The story of my life is so strange, that I scarcely know where to begin. At 34, I feel like I have lived many lives. I was raised in Boston, the son of Muriel and Ishmael Rollins, and was educated to take my place among the city’s elite. I went to the finest schools, and was taught more social graces, French, and Latin than any sane man should know.

My best friends were Richard and Mycala Jackson, also part of the Boston social scene. We often went riding together, and the lovely Mycala and I often danced together. Those are still some of the happiest moments of my life.

Richard and I were raised as young gentlemen, learning swordsmanship, and hunting, as well as acquiring respectable skills with a knife from some of Richard’s less reputable friends. So when the War of the Rebellion came, as young bucks we knew we had to serve when Mr. Lincoln called us to the colors.

Would that I had never done so! I do not regret my part in the war, that put an end to slavery and secession, but I can never forget the horrors of what I saw out there, at Antietam, and Spotsylvania Courthouse, and other places.

Most of all, it took me away from the arms of my beloved Mycala, and cost me the life of my best friend, Richard, who was killed by the same dastardly sniper that wounded me. When I recovered in the hospital I had forgotten who I was, and perhaps it is for the best, for I could never return to the life I had led.

The army mustered me out, and gave me enough money to make my way out West, still lost. I could see the name on my discharge papers, but it meant nothing to me.

I wandered into the mountains, alone, seeking death. Until the Diné, who the White Man call the Apaches, took me in. For them, a madman has been touched by the Spirit World, and so they called me ‘Red Hand’.
Their medicine man, Delche, looked into my heart, and saw my true nature, and raised me as his own son.

I lived with them for years, learning the ways of the Red Man, of the Diné, until Delche decided I was ready, and sent me on my vision quest.

I do not know how to describe this in words that one who was not raised a Diné would understand. Suffice it to say that I was sent off alone, naked as the day I was born, with only a small pouch of sacred stones and herbs that Delche had given me. I spent a whole day and night on a mountain side, chanting and praying. And in that state the Bear Spirit came upon me, and I saw my whole life, and all that I had been and lost laid before me, and I was at peace.

I came down off that mountain the next day, and Delche looked at me abd said: “You are no longer Red Hand, young warrior. From this day you shall be known to all the Diné, all The People, by your new name. You are now ‘Bear Returns’!”

I was whole again. I married Delche’s daughter, who I called Maggie.  We bought a small ranch outside of Laredo, Texas, calling it Maggie’s Grove.
She gave me a son, Richard, and for a while I was happy as a man could be. Then coming back from taking cattle to market I found my wife and child shot dead, and the ranch house burned to the ground. For a time the horror of that moment took my senses away again, and after burying my family, I sat down at a tree in hopes of dying.

I would have if not for Finn O’Connell finding me and taking me into town, where there was a new doctor. Now I know there is a Providence, or as the Apache would call Him, the Great Spirit, for who was it that healed me and brought me back to health, but my beloved Mycala, now a doctor in Laredo.

And so I begin my third life, here in Laredo, at the side of the woman I love.