Nahoonkara

by Peter Grandbois

  “Henry keeps the snowshoes in the shed,” I tell Eli. “Get them while I gather some supplies.”

  Flickers of firelight from inside a handful of cabins beckon through the falling snow. We do not stop to partake of the warmth hinted at there, though I wish we could. The half-mile hike up La Nana is too much. The cold and wetness have seeped through my Balmorals, and my feet are beginning to ache, as are my lungs.

  Just when I think I cannot take another step, Eli cuts through a large growth of scrub oak to the left, then behind the massive, snow-covered boulder that hides his cabin from the world. He opens the door, and I’m surprised that it is not death I smell, but the sweet basil smell of a house well cared for, and a trace of persimmon that hints of love. I did not know Eli had found such happiness.

  The one-room cabin is bathed in the rich yellow light of an oil lamp, with the firelight occasionally deepening the air to orange. Charlotte lies on the bed at the far end of the cabin, tight-lipped, sweating far more than she should be.

  “Breathe, my darling,” I tell her. “You are wound too tight.” I’m surprised at how easily the words come, how quickly I slip into another role. She looks at me like she doesn’t know how to open. So I take her hand in mine, and with the other, I caress her head, leading her to the place I know so well.

  We sit like this for hours, until I see that life has found a way into her space, and she wants to tighten again. “There’s nothing you can do about this tightening, my dear,” I tell her. “It is our lot in life. But it will be over soon.”

  The nod of her head is the only sign that she is conscious at all. Her body contracts. She screams, pushing because she has no choice. The cycle repeats itself again and again. And with each cry, with each push, I feel the snow falling layer upon layer, as if I have no choice either.

  The baby’s head crowns, downed with blonde hair. I see the eyes scrunched tight, the face pickled, yet determined, and then I see the pulsing blue cord wrapped around the neck.

  “Hold off!” I shout, and Charlotte looks at me as if I’ve just asked her to do the impossible. Still, she does it.

  I work my fingers between the neck and the cord. I’d always thought I had delicate hands, slender fingers, but they seem like brute instruments at the moment, utterly incapable of fine movement. The cord is tight about the neck, the womb always exerting the pressure to leave it. Still, I work my fingers in and gently pull the cord over the head. It is wrapped not once but twice.

  And then the baby’s out. I wrap her in a towel and with a warm cloth begin to clean her.

  “A girl!” Eli whispers.

  I’d forgotten he was there and realize only now that he’d been there, watching everything. I’m glad he’s happy for a girl. It will help, I think.

  Charlotte screams so loud I’m startled. Her eyes roll back into her head. “It’s all right,” I tell her. “It’s only the afterbirth.” But her cry hints at something more than that, and I fear I will not be up for the task. My own first birth echoes in my mind, and I find myself repeating the words of Jess Carter.

  “Fetch moss! Lots of it!” I shout to Eli, and, without hesitation, he’s out the door.

  I swaddle the baby and lie her upon the ground at my feet. She watches me with eyes far too intense for one so young.

  “I want to push!” Charlotte shouts, and then it’s clear to me.

  “Yes, push!” I tell her. “You’re having another.” She responds, drawing strength from recesses that only exist for me as dim patches of memory.

  “This one seems in a bigger hurry to get out,” I tell Charlotte, as the baby pops out without event. When Eli returns both girls are swaddled and suckling at their mother’s breasts.

  “You missed half the fun,” I say to Eli’s stunned face. But he no longer hears me. He is at his wife’s side, caressing her and cooing at the babies. I can hardly believe it is the Eli I’d come to know during the heady passion of our nighttime encounters. I stay for the afterbirth, and, with Charlotte’s consent, I carefully wrap it in my shawl to take home to store. Later, after the snow melts and the ground thaws, I will bury it beneath their front door to bless all who enter their house, to remind them of the life that made its brave entrance in the world here, the double life. And as I gather the soiled sheets for cleaning, I hear Eli ask about the names.

