The Shaman's Secret

by Natasha Narayan

  I understood now why the Indians spoke of the “Earth Surface World.” Down there below was another world, mysterious, wreathed in smoke and flame. We only saw the top layer of what was real.

  The Hopi Indians say that the Grand Canyon is where humans emerged into this, the Fourth World. They call it the sipapu, the womb of the world. Staring down into dizzying vortices of rock, I could see how this strange land had inspired them.

  “It’s like huge pieces of Red Leicester,” Aunt Hilda said, staring down into the canyon.

  “You mean the cheese?” I asked.

  “Crumbled bits of cheese,” Aunt Hilda said.

  “I hate cheese.”

  Waldo laughed. We had all been silent for a few moments. Stunned by the majesty of the canyon, humbled as we stood, mere ants, on its rim. But Aunt Hilda can puncture the most sacred feeling. She would stand at the gates of heaven and compare it to Blackpool.

  The canyon dropped down, thousands of feet down, down, down to a glinting river. You could see flashes of greenery at the bottom. Boy had told me that the Indians had planted hundreds of peach trees, but the orchards had been destroyed by American soldiers.

  If you lost your foothold on a loose stone, you would thud from boulder to boulder till your mangled body ended up in the Little Colorado River far down below.

  “We must leave the horses here,” said Boy, with a worried look at the sky above. Storm clouds were massing, dark and thunderous. “They will find food. Usen willing, we will meet them when we return.”

  If we return, I thought as we set our steeds free with a swift pat on their flanks. It was an especial wrench for me to see Carlito go. Whenever I looked at him, at his fine, glossy black flanks and the scar where I had wounded him, I felt deeply ashamed.

  “I’ll go first,” Aunt Hilda said, looking down the gut-churning chasm. “Watch your step as you follow!”

  “Please,” Boy said, nudging Aunt Hilda aside, “I must lead.”

  “But I’ve climbed all over the world,” Aunt Hilda protested. “Blast it, I was a terror in the Himalayas.”

  “This is a sacred trail,” Boy explained. “It is secret. I must ask the spirits for their permission as we go down.” She pointed to the little leather pouch she wore about her neck. I knew she carried sacred pollen, which she scattered at holy places. “I must seek their blessings.”

  Aunt Hilda was about to argue, but a flash of Boy’s dark eyes silenced her. The first section, plunging down from the trailhead, was a sheer wall of rock ending at a narrow ledge below. I would have thought it impassable, but Boy took it deftly, moving between tiny footholds in the surface. My heart beating with trepidation, I followed the blaze of her scarlet headband and glossy black hair. I couldn’t help feeling scared, here, so close to our journey’s end.

  The presence of Cecil Baker hung over us. I sensed an attack in every hovering hawk, every scuttling lizard. The skinwalker was watching us. When would he make his move?

  We all made it down to the ledge in one piece. My knees and hands were scraped from contact with sharp rocks, my breath ragged. Sweat poured down my face. Even Aunt Hilda was a little less keen to lead after that ordeal, and we had only just begun our trek. It would be another seven or eight hours before we would reach the bottom of the canyon.

  From the ledge we found a narrow trail. Boy blessed the beginning of it with pollen and we scrambled after her. The rock was not just pink; it was streaked with all sorts of colors from white to the red of iron ore. Ruins dotted the cliffs, the caved-in rock dwellings of humans who had lived here more than two thousand years ago. Their strange hieroglyphs could be seen etched on the walls, especially the hunchbacked flute player they called Kokopelli.

  The presence of these ancient ghosts wrought feverish images in my mind. I could feel that we were nearing the end of our quest, but still had only vague ideas of what it was that we sought. An ancient Anasazi tablet, was all that I knew. One that had mystical powers—and that had been revered for centuries. One that the Hopi Indians believed had been given to them by their gods. But this was the nineteenth century. How could an ancient slab of stone help me?

  “Boy,” I asked when we stopped for a sip of water after hiking for at least three hours, “where are we going?”

  “We go down,” she said, pointing to the shining river below.

