The breathing of a snake came to mind, and I moved backward, beyond his reach.
“If you know the spirit songs as I do,” he said in his fluttering voice, all gentle now, “you may speak with them.” He smiled, but his eyes carried both fire and ice. “But only those poohaga’yoo like me must ever interfere.”
Pride crossed his words.
“Never interfere,” he repeated, his voice low now. “Never.”
I had no interest in interfering nor speaking with spirits, no wish to name a trouble I could not see when I had many I could touch right here beside me. Watching him, I wondered if he put too much stock in spirits. None had given him height or a handsome face or two legs the same length.
The dog perked its ears at attention, watching, wary too, perhaps, of the shifting of this man. Wuzzie slid his brown- and blue-eyed gaze to my face, slid across me like a catfish in a murky lake.
“Such power could be taken, used for evil. It might even force you from this place,” he warned.
That snake smile eased onto his face. Like a slice of quick pain, it left a bad memory. “Who knows what might happen if you meddle with spirits.”
He chose to believe in them, but not me. I would look for real ways to solve my problems, real things that I could see and touch to set me on my path again, get me well so I could leave.
“Never meddle,” Wuzzie repeated.
“Who meddles?” Wren asked as though arriving from a deep sleep.
She sat and stretched and gazed, the dreamy eyes the same as before. I thought Wuzzie wrong to think she had conversed with spirits. I had seen or heard nothing.
Flake stood and shook himself. I looked up to his head as I sat beside him, watching his pink tongue hang between loose, black jowls. He sneezed, his head shaking a little less blood from his ears. Wren grabbed the dog’s hide and pulled herself to sit, and the dog licked at her as though she belonged to his litter.
“Did you see Sarah? Does Lukwsh know?” she asked.
Wuzzie snorted, nodded his head toward the commotion that continued closer to the camp. “Her name is Thocmetone, not Sarah. And you do well to stay away from her.”
He stood, peering in the direction, but short like us, he could see little happening in the grassy area in the narrows between Lake Harney and the little one, Mud. His next words were riddled with disgust. “She does not know who she is, but I do. She is like a mind sickness that knows no cure, that traveler.”
He spit, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as though trying to take a bad taste from his tongue. He walked in the direction of the activity, telling us to stay away.
Wren sighed deeply. “I am tired. I rest now.”
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“In my mother’s lodge,” she said, surprised. “Now you are well enough to work, we can return. It will not make Moo’a happy, but we will be. She wakes up crabby and tries to give it away all day.”
She performed the little dance before walking toward Lukwsh’s lodge. Flake shifted when she moved and trotted with her, his shiny fur rolling as he walked, glistening like fish oil wiped across his back.
I sat alone in the center of a whirlwind. So they belonged to Lukwsh’s lodge, were not visitors at all. I was the visitor, the one who could be asked to leave.
A splash and flutter of white flushed up from the lake, and I watched more pelicans ease through the air like a strand of sea shells against blue cloth. Their movement sent mud hens skittering across the water. Black terns and glossy-faced birds, mallards, then geese lifted and settled like a breeze rising and lowering on the lake. Some things were familiar here; the birds and lakes gave gifts that never changed. But much that happened felt like walking on a spring mud flat, soft and uneasy.
A chill fluttered over me. Movement would warm me up.
The winnowing tray sat beside me, and I piled seed pods in the smallest basket, lifted brown cattails and brushed them into the tray. I thought of my basket and my missing treasures and wondered if my leg would heal enough before snow fell for me to search for it.
The effort involved in standing tired me. I chose next a clumsy plan, one to ease Lukwsh’s burden, Wren’s too, and let them know that I was useful. I stood, picked up the seeds we’d winnowed, and started out toward Wren’s lodge. And her brothers’, too.
Lukwsh had raised some of the tule mats part way up the willow bends so the cool breeze could flutter the flicker feathers and bring in the last days of snowless air. Shafts of light poured inside, so I could see her kneeling and Wren’s legs beside her. But a third set of knees were there as well.
