The Year's Best SF 13 # 1995

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Grandfather snorted. “Tell me about it, chooch,” he said bitterly. “You don’t know the half of it yet.”

  * * *

  Whatever … and be all that as it may, I recall that Game season as possibly the best of my lifetime. The sky was clear and the sun bright every day, with no sign of the storms and drizzly spells that so often come with the spring in the Cherokee hill country. Even the wind was at least reasonably warm—though of course it never stopped blowing, this being, after all, Oklahoma.

  The weather was so fine, in fact, that some of the elders came to confer with Grandfather Ninekiller about whether it was really necessary to set out the broken glass and the ax heads to turn aside possible tornadoes. He told them probably not, but they went ahead and did it all the same; they said tradition was tradition and you couldn’t be too careful about tornadoes, but I figured it was mainly because they’d already made the trip over to the ruins of Old Tahlequah to get the glass.

  The tornadoes never showed up, but the people sure did. Oh, my, yes, the people, the People.…

  They came from all directions, all day every day and sometimes at night, too. They began coming as much as half a moon before the Game days began, hoping to get good spots to camp—or, if they had the right connections, houseguest privileges with Cherokee families—but it wasn’t long before all the regular campgrounds were full and you began finding people making camp in the damnedest places. Like this family of Pawnees my father found sleeping amid the broken walls of the old Park Hill post office.

  They came from the Five Nations and the Seven Allied Tribes, but they also came from other tribes that had their Games at other times of the year. It was widely known that it was worth the journey just to enjoy Cherokee hospitality and sample the entertainment and do some wagon-tailgate trading.

  Mostly they came from the Plains tribes to the west: Comanches and Kiowas and Apaches and Caddos and a few Cheyennes and Arapahos, all riding splendid horses and wearing beaded finery and the mysterious emblems of the peyote church. But there were also Quapaws and Otoes and Kaws and Poncas and lots of others. Osages, too, five of the big bastards, riding in a wagon made from the body of an old Cadillac car, come down to see how the enemy lived and do a little scouting, their lives safe during the Game-time truce.

  There was even a delegation from the Washita Nation, of the far-off Arkansas hills, decked out in really weird outfits—fringed vests and pants, goofy-looking high-topped moccasins, quartz crystals big as your penis hanging around their necks—and spouting loony crap about “previous lives” and “channeling” to anybody they could corner. General opinion was that there wasn’t a single drop of the real People’s blood among the lot of them, and looking at them I could believe it, but nobody really objected all that much. If nothing else they were good for a laugh.

  And after all, though nobody talks much about it, the truth is that most of the People have more white blood than they like to admit.

  * * *

  “It’s not only because we took in so many of the surviving whites, after things went to hell for them,” Grandfather Ninekiller said, the only time I ever raised the subject with him. “Clear back in Yuasa times, there were lots of mixed-bloods. Toward the end they outnumbered the full-bloods in a lot of tribes. Cherokees damn near screwed ourselves white, in fact, before it was over. How do you think your Grandmother Badwater got that red hair?”

  “What about you, eduda?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m a full-blood Cherokee,” he said immediately. “And so were both of my parents. But my grandmother on my father’s side, now, she was part white.”

  * * *

  “Elvis Bearpaw is playing for the Deer Clan.”

  That was my uncle Kennedy Badwater, speaking to Grandfather Ninekiller. It was the day before the beginning of the Game period, and that was the first I can actually recall hearing about the honor that had fallen upon Elvis Bearpaw.

  Grandfather said, “Well, he’s always been an ambitious young man. This could be the big breakthrough for him.”

  They both laughed, and I joined in, in a quiet sort of way, from where I sat on the hard-packed ground next to Grandfather’s seat. I wasn’t, as I’ve said, all that interested in the subject, but there wasn’t much else to do but listen in on the old men’s conversation while I waited for Grandfather to need my assistance.