  “That much is obvious—then what?”

  “There is a path. We must take it.”

  “But, look, I’m confused. How do you know where?” I glanced around me. On every side there were canyons, gleaming cliffs of salmon-colored rock. The roaring of the river, magnified by the echo chamber of cliffs, was pounding in my brain. “I mean it’s all just rock, rock, rock.”

  “Not to me. Many of these places are sacred.”

  I could have screamed in frustration. Where, exactly, were we going? What would we find there? She wouldn’t tell me. It seemed as if she was being purposefully vague.

  “But how do you know where to go?”

  “Far-Seeing Man is guiding me.”

  “Where? He isn’t here. You have no map.”

  “In my head. He guides me from the inside.”

  With that I had to be content. It was another few hours before the vegetation thickened as we reached the bottom of the canyon. There were clumps of pinyon pines and juniper, feathery tamarisk trees, thorny bushes of prickly pear, snakeweed and sumac. The heat was increasing as we journeyed down. The air had that quality of stifling stillness which you experience before a storm. The sky was black and louring, thunderheads massing over the mesa far above.

  “It looks like rain,” said Aunt Hilda.

  “Yes,” said Boy.

  “I suppose we can shelter in a cave.”

  “It’s dangerous. Waters come fast down the canyon.”

  We had emerged from the trail by rapids that saw water tumbling and bouncing over boulders. The roar of water was bewildering, as were the croaking of frogs and the clouds of midges that hovered over our hands and faces. Skimming birds darted in and out of the mesquite and tamarisk. It was green, lush and hot, far hotter than the canyon’s rim. I felt closer to the earth than ever before.

  The river thrashed in both directions. I could see many turnings off from the path into smaller canyons and caves, the changing play of shadow and light, dark patches where centuries of water had worn into the cliffs. The sun was falling in the sky. Soon darkness would descend and we would be trapped here with the prowling canyon creatures—lynx, coyote and bear.

  “Anyone want some beef jerky?” Waldo asked, after we had moistened our lips with water from our canteens. “I still have a few strips—”

  “Shush!” Boy cut him off, pointing to a large sandstone boulder.

  From behind this rock, a snake slid into view. It was marked with brown circles on white and had a bulbous head and glaring eyes. My own snake brand, which had crawled up my arm to my throat gave me a twinge. As soon as it saw us, the snake made a loud rattling noise with its tail.

  “A Mojave rattlesnake,” Isaac said, holding out his arms to shield Rachel.

  “Stand aside,” Waldo said. He advanced toward the snake, a stout stick in his hand. “I’m going to toss it into the river.”

  “Wait!” hissed Boy. “Stop.”

  The snake had paused on the path and turned its head to look at Boy, almost with inquiry. Then with great speed it slithered off round the bend.

  Boy looked at us for a moment, then disappeared after the snake.

  I followed, running after her, my friends charging behind.

  “Come back,” I hissed.

  She paid no attention, following the snake, which was gliding, a flash of white and brown, down the track by the swollen, roaring river. I followed her as she followed the snake, alarm growing in my heart.

  The snake slid off the path into a fissure of rock. Crouching down, Boy sped in its wake. I went after her, crawling through a tunnel. When I stood up, we were in a cave with weak shafts of light
dotting the earthen floor. I could smell burning, and smoke wafted toward me.

  The snake had disappeared. In its place stood a ferocious creature with a bloody mouth and eyes ringed with blue. A monster. It had transformed into a monster. Isaac screamed and Waldo, bellowing, raised his stick. Then I saw it was not a monster; it was a man wearing a wooden mask.

  “Kit Salter,” a deep voice growled. Then one by one he called each of our party by name.

  “Where is Far-Seeing Man?” Boy asked.

  “He waits within. Follow me. I have something to show you.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  We followed the masked figure into the cave. My heart clenched inside my chest. Cold sweat stood out on my forehead. I felt my snake brand move. I could feel it gliding down, a slithery feeling like a wet finger traveling over my skin.

