This Is Not Civilization

by Robert Rosenberg

  “I’m asking you to come,” Adam said. He stood, brushed off his basketball shorts, clipped his headphones back on, and walked without another word back over the bridge, then out of sight.

  Jeff sat very still, trying not to think, not to blame. He had never imagined his motivation, his determined goodwill, could be sapped so easily. He was ineffectual. And where would he go now? He had no desire to see his father up in Idaho and even less to return to Phoenix. He could return to work at the boys’ home—for a few months, at least; he could handle that until something better came up.

  By midafternoon three more trucks had stopped at the cottonwood. Sam Goseyun bought the television for twelve dollars. In an hour everything had been sold except for a Frisbee and Jeff’s garlic press.

  The next morning, in the predawn darkness, afraid of letting Adam down, Jeff followed his directions to the pasture. He drove his pickup along first gravel, then dirt roads, turning at the Indian Ruins and then at the abandoned Medicine Ranch, passing the wandering cows, the dense groves of ponderosa pine, weaving his truck up and down the muddy slopes. At the side of the road the occasional cornfield swayed in the first light. Each field was owned by a different family, and in the spring a few elders still moved out here and lived in brush-covered huts, planting their corn, tending their peach orchards.

  He parked on the edge of the road and hiked up toward the pasture, avoiding the prickly pear, now laden with purple fruit, and the sharp spines of the jumping cholla. He walked slowly, aware of his feet sinking a half-inch into the soft, rusted earth. The fire cherry trees with their blackish fruit clusters. The hairy silver leaves of the white oak. He would miss this isolation—the nearest shopping center was an hour away. He would miss the sharp greens and grays of this chaparral, the vegetation like that of some other planet. He spotted the tracks of deer, then an orange butterfly, and followed the branch of the spring-fed creek until it brought him back out of the woods, to the pasture.

  The clearing was a wet field surrounded by scrub oak and juniper. He saw that two camps had been established, one by Verdena’s parents and the other by her godparents, who funded the four-day festival. Already in the gray dawn at least fifty dust-covered trucks and cars were parked at scattered angles along the edge of the woods, all the way over the small rise of the hill at the far end of the field.

  Adam’s aunt, Marie Anne, waved to Jeff and led him over to the family’s camp. She was a heavy white-haired woman, the clerk in the town’s only trading post. In the shade of the ramada, built of interwoven branches, she seated Jeff on the improvised bench of a fallen log and offered him coffee and a powdered doughnut. The family—Councilman Dale; Adam’s mother, Lorena; and Adam’s uncle Sparky—were sitting in silence. Jeff gave each of them a self-conscious nod and ate his doughnut, looking at the ground. When he had finished, Marie Anne brought him a second doughnut and touched him softly on the back of his neck—a show, Jeff thought, of silent pity.

  They had problems, he knew. Adam had often come to work upset, with tales of his father’s household rage, of the helplessness of his half-deaf mother, of Marie Anne’s getting back together with Uncle Sparky, only to leave him again. But here, awaiting Verdena’s rite of passage, they seemed more cohesive than the family Jeff had known. He found himself fighting back jealousy. He had grown up an only child in Tucson; his family moved to Phoenix when he was fourteen—but neither place seemed like home. His mother had died of stomach cancer during his freshman year of college, and his father, a real-estate lawyer now living in Idaho, had remarried only two months after the funeral. Furious, Jeff hadn’t attended the wedding and still refused to meet his new stepmother. His father had recently tracked down his phone number on the reservation, and every few weeks left a short, tired message pleading for Jeff to return his call.

  Adam joined them in the ramada. His black eyes were reddened, his thick hair disheveled, and he looked as if he had not slept in days. He didn’t greet Jeff but squeezed down on the log next to him, so their shoulders touched. He told his father Jeff had offered to sell him his truck. Councilman Dale raised his leathery face just slightly.

  “What year’s it?” he asked, not looking at Jeff.

  “Eighty-seven,” Jeff said.

  He blew on his coffee. “How many miles it got?”

  “Under seventy thousand.”

