Soul of the Sacred Earth

by Vella Munn

  “I want you to come with me,” he whispered to the horse. “My people need you and others of your kind. Please, tell me how this thing will be done.”

  By way of answer, the doe bared strong teeth and reached for the rope dangling from his fingers. Feeling foolish, he shook out the length and looped it over the animal’s neck just behind the ears, as he’d seen soldiers do. The doe laid back both ears, but only for a heartbeat before letting her head sag forward as if bored. He felt more sure of himself now that he had a way of leading the gods-given gift, but he still didn’t know how he would get her beyond the soldiers.

  A horse squealed nearby. On his toes, he looked around, but his vision was limited by the many large bodies. The sound might have been one of those senseless things the creatures did, but he didn’t dare allow himself to be lulled by the thought. He wrapped his fingers around the long, pale neck hair and pulled, testing its strength.

  His legs must have known what he needed to do because he first crouched slightly, then sprang up and onto the broad, warm back with its twitching skin. He briefly hung there with his belly pressed against the hard ridge of bone, then scooted around so he now straddled the doe’s back. His legs felt stretched far apart, vulnerable because he no longer had earth under him and he was too high off the ground, but others had done this thing, and so could he.

  His mind bounced from one question to another. What if the horse started to run and he couldn’t stop her; what if he fell off and those rock-hoofs connected with his arms or legs or head; how was he going to go from being a prisoner inside the corral to racing to safety?

  Another sound, this one human—and loud—sent lightning coursing through him. Although he couldn’t see who had yelled, he knew he’d been spotted.

  “Pray for me, Grandfather!” he cried.

  Then he pressed his legs and heels into the horse’s side and leaned low along her back to make as small a target as possible. He bellowed. Great muscles gathered under him, tightened, exploded into action.

  He exploded with her, a leaf trapped in a torrent of water. His fingers were knotted in her hair, his legs locked around her. He wanted this! Loved this!

  She became a lizard, twisting first one way and then the other as she pushed through the other horses. Ahead of him waited the rope-and-stick enclosure. The guard, who’d been crouched before the dog, jumped to his feet, started to aim with his weapon. The dog shied to one side—the same direction as the soldier. The two then crashed into each other and the soldier was upended.

  “Fly! Fly!”

  Chapter Three

  The mare’s hind legs scraped the top rope, but her jump was still a thing of beauty, like the flight of a bird. From where she stood next to her sister, Morning Butterfly took note of the rider’s nearly waist-length hair and naked chest and knew he wasn’t Hopi.

  “Navajo,” she breathed, then hurried forward, wondering whether the soldiers would pursue him.

  The guard who’d been stationed at the corral fired after the fleeing Navajo, but although the sharp sound forced a gasp from the horse, he didn’t hit his target. Cursing loud enough to be heard despite the nervous prancing of the horses and the muttering Hopi, the Spaniard sprinted toward his own mount. The scraggly-tailed horse shied away, nearly causing the soldier to lose his balance. Righting himself, he struck the frightened animal on the face.

  “No!” Morning Butterfly gasped, and would have broken into a run if her sister hadn’t grabbed her arm.

  “Do not—please, do not cause them to turn their anger on you,” Singer of Songs begged.

  “I—he should not . . .”

  As the leader of the Spanish troops strode toward the other man, his hard head covering and uniform catching the sun and throwing it back at her, she let her words fall away.

  Although the newcomers had been here no more than three days and nights, she knew not to call attention to herself. Instead, she joined the handful of other Hopi watching the strangers. It seemed foolish of the Spaniards to be arguing while their enemy raced away, but it wasn’t for her to understand the ways and thinking of those she wished she’d never laid eyes on.

  “Sister?” Singer of Songs tugged on her arm. “You believe he was Navajo?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what if the Spanish think he is Hopi? Will they punish us?”

  “I do not know.”

  “But perhaps you can find out.” That came from a nearby brave.

  Several older women, two young children, and a healer nodded encouragement as she walked slowly closer to the soldiers, her sister just behind her. Being surrounded by her people, Morning Butterfly told herself, would keep her safe and inconspicuous. However, that wasn’t her only concern. Summer solstice with its Niman ceremony hadn’t yet arrived, which meant the kachinas of the Hopi now lived on earth, not in the World Below as they had done each winter since the beginning of time. She wished they’d gone to their other living place, because while there, kachinas—spirits of the invisible forces of life—were safer than when they assumed material form and inhabited the bodies of humans.

  Her bare feet scraped the ground under the blue-and-brown long cotton skirt her uncle had woven for her, allowing her to feel the contact throughout her body. Outsiders with killing weapons and horses, and a deep-voiced Spaniard dressed entirely in brown who called himself a man of God, had come to her homeland, and now Oraibi sounded, smelled, and looked different, but it was still her people’s land.

  Would always be Tuwanasavi—Center of the Universe.

  She was close enough to hear what the men were saying. At first the words made no sense, but after a deep breath that brought her the familiar scent of sun-ripening corn and the strange, pungent smell of sheep and horses, she was able to concentrate.

