Tokori came around the next day, hoping to acquire some knowledge of his guest, but Ts’aak gave him a few gifts and then politely bid him farewell. I knew then that whatever quest had led her to our pueblo would be for the women to discover.
The bird squawked again, loudly, “Itzel!”
Ts’aak looked at the bird and blushed slightly.
“Itzel. Do you know what this word mean?” she asked.
I shook my head, “He just yells it when he’s excited. I didn’t think it was a real word.”
There was a mischievous glint in her eyes as she leaned closer and said, “It is not just word—it is name. My father was Itzel.”
My mother approached just then, and I asked, “Did you know the bird can say someone’s name?” Kayah rubbed my hair and said, “Of course I do. Itzel gave me this bird a long time ago.”
Ts’aak nodded. “It must be thirty years since he made the journey north.”
“And why would he give you a bird?” I asked.
My mother hesitated for a moment, and Ts’aak answered for her. “Your mother saved my father’s life, that is why.”
My mind was flooded with questions while I watched this strange, white-haired woman, but the one that stumbled out first was, “Will he come back for his bird?”
Ts’aak frowned slightly, “No, child. He has moved on. He is in Xibalba now, or hopefully, beyond it.”
I tried to get in another quick question, but instead I was rushed off to bed.
Kayah handed me my doll, Ila, a corncob husk wrapped in a piece of soft, yellow leather, with reeds for arms and legs. I pulled Ila close, and then snuggled against my mother.
She said, “Ts´aak and I are going on an adventure tomorrow—she wants me to bring her someplace.”
“Can I go with you?” I pleaded hopefully.
Kayah nodded, solemn. “Ts’aak requested it.”
Now I hesitated, feeling I was missing something.
“Why?”
My mother peered into my eyes, and I could feel her weighing me, trying to decide how much to tell.
She said, “You’re the same age I was when I found her father, maybe she feels a connection. I don’t know—it’ll be fun.”
We were up with the sun. The birds sang around us, their chatter floating over the rumbling of the water. Looking down at the creek, I could see the cottonwoods stretching off as a crooked line of light green that was beginning to yellow. Summer was ending, and the first traces of fall were in the air.
Ts’aak was dressed plainly, with a long skirt, sturdy sandals, and a shawl that wrapped around her upper body and covered her hair. This seemed to be her travel outfit, and her entourage also wore sturdy, practical clothing.
The ornaments and feathered headdresses of the day before were left in the care of Tokori, who appeared flustered at not really knowing what was going on. He also seemed slightly anxious. He was one of the few people in our settlement who was old enough to remember the last tragic visit from the People of the Corn, and he didn’t want this encounter marred by tragedy, too.
Before we left, Ts’aak introduced me to her large bodyguard.
“Totsi, this is Sotz,” she said. “He has been taking care of me since I was a baby.”
I tried to pronounce his name and failed miserably.
She laughed. “In your language it means Bat, so call him Bat.”
I had noticed how Bat apprehensively scanned the face of anyone approaching his mistress, and he usually wore a formidable scowl. But when I hesitantly nodded at him his face broke into a warm smile.
I greeted him, and he looked to Ts’aak who said, “Bat cannot speak.” He shrugged and smirked, then went back to preparing for our trip. With my mother and me accompanying the group, there were now ten of us.
We left our village by the sinkhole and followed the creek southward. Red cliffs lined the way, rising about one hundred feet on either side. The clifftops were burned black by the sun, but their shaded faces were covered with pale green and mustard-colored lichen. On several flat sections I glimpsed rock art panels.
First traveling southwest, and then northeast when we forked off onto a dry creek, we walked quietly, the sounds and sights of the morning coloring our day.
Beyond the cool gully the high desert ruled. The ground was hard and cracked, and mesquite, prickly pear, and creosote bushes dotted the land to the distant mesas.
Ts’aak sent one of the guards ahead to scout the way, and one followed behind, making sure we weren’t being pursued. Bat, she kept near, with the two female servants; and the two porters trailed at her heals.
One time, Bat caught my eye and winked, but otherwise he was on full alert, keenly aware that he was moving through a strange land with unknown dangers.
I walked with my mother, next to Ts’aak, and marveled where this mysterious journey would take us.
Chapter Two
We continued to follow the dry creek, stepping over rounded red and gray rocks in the riverbed, and over piles of driftwood. Sometimes we walked along the bank, when the thorny catclaw wasn’t too thick. The tall cottonwood trees continued to shade us, their leaves flashing with the sunny breeze.
Other shrubs had taken advantage of the seasonal deluges that roared down the wash during the monsoons, and sugar sumac, mountain mahogany, and manzanita, grew along the banks.
My mother—always on the lookout for herbs or medicinal plants—stopped a few times to harvest.
When I accompanied my mother on her wanderings I often held the basket where she stored what was collected, and I knew most of the plants we passed.
She scraped some sap off a creosote bush, and she collected some dried mesquite leaves that I knew she used as a powder on cuts and scrapes, or in a tea to soothe sunburn, rashes and insect bites.
It was a glorious fall day, but all I saw was the end of summer. The prickly pear pads lay withered and faded, there were only a few light blue berries left on the junipers, and the snakeweed through which we trudged had been burnt tan and brittle.
