Beauty for Ashes

by Win Blevins

  Bell Rock asked blessings on various groups of people, the unborn, the young, the mothers, the old—Sam didn’t remember all of the ones the medicine man made supplications for.

  H-i-s-s-s! Sam flopped sideways and put his nose to the ground. I’m not going to make it.

  Later he remembered nothing of what Bell Rock said after this third pour.

  When the lodge felt a little less hot, Sam sat up again. He was glad Bell Rock couldn’t see him in the darkness.

  Finally Bell Rock called out to Blue Horse, “Take the covers off.”

  A blazing shaft of light shocked Sam’s eyes. After a moment, as the buffalo robes slid off the willow framework and onto the ground, the steam rose to the sky. Cool, delicious air curled into the lodge.

  Blue Horse brought water, and Bell Rock and Sam drank, murmuring thank-yous to the powers.

  When they had drunk enough—actually, Sam could have sucked down gallons of water—Blue Rock put the robes back on. Little by little, Sam returned in body and mind to the darkness, and the fear.

  H-i-s-s-s! This time Bell Rock spoke a long prayer. In the intense heat, and maybe his worry, Sam’s mind failed him. The Crow language suddenly sounded alien to him, and he didn’t understand what Bell Rock was saying. He tried to count the number of times the medicine man dipped into the bucket and poured. Somehow by his count there were not seven pours as promised but ten or eleven. By a fierce act of will he kept himself upright until Bell Rock cried out for Blue Horse to remove the covers.

  When Sam and the medicine man had cooled off, Blue Horse ceremoniously brought Bell Rock his sacred pipe, filled with tobacco and a plug of sage on top. This pipe wasn’t like the ones Sam had seen before. Instead of red, its bowl was of black stone, and carved into the shaggy shape of a buffalo. The stem did not have elaborate decorations, like feathers or brass studs, but was unadorned. Sam was glad it was a buffalo pipe.

  Then Bell Rock stunned Sam. He reached into the fire, picked up a red-hot coal with his bare fingers, and without hurry dropped it onto the tobacco in the bowl. He sucked, let a cloud of thick smoke float out, and with one hand brushed it onto his head. Then he lifted the pipe skyward and began to pray:

  “I offer this smoke to the east, where things begin.” After each direction he drew on the pipe and blew the smoke out. By turn, going sunwise, he invoked the south, the west, the north.

  Again he held the pipe high and touched it to the ground, to one of the lava rocks. “Sun, we make this sweat lodge for you. We seek your great power, to see many things. Great mountains, rivers great and small, I offer you this smoke. Beings above, beings in the ground, I offer you this smoke. Earth, I offer you this smoke, and I offer smoke to the willows. I ask you to let us see the next time when the leaves come out, when they are fully grown, when they turn yellow, and when they fall—may we see each of these seasons again and again for many snows. I ask that wherever we go we may find things to eat that are fat. Wherever we go, may we blacken our faces.” Sam knew that the Crows rubbed charcoal onto their faces to declare victory in battle. “Wherever we go, may the winds blow toward us.” Sam guessed this was so the game would not smell the hunter.

  “Today a young man lays before you what he saw in a dream. He cries for your help in understanding it—he cries for your help.”

  Now Bell Rock turned the pipe in a full circle and handed it to Sam. “Hold the pipe up,” he said, “then touch it to the earth. When you’re ready, cry out for the help of Sun in understanding your dream.”

  Sam did exactly as he was told. He raised the pipe to the infinite sky. He touched it to Mother Earth. He didn’t know whether he believed in what he was doing, and was even unsure what believing might mean. Then he pointed his arms and the pipe directly to the sky and declared loudly, “Sun, I cry out for your help!” Amazingly, his voice broke.

  His mind leapt in and interfered. At least you’re praying to something real, it said, the sun is real.

  Be quiet, he told his mind, and let me do my work. He threw his head far back now, far enough that the low winter sun struck his face fully, and ran down his chest. He thrust the pipe back over his head. “Sun, I cry out for your help!” His voice broke, but that was no longer amazing.

  “Offer the sun some smoke,” Bell Rock said quietly.

