The Spirit Drummer

In my youth, I loved to sit in the stillness of the Oklahoma night. After the noise and bustle of traffic, car stereos, and neighbors chatting died away, I enjoyed a symphony of sound as nature’s nocturnal children stirred.

Beneath the rustle of raccoons foraging through trash, dogs barking at tip-toeing cats, and the cicada’s cry for rain, I also heard a beating, the tapping of a drum. At first, this rhythmic cadence seemed just beyond my perception. I had to strain to hear the percussive raps, but soon it came easier to my ear.

I imagined the drummer, a Cherokee warrior, his face painted for war and sweat glistening on his battle scarred body. A distant ancestor calling from the past, calling to his comrades with his eternal tribute and sending a message of hope to his descendants.

I wondered, in my naive mind, if this could be some sort of a spirit calling to me. No one else could hear the drumming and the creatures of the night were not bothered. If the sound of drums could carry across the land, could it also carry through the ages? Could this be my kinsman, my predecessor calling unto me?

My mother, with her belief in the supernatural, encouraged this thought. “Speak to him,” she said. “He’s reaching out to you from beyond.”

My father, a practical man, would say, “It’s in your head, you’re only imagining it. You’re hearing the beating of your heart.”

I just couldn’t accept that answer, the drummer didn’t follow the meter of the heart. Like the war drum- THUMP, thump, thump, thump, THUMP, thump, thump, thump- the beating continued each night I listened for it. I spoke in my heart, I spoke aloud my words, nothing but the sound returned. As if deafened by his own drum, my spirit drummer would not answer.

My family soon moved far away and I would never hear the drum again. Each night, I sat in the dark stillness and listened in vain for my ghostly friend. As an adult I returned to the place of my youth, but I still couldn’t hear the familiar sound.