Well, de Chelly's so far from here, he probably doesn't think it would matter to me. “It's nice to meet you, Hosteen Begay,” she said. Hosteen meant “Old Man,” but was a term of respect among Navajos. “I'm Alia Cheveyo of the Wolf clan. Please come in."
The Pahana schools were also responsible for her last name, which meant “Spirit Warrior” and was a nickname of Father's Father because of a dream where he'd wrestled a qatsina and won.
She stepped aside to let Begay pass and he gazed around at her home for a moment to let his eyes adjust. In the years since Father and Grandmother had told others of her childhood vision, older Hopi and Navajos had occasionally arrived so she could look at a painful area with her “special sight” and tell them whether they needed to go to a Pahana hospital or to a singer. Perhaps that was what brought this man here today, but she'd try not to assume anything.
Whenever non-Hopis visited, she always found herself wondering how her home appeared to them with its stone walls, awkward fitting modern door and windows, rebuilt roof of beams and tarpaper, kerosene lanterns, second-hand sofa, chairs, and Navajo rugs. Could they feel the warmth of her family's lives in these walls?
"I was just preparing lunch,” she said, indicating the place settings on the oilcloth they used for meals. “Would you like to join me?"
"That is very kind, thank you,” he said, settling himself slowly onto a floor pillow. This style of eating was also traditional and helped make more use of the space. Besides, sitting at floor level was more intimate and relaxing than the formality imposed by a table and chairs.
Begay didn't seem to find the arrangement awkward, either; he broke off a piece of piki and put jam on it like an old hand. His face was not the typical squarish shape she associated with Navajos, but more angular like crumpled leather stretched over granite with a proud eagle's beak of a nose. A stiff red and black cloth banded his forehead while his full, silver hair framed his face in two tightly bound braids.
Despite his age and the power she glimpsed in his eyes, he didn't carry himself like a politician or wear flashy displays of turquoise jewelry and a big silver belt buckle. His denim pants and cowboy boots looked well used and she sensed that this man lived in keeping with Navajo tradition, which would mean that he appreciated the modesty of her home.
After checking the status of the chile rolls, she poured them both a glass of suvipsi; its tartness made a good balance to the sweetness of the jam. Begay nodded his thanks as he finished chewing and took a sip of his drink.
"This is good,” he said, breaking off another piece of the tissue-thin cornbread. “I had me a Hopi wife, long time ago, and she used to make piki for me.” He glanced at her with a conspiratorial smile. “But I think yours is better."
She blushed at the compliment. “That's very nice of you to say.” She opened her mouth with the intention of asking which village his wife came from, what her clan was: the polite conversation that would pass the time while they ate and help determine whether they had any clan relation. But something held the questions inside her and, after a moment, she got up to check the stove.
The chile rolls were heated through and ready to eat; the mutton she'd used for the meat stuffing was very tender and they still smelled as delicious as they had last night. After placing a couple on her plate, she returned to Begay and gave him one. There was a nagging familiarity about this man, but she couldn't pin it down.
As he swallowed the first bite of his roll, his eyes widened slightly and he took a drink. “I see you use the real mashed chile paste instead of that powder."
She'd always mashed her own chile paste using Grandmother's recipe. “Oh, I'm sorry, I should've mentioned that—is it too hot?"
"No, no,” he said. “I like when the food bites back.” To further assure her, he took another large bite.
Was he perhaps at this past Soyal ceremony? No, that wasn't it...
She didn't realize what an appetite she'd built up and polished her rolls off quickly, helping herself to some piki while Begay finished his roll.
"That was wonderful,” he said when done. “I have not eaten good mutton in years. When my clan and I travel, they always want to go to the Taco Bell."
She smiled. “Well, thank you. Do you travel a lot?"
He took a sip of his suvipsi before answering. “More than I would wish, but it is necessary."
An unexplainable disquiet rose in her, a sense of pressure building. “So, do you have business with my Father?"
"No. My business is with you."
