi efforts have been stalled again, perhaps permanently.

Several bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress proposing to amend the Federal land grant covering the disputed acreage, now provisionally managed by the BLM. But pressure from private business interests led by an obscure company, known only by the acronym CFS, has so far frustrated tribal hopes for enactment of remedial legislation.

Unless an extension is granted, BLM management is scheduled to terminate on July 31, after which Painted Mesa will fall under the jurisdiction of the Arizona Department of Public Lands, whose director, Dion Mylroie, has already given notice of intent to offer the property to the highest bidder at a public auction set next year. The move is calculated to end the protracted dispute.

Tribal Council members believe the Hopi will be outbid.

We’re up against a rich and powerful somebody, said one Council member, who wished to remain anonymous. I don’t know why somebody would want it so bad. It’s not worth hardly anything, but it has great ritual meaning.

Karen Wellman, secretary to the Council, said, It’ll be embarrassing to go bankrupt, but it looks like we won’t save it [Painted Mesa] unless we do.

Wellman indicated that the tribe has retained a bankruptcy lawyer and is gathering evidence to prove conclusively that the disputed land is ceremonially significant to the Hopi and should have been part of the reservation all along.

EXHIBIT 3

[The following news story appeared in the March 30, 1997, issue of The Reservation and was also stapled to Buck’s Initial Speculations. PJT]

NAU PROF. SUICIDE LINKED TO GAMBLING DEBTS

March 30, 1997

FLAGSTAFF, AZ. Northern Arizona University anthropology professor, Alan Wyatt, was found dead in his Tuba City motel room on the morning of July 26. His throat had been slit with his own pocket knife.

Police ruled out foul play and are calling it a suicide. Prof. Wyatt’s fingerprints alone appeared on the knife, and there was no sign of forced entry.

He had no enemies or family, and very few friends. I count myself privileged to be one of them, said Dr. Rachel Henniger, Wyatt’s mentor and retired Anthropology Department Chair at the University of Arizona in Tucson. His death makes no sense to me, said Dr. Henniger.

Police found evidence of Wyatt’s accumulated gambling debts over the last two years exceeding $80,000. In the past year, Wyatt made a series of irregular withdrawals of large sums from his bank accounts and pension plan, entirely depleting his financial resources. There is no record of any corresponding expenditures. Further evidence of suicide is Wyatt’s last journal entry, written in his own hand: What an unbearable nightmare—not enough pay. Impossible deadline. Worried. Scared.

Wyatt was on sabbatical leave in Tuba City completing a research assignment related to the Hopi’s claim to some 600 acres of allegedly sacred land located near the Painted Desert and scheduled for public auction on July 31, 1997.

EXHIBIT 4

Interview with Magdalene Conti Cryst

[The following appears to be a transcription of a tape-recorded interview (made sometime in April 1997) with Magdalene Conti Cryst, who was hired by the Hopi Tribal council to serve as its bankruptcy counsel. PJT]

Describe myself? Nobody has asked me to do that before. Where should I begin? At the top I suppose. I’m a brunette. Short hair. Brown eyes. Fair skin—I sunburn easily. I’m 5’8" tall in my high heels. Slight frame. I spend about 30 minutes a day on the running machine to stay that way. I like chocolate, shoes, and the desert. I live in a two bedroom condo in St. Johns [Arizona], and I just got my bar license here—although I’ve been a California lawyer for years.

Boalt Hall⁹ was where I earned by law degree back in 1975.¹⁰ I was a pioneer then—at 25—as a woman in law school. Now, just turned 46 and divorced, I’m no longer a pioneer. I have one child, a son 20, who lives with me off and on. Right now he’s working as a legal assistant in a law office in Utah and lives with his ultra-conservative Mormon grandparents—the Crysts.

I kept my married last name—Cryst—after my divorce, so my kid wouldn’t think I was abandoning him. I thought about changing it. But what’s the point of giving up your husband’s surname just so you can go back to your father’s. Women never had their own last names. They were considered property either of their father or their husband. I’ve always thought of myself as Magdalene. The Conti and the Cryst are just for show on legal documents. I’ve heard that some women, lately, are making up their own last names. I never thought of that option. It’s not practical if you’ve got kids and want them to feel part of a family. So, you sacrifice.

After his father died, I was glad I didn’t change it. Yes, my husband died—my ex-husband. It’s over seven years now—November 17, 1989. He was killed in a plane crash just before the divorce was final—which meant I was still his wife and was able to collect the death benefit. This was just before Thanksgiving, ironically. Talk about Karma.¹¹ But I managed to feel like a divorcee and a widow at the same time. We survived. We’re great survivors we are—although sometimes I wonder why.

Anyway, that’s a little background.

The law wasn’t my first career choice. My first choice was to be happily married to a faithful, understanding, passionate man who was totally absorbed with me. Dumb, huh?! When I finally realized that this was a fantasy, I went to law school to protect myself against poverty. I knew a divorce was likely, if not inevitable. We stayed together for a long time just for the kid. Our divorce was final in 1989. I got into bankruptcy practice as a fluke. I figured I’d be more marketable to a large firm if I had an expertise in something nobody else knew about. In 1978, the Bankruptcy Code¹² had just been passed. It didn’t take effect until October of 1979. So, I studied and made myself an expert. Between ’79 and ’89, I practiced in a small, Los Angeles firm. Then I applied and was appointed to be a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee.¹³ That lasted about four years. I quit and was hired as the attorney for one of the Standing Chapter 13 trustees.¹⁴ That lasted about six months. The poor man died of a heart attack in 1994, probably because of the bad treatment he got from the United States Trustee’s Office. They started tightening standards on him in 1993. They had him under audit when he hired me. He was stressed to hell. He was completely honest, but his records were not shipshape. They kept threatening to take away his cases. Finally, in February of ’94, he had a stroke and died several days later. I was appointed to fill his place. It was the biggest mistake of my life—worse than getting married to a Mormon. I wasn’t in my job a month before I really understood why my predecessor got a stroke. After two years, I was about to have one myself. So, on July 4, 1996, I resigned. Just like that. It was a gesture of liberty and defiance. I just walked away. I was fed up with the abuse.

