Soul of the Sacred Earth

by Vella Munn

  It didn’t matter. Morning Butterfly was here. She would tell her people what had happened.

  Morning Butterfly.

  “Go, my son,” he told Madariaga, and if his tongue hesitated over calling him his son, he would face that later. “Go, and this time truly sin no more.”

  Madariaga hurried away and finally, finally, Angelico turned his attention to Morning Butterfly. It was late enough in the day that the sun had begun its downward march, and as a consequence, the church was in shadows, as was she. Although he was grateful that she couldn’t easily see his expression, he wanted to look into her eyes.

  “Come here, Morning Butterfly.” As always, he took pleasure in speaking her name. “You and I need to speak of what happened.”

  “He tried to rape me.”

  The Hopi’s openness about sexual matters would never cease to astonish him and would be the basis for many of the sermons he was planning.

  “And I trust he has finally seen the error of his way and will pray for restraint. It will not happen again.”

  She said nothing to indicate she believed him.

  “The Indian who interceded in your behalf? The one who fled.”

  “Cougar.”

  The Navajo! He’d known it! “What was he doing here?”

  “I do not know.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to another, reminding him of both her femininity and the fact that she hadn’t shown him the respect that was his due and was unawed by their holy surroundings.

  “Perhaps it was as he said.” She folded her arms under her breasts. “He was guided to my side by the Holy People.”

  “The Holy People? You mean the disciples?”

  “No.”

  “He said? My child, I saw the way the two of you acted around each other. I insist on being told; did you object to Madariaga’s advances because you and Cougar—because you have been with him?”

  “No.”

  There was no emotion in her voice.

  “I ask so little of you,” he heard himself say. “Your assistance in communicating with your people, yes, but that is something any Christian would do willingly.”

  She drew away when he called her a Christian, and he didn’t push the issue. He had no way of knowing that his next words echoed what Madariaga had said just before the soldier had attacked the maiden.

  “When I began this journey, I never thought I would meet someone like you. Intelligent, compassionate.” A woman. “You cannot possibly comprehend how desolate my surroundings have become.”

  He was shocked to hear his feelings expressed in his own voice. “I find joy in doing the Lord’s work,” he told her. “Joy beyond measure. I trust you will never doubt that.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything. There was a shadow in her eyes.

  “But God does not concern Himself with my every waking moment. Nor does He seek to control my every thought. As a consequence, I seek intellectual stimulation, of which there is precious little here.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” He hated himself for sounding like a small, hurt child.

  Sighing, she went on. “Perhaps you believe I concern myself little with what you do, but you are wrong,” she said.

  He opened his mouth, but she stopped him. “We always believed the old ways would walk us into tomorrow. We were content with that and yet . . .”

  “And yet what?”

  “Perhaps the wind will change the way it blows and the moon and sun cease or alter their journeys. Much changed as the Hopi were on their migrations, so who are we to believe that would not happen again. You—sometimes I wonder if you are the first of new winds.”

  For a moment so brief he wasn’t sure he’d seen it, her features aged. Then she drew in a deep breath.

  “Is that what you are?” she asked. “The beginning of a new way of life for the Hopi?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “This was no random dream, of that I am certain. Dreams without meaning are like rabbits, jumping here and there, coming from nowhere and going no place. But this one, I say we must look deep into it for its wisdom.”

  “That is why we are here, Drums No More.”

  “As it should be,” Drums No More agreed. “I am uncertain of my dream’s beginning. When I woke this morning, I looked deep into myself and prayed for wisdom, but—” He sighed. “Perhaps that remains lost in mist because I do not want to look at the truth of it.”

  Cougar shifted position, careful not to jar his still sore side. Although the wound the Spaniard had inflicted on him had bled freely, Blue Swallow had packed healing herbs around it, and by the time they’d reached home, Cougar had regained most of his strength. He’d told his story during several sweats attended by members of his clan, but this was the first time since his return that a formal meeting had been held.

  “I was sleeping beside you when you first sat up,” he reminded his grandfather. “You reached for me and called my name. Do you remember that?”

  Drums No More looked around at the other men who’d crowded into the sweat lodge. He stared for a long time at the shaman Storm Wind, who’d encouraged him to speak, then at his sons, but not, Cougar noticed, at him.

  “Spider Man was there,” he finally said.

  “Spider Man,” Storm Wind echoed. “He who warns of coming danger.”

  Drums No More sighed. “I did not want him there, told him he was wrong to seek me out.”

  “Who then?” Cougar asked.

  “No one! That is what I said to Spider Man. In my harshest voice, I ordered him to go away because the Navajo had no need of him. I reminded him that we faithfully follow the Holy People’s way to assure no harm will come to us. When he did not leave, I—I picked up a rock and threw it at him.”

  Several men gasped, and even Cougar, who’d vowed to listen to everything his grandfather had to say with an open mind, struggled to imagine this gentle old man lifting an arm in anger against anyone.

  “The rock bounced off him, but Spider Man gave no sign he had felt it,” Drums No More said. “He—when he spoke, I heard no anger in his voice, so perhaps I only imagined what I had done.”

