by Sandi Ault
But Hunter got up from the end of the table, made his way through the welcoming committee of women, and spoke to Moon Eagle. I saw him gesture with a wide sweep of his hand, as if to take in the scope of the whole family. Then Contreras made another gesture toward Grandma Bird and Grandpa Nazario, who were sitting on the edge of the bed alongside the woodstove. Moon Eagle finally nodded his head, relenting. The women busied themselves with rewelcoming him—Serena got him a plate, Yohe took his hat, and Auntie ushered him to one of the benches at the plywood table.
I sat back down, not certain what to do.
Moon Eagle dipped a sopapilla in some red chili and looked across the table at me. “You got a reprieve tonight. I guess the old ones all want you at their feast, so I’m gonna turn my head, pretend like I didn’t see you. I hope you didn’t drive here and somebody spots that broken-up Jeep somewhere and reports it.”
“I didn’t drive,” I said. Then I picked up my plate and cup and started for the kitchen. But I stopped alongside Moon Eagle and bent down to speak quietly to him. “Do you know anything about what’s happened to Anna’s brother Yellow Hawk?”
Moon Eagle swung his big frame and looked directly at me. “They say he left his horse standing out in the yard, tied to a tree, and went off to fast and pray.”
“Don’t you think that’s odd—that he would abandon his horse like that?”
The chief blotted the chili from his lips. He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Do you know Yellow Hawk?”
“A little. I met him once at a family wedding, and I see him sometimes on feast days. We’ve only spoken once.”
“But you know he’s the peyote chief, right?”
“Yes, someone told me that.”
“Well, they don’t get to be peyote chief by walking the straight and narrow, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess I don’t follow you.”
“I mean, Yellow Hawk is an old man. He gets a little absentminded. He’s done a lot of ceremony in the past few weeks, done a lot of sweats, taken some herbs.”
I thought for a moment. “I think people are worried about him.”
Moon Eagle turned back to his plate. “Well, if they are, they should talk to me about it. Now I’m gonna have a little more of this red chili, if you don’t mind.” He turned back to his plate.
Most of the women were working in the kitchen, so I went to join them. Momma Anna handed me a bucket and told me to go for more water. I headed out the door and walked along the adobe wall to avoid the men at the bonfire out in the yard. The night was black beyond the gas lamps in the house and the sparks of the little fire. I felt around and finally found the rail for the steps over the wall and took them carefully down to the dirt alley below. I crossed to the corral and then searched in the dark for the pump. It took me a while to find my bearings. I pushed the lever up and down to prime the pump until the water began to flow. As I was filling the bucket, I noticed a light from the top of the wall. Serena called to me in a forced whisper, “Jamaica! Come quick!”
I fastened the handle down on the pump shaft and hoisted the heavy bucket. I trudged across the alley, trying not to slosh too much of the liquid out, and then I muscled my way up the stairs with the heavy load. “What?” I asked.
Serena lowered her small flashlight. “The governor is here. Eliseo Contreras. Anna told me to keep you out of sight so he won’t see you. He’s come to pay respects to my family. He’s Hunter’s brother, you know. Hunter likes you so much, he won’t mention that you are here. But we have to stay away for a little while.”
Serena took the bucket of water to the kitchen and then we went back over the wall to the corral with a basket of food. We got in Serena’s truck and she drove to the home of Jerome and Madonna Santana. “I know my sister is angry with her—that’s why Madonna didn’t come tonight. But she is still my niece,” Serena explained. “And little Angel is my godson as well as my great-nephew. I want him to share in the feast for his father’s homecoming.”
We took the basket to the door. Serena opened it without knocking and called out, “Angel! Madonna! It’s your auntie Serena.”
Angel came bounding down the stairs, wearing his earphones and carrying his portable CD player. He paused on the bottom step, pressed a button on the device, pulled the earphones out, and gave his great-aunt a hug. “Mommy just called,” he said, clearly excited. “She’s done working, and she’ll be home in a few minutes!”
