Wild Indigo

by Sandi Ault

  The big man lifted the child to the floor and patted her bottom as she scampered toward the bed to join her brother in a nap. Then Contreras rose from the wooden bench and extended a large brown palm to me. “It was good to see you again, Jamaica,” he said.

  I took his hand. “Good to see you, too, Hunter. You going back?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll be taking turns for the next few days.”

  He went through the open doorway to the kitchen, and I could hear him speaking softly in Tiwa to Serena. I heard her crying as he spoke. When she answered, it was in the long nasal vowels of her native tongue. Then I heard the kitchen door squeak on its hinges and thud shut.

  I rose from my seat, ready to leave, and Grandma Bird Woman again stood and went to the mudroom, calling behind her for me to wait. She came out with a thin white blanket. “This,” she said, making a gesture as if to cover her hair. “People the village, they talk. Pueblo closed, you know, no white people. You, yellow hair. You put this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping the blanket around my head and shoulders. Because of my height, it only came to my hips. Serena, who had come in wiping her eyes to say good-bye, laughed at this. She said something to her mother in Tiwa. Then to me, she said, “I told my mom to give you one of Daddy’s blankets. You’re too big to wear one of hers.”

  Grandma Bird went again to the mudroom. The blanket she brought this time had a series of pale mauve stripes at each end. “Go back way,” she told me, adjusting the blanket so it covered more of my face. “Over wall. Keep head…” She made a gesture as if to pull a blanket over her own head.

  As I was crossing over the wall and down the steps, I heard a screen door slam. Serena caught up to me, a little out of breath. She pulled a blanket over her own hair and said, “I’ll walk with you to the corral.”

  We made our way down the thin plank steps and across the narrow dirt road that ran along the back wall of the pueblo. When we got to my car, Serena said, “I wanted to tell you that my sister Anna’s heart is broken.”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  “It’s not just the loss of her son. His wife, Madonna…they were…having a hard time.”

  I wasn’t sure where this was headed, but I had a hunch. Gossip was a mainstay of the relationships between the women at the pueblo. It was used as a sort of Tanoah version of our Supreme Court—each party arguing the merits of moral issues arising from the questionable behaviors of the subject. The ladies, in the course of their daily activities, would intone the name of someone whose behavior was considered suspect, then debate one viewpoint against the other until the group arrived at some sort of consensus. This accord was a kind of binding decision about the rightness or wrongness of a certain type of behavior—and the one they were gossiping about was then let know that she had been talked about. One of the worst things one could do at Tanoah Pueblo was to set the talking tongues loose over something done or not done. Hence, it was very important to avoid bringing any unwanted attention to Grandma Bird because I came to her house. I was more than happy to wear a blanket over my head to avoid bringing the scrutiny and stricture of gossip upon her.

  Serena continued, “It’s sad when your kids are not getting along, especially when there’s a little grandchild involved.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Madonna works at the casino, you know.”

  “Yeah, I think I heard that.”

  “She wanted a lot of things from him all the time. ‘Build me a house. Buy me a leather coat. I want a new car.’ And the one who passed: he was always working in that computer lab. All the time, never at home. It was breaking Anna’s heart to see that.”

  We stood in silence for a moment.

  “I know you will be there for Anna,” Serena said. “She’s going to need us all a lot right now.”

  I took the gifts of food to two other family households—the home of Jerome’s surviving brother, Frank, and his family, and of course to the home of Momma Anna Santana. In each case, though, I left the groceries with a cousin or uncle, because the immediate family was at the graveside of their loved one. The last house on my delivery list was that of the late Jerome and his wife, Madonna, and their small son, Angel, behind Momma Anna’s adobe home.