Somewhere in her, his words struck a chord: she was rounding a blind corner on her life's road. She recognized this same feeling of pressure, of your heart having knowledge before it was given to your mind, from when she was ten and she'd seen the owl who came to announce Mother's death. Her heart had known the message he carried all during her long run home, well before the words had come from Father's mouth.
"You mentioned earlier that you had a Hopi wife,” she found herself saying. This was the moment that would change her life. She should just ask John Begay to leave and continue with her chores. But, no, she would have to face whatever this turn in the road held for her. She was Hopi. “Do you know what clan she was?"
Begay glanced past her shoulder, as if assessing her. She could see that he knew what was in her heart at this moment, whether from his power or simple experience. His eyebrow rose, ever so slightly, with curiosity. “My first wife was of the Wolf clan."
Alia went still as she remembered exactly where she'd seen him before. It swept out from her childhood memories like canyon debris washed out by a flash flood...
While running in her ninth summer, she'd collapsed in exhaustion. As she lay dying on the parched ground, far from anyone, the Wolf Qatsina had appeared to her, announced itself as her Guardian Spirit, and taken her to visit Maski, the land of the dead. There she'd spoken to her Mother, who'd assured her of her happiness in the underworld and urged Alia to stop her grieving and return home. Another man had appeared—this man, she realized—who Mother had introduced as Red Feather. He'd also spoken to her and told her that she must live a good life and obey her Father. After taking her outside her Mother's home, Red Feather had lifted his hands to the sky and Alia had been struck by a bolt of lightning, an ancient sign of the spirits granting their seeing power...
Remembering it all now, it was nearly impossible to imagine how the vision could have ever left her mind. It hid inside me so that I wouldn't mistake the time my Guardian Spirit spoke of, she reasoned. After her vision, she'd awakened, cotton-headed and connected to tubes that nourished her dehydrated body. In the same clinic where Mother had died. She would have died of heatstroke, they told her later, had it not been for a Navajo shepherd passing by on his way to work. She discovered her Father sitting beside the bed, watching her with tears spilling down his cheeks.
She'd never seen him weep.
"Stay with me a while yet, daughter," he said, brushing damp hair away from her forehead and managing a smile. "I don't think I would have the strength to bury you too." It was the first time he'd referred to Mother's death since informing her of it the month before but, in those simple words, he was transparent to her eyes and she saw the terrible pain he carried in his heart. She also saw his complete, helpless love for her and felt shamed by it. Slowly, she told him of her journey to the underworld, careful not to leave out any details.
In the years that followed, she grew closer to Father and Grandmother, listened to their stories with genuine interest, and did her work diligently. Though they never spoke of the vision, she always kept it in mind. However, over the years the specifics had quietly drained away, leaving her with the silent reassurance of Mother's touch...
As all this passed through her mind, Begay—Red Feather—sat waiting for her to speak. On impulse, he grabbed a last bit of piki and slipped it into his mouth.
"Red Feather...” she whispered.
He stopped chewing abruptly and swallowed, the surprise cl
ear in his rapid blinks. “How ... do you know that name?"
She examined him more closely now, realizing that this man even wore the same clothing in which he'd appeared to her nine years ago. “I saw you in a vision when I was a girl,” she answered, her mind still distant from this voice that spoke so calmly. Prophetic visions, she decided, were wondrous in the sacred stories and kiva tales, but very disconcerting when they stopped in for lunch. “It was the name I was told to call you. You said that you'd come to me one day and ask me to accompany you. Then, you told me, I'd have to make a choice that would determine my life's road."
Red Feather (for that was how she would think of him from now on) considered, nodded slowly. “I was also first shown you in a vision, but that vision came to me only two days ago. I have no memory of you before that time. But you have named me correctly; the name you spoke is the name given to me in a vision by First Wolf, when I was young and moving about. It is my most true name, to be used only among the people of my blood—who are not the Diné and, indeed, are not truly men."
He paused then, either to phrase his next thoughts or allow her a chance to respond.