  “That can be,” Storm Wind agreed. “Spider Man spoke to you. What did he say?”

  Drums No More leaned forward and rested his elbows on his crossed legs. For a while the only sound was that of the men’s breathing.

  “His words remained in the mist. I do not know how it happened, but soon Spider Man was no longer there. In his place stood the Hero Twins.”

  Despite the heat from the nearby fire-heated rocks, Cougar felt a chill.

  “They spoke to me,” Drums No More continued, his voice stronger. “Of many things. They reminded me of the powerful spirit-beings who travel on the wind and sunbeams, on lightning flashes, rainbows, and thunderbolts. They told me to take into myself the truth that only Changing Woman, the Earth Mother, is always benevolent. Then they reminded me that Changing Woman was their mother and Sun their father.”

  “No one has ever questioned that,” Storm Wind pointed out. “Did the Hero Twins say someone had?”

  “They spoke no such words. They took me back with them to when they walked the earth and killed the monsters.”

  “Ah, yes! They were indeed powerful!” Storm Wind exclaimed.

  Drums No More nodded agreement, but Cougar wondered if he was irritated by the shaman’s continued interruptions.

  “Before the Hero Twins took me with them, they reminded me of the monsters they did not destroy.”

  “Poverty. Hunger.”

  This time Drums No More glared at Storm Wind. “Shaman,” he said, “I am a patient man who understands everyone needs a time to talk. It is right that you lift your voice at a time like this, but if I am not allowed to give my thoughts freedom now, I fear I will lose them. When I am done, I will listen to what you have to say, but now—now I ask you to be silent.”

  No one ever confronted the shaman like that since shamans wer
e responsible for keeping everyone on the path laid out by the Holy People. Drums No More’s request was proof of how serious he was. Teeth clenched, Storm Wind nodded.

  “When the Twins completed their tasks,” Drums No More continued, “the Holy People came together and created us, the Earth Surface People, and taught us how to find food, face life, build our homes, marry, and protect ourselves against disease. They told us what we must do in order to walk a righteous path. Those things the Twins spoke to me about.

  “Then they were no longer the Hero Twins but came together in a single form—a man who sits among us today.”

  The chill he’d experienced earlier returned, forcing Cougar to suppress a shiver.

  “My grandson,” Drums No More said, speaking to him, “in my dream I saw, not the sons of Changing Woman and Sun, but you.”

  Storm Wind gasped, then clamped his leathery hand over his mouth.

  “I saw you as a youth, traveling east, although Changing Woman had told you not to. You saw an animal with brown hair and a sharp nose and pointed your arrows at it, but it jumped into a canyon.”

  That creature had been Coyote, a spy for the alien god Teelget.

  “It was you who saw the great black bird seated on a tree, you who aimed your arrows at it but could not hit it because it spread its wings and flew away.”

  That had been Raven, spy of Tsenahale, the great winged creature that devours men.

  “You spotted the dark bird with a skinny red head and no feathers. This one too flew away before you could pierce it.”

  Buzzard, spy for Tsetahotsiltali, He Who Kicks Men Down the Cliffs.

  “You,” Drums No More continued, “who tried to shoot Magpie, spy for the Binaye Ahani, who slay people with their eyes. After that, Changing Woman spoke to you, begged you.”

  Begged him to comprehend the awful consequences of his disobedience, since those spies of the alien gods would tell their masters, who would come to devour him as they had devoured so many before. But that was only part of the legend, the rest of it having been played out as the Twins faced their enemies in battle and finally destroyed them.

  “I did not want to see you in my dream,” Drums No More continued. “I am proud of you, eldest of my grandchildren. My heart swells in memory of your courage in taking the horses and confronting the captain, but you are not Changing Woman’s son.”

  “No, I am mortal.” A man who does not want to carry the weight of change.

  “And that is why I fought to end my dream, but instead, everything happened as it had in ancient times. The monsters appeared and you, the Hero Twins fought them. Only—only the monsters were not Tsetahotsiltali, Teelget, Binaye Ahani and the others. They were, all of them, Captain Lopez and his men.”

  “I was alone?” Cougar made himself ask.

  “No. Other Navajo men were with you and you were their leader.”

  “And when your dream was over, were all the monsters dead, or—or had they killed us?”

  “I do not know.”

  • • •

  The next morning, Cougar slung his bow and arrows over his shoulder, thanked his mother for the leather bag she’d filled with food, and turned to face the ten braves who would accompany him. Storm Wind had created a dry painting during the night, and at dawn Cougar and the others had knelt around it while they prayed and chanted the Door Path Song.

  He had no doubts about the message in his grandfather’s dream or the way the painting had been created or whether they’d chosen the correct song to start them on their way, but he’d never imagined himself following in the Hero Twins’ footsteps. His birth and childhood hadn’t been different from any other boys’, so why had he been singled out this way?

  During the sleepless night, he’d asked himself this so many times that his head had pounded with it. His wound ached because he’d tossed about so much; he continued to hear Morning Butterfly’s words, to acknowledge that he was embarking on a path of war while she spoke only of peace.

  What would she think of what he was doing now? Would she hate him—refuse to ever speak to him again?