  I drove into a bare dirt yard and parked beside a pair of abandoned cars, then walked across the board bridge that spanned the narrow acequia, my boots making loud proclamations of my visit on the dry, hollow wood. The house was large, especially by pueblo standards—two stories, with elaborate second-story portales and big arched windows—but it was largely unfinished. The scratch coat of adobe plaster had been applied to some walls, leaving the hulking structure a dull gray with tar paper showing on some of the unplastered exterior walls. Sheets of plywood covered openings where more windows and doors would one day be, and through the grand arched front window, I could see more plywood dividing rooms where stub walls would be added. Only one side of the ground floor looked inhabitable. I knocked loudly on the door and waited, but no one came.

  I was prepared to leave my parcels on the front portal when I noticed a small face at the front window. I waved at the boy. Recognizing me, he hurried to open the door.

  “Angel? Are you here by yourself?” I asked.

  The child nodded, his long dark hair swishing around his face. He pulled the earphones off his head and shut off the portable CD player that was stuffed into the chest pocket of his overalls.

  “No one is here with you?” I was alarmed that such a small child, perhaps five years old, would be left alone.

  “I stay here by myself every day,” he said indignantly, “after Head Start.”

  “You do?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. The custom of the tribe was to lavish care and attention on their children. I was having trouble believing Angel didn’t have a grandmother or auntie with him now, much less on a regular basis.

  “I’m not big enough to play on the computer all day. So I have to come home. Then Momma has to go to work. I stay here. I like it here,” he said. “I don’t want to go to Grandma Anna’s. I like it here! I’m a good boy. I don’t tell when it’s a secret.”

  “You don’t tell when it’s a secret?” I asked, perplexed.

  “I’m a good boy. Daddy can trust me. Momma can trust me. I’m good.”

  “Of course you are, Angel,” I said, reaching down and stroking his waist-length black hair. “Do you want a hug?”

  He looked up into my face and I thought for a moment he was going to cry. Instead, he lowered his eyes. Then he suddenly reached out his arms and jumped into mine.

  I straightened, lifting him into my chest, and he wrapped his legs around my waist. “When are you getting your first haircut?” he asked, fingering my long strands of blonde hair. “I’m getting my first haircut when I finish my training and I get nishyated. Only my daddy can’t train with me now because my daddy…” He stopped, horrified. “I’m not supposed to talk about that!” He buried his face in my shoulder.

  “Shhhhh,” I said, stroking his back. “It’s okay. I know what you mean. It’s okay.”

  As I was pulling out of the dirt drive that led to the late Jerome Santana’s house, a tribal police car pulled up beside me. The driver lowered his window and Chief Epifanio Moon Eagle looked at me. He studied me in the blanket Grandma Bird Woman had given me. Then he gave me a wry grin. “That blanket’s not gonna git it for you. And it’s gonna get cold if you don’t put a door on that car,” he said, “some way to close it up. People could steal what you keep inside.”

  “I know,” I said. “The buffalo…”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “You on business here?” He nodded his head in the direction of the unfinished adobe.

  “No, I was just bringing some groceries.”

  “Good,” he said. “That’s nice of you. But you know the pueblo’s closed until the end of August, right?”

  “Yes, but…” I started to tell him these people wer
e my family. That Momma Anna was my medicine teacher, and that her son was therefore something like an adopted brother to me. That I had been welcomed into the homes and ceremonies of the Lujan/Santana family, and needed to be here to provide comfort and solace in their time of loss.

  Before I could find a way to say any of this, Chief Moon Eagle interrupted. “You’re only supposed to be out here if you’re on official business,” he said. “Why don’t you just head on out the main gate up by the casino, and I’ll have the officer up there radio and let me know when you’ve left the reservation.” And then he pulled away before I could answer.

