Storykeeper

by Daniel A Smith

  Only the river could save the child now. The current moved our bobbing heads toward the cottonwood so fast I feared we might be swept past it. I grabbed a branch. It bent and broke. We hit the tree hard. I pushed the child up onto the trunk.

  The river pulled me down. Dragged under the tree, I turned over and around, tangled in a web of its limbs and broken branches. Panic filled me. I fought to free myself, losing all sense of direction. A ball of light rippled behind me. I turned and swam for it.

  On the other side of the tree, I came up coughing and calling, “Nanza, Nanza.”

  Father Sun shone down on her. She was crying but safe.

  “My child, crawl to the canoe,” I said as soon as I reached her. I drew in a breath, full of pride. For in that moment, youth no longer felt like a memory. I bounded onto the fallen tree. But Chachiz’s blanket lying at the front of the canoe reminded me of my weakness. I wrapped Nanza in his blanket. I knew he would not mind.

  A younger old-man, I pushed out into the White River and began the long, peaceful journey home to my valley and my purpose.

  Chapter 6

  Manaha’s Journey

  Ninety-four years after “their” arrival

  The last flames of the story-fire danced among dying embers. Manaha glanced once around the empty circle, then spoke with effort. “The fire is consumed. The story told. Sunset next, there will be another fire and more stories.”

  She bowed her head and closed her eyes, but strained to hear every sound from the departing listeners. In the slight evening breeze, leaves rustled off to her right. In front and behind, she heard footsteps.

  Her face flushed. Her wrinkles smiled. How many there were she did not know, but she did have listeners. The telling ritual gave her peace, and having someone want to listen made it worth all her troubles.

  Next morning, she woke before sunrise, determined to resume her duties in the village fields as if nothing had happened. She had a bounce in her step as she returned from her morning bath. Alone with the beginning of a new day, Manaha not only had the time, but the desire to offer a prayer.

  “Great Father Sun hear the words of one so worthless. For all that you have given, for all that I have failed to receive, I can but ask for another day to try and follow the good path through the wonders of life you make possible.”

  It was a morning prayer her grandfather often recited. She hoped he was pleased with her telling of his story.

  Manaha arrived in the fields long before the other women. Working with the soil and helping crops grow always comforted and nurtured her. She tried to use her hoe with only one good arm. The flint blade landed where it wished and the dry earth gave little.

  She remembered her grandfather using that same blade. He would swing it by grabbing the handle with his good hand and bracing the end under the arm that was missing a hand. She could do the same, and soon learned to strike where she wanted with more force. If she wrapped her bad arm around the handle and held both as she swung, she felt almost whole. Rehearsing the deception, Manaha did not hear Asnewn until she stood in front of her.

  “Greetings, my friend,” Manaha said with a smile.

  Asnewn stared at her awkward hold on the hoe. As Manaha waited for a reply, she raised the hoe higher and higher. The two locked eyes but exchanged no words.

  A swift breeze followed the heavy blade as it slammed to the ground in front of Asnewn. She jumped back but said nothing. Manaha never looked up, then or ever again, at her old friend.

  Her next greetings were returned with more silent rejection. She lost her desire to speak to any of them. She dropped the hoe and her effort to use it, knelt, and began scratching at the earth with a digging stick. None of the others worked close, and no one spoke to her.

  Toiling in the heat and the silence, she grew only more determined. She had learned the strength of persistence from her grandfather. They were not going to chase her away. Manaha straightened her back and glared once around the field. No one returned the look.

  Still, she moved as though she had an audience and, with great dignity, tied the dangling arm against her waist. Her banishment could be overcome, with hard work if necessary, but the stories could not stop. She wedged the hoe handle under her bad arm and swung her grandfather’s flint blade as he had done.

  “A good worker is always needed,” she said loudly enough for all to hear, and swung again.

  Murmurs grew from the far edges of the field and spread to those working closest to her. Soon they were talking around her as though she were a bothersome old stump that stood between them and their morning chat. Much of the discussion swirled around the wedding ceremony to take place once the hunting party returned.

  The younger women giggled as they talked about the upcoming marriage of two couples. Most saw the ceremony as the long-awaited sign of growth and new birth. There had not been much to celebrate for many seasons.

  Manaha paid little attention as she tried to imagine what a wedding ceremony must have been like back in her homeland of Palisema in Nine-Rivers Valley. The others talked with hope for the coming feast, and she thought of a time when the land offered abundant feasts every day.

  In a fleeting moment, more a sweet sensation than a memory, she tasted piarchi. Her grandfather had made it on special occasions. Once her favorite food, she had not thought of it in many summers. Could she be the only one who could remember that wonderful taste?

  The day’s fieldwork done, the women turned to the festival preparations. Manaha had had enough of their chatter. She had her own ritual to tend. Her treatment in the field gave little hope for any new shadow listeners, but it had further sharpened her determination. She spent most of the afternoon gathering wood but used only a portion to build her third and smallest story-fire.

  The day ended with a glorious sunset. Father Sun warmed her with his colors and lifted her spirit with his greatness. She thought it sad that she had watched so few sunsets. It happened every evening whether she cared to look up or not.