  “Alice and Jane,” Charlotte replies, touching each of her babies on the forehead.

  “They are nice names,” I say, “beautiful names,” and then I leave them to their newfound family. Walking home through the snow, carrying the essence of that new life bound up in my shawl, I realize it is time to give myself a new name, a name to go along with my new profession.

  And so, in the morning, when I walk in the front door of our house and Henry greets me with a frantic, Elizabeth, where on God’s earth have you been, I reply casually: “Elizabeth died on the mountain last night, buried beneath the snow. From now on you can call me Nell.”

  Henry’s mouth opens wider than Charlotte’s nether region, something the old Elizabeth would have thought but never said. Nell not only thinks it, she says it with such a guffaw that Henry steps back, unconsciously reaching for the accustomed handkerchief in his breast pocket, though he carries none in his silk pajamas.

  DANDELION WINE

  Killian | Colorado

  I look out from the shed where I wash the dandelion blossoms and watch the rain fall light as stardust.

  “Uncle Frank used to say that after two glasses of his wine a man could remember how to fly,” I tell Webb, who sits at my feet handing me clumps of the yellow flowers. “He used to say that the same way we are born knowing how to swim and then forget only as we get older, we are born knowing how to fly.”

  “How do we forget?” Webb asks, Molly settling into his lap as if she has all the time in the world to hear the answer.

  “The question is why,” I tell them, but they just keep staring blank-eyed as if they didn’t hear me, or didn’t want to. “And the answer to both is that I don’t know, except to say that our minds aren’t big enough to hold all the things we need when we grow up and to still remember how to fly.”

  “Tell us how to fly, Uncle Killian,” they say in unison, and Webb hands me the last of the dandelions.

  “I used to sit at my Uncle Frank’s knee the same way you’re doing now,” I say, the memories resurfacing as if they’d been there all along. “And he’d tell me the same story I’m about to tell you, only his story was about how he remembered how to fly and mine is about how I remember because it’s something I have to remember each and every day.”

  I hand the children a bag of oranges and lemons and give them each a knife to cut away the peels. Just four years old, Molly handles the knife as if she was born to it. Like Eli skinning a deer.

  “Did you grow wings like an angel?” Molly asks, and I tell her we don’t need wings; all we need to do is stand so still that the air around us becomes invisible.

  “But air’s already invisible!” Webb tells me, and I laugh as I squeeze some of the lemon and orange juice into the pot.

  “Before you make it invisible, you’ve got to make it visible,” I say. “Close your eyes and stand still until you feel the air thickening around you, tickling your skin, then open your eyes.” Both children stop peeling, close their eyes, wait a moment, and then open them, staring into the space before them.

  “I don’t see anything,” Webb says. Molly’s eyes glow with excitement, and I wonder what she sees.

  “That’s because you’re already on your way to forgetting how to fly,” I tell Webb. “We’re making this wine none too late!”

  Webb and Molly hand me their peels, and I throw them in with the dandelions, then add a few cloves and a little ginger for good measure.

  “Tell us!” the children scream once again, and I look into their eyes, searching the memory for a more solid surface on which to ride.

  “I’m standing under the elm all night,” I tell them. “It’s cold
but the wine I drank keeps me warm, and Uncle Frank tells me that cold makes the air even better for flying, so I wait while my breath surrounds me.”

  “Why is the cold better?” Molly asks, but Webb shushes her, putting his hand over her mouth, which she then bites. “Why?” she repeats.

  “All things are more alive in the cold—even the air,” I say with a grin.

  “Just say what happens,” Webb says, covering Molly’s mouth again.

  “I stand there until my weight falls away like boulders from my body,” I say. “I keep my eyes closed until I’m sure the air is shimmering, and when I open them I wait. And then the wind picks up, throwing me through the branches of the elm and into the sky.”

  “How does it feel to fly?” Molly asks, the fire in her eyes stronger than ever. And it’s then I know that she won’t need the wine at all.

