Find Your Own Truth
Page 17
What did stars have to do with anything? Sam gave up. He turned his head and stared at the sunset.
It wasn’t much longer before Dancey pulled the Hummer off the track and bounced them to a stop in a small canyon. He rustled around in the back of the Hummer for a while, emerging first with a bedroll that he tossed to Sam without a word, then later with some cooking gear and a field pack. The old man made a fire and cooked supper in silence. They ate, and then, in silence, they sat watching the glowing embers.
A scuffing in the darkness startled Sam, but Dancey didn’t appear to notice. The old man seemed used to the prairie, so Sam dismissed the sound as not dangerous. He looked up at the stars playing hide-and-seek among drifting clouds. The air was chill, cooling quickly, so he wrapped the bedroll around his shoulders. The fire warmed his front.
He heard the furtive noise again and caught the gleam of eyes just beyond the firelight. The old man tossed a supper scrap out. After a moment, a coyote padded over to gobble it down. Dancey tossed another, this time closer to the fire so that the animal had to come well within the firelight to get it. The animal moved forward and took the new offering. Scrap by scrap, Dancey lured it closer until it was taking food from his hand.
A lonesome yipping echoed in from the surrounding buttes. Their after-dinner guest sat on his haunches and raised his muzzle to howl back. The sound conveyed an odd mixture of companionship and isolation. Sam closed his eyes to concentrate on listening to the distant calls. Their coyote howled again, this time in concert with another close by.
Sam opened his eyes, hoping to spot the newcomer.
He had not expected what he saw. Dancey had joined the chorus. His head, tilted at the sky, was not that of the old man. A coyote’s pointed snout poked from beneath the tilted brim of the battered reservation hat. Sam could almost smell magic in the air.
Trickster!
“You!” Sam shouted, scrambling to his feet and frightening away the animal. “You’re Howling Coyote!”
The vision of the coyote head vanished and the old man looked at him with dark, but human, eyes. “Been called a lot of things. That, too.”
“I need your help.”
The old man turned his eyes to the ground. His finger traced patterns in the dirt. “ ’Course, I might just be another ragged Coyote shaman limping along in the trail of the Trickster.”
Sam shook his head. He had felt an aura of power, or something, enwrapping the man as he sang with the animals. This was no ordinary shaman. “No. Not just any shaman.”
The old man met his gaze again.
“Coyote’s not a lucky fella. Gets killed a lot. Howling Coyote died, you know.”
“So I heard. All shamans die. A shaman has to die to touch the power. Dog told me.”
The old man’s expression became suspicious. “Dog told ya? Hey hey, they talk to dogs where ya come from, Anglo?”
“They talk to dogs everywhere. It’s when the dogs talk back that you get problems.”
The Indian grunted. “So ya say you’re a shaman. Well, show me something. Impress me.”
Sam shook his head. “That’s not what the magic’s for.”
“No? Why not? What good’s anything if ya can’t use it?”
Sam was becoming angry at the man’s flippant attitude and mocking tone. “I didn’t say I can’t use it.”
“Hot, hot. Leave it for the sun. Hey hey. Pride’s trouble, Anglo. Had plenty enough trouble in my time.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble. I want to stop it. My sister, she ...”
“She’s trouble.” The old man’s voice held both sympathy and warning.
“Well, yes. But she doesn’t want to be, and that’s what will save her.” Or so he believed. “I’m sure of it.”
“Sure, are ya? Ain’t no surety, Anglo. Ya talk about trouble and magical problems. Ya don’t say much. Ya gotta talk plain, Anglo. I’m just a stupid old man.” Sam didn’t believe that, but he played along. He told the old man about Janice. He talked about the ritual and its failure, and about his fears that Janice would succumb to the wendigo curse, and his hopes for her salvation. He ended his tale with an appeal. “You are Howling Coyote. You led the Great Ghost Dance, the most powerful transforming magic the world has ever seen. You’re the only one who knows enough about shamanic magic to make the ritual work. You’ve got to help me.”
