I shot the mare just under her ear. And she didn’t fall over dead. She was not affected by the bullet. Instead, her soulful eyes flicked to look into mine as if the say, “Is that the best you could do?”
George mewed his horror. He shot the mare full of his salt load, reloaded, and shot her again. She jumped at each impact but didn’t die. She continued to look at us, almost begging us to do better.
I took her tattered rope bridle and led her to a soft area of earth. I was able to get her to lay down. With a nod to George, George severed her head with a blow from his razor sharp axe. Four more blows and the head released from the body.
I was moving the head away from the horse’s body when human-looking hands reached from inside her body to grab at the head. An entire being -- not quite horse, not quite human, 100% wasp -- unfolded from inside the mare. What we thought was pregnancy was merely the mare acting as a kind of cocoon for the wasp.
The creature screamed and snapped. He tried to bite through our animal skin clothing. I kicked him away from us. The creature knew no fear. It did not hesitate to come after us again. George shot it with salt.
At that moment, the Pen was attacked by wasps. The wasps hurled themselves against the electrified fence. The wasps screamed with rage. Scores of wasps bellowed in pain and terror as they were electrified in the fence. All the while, the fence buzzed and clicked with electricity. The cacophony shook us to the bone.
My eyes and ears were clear. I saw the spirit of the mare waiting for release. Using the sickle, I lopped off the head of the wasp-horse progeny that had lived inside the mare. I dragged the creature’s body to the fire pit and threw it in. The creature’s body writhed as it was consumed by the fire; its head, a foot or two away, screeched with rage and pain. George threw a layer of hay over the burnt wasp-horse progeny and threw the mare’s carcass into the pit.
We took no chances with the stallion. We cut off his head in such a way as to not disturb the progeny we assumed was growing inside. We burned him without ceremony. We heard the wasp-horse progeny cry and scream from inside the burning stallion, but it could not get out.
Bloody, exhausted, and heartbroken, we returned to the horses in our prison yard. The wasps continued their screams and chants. Looking out into the night, there seemed to be thousands of them, if not millions. I averted my eyes. I did’t want to start the 500 day count again.
We will have to wait and watch over the rest of the herd. Of the original herd, we lost two mares and two stallions. Four horses remain. They seem only marginally effected. They are hungry for salted oats. Their droppings contain piles of what look like shelled pinon nuts. We assume they are some kind of wasp egg. If so, it’s possible these horses will shed the wasp. We burn their droppings in our fire pit.
We’ve decided to wait until dawn to make the decision about the rest of the herd. For safety’s sake, it would be smarter and safer for us to dispatch the entire herd. Neither George nor I had the heart to kill the rest of the horses tonight. We brought them inside to the old dining area where they would spend the rest of the night.
Returning to the women’s cell, we found them in a state of panic. The pregnant woman had collapsed, most likely from the interaction between the salt and the wasp inside her.
While George went to the infirmary, I pretended to want to calm and comfort them. When George returned with syringes and phenobarbital, we injected the women with enough medicine to nearly kill them. I smiled, held, and hugged the women as they weep; George did the injecting. Only the Ute woman seemed to know what I was doing. When it was her turn for an injection, she kissed my cheek before taking her shot.
They were not conscious when we severed their heads and burned them in the pyre. Inside every woman was a creature that tried to escape when her head was cut off. These creatures looked more human-like and had less of the obvious wasp features. The human-wasp progeny had been weakened by the salted potatoes. They died when we severed their heads.
There isn’t any way to express how we felt. Somewhere in our hearts and minds, George and I had believed things would go back to the way they were. George would get his happy future, and I would go home to take my place of honor among the Pueblo peoples.
Whatever tiny flicker of hope that remained died tonight.
Killing these women has ripped the very heart out of us. There is no going back now. The wasp hive screams and calls at the gates. By killing their livestock -- horses and humans included -- we’ve made them our enemies. There are too many of them for us to kill them outright. With any luck, our defenses will hold until we are rested and ready to leave.
