Love to Water My Soul (Dreamcatcher)

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  Shard had returned to work for the rancher, though he came back often. Since the time of my flow, he had moved to his own lodge when he returned. He often took meals in Lukwsh’s, provided her with needed food, but moved to the other side of the wickiup whenever I entered. While ripping at smoked salmon, legs crossed as a visitor in Lukwsh’s lodge, he spoke not only of cows and bunkhouses of the ranchers but of trails away, to the big river north, to Bannocks in the East, to the falls at Tlhxni where Sunmiet and Standing Tall summered. His words, like Wuzzie’s, spoke of hungry people, confusion about where gathering and hunting could happen, of change and distant rumors of death.

  Happily, he had not lain any nights in a pattern at the feet of Vanilla Leaf’s moo’a—or any woman’s grandmother that I knew of—seeking approval for a bonding. No one had seen him smiling at any one woman’s charm.

  Instead, in his hesitating way, he shared stories of wars and bad times with people who had no food and spoke with confusion about agents who bore less honor than the army, of ranchers carrying visions of closed-in places and words with strange meanings such as “trespass” or “rivers that marked boundaries.”

  And he related news of a reservation being planned for this marshy place to include the lakes and lands south, Snow Mountain and the springs and grass fields, the land of seeds and sage.

  “It comes with a promise,” he told Lukwsh, “that we will have tools to plant corn and clothes to cover us and a mill to make lumber so we can build wooden houses.”

  “Close together,” Lukwsh said, grunting as she stirred the wada stew, “near the agent and that army.”

  She talked with Wren using her fingers, and Wren asked then, “Will we still gather food? Harvest ducks?”

  “You sell your soul, working for tibo,” Stink Bug said, entering the conversation late. “Only guns speak loud enough.”

  Shard paused. “The blacksmith who teaches me, who calls himself Johnson now, he says the reserve will keep our land safe, a closed-in space, and we should not fight it.”

  Stink Bug snorted. “Who listens to a milky-haired man who makes hoes!”

  “Cattle grazing on the grasses use up roots, change the way the water runs in ponds and streams from the mountain,” Shard said. “Woolly sheep eat the grass so short the roots are startled and die. I have seen it.”

  “There will be a change for us,” I offered, not noticing until later that I included myself within the troubles of the people. “For how we gather and keep ourselves.”

  Wren nodded but remained silent.

  “Whether we listen to the agents or not,” Lukwsh said, and I wondered if she thought of Sarah’s words those years before.

  “No agent will switch my life,” Stink Bug said, standing to leave. “No soldier either. You women can discuss it,” he said spitefully to Shard, “but men will settle this trouble.” He stomped from his mother’s lodge.

  “Learn owl ways, Mother,” Shard said quietly after a moment, “so we can live and tell stories to our children’s children.”

  Lukwsh nodded and lifted her chin to the clay water pot. “I know how to blend,” she said.

  Blending was not Wuzzie’s way. At the gatherings, he reported that tibos angered the land spirits and that the people must be wary of them. He walked wide circles around me, pulled at his chest and stomped at the ground when he saw me. It still surprised me that someone with his power should act bothered by my person.

  When Shard attended the headman lodge discussions, many listened and nodded to his reasoned words. Even Stink Bug sat as if he hung on Shard’s thoughts, though he spoke ill of him when he was gone.

  The talking put the children to sleep, made many women weary. When Sarah visited our band again, along with her brother, it was in Vanilla Leaf’s lodge she rested this time, for Vanilla Leaf’s uncle, We-ah-wee-wah, was a wise man. He had been selected as a chief by the soldiers, something Sarah said the army liked, to have one man to speak all the words of the people rather than taking time to listen to many voices. Our band accepted this, but some of the people we gathered with were unhappy with one name being placed by owls above all others.

  Wuzzie, too, took issue.

  “We decide our own leaders,” he said to a gathering while the pipe was being passed. “How can someone from there,” he pointed with his head toward the proposed site of a new reservation, “know who to talk with?”

