Wild Sorrow (9 page)

The holidays at Tanoah Pueblo involved days of elaborate preparation. Momma Anna had insisted I must come with her this day at sundown to the home of a friend. The modest apartment was on the Summer, or south, side of the village, and its door faced onto the central plaza. Here inside the wall, there was no electricity or running water, as the tribe insisted on keeping life in the old ways in this historic part of the pueblo. The only heat in this tiny dwelling came from a fire in the corner fireplace and a wood-burning kitchen stove in an adjoining room. Two gas lanterns hung from heavy spikes driven into the vigas that spanned the ceiling. The lamps hissed and radiated amber pools of light. When Momma Anna's friend invited us into her home, she cast a plump shadow on the whitewashed wall that seemed to be welcoming us a second time once we'd stepped inside.

Anna spoke to our hostess in Tiwa and gestured to me, saying, “Ja-mai-ca.”

The auntie held out her hand to me and permitted me to take it. I bowed slightly, but did not speak, which was the formal salutation from a young woman first meeting an elder at Tanoah Pueblo.

“My name Sica. Sica Gallegos,” she said in a deep, smoky voice. “My
Indun
name Blue Cloud.”

Once we had finished the greetings and introductions, Sica said she would bring us tea. She turned and limped toward the kitchen with such a hobble that I worried each time she stepped on her left leg that she might tumble over. She returned holding two cups, and the liquid sloshed over the rim each time she limped on the shorter leg. She gave us each a half cup of tea. Momma Anna opened a plastic grocery bag and pulled out a bundle of cream-colored wool cloth, smoothly woven with bright red and green designs along the hem edge. It reminded me of the ceremonial kiltlike wraps the Tanoah men wore when they danced the deer and buffalo dance. “This special made for Holy Family,” Momma Anna said.

The two women took the cloth to a square folding table that had been set up under the only window in Sica Blue Cloud's home. They arranged the fabric such that the red and green pattern design showed prominently across the front and two sides. Momma Anna asked me to stand back and help them assure that it hung evenly. “Holy Family come here,” she said, sweeping her hand across the plane of the table, “before the solstice. Stay until Day of Kings.”

Sica Blue Cloud nodded, smiling. “My family give them home.”

“Next other time, maybe my family,” Momma Anna said.

One of the aunties had explained this tradition to me the night we had made the Christmas baskets. A group of
bultos—
carved wooden statues of the Nativity, including the Holy Family—were moved from the pueblo church to one of the family homes at Tanoah Pueblo, and the bultos would reside there until the Epiphany. This was a great honor for the chosen family. Food and drink were left for the bultos each night, prayers offered, and many visits to the home made by members of the tribe who wished to pay their respects to the shepherds, the three wise men, and especially Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus.

While they were adding elements to the table, such as straw for the stable and cotton to represent snow for the surrounding landscape, the two old women gossiped in Tiwa.

Sica turned from her fussing over the table and looked at me. I had been studying a few framed photos on an adobe ledge in the otherwise-spare room. Sica wobbled to a basket in the corner and picked up a folded blanket and handed it to me. To many of the elders at Tanoah Pueblo, this was the same gesture of hospitality as the offer of a seat on the sofa in a contemporary home. Momma Anna often taught me lessons as she did handwork on her jewelry or dreamcatchers while seated on a blanket in her front room. It was an old custom to keep a house without furniture, and few of the elders at Tanoah Pueblo adhered to it anymore. Momma Anna had told me that when she grew up, her family ate their meals, told their stories, and played winter games on a blanket in their home and never wanted for more.

I unfurled the blanket and sat down cross-legged on one corner. Sica Blue Cloud looked at Momma Anna and smiled approvingly, and they returned to their chatter. I heard the word “schoolteacher”—the only bit of English in a steady stream of Tiwa—and I knew they were talking about Cassie Morgan and the news of the former school matron's death. After a few minutes, the two women came to join me on the blanket. Sica brought a little stool from the kitchen, then leaned against the wall and slid down carefully, using the stool as a place to put her hands as she supported herself on the way down. When she sat down, her left leg extended at an angle, straight out from her hip across the floor. I could see a huge knob below her knee through the fabric of her dress. Both women were quiet for a moment, and then Sica began speaking to me. “You know I am old, but I still remember that one who died. She was a long time coming in my dreams, long time.”