Serena made her way to the kitchen, where she took the plastic bowls and bags out of the basket and began warming food. “You set the table,” she told me.
A glossy wood table dominated the small, unfinished dining room. Pink insulation and bare studs lined one wall. The other walls had been drywalled, but not mudded and taped. Angel pulled some place mats out of a drawer and helped me find paper napkins and flatware.
By the time Madonna walked in the door, we had a banquet set for the twosome. Angel knelt in one of the upholstered captain’s chairs and played with a spoon. Madonna’s eyes glistened as she took in the spread of feast dishes.
“My nephew has made his journey,” Serena said. She took a small dish and prepared another spirit plate, just as Auntie had done at Grandpa and Grandma’s. As she took it outside, Madonna went to her son and they embraced.
“Let’s all say a prayer,” Serena said when she returned. We joined hands at one end of the table and Serena started the Lord’s Prayer in English. Madonna and I joined in, but little Angel wiggled and squirmed as he stood in the chair.
“You should join us,” Madonna said, inviting Serena and me to sit down.
“No, we can’t stay,” her aunt answered. “There are lots of dishes to be done at Mom’s house. We better get back. I just didn’t want you and Angel to miss the final feast.” She went to the kitchen to get her basket.
“Oh, Jamaica,” Madonna said. “I remembered what my husband used to call that guy: Seedy.”
“Seedy?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Why? Was he down on his luck or something?”
“I don’t know. But he always smiled when he said it, like it was a joke.”
“Huh.” I moved toward the door.
Angel got down from the chair and took my hand. “You ’member, you telled me to keep looking for my friend?”
I squatted down to his level. “Yeah. Did you find him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“See? I told you that would work.”
“But now he’s gone again.”
“Well, maybe you’ll find him again.”
“No, he runned away.”
“He ran away from you?”
“No, he runned away from everyone. He runned up the mountain to hide.”
Madonna interrupted: “I told you, Angel, Sam’s old granny sent him and his brother to school in Santa Fe.”
“Nuh-uh!”
I took Angel’s hand. “Well, let’s hope so. You go over and ask his grandmother in the morning, okay?”
Serena came to the door with her basket. She hugged Madonna and little Angel, and then I did the same.
“Thanks again,” Madonna said before closing the door.
Later, after all the tribal guests had left Grandpa and Grandma’s house and the dishes were washed and put away, I went out the kitchen door to spread the dish towels and rags over the adobe hornos to dry. The sky was sprinkled with stars, the moon not up yet, and the last few embers of the bonfire crackled in the dirt across the yard. It was only a little cooler outside than in the house. I stood and felt the breeze. Frank Santana came over to me. It was the first time I’d gotten to speak to him since his brother’s death.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.
“Thank you. My brother is home now, he’s made the journey. I wanted to thank you for the basket you brought by the house.”
“Oh, it was nothing.”
“The wind has changed direction,” he said. “It’s coming out of the east now. My mom says that�
�s a sign something bad is going to happen.”
I blew out a breath. “I don’t think I could take anything else bad happening.”
Frank looked at me. “I heard Grandpa pray for your wolf. Someone said he is dying.”
I shuddered. “God, I hope he doesn’t die. I don’t know what I will do if he dies.”
He reached out a hand and put it on my arm. “Sometimes Creator wants one of our family to come home. That’s what happened with my brother.”
I shook my head. “Do you really believe that, Frank?”
He looked away. “I don’t know. That’s what they teach us. It sounds good, anyway.”
I took a risk: “What if I told you I thought something was strange about your brother’s death? That it didn’t feel right to me?”
Frank was quiet.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Let’s walk over here a little ways.” He pointed toward the brush arbor, now empty. We strolled to the structure and sat down in two of the lawn chairs underneath the thatch of cedar branches across the top. Frank pointed to the eastern sky. “My uncle said that group of stars over there is our ancestors, looking down at us.”
