Dusty Flowers
From James Donahue’s Journal
Doris and I had not lost our love of flea markets. We gathered some personal junk and actually set up a small table at the Croswell market on the Fourth of July. We did it for the mere joy of spending a day at the flea market. I remember I was working the table that morning while Doris was walking the rows, looking for interesting things to bring home. We usually spent more money at the markets than we ever earned. That was part of the fun.
That eventful day, however, Doris returned to the table with news that she just met an amazing man from Arizona who claimed to know the Hopi and was selling Hopi Kachina dolls and Hopi and Navajo jewelry. She wanted me to go right over and meet him. And that was the day we began our affair with Dusty Flowers.
Dusty was a real con artist who quickly had us pulled into his web. He spoke of secret things, mysterious information that only he possessed. He soon had us visiting him at his camp in a nearby county park at Lexington. He told a wild story about spending time in prison because he sabotaged a federal road construction project in western Arizona that was disturbing “wolf country.” We later learned that there were no wolves left in Arizona and everything about Dusty Flowers was a wild fabricated story. At the time, however, we were fascinated by this magical wildman, who claimed to have roots in the heart of the Hopi land.
It is difficult now to explain just what it was that attracted us to Dusty. He was unshaven, unkempt, and living off whatever he could steal and then sell. He drove an old strangely painted and decorated truck. A closed trailer carried all of the things he sold plus his camping equipment. He had a woman named Sharon and a dog traveling with him. Dusty seemed to have magical powers over everyone he met, especially the women. I was with him in a restaurant once and saw the waitress, a young girl not older than her late teens, fawn all over him. I think she would have walked off her job and run off with him if he had asked her. I saw the same reaction among the nursing staff at the Cass City hospital when he accompanied me there one evening.
Dusty claimed to be half Cherokee. His white mother lived near Detroit, so he had ties in Michigan. I think he was one hundred percent con-artist. His one good quality was that he loved animals and they all liked him. He treated our dog well.
Dusty’s abilities to get into people's heads and manipulate them were quite amazing. He soon had both Doris and me convinced that we had some kind of spiritual mission among the Hopi Indians in northern Arizona. I will probably never know why he took us on this mental mind-fuck. He convinced us to go to Arizona and that once there, if we waited long enough, we would be contacted by the Hopi and at that time would learn our mission.
From the diary I kept at the time I wrote the following, which might help explain just how Dusty carried out his deception:
"If you will come, you must sell all that you have, buy yourself an old four-wheel drive truck that can get you into the mountains, and get a travel trailer to live in," he said. He gave me time to think about it. If I chose to go, I was to come to his table the next week at the flea market and he would give me his medicine bag, which was a ticket into the reservation. He said it was Indian tradition to bring a gift and exchange it for the gift he was giving to me. He said he wanted only a rock for his sweat lodge.
Of course I appeared at his table the following Monday with rock in hand. I suspected he was a trickster but he had me hooked. I felt I had to play out the game and see where it led. Doris was with me. She was gushing with thanks for all that Dusty had done for her that week. It seems that she had been battling bad spirits in our house and had been using the board to banish them. They were banished from the house, but, unbeknown to Doris, had attached themselves to her. Dusty saw them as a dark cloud over her head. In fact, he said he could not see her aura. He called on the Earth Mother to drive the dark spirits away from Doris. She said she immediately felt the energy return to her body. She said that before this, she had been feeling weak and drained. Whatever Dusty did, it gave her immediate relief. She was convinced that he was a wizard and a magician. Dusty denies it
.
Dusty and I made our exchange. He told me to carry the bag and work the area flea markets until I ran into a Hopi known as Walter the dancer. The man dances during Indian celebrations and often shows up at flea markets. I was to show the bag and its emblem to Walter and tell him that it came from Poisoned Wolf, the name Dusty is supposed to be known as by the Hopi. It would be my ticket into the reservation.
Strangely, after selling everything we owned and moving to Arizona, we discovered two interesting things. The first was that everything Dusty told us was a lie. The second was that everything Dusty told us also came strangely true. I don’t think Dusty ever imagined in his wildest dreams what was going to happen to us during this strange pilgrimage. We have often thought that in a strange way, it was Dusty’s mission to kick us loose from the materialism holding us captive in Michigan, and send us to Arizona where we did have a mission among the Hopi, the Navajo and the Apache people that changed our lives in amazing ways.