  “You would have him only speak with you, Wuzzie?” said Oytes, smiling.

  “No. Not with me only. Not with anyone only. That is their way, to listen to only one, and make him tell the rest. We each have wisdom.” He gazed at the faces before him, both colored eyes shining. “Not like those who follow one soldier. That is why they like Thocmetone,” he said in his fluttering voice to her face but speaking as though she was not present. “She will lead people like sheep to bad water because they give their thoughts to one chief, cannot think for themselves. They think she speaks for us.” He spit. “I will like to be around when they discover their mistake.”

  Sometime during the time of gathering tubers, Sarah and her brother were asked by the army to bring us into the camp called Harney on Rattlesnake Creek. General Crook wished to make a peace between us and those who brought cattle to our land. The army would give us cloth of dark colors with splashes of the sunset, maybe some metal pots to replace our baskets, and some grain.

  At the last minute, Lukwsh decided not to go.

  My heart sank. I had imagined the ride to the fort, stepping inside the wooden buildings, looking through glass set into wooden walls, running my fingers over smooth boards called tables. Shard had described a dozen treasures I thought that I would see. And though I would understand little of what was spoken, just watching the soldiers, I believed, would be a wish fulfilled.

  Shard went. “To charm them,” he said, “we must know their ways.”

  “I will go with him,” I said.

  Lukwsh scowled. “No girl travels without her mother.”

  “Sarah does,” I reminded her.

  “She is a woman, making her own choices. That is not you, Asiam, yet.”

  So I obeyed and did not go. Each decided on his own as was the way. Most decided to remain. But Shard went, along with Vanilla Leaf and her family and a few others led by Sarah.

  Stink Bug and Oytes and others found ways to avoid Sarah when she returned. Most would not take the cup of flour handed out from army wagons as a sign of acceptance of the peace between the ranchers and the people.

  That very day, Oytes and others left the village and returned with the fire of victory in their eyes and new horses trotting behind them. They unloaded forged iron from wagons they took and later made the iron into bullets. I heard them in the evening telling stories of settlers dying of fright, while the warriors made wooden stubs of greasewood they would use later, if they needed, to plug bullet holes in their arms and bellies.

  “The white settlers remain angry,” Sarah told Lukwsh. “So few agree to consider a reservation. And when the army hands out food and does not shoot us, the settlers say they pay twice for our ‘good’ life. The raids must stop before settlers will be happy, before we will have a future.”

  No one responded. No one claimed the answer.

  It was a time of whispers between old friends. Quiet talking stopped when certain people entered into another’s presence. Long discussions begun at the lake wound up in the headman’s wickiup. The air carried with it the smell of armies and ammunition, of lost ways and wars.

  Shard returned with Flake to the ranch; Vanilla Leaf did not speak of their journey together to Rattlesnake Creek, so I believed their time together blameless. And despite the wedge she could have driven between us, I liked Vanilla Leaf, who willingly shared Sarah when she visited.

  I was pulled to Sarah-Thocmetone, whose name I shared, pulled by the chain and crossed bars that graced her neck, drawn as a dog is led to coyotes, fearful but with an urging, knowing some connection there is offered, unsure of
what it was or the danger lurking in the seeking.

  “They think with different minds,” Sarah told me. “Those settlers act as pitiful as trapped possums when a cow dies but have no feeling for a child who sleeps hungry because their cows have destroyed the camas.” She shook her head, and the long necklace of beads bounced on her wide chest. “I tell you. At Pyramid Lake, the agent Parker calls himself a Christian. He uses the money meant for food and medicine I get the government to give, and he builds privies!” She shook her head in disgust. “While children die of strange spots.”

  “What we waste must be greater than what we eat,” I said, thinking of the privies.

  “O ho!” she said and smiled without laughter. “They drool over land like coyotes in the midst of trapped rabbits. But I go there, try to talk with them before they take away everything that is familiar, until all that is left is something held in our minds.”

