Gray Magic

by Sarah Dreher

  Laura Yazzie shook her head. "This is the first time I've been out this far since..."

  Siyamtiwa smiled at her. "Afraid you might find where you left your soul?"

  "Maybe," Laura said. She turned back to Stoner. "You've seen him. Does he look White to you?"

  Stoner shrugged. "He's kind of brown, but... to tell you the truth, I couldn't tell for sure if he's brown from the sun, or a mostly White Native American, or..."

  Laura Yazzie threw up her hands. "Never mind."

  "Has a Dineh name," Siyamtiwa offered.

  "But he might have just taken that name," Stoner said. "People do that all the time."

  Siyamtiwa sighed and shook her head. "Crazy people."

  "So maybe it's not really magic at alL" Stoner found herself laughing with relief. "Maybe Begay takes a Navajo name so the Indians will trust him and he can exploit them. Then he hears about this Ya Ya medicine bundle, and knows a good thing when it crosses his path. If he can find it, he can sell it to a collector. He sees Siyamtiwa and me together, realizes that she's Hopi and probably knows where the bundle is, and takes Gwen to get to Siyamtiwa through me. He holds her hostage, and the ransom is the location of the bundle." She laughed again. "See? It explains everything."

  "Everything," Laura said, "except your funny feeling and ghosts and the Ya Ya sickness and coyotes that call you awake in the middle of the night and dolls that look like you." She doodled on her paper bag. "That certainly does clear it up, all right."

  "Oh, "said Stoner.

  Siyamtiwa crossed her arms over her chest. "I say Green-eyes is right, but it is also more than a money thing. It is a powaqa thing."

  Stoner waited for her to go on. She didn't. "So that's it? That's the sum and substance of your explanation?"

  Laura made another doodle. "Stoner, in the times you've seen Larch Begay, have you noticed anything wrong with his eyes?"

  "He probably watches too much television. Or maybe it's hay fever, or he drinks too much."

  "Explain that,” Siyamtiwa said.

  "His eyes are red and runny and sore-looking. Why?"

  "Powaqa," Siyamtiwa said. "Two-Heart."

  Laura Yazzie nodded. “Skin-walker."

  "I beg your pardon?" Stoner asked.

  The two Indian women began talking rapidly in Navajo or Hopi or both.

  Laura turned to her at last. "The Dineh believe sorcerers can see in the night, like animals. They use their animal spirits to do magic. But it affects their eyes."

  "Powaqa, too," Siyamtiwa said, "change shape, become animals. Have the heart of man, and the heart of animal. Two- Heart."

  Stoner raked her hand through her hair. ''Well, surely that's only metaphysical..."

  "When powaqa walk in animal form, most often become wolf. Next most often coyote.” She nodded abruptly and leaned back in the chair, as if that ended the discussion.

  "You think that coyote that's been prowling around here is Larch Begay?" Stoner asked. "That's ridiculous!"

  Siyamtiwa narrowed her eyes. ''Why ridiculous?"

  "Because... people can't change themselves into animals."

  "You have werewolf. Vampire."

  "Those are stories."

  "Okay." The old woman got up. "You don't want to believe, don't believe. I got other things to do."

  Laura Yazzie stopped her. "Grandmother, we need her." She turned to Stoner . "And you need us. So why don't we all make an effort to see things from one another's point-of-view?"

  "Ha!" Siyamtiwa said sharply. "For three hundred years we have looked from the pahana point-of-view. Time we tried something better."

  Laura sighed. "You're a stubborn old woman, Grandmother. My grandmother said it, my mother said it, and I say it. And I also say there's trouble in this place, and we can't solve anything by fighting among ourselves."

  Siyamtiwa stood her ground, silent, arms folded, looking out into the night.

  Stoner decided she'd better make the first move. "Siyamtiwa, friend, please forgive me."

  The old woman glanced over her shoulder, mouth turned down like a crescent moon resting on its points.

  "I know I was rude. But I'm frightened. Everything is strange here. I don't understand it. My good friend nearly died, and now my lover... Grandmother, please don't turn away from me."

  Siyamtiwa looked closely into her eyes, searching for lies. She nodded, and went back to the table. ''We will look at what we know, see if it makes a picture."

