Wild Indigo (17 page)

“What does that mean?”

“The devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil.”

“I don't get it.”

She sighed. “How do you say it? Experience is the best teacher?”

“Oh.”

“
Las trampas
had experience of Indian witches.”

Tecolote went to a nail on the wall beside the door and selected several long filaments of braided sinew. “Tie these on this,” she said, and showed me how to twist one of the strands of sinew around the neck of one of the prayer bundles. She looped another fabric pouch onto the same cord. And another.

We worked in silence, making long strings, each with a dozen prayer ties. When all the bundles were attached, we had ten ropes. Esperanza wrapped them in a coil like a lariat and handed them to me. “You are going to need something more,” she said, and she went out the door and across the
portal
to the side of the house. I stepped outside to see where she went, but she was nowhere in sight. A minute later, she reappeared holding up a speckled egg between her thumb and forefinger. She trundled inside, set the egg down carefully on the table, and picked up some of the red cloth and tore off a large piece. She wrapped the egg several times over in the cloth, then went to the hearth and took a metal cup off a hook where it hung by its handle. She pushed the egg inside, then went back to the table, tore off another piece of red cloth, placed it over the top of the mug, and tied it tightly around the rim with a piece of sinew. “This you must not break!” she said, her voice shrill. “Take it.” She held out the cup.

I spread my fingers and grasped it across the rim. Just as I thought she'd released it, she grabbed the handle and shook the cup up and down, almost causing me to lose my grip on it. I gasped.

“Good!” she said. “It won't shake around and break in there.”

I breathed out hard, my nerves rattled. “What am I supposed to do with these things?”

Tecolote strode right to me, almost touching my chest. She looked up into my face. I could smell the scent of earth and clean sweat on warm skin, the tea on her breath. Her head was twisted to one side, with the ear nearly parallel to the ground. She stood less than shoulder height to me, and yet I feared having her at such close range. She reached out and plucked the ropes of prayer ties out of my hand. “
Abaje la güeja.
Bend down!” she barked.

I lowered my head, and she hung the ties around my neck. “Spend these like gold, Mirasol. You will know when you need to use one.” She grabbed the wrist of my outstretched hand, the one that gripped the egg in the cup. “This
huevo fresco
is for that lovely
lobo,
Montaña. Tonight, you will break it into the cup beside where he rests. Leave it overnight, and in the morning, if we are very lucky, there will be an
ojo
in the cup, too. Then he will be healed.”

I stood for a moment, then made to leave.

“Wait!” Esperanza cried. “There is one more thing.” She went to the
nicho
in the wall, where dozens of candle flames danced before santos and
bultos
. She removed a sunflower from a pile of offerings. What looked like a piece of bacon encased the base of the long stem on the bloom. Tecolote tapped the wrapper. “This keeps the blossom from drying out.” She handed it to me. “When you get ready to make your journey, take this off and let the flower dry as it will. You keep it with you—this is good medicine for you.”

“My journey?”

“Nunca hay caballo ensillado que a alguno no se la ofrece viaje.”

“What does that mean?”

“It's an old vaquero saying. There is never a saddled horse that does not offer a journey to someone.”

I shook my head, perplexed.

“Never mind, Mirasol. Just be careful. You will need to be very careful.”

I went back to my cabin and tried to busy myself with chores. It was unseasonably warm, and a wind blew out of the southwest. I checked the level of water in the cistern to see if more needed to be hauled for my household needs. It had been a dry monsoon season, so I wasn't even catching any water off the roof to supplement what I was using. I made the bed and washed up the coffeepot and cups. I took a small hand ax and attacked a few splits of wood to make some kindling for starting fires in the woodstove. I straightened up the ends of the woodpile and sharpened the ax. Around the perimeter of the front half of my cabin lay a perfect, half-circle, connect-the-dots arrangement of huge bones—an elk tibia, the femur of a calf, knuckles of cow and antelope—Mountain's gallery of prized possessions, all arranged at the outside circumference of the circle he could reach while hooked to the porch post, via a large stainless steel eye bolt, by the lead of stout airplane wire and carabiners. I gathered the bones up, one by one, so the coyotes and mountain lions wouldn't steal them, and I piled them on the porch beside the door.