Exhausted, disheartened, and covered in blood, we returned to our cell. Out of habit mostly, we managed to go through our routine -- salt spray to disinfect everything, shower to clean our skin, clean clothing, and back to the cell that has been our home. We heard the wasp hive outside the Pen, but we are too dejected to respond.
The single positive thing from all of this is the release of these women’s souls. Some time between when their heads were lopped off and before their bodies burned, their souls came to bless us for releasing them. Even George was aware of their presence.
We did the right thing. We feel terrible about it.
Our last hope of life returning to normal has vanished. In its place is an angry mob of zombie wasps ready to kill us for destroying their macabre livestock. We cannot stay here at the Pen. The fences will hold only for a while. Every gallon of gasoline used in the generators is one we can’t take with us on our journey.
We have no choice. We must leave.
I can’t write anymore today. I simply can’t face it.
11/16/2056
It’s very early morning -- two? Three? I’ve awoken from a dream.
In the dream, I was standing in a parking lot in Ignacio, Colorado, near the Southern Ute tribal headquarters. The Ute woman was surrounded by a group of laughing, bouncing, happy ten-year-old children. The children were vying for her attention like a beloved aunt or teacher. She touched their heads and shoulders in greeting. The sun danced on her long dark hair. Feeling my gaze, her eyes wandered over to me. She smiled. Her teeth were white against her light, mocha-colored skin.
As if to say, “Come and get me,” she flicked her hair in my direction. I moved toward her. I craved the touch of her skin. I longed to go home, to her home, to her, day after day, for the rest of my life. Before me, I saw our future unfold -- home, children, work, night after night coming together for joy and comfort. When I got about halfway across the parking lot, I realized there is a barrier between us. No matter how far I walked or ran, she remained a distance away from me.
She was on the other side, surrounded by her people.
And I was alone.
She smiled at me before she was distracted by one of the children. I tried to move past the invisible barrier. When I looked up again, she gave me a different smile. A good-bye smile. While I watched, she and the children walked down the street.
I shivered. The wind picked up on my side of the parking lot. Like so many Colorado days, the weather had turned without warning. The sun disappeared behind the gathering snow clouds.
Yet the sun continued to shine on the beautiful woman as she walked down the street. Her blue-jeans encased hips shifted back and forth. Her hair glistened in the sunlight. And the children danced around her. Just before she disappeared, she looked at me. Across the barrier, across time and space, I heard her say:
“Bless you.”
She turned and disappeared with the laughing children.
The snow began to fall. The wind began to howl in my ears. I shivered in my cotton T-shirt and jeans. I lost feeling in my toes.
Yet I refused to move from the parking lot. I refuse to stop watching the place she’d been.
I’m not sure how long I stood there. When I awoke, I was shivering, my ears filled with the sound of wasps howling outside the Pen.
I longed for death.
In the ligh
t of day, I must be strong for George. I must have a plan. I must be capable of executing some stupid six-hundred-year old prophecy.
In the wee hours of this morning, I felt only sorrow and loss. I missed my life, my family, my people, and the simple brush of a woman’s skin.
They are all gone, all dead. And I must somehow survive.
I don’t understand what curse has given me life when the others have perished. I don’t understand why I must go on day after day when everything has changed. I don’t know understand why it has to be me.
I laid here shivering and contemplating suicide.
George woke. Without saying a word, he nodded his head to me. He understood how I felt. He patted my back and rolled over. His breathing evened as he’d fallen back to sleep. He trusted me to work through my angst, my sadness, my grief on my own.
His trust is oddly comforting.
Tomorrow will come. Tomorrow, we will continue the fires, keep the gates electrified, and hope the wasps will retreat. Tomorrow, we will continue our preparations for our journey. Tomorrow, we will clean our animal-skin clothing. Tomorrow, we will continue our battle against the wasps.