  Stoner looked at Laura.

  Laura Yazzie looked at Stoner.

  They both looked at Siyamtiwa.

  "I say this," the old woman began. "There is here the White man's greed. But there is more. Back in the old days, before we learned to read the truth in the White man's heart, we shared many of our secrets. Now people know things it is dangerous for them to know. I think this Begay has learned enough of sorcery that he knows the bundle will give him great Power. If he finds the bundle, he will know how to use it." She turned to Stoner. "This is why you must stop him."

  “Why me?" Stoner asked. It seemed like a reasonable question.

  "You were chosen."

  “Who chose me?"

  Siyamtiwa shrugged. "I was told. I made the doll. You saw it."

  "But..."

  "Maybe because he's White, and you're White," Laura Yazzie said. "You might have that in common. Or maybe because, being a lesbian, you don't let men into your heart to mess up your head. Or for some other reason we'll never know. Does it really matter?"

  Stoner ran her finger around the top of her coffee cup, and remembered it was a gesture she had picked up from Gwen. “I guess not, as long as nothing happens to..."

  "She will be okay," Siyamtiwa interrupted, "if we do this thing properly." She stood up. "You come with me. Things you gotta learn."

  "But..."

  The old woman snatched up Gwen's necklace. "This is the challenge. We got four days to get ready."

  “Why four days?"

  "That's how it is."

  "But what if this was a normal everyday kidnapping? What if he asks for ransom? And what's going to happen to Gwen in those four days?"

  Laura Yazzie pressed her shoulder gently. "Don't worry. I'll be here all the time. If he wants ransom, he can deliver the message to me. Meanwhile, I'll let our brothers in the Tribal Police know Mr. Begay bears watching. I know where to find you now that I know what Siyamtiwa is. We won't let anything happen to Gwen."

  ''What do you mean, know what Siyamtiwa is?"

  Siyamtiwa moved toward the door. "You come now."

  "But if I can't stop him, if he gets the bundle..."

  "Trouble," Siyamtiwa said. "Long time trouble. Could be very bad."

  "And what if I'm not ready in four days?"

  "I think he will kill your friend, and then he will kill you. Because you stand between him and me, and I am the one he wants."

  "But why didn't he go after you directly?"

  "He knows my power is too great for him,"Siyamtiwa said simply. "1 am born to the Fog Clan."

  "The Fog Clan," Laura Yazzie explained, "were the old Ya Ya clan."

  "Then why don't you..."

  "Because I am old and tired," Siyamtiwa snapped. "My power cannot help me to walk across the desert, or stay awake through the night, or think like a White man."

  "I can't think like a man, either. I'm a woman."

  "You do better than I do."

  She felt trapped. "But why me? Why Gwen? We don't know anything about all of this. We came out here for a vacation, and all of a sudden we're in the middle of something I don't even understand. We don't know anything about Ya Yas and powaqas, and I'm not Shirley MacLaine, even if the doll does look..."

  "If you were Shirley MacLaine," Siyamtiwa interrupted, "you would do what I say and know it is right. You wouldn't argue, or ask questions all the time."

  Stoner pushed herself away from the table. "This whole thing is crazy. Why should I trust you?"

  "Because this woman," Laur
a Yazzie said, and gestured toward Siyamtiwa, "is not like anyone you have ever met, or will ever meet again. Because you should be honored to do as she asks." She held up Gwen's necklace. "And because of this."

  Suddenly she didn't care. Didn't care about Ya Yas or strange sicknesses, or Skinwalkers, or Two-Hearts. She wanted Gwen, and she'd do anything to get her, and if it didn't make sense...

  "I'll get my things," she said, and ran from the trading post, down the path to the bunkhouse.

  It was a mistake. Gwen's presence was everywhere in the room. Her clothes, the plaid shirts and light khaki slacks and worn, pale jeans, her rain coat, her pajamas—all smelled of her. The pillow on her side of the bed bore the imprint of her head. Her toothbrush lay on the dresser. The book she had been reading was turned face down on the bedside table, her reading glasses marking her place.

  Anything could be happening to her, out there in the dark.

  I might never see her again.