  Did she even know he was alive?

  “Cougar?” Blue Swallow prompted from where he stood beside him. “What will we do when we overtake the soldiers?”

  “What?” Shaking his head, he fought to dismiss Morning Butterfly from his mind. “I do not know.”

  “Not know?” The other brave indicated his arrows. “Surely our weapons speak for themselves. There can be no peace with the newcomers, none.”

  Drums No More was standing beside the shaman. Instead of puffing out his chest because his grandson would be leading the group, the old man looked shrunken and sad.

  “Cougar?” Blue Swallow pressed.

  “You are right.” He touched his side. “The Navajo and newcomers will never walk together as one. This is Dinehtah, our land, and the Spanish do not belong here.”

  “Then they must die.”

  Them, or us?

  • • •

  Because he’d never made the journey on horseback, Cougar was unsure how long it would have taken the soldiers to reach the great canyon. The captain might have forced some Hopi to guide him and his men across the desert, through the forest and to the canyon. They might already have discovered that the canyon wasn’t a place that easily gave up its wealth. They might already be on their way back to Oraibi.

  With that possibility foremost on his mind, Cougar directed his companions to accompany him not along the well-worn trails used by generations of Indians, but through the wilderness, where they could more easily hide. Although that slowed them, no one argued with him. Instead, they readily agreed with his every suggestion, and he accepted the sense of power even as he fought a thousand uncertainties. Did Captain Lopez ever feel this way, or had the man readily embraced his many responsibilities? Was he so convinced he was right that no doubt ever entered his mind?

  After five days and an equal number of nights, they reached the canyon’s edge. Although he’d been here twice before, Cougar felt awed by it, made small, insignificant, humble. Nothing touched the massive cut in size or depth; nothing else could possibly so dominate the land. No matter what Captain Lopez had been told about it, he couldn’t have prepared himself for its vastness. The canyon was everything, this world and beyond.

  Had Morning Butterfly ever stood here and taken proof of the gods’ power into her soul?

  Almost as one, each man took a pinch of corn pollen from his medicine pouch and cast it into the air, watching the golden flakes fall and fall until they disappeared far below.

  The wind blew as it so often did here, and in the breeze lived the memories of all those who’d come before. Listening intently, Cougar “heard” of when the first Spaniards reached the vast earth-wound created by ancient gods and spirits. The Hopi had agreed to lead a man called Garcia Lopez de Cardenas and some twenty followers along one of the twisting trails leading here. Upon seeing the immense gorge, one of them, Padrode Castaneda, had made many marks on his talking leaves so that those who lived after his death would know what he had witnessed. The Hopi hadn’t understood why he hadn’t simply ordered his experience passed from mouth to mouth into forever, but such was the ways of the newcomers.

  Three of the early explorers had wanted to climb down to the river, but they hadn’t asked a Hopi to accompany them, so no one could say for certain how far they’d gone. They’d left at dawn and returned before night, their eyes speaking of awe, disbelief, exhaustion, and fear.

  The Hopi still laughed at the foolish newcomers who hadn’t thought to take along enough water and whose eyes hadn’t told them the truth about the steep descent or climb. If they’d let go of their prideful ways, the Hopi would have told the Spanish that no one made such a journey without filling gourds with water and burying the gourds on the way down so they’d have something to drink on the way back.

  What had caused the most laughter was that the three foolish explorers had tried to make the descent o
n horseback. Cougar hoped Captain Lopez hadn’t done the same, not because he cared what happened to the soldiers, but because it would be a shame to risk a horse’s life in such a way.

  He’d dismounted and, along with the others, was staring at the ground where the soldiers’ horses had left marks when he became aware of movement so far to his left that he couldn’t be sure what was responsible for it. He pointed, to call the others’ attention to possible danger.

  “Soldiers?” Blue Swallow whispered.

  “Perhaps.”

  Blue Swallow nodded and offered to accompany him. After vaulting back onto their horses, they started forward. The closer he came, the more convinced Cougar grew that they were indeed looking at human beings, but because those figures were on foot, he didn’t believe they were soldiers. Blue Swallow rode as if he and his horse shared the same heart, as if he’d been born sitting there.

  “I look at you,” Cougar told him, “and I know it is right for the Navajo to have horses. Whether the gift came from Changing Woman or a Spanish god does not matter.”

  “Perhaps the Spanish gods looked at Changing Woman and the Hero Twins and saw that what is Navajo is greater than anything they call theirs.”

  “Perhaps.” It felt good to laugh, even if only briefly.

  “Cougar? I want to ask you something. I thought to wait until I was certain my question would not anger you, but if you and I do not live past today—”

  “We are not going to die!”

  “You have looked into the future and know what it brings?”

  “No, of course not, but this is a peaceful day, full of what has been from the beginning of time. The wind carries no warning in it.”

  “And the wind speaks to you?” Blue Swallow’s reprimand had much humor in it.

  Cougar had been wrong to try to voice his sense of peace, and much as he resented being corrected, Blue Swallow was right to remind him how little it took to stray off the Way of Life. “No,” he admitted, then asked Blue Swallow to continue.