Finally, at about a quarter to noon, I decided to follow the procedure Momma Anna had prescribed for dealing with the nachi.

I got the package and my medicine pouch out of the car and hiked up the slope behind my house and back down into the draw to La Petaca. The heat of the day coaxed a sweat from my pores, and my skin glistened by the time I got to my destination. Shaded by old, twisted junipers and piñons, all was cool and quiet near the stream except for the singing of water as it traveled over the stones. I found a soft, silty place along the bank, unwrapped the paper from around the prayer stick, and stuck it into the mud. I had to apply force to get it to stay; it wanted to lift up and travel with the current. I pushed until nearly half the shaft was under the ground. Then I opened my medicine pouch and took out some cornmeal. I offered it to the earth and sky, then sprinkled it over the nachi. Then, as Momma Anna had instructed, I kept facing it and backed away, carefully feeling behind me so I wouldn't run into a low-hanging tree branch. I threaded my way through the trees until I could no longer see the nachi, then turned and jogged up the slope and back down to my cabin.

I decided to enlist a new ally to gain access to the pueblo that afternoon, so I went to the BLM to use the phone. Then I headed for the Tanoah Falls Casino, just on the outskirts of the rez. When I walked in, the jingle and clang of slot machines set up a din that made my head spin. Bright lights flashed through the dimly lit space, and a wide aisle led toward the back of the building. A few customers, mostly native, sat reverent before their chosen electronic deity, cups of quarters in their hands like offerings. In the rear, a red neon sign in the shape of a buffalo skull hung on the wall. Beneath it, fry bread and Indian tacos were served at a diner-style counter. I spotted my confederate as she handed a check to a man wearing a shirt that read
SOUTHWESTERN DAIRY.

Madonna gave me a subtle wave, then climbed stairs to an office above and behind the café area. She returned with a leather jacket over her arm. “You won't need that,” I said. “It's turning into a scorcher.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and there's a hot wind along with it. Nothing like it's been the past few weeks.”

When we got outside, Madonna waved me around to the back of the building. “I could get in a lot of trouble for this,” she said, aiming the remote at Gilbert Valdez's car and disarming its alarm system.

“You're already in hot water,” I said. “You don't seem to mind it.”

By this time we were sitting in plush leather seats. Madonna turned the key and the motor roared to life. She turned and looked at me, close quarters. “You should talk,” she said. “You're always in some kind of predicament or another. I saw you on the front page.”

“Yeah, I guess everybody's seen it by now.”

“Not here at the pueblo,” she said.

“Why not?”

“They mentioned my husband by name. Saying the name of one who recently passed calls to their spirit, keeps them here. So they won't allow the paper out here until after he's made his journey.”

As we drove the back way into the pueblo, I grilled the widow with a host of questions that had been running through my head.

“What was your husband doing in the days before his death?”

“He was doing religious training in the kiva.”

“He was there night and day?”

“Yes, constantly.”

“Huh. I thought Jer…I mean, your husband—I don't know, somehow I thought of him as more of a modern guy—a force for change in the tribe to be more viable in today's world. It surprises me that he would embrace this kind of training.”

Madonna suddenly reached over and pushed my head toward my lap. “Get down! There's George Dancing Elk! If he sees you, we'll both be in trouble.”

I sucked in my breath and tried to flatten my upper half over my thighs. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Madonna wave and give a halfhearted smile. “These windows are so dark, I don't think he even saw that it was me, let alone you.”

“Can I get up now?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“Okay, let's talk about your husband's friends, associates, anyone he spent time with.”

“Well, he was training with his uncle, Yellow Hawk Lujan.”

“I know. Apparently no one knows where he is right now.”