  Sam did, and watched in intent silence as the smoke rose through the branches of the lodge and evaporated into the blue, blue sky. Pictures from his dream rose into his mind, sharp and clear. He focused on them.

  When Sam finished smoking, Bell Rock said, “Put the covers back on.”

  Blue Horse did, and Bell Rock began the third round, the round of ten pours. This time he sang a song, a song that sounded extravagantly emotional, plaintive. Sam held the pictures of his dream in his mind, his attention entirely on them. He did pick up one phrase of the prayer several times—“Take pity on us.”

  This time Sam felt no need to lie down and reduce the heat. He lived in his dream.

  “Take the covers off!”

  This time Blue ripped them off with a big whisk, and cool air rolled onto Sam like spring rain.

  When they had drunk some water, Bell Rock said, “Now tell me what you saw of the spirit world.”

  At this Blue Horse considerately walked out of hearing.

  For a moment Sam was taken aback by these words, and couldn’t speak. Then he brought himself back to the task at hand. He told his dream, and what led up to it.

  “Before the dream, I was caught in a prairie fire. No way out—I was going to die. The animals all around me were fleeing toward the river, deer, coyotes, rabbits, mice, buffalo, everything. But the fire was on us, and they were being eaten.

  “A coyote pup, the one right outside this lodge, came scrabbling desperately for a place to hide. There was a buffalo cow I’d just shot and gutted out. The pup scratched at its slit belly, trying to get inside. Just as desperate, I took the lesson and crawled inside the cow, dragging the pup with me. That saved us. When I saw the scorched land afterwards, I knew that almost all the other four-leggeds died, and whatever two-leggeds were in the path.

  “A few days later I dreamed. I saw a buffalo cow laying on her side, and somehow she looked like she was waiting for me. She wasn’t the same cow, though. This cow was whole, healthy, waiting for me. What she wanted, I couldn’t tell. There was something special about her but I didn’t know what it was. I was simply drawn to her, powerfully drawn.

  “So, without knowing why, I laid down next to her in the dream, my back to her belly. Then it happened. I passed through her flesh into the center of her. Not just her middle, the center of everything she was.

  “I began to change, or we began to change. I became her or she became me, I didn’t know which. My hair turned into her fur. My arms reached up, my legs stretched down. I moved into her forelegs and her hind legs—my bones knitted into hers.”

  Sam looked at Bell Rock to see if the medicine man was laughing at him. Bell Rock showed no expression but high and grave attentiveness.

  “My muscles, they joined up with hers. My belly swallowed her food. Then the amazing part. My heart pumped in the same rhythm as hers, and then my heartbeat was her heartbeat, not two sounding as one, but one beat, just one. Her blood was my blood. When I breathed, I smelled buffalo breath in my own nostrils.”

  He gazed into Bell Rock’s eyes, and he could not have said what passed between the two of them.

  “Then I stood up from the buffalo cow, except I wasn’t just me. I was us. I looked around the world and wanted to set forth into it, ramble around, and I was man and buffalo.

  “I woke up. I hugged Coy close. And I said something. ‘I am Samalo.’”

  “Samalo?” It was the first question Bell Rock had asked.

  “My name, Sam, combined with the word for buffalo in English. Samalo.”

  Bell Rock nodded. He sat, saying nothing, his eyes far off. After what seemed a long while, he said, “Blue Horse, bring us some more hot rocks and put the
covers back on.”

  The fourth round, the round of uncounted pours, went on forever. Bell Rock lifted an impassioned plea to Sun, more chanted than spoken. Sam’s mind drifted into a netherworld. It felt lost, like it was floating on the steam he couldn’t see, swirling this way and that without knowable reason. Part of his mind was moved, maybe, by the Crow words and phrases—“Take pity on this young man, grant him…Heed our cries…. Send us…Reveal to us….”

  The heat came at him in waves, and he refused to lie down. A big part of mind was occupied with enduring. He told himself repeatedly that he was making this sacrifice of pain in exchange for a blessing to the spirit. And part of his mind was pleading, Let it end, let it be over.