  “It feels like falling,” I say, sitting upon the ground with them.

  “Does your stomach tickle?” Webb says, thinking of the times I would toss him in the air.

  “Your whole body tickles,” I say and both children giggle as if I’m tickling them at that moment. “The tickles enter through your feet and hands, through every pore of your body.”

  “I don’t know if I’d like that,” Webb says.

  “I don’t either, and that’s what makes me think about the fact that I’m flying, and soon I’m dropping to the roof of my house,” I tell them and their eyes open wide.

  “What do you do?” Webb asks, and Molly’s so still, wrapped in Webb’s lap.

  “I untie the lines of my veins,” I tell them. “I drop the ballast of my bones and soar upward past the startled birds.”

  “How far do you go?” Webb asks, throwing the last of the orange and lemon peels in the pot. And I’m sure he’s thinking the more he puts in the higher he’ll fly.

  “I rise and burn past stars,” I say. “I fall and slip past moons. The pulse of the universe pushes me until I’m sure that I’ll fly forever, maybe never return home.”

  “How do you get back?” Webb asks. “What about your mother? Does she look for you?”

  “The rooster crows, and I return right back to the same spot where I stand under the elm.”

  “Did your mother ever find out?” Webb asks.

  “No,” I say. And that keeps them silent for awhile, wondering why I never told my mother of such a miraculous event. “Some things we have to save as secrets for ourselves,” I whisper. “If we want to keep the magic alive.”

  They nod their heads in unison.

  “Now, the rain has stopped,” I say. “So, who will help me carry this pot to the fire pit?”

  Webb is already grabbing the pot handle with both hands, but Molly is slow to rise. She might already be flying.

  I get the fire going, and we sit quietly around the boiling froth until the smell alone can lift you from the ground. I add yeast and tell the children that it must sit over night and that tomorrow we’ll bottle it, but then it must stand for another month for it to have its full effect.

  “A whole month!” they scream together, then break off into their separate complaints.

  “That’s forever,” Webb says.

  “I don’t need wine,” Molly tells her brother. “Besides, Father says kids shouldn’t drink wine anyway.”

  “This wine is special,” I tell them. “It’s worth the wait.”

  Webb marks each day with the question of when the wine will be ready. For the first week, Molly joins him, but soon she moves on to other things. It seems that her sure knowledge in her own abilities dulls her interest, that part of the thrill is wondering whether or not we can do something.

  But then one morning a week before the wine is ready, Webb tells me that he remembers how to fly.

  “Uncle Killian, it’s so simple, and it’s not like you said at all!” he nearly shouts at me. “I don’t stand still. I run as fast as I can, and as long as I keep my legs moving, I can fly.”

  “Don’t you get tired?” I ask.

  “Not for a very long time,” Webb answers. “I think this kind of running is not so difficult as the other.”

  “Will you show me?” I ask him, and he beams in reply.

  “Follow me behind the town. Where they’re putting the new railroad in,” Webb barely has time to say it all before he’s off and I’m following.

  The newly laid track makes for a long running area, as they’ve cleared the trees for ten yards on each side, and it runs straight along the spine of the town.

  “Just watch, Uncle Killian,” Webb says. “And don’t blink because before you know it I’ll be higher than the clouds.”

  “Okay,” I want to answer, but I can’t get a word out because he’s off and running. At first, I think he’s running pretty fast, but he’s just kicking up dirt, that’s all. And then I see the soles of his shoes glistening in the sunlight and it looks like they’re missing the earth entirely, and I remember the bees, the way the sunlight reflected off their backs, and I think yes, he’s found the secret. I almost miss him as he flies past trees, soars over the town and out past the trinity of mountains that guard the western sky. And then he’s gone.

  Dreams pull us from this earth. Molly knows this and now Webb knows it, too.