  He’d been blind for three years by that time, and I’d lived with him the whole while, brought him the food that my mother cooked for him, filled and lit his pipe, helped him find various things around his cabin—not very often; he had a memory like a wolf trap—and generally served as his eyes and an extra set of hands. I’d helped him with certain items when he made medicine, too; and I’d led him, or rather accompanied him, around the village and to and from the various ceremonies and official functions where his duties took him. I’d sat at his feet at more Council meetings than I could have added up, hearing speech after speech on questions of war and peace and tribal politics, getting myself an unmatchable education but bored silly by it all at the time.…

  “Word is he went to see Old Man Alabama as soon as they gave him the news,” my uncle said. “Wonder what he did that for.”

  Old Man Alabama was a famous medicine man—a lot of people said witch—who lived on an island down on Lake Tenkiller, a little way above the old dam. He claimed to be the last living member of the Alabama tribe. His power was said to be tremendous and most people were afraid to even talk about him.

  “Huh,” Grandfather grunted. “Wonder why anybody would go to see that old nutcase. Old Man Alabama’s the kind who give mad sorcerers a bad name.”

  I took a hardwood dart from the cane-joint quiver at my waist and held it up and sighted along it, checking for straightness. Not that there was any chance of finding anything wrong, as many times as I’d inspected those darts in the last few days, but it was something to do. My blowgun lay across my lap and I could have taken a few practice shots at some handy target while the old men talked, but it would have been a little impolite and I was trying to make a good impression on my uncle, who always gave me some sort of present at Game time.

  “Looking for an angle,” my uncle said.

  “You know the old Cherokee saying,” Grandfather said. “‘Watch out what you look for. You might find it.’”

  “Is that an old Cherokee saying?” my uncle said, grinning.

  “Must be,” Grandfather said, straight-faced. “I said it, and I’m an old Cherokee.”

  * * *

  The following morning, out at the great field, they had the opening ceremony. As the ball of the sun cleared the horizon, the Master of the Fire, old Gogisgi Wildcat, lit the sacred fire. Smoke rose against the brightening sky and Grandfather Ninekiller raised his voice in a song so ancient that even he didn’t know what half the words meant; and when he finished, to a shouted chorus of “Wado!” from the assembled Cherokee elders, the Game days had at last begun.

  Grandfather and I watched the start of the cross-country foot race, and the first heats of the shorter races—all right, I watched and gave Grandfather a running description—and then drifted over to take in the opening innings of the women’s softball series. After that we walked slowly back across the fields to the outskirts of the town, where women tended fires and steam rose from big pots and the air was fairly edible with the smells of food. People called out invitations to come sample this or that—kenuche, corn soup, chili—and Grandfather generally tried to oblige; I couldn’t see where he put it all in that skinny old frame. I didn’t dare load up, myself, what with the blowgun competition coming up in the afternoon; but I did allow myself to be tempted by some remarkably fine wild grape dumplings, or maybe by the pretty Paint Clan girl who offered them to me. I was starting to take an interest in that girl business, those days.

  I might as well have gone ahead and stuffed myself, for all the difference it made. That was how I felt, anyway, after a sudden puff of wind made me miss the swinging target comple
tely in the final round of the blowgun shoot and I wound up losing out to Duane Kingfisher from up near Rocky Ford. Now, looking back, second place doesn’t seem so bad—especially when I remember that the Osages killed Duane four years later, when he went on that damn fool horse-stealing raid—but at the time all I could see was that I’d lost. I felt as if I’d been booted in the stomach.

  I was still feeling pretty rotten that night at the stomp dance. I don’t even think I’d have gone if I hadn’t had to accompany Grandfather Ninekiller. Sitting beside him under the Bird Clan arbor, watching the dancers circling the fire and listening to the singing and the shaka-shaka-shaka of the turtle shell rattles on the women’s legs, I felt none of the usual joy, only a dull mean dog-kicking anger—at the wind, at Duane Kingfisher, mostly at myself.

