They Called Us Shaman

by Corinne Beenfield

  Perhaps sensing my gaze, he turns and meets my eye. His reaction at seeing me is confused—somehow bothered and pleased at the same time. But then the first overrides the other as he raises his eyebrows and pinches his lips in a clear message. Get. Out. As though I’m some child who has wandered into an adult conversation, as though I don’t belong.

  I never drop his gaze as I sit down on the only place available, the floor, and then turn my head to listen.

  “They bathed us in kerosene and shaved Ahanu’s head. He would never be permitted to wear it long, like our tribe always had, while we were there. They called it a Reeducation Program, but few deluded themselves enough to believe education was the real purpose. To ‘civilize the savage’—that was the main motivator. I never understood that. When I heard that, I would think of how Grandfather would sit in the evenings outside his hogan and watch Ahanu run and play in the horses’ corral, their beautiful sleek bodies and wild manes mixing with his laughter. Is that what they meant by ‘savage’? ‘Ahanu’ means ‘he who laughs,’ and it fit him well. But when we were sent to their school, his laughter stopped.” Her hands grasp the arms of the chair and she sits taller, as if on a throne.

  “We were forced to work many hours a day, trying tasks for any child but even more so for our malnourished bodies. The food was completely lacking in quality, quantity, and variety. We had little privacy, and the rules were unnecessarily strict and confining to the point of locking the fire escape so we could not leave. They did all this even though the initial intent was not to break our bodies. What they desired most was to break our souls.” Her intense stare seems to meet each and every one of our gazes as she continues.

  “We were forbidden to speak a single word of our native languages. Think about that—to be taken as a child away from your parents and arrive somewhere no one speaks your language, yet if you so much as attempt to express yourself, you’ll be punished. We were even stripped of our names. What does a child know of the world but their family, their home, their language, and their name? They tore that all apart, right down to the bone. They wanted to erase and replace who we were.

  “The man who created the first Indian Reeducation School had been an army officer, and his philosophy on why it should be done was no secret.” She closes her eyes now, the words she must raise to her lips as acidic as bile. “He said, ‘A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this—that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.’" She opens her eyes again. “They did not even believe us capable of good. They saw even children as enemies. How much easier is it to abuse someone if you believe there is no beauty to be found in them?

  “I felt bad for myself, but worse for my brother. You see, for each time they punished me for speaking Navajo or refusing to refer to myself as ‘Frances,’ I knew that who I was burned inside me still. Wild Dove. They hadn’t been able to extinguish me. But Ahanu—sweet, beautiful Ahanu who used to laugh and run with the horses—he didn’t need to be punished. He was a prized pupil, ‘successfully reformed.’ He became Billy. I lost my brother to them.” Her gaze seems lost in memories above our heads until she remembers why she has shared her story. Clarity comes to her eyes as she meets ours straight on.

  “Can you not see ourselves in these children? Our souls stifled. Taken from those we love, ransacked of all we had known.”

  There is a shuffle from the edge of the room, and a young shaman stands. “You push too hard,” he calls her out, and all heads turn to him. He is one who seemed to me like a stone when I walked in, unscathed by the flow of words in the room. He throws out his arms as though motioning to the entire Academy, and he laughs. It has an edge to it that slashes, mocking the seriousness of the moment. “We are no one’s target practice! Your comparison is extreme at best. We are not abused little kids.”

  “True.” Wild Dove nods slowly, considering his objections. “Here, there is no one bashing in your heads or making you slave for hours at workloads above your capacity. Perhaps our captors have gone to the other extreme, for they understand that they are no longer dealing with weak children. We can spot a bully miles away, and we won’t allow ourselves to be made victims. We can rise. So they’ve realized they needed to find other ways to pacify us. Their approach has had to change. But their intent has not.

  “We live and eat and sleep in a place that would transform us inside and out. A place that would erase and replace who we are. It is their goal to kill the voice of the earth inside us. They would have us become mindless, addicted, trapped in cells of our own making. You must never forget! You have a voice. You are powerful. You matter. And no one has a right to make you feel as though you do not. Can you remember who you were before they told you who you should be?”

