Sunset Hill has a history, as all towns do. There is a plaque in town that reads:

“Sunset Hill where, in the year 1666, Gramatan, Chief of the Mohican Indians, signed a deed transferring Eastchester to the White Man.”

What was considered Eastchester in Gramatan’s day is now several towns, Sunset Hill adopting the name of the historic spot. The plaque commemorating Chief Gramatan’s sale is embedded just above eye level in a stone wall, at the edge of the business district. Pedestrians passing most likely aren’t even aware of its existence, faded as it is to almost the same color as the stones in the wall.

There is an iron fence at the top of the wall, holding back a stand of trees, along with what’s left of the rock that was blasted through to make the road years before. Sunset Hill isn’t much of a hill anymore. Would Chief Gramatan recognize the land now? His landmarks are gone, replaced by storefronts, apartment buildings, train tracks. The land leveled, the forest gone. Only the Bronx River remains. Or as the Mohicans called it, the Aquehung. Maybe little corners of that he’d find familiar, if he could ignore the noise from the parkway bearing the river’s name just beyond the screen of trees, and focus on the trickling sound of the river, follow its path down through the Bronx and out into the Long Island Sound.

Local lore says Gramatan didn’t fully relinquish his hold on the land when he signed over the deed. Some say he still sits atop Sunset Hill, attune to the land and the lives of its temporary inhabitants. Some say he has a hand in what goes on in this neck of the woods. If a local says “Chief Gramatan was on his hill that night,” that means someone was the beneficiary of a stroke of good luck. The Chief was on the job, taking care of business, protecting his people. Keeping watch. You narrowly avoided a parking ticket, won at Yonkers Racetrack, found ten bucks on the sidewalk? Chief Gramatan was on his hill.

Conversely, if you got the piss knocked out of you, a flat tire left you stranded in the pouring rain, you walked in on your woman enacting the Kama Sutra with another man? The Chief wasn’t anywhere near his hill.

I have my own reasons to believe this legend of Chief Gramatan is true.

You remember that stone wall, where the Chief’s plaque is embedded? I crashed my car into that wall one night, banging my head off the windshield like a volleyball in the process. Knocked me out for a stretch. I opened my eyes when the blood running from my forehead reached my lips, leaving a metallic taste in my mouth. I lifted my head from the steering wheel and experienced a moment of disorientation, like when you wake up in a strange bed and don’t know where you are. Then my eyes focused and I knew exactly where I was.

The plaque informed me that I was at Sunset Hill, where in the year 1666...

I let my head drop back to the steering wheel.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said a voice in stilted English. Not, Are you okay? or Do you need help?

I looked back up and thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me, just to make my night even worse. A man stood outside my driver’s side window. He wore an elaborate Indian headdress, which sported feathers from an indeterminate number of birds. His features were definitely Native American, strong of jaw and nose, the cracks and fissures on his weathered face offering different paths to his eyes, which shone with concern.

Obviously, since he had lived in the 1600s, I had never seen a photograph of Chief Gramatan.  But I recognized him from the paintings and drawings in the local history books. I knew this was him—he had an aura that instantly dispelled any disbelief. Like the way you know things in a dream, I just knew it was him. But this wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t a cruel joke.

I opened the door and stumbled out; his strong hands grabbed hold of me. Steam rose out of the mangled front of my car. The motor dripped its vital fluids on the sidewalk. The stone wall with the plaque sustained no damage whatsoever.

“Sorry, about your wall, Chief,” I said anyway.

“When I said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ that’s not what I meant,” he said.

I gave him a blank look.

“You know what I’m talking about.” When I still didn’t respond, he said, “Achwahndowagan.” Love. Somehow I knew this too, though I didn’t know the Mohican language.

Next thing I knew we were perched up on his hill. The old, black iron fence that surrounded the small bump of land made it feel slightly like a jail cell. My car was down below looking pathetic. The moon was full and bright directly above us. If I tilted my head the right way, all I saw were the trees and night sky, giving me a sense that I was back in Gramatan’s day, the land still untouched and full of promise.

“Keesog,” Gramatan said when he saw me admiring the moon.

My forehead was no longer bleeding. I reached a tentative finger to my face and couldn’t find any stickiness or scabbing; in fact it felt clean. I peeked back over the wall, saw my car still down there. A round indent where my head had hit the windshield was barely visible through the engine steam. Maybe I had passed out for longer than I thought, and the Chief had washed my cuts.

“Mattape.” Sit down.

I went over to a rock and sat down, took a deep breath. Once the Chief saw me settled, he sat on his own rock and continued his earlier train of thought.

“You were here this evening.”

It was a statement, not a question, so I didn’t reply. After parking my car, I had stopped to read the plaque with my girlfriend Amelia on the way to dinner. I nodded my head and he continued.

“Regret,” he said.

“What about it?”

“It’s what’s keeping me here.” He pointed to the ground.

“Here, like, Sunset Hill?” He gave such a slight nod, I could have imagined it. I said, “What do you regret?”

A brief smile cracked his stoic expression. “You read the plaque.”

Now it was my turn to make a statement. “Giving the land to the white man.”

“Kahenne.” Yes.

“Why do you regret that? They would have taken it anyway.”

“I didn’t have it to give.”

“I’m confused,” I said.

“Only the one who created it can give it away.”

“So you’re off the hook then. Why the regrets?”

He shook his head. “The white man didn’t see it the way I did. He thought he owned the land now. I should have been looking out for my people.” The Chief looked at me, perhaps trying to determine if this white man before him was the same as those long ago. “They chased us off the land.”

I didn’t know what the proper response was, so I broke eye contact, looked away. I felt guilty, though my relatives didn’t come here until after World War I.

“So, why are you still here?” I asked.

“N'mechanse.” I am ashamed. “I won’t let my people down again, even if my people now are white, black, yellow, brown.”

A door slammed down below then. I heard voices. A red light circled the treetops. I remembered my car.

“Go, look,” the Chief said.

I stood and went to the iron fence, looked down over the stone wall. Now that the steam had abated, I could see my car was a wreck. It was a wonder I had survived. The EMTs were opening the car doors, looking for passengers. The Chief stood next to me, peered over the edge.

“What regrets do you have?” he said.

I thought of Amelia, the fight we had over dinner. The news she had told me, what she had been afraid to tell me. My anger. It seemed so trivial now. I needed to do the right thing, not be so scared of life.

I looked back down and saw them pop open a stretcher, carefully remove someone from the driver’s seat. It couldn’t be. I looked back at the Chief.

“Climb up, get a better look,” he said.

I put first one foot, then the next, on the top stone of the wall and stood up straight. The iron fence reached to my chest. I held on and watched as they strapped my body to the stretcher, fixed an oxygen mask to my face.

“How can this be?” I said.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“I want to be with Amelia,” I said. “I don’t want to die!”

He took a step closer. “Tell me, Michael, are you ready to take responsibility?”

“Yes, yes!” My eyes were blurry with tears.

Chief Gramatan reached up to me then; I briefly thought he was going to lift me into his arms, console me. Instead he gave a shove. I felt myself fall, through the iron bars which didn’t hold me—had never held me. I fell and landed on my back. On to the stretcher. I opened my eyes, looked for Gramatan, but he was gone.

“His eyes are open,” an EMT said.

I turned my head and found the familiar plaque embedded in the wall and smiled.

“We got you,” another EMT said. “You’re going to be all right.”

“Sir,” the first EMT said. “What is your name?”

“Gramatan...” I said.

“What did he say?” one EMT asked the other.

“The Chief,” I said. “He’s on his hill tonight.”