  “How’d it get so rusty? Didn’t you take care of it or nothing?”

  Jeff said, “Two thousand dollars is nothing for that truck. It’s only six years old. It’s worth twice that.” His own dad had given him the vehicle as a high school graduation present, and he’d never cared what happened to it. He’d never washed it, rarely changed the oil. Now he just wanted to get rid of it.

  Larson was leaning on his knees, but he sat up slightly. Adam looked at his father, met his glance, and looked back down at the ground.

  Their faces were distinctly similar: the roundness of the bones, the flat nose, the light brown skin, the slightly Asian eyes. Larson Dale’s features were fuller, though, in every sense, his flesh hanging, his neck thick. Adam was leaner, with sharply molded features.

  Councilman Dale asked his son, “You got the money for that?”

  Adam nodded, but clicked his tongue.

  “How much you got?”

  “I got fifteen hundred.”

  “He’s going to need some wheels for college,” Jeff said.

  “I know what he needs.”

  “It’ll give him a good few years, Larson.”

  Councilman Dale pursed his lips and sipped his coffee. “Toyota?” he said. “Why didn’t you buy American?”

  Jeff thought he was joking, but he was the only one who smiled. He looked over to Adam for some support, but the teenager’s face was solemn and downcast. Larson Dale had a stranglehold of power on the town. From the start Jeff was intimidated by him and had tried to win him over. Now he couldn’t care what the councilman thought. None of the Apaches ever complained, but Jeff had heard rumors from the Lutheran pastor that Councilman Dale had fathered children off the rez, that he was spotted in Phoenix bars, that he took vacations on tribal money, that he was driving the town into bankruptcy.

  This was high living for a man who had worked as a machinist at the Red Cliff Apache Sawmill until seven years ago, when he’d been elected councilman. According to Adam, the dive into politics had not been Larson’s idea. Adam’s father had possessed not the slightest inclination toward civic duty. But Uncle Sparky (Levi’s father, not with Marie Anne) got him elected.

  Sparky used to work at the sawmill as well but left to pursue a different calling. Once a month he drove down to Phoenix and picked up cartons of heroin, marijuana, and cocaine and with a fearless lack of precaution smuggled the narcotics up to the reservation. After two years of dealing, he had developed a connection down in Hermosillo. Each week at a set time, a small Mexican plane glided low over the village, circled the forest-fire runway out by Lonely Mountain, and dumped round bundles into the clumps of cholla and agave. When the plane disappeared over the horizon, Sparky retrieved the drugs, distributed them, and in this way earned more money than anyone in Red Cliff. Jeff had seen the man running business off the porch of his HUD home, sitting deep in a green mildewed lounge chair. His dark hands were constantly pulling at his camouflage pants; his greased rat-tail clung to his neck. Appearance was not important—the business needed little marketing, and his influence expanded. Eventually, according to Adam, the tribal police, under pressure from the tribal government, started giving Sparky a hard time. They warned him they might have to arrest him or something. For protection Sparky decided to get a new councilman elected. His brother-in-law would do.

  Over that summer Adam and Levi had spray-painted big corkboard campaign signs and erected them at the Turnoff, the corner of Highway 60 and the paved road to town:

  DALE FOR COUNSILMAN

  VOTE DALE

  DONT SCREW UP VOTE DALE

  In the sawmill, the trading post, the
gymnasium, Larson’s friends urged him on. An article appeared in the Apache Scout, announcing Dale was running: it praised him as a hard worker, it claimed he was the great-grandson of Chief Alchesay himself. The article was soon followed by hourly KNNG rez-radio advertisements, reminding listeners that Larson Dale held the Red Mountain tribe’s record for antlers. Supporters gave away frybread at the gas station. They spread rumors that if elected, Dale would reopen the burnt-out liquor store on Route 260 and build up the Red Dust Rodeo grounds. No one took any polls, but before the September 18 election that year everyone had known who would win—it was just a matter of counting families.

