Reign of the Buffalo: Book 1 Read online

  Chapter 1: Southern Comfort

  Wilson was playing kickball with his little brother Michael in the front yard when his grandmother stuck her head out of the house and called him.

  “Wilson!” she yelled. The boy tossed the ball to his little brother and ran into the house.

  “Yes, Grandma?”

  “Go across the street to see if Nana Ama is hungry.”

  “Do I have to? Why can’t you send Uncle Charlie?”

  “Do as I say, boy. Don’t give me any backtalk.”

  Wilson stomped out of the house.

  “Where are you going?” asked Michael as he tried to bounce the ball on his knees. Wilson ignored him and walked out of the yard to the road. After looking both ways, he quickly ran across. Wilson looked back at his brother, kicking the ball carelessly in the afternoon sun.

  “Lucky dork,” he complained. He didn’t understand why Grandma Noya always gave him tasks while Michael was left to frolic amongst the joys of summer. Although he was about to turn thirteen, Wilson didn’t appreciate all his grandmother's responsibility.

  “Does she think I’m an adult or something?” he mumbled under his breath. A full-grown man was living in the house with them. Wilson’s Uncle Charlie spent most of his days in the backroom glued to the tv and rarely came out for anything other than a hot plate of food. Why couldn’t he help with some of the chores? Instead, he sat around the house like a log and never lifted a finger.

  When the boys visited Grandma Noya’s house during the summers, there was always work for Wilson to do. Instead of showering the boy with kisses and gifts like most grandmothers, Grandma Noya gave Wilson a list of chores that seemed to grow longer by the day. From the time his parents disappeared in the sunset until they returned three months later, Grandma Noya leaned on Wilson like he was the man of the house. Never mind the fact that he was only eight years old. From slopping the hogs to helping milk the cows and burning the trash. There wasn’t a single day that went by in which his grandmother wasn’t applying pressure.

  Wilson walked a few feet up the small hill and stopped. Sitting on the hilltop was his great grandmother’s house, baking in the Georgia sun.

  Both he and his brother Michael hated visiting the house on the other side of the road. The old house was terrifying. There were days when Wilson and his brother sat on his grandmother’s porch and watched the evil-looking fortress, waiting on some supernatural event to occur. Sometimes, they’d try to guess how many dead bodies were inside.

  The house was the kind of place that haunted children in their dreams. The structure seemed to lean inward and outward in all directions while standing upright in none. Instead of being surrounded by green grass, the house was surrounded by brownish sand, making it seem like the scary place was sitting on an island. The property was surrounded by a badly rotting fence that looked like a giant beast's rotting teeth to the children.

  “I hate this shit!” Wilson cursed. He frequently swore when not in adults' presence, which was an excellent time to let the expletives fly. Just like Michael, Wilson was afraid of the house, but he was more afraid of who was inside: his Nana Ama.

  Nana Ama lived alone in the old house. She was a Cherokee Native American, and her world within her home was absent of the traditional comforts Wilson enjoyed at the house across the street. There were no tv, radios, or microwaves. Instead, Nana Ama’s house had hand-carved furniture, rich multicolored tapestries, and nature paintings. There were only three photos in the place, and all of them had the same two people in them; a much younger Nana Ama standing next to a tall Black man, both with smileless expressions on their faces and standing a few feet apart. The man was her husband, Wilson Jones, who was mysteriously murdered one night on his way home from working in the fields. And although Wilson shared the same name with the man, Grandma Noya instructed him to never speak of him. Ever.

  There were no electric appliances in Nana Ama’s kitchen. Instead, her kitchen had numerous wooden bowls, strangely shaped utensils, and countless other items that Wilson had never seen. Nana Ama didn’t have an electric stove in her kitchen either. She made meals with a giant rusty iron contraption sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. She heated her oven with wood, which made her house smell like it was perpetually on fire. To Wilson, the place was like walking on a different planet.

