“‘Perhaps we arrived too late,’ he said. ‘After all, the Old One was ancient.’ And another said, ‘Yes, that could be true. Because for all his power he was still a man, and all men die.’
“‘No,’ the first elder said, ‘for him to hear the voices of men takes time. It always takes time, because he must come a long way through the silence.’
“‘This place,’ another of the elders said with a shiver, ‘I do not care for this place.’
“‘Nor I,’ one of the others said.
“‘Silence,” the leading elder said. ‘We did not make this journey for you.’
“And it was then that I stepped out of my place, that I violated protocol. ‘Yes, it was for us too. For all of us,’ I said, which drew their eyes. And lucky for me it was then that the Old One emerged from his hole in the rocks.
“Hickman, at first there was only the wall of stone, bare in the shadows. Then a pebble rattled against the earth and he was there, tall and like a rock in his stillness. No one spoke, for it was as though a slab of rock had detached itself from the mountain and taken on the form of a man. A man who was ancient and tall and of great dignity, and whose eyes were hooded and strange. He was very tall and very ancient, and of such power—I tell you verily—that having him around would have been like living in close quarters with an elephant, or trying to tame a roaring cyclone.
“That’s why his tribe lived below and on the opposite side of the mountain while he lived high in the rocks alone. Which was his choice. And each day they left food outside the cave, great mounds of it, so he could take what he needed. Which wasn’t much, because a long time before I saw him he had lived a life of dedication and put most of the needs of men behind him. But although he had been slow in answering the leading elder’s appeal, the moment he saw the sick man tied to the pony he knew what was expected. So with a gesture he invited us to enter the cave.
[CAVE]
“AFTER COMING SO FAR and so fast I thought there’d be time for resting, but when he took a closer look at the sick man the Old One became urgent. So we hurried below and dressed in our buckskins, feathers, and beads before painting our faces….”
“Painted your faces?”
“Yes—with the shapes of the plants, animals, and birds used by our totems. They are symbols of our connection with the earth and the world and the spirits whose help we ask when making our medicine. This demands careful attention to everything from our costumes to our rituals, otherwise our medicine will fail. In a sense it’s like your High Court up in Washington.”
“Now you’re kidding again—what’s the Supreme Court got to do with what you call totems?”
“Hell, Hickman, think about it. Up there the medicine men are called justices, and their totems have names like the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. Which are totems of words but more powerful than armies—Yao! and they’re T.N.T. touchy. That’s why when your white medicine men, your justices, call on their totems when making the medicine called law they have to do it with a special dignity, and in a style that includes all of their people. And that’s why they dress in black shoes and black robes—Yao!—and write with black ink on white paper.
“That’s how their totems give them the double-tongued power to say the ‘yes’ that means ‘no,’ and the ‘no’ that means ‘yes.’ In the North their words mean one thing and in the South the opposite. They speak out of the right sides of their mouths for State folks who are white, and out of the left sides for those who are colored. But for such volatile medicine to work it has to be made under certain conditions and with grave ceremony—drink your Choc, Hickman, drink your Choc!
“So, dressed in our feathers, buckskins, and beads we returned to the cave of the Old One. Suspended from a rack at the center a big smoky kettle bubbled and steamed over a low flame of embers, and against the wall nearby the sick man lay twitching in his sleep as though being punctured by powerful stings. And when the Old One ordered us to sit in a circle I took my place with mounting excitement. Because as I say, I had never taken part in making a medicine of such crucial importance.
“The Old One began by preparing a pipe, which he raised above his head for his totem’s approval. Then, after taking seven slow puffs he passed it among us. And while it began circling from elder to elder I kept my eye on the sick man. We had hoped he would become a great chief, but now, seeing him lying with his braids in the dust and his spirit divided, I felt downhearted and sad.
“But this was no time for sadness, so when the pipe came to me I puffed it, and through the smoke I studied the Old One. Looking back I don’t think that he had as much concern for certain minor details as others I have seen, because things went faster than I expected or later experienced.
“After the pipe came the drinking of a powerful liquid brewed from a formula handed down long ago for such crucial occasions. Then hardly without a pause the Old One asked to be given an account of the Chief’s son’s life and the background of his sickly condition. And as the elders took turns in telling his story I listened with special attention, for it was also a part of my beginner’s instruction.
“They began their account with six chiefs behind our Chief, the sick man’s father, and told of their characters and what they had done. How the tribe had fared under their leadership, of battles won and battles lost, and of the conditions of the hunt and the game and the horses. They gave each chief credit for his gains and his losses, his days of honor and his times of defeat and of sorrow. Then they told of the Chief, the sick man’s father, and then of the sick man’s capture by the bitch bear who made him her cub. Then of his being found and taken East by the tall white one, the preacher. They spoke in detail, and in listening I could see the life of the tribe spread before me for six generations, and in the drifting of smoke and weaving of words I relived it.
