Walker of Time

by Helen Hughes Vick

  Catching it in one hand, Walker answered, “Yes. More or less. Except while we wait, we are going to keep our eyes and our minds open. My Uncle used to tell me, ‘Answers to questions are all around you if you are willing to see them.’ I think we should learn as much as we can about these people before their chief comes back.”

  “You mean mix with the natives?” Tag’s face broke into his toothy grin. “Great idea! There’s a ton of things that I need to see. Most of their culture, their very way of life, was lost in time, so I need to . . .” Tag stopped, putting his hands on his thin hips. “Okay, what’s so funny?”

  Walker laughed, shaking his head. “You! Back in the future you said that you were sick of hearing your father talk about dead Indians all the time. Now you can hardly wait to start doing living archaeology.”

  Smiling sheepishly, Tag shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I guess I have some of my Dad in me. Do you realize what we are seeing, hearing, and touching? We are with an ancient civilization that literally just disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving very little behind. People centuries from now are going to examine, study, and wonder about what we are actually living right now!”

  Hearing noise behind them, they turned toward the houses. With some difficulty, Morning Flower crawled out of Great Owl’s low door. Flute Maiden followed close behind with a water jug slung over each shoulder. Small Cub scrambled out behind her. The two women talked in soft voices for a minute. Then Morning Flower entered the T-shaped door of the dwelling next to Great Owl’s.

  “Time to learn the first and most basic aspect of daily life here,” Walker said, nodding his head toward Flute Maiden. Walking up to Flute Maiden, he took a jug from her shoulder. “Bahanas are expert water carriers,” he said, passing the jug to Tag. Tag took the jug and began to examine it with great interest. Walker chuckled. He took the other jug from Flute Maiden and put it on his own shoulder.

  “I want to go, too! I want to go, too!” cried Small Cub, tugging at Flute Maiden’s hand.

  Smiling down at her nephew, Flute Maiden answered, “You may go, but you must carry your own water jug. Run get it.”

  While they waited for Small Cub, Walker studied the houses. There were two other small dwellings also built under the limestone overhang. They were nestled under the low, tapering edges, one on each side of the main houses. Walker was almost sure that these low, compact rooms were used for food storage. How full were these rooms? wondered Walker.

  “Do all bahanas have such . . . such . . . ,” Flute Maiden asked Walker, twirling her hand around her head.

  “You mean curly hair. No. He’s just lucky,” Walker answered with a chuckle, staring at Tag’s wild mass of curls.

  “Hey, you two are talking about me again, aren’t you?” Tag demanded.

  “What could we possibly say?” Walker answered, flashing a smile at Tag.

  Small Cub reappeared carrying a small water jug slung over his thin shoulder. Flute Maiden started down the path. Walker followed behind her, with Tag next. Small Cub trotted close on Tag’s heels, watching every movement the bahana made.

  The trail was well worn and narrow. It wrapped around in front of another limestone overhang that housed seven or eight dwellings of various sizes. Clusters of women and small children gathered around the homes. The women were talking, but their voices quieted when they saw the group approaching. Only the eyes of the children continued to watch them as Flute Maiden stopped at the first home.

  “Gray Dove,” said Flute Maiden in a soft voice to a middle-aged woman sitting in the doorway. “How is your mother’s cough today?”

  Gray Dove looked up from the piece of leather that she was scraping with a sharp stone knife. Her black hair was streaked with gray, yet her pretty face was youthful. Only her eyes looked tired and old. The stone knife trembled in her hand as she spoke. “The tea you left helps calm the cough.” There was gratefulness in her voice, but it had a cautious undertone to it.

  Flute Maiden nodded. “Gray Dove, these are our visitors, Walker and Tag.” Turning to Walker, she continued, “Gray Dove is well known for her great skill with leather. People from all over bring their uncured skins and hides to her. She makes very beautiful moccasins, clothes, bags, and other items from them. To wear or own one of Gray Dove’s creations is an honor.”

  Gray Dove’s face shown with pride, but her eyes remained on her work.

  At the adjoining home, two women, obviously a mother and daughter, sat on yucca mats working with wet, gray clay. Nearby, three newly formed bowls and pots were drying in the sun on a flat limestone slab. A sleeping infant lay strapped in a cradle board near the younger woman. After asking the women about their families, Flute Maiden once again introduced Walker and Tag.

  The oldest woman, whose shoulders were hunched forward a bit, looked up at Walker. Her small, deep-set eyes studied his face for a minute, then fell upon Walker’s turquoise pendant. Her thin lips parted in a smile. “Welcome.” Her voice was thin yet held warmth.

