Soul of the Sacred Earth
Page 19
“That morning we came across horse tracks. It was an easy matter to follow them.”
“They must have been fresh. Otherwise, the wind would have blown them away.”
“We came to the same conclusion, sir, and doubled our efforts to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but there was no way we could be sure of our safety.”
Lopez nodded. “Go on.”
Looking disappointed at his commanding officer’s apparent lack of concern for his life, Pablo forged ahead. As he detailed the rugged terrain, Lopez gave silent thanks to the God he all too often discounted for looking after his men. Life was cheap in this land, and yet each was precious; if his troops were depleted, he would be at the savages’ mercy.
“It was nearly dark on the second day when we first heard the horses,” Pablo explained. “We waited until the moon was up, then left our own mounts behind and continued on foot. The eight Navajo hovels are grouped so most are within sight of each other. They have not built a corral but hobble the horses. In addition, guards are stationed among the animals.”
“How many guards?”
“I saw two, but there might have been more.”
“Hm. What did you see in the way of weapons?”
Pablo shook his head. He hadn’t taken a chance on getting closer to the settlement. A few Navajo men had been sitting in front of one of their houses, but it had been impossible to determine how many savages called the village home.
“The element of surprise,” Lopez said, returning to the matter at hand. “That is what will conquer the Navajo. The Indians who make this godless land their home are little more than animals, untrained in modern fighting techniques. Once we begin firing, they will surrender.”
Pablo fingered his side, where he’d been wounded, but said nothing.
“Do not concern yourself with strategy, Pablo,” Lopez snapped. “That is my responsibility. Yours is simply to obey my commands.” He licked his lips. “And now that we know where the Navajo are, I can put my plan into action.”
Chapter Fourteen
While she waited for her sister to return from the captain’s tent, Morning Butterfly busied herself by repairing One Hand’s moccasin, and remembering the time she’d spent with Cougar.
He wasn’t the first man she’d been alone with, but tonight she couldn’t remember the others. She wanted to believe that was because his words challenged everything she’d ever believed about being a Hopi, but she knew it was more than that. He was handsome and tall, strong and reckless—as witnessed by the way he’d stood up to the captain. A man like that would be a good hunter, capable of providing everything she needed. Only . . .
Only he was Navajo and she’d told him she hated him.
A faint scraping outside the pueblo provided her with the distraction she badly needed, and she scrambled to her feet to welcome her sister. So far the captain had left no marks on Singer of Songs. Just the same, by coal light, she studied her sister’s every movement.
“You are late.” Not wanting to risk waking the other family members, she kept her voice at a whisper. “He has never kept you this long.”
“No.” Singer of Songs glanced at her parents’ sleeping mats before indicating she wanted Morning Butterfly to go outside with her.
“I will tell everyone what I heard,” Singer of Songs said once they stood under the stars. “But I want to discuss it with you first. To see if you find the same meaning in the soldiers’ words that I did.”
Morning Butterfly wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulder.
“They think so little of us,” Singer of Songs said. “It does not occur to them that you are not the only one who has learned at least a little Spanish.”
“It is best that way.”
Singer of Songs studied the stars and the nearly full moon for several moments before going on. “I wish I was a child again,” she said softly. “A girl learning to dry corn and gather what our mother needs to make baskets. To be curious about deer and wolves, insects and snakes. To not—to not be a woman.”
“In your heart, you—”
“No, not in my heart. And not my body either. I fear . . .”
“What do you fear?” she prompted.
“Nothing. The missing soldiers returned today,” Singer of Songs said, and then proceeded to describe the conversation between Captain Lopez and the one known as Pablo.
Morning Butterfly had guessed the soldiers were either looking for the Navajo or had gone in search of the stones the captain set so much store by. Learning that finding the Navajo village had been their goal, and that they’d succeeded, chilled her.
“What will happen now?” she asked. “Will they attack the Navajo?”
“I do not know. The captain spoke of his desire to find emeralds. That is what he is determined to have the Navajo tell him.”
“There can only be one way. He and his soldiers will attack the Navajo, kill those he has no need for, capture Cougar.”
“Surely that is not your concern.”
“But it is,” she whispered. “Sister, if a Navajo knew the newcomers planned to attack us, you would want his warning, would you not?”
“A Navajo does not care what happens to the Hopi.” Singer of Songs gripped her sister’s arm and pulled her close. “Your thoughts frighten me. Please tell me you will not leave Oraibi. Promise me.”
“Do not ask for what I cannot give.”
• • •
Sometimes the Snake ceremony caused it to rain for several days afterward, but this year there’d only been one brief storm. As Morning Butterfly hurried toward the Navajo settlement after gathering up what she would need for a journey of several days and asking Singer of Songs to do what she could to calm their family, she took note of how dry everything looked, the air brittle and spent.
