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The door closed, leaving White Fire alone. He began walking slowly around the room, his eyes darting here and there, his senses alive, waiting for what might happen next.
After only a few minutes of being alone, his back stiffened, for he was very aware of a lot of strong energy and emotion from the past which seemed suddenly to be in the room.
He took a quick step backward and he gasped when a mysterious white, shimmering light appeared along the far wall, then moved closer to him.
Scarcely breathing, trying to stay rational and alert during this eerie happening, White Fire continued to watch the shimmering light as it approached the old oak desk that Colonel Snelling had personally chosen those many years ago for his study.
White Fire gasped and his knees grew weak from wonder when the light now turned into the face of a man, then his full figure in a cavalry officer’s uniform, a pipe clasped between his teeth and pursed lips. There was no doubt that White Fire was being visited by his old friend Josiah Snelling.
Breathless, stunned, White Fire watched as the wavering, hazy likeness of his friend settled into the chair behind the desk.
The likeness of Colonel Snelling rested the pipe he had been smoking on an ashtray and took another pipe from the pipe stand.
In awe, White Fire watched as the colonel lit the pipe and began smoking it.
“Josiah?” White Fire found the courage to say. “I don’t understand how this can be happening, but I welcome the opportunity to be with you again.”
He could tell by Josiah’s wide smile that he was glad to see that White Fire was at the fort, alive and well.
“It was with much regret when I returned from my three year captivity with the Sioux and discovered that you were . . . were . . .” White Fire stammered, unable to say the word “dead.”
He watched as the colonel became more absorbed in thumbing through one of his journals, than in listening to him.
“Josiah, I so miss you,” White Fire blurted out. “Never have I had, or will ever have again, such a friend as you.”
When the likeness of the colonel stayed absorbed in the journal, not responding to White Fire’s comments about their friendship, it was then that he understood that the colonel had come back to him in this way not to renew their friendship, but to show him something that was in the journal.
A particular page was found and left open for him to see. He went behind the desk and started to read it.
Instead, he was stunned by the quickness in how the colonel’s likeness faded away, leaving no trace of him having been there . . . except for the one missing pipe. He had taken the pipe with him into his afterworld. But the smell of the tobacco lingered on.
White Fire looked quickly around the room to see if the mysterious light might reappear, and with it the likeness of his friend. But he saw nothing except for the usual furniture, the rows after rows of books, and—
White Fire’s eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat when suddenly someone playfully slapped him on the back. He swung around and saw that no one was there!
But he knew that he was still not alone. Although he could not see Josiah, he knew that he was there. The slap on the back was like those which Josiah had always playfully given him when they laughed and chatted together about things of interest to them both.
“You are still here,” White Fire whispered. “I feel it. I know it.”
His eyes were drawn quickly back to the journal when the pages fluttered as though a breeze from a window had stirred them.
He looked quickly at the windows, and then at the double doors that led to a balcony, and saw that none of them were open.
“You are still trying to tell me something about the journal, aren’t you?” White Fire whispered.
He rushed back to the desk and sat down in the chair. Slowly his eyes pored over the entries, growing cold the longer he looked and the more he read.
“So now I see why you have come back,” White Fire said, the journal entries showing that Colonel Russell was spending tons of money to build up the arsenal at the fort, purchasing many more firearms than could ever be used, unless . . . the colonel was planning an attack against the Indians in this area.
“You came to warn me about the arms buildup,” White Fire said, gazing slowly around the room, hoping to see the colonel’s likeness again. “You, who kept peace in the area, at all cost, want Colonel Russell stopped. You want to avert a tragedy for this entire area.”
He understood well enough what this all meant. The Indian tribes of the Minnesota Territory had always visited the fort and disposed of their furs peacefully. They had always been given cause to trust the white-eyed pony soldiers. They would never expect an all-out attack on their villages.
For the sake of Minnesota, the red and white skins alike, White Fire must see that Colonel Russell was stopped.
White Fire quickly copied the figures from the pages of the journal onto a piece of paper and slipped it into his breeches front pocket.
He rose and looked slowly around the room. He gave a mock salute. “Josiah, all of the Minnesota Territory thanks you,” he whispered. Then he left the room.