  Wilson’s Great Grandmother’s appearance was equally strange to him. Nana Ama’s skin was a reddish-bronze color and flawless. There were no wrinkles on her face because she never displayed emotion. Her body was thin without an ounce of fat. Aside from her long silver-gray hair, no one would have ever guessed that she was 104 years old.

  But the thing that terrified Wilson the most about Nana Ama was her eyes; one of them was light blue, and the other was cloudy white. When Wilson had first seen Nana Ama’s eyes, he screamed and ran out of the room. Looking into Nana Ama’s white eye made Wilson feel like hundreds of little worms were crawling beneath his skin. Later his grandmother tried to assure him that Nana Ama’s eyeball was just a normal one.

  “Nana Ama is blind out of that eye,” his grandmother told him. “She got hit in the eye with a rock when she was a child, and her eye changed color because she lost her vision.”

  But Wilson knew better. There was something unnatural about Nana Ama, and he didn’t care what his grandmother said. His great-grandmother wasn’t like everyone else, and the old woman scared him to his core.

  Nana Ama spent all her days alone in the house. There were no maids or helpers who visited. Only her daughter, Grandma Noya, went to the home three times per day to make meals for her. Day after day, Nana Ama sat alone in her bedroom, staring out into the dark forest at the edge of the backyard.

  “Grandma, why does Nana Ama stay in that big house alone?” Wilson had asked after seeing his Great Grandmother.

  “She likes the quiet,” Grandma Noya replied. “The noise of the world upsets her.”

  Indeed, the old woman was quiet. In the four summers that Wilson and Michael had visited, Wilson had only heard her speak twice. Once, when a doctor came to the house to check her blood pressure. Another when Grandma Noya had threatened a man from the IRS.

  “Go or die,” Nana Ama had said to the White businessman. The sound of her voice was worse than her appearance; it was deep and forceful. Wisely, the man backed out of the room and never returned.

  Wilson opened the old gate and stumbled across the sandy yard to the front porch. He knocked on the old door before turning the knob to open it. Wilson stuck his head into the damp house to announce his arrival.

  “Nana Ama? It’s Wilson. I’m coming in, okay?” he yelled. His voice echoed through the empty house like an open well. There was no response. After taking a deep breath, Wilson walked into the house and closed the door behind him. Taking giant steps, he walked quickly to the rear of the house where Nana Ama’s bedroom was.

  “Nana Ama? Can I come in?” he asked after knocking on the large wooden door. He knew his Great Grandmother wouldn’t respond, yet he announced his presence anyway. Grandma Noya told him it was rude for a man to enter a woman’s bedroom without revealing his intentions.

  “I’m coming in now, okay?” he said. Slowly, he pushed the door open. Usually, Nana Ama would be seated in the large rocking chair in front of the window. This time the rocking chair was empty. Instead, he saw the old woman’s figure through the sheer canopy curtains. She was lying in bed.

  “Nana Ama?” Wilson asked. “Grandma Noya wanted me to tell you that she’s coming over to cook lunch for you. Are you hungry?”

  She didn’t respond. Wilson walked to the side of the bed. He gently pushed aside the sheer curtain to look at his Great Grandmother. She seemed to be
sleeping. Her long silver hair spread out across the pillows. Wilson could see that although Nana Ama was lying underneath the blanket, she was fully dressed. He recognized the dress she was wearing – her wedding dress; he’d seen Nana Ama wearing it in the photo in the living room.

  “Nana Ama?” asked Wilson as he moved closer. He started to feel nervous. He couldn’t see his Great Grandmother’s chest moving up and down. Cautiously, he placed his hand above her face to see if he could feel her breath.

  Suddenly the old woman’s hand shot up and locked on Wilson’s wrist. The child screamed out in surprise. He tried to let go, but Nana Ama wouldn’t release him.

  “Please, Nana! It hurts!” he cried out. The old woman’s eyes opened wide, and she turned to look at Wilson.

