Stealing Fire

by Win Blevins

  Wopsock said, “We need to double his pay. If he needs supplies, I’ve set up an account at the lumber yard and the market in Flagstaff for him.”

  My God, these men had thought of everything.

  “Don’t you want to be home and see your great-grandchild being born?”

  “If it works out that way,” my grandfather said, “absolutely.”

  “But,” said Wopsock, “they all look like Winston Churchill with golden-red skin. I promise you that.”

  “Yazzie,” my grandfather said, “you’re the tops.”

  “And you, as always, are my hero.”

  Grandfather was getting sentimental. “Hey, Frank Wright couldn’t find you when he left,” I told him. “You missed saying good-bye.”

  “Rats!”

  “He had a message for you, though. He said he loves you.”

  “Being irresistible is a terrible burden.”

  Wopsock put his head back and laughed. Who wouldn’t?

  “Wait, Yazzie,” my grandfather said. “You got that healing ceremony arranged?”

  “Done and done.”

  Meaning for Iris and Wright.

  “Come here.” He leaned out the window, held my head, and kissed me right on the lips. “I love you to the moon and back.”

  He hadn’t said that to me since I was a little kid.

  I watched their dust as they turned around. I had never been away from my family except when I was in the navy. It was his turn to hit the highway and stir up some new, grand adventures.

  Fifty-three

  The Wrights and Helen had returned to Taliesin West. Wright settled into his projects, cleared away dust storms, and calmed clients down. His original drafts for the museum, plus the new elevations, were given to Mr. Guggenheim.

  Rick Fine was still in the hospital.

  “What happens when Rick gets out?” Iris said.

  “My bet? He goes home with a private nurse.”

  “He killed a man, Yazzie,” Iris said. “He admitted it in front of witnesses. No jail time?”

  “Minimal time. Maybe none. First offense. They’ve concocted a story that Payton attacked Rick with the knife, Rick took it away from him and turned the tables. Are you going to say nay?”

  “I didn’t see a thing. Uh, I wasn’t even in the room.”

  “The whole deal shakes out as self-defense, maybe.”

  “At least Fine is awaiting trial on tax evasion.”

  “Hell, he’ll cut a deal with the IRS. He’s got enough dough stashed to pay off the rest.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “Iris. It’s not in them to be fair. I mean not the Fines, and not the Feds. Which doesn’t mean we can’t be fair. The world itself is neutral. Every person’s decision about how to behave belongs to them.”

  “Do you think Wright will make it to the healing ceremony?”

  “Absolutely. Well, I take that back, as sure as we can be about anything when it comes to Frank Lloyd Wright. I know he wants to very much. The ceremony is a perfect fit for his belief in God as nature, or as he spells it, Nature, with a capital N.”

  “Yazzie, I’m scared about the ceremony,” Iris said.

  “I’ll be there. I’m going to take part. That way it’s a healing for me, too.”

  “And you trust this medicine man … He’s not going to give me any strange herbs or something.”

  “I found the best medicine man possible, Hosteen Hat, for complete release of blood and fire. For the healing needed after being fouled by witnessing a violent death instead of a soft, natural passing. The way you saw Payton die. Worse, you got his blood on you.

  “Wright, my God, what a healing that man needs. His entire family was murdered by a maniac with an ax. He not only saw the bodies, he held them.

  “Hosteen Hat is strong enough to chant for you and Wright, as long as your hearts are good toward each other, and they are.”

  “And it won’t hurt the baby,” she said. “You’re sure.”

  “Positive. Mom had a healing when she was carrying me. With the pregnancy, a healing ceremony is for the baby, too.”

  “Sometimes you’re absolutely pragmatic, like you believe only in what you see, and that’s it. Sometimes you sound like you believe everything in the Navajo traditions.”

  “It’s impossible for me to believe that a baby living inside its mother cannot be hurt by harsh words and violence around the mother. And the same way, I believe a baby is nurtured when a mother is surrounded with love and joy.”

  “And by music, my mother would say.”

  Iris snuggled into my arms, the best feeling I know.