The old man stood and turned his back on Sam. “Don’t got to do nothing. Coyote’s freedom, ya know. Does what he wants. You’re on a fool’s quest.”
“I’ve got to help my sister.”
“Very noble, Dog.” He spat. “Blind optimism.”
“No, it isn’t." Sam protested. “1 felt her spirit and I felt the magic. She can be saved, but I can’t do it myself. I need you to help me help Janice.”
“Help yourself.”
“Are you refusing to help?”
“I said what I said.”
“Okay, okay." Sam said, exasperated. “If you won’t help, then at least teach me what I need to know. You’ve taught others to use magic. Teach me. Teach me how to save Janice.”
The old man turned around. “Why not?”
26
“Coyote knows all, sees all." the shaman said. “Tells little.”
“Like you." Sam observed.
“Hey hey, pup. Sing a sour song and you jinx the magic. Sky ain’t gonna change color to suit you. A shaman is what he is because he is what he is. Ya gotta know to do, and do to know. Got that?”
“Sure." Sam replied dubiously. Clear as mud. The last two days had been full of exercises in frustration. The old man had led him deeper into the wilderness, hauling packs when they left the Hummer behind. Most of the time, Sam’s questions and comments fell on deaf ears. The old man only spoke when he wished, and then half the time he spouted nonsense commentaries on life or nature. The other half was split between totally incomprehensible monologues in a language Sam guessed was his native Ute dialect and almost equally incomprehensible orders. So far Sam had listened to how the wind made pinon trees sigh, observed ants scurry about their business, smelled and compared the scents of yucca leaves and flowers, and watched buzzards wheel in the canyon updrafts. Time and again, he had gathered a variety of plant materials and animal remains, only to have the shaman leave them behind the next time they stopped. He felt more like he, or his patience, was being tested rather than taught.
They had climbed a long series of switchbacks up a bluff and were now making their way across a gradually sloping mesa top. On the way up, Howling Coyote had taken a detour and led Sam out on a precarious spur of rock. The stretch of plain that ran to distant mountains left Sam in awe. The prairie seemed to go on for a hundred kilometers. The shaman had tugged Sam around to face south and pointed to a series of peaks in that direction.
“See. It ain’t me." Howling Coyote had said. “He’s still sleeping.”
Sam hadn’t understood what the old man meant, and said so.
“The Ute, pup. He’s still sleeping." was all the shaman would say on the subject.
They came to a place where a wide circular depression was marked by stone walls. In sharp contrast to the dusty soil and sparse vegetation elsewhere, the grass here was bright and green within the hole. Traces of ditches, some with stones, could be seen through the stunted trees.
“Thirsty, pup?”
“Yes." Sam replied honestly. His iips were dry, and even his lungs felt seared by the dry air.
The shaman sat on the wall and dangled his feet over the edge into the depression. There was perhaps two centimeters clearance between the soles of his feet and the earth. “Ah. nice and cool." he said. “Have a drink if you’re thirsty.”
Sam looked at the grassy depression toward which the old man gestured. He could see no sign of water. Just grass. The shaman swung his feet back up, with a heave rising to his feet and padding off down a path between the fragrant pinon. Sam was shocked to see Howling Coyote leave damp footprints. He hurried after.
“Hey hey, pup. I didn’t do nothing. The old ones built all around here. 'Anasazi's' the name you Anglos stuck on them. They built that lake for irrigation before Whites ever walked the land hereabouts.”
“But your footprints." Sam protested. “You left wet footprints as though your feet had been in water. There wasn’t any water in that lake bed. How did you do that?”
The shaman laughed. “I didn’t do nothing. Just experienced the lake and the wisdom of the old ones. What did you experience?”
Nothing, Sam thought. Aloud he said, “I don’t know.”
“Some shaman. Gotta see the past if you’re gonna face the future.”
