The room is just a log cabin room with a window on each of the outside walls with a double bed and four pillows. Extra blankets are folded on a canvas stool at the foot of the bed. There are rag rugs on the floor and the floor is pine. I notice an old fashioned rocking chair, a metal lamp with a pretty dismal shade on it, a little side table and a small dresser with no mirror. That's it. Oh, and a bathrobe folded on the foot of the bed. I go into the hall. On the other side, there's a single room, too, and at the end is the bathroom.

      There's a sink hanging on a wall with a mirror over it and a big bathtub on claw legs, a commode and a linoleum floor. Several hooks are hung on each side of the mirror on the wall. On the wall back of the bathtub there's a very small glass shelf below a small window with no curtain. This is not a fancy place. Well, it's a mountain chalet, obviously built a long time ago. I wish I could remember if it was here before World War II. When I ask they say no.

      After I relax a little, I unpack and hang up my only outfit other than my jeans and sweaters. I go and make a reservation for the first seating at dinner. There are no people around, and I wonder at this arrangement. Still, when I glance into the dining room I see a bandstand. There are two huge tables seating twelve each, then some more scattered around the walls that seat eight or six. Way over by the big fireplace at the end wall across from the entrance are one or two tables for two.

      In the store-gift shop I buy a coke from a machine and go on the porch with notebooks and sit there. The vision quest has really started now. I will spend the night here in solitude I have a cabin, a river, a valley, an Indian reservation, hot springs. How did I get to such a place? I know I was led here by Smoke Man Dancing. The aspen are still green. Only some of the grasses are turning. I have still to locate Pine Cone Mountain. That name has been singing in my head for two days. The west side of the valley is aspen and cottonwood, birch, pine up higher. The east side is barren rock, scrub pine and brush, manzanita brush, a wild wheat grass, Indian tobacco, lots of skunk cabbage and many grasses I can't name, but the grasses are more abundant on the west side of the valley

      At 5 pm the sun is hitting the tops of the trees and down the river, then up the east side It is beautiful. It moves inches at a time as I watch. A breeze, a small wind, is singing in the Aspens all around the cabins. Oh, I am sure I will dream a dream tonight. It is getting cold as it becomes twilight. I'm glad I brought a sweater.

      Dinner will be at seven-thirty for me, so I go over to bathe and put on a long black wool skirt and a precious red silk blouse cut like a mans shirt. I brought all my turquoise; necklace, beaded hair band, bracelets and two big rings. I have a black and tan shawl with fringe that really is made to put over the end of a couch or on a chair, but I wear it like an Indian blanket.

      My earrings are those strange ones I found on the trip to the Indian gift shop by the Ranchero in Tahama County years ago. A fellow who had been training to be a silversmith had a big box of trial and error stuff he sold by weight. I rummaged through it and found two hoops and I told him couldn't wear them because my ears hurt. He said he'd make me a pair out of the silver in these, about eight dollars worth, and I could pay him for his work if I wanted them. I said I would take them if they did not hurt. They would be ready in a day.

      When I went back, he had made these round very polished silver hoops but not closed. The ends had a little ball on it and they were crossed. They were pliable enough to open and put one side inside the ear and the other in the back of the ear. No hole. No screws. I would have paid more.. He asked for thirty bucks, and he got it. They were my lucky earrings.

      I had a bath and a rest; then put all my citified makeup on.. With my beaded head band and silver earrings I did look exotic for a log cabin, but in way I was so just right. An old lady all set to go out alone.

      I read somewhere about the etiquette of a woman eating alone It made me smile as I wrapped my big blanket around me and walked across the way and up the log steps to the dining room entrance. A big breath in, out slow through the nose. Walk in and up to the young man waiting for arrivals. With a pleasant good evening exchange he said, "We like to seat all the first dinners at the two front tables by the music stands if that will suit you. It is so much more pleasant than eating alone." I hesitated, and he said, "Well?"

      I agreed, "You're right, and I enjoy company. Thank you."

      A middle aged woman is seated to my right and a chair or two away a couple who looked very young. Two men in beautiful hand knit sweaters and jeans are just sitting down at the other end of the table.

      The tables are beautiful pine and very pleasant with flower arrangements, hurricane lanterns with candles lit, but no cloths. Everyone has two wine glasses at their place and there were carafes of red and white wine on the table. I took a tranquilizer before my bath and was satisfied with plain water, not to mention that I never take any alcohol any more. The table was filling with more people. A pretty young black-haired women introduces herself as she sits beside me. "Hi, I'm Ella and you?" I told her I was called Laura, Laura Peoples I said.

