Hole in the Sky

by Pete Hautman

  I said, “They never opened the gates. If they’d opened the gates the water would be cold.”

  “No,” said Tim.

  “It’s coming over the top, Tim. They never got there. The water’s warm because it’s not coming from the bottom of the lake. It’s coming over the top of the dam.”

  Tim’s mouth grew small and tight. He walked out of the grove toward the river, stood and stared down at the rushing rapids. I could see from the set of his shoulders that the news had hit him hard. If Hap and Uncle had not opened the gates, it was a sure thing they hadn’t made it to Page. And that probably meant the worst.

  Isabella said, “I don’t understand. What dam?”

  “The Glen Canyon Dam. Only now it’s the Glen Canyon Falls”

  “It must be very beautiful. Why is this a bad thing?”

  “Because it means his father—and my uncle …” I couldn’t finish.

  Isabella came to sit before me. She leaned forward, looking into my face. “Your eyes are sad.”

  She was altogether too calm. I wanted to shake her up, to make her feel some of my despair. I cleared my throat. “We’re all gonna be sad pretty soon, when that dam goes.”

  “And when might that be?”

  “Next week. Next year. Who knows?”

  She considered that.

  “It will not matter,” she said at last, standing up in a single, fluid motion. Something about the shape of her body, the way she was standing, made me remember.

  “I know who you are,” I said.

  She smiled. “Who am I?”

  “You’re the Phantom.” I pointed downstream, in the direction of Phantom Ranch. “You found Cecil for me.”

  She laughed, a joyful chortle from deep inside, and I felt a weird moment of happiness, a sense that everything would be okay. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to hold on to the sensation, letting the sound of her laughter echo through my thoughts.

  I slept again with the sun beating down upon me, and I dreamed. I saw Isabella’s face, felt her hands on my cheeks, heard her voice. Then I fell, as if the edge of the world had crumbled, canyon walls rushing toward the sky. Isabella was falling with me, and as we fell she said, with perfect calmness, “It will not matter, Ceej.”

  And in my dream, I believed her.

  The next time I woke up it was late afternoon. Isabella was down at the river fishing for trout with a hand line. Tim sat beside the fire, watching me. I crawled over to sit beside him.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Better. I had some weird dreams. I was falling, and Isabella was falling with me.”

  He threw another stick on the fire. “You think she’s crazy?”

  “Maybe we’re all crazy.”

  “She told me she’s been walking through the canyon for a month. She knows what plants to eat and stuff. She thinks she’s going to meet up with her people. She says she’s a Hopi, but she grew up in Las Vegas. Anyway, the Hopi are all dead. They got the Flu early on.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “That’s what’s weird. I think she knows it. She knows they’re dead, but she’s still planning on joining them. She’s a strange one.”

  I had to agree. “You think she might want to stay with us?”

  “You mean here in Hotel Mesquite?”

  “I mean when we leave.”

  “I don’t know. She has some place she’s trying to get to. Some sort of religious place. She has maps, she says. You know what she calls the canyon? Awn-toop-ka. I think she’s sick in the head.”

  “Maybe she’ll come with us.” My leg was starting to throb again.

  Tim shrugged. “How soon do you think you’ll be able to walk?”

  I tried to imagine walking. Isabella had changed the poultice and I’d seen my ankle, all purple and red and swollen. The thought of it made my leg hurt worse.

  “I could ride on Cecil.”

  Tim looked away. “Cecil’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “He wandered off yesterday. I spent most of the day looking for him.”

  “You didn’t tie him up?”

  He gave me an angry, embarrassed look. “Hey, I had you to worry about.”

  “So it’s my fault?” It felt good to get mad.

  Tim shrugged, his jaw clenched. For a moment I thought we were going to get into a big argument, but then Isabella appeared holding a fat trout in each hand.

  “The river has given us a meal,” she said, grinning. She looked so happy and proud that all the anger went out of me. I wanted to touch her smile.