  RESURRECTION

  Wallace | Colorado

  For years, each winter they’d set up camp near the Blue and watch from a distance the goings on in town, as if it was their only diversion. Hundreds of them, dressed in buckskin, mink, and jackrabbit, the chiefs among them wearing a mishmash of European clothes, the more formal the better. They always kept their distance, so the townsfolk and the miners didn’t get nervous. Sure, there was the occasional incident, but, all in all, we got on pretty well, each group sticking to its own world. At least until Meeker. After that, it wasn’t only the townsfolk who got jittery. The Indians did too. The year of the massacre, when winter was over, they packed up and left, following the Blue downstream. I thought that was all I’d ever see of them. Heard the cavalry came and rounded them up, took them to Utah where they could live on reservation land, if you call that living.

  But then six months ago, on my way back from Kokomo, where they needed an extra sheriff to help quell a miners’ revolt, I spotted one of them carrying water from the river. She was bent with the weight of it, carrying the water in her arms as if it were a child. Her thick, black hair matted to her shoulders. Her wide, flat face so cracked you’d think you could fall right in. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn she was some sort of animal, a porcupine, the way she walked bent over like that, sort of waddling.

  I got down from my horse and hid low in the scrub oak for fear she’d take note. But she must have been too preoccupied with her work, as she didn’t appear to see me. It was only much later, as I sat at my desk in town recalling the image, that I realized I’d never been so close to an Indian before—no more than twenty or thirty feet lay between us.

  I followed her, leading my horse through the brush to a clearing where her family had set up camp. Her husband, at least I assume it was her husband, sat alone off to the side of the camp, his back to me. A girl of not more than eleven or twelve emerged from their brush wickiup and took the water from the woman. As she returned to their shelter, I caught a glimpse of yet another girl within, perhaps a couple years older than the first. But it was the woman who kept me rooted in place, the way she never stopped moving, as if each action were choreographed, just another step in a dance she’d performed countless times. I knew it was dangerous to remain. The man would soon sense my presence. Yet, I could not help but watch the woman quietly tilling the small garden they relied on for nourishment. As she worked the hoe, she sang with a voice only for herself, and I wanted to hear that voice, to know if the words matched the steady rhythm, the quiet assurance of the woman’s actions.

  I didn’t fool myself into thinking I could keep the cavalry from them. If they returned for another roundup, I could do nothing. Yet, I felt that somehow i
n my observance, in my acknowledgment of their existence, I would be doing them a great service. And secretly, I knew that if I could but understand a word of the woman’s song, she would be returning the favor of my visit many times over. And so I returned, often.

  And then summer came, and I found it more and more difficult to get away. Henry’s silver was drying up, and the miners that risked everything to get here, coming now from all over the United States, did not react well to the dearth of opportunities. Some just moved on, but many stayed, looking for ways to cause trouble rather than make an honest living. I hired deputies, but it was still all I could do to keep even the semblance of peace.

  “Wallace,” Henry said, “It’s time for you to wear the gun that goes with this office,” he said. He’d marched over because the night before had been a particularly bad one. Two stabbings and three armed robberies. I reminded him of what I’d told him upon our first meeting. An oath means nothing if you break it when times get tough.

  That very day one of the miners who couldn’t find work, a man who said he’d come from just about every town east of Seven Falls, started spreading rumors about Utes that avoided the round up, Utes that were preying off of homesteaders and storing their money in holes dug deep beneath their wickiups. I didn’t like the look of him, not at all. The man couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And what made it difficult to silence him was the fact that he spread silver along the bar as if the veins of the “Meg” were still shining bright and running miles into the earth.

  “Where’d you come across that kind of money?” I once made the mistake of asking inside Percy Hart’s saloon. I should have known better than to get him talking in front of a crowd.

  “From the hides of the heathen Utes,” he said, grinning, bearing a silver tooth. I’ve taken it upon myself to finish the job the cavalry left undone.”

  The men around the bar burst in, shouting over each other. Where’d you find them? How’d you whip them all by yourself? Can we come with you the next time? It was all I could do to break the men up at that point. The damage had been done, and I’d helped to make it so.