  “All right, I accept that.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Wright was staying put at Taliesin, keeping the ball rolling while Frank joined us in Monument Valley, and keeping Helen on track. Helen was seeing a rabbi in Phoenix regularly, and she was finding her own roots, ones she’d lost as a child. Feeling some ease, some peace—but it would take time. Her work, beautiful designs that were structurally sound, the word was that gave her peace, too.

  Frank Lloyd Wright puttered into Monument Valley with Harry Goulding, who was glad to visit and then drive him up. Harry was in love with Taliesin West, and was getting ideas for what he and Mike could do around their own place. It was already built with natural materials, and he loved the shapes and forms Wright had created. Harry always had to hurry when he built. This time, he would take his time and enjoy the process, the stones. Finding the perfect rocks and colors that pleased him. No rush.

  Mike cooked a special dinner, with fry bread, the night before the ceremony. We smothered the hot bread with cactus blossom honey. Iris licked the warm goo off her fingers. Frank laughed and told stories. It was hard to imagine that this man, who had become the bane of my existence and my dear friend, both, was born just after the Civil War—so much energy, enthusiasm. I suppose that living through so many wars was enough to make anyone a pacifist. When looking through the rearview mirror of time, it must seem that troubles could have been solved without so much pain and death.

  It’s true that, as the old stories tell us, monsters do arise and try to kill the people. Fighting takes courage. But so does making peace and compromise. Both are warrior ways. I thought that maybe one hundred, two hundred years in the future, people would have mixed so many ideas, religions, and races together that peace might happen. Of course, there would always be family fights—that’s just the way human animals are built. And, as soldiers know, killing leaves a scar, a wound. Seeing killings leaves a wound, too.

  The purest dreams come from children. And so a healing begins to make us brand-new. Iris and Frank Lloyd Wright were ready.

  Fifty-four

  THE CEREMONY

  The autumn morning shines cold. Voices fill the large hogan beneath Elephant Butte, snug inside Monument Valley. The front door faces east—the door is always to the east. Always. Three paces outside the door, one cousin pushes four prayer sticks into a mound of earth, one prayer for each direction. Soft feathers, tied to the sticks, flap in the wind.

  Iris and Frank wait outside. When Hosteen Hat is ready for them, when all has been prepared, he will ask me to call them inside. They will walk into the hogan in a sunwise direction. I have participated in healing ceremonies before and have been the one-sung-over several times. Hosteen Hat wants me to be here to dance and sing along with the songs. I push down my nerves. This is not the time for hesitation or words banging against each other inside my head. I breathe deep, and find quiet inside.

  For luck, I’m wearing Grandfather’s faded checked pants made from Blue Bird brand flour sacks. They were his when he was a young man and starting out. Full of dreams. They fit at the knees and bottom—the fabric stretches just right.

  I wear gifts from my mother’s family. There is a turquoise necklace that’s at least fifty years old. It’s been in and out of pawn so often it’s amazing our family still has it. The stones are the color of the sea, and in the center of
the necklace are beads made of seashells. I imagine how far away these shells were born. They resemble abalone, picking up the light and spinning it to lavender and pale green. Matching ear loops touch my shoulders.

  Hosteen Hat opens a medicine bundle and takes out two fur collars. One is beaver, the other otter. Our first guardians. He places them on the mound with a bull roarer. (Spin it and listen—the voices of one hundred generations call to you.)

  Aunties and cousins surround the hogan with prayer sticks. Once we have the gods’ attention, they have no choice but to help with our ceremony. That is their covenant with us.

  Someone opens wide the old blankets, a makeshift door, hanging inside the hogan. Then the piñon smoke pours outside. People carry in buckets of sand that they’ve been grinding for two days. We’ll use seven colors. I sit in a corner of the hogan, humming low, concentrating on the sand painting that will be made.

  It has begun.

  The sand painting will be twenty feet across. It takes plenty of people to make a sand painting that large. No one corrects another person during this time. Correction breaks confidence. We’re all working for the same thing, Iris’s health and peace. Frank Wright’s health and peace. The woodstove in the middle of the room puffs its soft heat and smoke. Hosteen Hat, the stove, the sand, the people working on the painting, and me—nothing else is inside the hogan. Not yet.

