“Where are you going? Where can I take you?” I asked him. He didn’t reply. He only stared straight ahead. I thought perhaps he was deaf so I asked him again. This time he only smiled to himself and closed his eyes.

We rode along in silence for many miles not passing a single vehicle. The land was empty in all directions as far as the eye could see. Then in a soft, raspy voice he began to speak breaking the heavy silence.

“I have nowhere to go. No one waits for me. Not one of my people is left.” He said this simply as a statement of fact.

Could this be true, I wondered? Surely someone is waiting for him or there is surely somewhere he is going. So I asked him, “Well if you aren’t going anywhere tell me where have you been?”

With a sigh he leaned back against the seat and in a voice soft as a whisper he began to tell me about his life as we drove along….

“I was born in the year l833,” he said slowly. “I was born upon the great prairie where the winds blew free. I slept beneath the stars and watched the sun rise and go down everyday. I fished in the swift-moving streams and I hunted the buffalo. My mother used to sing to me and my father taught me many things.

“When I became a man, I courted my wife with beautiful love songs on my flute. When we became as one she gave me fine, strong sons that I loved very much. In those days there was much happiness.

“Then one day while I was gone on a hunt everything changed. Upon my return my village was found in ashes, all of it burned. My family was gone not even a trace of them could be found. I mourned for days.

“Finally the soldiers in the bluecoats came. They told me I had to go with them to a far away place. We marched for days with very little food to an ugly place with very thick walls that encircled us. They said this was to be my new home and that I could never leave.

“For days my heart cried. My soul tried to leave my body. My mind tried to wither and die inside my head. But I held fast to the memories of my beloved village with the open prairies and the wind sweeping through the tall grasses. I prayed each day to the Creator to save me from this bad place. After a long time my prayers were answered and He let me make myself disappear. I left that ugly place never to return to it again. I tried to find my people but I could not.

“In the place of my village there were strange dwellings with people living there that I did not know. Sadly I left with nowhere to go and nowhere to be. That was all a very long time ago but nothing has changed since then.

“I am not going anywhere. I have nowhere to go. I am just going and I will keep going until the Creator tells me it is time to stop. That is all I can tell you.”

With a pounding heart I stared at him in amazement. I marveled at how he could have survived such sadness and heartbreak. How would it feel to have nowhere to go and no one waiting for you? I glanced at him quickly expecting to see tears running down his leathered, old face but there were none. He sat looking straight ahead as the wind from the window blew his hair around his shoulders and the endless countryside flew by.

We soon were nearing a town and as we approached it he asked me to stop and let him out. He said he needed to get out of the vehicle that he could not breathe in the small space anymore. I let him out on the edge of the road and wondered if he would be allright. I offered him some money but he shook his head saying he had no need of it.

“Where will you go?” I asked him gently.

“Wherever the wind blows,” he said looking deeply into my eyes.

“Will you be okay?” I asked. “I will be fine,” he replied. I wanted to know his name so I asked him. He only smiled at me and then looked off into the distance as if he was seeing something from the past.

“I am just an old man,” he said and then he was gone.

As I drove on I began to wonder had he really been real? Had I really spoken with him? Was it all just a figment of my imagination or a daydream of some long ago thought? Then it suddenly dawned on me. He had said he was born in the year of l833!! That was one hundred sixty eight years ago!! Quickly I turned around in the middle of the road and drove back to look for him.

He was gone. I could not find him. It was like he had vanished into thin air. I pulled over and scanned the horizon hoping to see his bent old figure shuffling along. I looked along the dusty shoulder of the road for his footprints. There were none. He was nowhere to be seen, he was completely gone as if the sky had suddenly swallowed him up. There was nothing to be seen or heard except the hot, dry wind blowing across the land.

As I drove on lost in thoughts of the old man, I felt as if something precious had been ripped from the earth. A haunting thought of what could have been or what should have been tugged at me and lingered like an echo that never ends.

Now the days pass quickly. The wind calls to me. I don’t know where I am going and I can’t remember where I’ve been. In my heart I know I’ll keep going down these endless,lonely roads until the Creator calls ME home.

Sadly I realize one day soon all I know will be gone forever too. There will be nothing familiar left. My time will be past and I too will be “just an old man…..” with no one waiting for me and nowhere to go, remembering a way of life that no longer exists.

As I continue on my journey I know I will never forget that old man. I don’t know if he was real or not but I like to think he is still out there somewhere, watching. When the wind blows through the tall prairie grasses, making them shimmer in the moon light, I like to think he is there smiling and that he has found peace at last. Perhaps one day I will too.


Nighthawk/2001 copyright: Christine H. Lewis