At dusk the flame went up from the upheaved peak of the mountain that kept constant vigil on the camp below. The fire roared into the Sky, its illumination declaring on the dark faces below the beginning of the feast into the time of the Woman. The dark faces waited with eyes to the peak, as they had waited since the Sun cut the day in half and the girl and old sister left for the journey up the mountain’s spine. They knew the girl was weak from the stomach with no food and was burdened with a basket of coals to start her fire in the Sky, but her painted stick contained much power and the old woman’s legs were not so loose in the muscles and would guide the young girl to the peak where the four piles of cut fir branches would receive the coals and burn into night, cleansing the four days of the girl’s first Season, signaling her time as a Woman; this flame growing from the dead wood piles of the first Season the dark faces saw tower above them, and they watched in silence for the smoke. On the peak the smoke was slow in coming, the girl leaned her hollow body against the strength of her painted stick and waited for the sign from the fire she had created, the old sister sat with the rolls of her immense body piled against a tree and cried out at the fire in front of the girl. “Oh flame, burn away all dirt that falls from the girl’s first Season. Oh flame, burn burn burn. But we wait here flame. We wait at the door to the Sky for your wise sign. Give us your sign oh flame. Give us your smoke. Give us your sign. Spit your smoke into the Sky so all people below can see the girl has acted good and according to the ways gathered from all the examples taught her since she was the small girl. Oh smoke, send forward your white tongue into the Sky to the stars, give the girl the path to walk the long life. Give the girl a straight long life. Ahhh,” the old sister moved the whole weight of her body from the ground, keeping her back supported by the trunk of the tree. “Ahhh, I see you coming, oh smoke, I see you coming. Come out you, come out. Up you! Go up! Hug you not to the Earth a child hugging its mother’s breast. Up you! Go up! Go up smoke! Hug you not to the Earth a white blanket. Get you into the Sky! Cling you not to the Earth, giving the girl no long path to follow, no long life, let that not be your sign!” The girl heard the force of the old sister’s words behind her, she heard the words whistle through the air and sink in the doom of the white cloud’s sign spreading out at her feet, thickening up to her knees; she heard the words through the roar of the waterfall deep in her head. “Get you into the Sky!” The words came again, not with a whistle, not with a simple force, but with the full fury of a body flying at the crawling smoke, the feet kicking at the white blanket that refused to be sucked up in the roaring flame. If it were not for the strength of the painted stick the girl’s body would have fallen out beneath her, for the old sister remained part of the tree, she had not moved, she was not the powerful body racing around the base of the fire which showed its glistening broad brown back as it stooped to match its strength with the mist that refused to flower in the Sky, the feet stomping its demand, its hand slicing through white, knifing into the implacable cloud. The head turned with its challenge, “Get you into the Sky!” The command forced the girl to brace the stick deep in the Earth between her legs for it pulled the branches of the tall trees down and let them loose with a rush of wind that crashed over the peak, violently hooking the skirts of the flat smoke and hurling it upward, towering the white shaft deep in the night Sky. The rising smoke left the brown body hanging motionless, exposed in the moment of ill-defined light from the heat of the fire before it was gone, slipped into the trees, the darkness of the forest shutting its green eye behind. The girl spun around in the absence, the suddenness disturbing the balance of her body, the stick loosening from her grasp as the lightness of her feet gave way to her voice calling after the brown back that disappeared into the moving trees. The old sister caught her body and closed a hand over the open mouth. “Do not call girl. Do not call to him. He is gone now. Do not let your voice touch his ears, you will kill his days, you will make the Animals flee his bow. He has fought the power of the smoke and forced it give you the sign of long life. I know not if it is good, but it is done. It is over. Do not dampen your feet with tears. He is all gone now. Gayabuc is gone.”