“But while all this was being related I kept my eye on the Old One and watched his hooded old eyes glow up behind his wrinkles and gleam through his thick brows and lashes. Hickman, I tell you verily, that was a face! Today you see few of such faces because it takes too much living and thinking to make one—Yao! It was a face that appeared to have risen out of the young manhood of the world, and its eyes burned with the original fire that flamed when the sun exploded. They were eyes that were young when the father of men first stood erect and walked on his legs—Yao! And I am sure that they saw the double-faced joke hidden in all human experience and foresaw its results—but that is a matter that’s still unfolding.
“As I say, I could see the Old One’s eyes glow up behind his lashes, and when he raised his hand the elders became silent. Then he spoke in an ancient voice heavy with quavers in which he warned us that there was no time to lose, and therefore he would begin the medicine the moment the night became pregnant. Then he motioned for the sick man to be placed near the fire and the cave be emptied.
“So I arose with the others, but as I started to leave he placed his hand on my shoulder and indicated that I was to stay, that I was to be one of the three to sleep there in the cave. Which meant himself, the sick man, and me.
“And now, with the elders gone, the Old One sat by the fire near the head of the sick man who lay on the floor still bound and gagged for his safety. And as he twitched in his sleep and the Old One sat nodding, the cave became truly mysterious. So much so that for all my tiredness sleep was denied me, and as I studied the Old One I wondered why out of all the others he had chosen me to assist him. Because there in that place I could take nothing for granted.
“Hickman, I was like a man who sets out for a far distant village and becomes lost in the dark. Footsore and weary, he’s come a long way, and as he advances the terrain becomes steeper and steeper and the trail more uncertain. Several times he stumbles and feels discouraged. Then as he falls and regains his footing he’s surprised by the flickering of lights that gleam far in the distance. And with a sense of relief he tells himself, There! There it is at the top of those hil
ls!
“So with his confidence restored he increases his pace and climbs in the dark with fresh energy.
“Ah, but soon he’s overtaken by doubts that keep dogging his trail. Because now he notices that with each step he takes forwards the lights appear to move backwards, and as he slowly advances they retreat and rise higher. But being committed and still desperately hopeful, he keeps climbing and climbing. Until with the trail becoming even more resistant and the air ever thinner and colder he realizes with a stab of despair that it is not to the lights of a village toward which he’s advancing, not to a community of men, but to the far distant world of the stars….
“Well, that’s how it was, there in the cave with the Old One and the Chief’s son, the sick man. I lay with my head on my arm, and beneath the kettle’s bubbling and hissing I could hear my heart’s drumming. And as I studied the shadows at play on the wall I questioned the goal toward which my life seemed now to be pressing. Then I thought of my mother and father, maybe because when a man becomes aware of the uncertainty of his existence his mind tends to turn to thoughts of those who begat him.
“So I thought of the stories they told of the escape they made so that I could be born among the People, and of the desperate crime they committed in achieving their freedom….”
“A crime?”
“Yes, a crime—or at least in the eyes of the State folks. Because being slaves they were forced to kill and flee for their freedom. Yao! And their decision was by no means easy, especially for my mother….”
“Why especially for her?”
“Because the man they killed was not only her master, the man who owned them, but her father, the man who begat her.”
“Good Lord!”
“So I thought of their killing this man, this proud hypocrite of devious identities. A slave owner with a white wife and children who begat a black line of offspring out of a slave who herself bore the blood of the People. I thought of that confusion of bloods, which was also mine, and what it did to those who possessed it, and how what my parents did defied and questioned the easy distinctions State Folks make between rightness and wrongness, blackness and whiteness. Given such conditions what’s crime and what’s justice? And I thought of how in the long, slow whiplash of its spiraling, time had led to my being holed up in that high dark womb of the world. And as I listened to the kettle’s bubbling and hissing I wondered at the fate of men in this land, and at the treacherous currents that surge beneath the frantic flow of their fucking and fighting.
“I only knew that I was there, and that by background, temperament, and what State folks term ‘history’ I had been destined to be there. I was of the People and a servant of the Eagle, but while I could ransack the past and the present for wisdom there’d be no turning back on the road I now wandered.
“Hickman, I had been chosen by the Old One to be there, and I believe that if I’d tried to leave my legs would have refused their burden. Besides, where would I go? Certainly not to the place my parents had left to find freedom, because now in many ways it was worse than it was when they left it. No, I was of the People, a servant of the Eagle, and here was the cave. Here was the sick man, the fire, the smoke, and the Old One. So I lay like a man in a trance, or like a child whose eyes remain open long after sleep takes over his body. I don’t know how long I lay like that, but suddenly I was awakened by the Old One beating a small drum to which the sick man was now fitfully stirring.
“Because while my mind wandered between the past and the present—or what you’d probably call the gap between the Old and the New World’s dispensations—the Old One, the shaman, had removed the sick man’s gag. And now as he tapped on his drum the sick man responded with a strange confusion of voices which the Old One seemed to ignore. But since I had never heard such sounds from a single man’s mouth I was amazed and bewildered.”
“What was it like?”
