Father John eased on the brake and guided the pickup into the turnoff next to the shack. He stopped at the metal gate across a dirt road that wandered up-slope into the trees and turned off the tape player. The wind hissed in the trees.
A short, compact Indian with a rifle gripped in both hands stepped out of the shack and walked to the center of the gate. The round, flat face was turned toward him. Puebloan, Father John guessed, dressed in white buckskin with fringe running down the outside legs and across the chest. The partially laced V-shaped opening of the shirt exposed the thick tendons in the man’s neck. An eagle feather rose over his head, held in place by a woven headband that wrapped around his forehead and kept the long, black hair close to his head. He wore beaded moccasins that made a shushing noise against the packed dirt.
“No outsiders allowed.” The guard hunched over the top rail and lifted the rifle, squinting in the sun.
Father John leaned out the window and tried to ignore the rifle. “I’m here to see one of the dancers.”
A look of incomprehension came into the stone black eyes. “Afternoon dancing’s going on now. Dancers don’t see nobody.”
“Janis Beaver,” Father John persisted.
“Nobody means you, white man. Back up and get on outta here.” The Indian knocked the rifle against the top railing. A blue vein pulsed in his temple.
“What’s going on?” Another Indian emerged from the trees and started toward the gate. He walked with a jerky motion, as if one leg was slightly shorter than the other. His buckskin suit looked like the guard’s—an old woman somewhere, a traditional, might have made the clothing for both men, even beaded the moccasins. Black braids swung over the front of the man’s shirt.
The guard threw a glance over one shoulder. “White man’s lookin’ for somebody. Told him to get goin’.”
The other Indian lurched to the gate and grabbed hold of the top rail, as if to steady himself. The buckskin shirt wrinkled around the bulky shoulders and biceps. His eyes were so deeply set they looked like charcoal smudges on the flat face. He was several inches taller than the guard—a Plains Indian, maybe Lakota.
“Who are you?” His voice was high-pitched, tentative.
Father John got out of the pickup and slammed the door. The sun burned through his shirt. He gave his name and said he wanted to talk to Janis Beaver.
“Nobody here by that name.”
Father John locked eyes with the man. “She’s here, all right. I’m looking for a friend of hers, Dean Little Horse. I think she can help me find him.”
Both Indians were quiet, faces unreadable. Finally the Lakota turned to the guard. “I guess Orlando’s gonna want to see him,” he said, his high voice trailing into a whine.
The faintest look of incredulity came into the other man’s expression. He hesitated, then gestured with the rifle toward a clearing next to the shack.
“Park over there,” he said. “No vehicles allowed in the village. Nothing here made by white people.”
Father John parked where the guard had indicated, then swung himself over the gate and hurried to catch up with the Lakota, who had started up the road, dragging his left leg, his shoulders and head bobbing as he went. The wind blew through the trees, as dry and hot as the wind off a fire. Father John pulled the brim of his hat low against the sun. His throat felt dry and scratchy. His shirt was clinging to his back. No telling how far they had to go. He wished he’d brought a bottle of water.
The Lakota started around a bend, past the clump of trees, and Father John sprinted ahead to catch up.
“Where we going?”
“To the village.”
“Village? There’s a village on Sherwood’s ranch?”
“Name’s Orlando.” The man stopped and pivoted toward him. “You oughtta show respect for the prophet.” He threw his shoulders around in an awkward motion and started out again, as if he didn’t want to waste any more time.
Father John followed. The road narrowed into a steep path that switched back and forth up the slope. Strange, he thought. There was no sound of drums or rattles, and yet the guard had said the dancing was in progress.
“How long have you been with Orlando?”
Silence. Except for the breeze in the pines, the Indian’s moccasins scraping the hard ground, and the sound of his own breathing loud in his ears. Below, Father John could see the canyon he’d driven up, a winding chasm in the earth tossed with boulders and brush. The top of the ridge was about thirty feet above, he guessed. The switchbacks were shorter, the angles sharper. With each turn upward, he had the sense that he was climbing farther away from the ordinary, familiar world below.