Without any further explanation, Howling Coyote led Sam through the tangled, dark trees. Near sunset they came out at the rim of a forested canyon. The rock face fell away beneath them for a dozen meters of sheer drop. The far rim looked as Sam imagined the side on which he stood must appear. Trees and brush grew on all the surfaces that offered the least foothold, only succumbing when the rocks were nearly vertical. In niches where the sandstone of the cliff had caved away, someone—the old ones?—had built clusters of structures. After silently contemplating the vista for a few minutes, Howling Coyote led Sam back from the edge to a grove of pinon trees that were taller and broader than their immediate neighbors. It took Sam a moment to realize that each of the larger trees stood within a slightly raised area.
Before he could ask a question the shaman took his arm and dragged him deeper into the grove, where a few piles of stone marked the outlines of a building made of many small rooms. No wall was higher than a meter. There was a wide clearing to one side, in the middle of which yawned a dark, rectangular hole. Two logs and the first rung of the ladder they supported poked out of the hole into the failing sunlight.
“A kiva. Be warmer to spend the night in there." the shaman said, and disappeared down the ladder.
Though Sam felt the air already turning chill, he didn’t find the thought of climbing down into darkness inviting. While he stood indecisive, a chant and faint wisps of smoke began to come from the hole.
He rises, to the sky.
He rises, seeking light.
He rises, toward the power.
To the sky, he rises.
Dusk lay on the mesa; a cool breeze arose, rustling through the pinon and caressing the twisted mesquite logs. An owl called, distant and plaintive, and the faint chitter of a hunting bat skittered across Sam’s ears. Other hunters would be about. Sam looked at the hole. Where the kiva had seemed to offer only darkness and mystery, it now promised light and warmth and the only companionship on the mesa.
Howling Coyote might be a little odd, but the human companionship he offered was something Sam couldn’t long go without. The old shaman was also Sam’s only hope for Janice, and Sam was not about to abandon that hope after chasing it so long. For all of Howling Coyote’s eccentricity, Sam felt somehow that the shaman was trying to help him. If only he could figure out what the old man was driving at. One thing was certain: Sam wouldn’t get anywhere by freezing himself to death alone in the night.
He walked to the ladder rising from the kiva and, coughing a little from the smoke, descended into the earth.
* * *
Pain.
Wind howls like a hungry wolf. Fire bums, destroying implacably. Faces are filled with pain, and rage, and fear, and death.
Pain.
His mother, crying and protective. His father, defiant and impotent. Oliver, his brother, torn away by the raging waves of the mob, to surface in impossibly distant places. And Janice . . .
Pain.
Running. Hiding. The dark shadow against the dark night comes hunting, circling ever closer, until an eerie, keening howl pierces the darkness and sends the shadow away. The sound stays in his head, piercing his peace and bringing . . .
Pain.
* * *
“Hey hey, pup. Is it Dog?”
Sam started awake, dream fragments fleeing from him to be swallowed in swirling mists. Even though he was unsure of what they were, he was more than happy to see them go.
Howling Coyote shook his shoulder. “You were chasing something. Talking to Dog?”
Sam shook his still muddled head. He didn’t want to remember, but he knew he hadn’t been visiting that pleasant green place where Dog dwelled. “Just a dream. Nothing important.”
“Hey hey, pup. You’re dumb even for an Anglo. Dreams are important. They touch on the otherworld, the places where the totems live.”
“Dreams are fragments of leftover data. They’re just the brain recorrelating information, subconscious data processing.”
The old man looked at Sam out the corner of his eye. “Ya sure, Anglo?”
“It’s scientifically proven.”
“Ya really are dumb. This is a magic world now. Science don’t know everything.”
Sam was annoyed. “Nor does magic.”
“Nor do you." Howling Coyote said in near perfect imitation of Sam’s exasperated tone. The old man swung a foot up onto the ladder. “Eat. Sleep. Think. Whatever. Just don’t let the fire go out. Got something I gotta do. Ya stay put now, pup ”
The shaman climbed the ladder, momentarily blocking the sunlight and plunging the kiva into deeper gloom. In a surge of momentary panic Sam nearly swarmed up the ladder after the shaman, but he forced the urge away. He spent two days regretting his decision to stay.