  Dinner that night was fresh trout, crackers, and some shoots Isabella had gathered downstream in a little backwater. The fish was delicious, but the shoots tasted like mud. I ate my share, even though I didn’t have much of an appetite. The pain in my leg and foot had subsided, but I was feeling heavy in my body, as if I had a belly full of sand. After we ate, Isabella changed the poultice again. The swelling in my ankle had subsided. Her hands were gentle and firm.

  “You are healing,” she said. “You are strong.”

  “I don’t feel strong.”

  She grasped my biceps and squeezed. “Strong,” she said, grinning. In the half light of canyon dusk her skin became darker, her teeth whiter.

  Tim, sitting a few yards away, asked her when I would be able to travel.

  “That is for Ma’saw to decide,” she replied.

  “Who?”

  “The Guardian. He who permits us to leave our footprints upon this place.”

  “That’s crazy,” Tim said. “All that Indian stuff.”

  I held my breath, surprised that Tim would say such a thing.

  Isabella cocked her head, giving him a half frown, half smile. “You are here in Öngtupqa, yet you are blind to all that surrounds you. So typical of a pahanna.”

  “‘Awn-toop-ka?’ I thought we were in the Grand Canyon.”

  “Öngtupqa is the Hopi name.”

  “I wish you’d talk English.”

  “I wish you’d speak Hopi.”

  “I wish you’d stand on your head and sing marching songs.”

  Isabella’s mouth fell open and she laughed. Her laughter filled the mesquite grove, shaking the leaves, and in a second Tim was laughing, too.

  I said, “I think you’re both nuts.”

  Isabella’s mouth clamped shut. “That’s not very nice,” she said. She glared at me for a heartbeat, then she and Tim burst into laughter, again. I glowered at the two of them, feeling left out. I didn’t understand how Tim could insult her, then make everything funny and okay again with a few words. He thought Isabella was crazy, but he seemed at ease in her company. They bantered back and forth as easily as people in movies, arguing and joking, enjoying themselves. Later, sitting around the fire, Tim told her the story of how I’d hidden the truck horn under his bed, and we were all laughing together. Then Isabella told us about her grandfather, who had spent four years traveling the canyon on foot.

  “My grandfather was of the Crow Clan. He lived in Oraibi, the old village on Third Mesa. When he was a young man he fell in love with a Navajo girl, who rejected him. Broken in his heart, he felt the call of Öngtupqa, the canyon. Wearing moccasins and carrying a pack he sewed himself from the hide of an elk”—she pointed at her battered leather backpack—“he journeyed on foot from Hopi, across the lands controlled by the Navajo to the Salt Trail, where he descended into the gorge. He sought out the Sipapuni, the place of emergence, and camped there for four days and four nights. On the fourth night, he spoke with Ma’saw, the guardian of the Fourth World. Ma‘saw commanded my grandfather to remain in Öngtupqa until his memories of the Navajo girl were no more than the shadows of birds flitting across his heart.

  “For four years he lived here in Öngtupqa, exploring its shadows and learning its ways. One day he awakened to find a mockingbird perched on a branch above him. ‘You have healed yourself,’ said the mockingbird. ‘It is time for you to leave this place and rejoin yo
ur people.’

  “My grandfather looked into his heart and found that the darkness there had lifted, and when he thought of his Navajo love, he felt only wisps of sadness.

  “Returning to Hopi, he told his stories to the men in the kiva, and he became an important man. Very soon after his return, he married a Hopi girl—my grandmother. My father was born the following year in Oraibi.

  “My father grew quickly. Like a weed, Grandfather said. Years passed like leaves blowing in the wind. When my father was old enough to work, he left Walpi for Flagstaff, where he found a job as a carpenter, and where he met my mother. They married and moved to Las Vegas. My father became a security guard at a casino.”

  “Was your mother Hopi?” Tim asked.

  “Actually, she was Italian.”

  “You’re only half Hopi, then.”

  “No. I am all Hopi.”

  “But you never lived on the reservation.”

  “I would visit my grandfather at Oraibi. Later, when he was very old, my grandfather came to live with us in Las Vegas. My parents told me it was because he could not take care of himself, but the real reason he came was to teach me. He told me the ways of my people, how we emerged into this world, and our place in it.”