  Now the sky was growing lighter. As if on cue, the women stood and began preparations. Larson and Sparky strode over to talk to the medicine man, and one by one more trucks rumbled into the clearing. The women grew busy, rushing in and out of the branch shades. Across the field Adam’s sister emerged from her wickiup, dressed in a buckskin outfit, with eagle feathers tied to her shoulders and an abalone shell tied to a lock of hair that hung over her forehead. Bells and beads dangled from the buckskin, ringing softly with each step. Her godmother—a woman in glasses, with loose gray-streaked hair—laid out a deerskin, facing east, over a pile of eight blankets. The medicine man’s two helpers brought out another abalone shell full of yellow pollen, then a burden basket filled with coins and candy. Around the skins, one by one the women laid boxes of fruit and candy, ears of corn, and soda pop.

  Jeff and Adam joined the crowd, which circled around Verdena at a respectful distance. The women were dressed in colorful camp dresses, the men in cowboy hats and jeans, their flannel shirts tucked in over their guts. With staunch concentration Verdena and her older cousin, her partner, took their places on the deerskin, facing east. The singers lifted their drums to their chests in anticipation.

  Over the grass ridge the sun appeared, at first no more than a dot, then with each moment an expanding curve of light. The first rays struck the shell pendant on Verdena’s forehead, and the drums started quietly, slowly rising in volume, beginning the six hours of dancing, the “full of great happiness” songs.

  Up and down now, Verdena and her older cousin stepped in place, a quiet march, sometimes turning or stepping slightly forward, then slightly back. Jeff could discern no pattern. The dance was subtle, meant to conserve Verdena’s energy for the long day ahead, but at the same time it was sensual, and it mesmerized him. Verdena was light on her feet (supported, the Apaches said, by the eagle feathers on her shoulders), and her legs never stopped moving. In her right hand she carried an oak cane, hung with long colored ribbons and oriole feathers. The cane guaranteed her a long life, and as an elder she would one day use it to help her walk. Bells at the end of the top curve jingled as she danced, echoing the bells on her buckskin dress. Song after song she stepped and planted the cane on the earth. Her godmother rushed to her now and then, to wipe off her neck and to offer her water.

  Jeff and Adam sat down on the open bed of a nearby pickup. The dancing, Adam said, extended over the four straight days—- this was only the third. It was a feat of endurance, and Adam had helped train his sister. For the past few months he had jogged with her every other morning, two miles, so that now she wouldn’t tire.

  The crowd around them watched, respectfully quiet, and Jeff grew less self-conscious. After nearly two hours of dances the godmother took Verdena’s cane, twisted it into the dirt, and directed her to kneel on the deerskin. Verdena raised her arms heavenward, the way Changing Woman had when the sun’s rays first entered her body on the mountaintop, the very first morning of the world. The singing of the medicine man softened; the godmother guided Verdena to sway side to side and then to lie facedown. Circling her four times, she massaged the young girl with her hands and feet, to ensure a strong, agile body into adulthood. At last Verdena was drawn up and stood before the people in confidence, refreshed. The pains of the previous days of dancing were healed, her energy renewed for the two days to come.

  Finally the medicine man dusted Verdena with yellow pollen and emptied an embroidered burden basket of candy, coins, and corn kernels over her head. Everything around her—the sweets, the food, the corn—was now sanctified; and the children jostled one another to get the holy bubblegum and soda pop from the boxes. Before them Verdena stood transformed, in a single body both young woman and White Painted Woman. The crowd gathered closer, and she offered blessings to the long line of celebrants. With her fingers dipped in pollen she touched toddlers’ heads and lifted babies up to face the four directions. The elders held out their aching joints to her. In this incarnation, the teenager had the power to heal and strengthen the tribe.