The third person, a woman, spoke in Paiute with tightness and a raised voice, and I wondered if the knees belonged to Thocmetone. It sounded as if Lukwsh was being scolded, and I wondered what kind of friend this woman was. Hesitation greeted me, but my shadow crossed the opening and Wren motioned me inside before I could escape. Her small eyes touched me here and there with tender looks.
The scolding woman did not step aside when I entered, so I almost bumped her with my load and my walking stick and my stiffly held leg. Wren scampered around, made a place for me to sit across from the opening, but I stood, afraid to move. Lukwsh said something to the other woman, and as my eyes adjusted, I recognized Grey Doe, who grunted and glared at me from the corner of her eye as if vermin had entered uninvited.
“My husband’s mother, Grey Doe,” Lukwsh said, introducing. “Wren’s moo’a.”
Grey Doe’s face was a brown winter desert without warmth. She had a rounder face than Lukwsh and smaller eyes and carried her chin up, out, as though it challenged the air to move aside before she entered it.
But she was a grandmother, so I dropped my eyes, respectful. She continued her conversation as though alone with Lukwsh. I understood little of what she said. Lukwsh answered her in the trading language, so I made connections about the different way in which Grey Doe and Lukwsh saw the world.
“What she brings is for her people, our people,” Lukwsh answered Grey Doe’s words.
She moved baskets, sorting, busy twisting bulrush for duck-egg bags.
“The big war takes much from their government,” she continued. “There is little left and many are hungry. If the army wishes to give us food, why not take it while we can? Some of us may be pleased this winter, if we do not store seeds enough.”
She reached and removed the basket from my hands as she talked, but did not look at my face.
Grey Doe spit out a question, glared at me.
“She will earn her way. But you do not speak of this one,” she said, nodding toward me. “It is Sarah you dislike.”
From the corner of my downcast eyes I saw that Grey Doe’s left arm hung limp, shriveled like a small child’s, but she managed force with her words.
“A bay city,” Lukwsh said in answer to Grey Doe’s next words. “San-Fran-cis-co, na?” She said it to me as if I might know. “Many clap their hands at her, discover our people through her words. Others dance on a high platform, a stage. And Old Winnemucca goes also. Sarah is not alone.”
Grey Doe’s voice raised high, and she stood, began to pace, her left arm limp, swinging. Brown eyes snapped at Lukwsh, who listened,respectful, nodding while she helped me move my leg out of the old woman’s way, told me with her eyes to remain quiet.
“I will call her Thocmetone if that pleases you, husband’s mother,” Lukwsh said.
Grey Doe’s bony fingers grabbed her rabbit cape tighter around her neck. She tossed her chin my way, spit some words. Thin braids the color of singed sage swung as she paced.
Lukwsh nodded. “It may be so, what you say, though I do not see Thocmetone’s skin changing color. Owls do not become wolves. White does not become brown.”
Was this Thocmetone a white woman? I wondered. Or someone who traveled like the warriors, in and out, along the Military Highway? Toward the ocean where my parents went?
A grunt escaped Grey Doe’s mouth, and she said something else bef
ore swinging her lifeless arm before her, using her good shoulder to push her way through tules covering the door, misery and bother mingling in the air about her as she left.
In the people’s language, Lukwsh spoke to Wren. The girl’s lower lip stuck out in protest, and she left, though not before the toe tapping of each foot, washed hands, and a finger touch to her head, the same dance as before. She smiled at me again, then bounced after Grey Doe, and I heard her call to her to wait up.
“She is still missing her son,” Lukwsh said to me when we were alone. “Grey Doe’s son lost his first wife some time ago, before Wren. I joined later with that one.” It pleased me she invited me in closer by telling me some of her story.
“We brought Shard and Stink Bug back to their father’s lodge from Grey Doe’s,” she said. “After a while, we prepared for our child.”
She continued her work, and I thought she had nothing more to say when she added: “Wren comes in a different way than Shard and Stink Bug. She comes to Grey Doe’s son and me.”
Her hands became quiet as if to better hold the memory.