  “The reservation …” I said, trying to form my question.

  “It is the safest place for us, where the army marks the edges. They are too many, those white people,” she said, adding water to the pine-nut stew to thin it. “We must capture them as we do the antelope, I think. If we agree to remain inside spaces, the army will protect us. I will make them keep their promises to hand out food. My time away from my people will not be wasted.” She rubbed the crossed bars at her neck. “Otherwise, we will all go the way of dried leaves, and no one will even remember we were here.”

  Lukwsh and Vanilla Leaf and her aunties and I treasured our time with Sarah. She could leave the world of war and tell stories as varied and brilliant as butterflies quivering across grass.

  But I preferred the rare times I had had alone with her the year before my own change. I liked walking along the shoreline, picking up snails or throwing a stick for dogs who splashed and scattered fowl. At such times, Sarah noticed my impolite staring, encouraged me to be bolder. Perhaps she understood my interests and tolerated my questions because she understood the feelings that rose when things were said about you that did not describe the person you carried inside your skin.

  At those times, when I felt well understood, her walk between two worlds led me closer to my own, closer to the future I would someday choose.

  “They call themselves Christians who wear these,” she said one time when we talked. The crossed bars lay gently on her fingertips as she spoke. “The beads remind me.” She let it drop amidst other shell necklaces, beaded ones that draped around and across her wide chest. Badger moccasins left slick tracks in the wet sand as we walked by the lake. Then I could almost see what her white family taught her, the “Father, Son, and Sacred Spirit” she sometimes spoke of.

  “Some are kind and wise, and their hearts do what their lips say. Others use their book to beat with. Those I do not trust.”

  “How do you tell?”

  “Their eyes have a glassy, angry look, and they paint their smiles on thin, tight faces. Their words have a too-sweet sound to them. And their hands and feet do not match their heart. They never touch my fingers when we greet,” she said, touching her hands to mine.

  “But others have warmth,” she continued. “They say the Holy Spirit is the fuel that flames the fire inside them, makes them move and yearn for things. They told me the Spirit had the power to carry out the Father’s wish, one that burns differently in each of us. They say they can give their warmth away but will always have enough.”

  She bent to pick up a snail. “I think I make sense of the Father and the Spirit they speak of.” She placed the snail in the basket on her side and shook it gently. “They are Creator and spirits of this world and the next. It is the Son, this Christ they speak of, that is still confusing.”

  “Is he a first child?” I asked.

  “An only child, so spoiled.” She grinned, then became more serious. “But they say he is a brother, too. And very wise, with big ears, able to listen to everyone who calls out to him. He answers by flowing inside, like a water spirit might.”

  She laughed and wiped the wet mud from her fingers onto her cloth dress. “They say he actually cares for us, each one, knows us by our names. Even has a task for us, like a basket we should make that is different from all others.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Hard thing to think on, having a Spirit who cares enough to warm you up, with enough to give away.”

  “It is like a big naming, with a giveaway,” I said.

  Sarah laughed. “It is a long day’s gathering to understand how they think.”

  “Perhaps they see the day world through night eyes,” I offered. “Maybe, like owls, the light confuses them.”

  “Do you speak from your own eyes?” she asked. The smell of mud lifted up to our faces.

  “Sometimes owls become mixed up if they fall into marsh grass when they belong in a tree perch or a cave,” I said.

  Sarah nodded. “Getting from one place to another is a trouble, but not traveling can be dangerous, too.”

  She stopped our walk and after a moment spoke out toward the lake, not to me. “Those warm Christians say the Spirit is the One who sets us on our journey, and we must not be afraid to listen even when we do not understand.”

  Her words both comforted and alarmed.

