The rest of us began making small houses from grasses and willows we brought with us, dragged by the dogs and horses loaded with our tule mats. Each built a small lodge on the marked circle. Thunder Caller’s grass house rose in the center of the ring. Across from him, facing east and the antelope far in the distance not seen yet by any eyes, was an opening.
In the morning, they made another, beyond the ring of huts we slept in. We gathered grasses and sagebrush and greasewood and stones and rabbit brush, and I was reminded of my first days in the private hut, wondered if this too was a passage into something new.
A mound formed while Buck Brush and Oytes, who both stood taller than the rest, took the branches we handed them from our baskets or the backs of Flake and Smoke and all other dogs and ponies. Buck Brush made the mound high so it could be seen from a great distance. Thunder Caller stepped three hundred long strides and marked where the next mound on the circle would rise. We repeated the cycle, three hundred strides between, until six were complete.
No one stubbed their toes or dropped a rock intended for its place. No one lied or made errors without telling. Wuzzie pranced around, proud that no one disobeyed the rules he thought necessary so that the charming would proceed without trouble.
In the night, loved ones held each other, fell into deep sleeps from the effort of our labors. Only the dogs responded to the coyote howls that whoop-whoop-whooped in the distance.
Then the charming began.
I thought I should return to the children and moo’a, but no one spoke of it and I did not wish to leave. I stayed and made myself blend as best I could, bending over so my longer legs would not make me stand apart.
For five mornings and evenings we charmed.
I wanted to pay attention, but my eyes drifted to where Shard sat across the circle. Thunder Caller passed him the pipe, and each man after smoked, and then the women. Vanilla Leaf handed Thunder Caller the elk hide drum filled with her name’s sake. With a haunting sound, hollow like depths of caves, sad like the call of a mateless goose, Thunder Caller began to strike the drum. At its tapered ends, the stick vibrated on the stretched hide like the flutter of a throat. I felt the tremor from the vibration deep within me, moving through my limbs. The sounds and rhythms, the spirit of the stalk, the days of building mounds and waiting forced out songs now, high-pitched, undulating sounds that carried far beyond our memories, far beyond our mounds.
Perhaps it was the drumbeat kept in cadence with my heart. Perhaps the sorrowful scent of moist sage mixed with the swimming taste of sacred smoke. Or perhaps it was the throbbing in my head, my chest, my inner being that took my mind beyond where it should go.
I left the gathering under a dark sky sprinkled with stars like cottonwood fluff, grateful to be undiscovered. Tomorrow Shard would begin the chant and march, and the next day, I would be sent away. I pulled his thoughts to mine across the desert, knew he thought of me at the moment I laid my head down on my mat.
My mind entered sleep as though entwined by his embrace, as though we were strong cordage strung together in a net. So when Shard came to me, lay in my dreams on the rabbit furs next to Lukwsh and Wren and me, I was ready for his fingers to press against mine. Sage and sweetgrass swirled about my dreams like soft movements just below sleep. Lifting arms and sinew high above our heads, I rose up with him until we twisted out through the smoke hole, embraced as one by night, soft like the winding of a rabbit rope, stretched to reach great heights.
I awoke as dawn moved soft as a baby’s breath into the lodge. I lay still, not sure if what I remembered of the night belonged to sleep or real.
That morning, the sixth morning, Shard and Stink Bug walked with their torches into the desert, out through the opening across from the headman’s lodge, out through the center toward the herd. They walked in opposite directions around the outer mound circle, and when they met on the other side, they stopped, smoked, then crossed again. This time they walked a new circle that was wide and reached far enough to surround the herd that until now has been known only by faith, only by Wuzzie’s vision.
Shard and Stink Bug had the honor of seeing the antelope first.