Blue Breast was the first to see the sign. The smoke had spoken its truth. He turned his face on the people gathered. It was close now, close to the time the daughter of his wife would come to full Woman. His face spoke of the pride his daughter’s passing into the new time brought into him, the shape of her behavior in the four long days past declared her the owner of a complete life, the sign of the white smoke in the black Sky rising its ladder to the stars gave its proof of this fact to all who had eyes to see, the girl would live long, she behaved well, this joy pushed from the heart of Blue Breast and through his lips, “The girl has acted true to the ways. I invite all the friends who have seen her fire in the Sky and come to share the first happiness of her time to feast and dance with us this night, all the night, to the new day of her time. I ask you to wait with us until the daughter of my wife comes down from the mountaintop to begin the Dance of the Woman. I ask of you to go to her with your hearts and offer her the strength to win the race to us, to win the race from the mountaintop, as it must be, as she has acted true to the ways.” As the words of Blue Breast flowed from his heart the women sat together on the ground, facing the place where the Sun is born into every day, facing the fire of the camp, and beyond it, high to the girl’s fire on the mountain peak. They sat with the thick fingers of their hands laced tightly together and laid firmly on the leather aprons banded securely around their waists. Together memories of their own first Season buried beneath the days of the full Woman unearthed and it was their time, it was their race down the mountain weak from the stomach with no food, with only the stick to support and the old sister’s winter hardened hands to guide, to guide directly like the stream guides the Fish. These memories strung through them each one and beaded together with a chant sharply poking into the air from the unthinking movement of their lips. The pattern of sound cut over the heads of men in the camp, up the mountain to the girl who had begun the race after the smoke spoke its sign, and a girl from the camp arrived, a girl with a tall stick, but barren, the bark stripped clean and the green wood left to itself, without the pattern of red earthen paint swirling up at its base and snaking solid at the top, without the power. This girl with the barren stick must be defeated according to the ways, for if she stepped first foot in the camp all the girl had worked for, been guided to, would disgrace her, for the young one with the barren stick who had not approached her first Season would prove strength greater than the girl passing into the Woman and this would be a strong sign, the sign would decree she was not prepared, had acted wrongly and was distant from taking her place with the full women that knew the bodies of men and the ways of growth deep in their bellies, and it was this that gave the girl strength to make her way down the dark side of the mountain with all the speed her body sucked from the power of the painted stick, it was this that made the girl feel not the blade of the rocks cutting through the leather bindings wrapped tightly about her feet, split and sliced from the downward path of flight, soaked red from the blind wounds opening the flesh as she fled to meet herself at the door to the Woman. “Hold up girl!” the old sister caught her around the waist as the full laughter jumped from her lips to the damp night air. “Hahhh, girl, slow you down. You ahead in the race to your time. You are strong and swift. Slow you down or you will lose your guide. You will leave me behind. Slow you. Hahhh. You are swift.” The girl continued, the old sister tied like a stone about her waist, the light from the camp was close in the trees, it was almost done, she lifted her eyes from the ground and let her hurrying feet carry her toward the end, but her body stopped, the feet ceased to step one in front of the other, for the eyes saw, moving quietly, steadily ahead, across the faint path the leader, the girl with the barren stick. “Aiyeeee!” The old sister peered around the girl’s waist, her cry catching the girl with the barren stick in front on the path and spinning
her around. She turned, her young face looking back, the brown flesh immobile, her eyes spread wide to the woman on the other side of her body, ignorant to the consequences that if she won the race she defeated herself, and she was gone, her barren stick striking out its own trail. The girl could not move, she rested against her painted stick, all was lost, her mind asked no questions. “It is not over!” The old sister shouted at the girl’s immovable shape. “It is not defeat!” There was only the empty path ahead and the girl saw no further than her painted stick, the loss was clear, no questions were in her mind. “You must make your time!” The sister screamed, coming from behind the girl. “You must meet yourself at the door!” She seized the stick, the suddenness left the girl standing straight. “You will go into your time,” the sister announced, and her body became a sudden grace, the old bones guiding the hulking flesh down the path into the open night with effortless speed.
When the girl came into the camp she had already won the race. The old sister stood in the center of the people holding the painted stick high above all heads, the house of the Woman the girl had built in the past four days was not lost, it was just begun. “Painted Stick. Painted Stick. Painted Stick,” the children surrounded the girl in her triumph, locking their hands together in a happy circle which guided her to the ground pounded flat with stones for the dancing. The old sister passed the painted stick to the girl. “Painted Stick. Painted Stick. Painted Stick,” the children beat the sound out with their lips. The girl’s heart turned proud, for the sound was just not a name for the power she held in her hands, it was the power of her brown, erect body standing secure on the dance ground, it was the name of a Woman, it was her name. She stabbed the stick deep into the Earth and let it stand strong with its own power. The girl with the barren stick came forward and stopped a shadow’s length in front of the painted stick and with the full force of her youth plunged the barren stick into the ground and let it stand. The women closed in a wall around the girls, their chants corded together, weaving an ancient female curtain that isolated the men who stood clear of this alien island, the glow of the fire washing its muted light over their searching faces. The two girls were alone in the eye of the women surrounding them like a ship of darkness guided only by the slow chant that moved through their blood and linking them one to the other in an endless chain, the two girls held steady to the mast