The Gathering

by Sharon Sala

  He didn’t know whether to circle their village and keep going, or if he should confront them. Then he decided to make that decision after they found them and saw the size of their camp. If he had a choice, he would turn around and go back to Spain with the bad news that all was lost and hope the King was disenchanted with the idea and give it up.

  He was still listening to the drums when he fell asleep.

  ***

  While Tyhen and the New Ones were anxious to reach their destination, the ones already there were also anxious for the arrival of The Dove. The first ones who’d left their tribe to begin the journey to the Gathering were people from the Ojibwe tribe.

  Their medicine man had visions for days of a medicine woman coming among the People who carried a message for all of the tribes. In his vision, it was the white doves that would signal her arrival and when the doves appeared to them they were to pack up their entire camp and follow the birds.

  At first the people were not agreeable. It was nearing winter, not a time to be traveling, and a medicine woman was unusual. They did not want to hear her message. But the medicine man persisted and the moment the white doves appeared in their camp they realized his predictions were coming true. If the birds were real, then his message must be important, too, so they packed up their entire village, except for those too old to make the trek, and began following the birds. Every night they would make camp near the trees where the doves stopped to roost, and every morning they would get up and follow the birds in flight.

  Their journey was long and arduous and there were some who wanted to quit and go back, but the medicine man insisted and the chief gave the orders and so they kept walking until the morning when they woke up and the white birds were gone. That’s when they knew they’d reached their destination.

  Soon after the arrival of the Ojibwe, a group from the Tuscarora showed up, and after them were the Nez Perce, and then Osage and Iowa, and Tlingit from the north. Sauck and Fox tribal members arrived and added their numbers to the growing encampment, and then came the Navajo and Pueblo, along with the Seminole who arrived with their colorful feather headdresses and walk-weary feet.

  Within another week, members of the Chickasaw, Abenaki and the Caddo, the Creek and the Crow, the Iowa and the Hidatsu, the Mandan and the Pequot were added to the mix as more came flooding in each day.

  Cultures clashed. Old enemies were camped next to each other. When the Comanche came into the camp, they did a lot of strutting and glaring at tribes they had been at war with for generations until the Lakota arrived and the tribes began to realize this had nothing to do with who was best and who was right.

  The Lakota came in a downpour, exhausted, sick and most without anything but the clothes on their backs. They’d lost everything in crossing the great river that, in the time of the New Ones, had been called the Mississippi.

  That was when the meaning of the Gathering began to become real. Tribes that would have once fought them were now taking them into their tipis and giving them shelter. Healers came to minister to the sick, and the day the first one died was the day everything changed. It was no longer us and them, it was we.

  When the Washo and Yuma tribes arrived within a couple of days of each other, the encampment had shifted to establish a kind of order. Pathways between camps and tribal dwellings were purposefully left open to point the way toward the river. Hunters went out daily on the vast plains and brought down deer and rabbits, while others hunted down many of the great wooly beasts to help feed the growing multitudes.

  Those with visions continued to swear the Dove was coming, but they did not know how close she was until a cold fall morning after a two-day rain.

  ***

  It was at least an hour before daybreak when a young boy from within the Comanche camp emerged from a tipi to relieve himself. Although the sky was turning lighter, the sun had yet to emerge from her blanket of sleep. The stream of the boy’s urine was warmer than the air that he was breathing, causing a tiny cloud of steam as it hit the ground below his feet. He could see his breath as he inhaled and exhaled, and was wondering what his mother would have for them to eat when he heard what sounded like a deep grunt and then a bellow. The sound carried across the silent encampment, bringing more people out from their tipis.

  When they heard it again, they looked to the east where the land made a slow upward sweep to the highest point around them. There, silhouetted against the approaching day stood a single buffalo.

  At first, all they could see was a silhouette, but they could tell by size alone that it was a massive beast, and because this was unnatural behavior, some began to fear that they were about to be engulfed by a stampeding herd and ran back for weapons.

  More and more people began to come out until the encampment was awash in people—so many that their breath in the cold morning air had formed a low-hanging cloud above their heads. They were still watching the solitary beast when the sun broke the horizon in a quick flash of light. Every minute afterward the light swept further across the land, across the river and then the camp, and finally illuminating the snow white coat on the solitary beast.

  They gasped in unison and took a few steps back as the reality of what they were seeing began to spread.

  It was a most sacred omen—a white buffalo, and an old medicine man was the first to speak.

  “It is a sign! The Dove will be here soon. Make ready to receive those who come with her,” he said, and his word spread throughout the camp.

  And so it began.

  While hunters began going after more food, others were gathering buffalo chips and making twists of the dry prairie grass to help them set up their cooking fires. As for the rest of them, the drumbeats grew louder—the singers’ cries more strident. They were calling her to them.