  I proceeded down the narrow, winding dirt road, the latilla fences coming right up to the Jeep’s side mirrors in some places, the ruts in the road forcing me to drive slowly. As I came upon Yellow Hawk Lujan’s house, I felt a wave of shame. He was Jerome’s uncle and Momma Anna’s brother. I should have brought a basket for him, too. I applied the brake and looked into the backseat, hoping to find something I could give as a gift. Two apples nestled in my jacket, probably fallen from one of the baskets. It wasn’t much, but I decided to go and at least pay my respects. I pulled in the drive and proceeded back past a horse corral to the low adobe house under some old cottonwoods. Beside the house stood a saddled gelding, and behind him an old green pickup with a sizable dent in the driver’s-side door. It was obvious the horse had grown restless or bored and had kicked the truck. The animal raised his nose and sniffed at me when I got out of the Jeep. He whinnied urgently. I thought it was awfully hot to leave him standing in the sun—saddled, with no water. As dry as the ground beyond him was, it was obvious from the damp soil under the horse that he had urinated in that same place several times and then pounded the earth beneath him into a muddy mess.

  I went to the door of Yellow Hawk’s house and knocked, but there was no answer. I walked around the pickup and looked into the pole barn in back. No one was home. The horse neighed at me repeatedly and began to stir and stomp as if he were about to kick the truck again. I found an old pail beside the barn and set the apples on a stump near an old outdoor pump. I pumped water into the bucket. The gelding began to stamp eagerly as I approached with the container, the water sloshing over the edge. He drank voraciously, as if he hadn’t had water in days. I pulled the bucket away, fearing I would cause him to bloat from drinking too fast. He raised his muzzle and looked at me, his big eyes imploring me to offer the bucket again.

  “I don’t know what to say, big guy,” I said to him, reaching out to stroke his withers. He pawed at the ground. “I’m already in trouble with the police and I shouldn’t be here at all.” I examined his saddle. There was a bedroll tied behind it, a traditional one—a tanned hide and a trade blanket. From the leathers hung several handmade deerskin pouches, probably containing jerky and tobacco. There was a large sack made of soft elk hide hanging from the rear of the saddle. I looked around cautiously, then groped the worn leather to see if I could discern by shape and feel what was inside. I felt the hard, round globe of what was probably a gourd rattle and another long, narrow, cylindrical shape, which might have been a short lance or a ceremonial pipe. Several small bundles.

  I looked around again. The horse had eaten all the grass near him and there was nothing but dust and mud within range of his tether. I looked back at the barn. Beside it was a pole fence, a grassy place, and the shade from the cottonwoods. I loosed the gelding’s reins from their tie and led the horse to the kinder ground. He began to pull at the grass immediately. I tied him securely to the pole fence and patted his rump. “You’ll be a little better off there till Yellow Hawk returns,” I said to him. I went and got the two apples and offered one to him, which he took eagerly. I tossed the other on the ground in front of him and walked back to my Jeep.

  On the way back to Taos, I stopped at the gas station in Cascada Azul to fill up. I was watching the numbers fly by in the pump’s window when I heard a voice call my name. I looked behind me, over the top of my Jeep. Gilbert Valdez came toward me, a big grin across his handsome brown face. “Hey, good-lookin’. How you doing?”

  “Hi, Gilbert.”

  “What happened to your car?” he asked.

  “Buffalo,” I said. Valdez was the manager of the Tanoah Falls Casino, an enterprise that stole from the poor and gave to the rich in the name of progress. I often derided him for this in a friendly, joking way, but underneath my teasing I was disappointed that this attractive, intelligent, college-educated Indian was employing his talents in what I judged to be such a disservice to his tribe.

  “I heard about the stampede. I didn’t know they got your car, too. What are you up to?”

  “I was just taking some food baskets to the Santana/Lujan family.”

  “It’s too bad about the one who passed, right? Maybe the family can finally heal now.”

  “What do you mean?” I finished pumping and put the nozzle back on the hook.

  He looked away. “I mean, you know…there were some problems.”

  I studied him. He was clearly nervous. Either he’d said more than he meant to or he thought I was privy to some information I wasn’t. “I’m not sure I understand you, Gilbert. Can you clear it up for me?”

  His eyes darted briefly to my face, then away again. He looked alarmed. “You know, things have just been hard for some people,” he said, and he turned abruptly and walked to a slick red Mustang convertible parked beside the station. He got in and looked at me in the rearview mirror. Then he fumbled in his shirt and drew out a small pouch. He appeared to be rummaging through it for something, then withdrew pinched-together fingers. He made a little gesture, circling his head with one hand, and then he threw something over the side of the driver’s door. I saw tiny particles sprinkle toward the asphalt. Gilbert started the engine, backed out of his parking place, and drove away.

