Cobalt Blue Summer

Chapter 11

With the next day turning cold and wet, I had the perfect excuse to nab some computer time. Gran dropped me at Lake Lodge on her way to work the early shift, and I tucked myself into a corner chair across from the roaring stone fireplace. Though a few lodge guests mingled around the lobby despite the early hour and the inclement weather, other than those on duty, the area was relatively free of staff members. My sleepless night had brought me to a few conclusions. First, if Yellowstone truly did hold portals to another dimension within its borders, then I couldn’t possibly be the only human to know about them. If nothing else, Native American legends must be packed with stories relating to these gateways. Secondly, difficult as it might be, I had to stay away from Caleb at least until I understood more about what was going on. His safety had to be my number one concern. Whether it really involved another civilization or not, he genuinely believed a threat existed, and that was enough for me. He was the strongest, most solid and self-assured guy I had ever met, and he sensed danger. I wouldn’t take that lightly. I knew I could never forgive myself if I was responsible for putting him in harm’s way.

I started by Googling, “Indian legends of Yellowstone.” The first article that popped up was completely irrelevant, but the second looked promising. As I scanned the article, a quote from a historian named Hiram Chittenden in 1895 caught my attention. “It is a singular fact in the history of the Yellowstone National Park that no knowledge of that country seems to have been derived from the Indians . . . Their deep silence concerning it is therefore no less remarkable than mysterious”(Chittenden 1895:8,99).

Ok, great, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. How could no knowledge of this area be derived from Native Americans? Obviously, they were here long before the white man. I read on. It seemed that historically less was known about Indians in Yellowstone than about Indians anywhere else in the American West. According to the author, Lee H. Whittlesey, “It now turns out that there may be a fascinating reason after all for Chittenden’s comment concerning Indians’ deep silence about Yellowstone.” After thirty years of searching, he came across a source named John Hamilcar Hollister who visited Yellowstone in 1883 with the Rufus Hatch party. Hollister wrote:

                         …there are but few [published] Indian legends which refer to this purposely                                            

                         unknown land. Of these I have found but one [other than for the Indians-fearing-

                      the-geysers story], and that is this—that no white man should ever be told

                      of this inferno, lest he should enter that [Yellowstone] region and form a league

                      with the devils, and by their aid come forth and destroy all Indians. Hence the

                      trappers, who were the first white men to enter these western lands, learned little

                      or nothing [about Yellowstone] from that source [Indians] (Hollister 1912:

                      145).

 The part about “lest he should enter that region and form a league with the devils, and by their aid come forth and destroy all Indians” really caught my eye. Could that be referring to what Caleb and Jolie had called the Meliorem, or was I totally reaching here? I scrolled through the next few pages where I found a few more interesting tidbits.

                   From Hunts-to-Die, a Crow Indian born about 1838, we have it that his tribe

                   believed there were spirits in Yellowstone geyser areas who were benevolent and