  The east part of the painting is almost finished. It vibrates with beauty beyond its boundaries. We’ve used a lot of what Hosteen Hat calls the sparkle color. Pink.

  Five more people begin work on the painting. Hosteen Hat is at the center of all. This isn’t always the way it works, but he has caution and daring in equal measures. This, I believe, is what makes his cures effective.

  The man with the longest arms creates the center of the sand painting. His hands are rough, but when he picks up the sand, he holds it delicately, tenderly, between his fingers as if he were holding a sprig of sage. Sprinkling sand away from him and then toward him, rocking and rocking, the rhythm carries him into a trance. His trance allows him to contact the Thunder People, the gods Hosteen has entrusted him to draw.

  His eyes are closed, and he hums a prayer for protection from the Thunder People. I place prayer sticks at the edge of his work. No one should enter this part of the painting. When it’s finished, we will draw a protective rainbow over all with an opening to the east. Guardians will be painted there.

  Mother Earth and Father Sky are drawn exactly as they are imagined by most of us, except for one surprising difference. Those ancient gods, the Yeis, look pleased to be part of this healing. To their right, Hat surrounds the Thunder People with lightning. Precarious, but he was born to do this. Thunder People, lightning, snakes—all bring destruction by fire, and all cure destruction by fire.

  Snakes were our guardians, that’s how it used to be, but we got big-headed and lost their friendship. We’ll remind them of our shared history in this painting. Uncle Ashké draws snake tracks with colored tails. The powers will be happy, and I like the symbols. They carry a feeling of age.

  Hosteen Hat suggests we pile sand inside the painting to represent the bluffs that surround us. He believes cliff dwellers tricked the Thunder People into hurling their mischief from those bluffs. We build them by layering colors, and we finish up with natural sand. If the painting calls up the spirits who live inside our bluffs? That’s something we’ll have to face.

  Corn gods, vines, tobacco, bean plants, bats, medicine pouches, and other helpers are drawn in corners and near arrows. We pray that they are strong.

  Auntie Jewel sticks her head inside the doorway, telling us the sun is high. We have about as much time to finish as we’ve had to work. We move a little quicker, but we don’t feel hurried. It will be finished before sunset. Uncle Ed, a high school teacher, creates the large rainbow over all—he has a steady hand and a good eye. On one end he draws a head, and on the other end, legs, a skirt, and a pouch. Who knows what medicine Ed has put inside the rainbow’s pouch?

  I walk outside to breathe new air. Hosteen Hat is beside me. We don’t speak. I picture the painting in my mind’s eye. My insides are full, like water flowing over the lip of a winter pond. We walk back inside the hogan, fast.

  Now we must hurry. When the image is finished, the powers will rush through the door. We fill the painting’s background with dark wavy lines. Again, fast. The picture has become a living thing, wobbling with possibility. We treat it as we would a wild animal—with respect.

  Hurry, hurry, this picture must be used, and there’s still a lot to do. Until the ceremony is complete and the deities recede, a million things can go wrong. Hosteen Hat is chanting. I ask Mother-Father for a kind heart toward my wife. Toward Frank Wright.

  I run outside and gather up the mound objects we use to call the Holy Ones. I set them at points around the painting.

  I’m handed two pollen balls, a mixture of herbs, cornmeal, and pollen. I place them on the painted mouth of Mother Earth. She’s the one whose care I’m inviting. She’s the one I feel moving inside me.

  I pray silently and make an offering to the gods. I get down on my knees. Chanting, chanting, chanting, from Hosteen standing outside and facing the east.

  I have a pouch, and it’s filled with gifts. The first one I take out is a small turquoise stone. The second is a bead twice as large as a quarter and polished smooth and round by the ocean—it’s the bead-from-time-beginning. It has been part of our family longer than we remember our stories. Earth Mother smiles when she sees the bead—that’s what I imagine, anyway. It is set in silver and attached to a string of sinew. I surrender it to Thunder. Both gifts are placed in the center of the sand painting.