From James Donahue’s Journal
Doris and I had not lost our love of flea markets. We gathered some personal junk and actually set up a small table at the Croswell market on the Fourth of July. We did it for the mere joy of spending a day at the flea market. I remember I was working the table that morning while Doris was walking the rows, looking for interesting things to bring home. We usually spent more money at the markets than we ever earned. That was part of the fun.
That eventful day, however, Doris returned to the table with news that she just met an amazing man from Arizona who claimed to know the Hopi and was selling Hopi Kachina dolls and Hopi and Navajo jewelry. She wanted me to go right over and meet him. And that was the day we began our affair with Dusty Flowers.
Dusty was a real con artist who quickly had us pulled into his web. He spoke of secret things, mysterious information that only he possessed. He soon had us visiting him at his camp in a nearby county park at Lexington. He told a wild story about spending time in prison because he sabotaged a federal road construction project in western Arizona that was disturbing “wolf country.” We later learned that there were no wolves left in Arizona and everything about Dusty Flowers was a wild fabricated story. At the time, however, we were fascinated by this magical wildman, who claimed to have roots in the heart of the Hopi land.
It is difficult now to explain just what it was that attracted us to Dusty. He was unshaven, unkempt, and living off whatever he could steal and then sell. He drove an old strangely painted and decorated truck. A closed trailer carried all of the things he sold plus his camping equipment. He had a woman named Sharon and a dog traveling with him. Dusty seemed to have magical powers over everyone he met, especially the women. I was with him in a restaurant once and saw the waitress, a young girl not older than her late teens, fawn all over him. I think she would have walked off her job and run off with him if he had asked her. I saw the same reaction among the nursing staff at the Cass City hospital when he accompanied me there one evening.
Dusty claimed to be half Cherokee. His white mother lived near Detroit, so he had ties in Michigan. I think he was one hundred percent con-artist. His one good quality was that he loved animals and they all liked him. He treated our dog well.
Dusty’s abilities to get into people's heads and manipulate them were quite amazing. He soon had both Doris and me convinced that we had some kind of spiritual mission among the Hopi Indians in northern Arizona. I will probably never know why he took us on this mental mind-fuck. He convinced us to go to Arizona and that once there, if we waited long enough, we would be contacted by the Hopi and at that time would learn our mission.
From the diary I kept at the time I wrote the following, which might help explain just how Dusty carried out his deception:
"If you will come, you must sell all that you have, buy yourself an old four-wheel drive truck that can get you into the mountains, and get a travel trailer to live in," he said. He gave me time to think about it. If I chose to go, I was to come to his table the next week at the flea market and he would give me his medicine bag, which was a ticket into the reservation. He said it was Indian tradition to bring a gift and exchange it for the gift he was giving to me. He said he wanted only a rock for his sweat lodge.
Of course I appeared at his table the following Monday with rock in hand. I suspected he was a trickster but he had me hooked. I felt I had to play out the game and see where it led. Doris was with me. She was gushing with thanks for all that Dusty had done for her that week. It seems that she had been battling bad spirits in our house and had been using the board to banish them. They were banished from the house, but, unbeknown to Doris, had attached themselves to her. Dusty saw them as a dark cloud over her head. In fact, he said he could not see her aura. He called on the Earth Mother to drive the dark spirits away from Doris. She said she immediately felt the energy return to her body. She said that before this, she had been feeling weak and drained. Whatever Dusty did, it gave her immediate relief. She was convinced that he was a wizard and a magician. Dusty denies it
.
Dusty and I made our exchange. He told me to carry the bag and work the area flea markets until I ran into a Hopi known as Walter the dancer. The man dances during Indian celebrations and often shows up at flea markets. I was to show the bag and its emblem to Walter and tell him that it came from Poisoned Wolf, the name Dusty is supposed to be known as by the Hopi. It would be my ticket into the reservation.
Strangely, after selling everything we owned and moving to Arizona, we discovered two interesting things. The first was that everything Dusty told us was a lie. The second was that everything Dusty told us also came strangely true. I don’t think Dusty ever imagined in his wildest dreams what was going to happen to us during this strange pilgrimage. We have often thought that in a strange way, it was Dusty’s mission to kick us loose from the materialism holding us captive in Michigan, and send us to Arizona where we did have a mission among the Hopi, the Navajo and the Apache people that changed our lives in amazing ways.