  She stands and steps to the side, her speech over.

  It’s quiet for a moment as everyone remembers, I hope. Resting my eyes, I try to recall how the wind felt as I soared, the warmth of the sun on my sleek white back. Each animal held its own new wonder for me. To be a mouse and have the world be so vast and enticing. To be a deer and run with long grass tickling my belly. To be a bat and see the night sky with sounds rather than sight. I realize, for the first time, that though the memories are lovely, I can no longer recall them in detail. It’s like trying to remember the voice of a loved one who has died—if I heard it, I would know it was them. But my mind can’t seem to retrieve it on its own. The realization bothers me, and I open my eyes to stop facing the broken fragments of memories.

  Looking up, I see the door close behind the shaman who had objected. Around me, others are standing, and I rise to my feet.

  “Can’t win them all,” Wild Dove speaks over my shoulder. I turn around, and she clasps my hand with the warmth of an old friend. “So glad you decided to come, my dear.”

  I smile back but tilt my head, confused. Decided to come? As though I had been invited? Was Ramose supposed to include me? But the questions never get a chance to escape my lips as the door flies open.

  “Gadian! He’s coming!” I turn to see the guard who kept watch, his face strained tight and white in panic. “Everyone, out!” Suddenly the cuff of his shirt is grabbed by a well-dressed Neanderthal. His eyes bulge and the top button of his collar embeds itself against his throat as he is thrown backward and out of our sight. No one has time to move, let alone run.

  With the intent to harm as a tornado, in swarm Gadian’s men. Without wasting breath, the raid begins, suits of gray and black on their side, our gaudy, bright costumes on the other. In the eye of the storm is Gadian, his expression disturbingly calm. It’s not a fair fight—the shaman only have human fists to brawl with, and little to no experience in using them. The Suits—for it’s clear these aren’t mentors. I’ve never seen a mentor with the build these men have—carry darts with liquid inside. Smaller, but similar to the one pointing at me when I transformed.

  A man stumbles at my feet, and looking down, I see a single dart protruding from his neck as his eyes roll back and flutter to a close. I pluck the dart from his neck, praying it will help, but the liquid has already emptied into his bloodstream. I can see it’s identical to the one used to sedate me when I was kidnapped. Fear sucks air from the room, and I stumble backward.

  An iron grip closes over my forearm, and I spin to find myself face-to-face with a Suit. He looks at me, thirsty, with a curled lip and fixed eyes. His thumb moves just slightly along the outside of my chest without releasing his clutch on my arm. With his free hand, he grasps a dart and thrusts it underhanded toward my gut. My abdominals clench in protest, but the needle never meets its mark.

  “Don’t touch her!” Ramose bulls into the Suit, head and shoulders first.

  Before the man can think, his dart is turned on him. Ramose plunges it into his collarbone, then jumps up, blocking the man from me just in case he should rise. But he doesn’t. The Suit’s eyes roll back as his knees buckle
, and he collapses in front of us.

  “Come on!” Ramose clutches my hand and drags me not toward the door, but in the opposite direction, to the sleeping chamber. There is a single wardrobe, barely taller than me, and Ramose throws the door open. From the small of my back, he pushes me in. He begins to shut the door behind me, but I ram my arm straight to keep it from closing.

  “You can fit! Get in here!” I shove the button-up shirts and crisp pants out of the way to show him the potential it has. It hasn’t much.

  He looks at the tiny bit of space remaining. Just then, a shaman runs into our room just as a dart from one of the tranquilizer guns hits her in the back. She folds over onto the end of the bed, but then slides off and crumples at the foot of it, like a discarded blanket on a hot night. That is all the convincing Ramose needs.

  He has to turn sideways to slip in behind me, but he manages it. Quick as gunpowder, he closes the wardrobe door, leaving us in complete darkness.