  “The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars are the constants around which all other things change,” her grandfather would say.

  She had seen many changes. Even the ceremonies were different now. Rituals had been lost or hidden away in the hearts of the Old Ones. Manaha realized then that she had hidden more than most. What her grandfather had taught her must not be forgotten.

  The crack of a misplaced step broke into her thoughts. She turned from the darkening skies to the fire pit. Winds stirred. The flame she put to the kindling flickered.

  Once the fire took hold, Manaha dropped in a shaving from the lightning-tree, chanting, “I hear listeners round about.”

  Forest shadows rustled here and then there. She dropped in a second piece. “I hear listeners round about.”

  Whether it was the fire or a presence nearby—a warmth spread over Manaha as she dropped in the third piece. “I feel listeners round about,” she softly chanted.

  She turned from the fire to visitors unseen. “It is good to have listeners,” she said. “But my heart is saddened to see that you must hide. I know that we all hide something, each one for a different reason.”

  She untied the scarf she always wore as she spoke to the shadows. “I have always hidden my face for fear of rejection, yet I am rejected.”

  She stepped fully into the light of the fire. “I can never ask another to come out of hiding if I remain there.”

  With a tilt of the head, she snatched off the scarf. The night breeze cooled her bare cheeks. All survivors of the Black Sleep sickness had scars. Some carried them without thought, but Manaha had always concealed hers.

  She raised the scarf over her head and flung it down. The fire gasped as the tattered cloth settled over it. Her useless arm jerked as if reaching to save an old friend. Flames shot out from under the edges.

  Manaha looked away to the stars. She watched them grow in number as she slowly traced and retraced the circular scar on her left cheek. When she looked down, the scarf ha
d fallen to ashes. Not one listener had come forward.

  She shouted at the night, “All in the shadows and beyond listen to the last child of Palisema. I will hide no more! I will tell the stories of all that I know.”

  Chapter 7: The Hiding Cave

  Nanza’s Journey

  Forty-nine years after “their” arrival

  I, Nanza, a child who does not know her own real name or the names of her mother or father, had lived in Taninto’s isolated valley for all of my remembered life. If what Grandfather said on Narras Mountain last night was true, what I had always believed about my parents was a lie. He destroyed all my dreams of a family with one story.

  New found emotions boiled over in flashes. I began to hate my lonely life and his empty valley. I hated the warriors who had killed my family.

  Last night he had said, “I will guide you to Palisema, the land of your people.”

  How could I ever again believe anything he promised? Once I loved the grandfather he pretended to be, the one who cared for me when I was sick. Now I longed for my mother’s people. I needed to walk upon the land of my ancestors.

  “I will be down at the creek, preparing the canoe,” he had said when he left early. “We will leave in a day or two as soon as we are ready.”

  Grandfather had given me several tasks to complete before we left. The most important for me was making and packing my own travel-bundle. For as long as I could remember, he had kept a travel-bundle at the foot of his bed.

  Sometimes, I would wake to find his walking stick and bundle missing. He always returned by dark from his wanders as he called them. Always, except once, when he woke me and said he would not be back for several days. I pleaded, but he would not let me go with him.

  Since that day, I feared that I would never get the chance to leave. Now the time had come for my first journey out of Taninto’s valley. Grandfather said he would never return. That was his choice. I placed no boundary around my hopes.

  I knew that to reach those hopes, I must look forward. I must forget the story, forget what happened to my family, and busy my mind with thoughts of never-before imagined possibilities. I had to control my emotions, but my anger toward Grandfather came without warning. Each time, it left a taste more bitter than before.

  I gazed around the only home I had ever known. There had been so many mysterious objects about me as I grew up, most had not sparked a moment of wonder until that day. I studied the collection with new curiosity. Feathers in many colors hung about the lodge. Rocks and crystals of all sizes lay among the shells, berries, nests, and Grandfather’s clay figures. The most intriguing sat on the shelf above Grandfather’s bed.

  “Nanza, you are not to touch anything on my shelf,” he reminded me often.

  The one object I had stared at and wondered about occupied a special place in the center of his shelf. It was a pot, the size and shape of a head, fashioned in the likeness of a young woman. She had a beautiful face with eyes wide, but full of fear. A large hand covered her mouth and part of her nose, with long thin fingers pressing into her cheeks.

  I realized then it was not a likeness of someone older, as I had always assumed, but it was a girl now my own age. I had often compared my reflection to the memory of that face. It looked smooth. My face had pits and scars. I did not understand until that very moment the unspoken words behind the story of my family and my sickness.

  Black Sleep had left its mark on me. Ugliness was my shame. Dark emotions rushed through me. What else is he keeping from me?

  Suddenly, he was at the door. “Nanza,” he called.

  “What else have you not told me?” I wanted to know.

  “Gather up your bundle,” he said as if he had not heard me.

  He began snatching objects from around the lodge and piling them on his bed-skin. “Gather your things. Hurry!”

  Bewildered, I sat down with my travel-bundle half filled.

