Tainted Mountain

by Shannon Baker

  “What are you doing here?” Benny’s voice made her jump. She spun around to see him frowning at her.

  Her mind felt muddled and she realized the old man’s song ended. “I came out here with him.”

  “Who?”

  Of course the little kachina man didn’t stand next to her. Obviously, Benny hadn’t seen or heard him singing.

  Remember when the most horrendous thing you could imagine was Scott having an affair? Now her life revolved around murder, terrorists, mothers in hospitals, and some ancient Indian kikmongwi only she could see.

  “What are you doing here?” she said instead, to turn the challenge around.

  He stepped beside her. “Offering my morning prayers.”

  She stood next to him as he took a pinch of corn from a pouch he carried. He ignored her and sang his song, bowing and tossing his offering over the mesa. He sang faster and louder and without the holy feel of the older man, but it felt like church, all the same.

  Benny finished and stood straight.

  Nora bowed her head slightly and let go of the corn she’d taken from the little kachina man’s pouch.

  Benny eyed her curiously.

  She lifted her chin. “Nakwaiyamtewa gave it to me.” She waited for his reaction.

  He nodded, not looking the least surprised. “That’s good.”

  Dirty and sore, Nora faced the warmth of the sun. “Someone waged a war of terror on me last night.”

  Benny laughed. “How is that?”

  Maybe it sounded funny to him, but he hadn’t sat through hours expecting to be murdered any minute. “Probably Alex trying to scare me. He succeeded.”

  A glint of humor showed in Benny’s eyes. “What exactly did Alex do?”

  “He threw rocks at the windows and roof.”

  “Rocks?”

  Anger and embarrassment heated her face like the sun. “Big rocks. Boulders from the sound of them.”

  Benny raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t see any boulders when I walked by the house.”

  You infuriating, rational man. “I don’t know what happened. He must have cleaned them up.”

  It sounded lame to her, but what other explanation was there? He’d attacked her four times with the noise—that wasn’t something a wild imagination conjured up.

  Finally Benny seemed to take her seriously. “I wondered if they would come visit you.”

  “Who?”

  “The kachinas.”

  “Funny.”

  “I’m serious. This house is on one of the energy lines. The highways of the spirits. You aren’t the only one to hear them.”

  She gave him a skeptical look.

  “Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it don’t exist. There are certain lines of spiritual power that run across the world. One happens to pass through where that house sits. Lots of people hear the spirits when they pass. Even a few white ones.”

  “You had me stay there on purpose.”

  “I wondered if they’d pass by. Yeah.”

  She didn’t believe him, of course. The idea of kachinas or any other spirits knocking on the house was ludicrous. There had to be another explanation. But who could have done it and where did the boulders go?

  Benny turned and meandered down the path.

  Day or night, the village, with its crumbling and ancient buildings felt creepy. She trotted to catch up. “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t look at her. “Breakfast.”

  In normal life she wouldn’t be the least bit curious about his prayer or what it might mean. But normal life ended with Scott’s death and had spiraled into Bizarro Land since then. Her mother lay in a hospital nearly two hundred miles away, murder was now commonplace, and last night spirits from some other world had played Bowling for Sanity on the roof.

  “What did you say over there? To the Creator or whatever?” Okay, that was the epitome of rude. Heart-stopping fear caused her to lose the manners Abigail had tortured into her.

  “I thanked the Creator for another day and gave him some corn meal. I said, ‘It is your way to live the simple life, which is everlasting and we will follow. I ask that you speak through me with prayers for all the people. We shall reclaim the land for you.’ ”

  “Yay for the simple life of hoping the generator holds out.”

  A smile touched Benny’s lips. “If the rest of the world faced disaster and there was no electricity or running water, they would perish. Here we would go on as usual.”

  “You’ve got all this talk about keeping the old ways and ceremonies and poverty that, for some reason, balances the world. It’s as illogical as one man’s death accounting for the sin of mankind. Where is the proof that would make any of what you’re doing reasonable?”

  They crossed the plaza, less menacing in the morning light and more Third World. Benny held the door of his house open for her. “You want proof as obvious to your senses as this door is to touch. I think maybe you need to expand your perceptions and develop new senses.”

  She couldn’t come up with a polite response, and blowing air through her lips while rolling her eyes would be wrong.

  The blanket sat folded on the back of the couch. “Where’s Heather?”

  Benny’s face showed no emotion. “She left.”

  A tide of salty anxiety surged into Nora. Without Heather, she was a prisoner on the rez. “How will I get to Flagstaff?”

  “I can give you a ride.” Benny opened a cupboard and pulled out two granola bars. He handed one to Nora. At least breakfast wouldn’t be a painfully slow-cooked meal.

  “Let’s go.” She hurried out the door, hoping to get Benny moving.

  He drifted into the daylight of the plaza and stopped, his face to the sun. “You’ve heard of the Anasazi?”

  Who blew up my apartment? Barrett? One of Big Elk’s followers? What did Alex have to do with any of it? Was Cole a good guy or Barrett’s henchman?

  Benny waited for an answer.

