America Finding Her Way

by Karen Sunde

They stare at her)

  Sally: Mommy...

  Lena: (Moving to hold Sally) Look at her.

  Sally: (Falling to sleep) Jawea's hurt, Mommy.

  Lena: (Afraid) It's all right, baby.

  Faye: Kat. Let's go.

  (Kat's torn, wanting to help Lena; she reaches toward Sally)

  Lena: Don't touch her! (Beat, both stunned) You don't believe.

  Kat: (Shaken) You don’t know what I believe.

  (Kat wants to speak, but Faye’s pulling her away. In distance, they hear– )

  Hunters: Heeere we go!

  (Kat and Faye turn like wooden sentinels, stand silent, while the hunters waving their new automatics, swagger past them with hollow bravado– )

  Hunters: (Echoing off and far away) Go. Go. Go!

  Sally: (Distant) Daddy? Daddy...!

  ___________________________

  Reservation

  Upstage, Jawea is visible in a spot, running wildly. Matu, wanting to send strength to Jawea, chanting woman-rite, breaks down, cursing Hoyatu–

  Matu:

  Run the run of your life, girl.

  Run for the life of your people,

  To the east, to the south... (Breaks, frantic)

  What did you do, old man?! Hoyatu, get out of her way! She’s no thanks to you! Thanks to you, I have no child. And you hate that I’m still down here, that there are still men who love me, old as I am. But you will not take Jawea from me! Braves have gone after her; they will find her, and she will be safe! Or I’ll deny you ever lived, and curse you forever!

  (Recovering chant)...to the west, to the north,

  run with the winds, girl become woman...

  Jawea: (Running, anguished- ) Aaaauuuuh!

  (Jawea flies forward thrusting her hands into Matu's fire. Matu yells; Jawea pulls her hands from fire, brings them to her cheeks, feels that they're still cold)

  Jawea: Nooo...!

  (Jawea crumbles, rolls away sobbing. Matu gathers Jawea into her arms, rocks. Jawea quiets, like a baby)

  Matu: Thank God, thank God. Were you lost? What happened?

  Jawea: (Simple) Doesn’t matter. It's gone.

  (Jawea lifts her hands to touch Matu's cheeks, who’s stung by their cold)

  Matu: Aah!

  Jawea: They're cold. It’s gone.

  (Matu is terrified, but quickly denies, rubs Jawea's hands, and moves off)

  Matu: It’s just a chill. Now...pick up those reeds, and get cracking with the basket, before I womp you for scaring me.

  Jawea: (Calm) Matu, it’s no use; it’s over.

  Matu: (Anger) We’ll discuss this later! Some people have work to do; they don’t joy ride all over the mountain every chance they...

  Jawea: (Drawing out her knife) You can’t turn me back into an Anglo. I know what this means. It’s the end of my path.

  Matu: Put that knife away. I forbid you!

  Jawea: Come, mother me now. I need your help.

  Matu: Mothers don't help you die. (Pause) Don't give me that look. God decides when you're finished, not you.

  Jawea: Would you rather I went outside?

  Matu: (Breaks, emotion– ) What happened to you?!

  (Jawea doesn't answer, but carefully wipes the blade of her knife)

  Matu: I forbid you, Jawea!

  Jawea: (Gently) You should have had children, Matu. You'd know you can't control them. When I showed up here I was no one, but when you let me join you, all of a sudden I was everyone. I saw my path; I got power, and now it's gone.

  (Kneeling, Jawea handles the knife like a sacred implement)

  Matu: (Quietly) Hoyatu was right. He said "Come away, our people are dead." But I sat still, till my womb was dry as his heart...till you came like a rainbow, and then I threw you away. I sent you to Sally.

  Jawea: Sally didn’t hurt me.

  Matu: Your gift was for us.

  Jawea: A dancing circle may not be closed. It’s mine to share.

  Matu: Not with the Others! They take and take, and give what? Annihilation.

  Jawea: (Calm breaks- ) Not Sally! It was the hunters. They, aah...

  (Seeing her memory fresh, Jawea doubles over, with a cry of being raped again)

  Jawea: Ahhh!!