But this morning, I will grieve my loss.
11/20/2056
I spoke out loud today for the first time since we killed the women. It’s been four days.
The day after we killed the women, George and I barely moved. We stayed in our cell, slept, ate, peed, and tended the horses. That’s about all the energy we could muster.
We lost another mare the next day. And one the following day. The stallion and mare left are young, barely yearlings, and still alive. We’ve stopped predicting if they will survive or not. We keep feeding them salted oats, hay, and lots of water. We continue to burn their droppings. For all they’ve been through, they seem to be regaining their strength.
We’ve spent the last couple of days killing wasps. They haven’t let up around the Pen. They come from somewhere to surround the Pen fence. They howl, scream, and taunt us.
This has been a good chance to practice our wasp-kill techniques. Fire works the best. And luckily the Pen had propane tanks in storage. George has engineered two propane flame throwers from spare piping and whatever else. They work great. And we’ve used them non-stop.
There are so many of them. For every one we kill, many more take their places at the fence. We’ve killed at least a thousand wasps, and they keep coming.
I’m beginning to wonder if this onslaught of wasps is designed to get us to use all of our resources. And we are digging deep. We’ve broken into areas of the prison that we haven’t seen in years.
We are also becoming skilled at killing the wasps quickly and effectively. Twice a day, I hold a ceremony to send on the souls of the wasps. We have relieved a lot of suffering. Every soul blessed me on its journey to the beyond.
Every soul had found peace. Every soul, except mine.
Even George seems to accept what is happening better than I. At idle times, I wonder what’s wrong with me. I’ve never felt this kind of longing and remorse. I’ve always accepted what happened and moved from there.
But I can’t seem to shake the sorrow brought on by killing the women.
I don’t know what I thought would happen. Honestly, I didn’t think. That’s the truth of it. As always, I acted on what was in front of me. I saw the situation with the livestock and the women and wanted to help. My efforts to help these poor creatures has changed the course of our lives, quite possibly forever.
We’ve lost the Pen, our home. We’ve opened our eyes to the capacities of the wasps. We made ourselves more vulnerable. After years of living in relative peace, we’ve called to our aggressors, almost begged them, to come pillage our home.
We won’t be able to hold the Pen forever. The wasps will take over when we leave. It’s an ideal home for wasps. There’s a lot of space. They can live here quite comfortably for decades.
We’ve lived quite comfortably these last ten years. Yes, it’s been hard work. George and I don’t mind hard work. These walls of this prison have been our home, our safe place, our pueblo.
When we leave, we’ll never be able to return.
Most men can hardly wait for the moment they never have to return to the Pen. I feel so much sorrow -- for the loss of everything -- the past, the present, and even the loss of the prophecy.
The prophecy has stood like a pillar in my life. Everything that had happened to me and around me has had its roots in the prophecy. For almost 600 years, every Tewa male descendant could the recite the prophecy by heart.
The prophecy was always something that was something that might happen, could happen, would happen SOMEDAY. Someday is here. Today, tomorrow, the next day, should we survive, we will live the someday.
In a few days, we will begin the journey described in the last two sentences the prophecy. If we survive, we’ll have done something no one in my tribe has ever done. We will have lived beyond the prophecy!
The idea of living beyond the prophecy is very unnerving to me. I’m not sure why this never occurred to me before. For all that I’ve been through, for all I’ve witnessed, I’ve lived with a kind of denial. I continue to refuse to admit, to myself mostly, on the deepest level, that the past is over.
I read this journal and realize how foolish I have been. I’ve been able to write and say : I am the last living human being, but I haven’t realized what that really meant.
There is no other life for me than fighting the wasps. None. And in the end, now that they are procreating, they will take over the earth.
And some day, the last human being will die.
I imagine this must be what Neanderthal man felt. Watching humankind communicate out loud, seeing their greater mobility, and predatory nature, Neanderthal man must have known his days were numbered. They couldn’t assimilate with the growing hoard. They could only die with dignity.
