Hunters and Gatherers

by Francine Prose

  At intervals, Titania pointed out, “We could walk faster.” But eventually even Titania slipped into a heat-bludgeoned daze and let herself be thrown about by Joy’s swerves around potholes.

  Once Isis said, “Isn’t this an extraordinary meditative state we’re in? What’s amazing me about this trip is how the simple work of getting from place to place keeps putting us in previously unexplored states of consciousness.”

  It was too hot for anyone to reply. Martha put her feet up. Joy hung one arm out the window, steering with the other.

  “Sure,” said Sonoma. “Driving through the desert in a Rent-a-Wreck jeep is the fabulous new high.”

  When had the focus of Sonoma’s scorn shifted to include Isis? Isis said nothing and sighed deeply. A shiver ran through the group.

  “ALL RIGHT!” JOY PUMPED her fist in the air.

  “Yess!” Sonoma hissed.

  By now the other women had sunk into tortoiselike states of remove out of which they gradually hauled themselves, blinking their gritty eyelids. They stared unseeingly at a signpost poking out of the desert and a handmade sign, elegantly calligraphed in Gothic script:

  “Talk about mixed messages,” said Joy.

  “Would you stop it?” said Diana.

  A feathered arrow pointed toward a driveway that they followed over the sand and around a hill, until it stopped in front of a sort of derelict motel, a circle of pitted adobe cabins, prefab shacks, and campers. In the center was a mammoth cream-colored RV, pinstriped, painted with lightning bolts and kachina figures, and armored with extra bumpers and a shiny chrome ladder to nowhere. Near its door a pack of skinny feral dogs, mottled with patches of pink and silvery blue, arched and convulsed in the dust.

  “What the hell?” said Titania.

  “Awesome pups,” said Sonoma.

  As the van pulled up, the dogs began to bark, then ran out and surrounded it, growling deep in their throats.

  “Oh, dear,” said Bernie. “Perhaps we should lock the doors and windows.”

  Martha regarded the ugly dogs, sliming the windows with drool as they sprang up, scratching the van.

  Joy said, “Hey, fuck this. I’m out of here.”

  “Relax,” said Starling. “It’s not our vehicle. Serves the bastards right.”

  Just then they heard several loud pops.

  “Firecrackers?” said Freya.

  “Yeah, right, Mom,” said Sonoma. “Champagne corks.”

  “Gunshots, I believe,” said Starling.

  “Golly,” Bernie said.

  The dogs had heard the shots, too, and crawled back to the trailer.

  All this so unnerved the women that only now did they notice the short barrel-shaped person who had emerged from the RV: an Indian woman with long braids, an orange beaded headband, faded jeans, and a black T-shirt that said Harley-Davidson Club of Tucson. She was carrying a rifle pointed up in the air.

  “Righteous firepower,” said Sonoma.

  “Is that Maria?” said Diana.

  “Certainly not,” said Isis. “Maria’s thin and gorgeous.”

  Joy and Starling jumped from the van, then waited for Isis to take the lead. Trailed closely by the others, Isis approached the woman.

  “I’m Isis Moonwagon? We’re looking for Maria Aquilo?”

  “Maria’s not here,” the woman said. “She had to go teach at a conference in Santa Fe.”

  “What conference?” Isis said.

  The woman thought a moment. “Earth Sisters Week.”

  “Earth Sisters Week?” said Isis. “They must be holding that early this year. Usually it’s in April, I hadn’t heard…I mean, I’ve done Earth Sisters Week for the past four years…I can’t imagine why I wasn’t…”

  “Oh that one,” said Freya. “Didn’t I do that one in 1988?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Mother,” said Sonoma.

  The woman said, “Maria left last night. She’ll be in Santa Fe all week. For the conference.”

  “I know the conference lasts a week,” snapped Isis. “We’ll be gone before she gets back. We’re supposed to be studying with her. I met—I taught with—Maria in Bolinas. I’m Isis Moonwagon.”

  “Right,” said the woman. “Maria asked me to fill in for her. I am Rita Ochoa. I am a medicine woman and storyteller. I was expecting you tomorrow. Got my signals wrong, I guess. The Grandfathers used to send messages with clairvoyance and ESP. But the white man jammed our frequencies with his telephones and telegraphs, and now part of the Native peoples’ struggle is to reclaim our old ways of communication.”

