The Shaman Laughs (6 page)

Gorman jolted over ruts in the dirt road. Even without that clue, it had to be Gorman. Who else visited
Canon del Es-piritu
at the crack of dawn? Then, in the stillness of the morning, she heard the truck engine start. This morning, he'd cut his visit short. Gorman was usually in Spirit Canyon for at least an hour, gloating over those fat cattle. But wait—the truck wasn't lurching over the bumps; someone with a more delicate touch than Gorman was driving. Daisy smiled with satisfaction; Benita was home from Fort Lewis College in Durango. The shaman had already placed an extra plate on her kitchen table for her cousin; she added another plate for Benita. Gorman always stopped to visit on his way out of the canyon. It was invariably the same routine: Daisy offered breakfast, he would refuse. Then after she urged him, he would grudgingly accept. "If you're going to keep after me," he would say, "I might as well have some." Gorman was one of life's constants.

Daisy opened the door of her trailer home as she heard Gorman's heavy step on the wooden porch. He had those dirty rubber boots on; she frowned at his big feet. Gorman leaned on the porch railing while he pulled them off. Daisy moved forward to embrace Benita. "How are you, little girl?"

Benita's eyes were moist. "Fine, Aunt Daisy." Gorman was obviously in a foul mood and Benita was shaken. Daisy waited impatiently to learn what they would tell her. If it was a family dispute, the Sweetwaters would keep it to themselves. It would be bad manners to pry, but if it came to that, Daisy would pry.

Benita noticed the third setting at the table. "But how did you know I'd be here?"

Daisy assumed a solemn expression and touched a forefinger to her temple. "I have my own ways of knowing these things." The shaman was rewarded by a wide-eyed expression of awe from the young woman. It was best to stay a step ahead of these college kids. Kept them in their place.

Gorman sat down heavily at the table. Daisy poured a cup of pitch-black coffee into his favorite mug, the one with the

Nestle bunny that appeared after the cup heated. Benita didn't drink coffee; said it made her nervous. Children nowadays behaved so strangely! Gorman had a tentative sip.

"You two want some breakfast? I'm making a cheese omelet and some ham. Got a jar of maple cream from my friends in New York State. Goes good on the hot biscuits."

Benita glanced at the lard can on the biscuit-board and realized these were old-fashioned biscuits; she nodded her polite rejection of this offer. "Thanks, Aunt Daisy. I don't have much of an appetite this early."

Gorman rested his face in his hands. His voice croaked when he spoke. "Ouray is dead!"

Daisy tilted her round face and raised her eyebrows. Had he been drinking this early in the morning? Who did Gorman think he had shot? "Well, it's a bad thing, I guess, but you ought to be over it by now. Chief Ouray's been dead way over a hundred years."

Gorman looked up, wide-eyed and outraged. "Dammit, Daisy, not
that
Ouray. My registered Hereford bull, Big Ouray, he's dead!"

Men, the old woman sighed, they were all alike. They loved their pickup trucks and their animals. And ignored their wives. She wondered what she should say to comfort her cousin. "They say you should never give an animal a name unless it's a pet." This brought no response. Daisy poured an extra dash of coffee into his mug. "That the bull you bought back in January?"

Gorman grunted. Benita started to say something, then clamped her mouth shut.

Daisy adopted a more sympathetic tone. "How did it happen?" That bull, with his enormous horns and nasty temper, was a dangerous brute. No cougar or bear would dare mess with him. "He eat some poison weed?"

Gorman shook his head; he felt a need to cleanse his thoughts. "This is a bad thing. Somebody cut him up. Took his ears and balls. Like that elk in the Never Summer range."

She remembered the story about the mutilated elk in the alpine pasture. Some Utes figured it was witches. The crazy
matukach
woman in Durango insisted the culprits were little silver-clothed people (with long ape-like arms!) who came from the stars in flying ships that like looked like huge cigars. But nobody really knew what had happened to the unfortunate animal.