  “Do not ask me to go out there alone, please, Captain,” the soldier who’d fired his musket was saying. “I would rather take a beating than risk being killed—or worse—by a savage. A heathen.”

  “Did I say anything about you being alone?” the helmeted man questioned. “If you had had your mind on your responsibilities instead of allowing your full belly to rule you, this would not have happened.”

  “Not my belly, sir,” the soldier muttered, his eyes downcast and his hands crossed over his heart. “If it hadn’t been for that miserable cur, that savage would be dead.”

  The other—Morning Butterfly had heard soldiers refer to him as Captain Lopez de Leiva—didn’t respond. Instead, he strode closer to the corral and stared at the milling horses. A lean, wary man with black eyes that seemed to miss nothing, he reminded Morning Butterfly of an antelope.

  “We are in a wild land.” He seemed to be talking to himself. “I do not know what I must do in order to make those under me aware of that simple fact. One moment of inattention, a single wandering thought may be the last one.”

  “Sir, what did you say?”

  “Logic. Reality,” he replied, without looking at the undernourished and bedraggled soldier. “If a single savage believes he can take what he wants, if he gets away with it, others will attempt the same thing.”

  “I will be ready for them the next time. I promise.”

  That made Captain Lopez laugh, a quick harsh sound with no joy in it.

  “There will not be a next time.” His gaze swept over the gathered Hopi. It seemed to Morning Butterfly that his eyes held on her overlong, and she wondered if she should have told her mother not to arrange her hair in the squash blossom that said she was a woman of marriageable age—but how would a man like him know the meaning of the thick coils on either side of her head?

  Neither could he guess she understood his every word. “Not a next time, Captain?” the soldier repeated. “I . . . ah . . .”

  “I will do the speaking, understand! What is your name? It escapes me at the moment.”

  “Pablo. Pablo Sh—”

  “Listen to me, Pablo. From now on there will be no laxity.” The words, each one separated from the other, pu
t her in mind of drumbeats. “How many times have I warned you of the Navajo?”

  “Navajo? But—”

  “Do you think a Hopi did that?” the captain asked as she breathed a sigh of relief. “Ha! They are too intimidated to attempt such a thing. However, if one Navajo believes he can steal from us, so will the rest of that heathen band. Your order, your only order, was to guard the horses, was it not?”

  “Yes, Captain, but—”

  “I would be within my rights to order you to turn over your musket, would I not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then you would no longer be a member of the Crown’s forces, would you?”

  “No.”

  “Alone and unarmed in the middle of a godless land surrounded by murdering Navajo, is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  Captain Lopez pursed his almost nonexistent lips. “I do not need to say more, do I?”

  The man’s head sagged even lower. “No, Captain.”

  “The next time one of the savages attempts to make off with one of the Crown’s horses, you will do whatever it takes to assure that he fails, will you not?”

  “Yes, Captain.” He spoke without looking up. “But—but what if the whole tribe attacks?”

  “Your stupidity has made that my responsibility. I simply wished to impress upon you the consequences of your action. These creatures understand force and precious little else. If we are to remain in control, they must never question or challenge that force.”

  As a young man, Morning Butterfly’s father’s uncle had been at the Sky City of the Keres when the Spanish had destroyed it. The soldiers had killed hundreds and mutilated an uncounted number of warriors, One Hand among them.

  One Hand might have died if it hadn’t been for the compassion of the now-dead Aztec Indian Tomas, who’d been brought north by the Spanish. In the aftermath of the bloodbath, Tomas had helped One Hand return home, then he’d lived out his days at Oraibi, teaching those who cared to learn what he knew of the Spanish language. Included among his attentive pupils had been the child Morning Butterfly.

  Now she could carry Captain Lopez’s words to her people.

  • • •

  “I do not wish to hear this, Captain. It is your duty to assure that the infidels submit to the Crown’s orders regarding the Christianizing of this land. It is mine to carry the Lord’s word to them.”

  “Fray Angelico, I am well aware of our respective duties and will never shrink from mine. My sole purpose in speaking to you today was to warn you that the Navajo have just proven themselves most bold. I cannot be responsible for your safety if you venture beyond range of our weapons.”

  Captain Lopez de Leiva was at least six inches taller than Fray Angelico. As a result, the forty-three-year-old Franciscan friar had to tilt his head up in order to meet the soldier’s eyes. That was bad enough; added to this, the sandals he’d worn during the long walk north from Santa Fe had barely survived the journey and were held together with strips of cloth torn from the hem of his robe. He wasn’t ashamed of the way he looked—Franciscans lived to obey God’s word and minister to the godless, not to concern themselves with the material world—but the sandals had caused a number of blisters, and he would give a great deal to be able to sit down, even on the hard, nearly lifeless earth. However, if he did, the captain might see that as a sign of weakness.

  “I travel where the Lord commands me to go, Captain,” he replied, his voice deliberately low so the soldier had to lean forward to hear. “If I receive a sign that He wants me to devote myself to converting the Navajo, I will do so.”

