It was just as she’d studied in the books, in the black-and-white photographs from before the US had claimed it, before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when her people’s lands had transferred hands and none of those hands were indigenous.
It was as if she’d traveled back in time, or as if the arrow of time had whirred forward for Zuni—only without the interference of the Anglo government. Tall, multileveled, apartment-like structures constructed of rust-red earth, logs, and stones rose toward the sky, an ancient city come back from the dead. Though she knew Zuni had never been dead. The people had carried it within them, and here it was. Restored. Gone were the 7-Eleven and cheap drywall. The signs boasting clean restrooms on the side of the road. No signs at all for tourists, no tourists, no turquoise booths, no hawking the people’s art for their livelihood. The mud was tightly packed, the stone shining in sunlight. Rectangular flat-roofed terraces circled courtyards, connecting many-familied homes. It reminded her of the geometrical structure of honeycomb. From round kivas, rooms for religious ceremonies, gray-black smoke swirled and eddied through the air. Outdoor ladders connected each level of each building.
Though she didn’t recognize most of the pueblo from her own childhood, she did know well the hornos: beehive ovens made of adobe-mud and used for baking bread and other foods outdoors, which most Puebloan peoples of the Southwest had still used, including Bisabuela. When Calliope was growing up, she would watch Bisabuela building a fire inside the horno and, when the proper amount of time had passed, scooping out with a shovel all the embers and ashes and placing the bread with a large wooden paddle into the blisteringly hot horno. In the case of corn, she doused the embers with water and then used a poker to insert the corn to be steam-cooked. For gauging the temperature, she’d sweep out the fire then toss in dried corn husks. If the corn husks burnt quickly, the horno was too hot. If the husks turned golden brown, it was just right. When cooking meats, she fired it white-hot, swept the coals to the back, shoved in the meats on a tray, and sealed the smoke-hole door with mud. Calliope had once helped her cook a turkey in the horno. It took three hours and came out more succulent than any turkey she’d tasted before or since. Calliope glanced around the beehive ovens, half expecting to see Bisabuela lurking nearby, preparing some meal.
The restored village on its own would have been enough to inspire Calliope’s awe. But it wasn’t the buildings alone that made her believe the Spirits could have been alive and dwelling here. What struck her most were the people themselves. Chance had called himself and his people A’shiwi. And Calliope imagined this was what he meant. The village was bustling. It was brimming with A’shiwi. She’d read that the population of Zuni had dipped dangerously low many times after interactions with Anglos, whether Spanish conquistadors or United States settlers, whether war, famine, or smallpox. Eventually it had stabilized again. Last she had heard, despite high unemployment, poverty, and alcoholism, and even though their land had been stripped and stripped again so that the reservation finally encompassed less than seven hundred square miles, the pueblo had boasted ten thousand tribal members, 90 percent of whom lived in Zuni.
But poverty was nowhere in this Zuni. The people, like the land, had been revived.
Many men wore colorful woven shirts and pants, and many women wore mantas—brightly patterned woven dresses made of linen-like material tied over one shoulder and belted at the waist. There were men and women in jeans and boots, but still others in moccasins.
Some people waved to Chance and called out greetings in Zuni; others went about their business, largely ignoring the truck driving the dirt roads through the village.
“Did you know it would be like this?” she asked Chance.
His face was wet with tears. He shook his head, wiped his face, then pointed toward a building twenty feet ahead, gardens on the ground and flat rooftops. “I shouldn’t know this, since I’ve never been here before, not like this, but that’s my mother’s house.”
“Your mother?” Calliope didn’t see a woman or anyone outside who would differentiate the building he’d indicated from the others, but what stood out was the lush greenness and color emanating from the place. She recognized the ancient tradition of waffle gardens, sunken beds intended for water conservation in the desert: collect all the moisture you can and hold onto it for as long as you can. Each depression in the waffle would catch rainfall and hold water close to plant roots. How the crops could have grown into full shoots when the frost had ended only hours ago, Calliope added to her growing list of mysteries. Square beds teemed with corn, squash, broccoli, scallions, cilantro, and radishes.