  She backtracked to his question. “The Anasazi are the cliff dwellers. The people at Mesa Verde and Walnut Canyon. They disappeared and no one knows what happened to them, right?”

  He stretched as if urgency didn’t thunder in Nora’s blood. “It isn’t a mystery to us. We are the ancient ones. They didn’t just happen to disappear in 1100 A.D. like the archeologists say. Each of our clans was instructed to migrate and we did. For centuries we wandered over this country, up to the glaciers, down to South America. We left our history etched in stones along the way. We left our broken pottery and homes made of stones and mud. When we reached the mesas, clan by clan, we settled in the place chosen for us.”

  She took several steps and waited for him to meander in her direction. “If you’re a chosen people, why would you get this hard country where you can barely survive?”

  “This is the center of the world. All life depends on what happens here.”

  By the time he plodded to his vehicle and drove at an idle down the mesa, Nora was sure she would need a walker and adult diapers and her mother would be dust.

  “Many of our young people are not keeping to the Hopi way. They want all the material things of the white man, and it’s causing disturbances.”

  Nora nodded and hoped she looked thoughtful. She’d get a ride out of here sooner if she didn’t irritate Benny.

  “Now Mother Earth is in pain. McCreary is taking her guts for money. Coal is her liver and uranium is her heart.” They walked out of the plaza to the alley. Benny’s molasses pace made her want to scream.

  “You’re against mining on the rez?”

  He nodded. “Don’t matter what McCreary says or how clean it is or how many jobs and royalties it will bring. Would you cut out your mother’s guts for money?”

  Barrett seemed to be involved in everything. Snow making and uranium mi
ning. Other than both being damaging to the religious sentiments of the Native Americans, what did she even have in common with him, her former idol?

  Benny’s old Ford pickup used to be white. Now it was tied-dyed with waves of rust and dirt. Bright Indian blankets covered the bench seat that sloped hard toward the door. A large crack split the dash, showing yellowed foam rubber filler. Enough dirt was accumulated on the floor that he could probably plant a garden.

  As Nora’s head whirled in five different directions, they eventually made it down the mesa and a few miles south on the highway. Benny turned onto a trail hidden by tall summer grasses.

  Worry twanged through Nora like an out of tune ukulele. A Hopi shortcut didn’t seem like something that would get her to Flagstaff quicker. “Where are we going?”

  Benny didn’t look at her but maneuvered the truck down the bumpy trail. “I have to see to my corn.”

  “I have to get to the hospital.”

  Benny shrugged.

  “What about my mother?” She had to protect Abigail from Barrett.

  Benny braked the pickup and got out. He headed to the side of the road beyond the tall weeds and started singing in Hopi. His low guttural consonants made a beautiful ringing on the desert floor.

  Nora jumped out and ran to him. “Please. I’ve got to get to my mother.”

  He stopped singing and turned to her. “All your worry and impatience won’t make your mother well. Let go of your stress and listen to Mother Earth.” He continued on his way.

  Arguing didn’t turn Benny back to the pickup. And his stubbornness didn’t halt her arguing. She followed, topped the ridge still making her case and then stopped, amazed. In the dry desert, surrounded by hills of sand and scruffy weeds, Benny’s cornfield grew lush and green.

  He turned to her. “Do you know why I sing to the corn?”

  She shook her head.

  “The corn is like children. I sing to the seeds when I plant them. I sing when I tend them, bringing water or thinning the weak plants. That way, they learn my voice. They will grow toward it, wanting to please me the way a child would.”

  Nora wondered if she finally suffered the effects of too much stress. Benny’s mystical gumbo sounded logical. “How do you get the corn to grow with no water?”

  He smiled proudly at the bushy plants, so different from the endless fields of corn encompassing all of Nebraska and Iowa. “The cloud people have been good to me this year. They have given enough rain but not too much to flood the young plants.”

  “Why do you plant them spread out like this and not in straight rows?”

  He reached down and pulled a weed growing close to one of the leafy stalks. “I don’t use a tractor so there is no need to make straight rows. And spacing the corn like this confuses the cloud people. When you plant in rows all close together, the cloud people know where the corn is and they rain and leave quickly. But when you plant like this, the cloud people must look around and they stay over the field longer, giving more rain.”

  Cloud people—really? But he spoke as if he believed it, and he didn’t seem like a stupid man.

  He focused on her. “We’ve been growing corn here for a thousand years. The cloud people live on the sacred peaks. If you destroy their home, there will be no rain for my corn.”

  “You don’t really believe this, do you?”

  He walked between the plants, touching their leaves in a loving caress. “Hopi have a respect for life and trust in the Creator. We were told that white men would come and try to take away our lands. But if we cling to the ancient ways, we will prevail.”

  “Seems like you could grow more corn if you used a tractor or irrigation sprinkler. Why would your spirits want you to do everything the hard way?”

  Benny straightened and brushed his hands together. “Making things hard prepares us for what may happen. Like a runner practices every day, building strength and endurance so he can run the marathon, we Hopi live a meager and hard life so we’re ready to survive when the time comes.”

  He handed her a stick about a foot long and as thick as a broom handle. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small plastic bag of corn seeds. “You stay here and plant these seeds over there.” He pointed to a sandy spot next to the outer corn plants.