The Indian came around a switchback, and Father John saw the man’s jaw muscles twitch, as if he were silently testing the answer. Finally he said, “Hospital in Denver, after I got my leg broke. I seen him die, and I seen him come back to life. He was different when he come back ’cause he’d gone to the shadow world. He started preaching right there, up and down the corridors, telling the rest of us Indian patients what we gotta do. Soon’s he got out, the people started asking him to come to their homes and tell ’em how to get saved. He said we gotta start living like the new world was already come, even if it ain’t come yet. Some of us come with him to the ranch.” He stopped talking a moment, then hurried on: “Lot more comin’. People here gonna be saved from the event.”
He took another switchback and bent forward up the incline. Father John could see the calf muscles of the man’s right leg bulging through the buckskin. The left leg was stiff and thin, like a stick dragging beside him.
“What are you talking about? What event?”
The Indian glanced around, eyes slit in confusion and anger, as if he’d been goaded into saying more than he wished. “Don’t concern white people.” He braced himself against a boulder, then hurled himself upward with his shoulders before taking a final jump onto the top of the ridge. He set both hands on his hips and stood motionless, gazing out into the distances, black hair and white buckskin clothes gleaming in the sun.
Father John dug his boots into the ground to keep from sliding backward and, bending forward, his breath a hard knot in his chest, pulled himself over the boulders until he was standing next to the Indian. He took in a couple gulps of air. “Who are you?” he said finally.
The Indian was still staring across the space that opened below. “I am the prophet’s disciple,” he said, the high voice almost lost in the wind sweeping over the ridge. “My ancestors followed the messiah, Wovoka. Now I have heard the messiah’s words from the prophet.”
He turned and started across the bare strip of ground that curved away like the rim of a volcano, then disappeared down the other side.
Father John ran a hand over his face, wiping away the perspiration, still breathing hard in the thin, hot air. The wind smashed his shirt against his chest.
He walked to the opposite side. A cluster of ranch buildings stood in the meadow below: small, frame house, barn, two smaller structures, weathered-looking and run-down. A couple of horses paced in the corral next to the barn, and beyond the corral, a small herd of buffalo grazed in a pasture.
On the other side of the meadow was a village of about twenty tipis, arranged in a circle, white canvas lit by the sun. Inside the circle were the dancers, dressed in white, holding hands and moving clockwise in a slow, silent motion around a lodgepole set upright in the earth. Next to the pole, someone was seated in a chair that faced the east. A large man stood behind the chair, arms folded across his chest, watchfulness in his manner. From somewhere in the distance came the caw-caw sound of a crow.
Father John gazed at the scene below for a moment. His assistant was right. They couldn’t ignore Orlando and his followers. This was a cult with its own messiah, its own prophet, isolated from the rest of the world. He should have spoken with the elders about the shadow dance and warned his parishioners. He wondered how many of his parishioners had already followed Orlando here.
He started after the Indian, who was working his way down the narrow footpath in a hop-hop motion. Dropping closer to the village, Father John could see the bark on the clusters of poles that poked through the tops of the tipis. The sloped canvas walls shimmered in the breeze. The faint smells of manure and garbage floated toward him. The dancers were still circling about. He could still hear the crow—a frantic note in the sound now—but he couldn’t see the bird.
“How many people are here?” he said to the Indian’s back.
“You ask a lot of questions.” The Indian glanced around, then slowed his pace, as if he were waiting until Father John caught up. “The saved are here. That’s all you need to know. We’re gettin’ ready for the new world. Won’t be nothing of white people then. Nothing made by whites. Everything we need is gonna be Indian. There’s gonna be plenty of buffalo meat, roots, vegetables, berries. Everybody’s gonna wear skins—all the women and children, just like the men. This way.” He plunged ahead across the grassy area at the base of the slope, then they worked their way past the tipis. The crow had stopped cawing.