  “The buffalo! You must bring forth their spirits!” she hissed. Wilson struggled to pull his arm away, but his Great Grandmother’s grip was like a vice. Wilson tried to fall to the floor so that she would let go. Instead of releasing his arm, Nana Ama’s grip tightened, her long fingernails dug into Wilson’s skin.

  “Aaaaahhh! Let me go!”

  The woman’s eyes focused on the child’s eyes. Wilson could feel his heart pounding heavily in his chest. Soon he was struggling to breathe. As he dangled above the floor, his Great Grandmother began cackling out loud.

  “Please…Please…” begged Wilson. He was becoming lightheaded. Drool started to pour out of his mouth. With her right hand, Nana Ama placed her palm across his right eye and forehead. The room began to get dark to Wilson. He was seconds from passing out when his Great Grandmother dropped him on the floor. He didn’t stand up. Instead, he crawled towards the door, terrified. Nana Ama threw back the blankets and walked towards the boy as he crawled towards the front door.

  “The evil is coming from the underworld. You must protect!”

  Wilson stopped crawling away. Instead, he curled up in a ball on the floor and covered his ears.

  “Grandma Noya! Help!”

  Nana Ama stood above him with her white eye staring into Wilson’s face. Finally, she took a deep breath and smiled.

  “My Wilson. I have chosen well.”

  The old woman collapsed in the middle of the bedroom with her eyes open. Wilson didn’t wait around to see if she was alive. He sprinted out of the house to get his Grandma Noya.

  Chapter 2: Summer’s Eye

  Two weeks after Nana Ama’s funeral, Wilson and his little brother returned to Washington, DC, with their parents. The School year was about to start, and the boys were exhausted from all their summer activities. Under his father's strict eye, Wilson did as he usually did; he started doing math problems from the previous year to refresh his memory. It was an old trick his Dad had taught him to “forget the dumbness of Summer.” After pulling out his math book from the previous school year, Wilson sat at the dining room table. Soon his dad entered the room.

  “I have to go to the supermarket with your mother,” said Wilson’s father. “Be sure you finish those math problems. I’ll be checking as soon as we return.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Suddenly Wilson’s little brother ran into the room.

  “Hey, Dad! Can you bring me some candy back from the store? Please?” begged Michael. His mother walked into the room and grabbed her keys from the counter.

  “Now you know we’re not getting that. You ate enough candy during your visit to your grandmother’s. There’s a bowl of fruit on the table. Eat an apple instead.”

  Michael flopped down at the dining room table and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. As his father walked past, he whispered in the boy’s ear.

  “A candy bar, right?”

  Michael shook his head and smiled.

  “Me too, Dad,” whispered Wilson. His Dad winked at him before walking out of the room.

  As soon as the boys’ mother and father left, Michael took advantage and interrupted his brother’s studies.

  “Hey, Wilson.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s play football on the video game.”

  “I can’t. You just heard Dad tell me he’s going to check my work when he comes back.”

  “It’s just a quick game. Come on.”

  “No. School starts next week, and Dad will be mad for sure.”

  “You’re a chicken shit. Scared that I’ll whip your ass like I always do.”

  “You only won the last game by luck.”

  “You wish.”

  “Then prove it.”

  Wilson delayed studying to play games with his little brother. After losing one game to Michael and beating him in two others, Wilson returned to his studies. When he finished, he went to his bedroom to read a magazine. That is when he started to have trouble with his right eye.

  It started with his eye being watery. As he read his magazine, his eyeball filled with water and dripped down his cheek. After wiping the tears away, he felt a tingling sensation just beneath the eyelid. Wilson assumed that he had gotten dirt in his eye somehow and didn’t make much of it. But the next day, when he woke up, his pillow was drenched as if he’d been crying the whole night. He went to his mother and father to complain, and they told him to rinse his eye out.

  “You’re playing too many video games. Get some rest, and you’ll be fine.”