It was his last, most unusual statement that brought her solidly back to earth. Red Feather's voice, even in English, was like listening to Father speak Hopi; there was a gentle, lulling rhythm to the Navajo's speech that made it easy to listen and drift on the current of his words. She drew a deep breath, fortifying herself with the crisp autumn air, and inclined her head slightly in a request to continue.
"As your vision has warned, granddaughter, I have come here on this day to ask that you return with me to my hooghan,” Red Feather said. “In that place I have the means to perform a brief ceremony that will draw memories of our people from your blood—for I do come to you in kinship, despite that you are not yet aware of our ancestors. You are unique in all my travels, and would add much power to the great ceremony I have begun, but you must first be aware that this journey will change you even in the first step. Only if you accept that warning should you agree to accompany me."
They sat in silence for a full minute while Alia considered and Red Feather waited. The silence was a comfortable one. Presented now with a simple choice, curiosity replaced her earlier dread.
"What you've said does make me a bit uneasy, but I realize now that I've been waiting for you for years.” The words were out of her mouth almost before she was aware of speaking and they surprised her. More of a surprise was that she was speaking her heart's truth. “I had forgotten my childhood vision until today but..."
She paused, amazed at how simple it was to speak to Red Feather of such things, like talking to Father or to an old family friend. Already he felt like kin to her. Considering this, she made her decision.
"Perhaps, as you say, it won't be easy for me to see what you show me, but there is a part of me that needs to know. I don't know if I'll want to go further once we're done at your hogan, but I'll follow you to the first step, at least,” she said.
Red Feather nodded, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “I could see in my vision that you would be unique.” He climbed gingerly to his feet with a popping of joints and a loud burp. “Mmm-hmm, some powerful-good mutton."
When she finished straightening up the floor, she wrote a quick note to Father and followed the Elder outside. “Quite a thing,” he mused. “First time I ever had someone agree so quick..."
* * * *
The land where Red Feather made his home was absolutely breathtaking. The rich orange-gold layers of the sheer canyon walls slowly transitioned to the soft tans of soil and the plentiful greens of scrub brush, cacti, grama grass, and hearty trees that populated the canyon floor.
Though nothing could replace Third Mesa in her heart, the contrast between the golden brown landscape of home and the rich variety of color out here was astounding. Red Feather's hogan sat off a small dirt road in the floor of de Chelly, a mile or so past where Monument Canyon branched off.
She took a moment to stretch before Red Feather went to the back of his jeep, took out a small shoulder pack, and walked toward his “home.” It was more like a settlement to her eyes, composed of three traditionally made, six-sided hogans (which Red Feather pronounced hoo-whan), a small cone-shaped hut, an empty fenced corral, the tops of storage dug-outs, and a modest green trailer home similar to many she'd seen before. A dormant gasoline-powered generator sat next to the trailer.
The Elder led her to the door of a hut and stepped inside.
She entered the darkness and stood inside the threshold to let her eyes adjust. Red Feather set his bundle down near the fire pit and removed the large blanket which covered the roof's smoke hole in his absence. She saw that three large, forked posts positioned in a triangular fashion supported the log-and-mud walls of the conical hogan (hooghan, she thought, his is the correct pronunciation). The floor of hard-packed soil was clear except for a few storage chests set against the walls and the fire pit in the center; there was room for at least a dozen people to sit comfortably around it. Medicine bundles and ceremonial rattles hung from pegs or nails on the walls but there were no domestic objects or tools.
"Close the door and sit over there,” Red Feather told her, pointing to a spot behind the fire pit which faced the door.
With the door closed, the only light came from the smoke hole in the ceiling. She watched the dust motes dance in bright shafts of sunlight as she took her position. Red Feather came over to the fire pit, singing in Navajo, and sprinkled corn pollen into the empty hole. The pollen sparkled as it traveled Father Sun's rays. He sprinkled a bit upon the crown of her head.