I have lived with the purpose of the prophecy. But why bother? The wasps will win. Why not die here, at the Pen, with the dignity we can muster?
I looked over at George. He was awake again and listening. Noticing my look, he smiled at me. His teeth remained impossibly white against his dark skin. He laughed and patted my back as if to say that I think too much. He doesn’t seem to feel any of the angst I feel. As far as he was concerned, killing wasps was like everything else in his life -- just something to do to fill the space between birth and death.
Being a shaman is different. On the one hand, I know, really know, that I’m not in control of my life. I see the forces moving around people -- souls, angels, spirit guides. I watch them interact on the world. I know how little control any one human being has on events in their life. I know this is true for me.
And still, I long for control. I’ve used my shaman abilities to argue with the noble spirit guides. I strive to interact in people’s lives through blessings, gifts, and prayers. And I’m good at it! The guards used to swear that my blessings, and curses, always came true.
Like a petulant child, I want to scream, kick my legs, and cry. I don’t want the world to change. I don’t want to be the last human alive. And I want to use all of my skill to make sure that George can have the happily ever after he deserves, that I can have the peace I so long for.
Killing those women was the straw that broke my camel back. I know there’s no going back. The prophecy is unfolding.
The prophecy says:
“There will be a moment, a single moment, when the last shaman must do something so loathsome that even he will realize the world has irrevocably changed. And in his grief, he will save the humankind.”
My “single moment” was when I killed the women.
I’m weeping now. My free will? What free will? My entire life was scripted hundreds of years ago. I never had a choice. Everything was written.
I’ve journeyed to the spirit world these last days. I’ve lingered by the pool while the spirit guides surrounded me. We gathered for comfort at the pool by the stream un
der the Honey Locust. I have nothing to say, nothing to ask. They have nothing to give. As they keep watch, my soul grieved my loss.
I know that someday soon, I will put on my animal-skin clothing, gather my weapons, load the vehicle, and we will leave this life. I doubt I’ll be sad. George will smile and start the vehicle. At 80 miles an hour, we will drive past the prophecy to our destiny.
But today, I lingered by the stream and pool. I wished for control. I wished I was stronger. I wished I had died along with my people. I wished I’d enjoyed my life more. I wished...
My father used to say, “A wish in one hand and shit in the other, bet you know which fills up faster” or “You can’t spend your days wishing for a life you’ll never have.” He was right.
It is time to stop moping and start doing.
11/21/2056
We aren’t going to be able to drive out of the Pen like we had planned. If we drive out of here, the wasps will follow. Unlike the movie zombies, the wasps are vicious. What they lack in speed, they make up in sheer determination for violence and destruction of anything in their path.
We’ve killed thousands of them, and many thousands of them still surround the Pen. The sheer volume of bodies makes it nearly impossible to get through them, let alone get away. If we leave our fortress, we will take this battle on the road, where we are more vulnerable.
One thing has become clear -- as long as the fences hold, we are safe inside the Pen. Many wasps have impaled themselves on the electric fencing. The heat of the electric fence causes their flesh to sear onto the steel. Still alive, they flail and scream at the top of their lungs with rage. We go out every couple of hours and use the flame thrower to burn off the hundred or more stuck wasps. The moment the fence is clear, the next set of wasps hurl themselves against the fence.
The wasps are not investigating other ways into the Pen. They followed us from the ranch to the fences, so that’s where they attack. I believe the original wasps to be from a single tribe of wasps. However, it doesn’t seem like any one wasp is in charge. And they don’t act like honeybees or ants. These wasps work for the good of the collective. No, these wasps move like a single unit but work only for their own personal gain. We now believe the commotion and noise from the original tribe of wasps has drawn wasps from all over New Mexico.
Jornada del Muerto: Prisoner Days Page 7