  I went to the place where he’d been parked and studied the ground. Tiny specks of something white and granular clung to what appeared to be crushed chile seeds, little clumps of which were embedded in the pits of the asphalt. I wet my finger and pressed against a pocket of the stuff, and then I examined the tip of my finger. I sniffed, then I tested it with my tongue. Salt. Chile. And something bitter, acrid. But what?

  Momma Anna would know. I’d seen her make that same gesture before, with a similar concoction. It was at the bake.

  7

  The Bake

  Earlier in the summer, I had been privileged to be a part of what Momma Anna called a “bake.” Her grandson was to marry. For several weeks, ceremonies and rituals prepared the couple for the sacred vows they were about to take. Elders gathered at the family homes and shared their experience and wisdom with them. The two lovers were kept apart during this time while their families questioned them about the seriousness of their intentions, the extent of their commitment, and the possibilities of both failure and success in the lifelong journey of marriage. Finally, they were gathered together, along with their clans, at the end of these arduous few weeks, and there was much feasting and gift giving.

  Throughout the long period of instruction, there had been feasting every night. But for this last night before the wedding, when the two clans came together, the responsibility for the largest repast of all fell on the family of the groom.

  In preparation for this final banquet, the night before it was to take place, a dozen women gathered at the home of my medicine teacher—just an hour after all the food had been put away and the dishes washed from the large meal for the Santana clan that evening. It was late by then, and we were just beginning. Anna’s son Frank, father of the groom, brought in three large plastic trash cans with lids. Lupé, his wife, carried huge galvanized washtubs, the kind you might set out in the yard to shampoo a big dog. A pair of young men set up two long wooden benches in Momma Anna’s living room. Others carried in twenty-five-pound bags of flour, and one of these was emptied into each of the twelve washtubs, which sat in a row, six on each bench.

  “You! White Girl!” One of
the pueblo women pointed to me. “Pull back hair.”

  I gathered my tresses into an elastic band and pulled them back at the nape of my neck. I rolled up my sleeves, ready to do anything that was required of me.

  The women giggled and spoke to one another in Tiwa. One of them said in English: “Let White Girl do it.”

  Lupé pointed at a washtub. “Get ready,” she said. I went to stand beside the vessel she had indicated.

  Serena mixed yeast with warm water in a large camp-style coffeepot, stirring the slurry with a wooden spoon. She poured some into the first few tubs, then went to make more. An auntie I knew, Momma Anna’s sister-in-law Yohe, went about with a ten-pound sack of salt and a measuring cup, doling some of the seasoning into each tub. Lupé came with a bucket of rose water to each woman’s starting mixture. She peered in and determined how much was needed, then tipped the bucket and poured what she judged to be the right amount of the liquid into each vat, often adding as much as a gallon or more of the rose-scented water. Another woman took large cans of shortening, one to each tub, and paddled the goop out and into the flour. Then the work began.

  The women bent over from the hips and plunged their large, round upper bodies into the tubs, working deep inside with their hands and arms, muscling around the mixture within until they had huge balls of dough. I followed suit, but found the quantity of flour, shortening, water, and salt made for tremendous resistance to my every attempt to shape and form it. I felt like I was wrestling a giant jellyfish. I couldn’t lift the enormous ball of dough because it was too heavy, and I could barely manipulate it to incorporate in the pan. This fact was not missed by the Tanoah women—all of them laughed at me. Finally a woman everyone called Auntie, who was easily three times my age and looked soft and dumpy for all I could see, shoved me aside. “Let me do, White Girl,” she said.

  And into the vat her arms and elbows went. She pounded and pressed, lifted and plopped, and thwacked and smacked the great dough ball until it looked like a living thing, massive and elastic. The kneading went on all around me.