Daisy sat down beside Gorman and patted his shoulder in a motherly fashion. She had always tried to look out for her lanky cousin, ever since they were children. He was like a brother. "A Ute wouldn't do anything like that," she offered. "Sounds like some crazy
matukach
at work. Some of them are filled with superstition; who knows why they do the things they do?" Daisy noticed Benita's smile and was puzzled. Who could understand young people? Maybe Ben-ita had spent too much time with the
matukach
professors, learning a lot of foolishness.

Gorman rubbed at his eyes with a dirty red bandanna. "I don't know. White people in the canyon? It happened late last night; he was still warm." He looked out the trailer window. "The only way into Spirit Canyon goes right past your place… Wouldn't you have noticed if somebody went up the lane?"

"I didn't hear a car or truck." Daisy was searching for an answer. "Maybe the animal got sick and died; coyotes eat what is easy to get, like the tongue and privates and…"

"Big Ouray still had his tongue, and coyotes don't eat ears." He eyed her curiously. "I heard something. Howling." Gorman swirled the coffee in his cup. "You don't think… that little man who lives in the canyon might have had something to do with this?" This question embarrassed Benita, but Gorman didn't care.

Daisy shook her head to dismiss this troubling question. The
pitukupf
! No. The dwarf would never mutilate an animal. The shaman's brow furrowed. Would he?

"Daddy," Benita began firmly, "there isn't any such thing as a
pitukupf
, it's just an old tribal myth, like the Water-Baby." The young woman was pointedly ignored by her elders.

Gorman stuck his brier between his teeth. He looked through the kitchen window and into the yawning mouth of the great canyon. "The dwarf—he killed my best horse a few years back."

"That was different," Daisy retorted sharply. "Your own fault. You shouldn't have hobbled him so close to the little man's home. You know he doesn't like that." She got up and opened a small sack of flour. "Anyway, I put tobacco by his home every new moon. He wouldn't do anything bad to me. Or my relatives." She adjusted the propane flame under the coffee pot and gave Gorman a sideways glance. "What'd you shoot at?"

"Nothing," he said. "Shadows."

"Gorman the great hunter," she mocked, "bring some shadow-meat with you next time, I'll make you a shadow-breakfast."

Gorman ignored the insufferable woman's jibe. "I'm in bad trouble. Big Ouray was a twelve-thousand dollar registered Hereford. And he's only half paid for. I needed him to build up my herd, start selling registered animals instead of hamburger meat." He thumped his fist on his chest. "Can't take much more of this." His voice took on a pitiful tone. "I'm an old man, not goin' to be in this world many more winters." He glanced at his daughter to see if she understood the gravity of his pronouncement, then turned to watch Daisy putter about the small kitchen. "I expect my heart will just stop thumpin' some dark night. It runs in my family. You know my third cousin… Sally Bitter Horse who lives with her mother over at Hondo Fork?"

Daisy was devoting most of her attention to a mixing bowl. She added a cup of buttermilk, two large gobs of lard, and a pinch of salt to the dough. "Sure. Sally works in the high school over there."

"Mrs. Bitter Horse," Benita said, "teaches mathematics and music."

"Well Sally," Gorman continued, "the way I heard it, she was learnin' them kids some 'rithmatic, when she had an attack from one of them cor-uh… corollaries and she damn near died from it."

Benita sighed. "She had a
coronary
, Daddy."

He glanced at his daughter, wondering why she was repeating what he had just said. Maybe she was getting a little bit deaf, like her mother had been. He turned toward Benita and spoke a little bit louder: "And I could have me one of them corollaries myself. An' then," he pointed at her with the pipe stem, "you'd be a orrifun." This image brought a tear to his eye.

Benita leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "Daddy's complained about his heart for twenty years. But the physician at the clinic says he's in good condition for his age."

Gorman grunted. "Hmmmpf. Blue-eyed
matukach
from Robe Island." He sucked hard on the pipe. "What's he know?"

"You better go by the tribal police station," Daisy said. "See my nephew, tell him about the dead animal." She added another gob of lard to the dough. "He's in charge of the whole outfit while Chief Severo's away, and," Daisy added with quiet pride, "Charlie Moon always takes good care of family."