  Verdena rested in her wickiup for the afternoon, and Jeff drove home to finish packing and cleaning up his house. Everything he owned fit into three large duffle bags and a single backpack. But that evening he returned to the ceremony in the woods. Above the night was dark, bands of white clouds streaked the sky, and the occasional satellite popped in and out of the ribbons of gray. Ghostly forms filled the darkness around the trucks: flirting teenagers, shouting children, adults who had walked the two miles from town. The mood remained solemn—scattered conversations in whispers, now and then a single shriek of laughter. Occasionally drums beat in the distance. The crickets were loud in the woods, and Jeff heard a rustling there that sounded like animals afoot, but was probably just children running along dark paths, through piles of dead leaves. The ripeness of the air mixed with the mud of the ground, the settled coolness of the forest, and the smoke of the bonfire in the center of the pasture.

  He approached the edge of the firelight, where Verdena was standing with three other girls, all dressed in buckskin. After a moment Jeff heard behind him the jingling of bells and the terrified shrieks of young children.

  Five crown dancers, the Gaan, emerged single file from the forest, shirtless, wearing black executioner-style hoods, their three-foot white crowns jutting at angles from their heads, the bells of their knee-high moccasins clinking to the drumbeat, their prodigious stomachs and backs painted gray with black dots and geometric patterns, and the belts around their waists holding a spray of spruce branches. In each hand the dancers grasped painted wooden wands.

  It was easy to understand why the children were afraid of these spirits. They had once been called “devil dancers” by American settlers who had witnessed this ceremony—Jeff had seen that label printed on a post card in town. But they were benevolent, and they had come to offer their special protective powers to Verdena and the celebrants.

  In one line the Gaan raced up and down the clearing in a vigorous, twirling dance, swinging and ducking their great white crowns. Behind them their leader, the clown, his torso painted white with red dots, carried a wedge of wood on a length of cord. He twirled this in wide circles around his wrist, in imitation of the whistling of the mountain winds. For minutes the Gaan moved in circles, thrusting their wands into the ground. Then Verdena and the other young women joined the dance. It was elaborate—far more difficult than the simple stepping of the morning ceremony—and involved wide arching movements and sinuous turns. A few men tossed more wood into the bonfire, and the ashes swirled up over the crowd, over the spiraling dancers.

  Jeff was breathless. Here it was, authenticity, the culture for a moment preserved. Yet Adam complained that sometimes these Sunrise Dances were nothing more than a large outdoor beer party. Many young Apache girls were already deciding not to go through with it. Jeff couldn’t help but think that the Apache men drove Nissans to round up their herds, logged the forest with chain saws and dynamite, and shopped for Christmas gifts at Kmart.

  He told himself he would not descend into guilt. This was not his culture to save, and these people had made that clear enough. It was a tiny village, missing from most maps. A place nobody had ever heard of. What difference did it make if he could have helped improve things here?

  As the Gaan were winding down their fourth and final dance, Jeff began to shiver.
He was suddenly unnerved by the crown dancers, by the unnatural motion of their bodies, their rolls of fat jiggling up and down, the thrust of their hoods forward and back, like hunted animals in the final throes of life. By the light of the fire they did not look human.

  Among the Gaan the girls were dancing with renewed energy. The children had quieted down, and their young faces, dimly lit in an orange glow, showed an infinite capacity for belief. Suddenly the drums stopped and the dance ended. In single file, chests heaving, the spirits made their way into the forest again.

  Jeff was negotiating the darkness to find his truck when he felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back.

  “Hartig,” the voice said.

  He turned and saw two dim figures. One he couldn’t recognize, but the other, a compact, powerful young man, he knew. It was Levi, swaying on his feet.

  “Adam told me you’re taking off tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I’ve gotta go.”

  “When you leaving?”

  “Your cousin’s driving me down to Phoenix in the afternoon. After the painting ceremony.”

  “Maybe I’ll come.”

  Jeff stiffened. “If you want, Levi.”

  “I’m just kidding.”

  “Whatever you want to do, you do.”

  “You leaving ’cause of what happened to the center, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It sucks that you’re leaving.”

  “It does suck.”

  “I’m sorry that all happened to you.”

  “It didn’t happen to me, Levi. I wasn’t the one it happened to.” Jeff paused a second. “You know who did it?”

  “I don’t know nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Man, don’t ask me again.”

  “I’ll see you then.” He squeezed past the teenagers, toward his truck.