“Her name is Malia Guardian.”
Calliope’s gaze shifted uncomfortably from the dazzling buildings to the back seat where Mara lay, her ragged breath, a low continuous wheezing. Why hadn’t Old Lady Salt helped her back at the lake?
“And what about Mara?”
“I’ll call on the ak’waamossi, medicine man, from Uhuhuukwe Medicine Society with knowledge of iwenashnaawe, which you could translate as the sucking cure.” He paused, said quietly, “As a rule, Zuni don’t treat anyone outside the tribe, not because we’re selfish, but we’ve learned the hard way that outsiders do not respect our beliefs or our methods.” He sighed. “But maybe these are extenuating circumstances. I’ll risk asking.” He bore the same troubled visage as when he’d slaughtered the first Suuke and queried the punishment for murdering a god, and Calliope sensed he was risking much more than he was willing to admit by bringing her and her friends here, allowing them into his sacred world.
Mara’s raspy voice, “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - / The Stillness in the Room / Was like the Stillness in the Air - / Between the Heaves of Storm -” As she coughed through the recitation, phlegm gathered at the folds of her mouth, peeling and chapped. “Dickinson.”
“You haven’t died,” Calliope said.
“Want to bet?”
Calliope thought of Amy’s lifeless body in the back of the truck. Whether or not this was the Spirit world, they were not dead, at least, not yet.
They climbed out of the truck, Eunjoo holding Calliope’s hand, Chance carrying the old woman. At the wooden door atop the steps of the house, a woman with warm, rose-brown skin appeared. She wore a cobalt-blue dress and woven slippers, her hair dark save wisps of silver at her hairline, clipped back with turquoise barrettes. Crow’s feet marked her laugh lines, and her square mahogany eyes were friendly. In her hands she held a bowl of soft corneal mush. She exclaimed, “Aktsek’i. You’re home. I knew you would come.”
“Tsitda. I’m home.”
Calliope felt a pang at the exchange between mother and son, though she was glad for the warm welcome.
“Tsitda,” he said, gesturing from his mother to Calliope, “This is my hom:il’ona … and her family.”
Calliope shot him a questioning look, and he nodded reassuringly.
“Son, you got married again? And a baby on the way!”
He didn’t answer but smiled broadly, his whole face aglow, while Calliope’s stomach lurched and her eyes widened. She tried to mask the surprise on her face, but couldn’t. She stared again at Chance, whose eyes narrowed at her, silently asking her to play along. She pasted a smile to her face as he introduced her to his mother, and as she reached out to shake the woman’s hand, Malia embraced her, the bowl of cornmeal pressed against Calliope’s back. His mother pulled away, still grasping Calliope’s arms and looking into her eyes, then spoke softly and quickly in Zuni.
Chance said, “She doesn’t speak Zuni. Only English and Spanish.”
Mother/son spoke in Zuni, and Calliope understood from their glances toward Eunjoo they were discussing the girl. Finally, Malia nodded and invited them inside. The walls were whitewashed, the tall ceilings supported with hand-hewn beams. Chance carried Mara off to another part of the house, while Malia offered them a wooden bench at the large table where she�
�d been cooking. She brought them clay cups of water.
After gulping the water down completely and asking for a second cup, Calliope asked, “Do you know why or how this is happening? Did you see the flash here in Zuni?”
Whether Malia would have answered, Calliope couldn’t know, for Chance had returned, his arms empty, and interjected, “Tsitda, the babies are coming. Old Lady Salt gave us her blessing, and Calliope is well now, but you should have seen before, at Ma:k’yayanne. She was bleeding in a bad way. I was terrified and asked Salt Lady for help. I knew it would be well once I brought hom:il’ona to you.”
Malia nodded, but her expression darkened, worry lines creasing her forehead. “I’ll get our Suski:kwe, the women are upstairs. We’ll do this for you and your bride, and your babies. But tell me, Aktsek’i: have you encountered ko’ko on your journey here? Was anything bad for you coming home?”