“Which uncle?”
Frank leaned in close to me and almost whispered, “The one who is missing. Yellow Hawk. George Dancing Elk found his horse next to his house, nearly dead. He had saddled it and made ready for the journey, but he never rode out. People say he walked up the mountain, but I think something is wrong there, too.”
“Where do you think he is?”
“I think he must be on the mountain; he’s not here. But I don’t think he went on his own. He wouldn’t have left his horse like that. That’s not like him.”
“What do you think happened?”
A large plume of sparks and small embers erupted from the bonfire, and the men gathered around it cheered. In the spark-light, I saw a few of them holding beer bottles, hiding them against their chests in the crook of their arms. Alcohol was forbidden on the reservation, and was even more taboo during Quiet Time.
“I think,” Frank whispered, “my uncle knows something. When you find my uncle, he can tell us the answers.”
“When I find him? Why me?”
“You can go up the mountain, right? Beyond the reservation, it’s federal land, isn’t it?”
Here, a legal battle had been broiling away for decades. The U.S. government had claimed the land comprising Sacred Mountain in the early fifties, only to have the court overturn it a decade later, thanks to the Native American Defense Initiative, which fought legal battles on the part of the continent’s original peoples. Appeals and counterappeals had held the matter in limbo ever since, but a portion of land—including the area surrounding the mouth of Indigo Falls—had been wrested back from the feds and granted to the pueblo in perpetuity. Members of Tanoah Pueblo still made the journey to the Indigo Falls every autumn, following the same route their ancestors had for centuries. But, according to the current legal status, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service oversaw a large parcel of the wilderness area that included the course the ancient trail took between the reservation and the falls. Lines drawn on maps did not dissuade these people from making their annual pilgrimage. Nor was I prevented from following the path, since it was federal land, at least up a part of the trail. The glitch, however, was that no white man was allowed on the sacred ground at the mouth of the falls. And the Indians fiercely protected that sanctuary.
“Why don’t you go up the mountain and find him?” I asked.
“We don’t make the journey until Saturday. We have preparations until then. By that time, it may be too late. My uncle could starve to death or die of thirst. The wind is changing, so the weather will change, too. He may die of exposure. We cannot leave until after the second sunrise from now. You could go tomorrow.”
“But he surely knows how to survive up there! He’s made this journey before, hasn’t he? Doesn’t he go up there to fast and pray?”
“He didn’t take his things. They were still with his horse. He left his blanket, his jerky, his water, his totems. He can’t survive without them; he’s old.”
“But we don’t even know if he’s up there.”
A large shadow blocked the light of the dwindling bonfire. Hunter Contreras spoke from the shadows: “What are you two doing out here?”
Frank stood up. “Talking about how the wind has changed.”
I rose, too.
Hunter said, “Yeah. Maybe it will cool off again. This heat today was bad.” He waved a big hand at me. “C’mon, Jamaica. Serena says she has to get the kids to bed, so she wants to take you back.”
32
Animal Wisdom
In the cold gray cell in the back of the animal clinic, I laced the end of one of the ropes of prayer ties through the gate and stretched it to another segment on the side wall, fastening it there like a garland. I carefully untied the red cloth from the top of the cup, unwrapped the egg, and broke it into the mug. I set it in the corner. Then I knelt on the floor. I unwrapped a bundle of offerings and laid them out before Mountain. His favorite squeaky toy: a bright-colored rubber porcupine almost the size of a football. A huge bone. A bandanna that Momma Anna had given him for Christmas. A stuffed toy pheasant with a torn beak and a coat matted with dried drool. A black rubber Kong toy. A little plush hedgehog that made a grunting noise when squeezed. A T-shirt that I’d worn several times without washing, which would comfort him because it was permeated with my scent. And the last pair of my panties that he’d shredded—I’d searched through a bag of household trash to retrieve them.