  Matu: No. God, no.

  (Matu now understands what happened. Jawea scrambles away, pressing the knife flat against her breast, glaring at Matu. Matu is swift, like handling a jumper on a hundredth-story ledge– )

  Matu: Jawea, don’t let them destroy you. Your pain can end. You believe in your gift. You know it’s holy. God doesn't make mistakes, Jawea. You're meant to have it.

  Jawea: (Throat thick with pain) No.

  Matu: You don’t think he knew this would happen? You have to trust. Ask to find your path again, and your power can return.

  Jawea: No.

  Matu: But you have to be strong, you have to believe, you...

  (Matu stops, as she “sees” Hoyatu, and so do we. Jawea senses a vision)

  Jawea: What?

  Matu: (Dazed) You have to meet him.

  Jawea: Who? What do you know?

  Matu: (Denying) Not a damn thing. I just keep the fire, that’s it.

  Jawea: But someone knows.

  Matu: (Fierce) I’ve gone soft! When God sends good, he should pack in the strength to let it go. So I quit!

  Jawea: How can I get my power back!?

  Matu: (Looks at her, sighs) You'd like to talk to God?

  Jawea: (Scared) Sure I would.

  Matu: Well, I can't arrange that. Hoyatu will have to do.

  Jawea: Hoyatu – your man?

  Matu: A hundred years ago.

  Jawea: With his "power beyond understanding." You said he was lost.

  Matu: (Gazing far off) Yes.

  Jawea: But I can talk to him?

  Matu: If you survive.

  Jawea: Survive what?

  Matu: Dress for cold...high on the mountain.

  (Jawea dresses for climb; Matu accepts to guide Jawea’s quest, and prepares her)

  Matu: No one has seen Hoyatu. Last equinox, his fire flickered on the peak, so I know he's alive up there. He'd rather live in clouds than with people. You must climb to him. The path is slick – a misplaced foot, a rockslide, a storm; there are terrible places to fall. Ask for vision. Take nothing from the mountain; no roots or nuts or water, no matter your thirst. Ask only for sight. (Jawea nearly ready) When the air is thin, and you grow weak, you’ll come where young braves pray. You’ll see their chest skin on trees; when they return they're men. If a brave climbs higher he will never return, but you must climb higher, cross the tree line, into the range of the Blood White bear.

  (Jawea reaches to buckle on her hunting knife. Matu stops her)

  Matu: No. If you go as a hunter, Blood White will destroy you. Take no weapon, as a sign you will not harm the mountain. And leave your fear behind, for he can smell it. (She lets Jawea climb) When you sense the bear, don’t be afraid, for your heart is clean. On the bare top, when you feel Blood White, call Hoyatu.

  ____________________________

  Lena’s Home

  Lena holds Sally, asleep. Kat enters, troubled, with a small drawstring pouch.

  Kat: Look what I brought Sally.

  Lena: Get away, Kat.

  Kat: It’s pollen.

  Lena: Get out of here!

  Kat: Please. Sally needs Jawea; I’ll take you there.

  Lena: (Stunned beat) Why?

  Kat: I have to.

  Lena: How could she heal her with you there? You don’t trust her.

  Kat: You don’t know me. This valley’s so old no one knows who’s who.

  Lena: You’ve lost it, Kat.

  Kat: Damn straight! I can’t take any more! Now come.

  Lena: Take what?

  Kat: There’s something going on. I kee
p seeing Mother, and...

  Lena: Your mother’s dead.

  Kat: You’re not from here, Lena, so there’s no way to...

  Lena: Your mother’s dead, Kat.

  Kat: Yes; she’s gone to get my brother.

  Lena: Now you are crazy.

  Kat: Bundle Sally now!

  Lena: You don’t have a brother!

  Kat: I do! (Like a broken dam, flowing– ) He died before I was born. At 16 my mother ran off. They found her with Indians. They made her come home, and married her to my father. But she’d had a baby boy there. She mourned him all her life.

  Lena: (Beat) An Indian baby.