  If the Owl’s Son was a spirit, perhaps it was not only his ears that were large but his wisdom, too, enough to span the universe, rise higher than the eagle, swim deep beneath the streams. Perhaps it was he who talked, protected us, knew our name, and gave direction. Perhaps he was the Spirit who was with us as we moved and grew, no matter where we were or who walked with us, the One who ordered when we joined a place or when we left. Perhaps this Spirit told us when and where our lives belonged, and not the wind, or our will, at all.

  THE NINTH KNOT

  THE CHARMING OF ASIAM

  A mind can sing a lullaby to itself and sleep through what it should be awake to see.

  That happened the year after our names changed, the year Wren finally spent her long days in the private hut. Lukwsh spoke to Moo’a who permitted me to tend my sister along with Grey Doe. The time wrapped Wren and me into the folds of good friends, a gift of strength I didn’t know I needed.

  I tended wisely, followed Grey Doe’s directions, and uncovered one puzzle from my time with her alone: when a chosen one is gathering wood for their stacks, the tenders could sleep.

  Throughout our stay, Grey Doe told Wren the same things she told me. I felt relieved, though she spoke words with more gentleness to Wren. Grey Doe rarely spoke to me. She allowed me to overhear what she said. My sister would then turn to me and watch my lips as I repeated Grey Doe’s words more slowly and could show my teeth to make sounds clearer. I even learned to speak well with my hands as it became more certain that Wren could speak but could not hear.

  I did not let myself wonder if my rescuing her in the river had been the cause. I did not wish to think that Wuzzie might be right, that I had interfered and given Wren her silent scar.

  Inside the hut built for two, I took deep breaths to calm myself, tried to imagine the walls as marking safety, not hard breathing. When the closeness felt like a covered basket, I closed my eyes and imagined a sky above me with clouds drifting through the air. And each day that I woke and found I had endured the tightness one more time, I felt stronger, had something new to add to the treasure basket that was my life.

  “Try this,” I said.

  Wren took what I offered.

  “Chamomile tea. For your stomach,” I said, rubbing mine to show her. I touched her hand lightly to bring her eyes to mine before I spoke.

  “Lukwsh sends it. Later, we will crush nettles. To stop the flow.”

  “Humph,” Grey Doe said, but she wore a satisfied look and I permitted myself some pleasure in knowing that my hands would work for healing.

  Only once in the twenty-five days we remained there did I know fear. Only once did the pattern change.

  It happened the morning Wren gathered her greasewood. She returned and talked about bees
and small animals as was her interest. Our fire burned hot. Lukwsh had given us honey brought from Sunmiet’s last visit. We sweetened cakes with it, and it sat in a basket beside the low flames in the fire pit, the precious gold liquid just beginning to ease its way from crumbly combs. A flower fragrance and the scent of clover filled the air.

  “And then I saw that new dog Shard brought, with the white feet and chest, sit on a rock, staring at water,” Wren said.

  She wore a dress of twisted sage she scratched at as she kneeled on her rabbit-skin robe.

  “He leaped in, that dog, and came out with a fish in his mouth, and he carried it to my brother!” She shook her head. “He fished by himself, that dog. He did not need a man!”

  “No one needs a man,” Grey Doe laughed, then scolded. “But you tell a tale. Now is not the time for stories. You are to gather and rest, think.”

  I shortened some of what Grey Doe said when I repeated it, and the old woman jabbed at me with her elbow. “Do it right,” she said, and I did.

  Grey Doe kneeled next to Wren, facing into the hut’s side as she worked. Wren’s knees were directed toward me.

  “But it’s true, Moo’a. It is,” she said with certainty.

  Grey Doe grunted and dropped hot rocks into the tea basket. My sister chattered again, settled herself, twisted back as she lifted the tea water to her lips. She sipped quietly.

  At first I did not recognize the scent. It smelled like burning sage, this tea Grey Doe fixed. Then I thought it a foreign smell, unfamiliar, from far away. I thought to look outside to see if someone had let a fire pit get away while we three rested here together, but when I moved closer to the opening of our wickiup, I coughed. The scent grew strong and inside.