by Jen Minkman
“She was cursed,” he crisply states. “Yenaldlooshi.”
My heart starts to hammer, and I am choking back tears. This is not fair. This is impossible. They cannot have followed me to here, to this time, this life – and yet they have.
“I need your help,” I finally whisper in total desperation.
Later that night, Aditsan and I are at our usual meditation spot in the mountains. Ho’oneno is asleep in the hoghan we built together next to her dad’s house. When she woke up for a moment and again remembered her miscarriage, she fell asleep crying and holding my hand. I left her with her father so I could complete an important ritual together with Aditsan.
I have explained the medicine man everything about the curse that was put on me all those years ago, in 1680. Together, we have entered the veil, and we have seen how the yenaldlooshi use my lifeline to follow me here - how they use their dreams and dark powers to influence the present from the past.
“Dream travelers,” I mumble once we come out of our mutual trance. “That is how they can find me. They will never give up.”
My throat constricts when I think of Ho’oneno, who was helpless against the poisonous bone fragments my tormentors have employed to attack her and curse her. They would have taken her away from me if they had succeeded.
“How can I beat them once and for all?” I ask quietly, but resolutely.
“You cannot,” the hataalii replies.
For a long time, I stay silent. I am almost afraid to snap at Aditsan for telling me the harsh truth I should have known, deep down, anyway.
“Are you sure it is impossible?” I try eventually, even though I already know the answer.
“You know that as well as I do. This kind of chindi can only be beaten when you call them by their true name. And their true name cannot be tracked down anymore. They may be able to follow your lifeline, but you cannot travel back in time to find out who they really are. You would have to know the exact location of their hide-out, and you don’t.”
I clench my hands into fists. “There must be something I can do to protect Ho’oneno.” I swallow back a sob.
“You could leave her,” my old friend finally suggests in a grave voice.
My heart is in my throat, breaking at the thought of leaving the love of my life, of all my lives. I would give anything to protect her, but this is a very high price to pay. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. “Is it not possible to come up with something to at least keep them away from her?”
“We can, but I do not know for how long. We need to collect juniper wood... white ash... corn pollen...” He sums up a number of powerful medicines, and suggests venturing out that very same night to get all the things we need and make my wife a medicine bundle to protect her from the ghosts from my past as well as possible.
“Do you not think you should tell her about the danger she is in?” is the last thing Aditsan asks me when I step out of the ceremonial hoghan at sunset, holding the medicine pouch in one hand.
I shake my head. “I want to see how this turns out first.” I hold up the bundle.
When I walk back home, I am trying to tell myself I do not want Ho’oneno to be unnecessarily scared. In reality, I am dreading her reaction if she were ever to find out why she lost our first child.
1842
“That was quite a trip!” Ho’oneno huffs. Hand in hand, we take the last few hundred steps separating us from Nonnezoshe, the rainbow turned to stone. The sacred place of our ancestors.
For months, my wife and I have mourned the loss of our unborn child, until last week Ho’oneno had a vision in a dream commanding her to leave the memory of her pregnancy behind at our Rainbow Bridge, so the gods could lift up the baby’s soul toward heaven. Thus, our sadness would not bind the young spirit to earth any longer.
This is how we ended up making a journey to this place in the middle of winter, and thanks to the days of cold deprivation and physical exercise, Ho’oneno’s mood has taken a turn for the better. I can see the old light shine in her eyes when she looks at me, and I can feel the fire flow through her veins when she stands close to me. I put my arms around her, pressing the cold tip of my nose against hers.
“I am freezing,” she starts to complain, giggling a little bit.
“I can help you with that.” I softly kiss her with lips that feel cold and warm at the same time. Under my touch, I can feel her melt into my embrace, moving up closer to me. For a moment, I forget why we are here, and all I want is to spend hours and hours being close to her. Ho’oneno has the power to stop time for me, making the sun shine on my face with her love.
When she ends the kiss and steps away, the sun breaks through the clouds. Light reflects off the snow that covers the earth. Her breath is a white puff of smoke in the air. For just a split second, I have the strange feeling I have been here with her before, or I will return to this place with her someday. I blink my eyes.
“I will need some time,” she says quietly.
“Of course.” I nod, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. She now has to sit under the sandstone arch and take in the surroundings in order to feel, see and hear what the gods of our land are expecting of her.
I walk away. The snow crunches under my winter boots as I climb the path to a rock overlooking the valley. I hope the magnificent view will help me to stop worrying about my wife.
Until now, my plan to avert the curse has worked out well. For a few months now, Ho’oneno has been carrying the medicine bundle Aditsan and I made, because she does not want to become sick again. I told her that her disease had something to do with the spirits of people who died by her hand, and that it was imperative that she never take it off. A small part of me feels guilty for lying to her, but a bigger part of me accepts the white lie as a necessity.
While I stare at the sun breaking away the clouds in the sky, I hear Ho’oneno beneath me singing softly. Her voice is beautiful. She sings a lullaby, and I cannot help but choke up. This is the cradlesong she would have sung for our child, and now she is singing the baby to eternal sleep, so it can play and crawl, gurgle and speak its first words in the hereafter.