Ts’aak marveled at this strange landscape through which we passed. Whenever we paused for my mother to collect herbs, she stared off at the distant buttes layered in red, pink, yellow and white, or she examined the microscopic lichen clinging to a boulder.
Soon my mother began to probe Ts’aak with questions about her father and his visit to their valley thirty years before.
“I remember very little about him,” said Kayah, “it was so long ago, and I was young. Would you tell me what he was doing here, so far from your home?”
A slow smile spread across Ts’aak’s face as she thought of her father. “I assisted him since I was very young, but even though I am older than you, I was too young to come on that journey.”
She took a sip of water and said, “My people have a tradition of traveling and recording what we encounter on the fringes of our world—we have always looked for a better place.”
A large tree which lay fallen across the trail momentarily stopped our progress. The brush on both creek banks was thick with the red-barked manzanita and the guards hacked a path for us, beating the bushes down with sturdy clubs.
Ts’aak said, “My father, Itzel, was the nephew of Nuun Ujol K’inich, the glorious ruler and thirtieth king of the city of Tikal. He was a learned man. He knew how to read and write the holy symbols, and with the king’s permission he ventured into unknown lands and recorded what he saw.”
Kayah seemed intrigued. “How did he do this?”
The older woman nodded and gave a short whistle for one of her attendants to come to her. I had a hard time telling the two female retainers apart. Neither spoke, both had straight black hair, chopped at the neck, and they wore similar plain, practical outfits like the rest of Ts’aak´s group.
Ts’aak sat down on a rock and the attendant knelt before her, reached inside a small backpack she had been carrying, and pulled out a cloth-wrapped package. She opened it to reveal a thick piece of parchment that
had been folded into a stack. It was protected by a thin wooden cover.
“This is a Codex.”
Kayah gingerly accepted the Codex and gently ran her fingers across the gold-stitched designs on the cover. Ts’aak waited a moment, and then showed her how it could be opened.
My mother squinted at the symbols etched on the parchment pages. I peered over her shoulder, just as confused.
“What is it?” asked Kayah.
“It is a story,” replied Ts’aak.
I gazed hard at the images but didn’t understand.
“And this is a map,” she said and turned to a page with a detailed drawing of our valley and the plateau. I didn’t understand the map either. The squiggly lines and symbols made no sense to me.
The men had cleared a way, and Ts’aak carefully put away the Codex. “We will talk as we continue,” she said. “And I will begin with Itzel’s first visit to see your people.”
“His first visit?” asked my mother.
“Yes, this was thirty summers past, and he had about a dozen people with him. He stayed with your people for a few days, by the sinkhole, and then continued north, following a large canyon until he emerged on a plateau. For many days after that they trekked until they came across an enormous canyon.”
Ts’aak turned her gaze north. I imagined her father telling her of his stunning discovery.
She drifted back and continued, “There my father turned back, but when he reached the southern end of the plateau he had difficulty locating the canyon he’d previously ascended. He left the group and scouted ahead, and that’s when he was attacked by a great bear.”
I looked up, my heart pounding at the nightmarish images welling up in my mind. I’d only ever seen one bear, and it was one of the smaller black ones, not the fearful brown bears whose tracks were occasionally seen along the creeks. But I knew about the great bears and dreaded nothing so much as encountering them.
I glanced at Ts’aak. Maybe she was just trying to scare me. But her face was pale, her expression grave.
“My father buried his blade in the bear, but to little effect. He fled, and barely escaped by jumping off a cliff into a box canyon. An old juniper broke his fall. But the bear wasn’t done with him, and somehow found him again.”
She faltered. For a moment, she was silent. Then she looked around to see who might have been listening. I sat there confused.
She remained silent and walked on with her head down. I suddenly felt like I had to run to keep the pace.
Eventually we left the dry creek bed behind and walked across an open plain with massive crimson buttes in the distance, and one large, mound-shaped rock directly ahead of us. A herd of antelope drifted by and I watched their dust cloud until it faded into a side canyon to the west.
We walked all day and I grew tired. It had been months since the last rain, and we left no tracks on the hard, cracked earth. I stumbled along, through an endless field of creosote bush, clumps of high desert grass, and scrub oak, trying not to trip on the heads of soap-root yuccas that crept up on me if I closed my eyes.
In the afternoon the heat picked up and for a while it didn’t feel like fall at all, but by the time we reached the mound-shaped rock the shadows were lengthening, and Kayah decided to make camp.
I was ready to drop.
Bat made a fire on the shaded side of the rock, in an alcove where it could not be seen from afar. I imagined his home, far to the south, and I wondered why he was constantly on guard, always scanning both ahead and behind us for danger.
Shortly after dark Bat slipped away with a bow slung over his shoulder. I wondered if he was hunting man or beast.
I slept fitfully with nightmares of bears. My mother had told me to travel lightly, but I had snuck my doll, Ila, along. And that night I kept her close.
Most of my people fear strangers, but I don’t mind them. People like me, especially when I sing. What I fear are the wild animals: mountain lions, wolves and coyotes, and of course, bears. I’m small, and they see me as prey—and what ten-year-old wants to be eaten?