“We wait,” the Indian said when they had reached the edge of the dance arena.
The dancers shuffled past, holding hands, silent except for the noise of their breathing—in and out like tiny bellows—as if they were in some kind of trance. Father John counted: twenty, twenty-five men and women, with the round, flat faces of the Navajo and Puebloans, the broad faces of the Sioux and Cheyenne, the narrow, defined faces of the Arapaho, none older than thirty, all dressed in white. Men in buckskins, women in loose, flimsy dresses that swayed about their legs. Across the shirts and dresses, painted in bright colors, were symbols of the Plains Indians: blue bands for the sky, yellow circles and crosses for the sun and the morning star, and red thunderbirds for the eagle that flies to the Creator.
As the dancers came around, they faced the rail-thin Indian who slumped in the webbed folding chair in the center, fingers spread over the knees of his buckskin trousers. Painted on the front of his shirt was a large, red crescent moon. He looked about thirty years old, with black hair cut just below his ears and intense, deep-set eyes that made his face appear skull-like. He was surprisingly pale, like a man who had been ill for a long time. As the dancers circled around, he held the gaze of each one for a long moment, and Father John could almost feel the electric charge that passed between them.
James Sherwood, he thought. A prophet who called himself Orlando.
The large Indian with shoulders like a bull, stationed beside the chair, was probably not much older than Orlando. He was also in white buckskin, arms folded across his chest, black hair pulled back into a ponytail, gaze fixed on the dancers passing by. He had a nose that curved like a beak, cheekbones that jumped out from beneath the brown skin, and fleshy lips. A vivid red scar ran from the edge of his mouth to the tip of his ear.
The crow screamed again. Now Father John saw the bird, perched like an outsized black beetle on top of the lodgepole behind Orlando. Strips of brightly colored fabric wound around the pole, the ends flapping in the breeze. The bird turned its beaked head side to side, shiny eyes on the dancers below, then tilted its head upward and screamed into the sky.
Father John shifted his gaze to the dancers. He had no idea what Janis Beaver looked like. Arapaho from Oklahoma, Sam Harrison had said. “A fox, you know what I mean?” She could be any one of a half-dozen women swaying past, but his eyes kept coming back to the girl dancing between two muscled young men. She was very pretty, with brown, almond-shaped eyes, finely shaped nose and cheeks, rounded lips that she brought together in a small circle. Her black hair was parted in the middle and combed back. It hung like a veil to her waist. A white rope cinched her dress, emphasizing the full breasts and curved hips.
Out of the corner of his eye, Father John saw Orlando shift in his chair, then lift both arms in a kind of benediction. The dancers stopped immediately. The crow pivoted on its perch and cawed.
And then it was very still. Even the breeze died back. After several seconds, a deep, baritone voice broke the quiet. “My relations, hear my words. I have returned to you from the shadow world in the west. I have seen crow leading the armies of ancestors. The regeneration will come before the spring passes away. We will dance for two more days. Wovoka does not forget his promise.”
The prophet got to his feet and started across the arena. The crow let out a scream and swooped down, perching on the man’s thin shoulders. Walking close behind him like a bodyguard was the large Indian with the red scar that pulsed in his cheek. The dancers formed a long corridor through which they passed, Orlando lifting his hand, blessing those on the right, then on the left. He stopped in front of the tipi that faced the east, set apart from the others, then ducked inside, the crow still clinging to his shoulder. The bodyguard followed.
“Wait here.” The Lakota beside Father John started loping toward the tipi.
Father John headed across the arena, through the dancers milling about. Several men came toward him, then parted, like water flowing around a rock, as if they hadn’t seen him, and continued toward the northern curve of tipis. The women huddled together in small groups, moving toward the southern curve. They looked alike; he couldn’t find the pretty girl with almond eyes.
Then he saw the Lakota coming along a diagonal path toward him, one shoulder thrust forward, left leg slightly behind. His eyes blazed with anger. “You got no right walking around,” he said. Then he drew in a long breath. “Orlando’ll see you now.”