  Or I could look out the door and there she'd be, ambling up the road, wondering what the fuss was about, laughing her velvet laugh, saying "My goodness, Stoner, I only went for a little walk..."

  But it wasn't a little walk. It was hours ago, and Larch Begay had returned the necklace, and ...

  Anxiety paralyzed her, and made her want to run.

  She couldn't just stand there. She pressed her face against the east window, searching for a hint of morning.

  Out among the buttes and mesas, a coyote sang.

  In her heart she knew it was Larch Begay.

  The squeak of the screen door made her blood race. She whirled around. "Gwen?"

  Siyamtiwa stood in the doorway, books in her hand. "Only me," she said. "I got something to show you."

  Stoner held the door for her.

  The old woman placed the books carefully on the bed. "You see this?" She held up Walking in the White Man's Shoes. "You have touched this book. Your spirit energy is on it." She turned to the inside back cover. "This is me. Mary Beale." She opened the photo album to the pictures of Maria Hernandez. "This is also me, Maria Hernandez. Now you understand?"

  Stoner looked at the photos. "1 suspected this, but it didn't..."

  "So you know this thing is not just about you and me, Green-eyes. Or about the Two-Heart. It is about magic."

  "I suppose."

  "Laura Yazzie says I gotta tell you everything. I think maybe she is right, even if she is a Headpounder."

  Stoner smiled weakly. "It would be helpful."

  "You try to keep an open mind, okay?"

  Stoner nodded.

  "If you don't understand, pretend you do. Maybe you get used to it."

  "All right."

  "A long time ago when the People came up into the Fourth World—this world—Masau said they had to go in all directions and then they could come home and live on the Black Mesa land. But before that some of them were living over by Canyon de Chelly and they had a hard time because the rain had gone away so nothing grew and they had to eat wild grain. They were very hungry. One day a girl went to look for grain and she found a lot but the place was too far away so she had to be there all night. In the dark a man came and gave her meat and stayed with her but they didn't have relations.

  "The girl went home the next day, and after a while she had a baby. People looked at her sideways, but she knew she hadn't had relations and her parents knew it, too. They called the little baby Siliomomo and he was Yucca Plant Clan because of his mother.

  "One day Siliomomo went to hunt and there was the place where his mother had met the strange man, and the man came and took him to where there were lots of people in the kivas. They went down in the kivas and the people put on different animal skins and they were those animals. And he told him they got their power from animals and they called it Ya Ya power because when Somaikoli—who is the chief Ya Ya God—when he comes around everyone says, 'Yah-hi-hi. Ya-hi-hi!' So Siliomomo made a ceremony of the Ya Ya and everywhere his clan went there were animals to hunt and help them.

  "By the time they got to Walpi, over on Black Mesa, the Ya Ya ceremony belonged to the Fog Clan. They could go around and you wouldn't see them because they knew how to make fog come around them. They could see in the dark and make things move across the room and walk over fire without getting burned. People say they could jump off the top of the mesa and land at the bottom and be okay, but I never saw that so I don't know if it's true.

  "There was a lot of power in the Ya Ya. Lot of magic. But then some people wanted to do bad stuff with it and everybody got afraid so they made them stop the ceremony and the ones that wouldn't stop, they made them leave. But first they took all the fetishes and the pahos and baskets and other stuff and put them in a cave and that's what Begay wants to find." She looked at Stoner. "So now you understand?"

  "Perfectly," Stoner said a little wildly. "It clears it all up."

  Siyamtiwa got to her feet. "Good. We go now."

  "But I don't know how to fight powaqa," Stoner protested.

  "Not hard. Just a brave heart."

  She cringed. "I don't have a brave heart. I never had a brave heart. Even my blood is yellow."

  "That's okay," Siyamtiwa said. ''We fix."

  "I don't know if I want to be fixed. I mean, maybe the smartest thing about me is my natural inclination to run like hell in the face of danger."

  "You ready to go now?" Siyamtiwa started for the door.

  Stoner buried her face in her hands. "We only wanted a vacation."

  Siyamtiwa grunted. "Life gave you lemons. Make lemonade."

  She felt as if the entire inside of her body was populated by hyperactive centipedes. "I have to pack. What do I need?"