  “Take off the covers,” yelled Bell Rock.

  Blue Horse was quick about it, maybe knowing how it felt. The air felt as good as ice in the mouth on a hot day. Sam got a picture of himself cannonballing into the deep spot in the freezing river, and loved it.

  They drank. Now Sam had lost his embarrassment, and poured four or five dipperfuls into his belly.

  Once more Bell Rock called for the sacred pipe, and they smoked.

  When they were finished, the medicine man asked, “What do you understand from this dream?”

  “Nothing,” Sam blurted out. Then he corrected himself. “I guess it means the buffalo are important to me. Maybe my connection to the buffalo, or animals in general, is important to me.”

  Bell Rock waited.

  Sam had nothing more to say.

  Finally Bell Rock spoke. “There’s a lot for you to learn here. Maybe I can guide you a little. But mainly I can help you arrive at it yourself.

  “You’re right, the buffalo are important to you. The powers have sent you a messenger that took the form of the buffalo. Only you can really understand what the messenger is telling you. I can point out some directions, but really it’s up to you.

  “From now on you should watch the buffalo for what they might be able to teach you. Watch for spirit messengers in the form of buffalo cows, yes, but also observe all ordinary buffalo. Study them, see what they do. Observe the wisdom of their everyday ways.

  “Since you’re a man, watch the bulls and what they do. For example, when they fight, the bulls are not quick, they’re big and heavy, but they never flee. A bull will fight until he wins, or he will fight until he is defeated. But one thing he won’t do—run away. You should think, maybe, whether that’s the way you ought to conduct yourself when you go into battle.

  “Remember, always look for buffalo cows that might really be messengers. If they are, listen with your heart open.

  “Also watch the eagles. Eagles often bring messages from Sun.”

  Though all this seemed overwhelming to Sam, he repeated the words in his mind and held on to them carefully.

  “Understand, the buffalo cow was sent to guide you. Animals are often people’s guides. Most Crow men, almost all of us, have seen an animal in a vision, and those are our guides, our medicine. Probably every man wears something in tribute to his guide, a claw, or tooth, or feather, maybe. Or he paints something on his body. Perhaps you should think of doing something like that. Some men who dream of buffalo make hats out of buffalo hide and horns.

  “Sometimes picture in your mind the buffalo cow of your dream. Ask her questions—maybe she will answer. Ask her for help. Listen to her without asking questions. Invite her to come to you, and just watch the way she comes, how she walks—sometimes there’s a message there. Pay attention to whatever feelings you get, and whatever words surround them. Lots of times these messages are little feathery things, made of almost nothing, like the seeds that float down from the cottonwood trees. But like these seeds, the wispy messages sometimes bear great fruit.

  “Return to this dream again and again in your mind. Don’t grill it, like an attack. Hold it gently. Feel it. Listen to it. See if, over the years, it has messages you haven’t understood yet.”

  Bell Rock waited and thought. “Anything else you want to ask about right now?”

  “I dream about snakes, too.”

  “What about them?”

  “I’m bad afraid of them.”

  Bell Rock smiled. “We’ll leave that for another sweat, another time.”

  Bell Rock waited a while and then went on. “I think your connection to all animals is important. You should pay attention to that. I study you white men, and I see beliefs that are strange to me. For example, you seem to see yourselves as apart from the animals, made separate in some way. You even think you are supposed to dominate the animals. You treat them as things to use, like a hatchet or a knife.

  “We Crows see it differently. We think the buffalo and all the four-leggeds have their ways, which we must honor. The two-leggeds, we have our ways, but we are not the owners of everything. Maybe you think about that some.”

  Bell Rock waited. “We also think each animal has something to teach us. Maybe you think about that. The buffalo has something to teach you. So does the snake.”

  “I don’t know if I can remember all this,” said Sam.

  “You’ll remember what you need to know now,” said Bell Rock. “One thing you haven’t mentioned. You are male, the buffalo female. Maybe in some way you joined with the female in that dream, or maybe you should look for ways to include the female in your life path. I don’t know how this might work.”

  Sam nodded. The female part, it seemed like too much.

