The Traveling Man

The Traveling Man


I'm a traveling man by nature. I just get up and go whenever the mood hits me. Down in Australia they call it going walkabout. I have seen some unusual places and met some unique and interesting people in my time. However, nothing I've seen or heard and no one I've met compares to this little place I went to one time way down south of the border.
Can't rightly remember the name of that little place or even where it was, but I remember well what I heard while I was there. Seems all those folks suffered from the same sad affliction. Not one of these poor folks down there ever slept. And I don't mean they only slept a few hours a night, no sir. I mean they never slept a wink, they were wide awake twenty-four hours a day. Strange thing was that it was only the locals that was affected.
Seems how the government had got wind of this here tale and sent Scientists and doctors and such down there to check out this situation. They had been in this town for six months or so and not a one of them was affected.
Well, after I heard all this, I got real curious and had to check it out. So I made my way down to this little place as fast as I could. Once I got there I quickly made my way to the local cantina.
What a place that was. As you can imagine with folks never sleeping, it was always open and always busy. The scientific and Doctor types I met there were more than willing to talk. Seems they had been running all kinds of tests and examinations on the local folks and their food and water supplies. Even had one guy testing the soil they grew their food in. Even with all their fancy equipment and whatnot they still couldn't make heads nor tails of the situation. Getting real frustrated, they were. Couldn't even get the locals to tell them why they thought this was going on.
So after a couple of months of getting nowheres, they took to testing on themselves. Instead of eating and drinking the supplies they had brung with them, they started buying their food locally and drinking from the towns community water supply. It never affected those doctors. Said they still went to bed each night and slept like babies. Said it was the most confusing situation and like it or not, they weren't coming up with any answers.
Well, about a week after I went out there those scientific types all packed up and left. Said the higher ups had pulled their funding due to lack of any findings on their part. When they left town I had never seen a more disgruntled looking group of educated folks. Seems they had had their hearts set on solving this issue and becoming famous.
After the last van load pulled out of town, the locals set up a whoop and holler like I ain't never heard before. Apparently they weren't to partial to outsiders sticking their noses into places they didn't belong.
That night they had a fiesta. Well, I wrangled myself an invite to their shindig. And boys, let me tell you that it was there that I heard the strangest story. See, there was this little old lady. I could tell she was someone important in this town. Not because of any one reason in particular, mostly it was her eyes that told me. I could see the wisdom and years brimming in her clear, bright brown eyes .A more gentle soul I've never met, but if one of those children she was constantly surrounded by put one foot out of step, she had a voice of steel that put that child back on the right path instantly.
Anyway, this lady was some kind of local doctor. You know, a tribal medicine woman. Now, I can't tell you if it is true or not, but she told a story that night that I will never forget. Apparently a long time ago, right at the beginning of time, there was a tribal village right smack in the self same place as that little town.
This tribe was a peaceful, fun-loving tribe. Their favorite time of the day was when the sun got real hot and high up in the sky. That's when these tribal folk took their daily siesta. These folks loved their siesta more than anything. More than planting and harvesting, more than hunting and gathering, even more than spending quality time with their little ones.
So as time went by, they started sleeping more and working less and spending less time teaching and raising their children. Well, there was a very wise medicine woman who lived in the mountains close by. She came to the village regularly to look after the health of all those who lived there.
She noticed that as time went by the villagers were spending more and more time sleeping and less and less time working and preparing for the long, hard winter to come. She knew through her special powers that this was going to be the worst winter in history and even though she tried to warn the villagers, she saw that each time she visited the village the villagers were sleeping more and more and nothing was being done to prepare. Those folks just got lazier and lazier until final they were sleeping all the time.
Well, spring turned to summer and summer to fall and fall to winter, just like it promises to do in the Good Lord's Book. It was the worst winter ever. Those folks just weren't ready for it. Since it was so cold and there was no firewood or food, those folks just settled in to sleep the winter through. Hibernating like bears they was. The poor hungry children were left to fend for themselves.
So the oldest child in the group rounded all the little ones up and headed off through the mountains. After a long hard walk, the children found the lodge of the medicine woman. She took those little ones into her home and fed and clothed them throughout the winter.
Once spring had started to thaw things out, the medicine woman packed up all her things and headed back down the mountain with the children. When they finally reached the village, she saw something that filled her with so much anger that she couldn't hold it in.
Those folks were still asleep! The whole village was falling apart. There wasn't a lodge left standing. Old man winter had had a fine time there and no one had bothered to fix or repair a thing. In a blinding fury the old woman struck out at the villagers closest to her. Those old boys came awake with a holler. She went through the entire village like a whirlwind and woke up all the villagers. As she was waking them up, and none to gently, she put them to work setting things to rights. Some she put to repairing lodges, some to hunting and some to gathering and some to planting.
Before a week was out the villagers had put everything back to the way it should have been .But the medicine woman was still angry. She summoned all those folks to the village green. She told them that they had fallen prey to an evil spirit. One that made them forget their responsibilities and think only of themselves. That's why they slept through the whole winter and didn't even realize their children were going hungry and had been gone the whole winter. She told them that the Great Spirit had told her that He was angry at the villagers for hibernating like bears. That's not what they had been created to do. She said that from then on she would be responsible for taking care of the children and that she was putting a curse on the people that would not allow them to sleep. Ever again. From that moment on those poor folks never slept a wink.
Next day I decided it was time for me to be moving on. I was making my good-byes at the cantina when the wise woman who had told the story came walking by surrounded by children as usual. I says to her that that was an interesting story she had told the night before. I asked her was it one that she had learned from her mother or grandmother. She just looked at me and said," The stories we tell the best are the ones we have lived." Then she just walked away with her group of children. I was flabbergasted.
Was she saying that she was the medicine woman in the story? As I drove away in my Jeep I did realize one odd thing. There were no cemeteries there. Surely a town of that age would have cemeteries or burial grounds or something. Now you folks can decide for yourselves whether you believe this story or not. I can't make that decision for you. I can only tell you what I've heard and seen. Yes sir, that was definitely one of the strangest places I've ever been.