by Multiple
Each morning he would sing a prayer song and set forth again, curious why some plants seem to need human people to grow strong and others did not. One afternoon he saw a family of deer that reminded him of his own family and he wished his People did not have to primarily depend upon the Animal People to survive.
On the fourth day of fasting he felt weak and wondered if he might even die. He shut his eyes and dreamed of a beautiful youth descending from the sky. He was dressed in fine beaded clothing, with feathers Taláyi did not recognize that were tied into the other young man’s hair. He felt attracted to this stranger who returned his affection.
“The Creator has sent me to you to be your spirit Power. It is required that I must test you. The Creator has heard your secret prayer that you have made not for yourself but for all human people. It warms the Creator’s heart that you seek to better your People rather than seeking power to control or conquer others. Just so, it is my responsibility to show you how to feed your People.” He smiled and touched Taláyi gently. “Remember this is always about ritual and ceremony. To feed the life of another means that a life must be sacrificed, which is why we are taught to see food as sacred. You must rise up and wrestle with me.”
Taláyi still felt lightheaded and weak from his fasting, but reached out to the other who drew him into his arms in a way that did not seem to be the wrestling he had done before. This was far more intimate, where he was aware of the other’s warmth and the combination of strength and softness in the body of the sky youth. When Taláyi had finally pinned the other, he tentatively kissed him and the youth eagerly returned his love. They spent the night together within the lodge.
The next morning they woke and sang a prayer song to the Creator. They bathed within a nearby creek and Taláyi admired the other’s nude body which was smooth and slender. “Once more you must wrestle me,” the youth whispered in Taláyi’s ear. “This must be done as it must be done.” Then he kissed Taláyi once more and pulled him close. They contended in a loving way and the day ended with the other being defeated, kissed, and held lovingly while they both fell asleep. On the morning of the fourth day after he had arrived, the youth became serious.
“This will be difficult for you, but it must be done. It is all part of the Cycle.” Taláyi prayed to the Creator for the strength he would need as his body faded from hunger, but he knew the ceremony would soon be over. They wrestled once again, and Taláyi drank in the other’s scent and sensuality. He luxuriated in the feel of the other’s body and how his hair felt against his bare flesh. “I surrender,” the other said. “You have earned your victory for you have conquered my heart.” He pulled him back into the lodge and held him close. “Your time in this lodge is almost over. Your father and the medicine man will return to break your fast. But before that time you must throw me down and remove my clothing. You will clean the area of the small plants that grow here and prepare a bed in the sweet soft soil for me.”
Taláyi only knew how much he loved the other. A single tear rolled down his cheek. “You must bury my body, covering me with my clothing and then with the Mother Earth. Then it is time for you to leave me. Do not disturb my bed. Come and see if I have returned. Keep my grave safe from grass and weeds that would trouble me. If you do as I say then you will have your wish and your family and others will be safe from hunger.” Then he kissed him one last time in a passionate way. “It is time we wrestle once more to complete the ritual.”
Taláyi felt renewed and strong, filled with great power. He pulled the other to him in almost a dance. He held him close and felt the other’s energy fill him. The youth from the sky fell against him and no longer breathed. He grieved for his loss and his tears dampened the other’s clothing as he stripped him bare and removed the strange and colorful feathers from his silken hair. Carefully he followed the directions he had been given, praying to the Creator his love would be returned and the other would live once more.
His father and the medicine man came for him to break his fast and welcome him back to the everyday world. He ate lightly and the two older men wondered at his detachment, for he seemed to still be spiritually apart. Taláyi remained devoted to his lover, coming to the grave site on a regular basis, watering it with sweet spring water and his tears. To his delight soft green leaves greeted him and the new plants grew as tall as he was. The more attention he gave them, the more they responded, just as the youth had.
When he felt the time was right, he asked his father to accompany him to where his heart was planted. He proudly introduced his father to the beautiful plants given to him by his spirit Power. They were topped with silken hair as fine as his lover’s. “He gave up his life for us, so we would not have to hunt every day to feed ourselves with the Animal People. In exchange for our care, he will care for us.” He showed his father how to prepare the corn, explaining how to harvest the ears, and that they should only be placed near the fire long enough for its protective leaves to crisp so the sweet kernels would stay juicy. “The first seeds must be saved for the next planting.” They returned to their community to prepare a feast of the sacred new plant that was a gift from the Creator and Taláyi’s lover. Each spring, the sky youth would return to Taláyi’s side.
Chapter Nineteen
“How about a Coyote Story?” I asked.
“Such a compliment,” he smiled, “a Story about me?”
“It wouldn’t be a Story about you. Your name is Echo.”
“Echo is one of my names. What is the name in your language for the Trickster?”
I frowned—after all, we had been speaking in my language. I had already used Coyote’s name several times already. Was this just another ritual detail, where I had to say something out loud a certain number of times? I repeated Coyote’s name.
“Ah, my little fishy,” he said, “You don’t even listen to yourself, let alone anyone else. What does your word for Coyote really mean—literally mean?