Some time goes by, and I am starting to get hypothermic. Just as I decide to make my way down again and get moving, I suddenly hear an ear-splitting shriek. It is her voice.
My heart stops. I break into a run, almost stumbling on my way to her, hurrying toward the sandstone bridge until I end up in front of Ho’oneno. She is huddled against the rocks, her eyes clamped shut, her open palms in the air, warding off an invisible enemy. Her screams are filled with a fear that flies at my throat as well. Out of nowhere, bloody gashes appear on her face while she is kicking and flailing at something I cannot perceive.
“Shan díín!” I yell, terrified, falling down next to her. In normal circumstances, I would never break off someone’s trance like this, but the circumstances clearly call for desperate measures. I put my hands on her shoulders and shake her, pull her up to her feet, slap her in the face a few times.
Finally, her eyes open and the cry of fear dies on her lips when she looks at me. She starts to tremble, teeth chattering, blood dripping from her forehead and face, caused by the mysterious wounds that were inflicted on her.
“Shash,” she whispers in a feeble voice. Her sobs are heart-rending as she presses her shivering body against mine. “I... it is everywhere... I am bleeding,” she stammers incoherently.
I try to calm her down and stroke her hair, keeping her in a tender embrace. When I carefully loosen the buttons of the winter coat she is wearing, I see the same gashes on the skin of her throat and breasts. My heart turns to ice.
These are coyote claw marks.
I look around us, and at that moment, I can hear a terrifying howl in the distance, followed by something that sounds like a cackling laugh.
With a silent sigh, I close my eyes. I try to determine where the danger is coming from, but I already know the attack is over. The nightmare in my wife’s mind has ended, and
the influence those ghostly images had in the present time is gone... for now. Ho’oneno is awake and still alive, but only just. A few more seconds could have proven fatal.
I should have known better than to allow her to enter into a trance at a place like this, so close to spirits of the past. I should not have left her by herself. I should have told her months ago what is going on. Stupid, selfish idiot that I am. Stupid, selfish and in love.
I take a few pieces of dried yucca fruit from the pocket of my cloak and feed her some of it. With trembling hands, she takes the food from me and chews on it listlessly. She will not look at me.
“What have you seen?” I finally ask after a prolonged silence.
Ho’oneno shivers in my arms. “I cannot explain it.”
“Please try.” I have a dim hope that I may be wrong – the yenaldlooshi may not have found her after all.
But when she starts to tell me what she has seen, that hope is shattered. The three ominous shadows, their silhouettes transforming into coyotes, invading the subconscious of their enemies – I know them only too well. Her voice breaks when she relates to me how their eyes lit up red in the darkness of her dream, how their claws dug into her skin, how afraid and hurt she felt. “I have called upon the wrong spirits,” she concludes at last, looking confused. “I must have done something wrong to disturb the balance of this sacred place.”
I shake my head. “No. It is I who has done something wrong.”
My voice hitches when I tell her about the chindi, drying to a whisper when I explain to her why I am cursed. The murder. The many, many long years I have spent as protector of the Diné people, and the deep love I feel for Ho’oneno.
“I love you, she’esdzáán.” I look at her, afraid for her reaction.
Tears shimmer in her eyes. “I love you too. So very much.” She gingerly puts her arms around me. “Why did you not tell me about this before?”
“I did not want to scare you unnecessarily. The medicine pouch you have been carrying for months should have protected you.”
“But it did not.” She sighs deeply, leaning against my shoulder. I caress her wounded brow. “What can we do?” she asks quietly.
“I do not know. I had no idea those three witches could still find me, until you fell sick. That is when Aditsan and I saw that you were cursed. We made you the medicine bundle for protection, but it will not keep them away forever.”
Silence sets in around us. In the distance, dark clouds drift in, and I quickly suggest we pitch our tent before new snow starts to fall. Ho’oneno and I work in silence, and when we are finally sitting inside, the sun has almost set.
I have lit a small fire in the middle of the tent so I can treat my wife’s injuries with hot water, herbs and bandages. She has not said much since my revelation, and slowly but surely, an all-pervading coldness seeps into my heart. She is scared, and so am I.
“Shan díín?” I speak up at last, when she is huddled under blankets in one corner of the tent with a bandage around her head. I sit down next to her and take her hand. “I am sorry. I should never have allowed you to get involved in my problems.”
Ho’oneno smiles feebly. “I know you are,” she whispers.
“Do you want to leave me?” I ask, hardly audible.
“Never.” She caresses my cheek, wiping away the tears that stream down my face. I feel her arms around me, her body against mine, and allow myself to hope for a miracle.
Months go by. Spring comes to the valley, giving us new lambs in the flock. Ho’oneno and I are trying to get pregnant again, but so far, it has not happened. To me it is obvious she is not mentally ready for it yet. Sometimes, she wakes up at night, screaming and crying, looking for my calming embrace. I am sure she dreams about the yenaldlooshi’s terrifying shadows, but she never divulges what it is that is haunting her. On sunny days, we sit side by side on the rock plateau where we kissed each other for the first time, and it almost feels like she is herself again, as if the shadow of my curse was never cast over her existence. In those moments, I feel perfectly happy, and I hope she feels happy too. However, the night terrors keep tormenting her no matter how sunny our days together are.
