FOUNTAIN GREEN — The medicine man had spread his blanket across the wild grass when a hummingbird appeared above him.
It hovered near his head for a moment and then darted into a grove of aspen trees. The medicine man smiled at the sign he obviously believed was divine.
"That means joy," James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney said Wednesday to a group sitting crosslegged around him in a remote canyon between Utah and Sanpete counties. "The birds tell me what I need to do."
He lifted his pipe to the sky, kissed it and pressed it against the beads covering his chest. "Bless them with tolerance," he prayed.
For four years, since his arrest for giving peyote to people who are not American Indians, Mooney has prayed for understanding.
Last week, the Utah Supreme Court ruled he could give peyote — a mind-altering drug — to members of his church, regardless of race.
For Mooney, the ruling was indeed an answer to prayer. But for others, the decision spells trouble.
Some members of the Native American church, of which Mooney is a member, worry the ruling will result in peyote restrictions for American Indians, while law enforcement officers say it will make cracking down on illicit use of the drug much harder.
"There's no way to prove someone doesn't belong to the Native American Church because it's not your typical hierarchal, monolithic church," said Dave Wayment, a deputy Utah County attorney. "As a practical matter, it will kill peyote prosecution in Utah."
On Wednesday, Mooney traveled to a spot near the small town of Fountain Green to hold his first ceremony since the Utah Supreme Court decision.
There he met a group that included several herb farmers who sought his blessing. He took them down a rugged dirt road that sliced through a hillside of scrub oak and aspen trees before they came to a secluded canyon of red rock and wild grasses.
He stopped briefly in a large teepee, built on the banks of a dry creek bed, before deciding it wasn't the right spot. Up a rocky road he trekked, his followers in tow, until they arrived at a clearing.
"Logic would say I would hold it in the teepee," he explained. "But I try to follow the spirit."
From a bag he took the tools of his trade: a large fan made of eagle feathers, a ceramic pot full of herbs he would smoke and a bottle of Peruvian holy oil. He poured the scented oil in his hands and clapped.
The ceremony had begun.
For 10,000 years, natives in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States have taken peyote, a small spineless cactus that contains the hallucinogen mescaline, for religious ceremonies.
Some who have ingested the drug report seeing visions; others say it simply makes them feel closer to a higher power.
Mooney first took peyote in 1987 to cure manic depression. It was an experience that changed his life: He stopped living as a white man and became a nomad, living with natives in Mexico, Canada and across the United States. "I dropped out, sat in circles naked, sat in the desert for days at a time, lived in the mountains," he said.
For Mooney, who had grown up denying his Indian heritage, it was a period of personal re-discovery. From a tribal chief in Florida, he learned he was a descendent of Osceola, a Seminole war chief, and that he was born to be a medicine man.
"She gave me an edict to help everyone," he said. "So, I can't deny people who ask me for help."
Soon, that charge would bring him trouble. In 2000, Mooney was arrested on 12 felony counts for selling peyote from his home.
Utah County prosecutors said that because Mooney wasn't a member of one of 550 federally recognized tribes, he didn't have a right to administer the drug. His 4-year-old church, the Oklevueha EarthWalks Native American Church, was seen as a guise for a drug-dealing enterprise.
"They said I was in it for the money, that I wasn't Indian, that I was some wannabe," Mooney said. "They just don't know."
Mooney said he never charged for peyote but suggested a donation of $200 per ceremony. He and other members of the church also said they never turned someone away who couldn't pay.
"We helped drug addicts, people who didn't have any money, people off the street," said Ogden resident Nick Stark, who acted as Mooney's right-hand man.
In its first year of operation, Mooney said his church made $250,000; the next year he said he made $600,000. He guesses he would have made $3 million the year he was arrested.
Forrest Cuch, director of Utah Indian Affairs, said any medicine man who charges for peyote ceremonies is a fraud.
"I don't think our Indian people accept him as a bonafide spiritual leader," he said. "Peyote is a very sacred thing, and they're not happy with people who don't treat it as such."
Giving peyote to whites and charging for ceremonies caused some Indians to call Mooney a pariah. He was hated by many, he said, and even had his life threatened. Other Indians supported him, said Liz Gray, an editor at Oklahoma's Native American Times.
But Gray worries the Utah Supreme Court's decision will ultimately hurt the 250,000 members of the Native American Church. She can envision federal drug agents carding church members as they leave ceremonies to make sure they come from federally recognized tribes.
The Drug Enforcement Administration does not consider peyote prosecution a high priority, said Dan Reuter, a DEA regional spokesman.
"We typically don't see peyote very often on our radar screen," he said. "We're mostly dealing with drugs like marijuana, cocaine and meth."
Peyote, which has a horrible taste and usually causes first-time users to vomit for a half hour or more, is not about to become the next party drug, said Wayment.
But in the end, he thinks the ruling will hurt Indians.
"It's sort of sad because this was a policy meant to protect indigenous people in the practice of their religion," he said. "Now, it's being interpreted to allow anyone, regardless of heritage, to use peyote by making the claim that they are affiliated with the Native American Church."
Mooney says he holds no ill will to those who disagree with him.
He said he is trying to follow the edict of his chief and honor his ancestors.
At his ceremony Wednesday, Mooney did not use peyote because no one in the circle had asked for it.
Instead he smoked his pipe and offered counsel.
He will use peyote soon, he says, and when he does he will offer a prayer asking for, above all else, tolerance.
E-mail: jhyde@desnews.com