  We crouch there a long time, our hearts in our mouths, the sweaty smell of fear around us. Outside our wardrobe, the air is rent with the sounds of shrieks and scrambling, things breaking as people try to defend themselves or get away. Even though I can’t see, my imagination does a superb job of filling in the gaps that my eyes cannot, and terror crawls up my legs and torso as though I stand in a mound of fire ants. I want to scream with dread, but cover my mouth and nose with my quaking hands, holding the horror in.

  Behind me, Ramose’s warm breath pants into my hair, unsteady and heavy. His hands reach in front of me and press against the wardrobe wall, his arm blocking me in case the door should fly open. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to keep that image from my mind—everything suddenly becoming bright as the safety of our darkness is penetrated, their tranquilizer guns level with our cowering faces.

  But that moment doesn’t come.

  The room falls silent, but we remain statues, straining our ears to warn us if someone hides and waits for us to come out. My quadriceps burn from staying in the crouch, and the quiet unnerves me nearly as much as the noise did, for it is filled with the unknown of what happened to the others.

  Ramose finally whispers, “I’ll go out first” as he cracks the wardrobe door open.

  Stepping out, he surveys the room, then gives a short nod to me. I follow him into the main room, eyes darting about, waiting for an ambush. He is the first to spot the blood on the ground.

  Bending down, he places his hand next to the drops, precious garnet red against the beige rug.

  “Whose is it?” I ask, but as soon as I do, I know I don’t need him to ask the earth. We both know whose blood it was that they wanted most to spill. “Wild Dove,” I whisper and stoop low as well, my knees soft from grief.

  “Why did you come?” Ramose’s voice is accusing, but when he meets my eyes, I see them brimming, though the tears don’t spill. “I can’t keep you safe from them. They don’t care who we are. They don’t consider it a loss if they have to discard you. Can you not see—” He looks away from me and swallows hard, his jaw clenched.

  His shoulders cave, and for a moment his strength slips from him like water down the drain. He seems so vulnerable. Young.

  Instantly I see him in my mind, Ramose but a child version. Standing between his father and mother, taking the blows meant for her. And I understand.

  Placing my fingers on his shoulder, I wait until his gaze meets mine. “You’re a protector,” I whisper. “That is why you wouldn’t include me. You were trying to protect me.”

  He only nods.

  “Ramose . . .” I shift to kneeling. “You can’t protect me from this. You’re right—they would get rid of us as though we were trash. All my life, I saw people treated like this, whether they were poor or simply women. Despite being treated like royalty here, it is no different. To them, life is cheap. We are something to study, like germs in one of their petri dishes, but no more. We won’t survive this, none of us, without taking all the help possible to figure out an escape.” I touch his hand and make sure his eyes are locked on mine, that he’s with me one hundred percent before I continue.

  “I promise you, Ramose, I am going to fight. And I’ll be a better warrior if I can defend myself. Teach me how to reconnect with magic. That’s how you can protect me. Make sure I don’t march into battle without a weapon. Give me that. Please.”

  He looks away, but ever so slowly nods and reaches toward the blood soaking down and turning a deeper brown as we speak.

  “Okay,” he answers without meeting my eyes. “Okay, I’ll teach you.”

  ___

  I look about the room I had called home. Our home.

  There are bare spots on the bookshelves now, the remaining books leaning into each other like a boxer's punched-in teeth. There’s no way he could have memorized the shelves so thoroughly that he would know exactly which books I took, which ones are worth carrying with me on my escape. Right?

  Eyeing the laptop, I know I’ve cleared my recent searches, but wonder if I should go back and just make sure. But no. I’m going to trust my memory, even if he has trained every thought racing through my mind not to. Reaching down, I clasp my hands over the two duffel bags stuffed mostly with money and clothes, then step out into the porch light where the car waits. It will be the first time I’ve driven in months, but I couldn’t take the risk that a taxi driver would remember me.

  Turning the ignition, I pull from the driveway, my heart pounding so hard, I can feel my pulse in my fingers gripping the wheel.