of their sticks rising above all heads, they hooked their left arms together and stood shoulder to shoulder as their eyes turned east, over the heads of the women to the further darkness, each held silent until her right leg lifted slowly from the ground along her calf, then crossed in front and came to rest in front of the left foot, the women around them swayed with the movement, then back as the motion was completed in the opposite direction, the chanting grew thick in the air as the two girls holding together swung like a pendulum, gravitating first to the force of the barren stick, then being pulled back to the painted stick. In the movement between the two sticks the girl’s journey of the past four days crystallized, this was the charted course of her dying youth; ahead, through the immense round body of water, was the time of the Woman. The struggle between the two times fed the blood of the girl with no food. The swinging motion in the distance from one stick to the other gathered full momentum as she quickened her pace, leaning the weight of her body into her companion with each faster step between the two points until she reached a full hop and the space between the two sticks was blurred into one time. “Hop. Hop. Hop.” The old sister moved between the two sticks and followed the existing rhythm which flowed naturally from her. “Hop. Hop. Hop.—Hop like rain from a cloud.” The girl felt the solid Earth beneath the soles of her feet and into it ran the dead blood that broke from the clash of her body. “Hop. Hop. Hop.” The girl’s mother joined with the rhythm behind the old sister. “Hop. Hop. Hop.” Pieces from the chanting wall of women fell away into the natural movement at the core, forming behind the old sister and mother a line which arched and completed itself as it fused at its beginning with the girl, forming an inner circle at the heart of the ceaseless time. The girl felt the full power of those joined with her in the unbroken line she was part of. She felt it shake loose all the dead blood. She felt it break away the time of her youth. She felt her young days flowing into the Earth at her feet. She yanked the painted stick from its place and held it high above the waves of long hair. She was empty. The life running slick down her legs ceased, the dampness between the rise of her thighs died. The painted stick tipped in the air above all women, releasing them from the burden of the girl’s first season and launching all commonly in the same generous flesh. From the outside the men saw the sign of the painted stick over the heads of the swaying women and set afire piles of cut wood circling the camp, freezing the night stars, bursting the oblique shapes of the women with strong light. They came toward the wall of chanting women separating them from the core and the painted stick, finding their way into the outer circle which, before the sign of the stick, excluded them from the core. The presence of their bodies swelled the outer circle of women, widening the area in the center. Blue Breast stood with the other men in their part of the circle, a song came to his lips, it sang from his heart to the painted stick hung in the air by his daughter’s hand. All those along the circle heard the song and joined it with their hearts. With the song the men grew in numbers until they became half the circle. They raised their left feet and moved in the direction the Sun travels the day, dragging their right feet slowly behind them, leaving a straight line in the Earth. Some of the older women separated themselves from the circle and moved toward the leaping bodies at the core, where they stood closely together watching the outside dancers. Gayabuc remained beyond the circle of dancers, stalking around its outer boundaries feeding fresh wood into the fires. It was when there was one star left to itself in the graying Sky that the first man penetrated the inner circle. He came slowly, a short time after the women had brought the small boys to the core, he sang the song of men, and danced with halted motions among the leaping women, holding his body away from their flesh, his actions remaining independent. In the length it took for the last star to die in the Sky the women’s pattern at the core of the circle was broken by the men dancing in their own time, one of them broke from his dance and pulled the painted stick down from the height the girl had kept it through the night, she let it slip from her cramped hands, thankful to be released of its burden, she gave it up to her father who ran with it held strongly above his head up the mountain where he tied it straight to the cold side of a young tree so his daughter would be able to endure the cold of the long white days that would meet her many times in her Season of the Woman, he planted the base of the staff with the weight of large stones to protect it from falling or bending in the strong winds, he took his full time to secure the painted stick’s position for it must stand firm to aid his daughter through her journey of the Woman, if it snapped in the wind she would break her back and be bent for life. As he came down from the mountain he was certain of the staff’s strength to withstand the complete force of the coming days, it would support the burden of the girl’s journey, giving the muscles of her legs the strength and lightness of the Deer, making her travels through the mountains effortless, he knew her legs would not weaken for the time the stick held tall, and it would hold. When Blue Breast reached the camp it was more day than night. He watched over the smoking pits of dying fire as one of the men made his way around the outside circle of dancers, seeking an opening, when he reached the gap in the circle between the last man and the first woman he slipped cautiously into the center ring and began his own, slow dance, his eyes to the ground and his feet directing him to the core where his rhythm fell into time with the girl, who moved the weight of her body carefully with the full pain of the night she had given up to in final dance, the man matched her every step without raising his eyes from the soft puffs of dust the soles of his feet clouded into the air, he held the flesh of his body back from hers, not once did their
skin touch, for the beat of the dance locked them together, bound them one to the other in their separation, bound them forever. Blue Breast smiled, this man wanted his daughter, he wanted to release her babies, he wanted her body to be beneath his, to separate him from the earth, and this daughter has accepted, she has moved with his time, she is truly the Woman, she shall go to him. Blue Breast thought, she shall meet his flesh, it will be arranged, it will come to pass. He looked to the Sky. It was now a new day. Soon the Sun would show his face over the mountain.
Rabbit Boss Page 12