  (Kat can’t speak, opens pouch, takes pinch of pollen, throws it for Lena to see)

  Kat: See? I’ve hated this all my life, but now, for my mother, I have to find Jawea.

  _____________________________

  Mountain

  Hunters climbing, exhausted. Teddy straggling, looks back. He's fighting tears

  Jimbo: (From offstage) Teddy!

  (Teddy snaps to, hurries after hunters, who find their destroyed camp)

  Brad: Is this it?

  Jimbo: My god.

  Teddy: What's left of our camp...

  Jimbo: ...a tornado ripped through.

  Teddy: Was it only one bear?

  Brad: We've got blood debts here.

  (Hunters silenced, remembering their terror, bend shakily retrieving the scattered pieces of their mighty hunt)

  Teddy: There's my rifle!

  Jimbo: Feels spooky up here.

  Brad: Just don't get comfortable.

  (The men load their weapons)

  Jimbo: Comfortable? Not pissing likely.

  Teddy: Lookit, there's our beer.

  Jimbo: Jeezuz. they're all exploded.

  Teddy: Break me out a fresh beer, Brad.

  Brad: What beer? We're on the way.

  Jimbo: Jeez, take a breather. I'm starving.

  Teddy: Me too. You bring food, Jimbo?

  Jimbo: Didn't you?

  Teddy: What?

  Brad: You gonna sit waiting on Bloody to come get you?

  Jimbo: You mean we got nothing?

  Brad: We gotta cross over.

  Teddy: Nothing?!

  (A sharp caw goes up)

  Brad: Load up!

  Jimbo: What do we have to prove? We're safe out of town.

  Teddy: With no food? Not even water?

  Brad: We gotta surprise him. Get 'em both.

  Jimbo: Nobody's chasing us!

  Teddy: This is crazy.

  Brad: You can't feel it? Jawea's here.

  Jimbo: Sit down a minute, Brad.

  Teddy: I’m not scared of her. It's that damn bear.

  Brad: You better be scared. She's here. Same way she drifted into that clearing like she was nothing but a doe. We're trapped. Don't you get it? We're hacked raw by this spook mountain. Every way we turn, it's grabbing us, it's heaving up out of cracks to choke off our life. Only thing we can do is slaughter that bear. Gotta take him while we've still got breath. That's the only thing! It's him or us. That bear's mocking us!

  Jimbo: Brad.. Sit down.

  Brad: You think I'm crazy? I’ve never been so clear. When I got home to Sally alive, and Lena so happy again, I thanked God for giving me another chance. We could fly! But then I turned...and saw my life die in the face of that squaw. What am I supposed to do? (Brad breaks down, sobbing freely) I'd never harm Lena...or Sally, God, little Sally, Christ help me. I'd kill that squaw to stop her telling Lena what happened to her on this mountain. But she's saving my child. Sally's alive because of her. How do I get out of that? What is she doing to me? Why? To take everything away?! How am I supposed to find my way back down.

  Jimbo: Easy, Brad. Easy. It'll be all right.

  Brad: You guys owe me. You owe me your lives. Twice over.

  Jimbo: We know that, boy. We're with you. Right, Teddy?

  Teddy: (Scared) Sure. Sure we are, Brad.

  Brad: I gotta cross this line. I gotta feel who I am. I gotta take Blood White. Now!

  (Hunched together, weapons ready, invasion style, Brad leads– they cross the line into Blood White's world. Sharp shift in sound. Spirit echo surrounds, etching natural sound, like intense detail of a peyote high. Each has his own response to spirit-touch)

  Brad: (Whispering, excited) Look. At the branches. Against the sky. Each needle...

  Jimbo: (Jerks his gun toward every place he sees something move) Watch out!

  Brad: Each one breathing. Sparkling like fire.

  (Teddy looks round, sucking loud breaths, as he hyperventilates from fear)

  Teddy: I don't know, I don't know...

  Brad: It's so beautiful...

  (On Brad's oddly ecstatic moan, he climbs on; Jimbo jerks after him, while Teddy, disoriented, stumbles off another way. Swirling spirit sound: from here on characters flow through each other's space.