  “Then you will die.”

  Captain Lopez spoke too frequently of death and danger, and Fray Angelico would have told him so if there weren’t more important matters to discuss. Balancing himself as best as he could on his swollen feet, he pointed up at the great gray mass that was Oraibi.

  Today the sky was a soft blue and as such provided a striking contrast to the multi-roomed stone-and-mud structures and the red-brown sandstone that made up the broad mesa on which the village had been built. The mesa itself extended some six hundred feet above the plains. On the north side the slope was relatively gentle, but for reasons he might never understand, most of the meager farmland was south of the pueblo. The Hopi didn’t seem to mind scrambling up and down the steep incline with trails cut into crevices and breaks in the red-brown sandstone, but he hated making the exhausting journey. In fact, he wouldn’t have come back down this afternoon if the majority of the Hopi men hadn’t been out on the desert, tending to their corn, beans, and squash. Well, perhaps that wasn’t the only reason he’d left the pueblo, he admitted to himself as a shudder touched his sparse frame.

  “I have made my decision,” he said.

  “Decision?” Captain Lopez’s jaw remained clenched.

  “The mission will be built at Oraibi itself.”

  “What? You cannot be serious.”

  “Indeed, I am.” He shifted his weight, the unwise movement causing a stab of pain to run up his legs. With an effort, he kept his features immobile. “I have given the matter a great deal of thought and prayer; the Lord sent the answer to me this morning in a glorious vision.”

  He waited for the captain to prompt him to continue. When he didn’t, Angelico stifled his irritation and went on anyway. “After my waking prayers, I made the climb to Oraibi at first light, thinking to gather as many as could hear my voice for morning mass, but the heathens were already intent on their day’s tasks. Some of the men travel so far to reach their plots that they are compelled to remain away overnight, so they would have missed my blessing anyway.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  So the captain was impatient. Good. “Their pueblo is the center of these people’s existence. If I am to minister to their religious needs, I must be accessible to them.”

  “How do you propose to carry the necessary materials up there? The wagons would never survive the journey.”

  “The Hopi erected their crude structures there; they are capable of following my directions in creating a church worthy of our Lord. Captain Lopez, with faith, all things are possible.”

  “Faith does not put strength in a man’s back.”

  “You mock God?”

  Although the captain gave a dismissive wave, his eyes took on a nervous cast, once again giving Angelico proof that the ways of the Lord were wondrous indeed since even those whose faith was imperfect crumbled like dead leaves when faced with the consequences of invoking His wrath.

  “I am relieved to hear that, Captain,” he said with just a touch of compassion. “If I believed you capable of ridicule, I would feel compelled to pray for you.”

  “Father, you and I are not charged with the same responsibilities,” Captain Lopez stated. “What your plans are, I readily admit, are not my concern.”

  That was because the hard military man had allowed himself to be drawn off the path of righteousness carved by a vengeful God. “I am sorry for you,” Angelico whispered.

  A shrug of the lean shoulders under the heavy uniform was the captain’s only reaction. “Today,” he said, “I concern myself with determining what steps must be taken to assure the Navajo won’t steal more horses or the sheep which the Crown saw fit to add to the bountiful provisions it provided for this colony. What I do not want, what I truly wish you would reconsider, is your insistence on this ill-conceived church.”

  “Ill-conceived? Why do you think I am here? My mission—”

  “Father, the Crown charged me with doing everything within my power to claim this land for Spain, and to that end I have the governor’s generous backing in addition to what my wife’s father has provided. The king and his ministers have declared that the Church be given primary responsibility for taming the savages. Yes, yes, I know,” he went on when Angelico tried to speak. “You call it baptism, not taming. Nonetheless . . .”

  He looked around distractedly, then continued. “I have only seven men under my command. If
the mission is built on the mesa, I will be compelled to charge my men with guarding it.”

  “That is indeed your responsibility.”

  “And as a consequence, I will not have adequate manpower to oversee the Hopi while they work to provide the State with its due, or the needed presence to keep the Navajo at bay.”

  “Captain, if I am to succeed in the Lord’s work, I must position the church so it overshadows the barbaric sites to which the heathens, in their ignorance, attach religious significance.”

  “If I am to succeed, Father, I must have freedom of movement. I will not have that if I am forced to station my men at Oraibi.”

  “Do not call it Oraibi! The mission will be named for Francis Bernadone, patron saint of the Franciscans. By the time the church is complete, the Hopi will have forgotten that what stands on the mesa was ever known by any other name.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Perhaps? “Once they have been baptized, they will sing praise to the Lord as they go about their work with willing hearts.”

  “You think so?”

  Closing his eyes, Angelico lifted his arms to the heavens. His feet still throbbed and he sweated under his loose robe, but although the thought of the enormous task exhausted him, he’d never felt more convinced of the necessity of what he had to do than at this moment, or more compelled to devote his every breath to the work that had been his calling since early childhood. He was surrounded by heathens whose souls, if they had them, would spend eternity in hell unless he guided them to the light.