The torchbearers were intent, they never let themselves be seen. They returned in the other’s footsteps, then they met at the base of the large circle and reported back to Thunder Caller the herd’s movement and size. They reported seeing a large herd of great value. Tomorrow, the men and boys would follow Shard and Stink Bug on their circle walks. For five more days they would walk the same paths, and on the sixth day, the antelope would follow them around the circle, back into the center between the mounds. They would not walk away or run, for they were charmed into seeing fences where there were none and so they remained, captives of the lulls in their minds.
It had always been so.
“You go now,” Wuzzie said to me the night before the men would lead the pronghorns back. “Take Summer Rain with you.”
I didn’t think Summer Rain would like the punishment being sent with me meant.
“She can watch children,” he said.
And me, I thought.
“I will talk with her myself,” Wuzzie said in his fluttering voice, almost friendly. “So she will see how going now will help.”
Lukwsh nodded to me, said reassuring, “We come, in eight, nine days, with meat and hides. Plenty to keep us busy.”
I looked for Shard to offer something different, but he did not. No one would rescue me from what I did not want. He prepared himself to lure the antelope, that was his task. He did not remember me or what had passed between us.
I would have talked myself past this view and remembered the closeness we had shared, but I saw him speaking with Thunder Caller near the headman’s lodge. Joy rose up from his deep laughter, the men pleased that the herd grazed where it was meant to be and carried large numbers. Even Stink Bug seemed to blend into the gathering of men, stood and talked and offered words that brought bursts of laughter.
Vanilla Leaf walked close and touched Shard’s arm. Boldly she intruded on these men. But Shard did not seem to mind. He bent his head to her. Maybe to listen above the joking and laughing, but too close, I thought, too smiling for a man of few words.
She smiled back, her wide mouth with straight teeth, those dark flashing eyes. He shared what she said with others, and they nodded and smiled. He brought her into the circle! Her words were wise, it seemed. Shard nodded and bent close to hear her again, put his hand on her shoulder to pull her closer, her voice is so soft.
He held no thoughts now of antelope.
He pushed back hair the breeze had blown into her eyes. I could almost feel the touch of his fingers on her face, the fierce shock through my being such a touch would leave left me now in pain. I tried to ignore the ache behind my eyes.
A burning welled up inside me and formed an unfilled hole of disappointment and grief. I could not take my eyes from it, could not turn away. I watched him touch the skin of Vanilla Leaf and reach inside her soul.
It came to me that Shard had only shared my sleep deep in my dreams, had never meant to make me think such feelings bridged the dream time into day.
The next choice was not of my making, or so I told myself. In years since, looking back, I know I had some place in it, was not swept along by a fast-moving stream. My mind was present. Still, my anger chose, my hurt decided. My unworthiness kept my wisdom buried deep beneath my judgment, separated from my helpful spirit, culled from my very soul.
My eyes wore a screen of seething as Shard stood talking with Vanilla Leaf. He had draped an arm around her to better bring her into the circle.
I turned toward Wuzzie and watched him talk with Summer Rain, saw how he looked up to her face as soft as sweet gum, as dark as cattails. I made judgments of my own.
Summer Rain scowled, probably wishing she had gone with Natchez, Sarah’s brother, so she would not become a part of this affair. Wuzzie stood shorter than she, but he directed, told her, I imagined, that she m
ust return with me. She glanced over his head to catch my eyes, said something to him, her mouth snapping like a hungry dog, the dimples disappearing. He squeezed her shoulder, those spider-like fingers pinching, and I saw her bend into him, her face a wince of pain. She nodded once, then, an obedient girl, and he released her.
Hot tears of imaginings of where Shard slept, whose grandmother called his name, filled the long night. In the morning, we two, obedient girls, somehow different, started back. But we were obedient. Surely obedient.
When Summer Rain suggested in her child-like voice that we make our journey an entertaining treat, it should not be so surprising that I did not wait long to consider the temptation.
“We can parallel the herd. Who will see us?” she said. “No one. We will walk as one and charm the antelope ourselves.”
I did not recognize until much later how a wound could hurt so deeply and so quickly that it might require removal. I did not know that more than antelope are prone to charming by the fancy of lulled minds.