One morning I decide to go into the woods to find some willow branches in order to make a dreamcatcher for Ho’oneno. Maybe that will stop the terrible images from invading her dreams. On my way out of the village, I run into Tsosi, and we decide to venture out together. My brother is hoping to shoot a few rabbits for the stew his wife is preparing tonight.
Laughing and chatting, we climb the steep path toward the plateau above the canyon. We roam around for hours, because we have not hunted together for a very long time, and it makes us feel like youths again. When noon comes, we pause and rest to eat the provisions of dried meat we have brought along.
“What is that?” Tsosi suddenly says, squinting his eyes against the sunlight and pointing at the horizon, where a trail of smoke rises up in the blue sky.
It makes me feel anxious. There are no Diné tribes in the area we are exploring, but to my knowledge, there should not be any Mexicans either. Who has lit a fire causing so much smoke? “I have no idea. Let us go and have a look.”
When we sneak closer, I see a regiment of soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms. We have crawled up a nearby hill and stay hidden under the shrubs at the top.
“What kind of people are they?” Tsosi hisses next to me. “Surely they are not Mexicans?”
Heart in my throat, I observe the men I once saw in a vision centuries ago. Paler than the Mexicans, but just as belligerent and bearded.
“Let us get out of here,” my brother says. “I do not like the look on their faces. It is best they do not see us.”
All the way back to the village I keep quiet, and when I hand Ho’oneno the dreamcatcher I made for her that night, I am apparently still rather quiet, judging by the worried look she is giving me.
“Is something the matter, darling?” She kisses my cheek.
“We saw some strange men up north. They were not Mexicans, but they were other white people. They were a few hours away from Tseyi, exploring the area.”
“Do you reckon they are enemies of the Mexicans?”
I shrug. “Who knows. Let us hope so.”
As the year progresses, Ho’oneno turns out to be right. The new palefaces and the Mexicans keep fighting each other. Messages from the north come in from villages where some of our clansmen live. Sometimes, I almost feel happy about someone finally giving the Mexicans a taste of their own medicine, but more often, I feel tense. The ‘new white men’ may not be any friendlier to us than the Mexicans, if push comes to shove.
A different kind of tension builds in me when I notice Ho’oneno is a little bit more detached than I am used to from her. I have not caught her dreaming bad things anymore, but it is evident she feels ill at ease. Maybe she is sad she has not managed to get pregnant again, or maybe she wants to be more actively involved in fighting the yenaldlooshi who want to hurt her. That would be typically her, after all.
“Ho’oneno,” I start out one evening, “how about helping me and Aditsan do a ritual to track down the yenaldlooshi?”
“Have you found a solution, then?” Ho’oneno asks in surprise. “I thought you could not beat them.”
“Aditsan thinks the union of our two souls and life force could possibly bind my supernatural energy to your energy. That way, you would be better protected.”
Ho’oneno snuggles up to me and keeps quiet for a long time.
“I do not know if I want to do that,” she then mumbles.
“No?” I prompt her, when she is again silent.
She shakes her head. “I am not sure. It scares me. We as Diné people are not supposed to talk about death or ghosts, and now you are suggesting this ritual in which I will experience your powers, the power of death and resurrection, adopting your lifeline and energy somehow... I might even get caught up in it.” She looks at me with panic in her eyes. “I do not think I can handle th
at. I have not felt like myself lately anyway. Ever since I have been sick and we made that journey to the rainbow bridge, I feel a dark shadow of constant threat. I feel it everywhere.”
“Why have you not told me?” I softly touch her face. “You should not have carried that around all by yourself.”
“What would be the point? I knew you would not be able to stop it anyway.” Ho’oneno starts to cry. She climbs into my embrace as I try to comfort her.
“Can’t I just stay with you without doing the ritual?” she wants to know, when she has calmed down again.
“Of course you can, my love,” I reply, “of course.”
I have no idea if it is the truth.
1843
In the middle of that summer, Ho’oneno visits me one evening wearing a happy face. I am sitting by the fire I have lit outside the village in order to meditate and call up a vision of the new white men, who keep resurfacing in that same area where Tsosi and I encountered them the first time.
“Ya’at’eeh, Hózhójí Naat’á,” she greets me, using my honorary title of peace leader. She sits down next to me, staring into the dancing flames. “What is the fire telling you?”
“I have not seen much.” I sigh. “Very soon, Tsosi and I will have to set out to investigate the white people from the north. I cannot feel their intentions, and Aditsan was not successful in finding out more in his visions last week either.” The war that Aditsan did see in his vision is something I refrain from mentioning to Ho’oneno. She is looking so genuinely happy that I do not want to ruin her good mood.
I turn my face toward her, kissing her softly on the mouth. She scoots closer and smiles broadly when I put an arm around her shoulders.
“Why the broad smile?” I ask her cheerfully.
Ho’oneno bites her lip. “I am five days late.” She nods toward the half-full moon in the sky above our heads.