Benita nodded vigorously; her bright expression made it clear that she considered this a very sensible suggestion.

"After I call on the vet, I'll talk to your nephew the big-shot policeman," Gorman said.

The old woman turned away from her work to squint at her cousin. "Ain't it a little late to call the animal doctor?"

"Doctor Schaid is required to examine the carcass," Benita said, "before he fills out the insurance forms." She had
already
explained this to her father.

Daisy
found her rolling pin; she pressed the dough onto a polished maple board until it was no thicker than her
thumb.
"So. You got insurance on that bull?" She was surprised that Gorman had demonstrated such foresight.

He drank the last of the coffee and belched. "Sure. Bein' a rancher is a perfession just like any other perfession." Benita had badgered him into buying the insurance.

"Since you give 'em all names, I thought maybe they was your pets." Daisy grinned and Gorman kept a poker face. "Who you got insurance with?" He ducked his head and she knew. "Not Arlo Nightbird…"

Gorman avoided her sharp eyes. "He's the cheapest."

Daisy winked at the girl. "You know what the
matukach
say: 'you get what you pay for.' Anyway, you're the stingiest man I ever knew, except for my second husband." She hurriedly crossed herself. "God rest his pitiful soul."

Benita chimed in. "Father never throws anything away. My history professor, she says that people who grew up during the Great Depression—"

"What's done is finished," Gorman interrupted. "I don't need no lecher from either one of you." It would be best to change the subject. "You heard about Arlo Nightbird's plans for the canyon?"

"I don't pay no attention to rumors," Daisy retorted. She searched a cabinet drawer until she found the soup can with the sharp rim. "You listen to all that tribal gossip, you'll hear something that'll keep you awake at night." The old woman, waiting anxiously to hear the gossip, used the soup can to cut the biscuit dough into neat discs.

"This ain't just talk," Gorman said. "The Economic Development Board's workin' on a deal with the government. Want to put some kind of garbage in
Canon del Espiritu
."

"Garbage? In the sacred canyon?" She refilled his cup. "They'd never do that."

"It's not exactly garbage," Benita said, obviously proud of her knowledge, "it's well… waste. Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants."

Daisy paused and looked blankly at the greasy propane stove. "Why would the tribe want to do something like that… in my canyon?" She slid the tray of biscuits into the preheated oven, then lit a burner with a butane cigarette lighter.

"It's not all that bad," Benita said. "They put worn-out nuclear fuel elements into big tanks of water, then they put concrete slabs on top of the tanks. The water and concrete stops the radiation. You could sleep right beside it every night for your whole life, no problem." She watched doubtful expressions spread over the faces of her elders. "It shouldn't be any danger to our cattle."

Her father squinted at her. "What did you say that stuff was?"

Benita repeated her words slowly: "Nuclear… fuel… elements."

The old man added a pinch of tobacco to the brier bowl and relit his pipe. "If them knuckle filaments is so damned safe," he asked, "then why don't they just keep 'em where they're already at?"

Benita opened her mouth to reply, read the combative expression on her father's face, and thought better of it.

"You two need some breakfast," Daisy said quickly.

Gorman put on a sad demeanor as easily as some men slipped into a coat; it was carefully designed to generate sympathy. "Don't know if I can eat. What I seen in the canyon kinda took my appetizer away." He glanced at the black iron skillet and sniffed hopefully at the fetching aroma of the ham slab swimming in the popping grease.

Daisy played his game. "I made enough cheese omelet for all three of us. And there's a big slice of sugar-cured ham. And hot biscuits with maple cream." She paused to give him time to think about it. "But I expect you'd be better off to go home and have some oatmeal. They say oatmeal's good for old men's bowels. Cheese and eggs, they might stop up your plumbing."

Gorman sighed. "Well, if you're gonna keep after me, I guess I might as well have a bite."

"Maybe," Benita asked, "you have some cereal?"

"I got ham and I got eggs," Daisy replied sharply. Her tone said
take it or leave it
.