      The food was good and hearty, and I needed it. I might not have survived much longer on toast and coffee and a sandwich. My companions were getting very cozy and having a good time. The wine was disappearing. A fellow about late twenties with a cultivated Denver look, plaid shirt, khakis, granny glasses and a nice guitar, set up and played a couple of folk songs I wasn't familiar with Ella got up and went to the guitarist and whispered to him.then came back and sat down. He began playing a ballad and in the middle he stopped and said, "This is for the brave lady who is on a Vision Quest."

      Ella and I had been chatting about my reason for being here. I didn't tell her of my guides. I told her about the fear after my bout with cancer and a little of the story about a Vision Quest just to pique her interest and keep her talking to me. I was really enjoying her company.

      I stay listening to the music and chatting about the American Indian lore I had been learning about. Ella's friend the guitarist is Ben, and he comes over and has coffee with us on his break. The men down at the end of the table keep him busy with requests and tips. Ella, Ben and I agree on a walk together in the morning.

      About 10:30 I say good night and went to go to sleep in the arms of Lupine. It is very cold now and clear and bright as it can only be in the mountains. The stars glitter like glancing lights off icicles. My cabin is warm from the floor heater I clicked on before I left. Changing into a pair of pajamas, I crawl into bed, fully expecting to sleep soundly. I did not.

      I can't sleep. I'm not tossing and turning or worried or having any kind of brainstorm in my head, I'm just wide awake. Is it the coffee I drank, the altitude, company, music, what? I don't know, but I'm not even drowsy.

      At six o'clock I get up and dress warmly. I really want a cup of coffee, so I go over to the main lodge. When I got there, the sign says Breakfast at 7 a.m.

      I feel a little spacy, and my hands begin to sweat, so I decide a good walk around the trail among the cabins might clear me up. I walk past a lovely pool that has water plants in it and a nicely arranged rock garden, up a trail past the cabins, some double and some single. Here and there I see benches under the trees.

      A woman comes down the steps of one of the cabins. It's Ella. She calls to me to come and have coffee with her. She's beautiful in the morning light and spic and span and looks like she just stepped out of a pressing machine. She's wearing loafers and dockers with a bright pink sweater over a red and white striped shirt. With her dark bob and a lot of high color, she doesn't need makeup. I do at my age, but I don't wear any. Since I quit wearing wigs I've had a very close cut pixie haircut. It's easy, if not all that attractive.

      Ella and I sit in friendly silence listening to the birds and the trees waking up and drink coffee. Something about her is very sweet.

      It's cold as only the mountains above the Nevada desert can be cold. Though only September, a winter smell is already in the air. The lodge will close very soon.

      I draw another sketch in my notebook, but it captures nothing of the beauty around me; so I write a poem in the book instead. It's for Beloved my healer and Smoke Man Dancing, my guide. I can feel they're with me.

      Turning to Ella, I say, "Later this morning I'm going to the river and build my medicine wheel. That's why I've come here. I faced the fear of driving the freeways. I faced the fear of walking in crowds alone and eating in far away places all alone hundreds of miles from anyone who knows me, so it's time." I'm thinking, Oh, Guide, you have brought me far.

      "Laurie, is this medicine wheel something you have to do alone?" Ella asks. "Do you want company? It can be pretty dangerous walking these trails. Look at the signs."

      There are signs up all around which say, "Sign in before trail hike. Give destination and trail name. Do not leave trail. If you get lost, stay put." That doesn't affect me too much, a little flutter in my throat. My fear is smaller today.

      "Maybe you and Ben could walk there with me," I tell Ella. She says she'll get him and we'll eat breakfast together.

      We finish our coffee, and I go back to Lupine, my cozy cabin to scrub up and get pretty for breakfast. It's too cold to shower, so a spit bath will have to do. Through the steam on the glass from my washing up, I look young again, but I'd rather be the age I am. Not for me a return to youth.

      I'm almost 65 and ready for the new Visions Smoke Man promised me. I was in my 30s when he first found me. He taught me then that a vision will never hurt you. You must use all your power to stay in yourself and not let your enemies tempt you to come out until you want to. Then come out as yourself if you wish or a rabbit or an eagle and fool them all. Haha, I laugh.. Coyote medicine.

      When I was on my first Vision Quest, I woke with a rock clutched in my hand. Looking closely, I saw it had a crack. I put a nail in it and cracked it open and found a lovely piece of amethyst crystal not fully formed. My, it is lovely, regardless. Later Smoke Man Dancing told me it held a picture of my first vision. I carry it still. He promised then that I'd find peace, and for a long while I did. Until the cancer.

      Beloved never promises anything. She smiles. She pats. She agrees with me and loves me and does whatever I want to do, or she just disappears from me. Then I know I better think over what I am doing. It is then I know I must examine my heart and mind for motives. When I look for her if I am pleasing her she is always there. If I am unwell she is there, whether I please her or not. If I am frightened she whispers, "Look, your path knife is here by you and will cut through your despair." It does. She sings of my power. Power given by the earth.