When he finished his song, the Elder went to one of the storage chests and removed an armload of dried brush and branches of pine, juniper, and pinyon. “This may be uncomfortable,” he said as he returned and filled the fire pit. “But we must begin by speaking of witches and witchcraft."
A shiver tingled her spine and, without thinking, she glanced around the empty hut suspiciously. Even among more progressive Hopi and Navajos, witchcraft was still not something discussed casually.
"I will not speak of it over-much, but I must give you warning that much of what will be shown to you may have the seeming of witchcraft. I promise you that it is not. Much of the history of our ancestors is unpleasant, much is full of wickedness, and much has passed into the stories of human tribes, often changed or confused in the telling."
Having arranged the kindling to his satisfaction, Red Feather took a small plastic lighter from his pocket and lit the wood in a few places. Fragrant smoke wafted up through the passage to the sky. “Our ancestors, who I know by the name Chermasu, had great power. In the final days of their war against the yei'iitsolbahi'—the blood-drinkers—who control the biligana world, they often hid among the tribes and taught ordinary people how to perform some of their feats. When our ancestors were slaughtered, many of these people, now skinwalkers, were left behind to cause mischief and suffering and to bring still more into their evil societies."
She glanced around the hut again as Red Feather rose and went to get a bundle from the wall. For the first time, she realized just how isolated she was out here. She was alone at the only settlement for miles with two men she'd only met a few hours ago, completely vulnerable if his intentions should prove malicious. Her note to Father had provided only the slightest indication of her whereabouts, since the Canyon de Chelly monument was huge and she could be anywhere within the huge expanse of canyons and overlooks.
She forced herself to control the creeping edge of panic she felt and think calmly. She trusted her Spirit Guide, she trusted her power to see clearly, she trusted her instincts: all these things had assured her that Red Feather and his group were to be trusted.
Chermasu. The word itself—
( ... wolves, ceremonies, monsters, battles, fire ... )
—seemed to have a strange, haunting power.
Red Feather unwrapped the bundle, inside which she saw (among other thin
gs) a ceremonial pipe, tobacco, and a white wolf's pelt. “Because so much of our ceremonies and powers have become witchcraft in people's thoughts, it is difficult sometimes to explain the difference..."
"My Grandmother and Father both taught me that evil is in the malicious intention of the user, not the power itself,” she explained, managing to sound more certain than she felt.
"Yes, yes, exactly!” he said. “That is what I mean, that because you have heard of witches transforming with skins does not make our using of skins witchcraft. The other members of my Pack did not share the traditions that our two tribes do and so this was easier, in some ways, to explain without alarming them."
"Can you tell me what Chermasu means?” Speaking the word filled her with an odd euphoria, something that seemed to come from outside herself. Or, more precisely, seemed to be an outside force expressing itself inside her.
"Yes,” Red Feather said after a few moments. “Though I do not know what tongue the word comes from or who first used it to name our ancestors—and I cannot even say that the word has not been changed many times since then—there is an idea of it which was passed down to me. Chermasu could be said in biligana as ‘The Wolf People,’ ‘Animal Skin People,’ ‘Wolf's Children,’ ‘The Changing People,’ ‘Changing Wolves,’ or even ‘The Standing Wolves.’ You may choose any of these in your thoughts, for it means all of these but also none of them. It is human, a clumsy thing made more so by the clumsiness of the biligana tongue. Among themselves, our ancestors had no need of such a word.” He handed her the white wolf pelt. “Put this on your head and shoulders."
As she did, he lit the pipe with a twig from the fire. The fur of the pelt was remarkably soft and the inside had been worked to a texture like the supplest of leathers, only the deep-set stains of human oil and a faintly sour smell hinted at its age. She wondered for a moment if Red Feather was going to transform her into a wolf right here and now.
He handed her the pipe. “Smoke this down to the bottom. Tobacco's good for thoughts.” He fed a few more branches to the fire and, from the pack he'd carried in, removed a gray wolf's pelt and a bag of some finely chopped material she couldn't identify.
Challenging Destiny #24: August 2007 Page 6