“Sometimes it was like the fretful voices of a child and his twin, then the angry voices of men who were quarreling. Sometimes they barked and snarled like animals, and yet again they were the voices of a man and a woman—Yao! A woman full of discord and malice whose voice shrilled and attacked the ear like a boreworm. It was a voice that lacerated like thorns, and of all the voices that raged in the dark it was the most eerie. It was sinister. It shrilled and it scraped and it stabbed, and as I listened it finally took over. It dominated the others and became most obscene. It knifed and it slashed like a cougar attacking a stout cage of saplings. And as it raged the sick brave began shitting his britches and the sight and the stench were disgusting.
“But then, slowly, a new voice arose. At first I took it for one I’d heard earlier, but somehow it was softer and different. Then I looked at the Old One and realized that he had begun speaking, and as his voice grew stronger it seemed to issue from the mouth of the sick man. And as it wove between the earlier voices of the men, the child, and the woman it became calmer and soothing. Then it became an incantation which echoed in the cave like far distant thunder, only gentle and moist with the promise of rain.
“Hickman, Janey tells me that before you were a medicine man you were a musician, so tell me this: What do you know of the music of Spain?”
“Of Spain? Only a few military marches which I played with an Elks band in Chicago.”
“What about the music of Gypsies?”
“Only what I heard when watching them dancing in circuses.”
“So then you’ve heard the magic with which they can evoke landscapes and weather with no more than the sound of their voices. How a master of cante hondo can unroll the great spaces, the miles of fields and towns in the moonlight with the passion of his singing, and how he brings alive the prancing of bulls and hoofbeats of horses with the rattling stampada he makes with his hands and his boot heels.”
“The pictures escaped me, but I’ve heard the sounds and seen the dancing, and after listening to you I’ll be more attentive.”
“You do that, because I have seen such scenes evoked many times by Chico de la Matrona, a Gypsy I knew when I rode for the 101 Ranch. Anyway, that’s the kind of magic the Old One produced in the cave with his voice. It was high-pitched and thin but in it I could hear the sound of peace and goodness, times of much game and droves of fine horses. And soon there was a kind of debate in progress between the Old One and the warring voices of the sick man’s spirits. I listened carefully so that I could instruct myself and soon, one by one, the others faded until only the voice of the woman was left. And as it ranted and raved the Old One’s voice grew more stern and warlike. Then the voice of the woman became defiant, blood-curdling and pleading. And that was its tone when the Old One called first upon the sick man’s spirits and then upon his ancestors. And as he attacked with his medicine a very strange thing took shape in the cave: As I watched I saw with my own eyes the figure of a two-headed animal that suddenly appeared above the sick man’s head….”
“You saw what!”
“Yao! Two heads cursing and howling out of mouths that were foaming with blood! Up to then I had been lying stiff on my blanket, but when this strange thing arose I bolted erect, only to have the Old One order me down. And with that a turbulent mixture of nightmare and dream fell upon me.
“Hickman, I flew out of my body and found myself in places about which the only thing I remember is that they were bad. They were places of confusion in which every word meant its opposite, and where intended actions led to results unintended; places in which men in pain screamed screams that were soundless. Then I must have screamed myself, screamed in the flesh, because the next thing I remember I was being shaken by the hand of the Old One. So now he indicated that he was ready to begin and that I was to assist him. There were small deerskin bags to be arranged on a blanket near the sick man’s head. Then the Old One pointed to two medicine bags which sat near the wall behind him, and when I fetched them he removed a sharp knife and a small bow of the type used for drilling. It had a rawhide string and a short, w
ooden shaft which was tipped with a stone of great hardness. Then from the other bag he took out a branched twig of a tree that was covered with the thick webs of spiders and the polished horn of an animal which was filled with a powerful paste. Then at his instruction I placed all of these on the blanket and waited.
“Hickman, imagine the scene in your mind: The mouth of the cave is covered with blankets and the walls dancing with shadows cast by the fire that glows beneath the black kettle that hangs at its center. The sick man lies on the floor in front of the Old One, and except for the bubbling and steaming made by the kettle the cave is as quiet as a tomb—Yao!—and the air’s become heavy and foul. So now as I wait for the Old One’s instruction the sick man wakes up, and all at once I’m listening to a free-for-all between his arguing voices and the soggy eruptions of his unruly bowels.
“Hickman, of all the strange sights I’ve witnessed that of the cave was the most revolting. But I had to endure it, because now the Old One kneels directly behind the sick man’s head and begins swaying to the words of an old incantation. Then he points to one of the bags, and when I open it he removes the kernel of a nut that’s green and round like a marble. This he holds between a finger and thumb of his six-fingered hand, and when the sick man’s mouth gapes wide with his screaming the Old One drops the nut on his fluttering tongue.
“For a second the sick man goes quiet in wild-eyed surprise, then he gags and the nut lands in the fire. So now the Old One waits patiently and tries it again, and once again the sick man spews it out and returns to screaming in a contention of voices, of which that like a woman is the most obscene and loudest.
“Then the Old One becomes rigid as a man made of stone, and after muttering an incantation of which I was ignorant he turns to me and says, ‘Now, Black One, as you would with a pony that’s sick— ‘ ”
“Why did he call you that?”
“Call me what?”
“Black One.”