Dear Tom,
I want to tell you about your mother. Before the bad things, before the wrong that I've done, before I tell you what the owl told me in my dream, I want to tell you the kind of woman that she was and the kind of woman that she wasn't.
She had skin as soft as the petal of a rose. She had the sad eyes of a good dog. She was small like a child but had the wounded heart of a man who'd returned home safely from an unjust war. She was a child in years when we fell in love, but she was a woman. I tell you that plain. She was grown in mind and spirit, and she was uncorruptable.
Great wisdom can strike the young in times of great crisis - and your mother was such a victim. You know about the crash. You know about the way she suffered and how she survived, because I took you there. Do you remember? Do you remember the rusted hulk of the Chrysler? Do you remember the space in which she lay pinned? A person who lives through such an ordeal cannot help but be transformed.
The Cheyenne were a strong people to begin with. Their tales speak of warriors with great strength of heart. Your mother was a Cheyenne. I, as you know, am from the Crow people, and in days of old it was common to raid the villages and steal women for jheir Cheyenne blood. For the son of such a union would indeed grow to become a man of perseverance and will. A son of strength.
That's what your mother was. Her spirit could light up the night sky. Her birth name was Catherine Bowes but after the crash took away the remenants of her past, she took the name of Cathy Lake. The lake at night is a mystical place. She loved the sound of the loons, and the moonglow rising silver as it spilled itself across the surface of the water.
Remember the blood that flows through you Tom. Cheyenne blood. Crow blood. A son of strength. It is time you sought your past. It is time for your Indian name.
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