  After a while my Uncle Kennedy appeared from out of the darkness and sat down beside me. “’Siyo, chooch,” he said to me, after exchanging greetings with Grandfather.

  I said, “’Siyo, eduji,” in a voice about as cheerful and friendly as an open grave. But he didn’t appear to notice.

  “Damn,” he said, watching the dancers, “there’s Elvis Bearpaw leading, big as you please.”

  Now he mentioned it, I saw that Elvis Bearpaw was in fact leading this song, circling the fire at the head of the spiral line of dancers, calling out the old words in a strong high voice. His face shone in the firelight as he crouched and turned and waved his hands. He was a husky, good-looking young guy, supposed to be something of a devil with the women. I don’t guess I’d ever even traded greetings with him; his family and mine moved in different circles. Watching him now, though, I had to admit that he could sure as hell sing and dance.

  “Don’t think I ever saw him lead before,” Uncle Kennedy said. “How about that?”

  On the other side of me Grandfather made a noise that was part snort and part grunt. He wasn’t a big admirer of the Bearpaws, whom he considered pushy assholes who’d lucked into more wealth and power than they knew what to do with.

  “Saw you in the blowgun shoot today, chooch,” my uncle remarked. “Tough luck there. But hell, you still came in second. Better than I ever did.”

  He was taking something from his belt, from up under the tail of his ribbon shirt. “Here,” he said. “Didn’t figure to give you this till later on, but you look like you could use some cheering up.”

  It was a knife, a fine big one with a deer horn handle and a wide businesslike blade; a man’s knife, not a kid’s whittler like the one I’d been carrying, and somebody had done some first-class work putting a glass-smooth finish on that lovely steel.… I said, “Wado, eduji,” but my voice didn’t come out entirely right.

  “Got some good stiff saddle leather at home,” my uncle said. “Make you a sheath for that thing, you bring it by sometime. Boy,” he added admiringly, “look at old Elvis go.”

  Out by the fire Elvis Bearpaw was getting down and winding up, his body rocking from side to side. There was something strange in his face, I thought, or maybe that was just a trick of the firelight. He called out a phrase and the other men responded: “Ha-na-wi-ye, ha-na-wi-ye.” And shaka-shaka-shaka went the turtle shells.

  * * *

  The next few days were a regular whirlwind of feasting and dancing and singing and sports, sports, sports: all the things needed to make a twelve-year-old boy decide that when he dies he wants to go some place where it’s like this all the time.

  I went to everything I could, with or without Grandfather, who was having to make a lot of heavy medicine in preparation for the approaching Game. I played stickball with the other Cherokee boys, of course, and even scored a couple of goals, though in the end the Choctaws beat us by one. I watched Uncle Kennedy win the rifle shoot and then saw him lose everything he’d won, betting on a horse race between the Seminoles and the Kickapoos. I went to the cornstalk shoot—going to have to try that myself next year, now I was big enough to pull a serious bow—and the tomahawk throw, the horseshoe matches, and the wild cow–roping contest, even the canoe race down on the river. And the bicycle race, the very last year they ever had it; it was getting impossible to find parts to keep those old machines rolling, and the leather-rope tires they had to use kept coming off in the turns and causing mass crashes. What was the name of that Wichita kid who won? I forget.

  And every night at the stomp dance grounds there was Elvis Bearpaw out by the fire, singing and dancing his ass off, always with that funny strained expression on his face. Uncle Kennedy said he looked like he thought something might be gaining on him.

  * * *

  There was no stomp dance the night before Game day, naturally; too many of the dance leaders and other important persons would be spending the night taking medicine and making smoke and otherwise purifying themselves, getting ready for their parts in the Game.

  That included Grandfather Ninekiller, who had to do some things so secret and dangerous that I wasn’t even allowed to be in the cabin while he did them. I helped him lay out a few medicine items, made sure there was plenty of firewood in the box, and got the hell out without having to be told twice. That sort of business always scared me half to death. Still does.