THE TENTH KNOT
HELD IN THE
MIND OF ANOTHER
We will cause trouble?” I asked Summer Rain. I wonder now why I bothered with the question. I had already decided that it did not matter.
It was early in the morning, before the people started out. We carried dried berries baked in pine nut cakes, the food of outcasts headed out.
“It works,” she told me.
For the first time, I wondered if she, too, were out of favor, perhaps for some behavior I knew nothing about.
“My cousin Mary and I made ourselves look like an animal, and the antelope believed.”
She bent over, her arms swinging in front of her, hips swaying from side to side like a cumbersome cow.
“We were close enough to see their brown-and-white-striped throats,” she said, her words falling to the ground. “I could have touched the fine hairs on their black noses if my arm had been twice as long.”
“They did not spook?” I didn’t want to ruin the hunt, only steal a memory of some might.
She stood, hands on hips. “No! I heard them break wind, saw them blink their eyes, wiggle their ears behind their black horns.”
I looked skeptical.
“It is so! Here, I will put my head in your back and we will walk, bent over, just a little way. The herd will not see us. Before the people lure the antelope back, we will be gone. It is just for a moment, just something of our own to share since we will not be part of the end.”
Her dimple appeared in her chubby cheek. “We cannot hurt the charming. It is already almost finished. If it were otherwise, Wuzzie would have sent an escort with us to make sure we did not stumble or lie or do anything to warp things.” She smiled.
Perhaps, I decided, I could make this charming something of my own design and hide in the fabric my pain of disappointment.
“I’ll put my head to your back,” I said.
I could lower my hands from her hips quickly, drop to the desert if a buck caught our scent or someone spotted us.
“Good,” she said and turned to lead me in my own charming.
I bent my head, held her hips, and began to sway.
We watched as pronghorns lifted their heads and sniffed at the wind, then lowered their heads again. We were close enough to see the herd Wuzzie had dreamed of. They moved like a sea of brown and white, the color of bunch grass and sand, ripping at grasses, lifting their heads, then returning to graze. Yearlings bounded and bucked and scattered dirt as Summer Rain and I eased our way closer, quietly, walking as one.
In the distance behind us, I could see the smoke of torches, tiny wisps of dark clouds carried east. The people walked behind us, slowly making their way around the first circle, soon to surround the herd and move them toward the closed circles. The movements were so even, so gradual, taken in such small steps that the antelope would be trapped by noticing something that was different, but not be alarmed. They would think that little had changed, only some new thing now shared their range.
After some time of walking and watching, we crossed over the tracks made by walkers from the days before.
“We can go closer,” Summer Rain whispered over her shoulder. “Drop down, see how far we come.”
Beneath the shade of a sage we rested, lying on our bellies, eyes staring into distance. The antelope were hidden by sagebrush, still upwind of us. But if I rose slowly I could see them, throats blended from the colors of white rabbits and tawny deer. The antelope moved unaware, and so did I. I failed to see trouble in my watching, did not recognize danger in the desert.
Summer Rain raised up beside me.
“Ease back,” I whispered. “We’re close!”
She slid back down.
I felt a surge of power as I sat there, waiting, watching. The day felt sultry and dry, and meadowlarks warbled and flitted from the sage above our heads. Perhaps we dozed.
We did not see the torch smoke, at least I did not.
“Go closer.” Her voice was a hiss not unlike a snake’s and took me from my sleep.
“We’ll have some good story to tell our children of how we stalked the antelope without them knowing.” She sat up, her slender back to the herd for a moment. “Too bad we did not take Shard’s spear,” she said. “We could take a hide ourselves.”
She had more bravery than I remembered. I wondered where her courage came from, until I heard her gasp. I turned to look at her. She pointed, her eyes as big as fists.