On the floor before me, Mountain was stretched on his side. He was so beautiful, even in a coma. I spoke softly, caressing his shoulder. “A lot of people are praying for you, baby wolf. A whole roomful of people prayed for you tonight, and they will keep on praying for you.” I thought of Grandpa’s fervent prayer in Tiwa, and of how Hunter had told me that the language brought the People in and out of existence from nothingness—just by the vibration of the spoken words. I hoped that those prayers in Tiwa were creating enough vibration to keep Mountain here. I lowered my head and kissed his face, feeling his warmth, smelling his wild aroma. I let my tears fall into his mane. I raised back up to my knees and began stroking him from one end to the other, including his long, beautiful, bushy tail.
I closed my eyes, one hand on his chest, and I prayed—turning my face to the sky as I had seen the aunties and grandmas do at the bake, when they blessed the bread. I said no words, thought no thoughts, but prayed with all my heart. Then I moved behind Mountain and again lay on my side, pressing my body into his back, one arm around him and the other cradling my head. And I lay there in the dark and cried. Perhaps what hurt the most was the dark feeling growing inside of me along with my fear and grief: that if my beloved wolf chose to take the path up the mountain and beyond the ridge, that I might want to go with him rather than stay in this life.
I sang through my tears:
Stars shine on us,
Wind sings to us,
Moon smiles on us,
You and me.
No more lonely,
We are family.
I opened my heart
And in you came
You gave me wild,
I gave you tame.
No more lonely,
You and me.
No more lonely,
We are family.
I woke when I heard Kerry come in. I sat up.
“How is he?”
I petted Mountain’s side. “No change.”
Kerry squatted down and touched the back of his hand to the wolf’s cheek. “Hi, big guy,” he said. He fondled one tufted ear.
I let out a sigh. “I guess I must have dozed off. What time is it?”
“After midnight.” He checked his watch. “Almost one. Sorry I’m so late. Some jerk tourists decided to have a campfire in this weather—high winds and warm temperatures. I
had to go up there and put it out and cite the campers.”
“It’s okay. I needed the rest. I haven’t been getting much sleep.”
Kerry reached up and took my chin in his hand. “And how are you, babe?”
I tried to smile but my face wouldn’t respond. I sniffled. “My heart is breaking. I’m afraid.”
He rocked onto his knees and leaned over the wolf to embrace me. “I know.”
Steve opened the door from the lab in the back and stuck his head into the hall between the cells. “Jamaica, phone.”
Diane didn’t waste any time. “The Dreams Eagle kid is missing.”
“What?”
“After I talked to you, I called your pal at the S.O.—Padilla. Boy, what a piece of work that guy is. Anyway, he called out to the pueblo and I guess it took him a while because of some feasts and religious rites or something, but he finally tracked down the tribal police chief. Moon Eagle went to that house that you and I were at the other day and pressed the old woman we met to talk—you know the one who couldn’t speak much English and acted like she couldn’t hear? Evidently, she fessed up that she’s been worried about the boy’s safety, so she started telling everyone he was in Santa Fe at that Indian School there. She was trying to get him and his brother placed with a sister in Oklahoma, and until she could get it worked out, she was keeping the kids locked in the house. But little Sam got out and ran off. She hasn’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Oh, God. Now what?”
“Well, Moon Eagle had to file an Amber Alert because it’s a child. And an MEP form with the S.O. Amber Alerts come to the FBI, so I was sitting here waiting when it came across the wire.”
“Well, what’s going to happen now?”
“Nothing much until morning. We got the alert out to the media, but who’s watching television or listening to the radio at one o’clock on a Friday morning? If they had any sidewalks in the State of New Mexico, they would have rolled them up at twilight. We have a child endangerment specialist coming up from Albuquerque. The tribe is doing a search on their reservation, but last report I got, the grandma doesn’t have any idea where the kid would have gone.”