  “Are you from Maria’s tribe?” Bernie asked.

  “We are from different tribes but we are all the same people,” Rita replied.

  “Oh, I know that,” said Bernie. “But I meant—”

  “I am Yaqui,” Rita said. “Maria is half Papago and half Mescalero Apache. But I have studied the lore and legends of all our indigenous peoples, and I travel often, telling our stories and legends. I did the August Powwow in Seneca, New York. I did the Oklahoma State Fair. Just now I did a purification sweat lodge at the Rebirth Center in Boulder, Colorado.”

  “I’ve been to Boulder,” said Isis.

  “I’ve been to the Rebirth Center,” Hegwitha said. “They have superfabulous hot springs.”

  “Yes,” said Rita. “Our people hold such springs sacred to Mother Earth and Changing Woman.”

  “Changing Woman!” said Diana. “Changing Woman’s a Navajo goddess. I thought you said you were Yaqui.”

  Patiently, Rita repeated herself. “I have studied the lore and legends of all our Native peoples.”

  “Of course,” said Isis. “Well! Excuse us a moment. We need to get some things from our car.”

  “Need help?” offered Rita.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” said Starling.

  “We travel light,” said Isis.

  “Good,” said Rita. “Ancient hunter-gatherer people always traveled light.”

  “Hunter-gatherers!” Isis brightened. “I think about them all the time.”

  Rita watched the Goddess women till they disappeared around the side of the van, where they huddled, out of sight.

  “I don’t get it,” said Isis. “Maria had my phone number. It is just so unprofessional…”

  “What saddens me,” said Bernie, “is that this is a woman doing this to other women, making promises and not keeping them because she’s gotten a better offer—”

  “I don’t know about better offer,” said Isis. “Earth Sisters Week is a ton of work for hardly any money. I can’t fathom why they didn’t call me. I helped found that goddamn conference.”

  “All right,” said Starling. “The question is: What now? Not only did we get the wrong vehicle, we got the wrong medicine woman. There must be some recourse, something we can do, even if it means lawyers and suing the ass off these shitheads.”

  “Outstanding!” said Sonoma.

  “Can’t you see it on People’s Court?” said Joy. “Today we hear the case of the Goddess priestesses versus Canyon Country Travel and two Native American healers.”

  “Who says Rita’s a healer?” said Freya. “It’s not clear that she has any bona fide credentials whatever. Anyone can hang out a shingle and call herself a medicine woman.”

  “She taught at the Rebirth Center,” said Hegwitha.

  “So she claims,” said Starling.

  “Ladies,” said Isis. “Concentrate. We have a crisis to resolve.”

  “Gee, it’s hot,” said Bernie.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Freya.

  “I agree,” said Titania. “We’ve got a stand-in medicine woman—and this place is a dump. I didn’t pay hundreds of dollars to vacation in a camper in Death Valley. Do we know if there’s air conditioning? We’ll fry in those little tin cans.”

  Sonoma said, “We’ll cook like microwave popcorn.”

  “What we have to remember,” said Isis, “is that this is not about whether Four Feathers or Tucson has the
softest beds.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Titania. “I’m not that shallow, Isis.”

  “I realize that,” said Isis. “We have to address the fact that some of us want to leave and others want to stay, and what I think I’m hearing is a big undecided middle. Are we going to write this off as a dead loss—another case of white liberals being ripped off by people of color who can hardly be blamed for wanting to repay us for centuries of oppression? I mean: Maria’s no-show seems minor compared to Little Big Horn. Let’s call it a teaching lesson about politics and history—”

  “Herstory,” corrected Starling.

  “Whatever,” Isis said. “Or are we going to trust the journey itself and see why the Goddess has sent Rita instead of Maria.”

  “The Goddess?” said Titania. “For all we know, Maria got some cousin to put on a headband and come here and play shaman.”

  Bernie said, “Are we sure we’ll get anything to eat?”

  “I’m starved,” said Sonoma.

  “Dear,” said Freya. “You ate an entire bag of cookies in the van.”

  “You had cookies and didn’t share?” Joy said. “Oh, Sonoma, you creep!”