  Walker saw a look of surprise in the daughter’s face at hearing her mother’s words. She was about sixteen years old with a pretty but anxious-looking face. Her graceful fingers were shaping a long, snakelike coil of clay. She wrapped and pinched the coil into a vase-shaped pot, her eyes never leaving her creation.

  Tag knelt down in front of the young woman. “That’s going to be a beautiful pot when you are finished,” he said, watching her every movement.

  At the sound of the strange words, the young woman’s face filled with fear. Her fingers stopped. Her hands trembled.

  “My friend says your pot is very beautiful,” Walker interpreted, kneeling next to Tag.

  Small Cub plopped down by Tag. “Fawn makes the best pots in all of our village. She made my drinking mug,” he said with pride.

  The fear left Fawn’s face. Her lips turned up, but her eyes were still riveted to the wet clay she molded. They sat watching her skillful fingers shape her vase. Walker realized she was using the same coiling technique that he had seen Hopi potters use. With one last pinch, Fawn turned the wet clay around in her hands, inspecting its graceful lines. She picked up a piece of dried gourd that lay by her hip. With careful, gentle strokes, she started to smooth the coiled sides of the vase with the piece of gourd. Walker knew that it would take her a long time to smooth and even out the walls of the vase using this primitive tool. It would take her even longer to polish the vase’s entire surface with the small, flat river stone that lay in her lap, ready to use. Walker’s scalp tingled. How many times had he seen these same kinds of crude tools, which had been handed down from generation to generation, used by Hopi women to create their beautiful pottery?

  At each door in the cluster of homes, the same scene was repeated. Flute Maiden inquired about the health of the family, then introduced Walker and Tag. Walker could see fear mixed with suspicion in each face. Yet Flute Maiden had a way of easing this with her words. She was well liked and respected by these women. Walker sensed that she was enlisting the women’s trust, along with their support for what lay ahead.

  Tag’s friendly smile and Small Cub’s obvious admiration toward him helped win over the children. By the second home, Tag was holding Small Cub’s little, dark hand in his large, freckled one.

  At each house they witnessed living archaeology. They watched one woman sewing tiny shells onto a kilt with a thin bone needle. At another home, a very young girl was learning to make corn cakes from her very old grandmother. Tag sat enthralled, watching a middle-aged woman skillfully plaiting yucca leaves into sandals. At the last house in the group, a mother was teaching her small children the words of a song while she worked on weaving a large basket. Her voice was strong and clear, her fingers skillful and fast. The basket, made from long strips of yucca, grew before their eyes.

  About fifty feet down the path, they came to another group of homes nestled under a cliff. Again at each house, Walker and Tag were introduced and fears were calmed while they watched the village wom
en at their daily work. At the last home, a woman stood at a large, waist-high boulder just outside her door. She held a mano, a smooth grinding stone, in her hands. With long, even strokes she moved the mano back and forth on the top of the boulder. Walker could see a well-worn trough in the boulder’s surface where the corn was being ground into fine cornmeal.

  Flute Maiden stopped. “Littlest Star, how is your baby today?”

  The petite woman looked up from her work. Her large, expressive eyes spoke of great worry. “She is asleep now. Her older sister sits with her. She still can’t hold food very long.” The woman shook her head, wiping her brow. “She grows as thin as a blade of grass.”

  “I will come back to see her after I get water,” Flute Maiden promised, reaching out to touch the woman’s thin shoulder. “There is a very strong tea made from the dried stems of a special plant that grows only on the Sacred Mountain. I think it is time that we try it. I will bring some for her.”

  Littlest Star nodded. “Thank you.” Her eyes stole a glance at Walker, then returned to Flute Maiden with a questioning look. Her hand tightened on the mano, turning her knuckles white.

  Flute Maiden said, “Walker and Tag have come in peace. They are our friends.”

  Littlest Star raised her eyes to glance at the strangers. Her eyes met Walker’s for an instant and held. Lowering her gaze back to her grinding rock, she nodded and started back to work.

  “Littlest Star’s husband is Scar Cheek,” Flute Maiden said, as they moved on down the trail. “They are good people. People you can trust.”

  “You know,” Tag told Walker, “that very boulder she is using as a metate or grinding stone is still there. I mean in the future. It’s right on the paved trail that the tourists take. I must have passed it a thousand times. I never really thought about someone actually using it!” Tag smiled. “She’s lucky to have a metate just outside her door, and it’s one that she can even stand at. You have to kneel down to grind on most metates,” Tag explained. “All that kneeling must be murder on your back, not to mention your knees.” Bobbing his head up and down, he concluded, “Someone was real smart to start using that boulder as a metate.”

  Walker thought of the small grinding room at his village. Four deeply troughed metates sat on the hard dirt floor. They were placed in two rows facing each other so that the women could visit while they worked. No one had spoken to him as he had ground the red corn for Náat’s grave. A wave of grief washed over him. Tears clouded his eyes. Tag was right. Kneeling to grind the red corn had been painful to his knees and back, almost as painful as it had been to his heart.