I woke to the sun, cuddled up close against my mother. In the night Bat had returned with the haunches of an antelope. He had skinned them, carved out the choice cuts, and was now smoking strips of the meat over a low fire.
The men cooked several tubers of manioc, scraping off the skin, boiling the vegetables until they softened, and then sharing the food. Soon we all had something in our bellies and we were on our way.
We hiked through the morning until the sun was directly overhead, when we came across another creek, this one flowing strongly. I heard my mother tell Ts’aak that we called it Oak Creek.
A strong, bitter wind flowed down the canyon, hovering over the water, and when it hit my face I was reminded once again that fall was upon us.
We followed the sparkling water upstream, north, for a while, and by and by many of the desert plants disappeared. Riparian greenery now surrounded us.
Beyond the leafy edge of the creek I could see that we were entering a deep canyon, carved out of the plateau which loomed above us.
We continued up this canyon. The creek had cut a deep trench here, and the rock walls that lined it were dark red and ancient. They rose up two hundred feet, and beyond wooded cliffs of piñon pine and juniper slanted up to the rim of the plateau, thousands of feet above.
The land rose slightly as we pushed upstream, walking along game trails that followed the banks. The stream flowed at us gently, gliding over the rocks in its cascading tumble downstream.
A few times I glimpsed mule deer bounding away, their white tails flagging at us above the shrubs. And once we came upon a family of five javelina that grunted amongst themselves, unconcerned.
Soon we passed a large, steep-walled canyon on our left, with a small stream exiting it, and then one on our right. My mother had often warned me not to get caught in such places during the summer monsoon storms, and I instinctively glanced up, relieved to see blue sky.
We continued, slow and steady, but never stopping. Once we paused, taking a standing break, while Ts’aak shared more of their manioc. But then we were on the move again, and didn’t take another break until we had ascended quite a way up the canyon.
At one point we passed a small tributary on our left side; I saw Kayah take a long look at it, but then she kept moving upstream.
Finally, she slowed her pace when the nature of the creek began to change; it was at this point that I also began to recognize things.
Here, the creek meandered through high grass, dividing, and reuniting, but always only a few feet deep. We followed it, each finding our own way, the long grass whispering as it brushed our legs.
And even though the water was shallow, it moved along in a hurry, and mixed in with the water´s gurgling was the muffled tumble of round rocks, clacking and scraping.
It sounded like they were talking to each other, but the cascading water was clipping their words, and the urge of its flow silenced them further.
But I felt that if I sat there long enough, I might understand what they were saying. I caught Ts’aak’s eye and there was a twinkle that seemed to say: Yes, indeed.
We came upon a mossy glade where the water appeared to barely move by. The wind was now gone, and the only sounds were the gurgle of the water, the song of the birds, and the hum of the insects. Suddenly the heat of the previous day felt far away.
On the shore stood a tall rock, covered in large parts by a dark patina. A spiral had been etched into this black canvas, and several hundred dots flowed out from its center.
Below it was a large pictograph that had been split in two by a crack in the rock. On one side was a bear paw print, with a bear claw necklace hoovering over it. On the other I recognized the symbol for a woman in childbirth, suspended over a rippled line of waves.
The soft, green banks of the creek were covered with small piles of rocks—or cairns—and Ts’aak marveled at them when they first appeared. Some were ancient, covered
with lichens.
There were several boulders by the water’s edge that could be used as stepping stones to get to a large flat boulder that lay in the middle of the creek.
My mother and I stone-stepped our way to the flat rock in the middle. She giggled when she slipped a little, and I chuckled too.
“Do you remember this place?” asked Kayah.
I looked around. “Yes—I do!”
She nodded. “Every fall we come here to pick berries. Sometimes we go further up the canyon, or into one of the side canyons. There’s a cave nearby, too.”
I glanced around, and suddenly a memory floated to the surface. “I remember you taught me a song here.”
My mother nodded, pleased. “Do you remember it?”
I began to hum the wordless melody. My mother beamed and softly began to accompany me. A light breeze swept through, yellow sunshine pouring down on us from above. It almost was as if the creek and the moss-covered rocks knew the song as well.
From about twenty paces away Ts’aak stared at us. Slowly she maneuvered across the water toward us, and she seemed to be straining to hear our song.
She joined us on the rock, silently.
Eventually we finished, and the three of us sat listening to the water flowing around us.
“What is this place?” asked Ts’aak.
“My people have been coming here for a long time,” said Kayah. “It is a place to say please and thank you.”
The older woman processed this silently.
Kayah had a pensive look in her eyes while she glanced over Ts’aak, like she was deciding what to tell her.
“I wanted you to see this place,” Kayah finally said. “We will have to backtrack a little to get to our destination—but this is an important place because Itzel left something for us here.”
She nodded at the water. “Beneath this rock is a hole in the river, and in that hole lives a river spirit. What Itzel left us is with that spirit.”
Ts’aak peered into the water. It looked impossibly deep. Far below there did seem to be a light—a glow—that emanated up.
The Sirens of Oak Creek Page 2