12
Father John ducked into the tipi. It was cool inside. The sun streamed down from the opening overhead and cast a mixture of light and shadow over the straw mats on the floor and the buffalo robes draped over the hay bales around the periphery. Daylight glowed through the canvas walls. He was aware of the Lakota and several other men crowding behind him, the rapid gasps of their breathing.
Orlando sat on a bale on the far side of the tipi, facing the east, the crow still on his shoulder. He looked straight ahead, but the dark, intense eyes seemed to take in the entire tipi. There was a half-smile about his mouth, an unhurried sense in the way he shifted forward on the hay bale. And something else: the shadow of fatigue in his pale face and the kind of transparency that Father John had seen in hospitals when patients were close to death.
The Indian with the scar on his cheek sat a few feet from Orlando, far enough away, Father John thought, to show respect, yet close enough to throw himself between the prophet and any danger.
“Down on your knees.” Father John felt the jab of the Lakota’s fist in his back. “You are in the presence of the prophet.”
Father John shrugged away and moved into the column of light, locking eyes with Orlando. “I want to talk to Janis Beaver,” he said.
Orlando didn’t say anything for a moment. His mouth moved silently, then the baritone voice burst across the tipi: “Why do you suppose someone called Janis Beaver is with us?”
“She’s one of your followers.”
“I have many followers.” The man lifted both arms toward the village in a kind of benediction. “They’ve come here to be free of the white world. Soon the world will be cleansed and purified. We will have all that we need. Plenty of buffalo, wild vegetables and fruits. We will bend our own bows, straighten our arrows, and carve the tips from the finest flint. The women will tan the skins and sew beautiful garments. We need nothing from white people. Go away. You have no right to disturb us.”
“I believe Janis can help me find her friend, Dean Little Horse,” Father John persisted. “It’s important that I talk to her.”
Orlando lifted his hand and waved at the Lakota, who was now standing at attention beside Father John. “Leave this unbeliever with us,” he said.
The Indian bobbed backward. There was the sound of the flap being pushed aside, moccasin feet slapping the ground. The crow lifted its head and gave three short cries.
“You know this man, Little Horse?” Orlando said.
“I know his grandmother. She can’t sleep nights worrying about him. She raised him from the time he was an infant. He’s like her own son.”
“He has defiled our village.” The baritone voice deepened. “He is an unbeliever. We do not want him here. We told him to go away. You must also go. Leave us.”
“As soon as I talk to Janis,” Father John said, “I’ll be on my way.”
“Why do you ask for these people?” Orlando started to his feet, then lurched backward. The Indian with the scar jumped up, took hold of his arm, and steadied him. “Janis!” Orlando flapped his free arm in the air. “I know no one by this name. Why do you white men come here and disturb our dance, looking for people we don’t know? This morning, an FBI agent”—he enunciated each syllable, horror in his tone—“came to our village looking for Lakotas, interrupted our dancing, demanding to check the followers’ IDs. And now you! You interrupt our afternoon dance. Shall we have no peace?”
He started forward, the guard holding one arm, the other still flapping in the air. The crow lifted off his shoulder and flitted up toward the poles tied at the top of the tipi. “What is it you want? To stop our dancing? Is that it?” Orlando was shouting now, spraying tiny flecks of spittle into the column of light between them. “I know you white people. You don’t wish the new world to come. You want to stop it, just like before.”
An absent look came into the dark eyes, as if some other scene had started playing out before him, demanding his attention. He flinched away from the other Indian’s grip and lifted both hands overhead. The crow had started circling the tipi, screaming, flapping its black wings. “Here are the soldiers,” Orlando shouted to the bird. “I see them on the horizon. I see the breaths of their horses in the morning frost. It is so cold. The snow is deep. I hear the hooves pounding in the snow. They are coming, coming.”
The Shadow Dancer (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 9