  I was supposed to be staying at my parents’ cabin that night, but I didn’t really want to go, not any sooner than I could help anyway. I’d never gotten along with them worth a damn; that might have been why they’d been so happy to send me off to live with the old man.

  I stood for a moment thinking about it, and then I turned the other way and walked away from the town, off across the moon white fields, following the distant boom-boom of a big Plains drum. Some of our Western visitors were having one of their powwow dances that night. I wasn’t all that fond of that damn howling racket the Plains People call singing, but it would beat sitting around all evening listening to questions about the old man’s health and complaints about my failure to visit more often and stories about how smart my younger brothers were.

  I stayed at the powwow till pretty late, having more fun than I’d expected—all right, that Kiowa music has a good beat, you can dance to it—and hanging out with some of my buddies who’d sneaked off from their own families. Along about midnight I met a Creek girl named Hillary Screechowl and after a certain amount of persuasive bullshit on my part she took a little walk with me off into the woods. Where nothing really major took place, but we did get far enough to clear up a few questions I’d been wondering about lately.

  It was really late, maybe halfway between midnight and daybreak, when I finally left the powwow area and headed back toward town. The moon had almost gone down but the stars were big and white, and I had no trouble finding my way across the darkened fields. The town itself was invisible against the blackness of the tree line, but a good many fires still burned there.

  I took a shortcut through a narrow stand of trees and found myself near the Game grounds. For no particular reason—still in no hurry to get to my parents’ place, I guess—I changed course and walked along next to the south border of the grounds. I’d never before seen the place on the night before a Game, with everything laid out in readiness and nobody around. It was an interesting sight, but a little on the spooky side.

  The long tables and benches shone faintly in the starlight, their wood scrubbed white over the years by generations of laboring women and wagonloads of wood ash soap. Everything was already in place for the players, of course, as was the ceremonial equipment up on the big packed-earth platform at the eastern end of the grounds. It had all been smoked and doctored late the previous day, in a ceremony closed to everyone except the chief medicine men of the twelve participating tribes, and covered with sheets of white cloth that would have paid for a whole herd of horses at any trade meet in Oklahoma.

  All the people had gone home now, except for a couple of guards who were supposed to be keeping an eye on things. I wondered why they hadn’t challenged me already. Sitting on their butts somewhere nearby, no doubt, having a smoke or even asleep.

&
nbsp; I felt a surge of righteous twelve-year-old indignation at the thought. Not that there was any serious risk of intruders, let alone thieves—even Osage raiders wouldn’t dare cross that sacred line—but still, when you had the honor of standing guard over the grounds, on the night before a Game at that …

  Then I saw Elvis Bearpaw coming out of the woods.

  I didn’t recognize him at first; he was no more than a vague shadow, half a bow shot away. For a moment I thought it was one of the guards, but then the starlight fell on his face and I recognized him. Without quite knowing why, I stepped back into the deep shadow beneath the trees, watching.

  He was moving fast, almost at a run, and he was crouched down low like a bear dancer. He crossed the white lime medicine line without so much as an instant’s hesitation and dived in between the nearest rows of playing tables. The sacrilege was so enormous that the breath went out of me and my vision went blurry, and when I could see and breathe again Elvis Bearpaw had disappeared.

  I don’t know why I didn’t call out for the guards; the idea never even occurred to me. Instead I stood there for what felt like a long time, scanning the rows of tables and the open ground all around trying to figure out where he’d gone and what he was up to.

  And I’d almost decided that I’d lost him, that he’d left the grounds as sneakily as he’d come, but then I finally thought to watch the Cherokee players’ table, up in the middle of the front row and directly in front of the big platform. Sure enough, I was just in time to spot him when he popped up.

  He didn’t pop very high. All I could see was the top half of his head, silhouetted against the whiteness of the tabletop, and his hands as they reached up and then vanished beneath the white cloth.