  I asked, “What was that word you used before—seepa pooni?”

  Isabella said, “I will tell you the story of my people. Haliksa’i!”

  “Bless you,” said Tim.

  Isabella frowned. “Haliksa’i means listen.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Many years ago, long before the grandfathers of our grandfather’s great grandfathers were born, people lived in the Third World, a land of rolling, grassy hills, clear waters, and gentle sun. They had lived there for many generations, and they were happy, but life was too easy. In time, the people became lazy. Many of the priests and the witches turned to evil, and their wickedness tainted the people around them. Men began to steal from one another. Instead of tending their crops, they spent their time gambling in the kivas, and the women joined them. Corn wilted in the fields. Children cried for food.

  “Those who remained virtuous tried to change things, but they were ignored, so they decided to seek a better place. They sent a catbird high into the sky to search for new lands. When the catbird returned, he told how he had passed through a sipapu in the sky and there discovered a vast new land.”

  “Isn’t ‘sipapu’ the thing you said your grandpa camped by?” Tim asked.

  “A sipapu is a hole. Haliksa’i! So the virtuous people, after some discussion, decided to journey to the Upper World. They planted a bamboo stalk, and they prayed and chanted, and the stalk grew up through the clouds. The people gathered up all their pots and tools and clothing and food and began to climb, but the way was long, and as they climbed they had to lighten their load. By the time they reached the sipapu in the sky they had cast away all their possessions.”

  “They were naked?”

  Isabella gave him a frowning look. “I don’t know. Maybe they still had clothes. It’s not important. They emerged from the Sipapuni and found themselves here, in Öngtupqa. And that is why we call this the Fourth World.”

  “What about the First and Second Worlds?”

  “Those worlds are lost to memory.”

  “What’s the Sipapuni? Is it the same as sipapu?”

  “The Sipapuni is the place of emergence. There is only one Sipapuni. There are many sipapus. From the Third World, the Sipapuni is a sipapu in the sky. Here, it is a sipapu in the earth.”

  “A hole?”

  Isabella nodded and pointed upriver. “It is where my grandfather met Ma’saw. It is where I am going.”

  Tim turned to me. “I told you she was nuts.”

  One of the more remarkable results of the multiple decimations caused by the Flu has been the revival of ancient belief systems. Highly organized religions such as the Islam, Catholic, and Protestant faiths, all of which relied heavily on their bureaucracies, have disappeared in many regions of North America, while many of the more obscure religions—Wicca, Christian Science, and several African and Native American belief systems—have flourished.

  Some religious leaders have decried this shift in faiths as a return to the primitive—but the more common explanation is that the Flu simply leveled the playing field. With the collapse of their infrastructure, the big religions lost their competitive edge.

  —from A Recent History of the Human Race by P. D. Boggs ©2038

  PART TWO: BELLA

  TO THE RIM

  Granddaughter?

  Yes, Grandfather?

  You have come far.

  Yes, Grandfather.

  You are very close now.

  Yes, Grandfather.

  But you have far to travel.

  Not too far, 1 hope.

  Your journey continues.

  Alone?

  Not alone. You are never alone.

  THE DARK-HAIRED BOY, CEEJ, is for me. His arms are long and his hands are large, but he carries his heaviness in his heart. He needs me to guide him through this place of death and life. It is for him I have been waiting, for it would be a sad thing to leave this world alone.

  The other, the small one called Tim, has feet that remain always on the soil of this world. He does not trust me, but the other needs him. We are together here.

  I lay out my possessions on a flat white stone. I have a small aluminum cooking pot and a butane lighter, the last of three. I have my grandfather’s notebook showing the secret ways in and out of Öngtupqa. I have a small cloth bag filled with dried berries, another filled with mesquite beans, and a smaller one filled with crumbly yellow earth. I have the kachina doll my grandfather made for me when I was a little girl. She is called Palhikwmana, or Moisture Maiden. She is small and crudely carved from the root of a cottonwood tree. Her headdress is broken down to ragged nubbins and one arm has broken off. Today she looks angry. I wrap her in soft cloth.