She’d heard enough from the Spaniards to know that other parts of the world were blessed with abundant rainfall, but she couldn’t imagine what it was like. Nor would she ever want to be anywhere else. Every morning, Sun emerged from his house in the east, traveled in a circular path above the earth, and, at sunset, descended into his house in the west. During the night, Sun completed his journey by traveling west to east through the underworld. In the same way, every year at the time of the Winter Solstice, Sun left his winter house and traveled to his summer place, a journey that lasted until the Summer Solstice.
In gratitude for the everlasting cycle, the Hopi held ceremonies to assure that the rhythm would continue for all time. The Home Dance would be held, the women of the Lakon, Marawu, and Owaqlt societies would perform their fall ceremonies as they always had.
Without those things, here, there would be no Hopi.
Lost in those thoughts, she barely noticed the red and white cliffs in the distance, now highlighted by the rising sun. She made no attempt to hide herself and had no doubt the Navajo would spot her once she neared their village. She wanted to be found. Wanted to be taken to Cougar.
No, not just Cougar, although his presence was essential since he might be the only one she could communicate with.
A gray-brown rabbit broke from beneath a bush to her right, causing her first to start and then laugh at the way its overlarge hind legs slapped the ground. Suddenly she realized that something, or someone, was in the small depression to her left, something large that sent fingers of alarm through her. Acting instinctively, she changed directions, but although she’d already started to run, she’d only gone a few steps when something slammed into her and she was sent sprawling to the ground.
A man’s voice, the words harsh and incomprehensible, helped calm her. Although she didn’t understand Navajo, the language itself told her she hadn’t been captured by a soldier.
“Please,” she gasped. “I . . . I mean no harm.”
Her captor said something else, his tone less angry. Then, to her gratitude, he lifted himself off her. Before she could think what to do, he yanked her to her feet and turned her so her face was in full sunlight.
• • •
The sun had completed its journey and she was both thirsty and hungry by the time she and the brave reached the Navajo village. For the first time in her life, she’d sat astride a horse, and although at first she’d been terrified, she’d soon been in awe of the amount of ground a running horse could cover. She hadn’t liked having the Navajo’s arm around her waist, but she’d also felt safe with him behind her; most of all she’d been grateful that he hadn’t seen her as an enemy and understood what she wanted.
Because Sun’s light hadn’t fully faded, she was able to make out several separate, rounded Navajo hogans. Although she’d heard them described, she’d never seen one, and despite her unease at being here, she took a moment to study them.
From where she sat on horseback, she spotted as many structures as she had fingers on one hand, but because the land here buckled and swayed, she suspected there were more.
Like her people’s homes, the hogans blended with their surroundings, but where a pueblo took its strength from stone, the hogans were held together with dirt and bark. What made the most impact was how far apart from each other they were, like lonely creatures isolated in the wilderness instead of interwoven the way Hopi houses were. Perhaps the Navajo valued privacy; perhaps each family had its own separate piece of land. Just the same, she found it strange that they didn’t need to take strength from each other’s nearness.
A couple of young boys came out of the closest hogan and stood staring at her with their mouths open. When she smiled at them, they didn’t smile back, but the older one came a few steps closer. Learning Spanish had been an unwanted necessity, but she looked forward to learning enough Navajo to at least communicate a little with the children.
The man who’d brought her here pointed toward a flat area, and after dismounting, she walked over to it, hobbling a little from being on horseback so long. A number of other children had already joined the boys, and several women now stood near them. They wore cotton dresses covered with complex designs.
She’d just settled herself and begun to look around when one of the women approached, shook out a sheepskin, and placed it on the ground. Using a combination of grunts and hand signals, she commanded Morning Butterfly to sit on it. She did so, wondering as she inhaled the scent of wool how many sheep the Navajo had killed, and how much longer the Spanish would tolerate the loss of their livestock.
How long she sat there, with at least twenty women and children studying her, she couldn’t say, just that the day had ended and night begun when she felt a faint thudding that seemed to vibrate through the ground. As it came closer, she prayed to Taiowa to protect her. If the sound and vibration was caused by a Navajo spirit, would the Hopi creator be powerful enough to keep her safe? She couldn’t imagine any being greater than Taiowa, but she was on Navajo land.
Seven or eight men started walking toward her. In the rapidly dying light, she couldn’t tell whether they were armed.
“Humbly I ask my Father, the perfect one, Taiowa, our Father, the perfect one creating the beautiful life, shown to us by the yellow light. To give us perfect light at the time of the red light. The perfect one laid out the perfect plan and gave to us a long span of life, creating song to implant joy in life. On this path of happiness, we the Butterfly Maidens carry out his wishes by greeting our Father Sun. The song resounds back from our Creator with joy, and we of the earth repeat it to our Creator. At the appearing of the yellow light, repeats and repeats again the joyful echo, sounds and resounds for times to come.”