He sighed deeply, ran his hands through his silky black hair. The muscles in his jaw clenched. He looked at his mother, his eyes darker and more troubled than hers. “You know, Tsitda. Don’t you?”
She wrung her hands on a cloth, wiping the cornmeal from her fingers. “I hoped it wasn’t so.”
“Will the Elders speak with me?”
“You must, yes. But not yet.”
He nodded, and she pulled her son toward her, held him against her, kissed his cheek. When she stepped back, she had tears in her eyes, but said briskly, “Come. There’s much to be done. Hotda/Granddaughter, come with me.”
Eunjoo followed Malia up the ladder, but turned back, whispering, “Don’t leave me, Phoenix’s mama.”
Calliope smiled. “Never, chica.”
Once they were alone, Calliope turned toward Chance. “Well?”
“Lo siento, mujer. I had to say something. I thought of the risk. It wasn’t worth it. If my clan couldn’t or wouldn’t help you—what then? I had to tell her you were family.”
“What did you call me, when you introduced me? Your hom:il’ona.” The word felt spongy as cornmeal in her mouth.
His face and ears reddened, and he looked at the ground. “It means the one who has me.”
She stared at him trying to decipher her reaction. It was part of his plan, to make sure she was cared for. Right? She felt the familiar pang in her pelvis and back, pain radiating down her thighs. She bent forward, breathing rapidly.
“We came just in time. You’ll be safe now.”
After the contraction passed, she asked, “What did you tell her about Eunjoo and Mara?”
“Your daughter from a previous marriage, and your aunt.”
Calliope sighed. She was accustomed to ignoring his instructions. But this was his home, his people. She sensed his reasons were stronger than her impulse to argue. His mother thought they were married, that these twins were his. How would that affect her search for Andres? And Phoenix? For now at least, she had to pretend. Once she gave birth, she was free to leave.
“Está bien? You’ll stay then and let my family take care of you?”
She nodded.
He leaned forward, kissed her forehead. “Thank you, mujer.”
She clutched his hand, as if for balance, though she was the one sitting. She ached with confusion, or the salt miracle was fading.
“Chance … are you in trouble?”
He squeezed her hand. Kissed her again. “It’ll be alright, mujer. I still have a promise to keep, recuerdas?” He let go, stood back. “Now, I’ll go find the medicine man.”
She had one more question before he left. “What’s your clan’s name? Your mother said it in Zuni, but I didn’t understand.”
He smiled, his eyes sparkling. “Check your pocket, mujer. I already told you.”
She reached for the figurine he’d whittled for her.
By the time she held the wooden Coyote in her hand, he was already out the door.
TWENTY-EIGHT
GOOD LUCK MOTHER
Calliope alternated lying and squatting on a mattress on Malia’s floor, atop a pile of thick blankets, the women of the Coyote clan gathered around her, Eunjoo at the wooden table with several other children and women, eating corn cakes, fried-chicken parts, tamales, noodles, red-chile sauce, and ice-cold watermelon water. Normally it would have smelled delicious, and Calliope imagined she was famished, but her contractions had returned full force, churning her stomach. She sipped water and tried to breathe. They’d given her a dress to wear, lightweight and loose against her body, and it stuck to her skin with sweat.
In the hours she’d been in labor, Calliope had learned from the women that being around dying people or animals was unhealthy for mother and babies; she had to take care not to fall victim to witchcraft over the next several hours and days, when the veil to the Spirit world was thinnest, as was the case with childbirth. Wowo łashhi, Chance’s great-grandmother, had made a hot tea of toasted juniper twigs and berries steeped in boiling water to relax the system and induce copious lochial discharge. Malia was a midwife, and she put a badger’s claw on a string around Calliope’s belly because the badger was good at digging his way out, and the badger was also good medicine for labor pains. Nala, one of Chance’s sisters, told Calliope that Zuni women were expected not to cry or yell during childbirth but that since Calliope wasn’t Zuni, she could cry if she needed to and they wouldn’t think less of her. Malia told Nala not to be disrespectful to her sister-in-law, and Calliope felt like crying, but not with pain.