  I can’t help but look back in the rearview to the comfortable glow behind me, and my foot finds the brake pedal.

  No. The word surfaces, hard and loud, like rapping knuckles. I’m confusing comfort with a straight jacket. I have to go now.

  My muscles stiffen and I breathe heavily, panting as though with a punctured lung.

  Removing my foot from the brake, I hit the gas and refuse even to glance at the rearview mirror.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Californian Remains, September 2048 A.D

  The cobblestone streets of Florence have never been so empty. I am all alone, a draft that smells of winter pulling my hair against my cheeks. I stand in the very square I always avoided as a child—where the gallows waits for criminals to swing from its arms, their feet dangling. Turning, I see it there just as expected, but to my surprise a man sits, relaxed, on its steps. His clothes are not Florentine, yet they are familiar to me all the same—a dark suit of gray. The way he wears it, the way he lounges on the steps of such an evil device as though simply basking in the evening, all imply a sense of superiority. His hands idly play with the hangman’s noose. At the sight of him, my blood turns to ice.

  Gadian.

  “Joanna.” He smiles that disgusting, fatherly smile of his. “It’s your turn.” Standing, he reaches to place the noose about my throat as though bestowing a necklace upon me.

  “No!” I jerk back in horror. “I am not a criminal!”

  “Ah.” He shrugs. “That is simply a difference of opinion.” His words echo in my memory, though I can’t place them.

  I can’t get away fast enough. Backing up, I run down the roads, distance from Gadian and his gallows all that matters. But the streets that have always been so familiar to me now stare down at me as if I were an intruder. The windows that used to have people calling happily from them stay tightly closed—no friends walk through the doors.

  A slight movement catches my eye—the flutter of a curtain. Someone is inside! I hurry to the door and pound on the wood, but no one comes. Trying the handle, I find it locked. To my left, I see the curtain twitch again, but this time I catch sight of the person peeking through.

  “Alessio?” I call out. “Alessio!” I pummel the door harder than ever, desperate, but he doesn’t come to me. Why won’t he answer?

  No more time can be wasted here. Gadian is coming.

  As my feet hit the cobblestones again, their slap-slap the only sound, I look up and startle to a stop.
At the end of this new street, I again see Gadian and the gallows waiting for me.

  Turning a corner, I watch over my shoulder to see if he is following me. When my head whips in front of me, I collide right into him. Gadian’s strong hands begin forcing the noose over my head.

  “Stop! No!” I scream as my fingers pry at the rope.

  Though he fights to keep it on me, his voice stays even and calm. “Silly girl. Don’t you realize yet? Your only way out is my way.”

  My fingers and fists aren’t taking directions from my mind. They claw, strike, scrape at Gadian’s skin, but he remains unscathed. He doesn’t tire of the fight, and with every moment, he seems a bit more successful in his attempts. The rope rubs against my neck, burning a fresh wound where it is tightened.

  “No!” I beg. “Why are you doing this?” My nails dig into the noose, trying anything to separate it from my throat.

  He smiles as though I’m a good student who has finally asked the question he has been waiting for. “I—”

  “Joanna!”

  An invisible hand shakes me, frantic and rough enough to shatter the nightmare and pull me back to reality. My heart pounding, my eyes snap open as though I had woken up on fire. The lights are dim and I see Ramose sitting on the bed, his hand on my shoulder and his face knotted in worry. Every one of my muscles is rigid from head to toe. My blankets are the only victims of my fighting, laying twisted and crumpled around me.

  “Breathe—it was a nightmare. You’re okay, you’re okay.” Ramose chases away the last remnants of the dream, his hand reassuring me.

  For one fleeting, tranquil second, I find relief. I can breathe and feel nothing but gratitude to Ramose for rescuing me from Gadian’s gallows.

  But the next moment, the memory of the raid comes back and overwhelms me all over again. The echoes of the screams, the memory of how eyes would roll back into heads when darts would hit their mark, Wild Dove’s blood drying on the carpet—they all pull at the strings of my sanity and threaten to uproot me.