  Ed goes outside for Iris and Frank. I’m aware of sunwise movements and the lowering of light and stand in that place where the gods laugh at Time. I understand the foolishness of seconds building to hours, as if time were a staircase.

  I set the beaver and otter collars, also the bull roarer, inside the painting. I dip the medicine sprinkler in herbal water waiting inside a turtle shell. I shake this over the painting, then move back against the mud wall of the hogan.

  Hosteen Hat enters. He scatters white cornmeal from east to west, from south to north, and around the guardian rainbow. Iris and Wright walk to Hosteen, sunwise, each taking a basket of meal, sprinkling cornmeal when they are asked to. Iris looks at me and then looks away.

  Two blankets are spread on the north side of the sand painting, one belonging to Frank and one to Iris. Clean cloths cover the blankets. After the ceremony this cloth won’t be used again—we will destroy it. Iris and Frank, without shame, remove their clothing and jewelry. They each wear a leather thong, Iris’s belly a little round, her body firm. Frank’s entire body is delicate and pale.

  Hat asks them to prepare to climb inside the first chant. Buffalo-hide rattles begin to shake their rhythm. Hat has chosen something from the Song of the Visionary. Appropriate for them because they are both artists, they see above and beneath the earth, things unseen by others, it is the Song of Recognition. Over and over we sing.

  Aienaán oooóe oóe oóe

  Agá’hoyoa’ nagáne sinisá

  Up on high he traveled for me,

  Hastséayuhi nagáne sinisá

  Hastséayuhi traveled for me.

  Nitsís digíni kat silní

  Your holy body is with me now.

  Niyákehozá nagáne sinisá

  Down below he traveled for me

  Hastséneatli nagáne sinisá

  Hastséneatli he traveled for me

  Nitsís digíni kat silní

  Your holy body is with me now.

  Aienaán oooóe oóe oóe

  We all know when the chant is finished, and we stop as one voice.

  Hosteen Hat and I have mixed sands from the painting into a paste using water that holds every memory of the Navajo people. Hosteen will work with Iris, I will work with Frank. We will cover their chests, backs, arms, shou
lders, legs, and faces with this pasty-paint.

  I dip my fingers in the paint, and it runs smooth on Frank’s skin. I work on his feet. He’s so far inside his body that he doesn’t shiver when I touch him. I feel complete confidence in the strength of the medicine in this paint.

  One fingertip of paint covers each big toe. The two toes are now two snakes’ heads, the partners of lightning and thunder. I paint a thick line starting at one snake’s head and run the paint up, stopping at his knee. This is the snake’s tongue. I paint the circular design of Snake on the soles of his feet. My fingers fly over Frank’s skin, letting the paint go where it will. I don’t think. When the body painting is complete, I know it.

  I stop. I look at the man I no longer know. In the center of his chest is the sun, a small blue circle of light. His back looks as if an arrow flew straight through the sun and created the moon—it is white and round and shy. Lines of yellow, blue, black, and white run under his arms, over his shoulders, and around his ribs connecting the sun and moon. Flashes of lightning tear up his arms and legs, almost touching the snakes on his feet and calves. His face is covered with the sunhouse colors of yellow, blue, black, and white. A black line runs across his fresh, fierce eyes.

  I take a pinch of sand from each god in the painting, and from the tip of an arrow, the end of the rainbow, and the base of the bluffs. I drop this sand inside his shoes.

  I ask him to sit in the center of the painting, facing me. He looks to the east from where all new things come. A pollen ball is taken from the mouth of Earth Mother, and Frank opens his mouth. The ball will give him Mother’s comfort. I sing over the turquoise offering, take a turquoise stone of my own, and tie it with a shell in the old man’s hair. He’ll wear it until it falls out. It will work to keep him safe from arrows, lightning, snakes—anything that travels zigzaggedy.

  I ask Frank, “Do you believe this rite has worked good upon you?”

  He says, “Yes.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Iris and Hosteen Hat, but my attention cannot wander. I turn my eyes away quickly.