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walking toward us.
    "When the shadowy figure came closer to me," Bill went on,
"I noticed that what I had in front of me was an old Indian
dressed in the weirdest getup you could imagine. He had the parapherna
of shamans. The man 1 was with that night fainted shamelessly at the sight of
the old man. The old man came to me and pointed a finger at my
chest. His finger was just skin and bone. He babbled
incomprehensible things to me. By then, the rest of the people had seen the old
man, and started to rush silently toward me. The old man turned to look at
them, and every one of them froze. He harangued them for a
moment. His voice was something unforgettable. It was as if he were talking
from a tube, or as if he had something attached to his mouth that carried the words
out of him. I swear to you that I saw the man talking inside his body, and his
mouth broadcasting the words as a mechanical apparatus. After haranguing the
men, the old man continued walking, past me, past them, and
disappeared, swallowed by the darkness."
    Bill said that the plan to have an initiation ceremony went to pot; it
was never performed; and the men, including the shamans in
charge, were shaking in their boots. He stated that they were so frightened
that they disbanded and left.
    "People who had been friends for years," he went on,
"never spoke to each other again. They claimed that
what they had seen was the apparition of an incredibly old shaman, and that it
would bring bad luck to talk about it among themselves. In
fact, they said that the mere act of setting eyes on one
another would bring them bad luck. Most of them moved away from the area."
    "Why did they feel that talking to each other or seeing each other
would bring them bad luck?" I asked him.
    "Those are their beliefs," he replied. "A vision of that
nature means to them that the apparition spoke to each
of them individually. To have a vision of that nature is, for them, the luck of a lifetime."
    "And what was the individual thing that the vision told each of
them?" 1 asked.
    "Beats me," he replied. "They never explained anything
to me. Every time 1 asked them, they entered into a profound state of
numbness. They hadn't seen anything, they hadn't heard anything. Years
after the event, the man who had fainted next to me swore to me that he had
just faked the faint because he was so frightened that he didn't want to face
the old man, and that what he had to say was understood by everybody at a level
other than language comprehension."
    Bill said that in his case, what the apparition voiced to him he
understood as having to do with his health and his expectations in
life.
    "What do you mean by that?" 1 asked him. "Things are not
that good for me," he confessed. "My body doesn't feel
well."
    "But do you know what is really the matter with you?" I
asked. "Oh, yes," he said nonchalantly. "Doctors have
told me. But I'm not gonna worry about it, or even think about it."
    Bill's revelations left me feeling thoroughly uneasy. This was a facet
of his person that I didn't know. I had always thought that he was
a tough old cookie. I could never conceive of him as vulnerable. I didn't like our
exchange. It was, however, too late for me to retreat. Our trip continued.
    On another occasion, he confided that the shamans of the Southwest were
capable of transforming themselves into different entities, and
that the categorization schemes of "bear shaman" or "mountain
lion shaman," etc., should not be taken as euphemisms or metaphors because
they were not.
    "Would you believe it," he said in a tone of great
admiration, "that there are some shamans who actually become bears, or
mountain lions, or eagles? I'm not exaggerating, nor am I fabricating anything when I say that once I
witnessed the transformation of a shaman who called himself 'River Man," or 'River Shaman,' or
'Proceeding from River, Returning to River.' I was out in the mountains of New Mexico with this shaman.
I was driving for him; he trusted me, and