When Winter Come (3 page)

and a herd of strange-looking buffalo

large black cats, striped horses

and other wild beasts like I'd never even seen

in my dreams

stretching to where the sun rises.

I did not know what destruction his death

would earn us, so I counseled against it

and talked of the white men who were kind to me

when I was young and lost

which caused the warriors to put away their weapons

and welcome them with open arms.

We were taught generosity to the poor and reverence
for the Great Mystery. Religion was the basis for all
Indian training.

—Ohiyesa, Santee Sioux

Massa call them heathens

when them clean they naked flesh

with ice cold mountain water

before crawling backward

into a dark hot hole in the earth

like they crawling back in the woman

who first give them life

sit there an suffer in thick steamy darkness

with other naked men

just to sweat an pray

sweat an sing

sweat an sweat an sweat

all the while asking blessings for they family, yours

they enemy, the land, the water, plants

an all the animals them share the earth with.

Sitting in a river a sweat

be no more than bathing to the captains

but a blind man can see God

in everything the red man do.

When the Mandan try to kill his wife

for lying with Sgt. Ordway, it cause

the captains to place married squaws

off-limits to the men's private commerce.

One a them laugh an brag 'bout having his way

with a daughter ova chief

for no more than a empty tobacco box.

When we learn the Indians believe

our power can change hands an be gifted

by passing 'tween a woman's thighs

we all takes advantage at every occasion

an in most every village

all along the great trip out an back

With Capt. Clark's permission, I don't hesitate

to enjoy myself an even have my nose opened

by a Nez Perce woman as beautiful

an rugged as the land we traveling through.

Grown folk don't walk 'round on the plantation

holding hands, go for canoe rides or take long walks

with each other.

My Nez Perce gal was the first woman I chose

on my own an that I didn't have to share with another.

I find myself staring into her eyes an smiling, learning

my big buffalo self to move like a turtle in her arms.

Men in the party think it strange that I not brag

'bout how many ways or how long we ride each other.

This way a being with a woman be so new an tender

I close my eyes an feel like a fresh born calf stumbling

on weak wet legs, discovering that it not the ground

that be moving.

York's Nez Perce wife

His hair and strength was not unlike

that of the wooly-headed buffalo.

Some of my people thought

he had been burned by a great fire

Others thought he had painted

himself in charcoal, as was the custom

for warriors returning from the warpath

making him the bravest among his party.

Two hard wet fingers did not remove

the black from his forehead or arms

nor did the sweat from our naked turtle dance

make his salty skin any less like the night.

York's Nez Perce wife

I know a hungry man's eye can undress a woman

from across a smoldering fire, because York did it.

When I grew warm to his advances,

I gave him permission and invited him over

without ever opening my mouth. I looked away,

then back, then away, then back, so slow

when my eyes returned to meet his,

it made his nostrils flare and my heart beat

like two drums in my chest.

He didn't have a courting flute, so the first music we made

between us was a way of looking into each other's eyes

and exchanging naked promises so full of heat

passers-by would swear we were already man and wife.

His big hands were rough from a life full of hard work

but when they were filled with me

each one became a party of men deep in the wilderness

intent on exploring every mound

and knowing all of the hollowed-out and sacred places.

York's Nez Perce wife

. . . may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries . . .

—Apache blessing

While out searching for camas and other roots

to celebrate our choosing each other

I made pictures with my fingers and lips

trying to make the raven's son understand

the number and beauty of the butterfly.

A rainstorm came out of the hills and forced us

to crawl under a giant pine's outstretched wings.

The soft bed of needles under us and the music

in the steady downpour left us so warm and wet

we barely noticed when the rain stopped

and moved on across the valley.

Before our lips and tongues finally parted

we floated like two eagles circling midair

trying to pass off a just-caught salmon

a mile above the Clearwater.

York's Nez Perce wife

After the redheaded one's bed is made

and his stomach full of meat, he gives

my Tse-mook-tse-mook To-to-kean the slice of

daylight left to do as he pleases.

Pretending not to rush back to me

he passes by and nods.

After I track him down in the dark, jump on

his back and wrestle him to the ground

we wander off laughing toward the horses

then follow the riverbank upstream, holding hands

and looking for a private place to celebrate

the way the moon dances on the face of the water.

We find a rock to hold all our clothes

and play in the shallows like children

but after our bodies kiss, we stop to weigh

the gift of time alone and grow up real fast.

York's Nez Perce wife

After the fires die down, a moon full of shine

allows us to wander off into the night's arms.

Urged on by the river

and the night's music, our two quickly become one.