  “Who are you?” Boy asked the figure.

  “I am a Hopi shaman, a friend of Far-Seeing Man,” he replied.

  We were in the cave now and could see the fire clearly. It was made of pinyon pine and brushwood, but there was something there that stank. A meaty smell that, as we came closer, made me want to gag. It was suffocating in the closeness of the cave.

  “What is that?” Waldo gasped.

  “A body,” Isaac said, his face white. “Burning flesh.”

  Something animal was in the fire, tatters of cream clothing shriveling in the ashes. The gleam of white bones against the red of fire and coal.

  I swayed a little and would have fallen, except Boy caught me. Waldo let out an exclamation of shock as the Hopi shaman bent down and picked something up from the floor.

  A small pink thing, with a gleam of gold about it.

  He handed it to me and I backed away in horror, stumbling into Boy.

  It was a human finger. Cut off just below the second joint. I could see the clean, polished nail, the trimmed cuticle and the heavy pillbox ring that circled the horrible thing.

  It was a beautiful ring: 22-carat gold, with a white gold inlay of a snake circling a tiny box. The lid could be opened and used to store a lethal cyanide pill. It was ornate, yet discreet enough to pass unnoticed on the wearer’s finger.

  I had seen the twin of this ring before. Heard the cry of agony as it had been ripped from the owner’s fingers.

  “That’s Cyril’s ring,” Aunt Hilda cried out. “Cyril Baker’s.”

  “No, Aunt Hilda,” I said. “It’s Cecil’s.”

  “But I saw Bandit Bart steal it from Cyril when we were held up.”

  “He told me about it. They had identical rings made, with pillboxes in them. Each ring had a poison pill in it.”

  Aunt Hilda stared at the burning corpse. “So that must be—”

  “Yes, Cecil’s body.”

  Isaac made an awful groaning sound and fled from beside me. He stumbled to the side of the cave where he retched, while Rachel hastened to his side. I was aware of the silence hanging heavy as we watched our enemy’s body sizzle with a terrible rancid crackling.

  I would not have wished such a fate on anybody. Even a man with no heart.

  “How did it happen?” I asked the Hopi shaman. “Did you kill him?”

  “No,” he replied. “He was not clean. He was full of evil. He tried to go to the cavern of the ancestors and take the tablet. This tablet was given to us by our gods—so he was struck down.”

  We stared at the flaming bundle, appalled. We should have rejoiced. In life Cecil was a cruel man. We had been terrified he would get here before us and use the tablet for awful ends. But death is a great leveler. It is the end of sin. It makes compassion, even for great wickedness, bloom in your heart. Here especially, where the Indians believe the skin between the worlds is thin as tissue. Where sorcery glows strong. Our enemy was dead; we were free of the evil that hung, like a hurricane cloud, over our heads. Free of the skinwalker who had tried so often to invade my mind, who had made me commit the worst crime of my life when I’d cut my innocent, perfect horse, Carlito.

  He was dead. And yet there was no joy in our hearts. It was too macabre, the burning body in this fetid hole of a cave.

  “May we go to the cavern of the ancestors?” Aunt Hilda asked the shaman. “I would very much like to see this tablet.”

  I glanced at her, then looked away. It was too naked, her greed for possession of the sacred thing.

  “How do we know that we will not be struck down like Cecil?” Waldo said. “I don’t—”

  “You are right,” Boy interrupted. “We must clean ourselves.” She pointed to two tiny huts, which stood near the far wall of the cave. They had been constructed out of bent willow saplings, covered with skins and blankets—and looked barely big enough for a dwarf.

  “What are they?” Rachel asked.

  “The shaman has built two medicine lodges,” Boy explained. “There is one for women and one for men because they must not mix. We must perform the medicine before we go in search of the sacred tablet.”

  “What?!” Rachel said.

  Aunt Hilda stepped in. “Keep your voice down, Rebecca,” she said. “Indians believe that sweat ceremonies cleanse the evil before meeting spirits. Or some such. You clean your soul by sweating out all the badness, is that not right?” she demanded of Boy.

