I'm climbing a mountain in New Mexico with my spirit wife Silky. Early spring--cold but clear, patches of snow from a last light fall... but lilies are starting to poke through. At the summit we find a ruined stone tower. Here we meet a local woman who offers to be our guide; says "I'm a shaman, and can change into a wolf; a good shape for finding my way in snow."

I'm excited--want to learn the wolf-form from her! We trek deeper into the Sangre de Cristos, and soon get used to seeing this wolf-woman around in either shape.

So used to it, in fact, that I doubt my own eyes when the wolf attacks Silky! "Wolves don't attack people like this!" I keep stuttering to myself as I tried to drag the huge gray wolf off her with my hands... it leaps away and Silky struggles up, nicked and bruised and furious.

She tears off after the wolf, as I realize I was quite right: no true wolf would have done that. I assumed that anyone who learned enough Power to change form like that would be wise and good! I'm so mad at this false friend who got us alone to attack us, that I bound after Silky.

She's following wolf-tracks in the thin snow, on the tower's outer walkway. Silky stands on the stone wall. "where'd she go?"

"Over the edge!"

"But even as a wolf, it's such as steep drop..." True -- a good 20 or 30 meters down to a ravine floor. "She wasn't just a wolf -- I saw. She grew eagle wings to stabilize and slow her fall!"

This hits me like a bullet--I don't stop to think at all, but leap over the wall and down the cliff after our enemy--scrambling down the hillside, tail and claws and wings stabilizing. And Silky follows me! We're so furious that a shaman could have that much power and misuse it, that we're provoked into unconsciously matching that power.

Scoping prints, we soar down the ravine, two wingwolves on our betrayer's tail.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

As I woke, I slowly saw I'd missed something--my sense of humor! We wanted to learn how to be wolves? She taught us what we asked for! Despite all the Navaho folklore warning skinwalkers are trouble, we went ahead and acted like suckers. We should be grateful we got an honest wolf--playing rough is still playing!

What triggered the dream? Well... probably Walt Disney. Saw a TV movie, "Houdini and Gray Wolf": the young Houdini on the road with Gray Wolf, a shaman who's no stage magician but the real thing. That is, a real Disney Indian.

Guess my dream, insulted by Disney, wanted to remind me how real tricksters teach.

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