Straddled aboard him

a buffalo robe around my shoulders and nothing else

I close my eyes and ride

low and close, the way a hunter tracks buffalo

in the deep winter snow.

Our gentle trot becomes a gallop and after a good sweat

our gallop becomes

a quiet stand. Then we bow our heads an wait

for our breaths to catch up.

After a quick dip in the cold river, I mount back up

for warmth and we ride slow

and long until my legs quiver and York finds the strength

to harness himself.

When he carries me back home to our mat

folded up in his arms like a child

we lie down in the lap of the night

both empty and full     and sleep.

Goodrich has recovered from “the Louis Veneri”
[syphilis] . . . I cured him as I did Gibson last winter
by the uce of mercury.

—Meriwether Lewis, January
27, 1806

The men in the party don't know

that the white men who come first left a gift

Capt. Lewis believe he can cure

with something he call mercury

'til the men start to lose they sight.

Them be surprised when a ax we trade

come back to meet us many miles and moons

up the M'soura, but even bigger surprises return

after we travels all the way to the ochian

an trade lil' pieces a ribbon an trinkets

for a good time 'tween young Chinook thighs

Surprises that return to the givers

like a rabid bear easing out ova winter cave.

York's Nez Perce wife

Babies have mothers to feed them

and keep them warm

Old men have children

to comfort their slow gray years

What kind of man needs another man

to carry him food, make his bed

and pack his things

and him not lame or blind?

What kind of man

makes one with such big medicine

pretend to be a child

and less?

How will he treat our warriors when

he does not need our food to stay alive?

I want to spit on the ground

when he comes near.

I can not respect the redheaded one

and honor my black man too.

I finds myself returning

to the sweat lodge at night

asking these beautiful an kind people's

Great Spirit

to heap nothing but blessings

upon his red chil'ren

almost as much as I wish for even more snow

to keep us here long enough

to see my woman's belly swell

with the only gift

I can leave her an them.

A nappy lil' new York

who will only know

one Massa.

The one that give an protect life

an not the one

that make men slaves.

Capt. Lewis pace back an forth

Massa Clark cuss the whole day

at the deep mountain snow that stand

'tween us an the great plains.

Them both worry that us all grow too fat

an lazy to finish the journey home.

York's Nez Perce wife

for Craig Howe

When winter comes, my people circle up and agree

on the most important thing that happened in the year,

an awful flood, an important battle, or the passing

of a great warrior, and boil it down to a picture

scratch it out on rawhide, and charge the storyteller

with remembering the details of the story.

The captains believed they impressed Native people

with their power and guns and mirrors and coins

and beads, but they didn't even earn a winter count.

York's hunting shirt

York be the strongest, blackest man

anybody this side of the big river has ever seen.

He might show his strength, strut, dance a jig,

or even tease the Indian children,

but he never brag 'bout that what make him

even more proud, that what connect him

to his true man-self, what the natives respect

him most for, his prowess and feats as a hunter.

What other slave you know carry a gun and a hatchet

and a knife sharp enough to split a man's ribs and still

his heart, but be too self mastered to even think on it?

Useful tools, knives and guns, but ain't no magic in them.

The magic was in York. He had the power.

How else you figure a man, twice as big as some,

larger than most, step in among the dead leaves

and wild things and simply disappear?

How else you think he walk right up on wild game

have it sniff the air, tweak its ears

and still not see him less than a touch away?

Standing as still as an oak. Breathing like the forest.

How you reckon he never bring home anything tough

and hard to chew, muscles still in shock from fear

or struggle? He took his game with so much speed

and skill the animals thought they was still alive.

Wrapped around him like a second skin, I hugged him

back into his true self, merged my scent with his,

transformed one of the ancestor's fiercest gifts—reduced

to a white man's slave—back into a real man again.

I swallowed his sweat when he fought with the great

grizzly bear. I felt his heart slow down as he walked

among herds of buffalo. He and I engaged in the dance

of hunting before his blade made the kill.

Like all before me, my two-tone skin is rich and thick

with the color of tree bark and makes him

one with the earth and bush whether the leaves be

on the ground or in the air.

The smell of the outdoors is ground deep into me:

perfume of grasshopper juice, huckleberries, bitter grasses,

animal dung, and the richness of fresh-turned dirt.

I would not be welcome at the fancy dinner table.

There are pouches of dried roots, coyote anklebones,

buffalo teeth, bear claws, and bird quills piercing

every part of me. I could ride his back for a hundred years

and you still could not tell us from the forest.

My purpose is simple. Protect him from harm, guarantee

he never go hungry, and connect him to the hunters, griots,

and sorcerers coursing through his veins. So I do just that

and raise his name in song.

Train a sharp eye an ear.