From where we had walked was not so long a distance. But it had taken us inside the circle and between the antelope and our people. Half the charmers who followed Shard were walking the circle tracks close enough for us to hear a cough, the slap of their feet against hard earth. They made better time than expected. The smoke blew close enough for us to smell.
I hoped the charmers were still far enough away they would not see us. And we were almost safe—except for one.
He was not to follow, was told to remain with the women at the mound site. But he had not listened either, and now he stood, tail wagging high above his back, barking, barking at a familiar scent. At me.
My heart pounded. I felt cold and hot at once, caught in an act of disobedience. I could not call out and tell him to stop. I could not disappear or make my scent sink into sage.
I did not know what Summer Rain would do.
Why had I done this, made a choice that put me at risk? Perhaps my presence set the charmers at risk too. I thought of Wren and the dance she could not stop or start and wondered if I had her illness, one that made me do things that were the opposite of what the people thought I should. What punishment would I attract if Shard or Stink Bug or someone else should break their stride to search for what bothered Flake and found me?
Summer Rain slid down, knees to chest, and brought her hands across her ears and head as though such moves could hide her. The sound of animals once gently grazing now clattered through the sagebrush, throwing the heavy scent of desert like a blanket on my head. A meadowlark shrieked in my ears louder than my heartbeat, louder than the sounds of antelope disrupted in their charm. Torch smoke drifted above me, and I whimpered in my huddle and hoped I could vanish too.
I felt a prayer rise up, knew I did not deserve what I would ask. Make us invisible; don’t let the antelope turn back toward us or be scattered by the dog! A foolish person’s prayer, spoken as though the Spirit listened even when the trouble had been invited. Make them all—people, dogs, and pronghorns—keep walking the way that they should go; keep them charmed and I will never choose wrongly again, I said under my breath.
It was a promise I knew I could not keep.
Flake barked a long time before I realized no one would search for the cause of the dog’s distress. To look would break the spell that charmed the antelope. To leave the path would announce that they had thought of something other than the hunt!
Eventually Flake left, following them. The sounds of their shuffling evaporated in the wind. Flake?
??s bark grew fainter.
“You are powerful,” Summer Rain said. “I heard you praying that we could not be seen.”
Her eyes bore a frightened look, though I could not tell if our close call or my prayer scared her. The two of us sat until we could not smell the smoke, then made our way as one, quickly, across the charmer’s tracks, careful not to step on them, walking low, away, before the second group passed on the circle. Beyond the tracks, we dropped beneath some rabbit brush and greasewood. There we waited until almost dusk.
A vermilion sunset melted across the wide expanse of desert, settling on sagebrush. My heart no longer pounded in my head. Summer Rain’s eyes searched the growing darkness and dropped in shame whenever they met mine.
Careful not to speak or get upwind of the herd being gently urged toward the mounds, careful not to mention the foolishness of our ways, we eased out of the inner circle and away. We made a dry camp along a small creek below a ridge rock.
Summer Rain said the stream was a safe place, pouring out from a spring cut into a jagged lava ridge some distance beyond us. Red willows speared up toward the clear night sky and leaned out over the fast-moving stream. A night owl hooted. It was like a refuge, this creek, and so we called it “home” between ourselves, ate dried berries, and curled up together in the cool night. I sighed relief. We were made invisible, were not seen.
We did not speak of it again, Summer Rain and I, and yet there was a bond between us not tied before. I was uncertain whether what tethered us together would keep me safe or later, bind me up.
When the band returned from the hunt, they spoke of success, how the antelope followed the people into the circle and danced and pranced and bucked but would not go out between the mounds because their minds made fences there, where the people had walked. And so they were all charmed, then killed, every one, almost all with head shots to avoid damage to the meat and hide. Arrows and the bullets of the rifles traded for by men such as Shard and Oytes and even Stink Bug met their mark.
Lukwsh wore sweat on her forehead from the weight of her work. Brains and spinal cords were saved and brought back with the hides, and Summer Rain and I helped Lukwsh and the other women bury them in the wet ground near the lakes.