I thought for a moment—his name just meant Coyote to me, but when I broke it down I replied, “Imitator. It’s because in so many legends Coyote tries to copy the actions of the other Animal People and every time he does something goes wrong.” I frowned. “Imitator. One who Copies. Echo.” I stopped frowning. “So—you’re Coyote,” I said with an automatic tone of disbelief. “Nobody has Coyote Power.”
“That’s true. I’d crush a human—none of your kind could contain me. You’d be a vessel that would burst if I poured myself inside you. Your Power is Moth.” He looked up and she landed on the stone cup, spreading out her wings to show off her owl eye spots.
“Does that mean I need to pick a Story that involves Moth?”
“You can tell a Coyote Story that involves death, and that will honor Moth.” She fluttered her wings in what I assumed was agreement. I thought about what would be a Story where Coyote was a hero instead of a selfish trickster or raping a poor woman. Among my father’s People there were some stories about Coyote getting tricked by some of the other Animal People where he was raped, but I had no desire to live one of those. We had some legends of Coyote doing drag and marrying a man to punish him for his pride and to end up enjoying a wedding feast. They ended with Coyote humiliating his new husband in front of the community. I don’t do drag. I settled on one I knew well that I had learned from Aunt Beans.
Chapter Twenty
“I was going there,” I began. There were so many ways I could go. I looked at Echo—Imitator— and he had turned into a young boy. He continued to shapeshift, taking on the form of a half-human, half-rabbit being, but one with a long bushy tail that would have looked right at home on the ass of a squirrel. He obviously knew this Story as well.
“Grandson,” I said, trying not to laugh, since I would be playing the role of a grandparent. I suppose it wasn’t much of a stretch to go from faux Coyote to faux Elder. This was supposed to be all about learning. “You must never go into the woods because a terrible monster lives there who kills people by swallowing them. You must promis
e me you will play nearby and not go into the woods.” I looked at him and thought the same thing as I always did when I heard this Story. The minute you tell anybody “Don’t do X,” they immediately want to do “X.” In fact, they probably would never have considered doing “X” until you told them not to do it.
He nodded and then began to play. I returned to our lodge and wondered how long I should wait. In the legend, Coyote’s grandson immediately ran off to look for the monster, At’at-kleyah, and was summarily swallowed. I looked around for the five flint knives mentioned in the legend that Coyote carried with him. The legend also instructed me to make a great rope of twisted cedar bark, which was initially a lot more involved than I had anticipated. I got frustrated, then announced to the rope, “I, Coyote, command you to become long and mighty.” Like the special effects in a big budget movie, the small rope I had made shimmered and then stabilized in exactly the size and form I had always imagined whenever I had heard the legend. I wrapped it around my waist the way the other legend had Coyote wrapping his original penis. I put the fire-making set into my belt pouch and figured I was ready to get the party started.
I followed Rabbit’s tracks easily. The legend ended without Coyote or Rabbit returning home, so I didn’t bother to pay that much attention to memorizing my way back to the lodge. I eventually came to an enormous cedar tree that looked a lot like the one that had told me the story of Black Wolf and tied myself securely to its trunk with the rope. “At’at-kleyah!” I yelled at the top of my voice, “At’at-kleyah! I bet you can’t swallow me!”
On cue, I felt a stirring from deeper within the forest, a distinct sense of someone being majorly pissed. Let’s see, how many supernatural beings have I managed to upset in the last 24 hours? A sudden wind picked up which I assumed was her breathing out before she started swallowing. I tensed myself. The monster began to suck so hard, all the small branches and leaves were stripped from the tree, but the rope that secured me held firm. I laughed and repeated, “At’at-kleyah, At’at-kleyah! I told you that you couldn’t swallow me!”
The area around me rustled and she sucked so hard all the larger branches of the tree were broken off and swallowed, I was glad my braids were solidly pinned behind my back and the trunk, or they would be horizontal right now. I thought about the eagle feather in my hair but figured it was enchanted to stay in place. I wish I had that power in everyday life. Things became peaceful again. I yelled, “At’at-kleyah, At’at-kleyah! They told me you were tough! And I told them that you’d never swallow me!” The forest went completely silent. She sucked so hard all the largest of the branches were broken off and promptly swallowed. My rope held me tight.
I braced myself—this would be the big one. “ At’at-kleyah, At’at-kleyah! You’re nothing! You can never swallow Coyote!” The quality of silence shifted to Silence. It was as if every creature everywhere was holding its breath. Then At’at-kleyah began to suck harder than she had ever sucked in her life. She sucked so hard the whole cedar tree was pulled out by its roots and the monster swallowed it and me at the same time. I slipped free of the rope, but everything was black around me. I took out the fire-starter kit and sparked it enough to start my cedar rope burning. As I expected, there were bones beneath my feet in every direction. I looked up and sure enough, saw someone “as thin as a shadow.” I couldn’t tell what sort of Animal Person this was, or even the gender. The Person was, as we say back home, “pretty rugged.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We are inside the belly of the monster, Coyote. All around you are the bones of people she has killed by swallowing them. There is nothing to eat here, and so we eventually starve to death.” That was a line I knew.
“What is this stuff?” I pointed to great sack like globs of a shiny white-yellow substance.