“I heard he'd gone fasting on the mountain. I guess some of the old ones do that before the journey; I don't know. I've never been to the Indigo Falls.”

“What?! You've never made the trip up the mountain with the tribe?”

“No. This isn't my tribe, Jamaica. I don't even speak the native language here. I'm from Cochiti Pueblo down south. I have never been invited to ride up the mountain to the Indigo Falls.”

“Oh, I didn't know.”

“This is a small pueblo. There are only so many families. Some of the young men and women have to marry outside the tribe to avoid inbreeding. It is common that a member of the pueblo will marry someone from outside.”

“But then, you aren't included in the ceremonies?”

“Some of them. And sometimes after a long time in a marriage, a few chosen ones will be included in nearly all of them, the ones who learn the language. But I have never been invited. And I don't speak Tiwa. My son will take my place, and my husband's place, in all tribal activities now. These are Angel's people, and this is his home. The house we live in is his house. I am here only to care for him.”

After this, a pregnant silence. I almost dared not speak again. But I had to ask a few more questions. “So, before all this kiva training—what can you tell me about your husband's life, his routines, the people he hung out with?”

She sighed. “I might not be the best person to ask. We fought a lot. He would go away angry. He drank, sometimes a lot. I stayed away sometimes, too, when I knew he'd be home with Angel. But mostly he was at the computer lab. He practically lived there.”

“Was he working with the kids all that time?”

“I don't know. I just know that I could almost always find him there if I wanted to.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Do you know anything about a man named Ron who might have known your husband?”

“Yeah, Ron…what was that he called him? Dirty Ron? Crazy Ron? I can't remember, he had some nickname for him.”

“So who is this guy?”

“I don't know, but I think he had something to do with the computers my husband bought for the lab.”

“And you don't remember the nickname?”

“Ah, shoot! I know it—I just can't recall it right now. It was just some little name my husband called him. He would get ready to go out in the evening and say, ‘Well, I have to go meet Shabby Ron,' or whatever it was. And off he'd go to the lab. I never met the man.”

“If you remember the name, will you jot it down and tell me? Maybe I can contact this guy and find out anything he might know. This Ron—whoever he is, it doesn't sound like someone from the pueblo.”

She laughed. “No. My husband did not have too many friends here. When his family was on the war council a few years ago, he made many proposals to the tribe. He and his brother, Frank, tried to institute some changes that made them very unpopular with a lot of the elders. Yellow Hawk tried to mediate, but there was a big power struggle. They ended up having a lot of bad feelings all around. That was the year the casino got built. Even though my husband wanted a lot of modern changes—English literacy programs for the elderly, medical training for those who take care of the old and the sick, business training and assistance for entrepreneurs in the tribe, and computer training for the young people—he was
against
the casino. All his family was. They felt it was an unhealthy move for the tribe, all for the sake of greed. In the year they served on the war council, everything they tried to do was voted down. There are still hard feelings.”

“Do you mind if I ask what the trouble was between you and your husband, Madonna?”

She bit her bottom lip, her eyes glistened. “I don't know exactly where to start. This was not his first marriage. He has sons almost as old as me. They're always in trouble, and they always need money. My husband couldn't say no to them.”

I nodded my head.

“I am not a saint either, Jamaica. I suppose you already know that. I had a daughter before we were married, by another man. I was not married then, I was only a child myself. My daughter lives with my mother at Cochiti. She will be fourteen next month—she'll be the same age as I was when I had her. She already had her Becomes Woman ceremony and everything, where she had to grind corn for four days and everyone went from house to house singing her name. I went there for the ceremony, and I felt ashamed that there was no father there to sing for her. I missed my people then, and I felt like I lived in three worlds—my home at Cochiti, my life here, and the modern world we have to live in now in order to survive. It's not easy when you have all that to deal with.