  Nora’s frustration boiled over. “I can’t plant seeds when my mother is lying in a hospital and I don’t know how she is.”

  He nodded. “I have to tend to another field, then I’ll take you to Flagstaff. You plant the seeds and if you can, sing to them.”

  “I don’t have time to plant corn, Benny.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t tell you what to do—that isn’t the Hopi way. But I urge you to plant these seeds. Do something good for Mother Earth and it will go well for your mother.”

  “Like a prayer?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Like a prayer.”

  She dropped the stick. “I don’t believe in prayer.”

  Benny started walking toward a low hill, presumably to another cornfield. “Since you’ve got nothing to do until I’m done, you might as well plant the corn. No one is around to hear you, so go ahead and sing to the seeds. It will help them grow.”

  She followed him. “Please, I need to go.”

  He topped the hill. “I’ll be back soon.”

  She waited a minute before moving. Then she trudged back and picked up the planting stick. Might as well, as Benny had said. Planting corn was a stupid idea, and she didn’t want to do it. Just because Benny told her to plant was good enough reason not to plant his stinking corn. She ought to sit down in the dirt and wait for him to come back. If he came back.

  But action might help ease her frustration. She squatted down and thrust the stick into the ground. It surprised her the dirt held moisture a couple of inches below the surface.

  Planting corn while my mother is in a hospital. As if that will help anything.

  She dropped in a few seeds and packed the earth around them. She took four steps away, the distance she estimated Benny’s other plants were spaced, and squatted down again.

  What if Barrett comes after Abigail or Charlie?

  The seeds dribbled from her hand into the hole she dug and she covered them with dirt. She thought of Abbey, patting him on the head and seeing the devotion in his eyes.

  Oh, God. Abbey. Had he been caught in the fire?

  Hands shaking, she poked the next hole, carefully selected the three largest seeds. Scott. Abigail. Abbey. She dropped the seeds into the hole and patted the loose soil on top. She saw Scott’s sweat-drenched face as she climbed from the SAG wagon at an Adventure Race last year. He grinned at her as she handed him his Gatorade and a fresh inner tube for the flat he just suffered. She’d taken care of him for years, holding back the real world by finagling the finances and keeping Kachina Ski running, making sure he had time for the hiking, biking, and outdoor play that seemed to keep him alive.

  She’d wanted to care for him with all the love in the world. Love he sucked up without thought. Barbed wire wrapped around her heart and squeezed with every memory of Scott. She’d given him all she had, and he hadn’t wanted her. Tears dripped into the mound of dirt she pushed back into the hole.

  She straightened and stepped sideways, sinking to her knees to dig a new hole. She dropped in the seeds and scooped dirt. Patting the dirt reminded her of tucking a child into bed. A child she didn’t have, but one she wanted with all her heart. Was this what Abigail felt? She loved the seeds and wanted them to grow into strong plants, to tassel and create life-sustaining corn. Her mother wanted that for her. But like Scott rejected Nora, she’d been pushing Abigail away.

  Nora rose from the ground, feeling love for the seeds, for her mother, for a child she hoped to nurture someday. For her old dog who might be alone and frightened on the mountain. The Earth gave life to the corn, which nourished the peo
ple here in Hopiland. It was this way all over the world. Abigail gave life to Nora and loved her, tried to make life good for her, teaching her and protecting her in her own imperfect way. And if she were lucky, someday Nora would be able to do the same with a child of her own.

  Words wouldn’t form but rhythm and sound grew naturally, boiling up her throat and erupting from her mouth in a song. She danced, tears falling from her face, her voice loud and deep with love for the corn, for the Earth that would nurture it, for her mother, and even for Scott.

  Seeds planted, Nora dropped to the ground, her back against a weathered fence post. Her eyes drooped and her mind floated.

  When she opened her eyes a man stood in front of her. Two slits served as eyes in a face flat and smooth. A cylindrical peg looked like a mouth. His bare chest showed zigzags of blue, like lightning. He wore a woven white cloth around his middle like a kilt and carried a hatchet in one hand and feathers in his other. Why she didn’t scream at this apparition, she couldn’t say. It should have scared the bejeesus out of her. But she wasn’t scared. The kachina—and that’s what it had to be—didn’t frighten her, despite his bizarre appearance.

  He didn’t speak but pointed to the mounds she’d planted. Small puddles pocked the field where she’d put her seeds. The kachina told her plainly, though he used no words and she didn’t know how she knew what he meant, that he’d brought the rain.

  “ … brought rain.”

  Nora blinked at the words that seemed to be as real as the desert under her. She turned to the sound. The voice belonged to the kachina man, but he wasn’t standing there.

  She rubbed her eyes and stood, focusing on a lean figure silhouetted on the ridge. Cole trotted toward her. “Nora. What are you doing?”

  Thank the kachina or luck or whatever power brought him here. She stood up, her legs weak and waited for him. “How’s my mother? How’s Charlie?”

  “She was sleeping when I left and the hospital staff wouldn’t let me see her. They wouldn’t tell me her condition because I’m not family.” He stopped in front of her, slightly invading her private space.