Chance had returned only to fetch Mara and take her to the Medicine Society. Calliope had asked after Amy’s body. He said he would prepare her for burial, not to concern herself with death. It wasn’t good in her condition. Since Zuni men rarely attended childbirth, he said, it wasn’t his place. But he’d come once the twins arrived. Them, he wanted to meet.
The women comforted Calliope with stories, and once they knew she was delivering twins, they shared their sacred creation story with her, for it centered on their two most beloved twins. On two towering buttes called Kwilli-yallon (Twin Mountain) dwelt Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma—twin children of Sun Father and Mother Waters of the World. Before the A’shiwi came from the belly of the earth, the underworld, Sun made love to Waters of the World, and two boys came from their union. They were called Uanam Achi Piah-koa, or the Beloved Two Who Fell. The time came when war and many strange beings arose to destroy the children of earth, and the hearts of the twins were changed to Sawanika, or the medicine of war. The twins guarded the Ancient Ancestors and guided them to the middle of the world, where Calliope was now lying.
Nala said, “With the gift of the medicine of war and wisdom of the Sun, the twins protected the Corn People of the Earth—that’s us.” She stretched her arms to indicate everyone in the room. “When they’d conquered the enemies, they taught a chosen few the songs, prayers, and orders.” She wrinkled her nose, winking at Calliope. “They don’t usually select girls, but every once in a while, a girl slips by and gets into a kiva.”
Calliope liked Nala, she could tell. Or at least, if Calliope were not doubled over with the feeling that her ass was about to split open and the whole of the cosmos was going to come quivering out of her, she would have liked Nala. The young woman had a round, flat nose, and she kept her dark hair cropped short with a fringe of thick bangs, which made her face appear as a heart. Curved and shapely, but still babyish in the face, Calliope guessed she must have been seventeen or eighteen. She was lovely.
“The twins are the morning stars,” Nala said. “In Zuni, all twins are good luck. So you must be a good luck mother.”
This was not how Calliope would have described herself, but she tried embracing it, the warrior in a yogi’s warrior pose. She squatted, her legs pressed against the mattress, rooting to the earth. She bore down. She leaned against Nala, who supported her weight while Malia stood behind and pressed her abdomen, kneading it with great vigor. Tears of pain flowi
ng freely, Calliope breathed deeply as the urge to push asserted itself again and again, rocking her as when the labor had been false, but this time with a midwife, Chance’s mother, and all the women of his Coyote clan surrounding her, she was ready. Then the splitting. Her body cleaved from within, so that even her ribs, her lungs, her throat, felt ripped apart, the children inside her cesarean-slicing her, shedding her like snake skin, as if she were the costume and they the real thing. They would kill her to be born. The dress the clan had given her, the color of creamed corn, clung to her sweaty skin. She was a summer sidewalk, a broken cactus, oozing. She pleaded, Bisabuela hold me. Nala whispered, “Good luck, mother, you can do this.”
Calliope was exhausted.
Between her legs, the first baby slid, a slick eel.
Malia grasped the baby tightly, said, “A girl.”
The first girl was screaming. A good sign. Healthy lungs.
Chance’s great-grandmother cut the cord with a steel knife. An aunt brought a woven basket from the table of food to Malia, who dabbed the detached umbilical cord with raw fat and dough. Still breathing raggedly and sweating, Calliope asked what the dough was, and Malia answered, “Unbaked bread.” Calliope smiled, though she didn’t understand. She would ask Chance later.
The first girl was sprinkled with cornmeal.
Beneath the yellowish flakes, the downy fuzz on her head shone black as night. Calliope thought of Andres.
And how every woman in the room believed this girl belonged to Chance.
Still dizzy and dehydrated, Calliope meant to ask for water when the second pain cleaved her in two.
She wasn’t ready; she needed a rest, needed time before pushing out the other child.
The world blurred.
Nala’s face was no longer lovely but a fuzzy mass of shapes, and monstrous.
Trinity Sight Page 22