“But…I guess I don't understand some things about the way people live here. My husband seemed like a pretty forward-thinking guy. We both agreed that we live in modern times and can't go back to the past, so we're not going to live as if we're trying to ignore progress. But he started building that house five years ago, and nothing is finished in it. I wanted nice things, and he told me I was being greedy. I was lonely at home with Angel all day, so I went out and got a job. My husband never forgave me for that. But my job made it possible for us to have a new car, some nice furniture, good clothes. I want Angel to have nice things, too.”

“And you fought about that? About money? And things?”

“Yes. And about what a woman is supposed to do in this world.”

“So…your spouse wanted you to assume a more traditional role as a wife?”

She snickered. “That's putting it mildly.”

“Even though he wanted so much education and economic viability for the young people of the tribe?”

“It doesn't make sense, does it? Well, the lab is just right over there.”

Ahead of us was the Indian Center, a beautiful new building where important community events transpired: lessons in basket weaving and micaceous clay pottery making, lectures on care for diabetes and high blood pressure, and food stamp and surplus product distribution. Here, federal employees worked to serve the tribe in a variety of programs. Because the pueblo was closed, the Indian Center was vacant, or at least its parking lot was empty. Madonna pulled around into a dirt lot behind the big building. The computer lab was a portable metal classroom set on dirt among the sagebrush, made level by concrete blocks and some railroad ties. A family of tumbleweeds had lodged beneath the wooden steps up to the door of the lab. The wind buffeted and caused the steps to creak. It was hot, and the blowing dust felt like it was sandblasting my skin as I got out of the car.

“Looks like there's no one here. You're lucky this is Quiet Time, and computers and things like that are forbidden right now. Normally, this place is full of kids, no matter what time of day. Only time my husband could find any peace to work here was at night, so that's when he came to write programs, grants, lessons for the young people, things like that. He said it was the only time he could hear himself think. I brought some keys from the house—we'll just have to see if one of them works.”

Inside, the space was divided into two sections. In one half of the room, a few rugs were spread on the floor and a half circle was made of large woven pillows adorned with images of turtles, bison, horses, and wolves. A painted gourd rattle, with a hawk talon for a handle, and a blackened micaceous pottery smudge bowl sat in the center of a rug. On the other side, a row of computers squatted like one-eyed gargoyles on desks made from doors and sawhorses. Above these, on the wall, spread a display of students' computer artwork. Vivid, primary colors illuminated the name
Aerosmith
across one large sheet of paper, done in a futuristic font with a host of graphic arrows going outward from the band's name in all directions. A cubist face of a brave in red and green war paint stared out from another piece of paper. Another entry in this exhibit was a long, winding red-dirt road with a platoon of red chess pawns placed along its length. A giant white hand reached down to reposition one of the pawns. At the bottom, the title of the piece was
The Red Road
.

I turned to Madonna, who was shuffling through some papers on a desk. “Is this what your mate was teaching? Computer graphics?”

She looked up at me. “Actually, I think that was just the students playing around with some of the programs. I think he was teaching them basic computer applications—you know, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations.”

“But there's a lot of artwork here.”

“I know. A bunch of the kids liked to hang out here and do that stuff. It was kind of like a club. They came every day after school. My husband said it kept them out of trouble. He encouraged anything that made them computer literate.”

I walked to the desk where she was riffling through papers. “Is this where he worked?”

“Yes. He did his grant writing here, and he designed programs and developed learning exercises for the kids to do.”

I pressed the power key. “Mind if we look at his hard drive and see what's on there?”

“No, I was just looking through these papers…sometimes he would write letters to Angel in Tiwa, on the computer. He wanted his son to know his native tongue as well as how to operate a computer. He would write short notes to him in the tribal language. Sometimes he'd print them out with a little picture, but sometimes he'd tell Angel to check in his file on the computer, that there would be something in there for him. Angel comes here with his Head Start group in the mornings.”

“Angel comes here to study Tiwa with Hunter Contreras?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know a kid named Sam Dreams Eagle?”

“Know him? He's Angel's best friend. Even though Sam's a couple years older than him, they play together all the time.”