  I have a $5 poker chip from the casino where my father worked. I have my red and black Polarfleece blanket and an extra pair of socks and an old woolen sweater and a sheet of plastic big enough to hide under when it rains. I have my knife and my coil of nylon rope and two plastic water bottles and a river stone that looks like the head of a tortoise and everything fits inside my elkhide backpack. These are my possessions.

  I feel wealthy.

  In the morning, Ceej is able to walk, though with great pain. I tell him to wait, to rest yet another day, but he forces his swollen foot into his boot. He has a sister, he says, who needs his help. I understand this. His family holds him here. His sister calls to him, and her power is the greater. Tim also feels this call, and I see that she is a part of him, too. They tell me of the Kinka. I have heard of these Kinka, who believe that this world has become their own. Perhaps they are right.

  I spend the afternoon searching for the mule, Cecil. His tracks take me upriver, and then disappear among the rocks, and I realize that this time the mule does not wish to be found. I return to the camp by the rapids, where the boys are waiting. I tell them that the mule has chosen his own path. Tim rolls his eyes, but Ceej nods. He understands.

  I show them my grandfather’s notebook, the maps he made sixty years ago. It shows forty-seven trails in and out of Öngtupqa, many of them secret and known only to my people. The boys pore over the maps, asking me questions. I point out the fastest route to the rim, but they do not want to go that way. It is the way they came in. They fear the Kinka, I show them another trail, a longer way.

  “That must be the Grandview Trail,” Ceej says.

  I do not know the names he uses. In Grandfather’s notebook it is called the High Spring Trail. By either name, I tell them, it will take two days, perhaps longer, because of Ceej’s foot. Still, they wish to go on, and I see that it is their destiny to do so.

  But what of my destiny? One, perhaps two days of following the river will bring me to the Sipapuni. I do not wish to turn aside when I am so close, but it is cle
ar to me that my path now lies with these two white boys. I gather up Grand-father’s elkhide pack and prepare to join them.

  “You don’t have to come with us,” Tim says.

  “You are wrong,” I tell him.

  In the morning I brew a stimulating tonic from the hard green stems of the pale green shrub known as Mormon Tea. It is called this because it was drunk by the Mormons when they first encountered Öngtupqa a century before my grandfather was born. The boys make faces at its bitterness, and Tim refuses to drink all of his, but I am happy when Ceej swallows the last drop. It will energize him for the journey ahead.

  The first day takes us back along the trail I have been following, up onto the plateau that divides the inner gorge from the upper canyon. The Tonto Platform, Ceej calls it. He must stop to rest often. I can see that he is in pain. As we walk, he asks me questions about my life before the plague. It seems a thousand years ago, living in Las Vegas with my parents and my grandfather, going to school with hundreds of other children, watching television.

  I did not care about being Hopi back then. I wished only to be accepted by the other children, to have fun, to play little girl games. The tales my grandfather told me seemed like fables, stories told by an old man to entertain his granddaughter. Ma’saw, God of the Fourth World, was no more real to me than Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

  My occasional visits to Hopi were holidays, a chance to miss some school and play with my cousins—three boys, younger than me, all filled with life and joy and mischief. The symbols on the Hopi jewelry and pottery meant nothing to me. The thousand-year-old homes in Oraibi seemed like play houses. When the men descended into their kivas to smoke and chant, and my cousins went off to play their little boy games, my great aunt and I would make piki, that crumbly blue bread made of blue corn, ash and fat, rolled into sheets so thin you can see through it. It was all great fun, but no more important or true than Disneyland, or the casinos of Las Vegas. Or so I believed.

  Then the Flu came to Las Vegas and took my parents. I fled the city with my grandfather. For seven years we lived in a cabin in the Virgin Mountains near Lake Mead where he taught me the ways of the Hopi. He taught me how to survive in a world destroyed. He taught me the secrets of the kiva, things that only the men were supposed to know. He told me that one day, when I was older, he would take me to the Sipapuni, and that we would rejoin our people there.