Momma Anna grunted,
“Unh.”

Sica went on: “One time, two Apache boy come to that school, they are wild as jackrabbit, get in lot of trouble. One bite the teacher ear, make her bleed. The next one jump on a teacher back and pull her hair and she scream, run around like a horse try to buck him off.” Sica put fingers over her lips to suppress a giggle, remembering the sight. But then she sobered, and she pursed her lips and looked down. “They whip those boy in front of everybody, make us watch. They beat them many different time, sometime one, sometime the next one, sometime both boy at same time. Then those Apache boy escape from that school. They call them ‘deserter.' They ring the church bell, make us get in line, stand outside at night. They say, ‘You tell, you can go back to bed,' but no one tell where those boy are.” She threw up her hands. “I do not know where those boy are, but I am happy they are not there. The priest call the Apache boy ‘deserter' many time, and he say we stand all night if we do not tell. We stand out there in the cold, and this time, some those teacher and other one search all the way back to Tanoah Pueblo, maybe even up in the mountain. But they do not find those boy. After sun rise, they make us go to work, no food. The little one cry but we tell them hush and we are hungry, too. Some older boy say the two Apache boy, they find way to climb down into canyon, stay by the river, wait three day until full moon. Then those Apache boy will make their way home by moonlight.

“We go to bed hungry that night. They give us some little food next day, still make us stand long time, say we must tell where the deserters. Nobody talk, and pretty soon we are back to work. Three day and moon is full. We think Apache boy can see good now, go home. We are happy and whisper good luck at them.

“That night, I hear lot of noise. Pound on wood and door slam, then I hear lot of people move around. I get up and go to the door—they call where we sleep ‘dom-ee-toy.' I go to door that dom-ee-toy, look out on school yard. I see man they call headmaster and next other man come out store room—they have room there where they go down under ground and food stay cool, like potato, apple, onion, shelf with jelly, beans. Those two men they try shut door to that store room, they bang with rock, they slam door, it will not shut no more. Then they take rifle and go through gate, head up to canyon rim with those gun.”

Sica Blue Cloud Gallegos began rubbing the swollen knob on her left leg, and she grew quiet.

I looked at Momma Anna. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and she was shaking her head
no,
back and forth, over and over, as she worked the turquoise beads of her rosary in her hand.

I thought the story had ended, but Sica continued. “That one who die this time, that bad woman. She find me stand in door. She take a broom and hit me. She hit me and hit me, knock me behind my knee and I fall down, and she hit me on my leg and my back until broom break, then she yell at me, go back to bed. But I cannot get up. I cannot walk.” Sica rubbed her leg again where the bulge rose from below the knee. “I am bleed and I cannot stand, but she yell and grab that broom. I drag myself to my cot, hope I not get beat for blood on sheet, but my legs are bleed from that beating and I have to bite sheet to keep from cry out, my leg hurt so bad. I roll top of that old sheet and I bite on it and I can feel my leg wet with blood. We hear two shot fire, gunshot. All the girl in that dom-ee-toy, they wail, but that bad woman come back and say she got a next other broom to use on every one who make sound. We never speak about Apache boy no more, but our hearts are hurt for them, every one cry inside for them.

“I cannot walk, they try tie my leg to a board, but my bone keep break. Maybe three time. I cannot work, they send me home. I am lucky I don't have to stay there.”

Like Momma Anna, I found myself shaking my head with disbelief, and I drew my hand to my mouth and bit on the side of my fist, grimacing at the pain of this tale.

As Sica was finishing the story, the door opened with a creak, and an icy draft of air swept through the opening and across the floor with a breathy, high-pitched wail. A man with a big smile stepped in carrying a folding chair, some cut pieces of thin plywood, and a small hammer. He leaned the chair against the wall and set the other items on the table, then closed the door with a soft thud. As he came forward to greet the women, Sica's face bloomed with delight, and she reached up to take his hand. Sica said, “Jamaica, this my nephew Eloy.”

Eloy smiled at me as he kissed his auntie on the head.

“Eloy like my own boy. He stay with me, just little child, when his mother sick.”