Each morning Howling Coyote told him to sit in the holy place of the kiva and dream. It was not welcome advice, for Sam didn’t like the dreams he was having. But he did as the old man bid, sensing that his chance of learning anything from Howling Coyote, and therefore Janice’s salvation, depended on his obedience. Wasn’t the student always expected to be obedient to the master? It had been that way in his ancestral Europe and it was a way of life in the Orient. Why would the Native Americans be different? So Sam sat in the darkness, pacing the confining periphery of the kiva when the forced inactivity became too much. He spent a lot of time trying to guess the time of day from the angle of sunlight creeping in past the fiber mat grill Howling Coyote had placed over the opening. The boredom was so intense that he slept a lot.
And when he slept, he dreamed.
On the third day, Sam awoke to find Howling Coyote gone. Without the shaman to prohibit him from leaving, he decided he had grown thoroughly sick of the dark kiva. Climbing the ladder into the harsh light of mid-afternoon, Sam blinked and shook his head in wonder. He had thought it was only morning, and blamed the timeless dark of the kiva for the glitch to his biorhythms. Then again, had it been only three days? He hoped so; time was passing too quickly as it was.
Hearing the faint strains of the shaman’s voice chanting, Sam followed the sound to the edge of the cliff. The song came from somewhere below. Sam spent some time looking around, until he finally found what resembled a path downward. He had to scramble in a couple of places, but he made his way to a narrow level area and followed it along the edge of the sandstone bluff. Turning the corner of an outcrop, he came suddenly upon a structure more elaborate than those he had seen in the opposite wall of the canyon. Building after ruined building was crammed into the gash in the cliff. In one place a tower reached up almost four stories, molding itself to the curving overhang of the cleft. Hard-packed earthen surfaces with square holes in their centers marked kivas. Sam skirted the exposed circular wall of one in order to follow the chanting.
He left the sunlight behind as he edged through gaps in building walls to move deeper into the ruin. His progress slowed as the spaces became more restricted. Often, he had to turn on his side to crawl through openings that weren’t wide enough for his shoulders to pass. Deep within the ruin, he found Howling Coyote daubing ochre paint onto the sandstone rock face that formed the back of the cleft. Sam said nothing and watched.
In defit strokes, the shaman was sketching a stick man bent over a tube or rod that touched his head. Lines—f
eathers, Sam presumed—arched from the stick man’s head The central figure completed, the shaman spun spirals above and below the stick man. To the right and left he placed rows of dots, then stepped back to observe his work. Sam gave in to his curiosity and started to ask the old man what he was doing, but was shushed to silence before he said a word.
Howling Coyote backed away from the painting, almost into the sunlight, and sat down. He drew a wooden flute from his belt and began to play a haunting melody composed mostly of single, long notes interspersed with fluttering clusters of rising and falling tones. Sam walked over and seated himself at Howling Coyote’s side. The music gradually became softer and finally trailed off into silence. Lulled by its beauty, Sam was startled when Howling Coyote spoke.
“He’s coming.”
“Who?”
“Him.” The shaman pointed at his painting.
A tall, gangly being emerged from the rock, his form thickening from rosy translucency to opacity. His slanted eyes of deep, deep black were pools of oblivion against the night dark of his skin. His ears were pointed. Despite his fierce expression and the red glow that surrounded him, Sam perceived that the newcomer was no devil, just an elf. A strangely powerful and skinny one, perhaps, but an elf all the same.
“That’s the guy who tried to kill me in Denver!” Sam reached for his gun, but the Indian’s hand snaked out and clamped onto his wrist. Sam relaxed, and the shaman released him. It was time to trust his teacher.
The shaman stood, cloaked in an aura of power. “Hoka-hey, Wata-urdli. You’ve come a long way on your road of stone to die.”
“Peace, Howling Coyote.” The elf raised empty hands and presented the palms. “This is not a good day to die. I wish you no harm.”
“Come in peace, stay in peace.” The profound majesty of the Indian shaman shattered as the sprawl-runner crawled out. “Otherwise leave in pieces.”
If the elf noticed a change, he gave no sign. “Save your hostility for what you harbor, old man.”