  “I come back, though, to the two most important things. Whatever message this buffalo brought you, only you can know it. Maybe you won’t know it in words, maybe just something you feel in your heart. That’s good.

  “Also, use the buffalo cow as your helper. Ask for her guidance. Listen to what she says.

  “Anything else you want to ask me?”

  Sam didn’t dare.

  “Now comes a good part. You need a new name. You are not the same fellow as before your dream.

  “A Crow man gets a new name when he does something worthwhile. Maybe when he gets a war honor, or does something else big.”

  Sam was excited.

  “Let’s go to my tipi.”

  When they crawled out of the sweat lodge, Coy bounded all over Sam. “How did Blue Horse make you behave so well?” Sam cooed, rubbing the pup’s head vigorously. “How did he get you to act good?”

  At the tipi Bell Rock painted Sam’s face red on the right side, blue on the left, the colors split right down the nose. “This will give you power,” he said. “You must wear this paint tonight as a sign to all that you intend to do something. That will be to kill a buffalo cow from horseback and give the meat and the robe to old people who are poor and need it. When you have done this, I will give you a new name.”

  “All right,” said Sam. He wanted to get to the river and look at his new, painted visage in the water.

  Then he had an impulse. He said eagerly, “I’ll kill a buffalo from the back of the medicine hat.” Almost the moment the words were out, he was sorry. Ahead of myself as always, he thought. I can’t even ride the medicine hat.

  Chapter Nine

  SAM KEPT WORKING with the medicine hat in the mornings and standing with Meadowlark by her lodge at night.

  The mare progressed. After letting Sam sit on her in deep water, one morning she stepped gingerly out of the freezing river with him on her back—he just whacked her lightly with one hand on the rump and out she went. There she stood on the riverbank sand, looking around nervously, uncertain what to do when a human being sat astride her. Sam wanted to let out a war whoop, but didn’t dare.

  Coy darted up and nipped at the mare’s heels.

  Sam landed ker-plop! in the river. O-o-w! He wished he’d come down in deep water. He stood up rubbing his bottom.

  Now Blue Horse had Coy tucked under one arm. Bell Rock held the mare by the lead rope. “Lucky she didn’t get away,” he said. “Get back on.”

  Sam made a wry face and led the mare back into the deep water.
/>   “Calm, easy,” said Bell Rock.

  Holding the lead rope again the horn, Sam swung back into the saddle. He let the mare just stand for a long moment. Then he tapped her rump with a hand, and she walked gingerly out of the river.

  Man and horse shivered in the down-canyon wind.

  “Slip down off her,” said Bell Rock, “and get right back up.”

  Sam did. The mare stood still, bewildered.

  “Slip down.”

  They stopped worked for the morning. Sam was excited.

  He made a little progress with Meadowlark, too. Every evening Sam waited for Red Roan to finish romancing her. Even when Sam went early, cutting his own supper short, Meadowlark stayed in the tipi until Red Roan arrived and stepped quickly to him, barely flicking her eyes in Sam’s direction. Sometimes Coy barked, like he was trying to get her attention. More likely, Sam thought, he was protesting standing out in the cold while two men flirted with Meadowlark. Coyotes didn’t fool around with flirting, he was sure of that.

  This evening the wait was even longer than usual. At last Sam took his turn. They stood wrapped in a single blanket, and Meadowlark let him hold her hand. They gave each other the news of the day. They smiled moonily. They looked at the snowy peaks to the west and watched the evening star rise above them. Meadowlark pointed out what she called the Seven Stars, which Sam knew by the name Seven Sisters. She told him how the Seven Stars gave her grandfather an arrow bundle, and now her father was the keeper of that sacred bundle.

  Though Sam was puzzled at what a sacred arrow bundle might be, he gave her his mother’s story about the same stars. They were seven sisters, all but one in love with gods. The one who loved a mortal was embarrassed, and because of her mortification was the dimmest of the seven. Meadowlark liked this story. Sam liked realizing that his culture had fanciful tales to explain things, just like hers.

  “Coy,” he said to the coyote pup near his feet, “talk.” This was a trick he’d been working on for a week.