  Boy nodded.

  “It is an important ritual in these parts,” she explained. “We must strip down and sweat out the bad in those huts.”

  “Naked?” Rachel asked. “Not naked?”

  “Of course naked. That’s why there are separate huts for men and women. Better get on. It’s an interesting ritual, and I hear it can be quite pleasant,” Aunt Hilda said.

  The rest of us were outraged, Waldo’s chin jutting forward in a growl. There was something repulsive about the idea of sweating, naked, here in the bowels of the earth with Cecil Baker’s body burning so near us.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

  The others were adding their protests to mine. Boy held up a slim hand.

  “We must do this,” she said. “If we do not do this, the shaman cannot take us to the cavern of the ancestors.

  “This means we will not find the tablet.”

  Several hours of sweating later and my head felt as if it was floating off my body. My throat was parched, as Boy allowed only very few sips of water. The hot stones glowed in the center of our sweat house, steam pouring off them. Boy chanted and drummed, her incantations whirling in my head. Occasionally she would take her buffalo horn and pour more water on the glowing stones. Even more occasionally she would replace the stones with those from the fire blazing in the cave outside.

  It was already hot in the canyon outside. In here it was hot, hot, hot.

  My insides felt as if they had been opened and flayed by the burning stones. All the flesh was gone, shriveled away. There wasn’t anything left of me, just baking flesh. Somewhere very small inside was a shining nugget. It was me, Kit Salter.

  I will not dwell on the sight of my aunt. She seemed quite at home naked, squatting in the heat like a giant toad. It was much more pleasant to avert my eyes. I will say, though, that the drumming and chanting made it all seem like a dream.

  Boy was outside, gathering more hot stones, when Aunt Hilda turned to Rachel and me. Through the steam her face was contorted.

  “I’ve just realized what this is,” she said.

  “A steam bath,” I replied.

  “It’s a ritual. They are purifying us.”

  “So?”

  “You know what that means.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Cleansing our spirit and so on. The steam hissing up is the universe’s creative fire.”

  “No. They’re purifying us. Rebecca, Kit, listen—perhaps the Apaches purify people before they offer them as a sacrifice.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A human sacrifice. To their gods.”

  I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t believe her. Hadn’t Boy and the shaman already shown they were on our
side? And our enemy, Cecil Baker, was dead. But Aunt Hilda’s words blended with the steam and the rhythmic chanting from the male sweat hut to create a terrifying din in my head.

  Boy appeared, like a ghost, through the animal skins that formed the door of the sweat hut.

  “We are ready for the cavern of the ancestors,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Boy, a splash of color in her fawn dress and scarlet headband, stepped lightly across the earthen floor of the cave. We followed her, our tread heavy. The snake on my chest writhed, going in for the kill. Fear rose from my belly to meet it. What were we doing here? On a quest for some legendary tablet that we only knew of through rumor. A foolhardy mission led by Cyril Baker, a crazed man who was now dead. A dark foreboding hung over me. The “Glittering World,” the “Earth Surface World,” felt very far away. We were trapped here in the realm of shadow.

  The shaman was waiting, along with Isaac and Waldo. His grotesque mask glowered at us in livid reds and blues. In the sweat hut I had asked Boy about the mask, and she’d said it was called a kachina. When he placed it on his head, a man became the supernatural spirit carved on the mask. Kachinas control the living—birds, beasts and humans—and can bring rain or sun. They were savage gods, it seemed to me.

  Walking through the gloom, I realized that what I had thought of as a cave was actually a natural drainage ditch. I could see a tiny patch of sky a mile above us. A glimpse of louring clouds. This cleft in the canyon had been caused by water pouring from the world above for time immemorial. I put out a hand to steady myself as, bending down, I followed Boy and the kachina.

  Abruptly, as the sky far above our heads closed over into rock, we were plunged into darkness. My hand gripped the side of the tunnel, finding chill slimy stones, water-slick. Something clamped over my mouth and an iron grip took my other hand.