  "Everything you need, I got."

  "If I have to stay overnight, I want a change of underwear." Stoner realized she sounded ridiculous. "And my toothbrush. I won't go without my toothbrush. And my knapsack, and first aid kit..." She knew she was stalling. "And clean socks."

  "Okay."

  Great. Now that I've agreed to get myself killed, or worse, she's all generosity. “Will I need a book?"

  "Book?"

  "To read. In case I have time on my hands."

  “We only got four days. No time on your hands."

  "Can I be ready in four days?"

  "Maybe," Siyamtiwa said with a shrug. "Maybe not."

  "Stop that! Don't tell me maybe-maybe not. I need to know the truth."

  "The truth," said Siyamtiwa placidly, "is maybe, maybe not."

  Stoner sighed. ''Well, will I need my pocket knife?"

  "Is this a magic knife?"

  "No, it's a Swiss Army knife. Aunt Hermione gave it to me for Christmas."

  "Better bring that. Maybe she put magic in it."

  Stoner stuffed a few belongings into her knapsack. “I guess that's it."

  "You're gonna need the doll.”

  "Right." She looked over at the dresser. The doll was gone. She pulled out the drawers, searched the floor. "I don't understand. It's been here all along."

  "Maybe your Gwen took it."

  Stoner shook her head. "I doubt it." She searched under the bed, the closet floor, her suitcase. "It's not here."

  "This is not good."

  “Well," Stoner said,"I didn't expect you to give me a medal.”

  "Anybody else been in your room?"

  She started to deny it then remembered the afternoon. So long ago. "Jimmy Goodnight."

  “What is a Jimmy Goodnight?"

  "Larch Begay's friend."

  Siyamtiwa turned on her heel and stomped out the door and off through the darkness toward Long Mesa, muttering to herself in Hopi.

  Stoner, hurrying after her, knew better than to ask her what she was saying. She knew it wasn't good.

  TEN

  Purple dawn lightened to red, then yellow. Night chill clung to rocks and shadows. Stoner panted and stumbled her way up the steep slope. It seemed as if they had been walking for days, always uphill. Siyamtiwa's pace never lessened or q
uickened. She was a machine.

  Maybe, Stoner thought, as she winced against the burning knots in her calves, she isn't human. Maybe she only tricks me into thinking she exists. Maybe this whole place is a dream, and I've blundered into the Spirit World. Maybe it rises once every hundred years, like Brigadoon.

  The ache in her side was no dream. Neither was the trembling in her knees. Her knapsack felt as if it were full of rocks. It scraped and bounced against her back. Her feet burned until she was certain she could count the stitches in her socks.

  "Go on without me," she called. ahead as she shrugged out of her knapsack and collapsed on the ground. "I'm going to die here."

  Siyamtiwa turned and padded back down the barely-visible trail. "I forget," she said as she squatted beside Stoner, "pahana don't go so much without cars."

  "And you say you're too old to walk across the desert, but I'm not?"

  Siyamtiwa smiled. "You want water?"

  Her mouth tasted like chewed aspirin. "Yes, but we didn't bring any."

  "There is water near here," Siyamtiwa said and sniffed the air. “Smell."

  "You can't smell water," Stoner protested. "Only Boston water smells."

  Siyamtiwa gripped her arm and shook i. "Smell."

  She took a deep breath. Dust. A faint suggestion of sage. Overtones of creosote. And something... cool and silver. "You're right!"

  "When I can be right and not amaze you," the old woman grumbled, "then you will have learned something."

  Stoner grinned sheepishly. "You're very patient, to put up with me like this."

  "Not patient, just old. When you're old you know things take as long as they take."

  She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. They seemed to be on top of a large mesa. Below, canyons cut deep through layers of multicolored rock as if scratched by giant claws. Clumps of vegetation sprouted here and there. A pencil-thin line, probably a dirt track, ran along the base of the cliff. None of it was familiar. She ought to be able to spot the San Francisco Mountains that dominated the desert to the west. But there were no mountains in any direction. For all she knew, they had, during the night, slipped into a parallel universe.

  "Please don't think me rude," she said to Siyamtiwa, "but how old are you?"