  ***

  Tyhen woke with a start, her heart beating in time to the drums she could hear pounding in her head. In a panic, she crawled over Yuma to get out of the tent, waking him in the process.

  Thinking something was wrong, he grabbed his spear and followed her, but once he was outside and saw the still, watchful expression on her face, his anxiety eased.

  It was almost daylight. The sky in the east was already lighter and the chill of the air made smoke where she breathed. She shook her head, uncertain of what was happening, and then felt a wind come sweeping down the valley, stirring the ashes of the dying fires and lifting the hair from the back of her neck. It was then she heard the voices of the Old Ones.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Something comes with the sun,” she said.

  Within moments, Adam and Evan were out of their tent. They’d had the same awakening and were also looking east.

  And so they stood, all of them waiting for an unknown messenger while the sky turned pale, taking on a tinge of yellow followed by a wash of pink and purple like the orchids that had grown in the jungles of her childhood.

  When the sun came over the horizon, she watched the landscape before her come alive, painting the surface of the tall grass with a light that turned the grass to a moving sea of molten gold, undulating with the wind, awash in ever-changing hues.

  One moment there was nothing on the hill and then the next time she looked, it was there.

  Yuma gasped. The white buffalo was a powerful messenger.

  “It is white!” Tyhen said.

  “The white buffalo is powerful medicine to the People and is considered holy,” Yuma answered.

  She stepped away from him then, and when he started to follow, she lifted her arms to the sky and let the wind carry her up the hill, leaving him behind.

  The moment her feet touched earth in front of the bull, she felt the blood rushing through the animal’s body and smelled the musky scent rising from the heat of its thick white wooly hump. The great white bull snorted softly as she looked into his eyes. Then she laid a hand on its h
ead and heard the message from the Old Ones that it carried in its heart.

  Yuma was watching intently, wondering what was transpiring between them when it suddenly disappeared before his eyes.

  Tyhen was just as startled. One moment it was there, and then it was gone and all she could think was that at least she knew what came next.

  She looked down into the valley at all of the New Ones who had followed her all this way, then turned south and closed her eyes. In her mind, she could see the city of Boomerang and her mother sleeping in Cayetano’s arms. Just for a moment she wished for the comfort of Singing Bird’s touch and then she heard Yuma’s voice and turned around. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him coming up the hill—coming to her.

  In that moment, she understood. Her mother was the past and Yuma was the future. Wherever this journey continued to take her, he would always be at her side. She went down the hill to meet him, and when he gave her a questioning look, she put her arms around him and hid her face in the curve of his neck.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I love you so very much,” she said softly.

  Something in her voice made him tighten his hold.

  “Talk to me, love. What do you know that I do not?”

  She sighed.

  “I will have to pass some kind of test before the people at the Gathering will believe what we’ve come to tell them.”

  He frowned. “What kind of test?”

  “I do not know anything but that it will happen there.”

  “Nothing is ever easy for you, is it, my love?”

  She stepped back so she could see his face.

  “Loving you is easy,” she said.

  Yuma’s voice softened. “Every sad thing that has happened in my life has been worth it to be standing here with you today.”

  Tyhen knew what he’d lost and what he’d endured, and how much the New Ones had given up to do this. Her voice was shaking as she blinked back quick tears.

  “My Yuma… please tell me there will come a time in our lives when we will live in one place again and make a life and a baby together.”

  He held her close, longing for that day as well.

  “It will happen, but for now, it’s time to eat some food and pack up camp.”

  ***

  All of the New Ones were weary and needing to replenish their food. They ate as they packed while thinking of the walk ahead, most of them planning to take advantage of whatever game they came across throughout the day.

  Tyhen was putting the last of her things into her pack when she began to pick up on a disturbance somewhere within the camp. Within seconds, she got a message from Adam that confirmed it.

  The little boy called Gecko is missing.

  Her heart sank.

  “No,” she muttered, and shrugged out of her pack.

  At the sound of her voice, Yuma turned.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Gecko is missing. We have to find him,” she said.

  “Where does he camp? Who are his parents?” Yuma asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s just always around.”

  “There comes Evan. I think he’s looking for you,” Yuma said.

  Evan came running, breathless and a little bit panicked because he felt trouble for the boy that he could not see.

  “He wasn’t in his bed when they woke up,” Evan said.

  “Who are his parents?” Yuma asked.

  “He doesn’t have any. They said his parents died months ago, just after we left Naaki Chava. They died after the earthquake, when the mountain came down. Montford and Johnston’s sister, Lola, and her husband, Aaron, have been feeding him and seeing to his needs.”

  Tyhen saw the shock on Yuma’s face. She knew exactly what he was thinking. This boy was walking alone with the New Ones just as Yuma had done when he was young, when they were running from Firewalker.