My walk-out wasn’t that courageous. I have an annuity from my parents and my husband’s death left me with a substantial death benefit. And there was the flight insurance. Fortunately, our divorce was not yet final when he was killed.

In late summer of last year [1996], I moved to St. Johns. My son came along with me to help me get settled in. I’d heard about St. Johns from my ex’s parents. They are originally from here. It was the most non-stressful place I could think of. I got an apartment and right away, barely under the deadline, took the Arizona bar exam and, while waiting for the results, got a position as a paralegal in a local St. Johns office for a mid-sized Mesa law firm. I passed, miraculously, and then started working for the Hopi Tribe, I think in December of ’96, to see if a Chapter 11 petition could be filed to stop the land grab of Painted Mesa.

⁹ The University of California at Berkeley School of Law, founded in 1894 as The Department of Jurisprudence, elevated to the School of Jurisprudence in 1912, renamed the School of Law in 1950, and originally located in Boalt Memorial Hall of Law erected in 1911 with funds largely contributed by Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt in memory of her then late husband John Henry Boalt.

¹⁰ I have found no student records of either a Magdalene Conti or a Magdalene Cryst at the Berkeley Law School.

¹¹ Karma is an ancient Sanskrit word referring to activity or action and their results and is described in a number of Dharmic religions (e.g., Hinduism and Buddhism) as the sum of all that an individual has done, is currently doing, and will do.

¹² 11 United States Code Sections 101, et seq.

¹³ A Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee is the official assigned to manage the Chapter 7 bankruptcy estate and who becomes the legal owner of the Chapter 7 debtor’s assets and is charged with the liquidation of equities for the payment of the debtor’s just debts.

¹⁴ A Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee is the official assigned to manage the Chapter 13 bankruptcy estate, to oversee the debtor Chapter 13 plan of repayment, and to collect the debtor’s monthly Chapter 13 payments and disburse those funds to the debtor’s creditors. The term Standing refers to the fact that, unlike a Chapter 7 trustee’s whose commissions are earned in each separate assigned Chapter 7 case, a Chapter 13 trustee is compensated out of the aggregate commissions earned from the oversight of all assigned and pending Chapter 13 cases.

EXHIBIT 5

Interview with Karen Wellman

[The following is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview (made sometime in April 1997) with Karen Wellman, a secretary with the Hopi Tribal council. PJT]

I’m shy. I went to Arizona State.¹⁵ I don’t like to talk about myself. So I don’t know what to say. I went to college, and got good at paper work. I like writing poems. I got the job with the [Hopi] council. I’m organized. I don’t mind the work. I like being bored. I only wish things had stayed boring. Before this, nothing much interesting happened to me. Except maybe once.

It was the time I took a plane trip up to Salt Lake City on tribal business. I was traveling with some others. We all had different seats all over the plane. My seat was by the aisle. I sat down and all of a sudden out of nowhere come these two little people – a man and a woman. I’d never seen them before. I never noticed them in the airport line waiting to get on the plane. But there they were. They were real little. Not midgets or dwarfs, but little. Just like regular proportions, but small.

And they were weird. They looked weird and they acted real weird. They had little cameras. So they come charging up the aisle toward me, and the little man doesn’t even stop or wait for me to get out of my seat to let him in the row. He put his little bum down on my knees like I wasn’t even there and then he pivots over and slides into the seat next to me -- he was that small.

I was shocked. I wanted to say, Excuse me! But I couldn’t say a thing. And then his wife—I guess it was his wife, but it could have been his sister because she was just as little as him--she starts to come in after him, but I jump up in time so she doesn’t put her bum on me. I must have had my mouth open.

Then they start taking pictures of everything. Not just out the window, but of the inside of the plane, like the air conditioning vents, the people coming up the aisle, the magazines. I’m thinking, can this get any weirder?

It does. They never talk, but kind of sign to each other – but not like deaf people. I start to freak out, looking around to see if anybody else is watching this. But everybody is buckling up, and the flight lady starts giving her speech. So I decide to close my eyes and just concentrate on what she’s saying and pay these little people no mind.

When lunch is served they take pictures of the lunch. That did it. I got up like to go to the bathroom and found another seat and sat there. I was glad there was another seat open.

When it came time to get off the plane, I passed the little people in the aisle. They were sitting in their seats sleeping with their heads together, their cameras on their laps. Cute, but weird.

That’s the strangest thing that ever happened to me until I met Buck.

Buck says I need to tell more about myself. I don’t know what to say. I’m not married. I have no boyfriend. I’m a little overweight, but I do yoga—which is not a Hopi thing. I was raised by my grandmother. I went to high school in Hurricane, UT¹⁶ and lived with some Mormons there who were very nice, but a little weird, but not like the little people on the plane. I’m a fairly good cook, which is maybe not a good thing because I like to eat too much. I like Buck, as a friend; but some of the things he says are weird, too. I like to write poetry, mostly about the Hopi. They are mostly sad. Here is