  Isis said, “I don’t know. I keep thinking about all those stories in which the Buddha comes to the door dressed as a beggar. How do we know if the real teacher is Maria—or Rita?”

  “The Buddha was a man,” Joy said. “That was a really male trip: sending some psycho to your door and then saying you’re not going to find enlightenment because you didn’t invite him in. What sane woman would invite him in?”

  Diana said, “Who needs Rita? We could just be here in the desert. It’s fine with me if Rita splits and leaves us alone for five days.”

  “Five days!” Titania groaned.

  “That’s a lifetime,” said Martha despairingly.

  “Seriously,” said Bernie. “Nourishment is central. Is there food here or not? It’s miles back to the 7-11. Is there even a phone?”

  “I see phone lines,” observed Sonoma, for which Isis rewarded her with a sweetly approving smile.

  “Isis is right,” said Diana. “This is all about trusting the Goddess. It’s wrong to privilege one medicine woman or one tribe over another.”

  “That’s right,” said Hegwitha. “Just because Maria is the superstar medicine woman and Rita is the warm-up act. Goddess religion is not supposed to be a hierarchy of main attractions versus openers. It’s about the wisdom of all women, and if Rita says she’s a teacher and healer…I’m sure she has something to teach us because of who she is and where she lives.”

  “Where does she live?” said Freya. “Do we know? Her ancestral tribal home may be a…trailer park in Muskogee.”

  “As opposed to what, Freya?” said Starling. “A mansion in Palm Beach?”

  “Mom’s real problem is that Rita’s fat,” said Sonoma. “Mom can’t imagine learning from someone who isn’t rich and skinny.”

  “Overweight is a major health issue for Native Americans,” said Bernie. “Genetically, they were never meant to subsist on the white man’s lousy beer-and-balloon-bread diet.”

  “Trailer parks can be sacred spaces,” Hegwitha pointed out.

  “Hegwitha’s right,” Isis said uncertainly.

  “If she lives in a trailer park,” said Joy, “it’s because the white man’s put her there.”

  “Perhaps,” said Titania. “But I’m not sure the solution is moving into the trailer park with her.”

  “Oh, look, here’s Rita!” cried Martha, who had just spotted Rita advancing like a ship gliding into port.

  “Dinnertime!” trilled Rita, trying to sound hospitable, despite the chill, paranoid twinkle glinting in her eyes. “You ladies must be starving. I bet you could eat a buffalo. But first we have to kill it.” She gave a fierce little bark of a laugh, and the women smiled unhappily.

  Motioning for them to follow, Rita headed back to the trailer.

  “Well, Bernie, it looks like there’s food,” said Titania. “You were so upset about that.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Joy. “I wish we knew how literally she meant that about killing the buffalo. C’mon, ladies, you’ve read those books where someone goes to live with Native healers and the first thing they’re asked to do is help butcher a bison.”

  “Fabulous,” said Titania. “I can just see myself filleting buffalo steaks.”

  “I don’t know,” said Isis. “That could be a lesson.”

  “Taking a life?” said Diana. “And eating it?”

  Isis said, “That’s how Native people lived. Why privilege vegetarians?”

  “When I was a girl,” said Freya, “I often helped my mother and sisters kill chickens and even pigs.”

  “Totally gross,” said Sonoma. “No wonder you’re so fucked up about food.”

  “Sonoma, please,” said Freya. “I’ve begged you not to talk that way.”

  “Why not?” said Sonoma. “Everyone else does.”

  “You’re a child,” said Freya.

  “Oh yeah, really, Mom,” said Sonoma.

  Hesitantly they followed Rita around the trailer to a sandy patio under a trellis made from wood slats that cast pretty patterned shadows on the picnic table and benches. The air smelled appetizingly of charcoal and salty fried food.

  “The ramada,” Rita said.

  “The ramada,” Bernie repeated.

  The table was set with Mexican earthenware bowls, from which a mahogany-colored stew sent up wisps of steam. On the ground, over a fire, oil bubbled in an iron caldron that Rita bent over, poking at a defenseless round fritter.

  “Her Indian name,” Titania whispered, “is Eats High Cholesterol Diet.”