“Oh, Coyote,” said the Shadow-thin, “That’s the monster’s insides—its fat. We would never want to eat that!”
“Listen carefully,” I told the Shadow-thin, staying on script. “At’at-kleyah has killed too many people. I am going to kill her. When I do, she will open her mouth to give her death cry. When that happens, even the ones who have been dead for years will come back to life. All of her orifices will be open. People will only have a short time to run out of her before she closes up tight. It nodded at me, and I pulled one of the knives made of flint from my belt pouch and looked high above me where her great heart was beating. I needed a stepladder. Actually, I needed a fire truck built to service skyscrapers. I just knew from the original legend, Coyote jumped up and grabbed hold of At’at-kleyah’s heart.
What the hell. I put all my strength into my jump and to my delight, I just kept going up. Coyote could really do the “leaps tall buildings in a single bound” bit that was being told about for hundreds of years before there were any tall buildings to leap. I could see the usefulness of “supervised practice” because I almost overshot the heart but managed to hook my right foot around its stem and grabbed on to it tightly. I positioned myself as securely as I could. I began to hack at the heart with the first flint knife. At’at-kleyah twitched as the flint knife bit into her. My first knife broke. I let the fragments drop and pulled out the second to renew my attack. I was nearly pitched off the heart from her reaction. That one broke and I pulled out my third.
I held on tight and continued the slice and dice. She must have jerked up this time rather than back and forth, but I had a death (hah) grip and kept up my work until the third shattered and I pulled out the fourth. I kept up the sawing and it now felt as if she were turning in circles or spiraling down. As foretold, the fourth knife of flint shattered and I pulled out my last one. As her body thrashed violently, I cut the last of her heart away. I then felt like a cartoon Coyote by realizing I had just cut off what was holding me up. There was a moment of fear and then I plummeted down.
All sounds were drowned out by her death scream, so I couldn’t hear what bodies coming back alive sounded like. I fell heavily, but with little damage. I guess I now had a tougher body. The Shadow-thin was standing close by, directing the reviving others towards the monster’s huge mouth and freedom. I looked around for Rabbit, but I already knew where I would find him. I hustled forward as many as I could, jumping over her great teeth and stood with the increasingly large group of survivors on the ground in front of the monster.
“Rabbit!” I yelled—and waited for him to appear. Her mouth was starting to close. “Hurry, Rabbit, hurry!” I saw him in the distance, running for the mouth that was about to shut forever. I held out my arms and he leapt, just as At’at-kleyah’s jaw slammed down. He wasn’t quite fast enough and the monster bit off most of his fine bushy tail as her last act, leaving him only a very familiar bunny bush of a tail. He looked up at me from the ground where he had landed.
I considered my options. I knew on the opposite side of the monster a similar thing had happened to Muskrat who was taking the rear exit. If the Story was going as planned, Muskrat’s impressively fluffy tail had been trapped inside her as death closed off that orifice as well. His friends should be helping pull him out, and the action would effectively strip all the fur off of his tail which is why it is hairless to this day. I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to see all of the details.
I looked expectantly at Rabbit. As far as I knew, the Story was finished. “Ana Chush Nai,” I said ritualistically—”The Story Is Over.” He smiled his wererabbit grin and jumped into my arms. I held him crushed fondly against my chest. He moved his head and began to force his tongue into my mouth. Disgusted I pulled back, but I was off-balance and he was returning to his earlier size and shape, while never once slowing down from ravaging me. I fell on my back and he was on top of me, his strong large hands wrapped around my wrists, which he pulled above my head.
I twisted around and where the monster’s body had been I could only see a rocky valley. Echo nibbled on my earlobe and I automatically laughed. We were now back in the in-between space. It currently seemed more of a glade
, but it felt more peaceful. Or maybe it was just because my flesh hadn’t just been scrapped off and then reconstituted with baked clay. Echo passed me the stone cup and I gratefully drank down the cool water it held. Monster slaying took a lot of out of you.
“What happens now?” I handed the cup back to him.
“I plan to rut like a rabbit,” he grinned. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate. And he did.
“Life is aligning,” he told me. “If you pay attention, you can sense the Everyday World and the Spiritual World coming together. You have accomplished what you needed to do.”
“So I can go home?”
“Yes, Dorothy. It’s almost time for heel clicking. You know enough from your other Songs how to Call Moth when you have need to return to the in-between space and then move to the Spiritual World.”
“What about you?”
“Will you miss me, little fishy? You do understand Moth is now your new Spirit Power, not me. I am no one’s Spirit Power. I have other duties. There are others that need initiation. The number of your Native people I see has continued to drop, but in some other communities the initiated are increasing in number. I keep busy. I will always have special fondness for you.”
“Do you have sex with all of them?”
“Jealous? Envious? No, my little fishy. It’s one of the reasons I have enjoyed my time with you so. I had forgotten how much fun some individuals like you can be.” He kissed me and when I opened my eyes I was by the creek that bordered Uncle Feeney’s property. I held the yew staff (or one of them) on my lap. My body ached. I said a prayer, thanking the Creator for my safe return.