“Grey Doe’s son, my husband …” She sighed. “It has been barely one cycle of seasons since he left us.”
A flicker of grief sliced across her face, and I wondered if this was why Shard seemed to carry little warmth in his.
“It is not a good time for Grey Doe,” Lukwsh continued. “And she does not think it wise for any of the people to spend time with the white-faced, hairy tibos who can never be satisfied.”
She was quiet again and then as though to reassure me said, “It is not of your concern, Asiam.” Her hand pushed the air to the ground, dismissing the subject. She stood and looked around the lodge as though searching.
But even with my few years, I knew that her last words were more hope than promise.
Lukwsh busied herself with the bulrush egg bag, stacked winnowing trays, carried them outside to the roasting fire, where I watched her tall back bend to the low flames. The tule walls and the cattail coverings over willow, the dust and the empty lodge closed around me, stifled my breathing inside, alone.
“Let me help,” I shouted to Lukwsh who did not discourage my offer. Nor did she help me hobble to the fire.
The flames were low, and she stirred the wada seed pods I knew would turn our fingers black when we sifted, later, through the cool ashes, broke them open, and removed the tiny wada for storage. In silence, she stirred them slowly for even roasting, low smoke lifting to the sky as she pushed the roasted pods to the outside of the fire, took fresh pods I handed her to replace them. I beat the cattails on the ground, picked up the fuzz, and dropped it into a water basket. I had never been allowed to do more than this with the Modocs, but I had watched and learned. Now, with the stirring sticks I lifted the soaked fuzz like flour and dropped it gently into the fire. These seeds would supply for winter, keep us alive through heavy snows and iced-over lakes, along with the few ducks and geese we might gather up. Or an unsuspecting antelope.
Lukwsh stirred the roasted fuzz from the flame, and my fingers become dark with brushing the seeds in the winnowing basket, taking them from the ash-laden fuzz. It was a soothing cycle—this gathering, roasting, sifting, and storing—and we spent much of the afternoon together working in silence.
I did not ask her about Wren. I did not speak of my wonder about Stink Bug and Shard and how they all came together in the shadow of Grey Doe. I did not speak of my questions of the woman who caused Wuzzie to spit. It was not my place to ask, though I burned with questions, especially about the woman Sarah.
With the tiredness of the day, my heart began throbbing in my leg, my head nodded while I sat.
“Go inside,” Lukwsh said, noticing. “You will be of no value if you fall into the fire. Eat some pine nut stew and dried duck and drink your tea again.”
I followed her advice and soon slept.
When I awoke, the woman with many names—Sarah Winnemucca, Thocmetone, Shell Flower—sat across from me inside Lukwsh’s lodge. She and Lukwsh pressed each other into arms of friendship and spoke together using trade talk, then Paiute and some other sounds like tibo words. They bent their heads to each other and chattered like sisters while they twisted tules into duck decoys and laughed, then turned serious, with no space between.
Sarah looked like a squash to me, colorful and all one size with no waist. Her mouth worked into a grin, followed by an explosion of words that made Lukwsh laugh, her lip rolling under as if stuck on her upper teeth. It sounded as if they spoke of men and babies and travel and gossip, and I pretended to be asleep, barely opened my eyes so I could watch.
What Sarah wore caught my attention next. She wore cloth clothes, not buckskin, and silver rings that sparkled on her fingers and a necklace of shiny black beads separated by smaller ones and links of a tiny black chain. At the base of her necklace hung a cross with the form of a man hanging. I stared at the necklace, was reminded of my own lost treasure lying at the base of Dog Mountain.
“You like these?” she asked me.
I startled, caught in my stare.
“My prayer memory,” she said, fingering the beads. “Look closer.”
Sarah’s dark hair was piled high on her head, not in braids. It had been flattened some by the wide-brimmed hat that lay beside her. She stayed kneeling, her fingers touching the little beads from memory.
“From my Christian family,” Sarah said in the jargon so I could understand. “Each reminds me of the prayer words. In case I forget, as happens to old women like Lukwsh and me.” She laughed and took Lukwsh with her.