Strengthened and steadied by her people’s Song of Creation, she folded her hands in her lap and waited. The men formed a circle around her, their bodies so warm that she guessed they must have just come from their sweat lodge. One sat on the sheepskin with her, his knees touching hers.
“Do not be afraid, Morning Butterfly,” Cougar said in Hopi. “No harm will come to you.”
He was voice and warmth, a shadowy outline so close she could easily trace his features and form with her fingers if she reached out. So he wasn’t a dream after all, not a kachina born of her young heart. And he was alive.
“It is good to see you,” she said as yet more Navajo appeared. The number eventually swelled to nearly a hundred.
“It is good to see you. When Laughs at Thunder offered to watch for any sign of the newcomers, I said it would be a good thing, even though I knew what he really wanted was to spend the day with one of the horses. Now I see the spirits’ hands in what happened.”
“The spirits?”
“They brought you and Laughs at Thunder together and eased your journey. Your people are well?”
“Yes.”
“And are they happy?”
“Happy? No, they are not. We fear we will not be able to harvest this year’s crops,” she began, then told how she’d been forced to pass on the padre’s orders that everyone capable of working spend their days building something he called a church. She’d explained to Lopez and the padre that the Hopi would starve if they neglected their corn, beans, and squash, but her pleas had fallen on deaf ears.
“The captain pointed to our store of dried corn and piki and said that would be enough to feed us through the winter. Winter, maybe, but what about spring and summer? They must believe we can survive on grass and weeds the way their horses and sheep do.”
“You said those things to him?”
She nodded, then said yes in case he couldn’t see her gesture in the dark. “The lives of the Hopi means little to the captain and his men. Only one thing does—emeralds.”
He expelled his breath with enough force that it reached her cheeks. She wished it was daylight so she could study his expressions, look into his eyes and find the truth of him.
“Cougar, he knows how to find you,” she said when he’d finished what she assumed was a translation of what she’d just told him.
Numerous shadowy bodies crowded even closer, but she concentrated only on Cougar, spoke to him alone. “I fear—I fear he will force you to take him to where he believes the emeralds are.”
“He knows where I am?”
She hadn’t said that well, but with apprehension crawling through her, choosing her words was difficult. After gathering the Song of Creation around her for courage, she told him what she’d learned from her sister.
“Soldiers gazed upon us and we did not know,” he whispered after he’d passed on the latest. “This is not good.”
“They followed the tracks of horses,” she explained. “But they were fearful, and so took care to hide themselves.”
“Witchcraft,” Cougar said, shaking his head.
“What?”
“Witchcraft may be responsible for what the soldiers were able to do. I feared—I knew I had seen a witch-wolf, a chindi.”
“A chindi?”
“Darkness and evil, sometimes the hate-filled ghost of a dead Earth Surface People.”
“And your people fear them?”
“Yes,” he said after a brief silence. “No good Navajo becomes a chindi, because in order for the change into evil to take place, a relative must be sacrificed. Ours is a peaceful village because we have no such cursed one among us, but what I saw when I was returning from my first visit to Oraibi may not have been a true wolf. I sought out our elders and shamans and asked for their wisdom, but all they could do was tell me they did not believe the evil came from the Navajo.”
“Then where?”
“The Spanish. I was foolish to think I could get rid of the newcomers by sending them off in search of green stones,” he continued. “They are still here, still dangerous.”
“Cougar, you told me that the Navajo are different from my people, that yours would never allow their enemies to take their food, their women, their freedom. I do not want to say this, but is it possible the Navajo could become sheep because the Spanish have chindi among them?”
“No! Never!”
“Then you will leave? Go where you and your people will be safe?”
A man who’d been standing behind Cougar started to speak. Cougar responded, and then several others joined in. Morning Butterfly listened closely and tried to duplicate some of the sounds of their words in her mind, but the sounds lacked meaning and she didn’t know what—if anything—she was saying. She felt exhaustion creeping through her.
“They wanted to know what we were talking about,” Cougar finally explained. “Everyone is troubled because the Spanish came so close. You are certain you were not followed?”
She explained that she’d been careful to sneak away at night when neither the soldiers nor padre were nearby, but added that they might be looking for her now.
“They will not know where to search, but I cannot stay long,” she told him. “Cougar, please, go where you will be safe. Hide from our shared enemy.”
“Me? What about the rest of my people?”
“I cannot tell you what to do. But if you were captured again, the soldiers would force you—they are not gentle men. I fear . . .”
“You are afraid for a Navajo?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The question left her momentarily speechless, but after looking up at the newborn stars for guidance, she spoke.
“This land nourishes those who understand and honor it. We accept its richness, but we, Hopi and Navajo alike, also know we are blessed to be allowed to live here. The Spanish do not. Instead, they take from the land but do not replenish it, do not give thanks. That places your people and mine on one side of life, the outsiders on the other.”