  “Get up, child!” he yelled. I had never heard fear in his voice until that moment. He pushed me and my bundle out of the lodge.

  With my shawl, his cloak, and our bundles on his back, he wrapped the stuffed bed-skin around his bad hand and carried his walking stick in the other. We crossed the edge of the cornfield heading toward the east mountain. He did not run, but I had to just to keep up.

  Once in the woods, Grandfather stopped. “I saw a hunting party coming from the north,” he said as he rearranged the bundles. “Should they cross the river, they will find our lodge.”

  His words had no meaning. I watched him tie the walking stick to his left hand. Then I understood.

  “They have come for me!” I shouted.

  “Quiet, child.” He threw the shawl in my face.

  I screamed.

  “Nanza,” he whispered, “be quiet.” He grabbed my arm, but fear had the stronger hold.

  “They have come to torture and kill me,” I said.

  “Listen to me, Nanza. No harm will come to you.”

  “The warriors who killed my family have come for me.”

  “No. No! That was a long time ago. These men are Nadakos—hunters, not warriors.”

  He waited for his words to reason with my panic then turned toward the mountain. “Now pick up your shawl and follow my path.” He looked back over his shoulder and smiled. “I will take you to a place where we can watch without being seen.”

  We crossed the valley creek and started up the mountain. Grandfather climbed the steep slope quickly in spite of the load he carried. I never thought of him as having only one hand, except when he used his walking stick. The short stick had a jar-like opening carved into the top which was lined with rabbit fur. He placed the hand without fingers or a thumb into the opening and strapped it tight. On a mountainside with his walking stick, he had the advantage over others with only two hands.

  Whenever I asked about his missing hand, he acted as though he had not heard my words—as he was still doing.

  “Grandfather walk slower, please ... wait. Wait for me.”

  He did not wait or slow his pace until almost out of sight. He turned around to survey the valley. I stopped to catch a breath and have my own look.

  “Hurry, Nanza. There is no time for you to be lazy.”

  Before I turned back to the mountain, I caught a glimpse of distant figures on the river trail. Grandfather began climbing, and I followed with new commitment. Almost out of sight, he stopped again. This time, I did not slow until I reached his side.

  “We can see the valley from this ledge,” he said as I came up.

  I sat close to him. We watched together. Small figures appeared and disappeared between the branches and the few remaining leaves that shielded us from their view. Eventually, they reached our home.

  I was seeing other people for the first time in memory. I had always imagined that it would be a joyous event, not frightening. It made me angry to think of someone in our lodge, touching our belongings. I hoped they would leave soon.

  Two hunters ran up the valley while two others started across the cornfield.

  When Grandfather saw them heading in our direction, he said, “We must go. I know a place to hide.”

  “But ...” I stammered.

  “Do not speak.” He scowled. “I know a place to hide. Now, be silent with every step.”

  Inside I shouted, but I followed without a word. His path headed to the south and always up. He stepped from rock to rock to fallen trees whenever he could. We never stopped or looked back, although I wanted to. The light faded as we came to a bluff overlooking a small ravine. He climbed down one side and unloaded his bundles at the bottom.

  “This is no place to hide,” I mumbled.

  He began clearing away the dead branches that lay at the base of the cliff.

  “Grandfather, what are you doing?” Confusion twisted inside me as I looked down on him. “You expect us to hide in the brushes, old man?” I asked.

  He ignored my disrespect and said with no emotion, “I will go in first. You fol
low.” Pushing all the bundles in front of him, he crawled into a crack in the earth.

  Left behind with no time for doubt, I followed. The small opening forced me to crawl on my belly. An earthy smell filled the blackness in front of me. I tried to turn around, but it was too tight.

  “Do not be afraid, Nanza.”

  I could almost reach his heels, but his voice seemed far away.

  “This is the entrance to a great cave that reaches into the heart of the mountain. Nothing ever found me when I hid here.”

  His words gave me a vague sense of direction, but little assurance.

  “Not much farther and you will be able to stand.”

  The tunnel shrank as the darkness closed in on me.

  “Will there be light?” I wanted to know before I crawled any deeper.

  “In time, your eyes will adapt,” he said and scrambled out of my reach.

  I stopped. In front and to either side, I could see nothing but black. Behind me, the opening glowed in soft sunlight. I had started backing toward it when something grabbed my arm. Dragged from the light and stood upright in complete blackness, I could see no more with my eyes open than I could with them closed.

  Darkness spoke without form or substance in a hushed voice. “Do not be afraid.”

  Once I was certain the voice belonged to Grandfather, I reached until I grabbed him.

  “Nanza stay here. Do not move until I get a fire started.” He pulled free of my grasp. “You will feel better once we have some light.”

  At that moment, I wanted more than a fire. I needed something familiar to hold.

  “Stay where you are.” The words came from everywhere and nowhere.

  I squatted down until I found the crack through which I had been pulled. The light at the other end had turned orange. The outside would soon grow dark, but it would be nowhere close to the dark nothingness of the underworld. From the thick dust around me, I picked up a small rock and rolled it in my fingers, hoping for something familiar. I dropped it when a crash of tumbling boulders echoed from across the unknown.