My confusion expanded. I did not know this Christian nor who was so old as to forget what matters. I thought they were teasing.
“You like it?” she asked.
It reminded me of something missing and I did not respond, but I watched this woman, her eyes the color of cattails, carrying her memory on her breast. I built courage to speak.
Sarah shrugged at my silence and returned to her task, jabbering in jargon with Lukwsh. She stripped and twisted the tules that would fool the ducks in the morning. The women worked, weaving in and out of quiet.
“She is like a rainbow with many colors,” I told Lukwsh when Sarah stepped outside to speak with an old friend who came looking for her, to show off a new baby.
“She requires notice,” Lukwsh said, agreeing, affection for Sarah in her voice.
An ache of awareness pierced me, of the soft sentiment between friends, a fondness that I did not share with any. I had not even Pinenut to tell my day to. Tears burned again, and sadness and disappointment made me risk Lukwsh’s disapproval by asking questions.
“Why does she travel?” I asked, watching as Sarah cooed to the woman’s chubby onga’a. “Does she have babies? A man to hunt for her? Why does Wuzzie hate her?”
“She is a Paiute, from Pyramid Lake. Her grandfather, Old Winnemucca, raised her. He believes those with pale skin,” her eyes rested on my milky face, “are friends. She speaks their language. He took her to California, and white people raised her. They gave her the Christian name and their religion.”
“Like the clay pot,” I said.
Lukwsh raised an eyebrow at me, surprise in her face. She said: “She can dance on light feet with the people and stand solid on a stage in San-Fran-cis-co to share the Paiutes’ story. She is strong. Blends old and new.”
She was a woman who had many faces and much power and could lead people into the white world, I learned. I wanted to gain my speaking courage and stay closer to her side.
“Why does Wuzzie wish you did not come?” I asked Sarah when she stepped back inside.
“O ho!” Sarah said. “You found your voice.”
Lukwsh frowned, but she did not scold.
Sarah sighed. “He does not know how many others there are beyond these lakes and deserts, how many will come and take what they can if we are nothing more to them than rabbits. Wuzzie is like old men who stay away and so they stumble on change. Younger brav
es and women will soon tell him what to do.”
Lukwsh’s eyes got large with the sound of such a challenge.
“It is so,” Sarah answered her friend’s eyes. “I tell them, those in the cities, that we are more than docile animals to be hunted down and shot. We are distant relatives, I tell them.”
She stayed kneeling, but her arms spread wide, expansive, as though we were gathered before her to hear her story, her bead necklace bouncing on her chest as she spoke, a light in her eyes, fast walking in her words.
“You tell them we belong to the same family?” Lukwsh asked. “They must argue with that.”
“They cry; tears even flow. I say: ‘We are your mothers and sisters, your uncles and brothers. We belong together!’ That is what I tell them on the stage in San-Fran-cis-co. My grandfather,” she explained to me, “believes the dream given him years ago, that someday we would meet our lost brothers, the pale owl children who were separated from us and taken across the ocean to make their way back. When they were better behaved.”
“And they listen?” Lukwsh said, hands stopped in midair, head cocked in disbelief. “Those people believe what Old Winnemucca believes, what you tell them? That cannot be so. The whites in this country,” she nodded her head toward Snow Mountain, “they are not that well behaved. Who believes you?” She picked up a tule, shook her head in disbelief.
Sarah looked at her, watched Lukwsh put a tule reed in her mouth, hold it with her lips while she stripped it to the width she wished.
“I do not know what they believe, only that if they think it possible and their Christian hearts are pure as new snow but not as cold, then they may not let their distant relatives go hungry this winter or the next. They may choose not to let their government decide to kill us or hold back the tools and seeds promised that keep us from starving. That is my only reason for telling them the story. They will come to you, too,” Sarah continued in something of a whisper. “And they will promise you seeds to plant and special knives to harvest heads of wheat and tell you to stay in one place where you belong, not to travel for roots or deer meat. Be wary.”