  “We have to find him,” Yuma said.

  “I’m going up,” Tyhen said. “You men fan out from where their camp was. He can’t be far.”

  “Follow me,” Evan said. “I know where they camp.”

  Yuma and Evan left on the run.

  Tyhen wouldn’t let herself think of all the things that could have happened as she lifted her arms and began to chant. Within moments she was surrounded by a whirlwind and flying above the encampment.

  Chapter Seven

  Dakotah woke needing to relieve himself. Lola was asleep and so was her husband Aaron. They always told him to let them know where he was going when he left their camp, but all he needed to do was pee.

  He got up and slipped out of their tent, then quickly made his way to a less populated area of the camp to do his business.

  The air was still and he could tell by the faint light in the east that the new day was not far away.

  After he was finished, he paused a moment and glanced up at the sky, transfixed by a shooting star falling toward earth. When it burned out in mid-air, it looked to him like magic. It was there and then it was not. And then while he was still looking another star came into sight, hurtling down, down, down with the burning tail marking the way.

  Dakotah gasped. This time the star did not disappear. It was still falling. Without thinking he took a few steps away and then a few more and a few more until he was running, still watching the star. When it finally burned out he groaned in disappointment. He’d been certain that one was going to fall right out here on the prairie.

  He glanced toward the east again. The sky was getting lighter which meant the sun would be up soon and Lola would be waking and wondering where he was. He turned to walk back when he heard a growl, and then another on the other side of him and froze.

  Wolves!

  When he saw their yellow eyes watching him through the grass he began to shake. They were standing between him and safety and it was no accident. They’d cut him off—just like they did the very young and the very old buffalo that they separated from the herd. He was scared—as scared as he’d been when he’d run with his mother and father after the earthquake—as scared as he’d been when he saw part of the mountain bury his mother and father alive. The only thing that had kept him alive then was that he hadn’t stopped running and he was guessing this was one of those times again. He wanted to cry and scream for help, but something told him they would jump him before help could come.

  He thought of Tyhen. She was going to need him in the years to come, so he couldn’t die. The Old Ones had told him his path in a dream. All he could do now was hope they helped him run fast enough to get to the small grove of trees a few yards behind him. But first, he needed something to put more distance between him and the wolves and the only thing he could think of was to jump up in the air with his arms held high and make a loud, angry noise. So he did it.

  The noise was an abrupt and startling interruption into the darkness within which the trio was standing, and Dakotah was the only one who knew it was coming. As he’d hoped, the two wolves skittered sideways a good distance back and that was all the chance he needed. He pivoted on one heel and started running for those trees as fast as his long skinny legs would take him, running through the tall grass like it wasn’t even there.

  He knew when the wolves gave chase because he could hear them crashing through the grass. He knew they could outrun him, but the trees were close—so close. He thought of the landslide that crushed his mother and father and ran for his life.

  He leaped as he reached the first tree, grabbing hold of the lowest branch and using his momentum to swing himself and his legs off the ground in one motion. He clamped his arms and legs around the limb only seconds before the wolves were beneath him, snarling and snapping and leaping into the air. One grabbed onto the tail of his shirt and the weight of the wolf’s body almost made him lose his grasp.
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  “No!” he screamed, and frantically worked the loose deerskin shirt over his head.

  The moment he was no longer in it, the wolf fell to the ground with the shirt in its mouth and Dakotah began climbing up as fast as the gecko for which he’d been named.

  Now the wolves couldn’t climb up, but he couldn’t get down. He began yelling for help, expecting at any moment to see people come swarming over the hill, but when he looked up, he was stunned to see how far away he was. That’s when he remembered chasing after the falling stars. He yelled again and again, and then in a panic, imagining the New Ones breaking camp and going off without him, he screamed.

  Below, the wolves were still circling the tree, and to his horror, three more came out of the grass to join them.

  As it began to get a little lighter, he saw something black dripping on the limbs and then he realized his back and arm were burning. When he realized the black dripping on limbs was his blood he panicked again. He’d been bitten, probably when they’d grabbed his shirt. Without knowing how bad he was wounded, he wondered if he would bleed to death. The horror of his situation kept growing. In desperation, he began calling for help again.

  “Help me! Help me!” he cried, yelling it over and over until his throat was raw.

  The frantic tone of his voice sent the wolves into a snarling frenzy. They began jumping up and then circling the tree, growling at him and then fighting among themselves. By now there were so many wolves he could not keep track of their number.

  He gripped the tree a little tighter and held on while the sun came over the horizon, casting a horrific light onto the danger of his situation. He called out until his voice was gone and he was beginning to get dizzy.

  To his horror, it felt as if the land was rolling all around him. Fearing he would roll out of the tree, he wrapped his arms and legs around the trunk and closed his eyes.