  On the third day, it was worse. Wilson had to walk around with a paper towel to wipe away all the tears coming from his eye. Still resigned to the fact that too many video games were affecting his eyes, Wilson’s parents didn’t think much of it. But by the time evening arrived, his eyeball was pink. Wilson’s mother got on the phone and made an emergency appointment. The next day they took him to an eye doctor. After looking inside Wilson’s eye, the doctor agreed that video games were the culprit.

  “We see this a lot when summer ends. Kids spend three months in front of the tv on those video games. It’s unhealthy, and eventually, their eyes object by developing irritations. No worries, though. We’ll prescribe an antibiotic and eyedrops. That should stop the problem right away,” the doctor said to his mom.

  But Wilson’s eye didn’t get better. One month later, in addition to the eyeball being watery, it became bloodshot. This time his parents took him to the ophthalmologist to check for an infection. After running a battery of tests, the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with Wilson’s eye. Wilson stood in front of a vision chart and scored 20/20 on his vision test.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the doctor explained. “Other than a little irritation, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with his eye. They’re perfectly normal.”

  Wilson’s mother relaxed a bit after visiting the doctor. She made sure Wilson covered the eye with clean gauze before he showered and forbade him from playing video games. Still, the eyeball continued dripping with tears and remained red.

  On the second month after his first visit to the doctor, Wilson noticed a difference in his vision. A red line sometimes appeared and outlined whatever he was watching. Realizing that his parents were already on edge, Wilson kept the secret to himself and went about his daily activities as if nothing were wrong. But it wasn’t long before a new problem arose - he began to lose sleep. Although Wilson closed his eyes to sleep at night, his eyelid would suddenly pop open, interrupting his slumber and forcing him to stay awake for hours. On the third night of getting only a few hours of sleep, Wilson had no choice but to reveal his secret.

  “What do you mean open?” his mother asked when he went to her with the issue.

  “I mean open. I can still see everything in the room.”

  “Come here. Let me look at your eye.”

  After flushing his eye with eyedrops, his mother pried open his eyelid to look at his eyeball.

  “Dustin!” she yelled out. “Come here!”

  Wilson’s father rushed into the room.

  “What is it?”

  “Look at his eye!”

  Dustin looked into Wilson’s eye and jumped. His ordinarily brown iris had a white dot in the center
of it.

  “What is that?” asked Wilson’s father.

  “We need to get you to the doctor today,” his mother replied.

  Wilson returned to the doctor for the third time, but the doctor couldn’t explain the color change.

  “We’ve run tests for pigmentary glaucoma, iris melanoma, and Horner’s syndrome. All the tests have returned negative,” the doctor explained to Wilson’s mother and father.

  “But something isn’t right. You can see discoloration,” replied Wilson’s mother. “And just this morning, he complained about the eye being unable to remain closed when he sleeps.”

  “Well, we can run an MRI if you want, but I don’t think it’s MS or Tourette’s. Let’s have you monitor him while he sleeps tonight.”

  As the family drove home, Wilson’s parents whispered in the front seat. Wilson and his brother pretended to be asleep but instead were listening to the conversation.

  “This is weird.”

  “Yes, but I think you’re making too big an issue of it. Boys will be boys. When she was a little girl, Nana Ama’s eye…”

  Julia’s face grew white, and a worried look appeared on her face.

  “Oh, my God! I forgot! Nana Ama’s eye! What if Wilson has the same problem? What if it’s hereditary? Maybe we should turn around and go back to inform the doctor.”

  “Inform him of what? My Grandmother’s condition? Nana Ama’s eye was a different thing altogether. The doctor ran all the necessary tests on Wilson. If the problem were serious, Dr. Montgomery would’ve informed us. Stop overreacting.”

  “But what if he missed something, Dustin. You know these doctors screw up every day. What if…”

  Dustin looked in the rearview mirror and saw both his sons staring at them.

  “Let’s talk about this at home, okay?”

  “But if we…”

  “Let’s discuss this at home,” Dustin repeated while nodding at the kids. “Not now.”

  But Wilson and Michael already knew what their mother was going to say to their dad. They had seen the same thing too – in Nana Ama’s eye.