  The tiny shed in which the dogs had been shut seemed to be howling and rocking, like the witch in Russian fairy tales disguised as a walking hut.

  “Inhumane,” said Diana.

  “Tomorrow’s dinner,” said Joy.

  “Shut up,” Diana said.

  “Navajo fry bread and chili,” Rita explained. “I hope you ladies eat meat. The life of our Native people was very much about hunting and thanking the spirits of the four-legged ones who give of themselves so freely so that two-leggeds can live.”

  “Right,” said Joy. “Thanks a bundle, dead animal friends.”

  “Oh,” Isis said. “It must be thrilling to live so close to the ancient hunter-gatherer ways.”

  “Those are our Grandfather ways,” Rita said proprietarily.

  “And Grandmother ways,” said Diana.

  Suddenly Rita dipped her head and put her fists over her ears. “Thank you, Great Spirit, for our food. Thank you, Earth, our Mother. Thank you, spirit of Brother Deer, for giving so freely of yourself so that we may live. Amen.”

  “Blessed be,” said the women.

  “That’s what we say in Goddess religion,” said Starling. “We say ‘Blessed be.’”

  “Eat!” Rita tore off a section of fry bread and used it to throttle a thick chunk of stew.

  Several women did the same, though more gingerly and with less gusto. Martha tasted a cube of meat and some gravy-soaked fry bread—delicious!

  Half the group were vegetarians, but one by one they started eating the fry bread and chili. Isis, Joy, Hegwitha, and Diana were the last to surrender, and they compromised, mopping up sauce and avoiding the meat with surgical precision.

  “What kind of meat is this?” said Starling.

  “Venison,” said Rita.

  “Bambi,” said Diana. But even she kept taking dainty nibbles of bread and gravy.

  “Ha ha, Bambi,” Rita said.

  “Did one of your hunters shoot it?” said Bernie.

  “It’s roadkill,” explained Rita. “We found it on the road.”

  Everything stopped. The women looked at her.

  Rita wasn’t joking.

  “Roadkill!” said Joy. “Are you telling us that we’re fucking eating roadkill?”

  “This is a sacred space,” Rita remin
ded her. “We do not use white man’s filthy sex talk here.”

  “You’re joking,” Isis said. “About the roadkill, I mean. We agree about the language. Sorry.”

  “I’m not joking,” Rita said. “It is very important in our Native culture not to waste the earth’s bounty. White people think they can kill for pleasure or sport, but Native Americans believe there is only one kind of killing. It’s an insult to let our animal teachers waste their lives for nothing. There is good and bad roadkill. We have learned to tell how—and when—a creature’s spirit left its body. We will not take anything that’s been dead longer than a chicken goes unrefrigerated on the way to your supermarket.”

  Had Rita imagined that she could get ten women from the Upper West Side cheerfully eating roadkill? Martha considered Rita’s point—did it matter how animals died? Hunger made it easier to see things Rita’s way. The stew glistened invitingly, a lacquery reddish brown. Bambi’s spirit could have left its body after the gentlest fender-tap, and its corpse could have rolled to the side of the road, pristine and not run over. But why had Rita told the truth? Admitted it was roadkill? She couldn’t have thought she was making their meal more attractive to eat. Maybe Rita was seeing how far they would go: testing the limits of their fear, obedience, and politeness.

  “Actually,” Joy said, “this may be ecologically far-out. I heard a story on NPR about a food bank in Montana that feeds thousands of homeless daily on what they scrape off the road.”

  “Get away!” said Sonoma. “No way I’m going to eat this shit. It’s like so racist to expect us to eat this crap just because she’s Native American and we have to be polite.”

  “Sonoma,” said Bernie, “Rita’s our host. You can’t be rude to her just because her culture differs from ours.”

  “Bullshit,” said Sonoma.

  In the ensuing silence Freya announced, “At least Sonoma’s found something she won’t eat.” Isis said, “Freya! She’s a child!”

  Sonoma said, “You’re a real bitch, Mom. You know that?” Everyone put down their forks. Now they could stop eating and pretend that it was not from squeamishness about roadkill, but because they’d been robbed of their appetites by a mother-daughter squabble. Martha saw Isis smiling beatifically at Sonoma.