Spirits seemed to walk the canyon rim that morning, rising as clouds of mist from the waking earth. Alex Nakai dropped softly to his knees in the moist earth, squinting into the sun that peeked through an apricot cloud above the mesa top. Light sparkled in the water droplets that clung to the nearby piñon and juniper trees from last night’s rain. The thin spines of a yucca plant cast its shadow next to his own on the sandy canyon floor and he resumed his tedious task.

With a gentle determined hand, he brushed at the cool dirt in the crevice between two sandstone slabs. Bit by bit, each parting grain of sand fell away to reveal the tiny skeleton he labored over. He’d thought it was the remains of a small animal, possibly a rabbit. Now with each stroke of the soft brush, the realization came.

The perfectly preserved skeleton of an ancient infant, its tiny spine, arms and legs curled in a fetal position, lay exposed to the warming rays of light. A burst of air escaped his lips as a mixture of feelings ran through him ending with a heaviness in his chest. His jaw clenched against his gut reaction. He put his hand to the bridge of his nose and pushed at the corners of his eyes, defying a tear to attempt an escape.

Remnants of an ancient burial cloth clung to the bones and a thin strip of beaded rawhide was still visible around the tiny skull. Next to the delicate bones lay a crushed, but still distinguishable piece of pottery. Tiny and fragile, like the child itself, the vessel had no doubt carried the nectar of the gods into the next world.

He picked up a small shard of the pot and rubbed it between his fingers. Examining it with a careful eye, he squeezed it tight to his palm. This fragment of the past could prove to be greatly significant to his career. It could prove to be the key to the mysterious connection that had haunted his mind for months. Now, it faded into oblivion next to a storm brewing in his soul.

Kneeling in the heartland of his ancestral past, he felt his native history for the first time. Myriad thoughts and feelings vibrated through him. Life. Death. Roots. Beginnings and endings. A rebirth of the spirit, his spirit, seemed destined to begin. Images of things that were, and those yet to be, walked on moccasin-covered feet through his mind. The remains of a long dead civilization were intertwined with his own ancestral dawning in the sanctity of a tiny grave.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. It gave new meaning to his oneness with the earth. Yet it symbolized a new beginning that festered in his soul, unidentified and nagging. Here lay undeniable proof of ancient suffering, of his people’s painful history and of the loss of not just life, but of a way of life. It touched him, slammed him face first into his own mortality, into his own fragile existence, and into his own heritage.

He moved his dirt-covered finger gently down the tiny skull and arm then carefully covered it again, returning the sands of many ages to their rightful home.

“I’ll not disturb your sleep, little one,” he whispered as he patted the earth, sealing their secret away for eternity. For a moment, he studied the tiny piece of the vessel in his palm, then pushed it deep into his pocket. Sitting back on his knees in the cool moist earth and looking up into the morning sun, a haunting picture formed in his mind’s eye.

The buckskin clad chieftain rubbed the dark wisps of hair on the baby boy’s head and smiled as he brought the soft roundness to his lips and kissed it, savoring the smell of the child’s newness. Holding him skyward, to the full moon overhead, he offered his son for the blessing of the gods.

“Sin atsa, you shall be called,” the leader said with great love and pride. “Song of the Eagle. It will be your song that one day will carry the prayers of the people to the gods. For you are the next chosen one among us.”

The chief lay the baby in its mother’s arms and she cuddled the child to her breast beneath the warmth of the buffalo robe that encircled her shoulders. The man chanted and danced around the fire that burned in the fire pit of the great temple.

“Hay na na. Hay na na,” the chief repeated over and over as the flames of the fire reached skyward, sending tiny sparks along with the hope of the future high into the smoke filled night air.

Alex sat back on his heels, eyes closed and face to the sky. The vision in his mind was gone now. The imprint of this moment and its emotion on his soul would not vanish so quickly.