Eloy tenderly helped Sica to her feet. “You took good care of me, Auntie Sica.” He nodded to Momma Anna. “Hello, Grandmother,” he said. This was a sign of respect that a younger member of the tribe used to greet an elder he knew at Tanoah Pueblo.

I stood up and offered a hand to Momma Anna and helped her up. Then I turned to Sica's nephew. “I'm Jamaica Wild.”

“Eloy Gallegos,” he said, giving a polite nod.

“I know I've seen you before . . .”

He wrinkled his brow, waiting for me to finish my sentence. Then he offered: “Perhaps here in the village? I visit my auntie frequently.”

“Possibly. I'm the liaison for the BLM, so I'm out here at the pueblo quite a lot for work—”

Sica interrupted: “Eloy build stable for Holy Family.” She smiled.

Eloy gestured toward the things he'd brought in. “I brought a chair so I could work at the table. I don't know why Auntie Sica still insists on sitting on the floor. I've offered to bring her some furniture, but she won't take it.”

Sica put her arms around her nephew, smiling as she patted him on the back. “He's a good boy,” she said.

“Okay, Auntie,” he said, giving her a smooch on the forehead. “You want me to build you a little stable? Let's get started.”

Disempowered

Once again, it was late by the time Mountain and I got home to the little cabin, which was dark and cold. When I opened the front door and flipped the switch for the lights and ceiling fan, there was still no power. I stood in the entry and closed my eyes. I counted to ten, taking deep breaths and blowing them out to dispel the anger. Then I thought of Sica Gallegos and her humble, gas lamp-lit home, and I found it hard to feel sorry for myself. Fortunately I had the water in the car that I'd bought to prime the pump. I could use some of it for cooking and washing. I hauled the jugs inside as I told Mountain, “No running to La Petaca tonight. Tonight we are going to bed early and getting some sleep.”

I lit some candles, then started a fire in the woodstove and put the big cast-iron kettle on one side of the top, full of water to heat for washing up. I put another kettle on the other side for tea. While they heated, I took a shovel up to my designated latrine area, and labored to dig a deeper trench in the frozen ground so I could use the facilities another day or two if need be. While I worked, Mountain surveyed the area around the cabin, his nose to the ground, looking for any sign of his side of beef. He searched methodically in a circular grid, widening his ground at every revolution until he reached the edge of the woods, where I had carved out my trench.

When we returned to the cabin, I brought in a cooler from the little shed out back and unloaded the contents of the refrigerator into it to set outside in the cold. The milk was marginal, at best, having been shut up in a refrigerator that hadn't worked for more than two days. But Mountain's supplies—some partially frozen ground lamb, elk bones, and venison in the freezer—had kept the butter and cheese somewhat cool. With the bears hibernating for the winter, I figured I could set the cooler on the shady side of the house and it would be all right. Just to be sure, I placed a big rock on top of it, and came back inside to figure out what I could make for supper. When the washing water was warm, I poured it into a big stainless steel bowl I'd set in the kitchen sink, and I took another pot to the woodstove to heat water to cook some noodles I'd found in the cupboard.

I prepared to bathe using the water in the sink, stripping down and taking some time to soothe the scrapes and bruises on my arm and shoulder with the warm washcloth. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and sponged gently at the knot on my forehead, then washed my bangs, and finished by using the precious water for a warm sponge bath that felt close to heaven. While I was standing at the sink with the front of my hair dripping, completely naked, I heard a loud
bump!
Mountain suddenly hurled himself at a window on one side of the room, making a loud
thwock
and nearly breaking the glass, as he gave an earsplitting bark followed by a low, threatening growl. I heard another
thump!
I snatched the towel lying on the counter and wrapped it around me and tucked it in at the top. Then I reached into my big bag on the table, pulled out my handgun, and grabbed the flashlight by the door. In spite of Mountain's attempts to butt me aside, I squeezed through the door without letting him out, slipped around to the side of the house where I'd heard the noise, and aimed my flashlight down the log wall. On the ground lay the open cooler, the contents ravaged, packages torn open, butcher paper flapping in the night breeze. Mountain looked out the window at me, his ears up, eyes wide open, on full alert. On the rocks above the cabin, I heard coyotes yipping, counting coup.