  At the very last home in the village, Flute Maiden knelt down beside an old woman sitting in front her doorway. The woman’s white hair was tied into a bun at the base of her thin neck. Her face was a sea of wrinkles from which two small eyes peered. Walker could see a cloud of film over each eye. Her wrinkled hands were busy weaving long strips of yucca fibers into a mat. Her eyes stared straight forward.

  Flute Maiden knelt down beside the woman. “Singing Woman, it’s Flute Maiden,” she said, hugging the blind woman. The old woman smiled, patting Flute Maiden’s hand. Flute Maiden looked down at the half-finished mat. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful design in a mat before.”

  “Neither have I,” the old woman said with a merry chuckle, “but I like the feel of it on my fingertips.”

  Pushing his way forward, Small Cub knelt beside Singing Woman. “I’m here, too,” he said. “We brought the strangers with us. One of them is speckled like a bird’s egg and his hair is all . . .”

  “Hush,” the old woman scolded, reaching for Small Cub, hugging him to her. “You are too old for such rudeness. They are our guests.” Then in a loud whisper, she teased, “I wish I could see the speckled one’s hair that flies in circles every which way.”

  Small Cub squealed in delight. Walker and Flute Maiden exchanged glances, looked at Tag, and began to laugh.

  Tag put his hands on his hips, pursed his lips together, and shook his head. “What I would give to understand what you are saying about me,” he grumbled. Then looking down at the warmth in Singing Woman’s face, he shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

  “Tell me, Small Cub, does the other one wear something around his neck?” asked the old woman with a sly smile. She was still hugging the boy in her lap.

  Small Cub’s eyes stared at Walker’s pendant. “Yes.”

  Singing Woman’s voice took on almost a musical quality. “It is a seashell cut into the shape of our brother the eagle, covered with small, even chips of turquoise.”

  Small Cub looked up into the Singing Woman’s face. “How did you know? You can’t see with your eyes.”

  “I see with my heart.” Peering in Walker’s direction, Singing Woman said, “Welcome.” She lifted her hand toward him. He knelt down in front of the woman and took the thin, bony hand into his. It was cold and felt as fragile as dry leaves. Yet as she held his hand, he felt great strength radiating from her. The mysterious feeling swirled in the air around Walker.

  “My waiting is over. Time grows short for this old one. For you,” she squeezed Walker’s hand tightly, tears filling her sightless eyes, “it just begins. My son, let your heart always see as well as your eyes. Peace and strength go with you and your people, Walker of Time.”

  13

  In silence, Walker followed Flute Maiden down the steep trail that worked its way to the floor of the canyon. He was trying to piece together all that had happened in the last hours. From Flute Maiden’s stillness, he knew that her mind also weighed heavy.

  Small Cub’s chatter filled the air. He held Tag’s hand, stopping every few minutes to point out things: a bird, a lizard, or an unusual rock formation. Even though Tag couldn’t understand a thing Small Cub was saying, he grinned, nodded his head, and added to Small Cub’s comments. “You are right. That’s a three-toed woodpecker . . . Wow! That’s the biggest hooded lizard that I’ve seen in seven hundred years . . .”

  Listening to those two, you would think they understood every word the other one said, thought Walker. Maybe they are listening with their hearts.

  After a good ten minutes’ descent, the path evened out onto the narrow floor of the canyon. Walker could see a dry streambed stretching down the middle of the canyon. From the lack of any kind of foliage, except for a few stunted cacti, Walker knew that the stream had been dry for two or three years at least.

  Heading west, Flute Maiden followed a rocky path along the streambed. As the canyon widened, there were small, cleared patches of ground along the dry bed. They ranged in size from three to ten feet square. Walker had worked with Náat on such plots of ground near his own village. He knew that these spots had once been small gardens for corn or squash. Water from the stream would have been hauled in jugs to each plant. Rainfall and natural run-off during the monsoon weather would have supplied additional moisture. Each small spot could grow five to ten plants. Compared to the bahanas’ huge farm fields of the future, Walker realized, these gardens were minute. Yet with special care and prayers, a few plants could yield a surprising amount of food. He also knew from his own farming experiences that it would take many of these small gardens to feed the people he had met in just the past hour. He remembered the hunger in Small Cub’s voice. His uneasiness began to grow.

  Walker left the path, taking the few steps that led to one of the larger growing areas. Kneeling down, he scraped away the top layer of dusty soil. He scooped up a handful of the second layer of dirt. Walker let the parched soil trickle through his fingers. He looked up at Flute Maiden, waiting on the path. She had a hauntingly familiar look in her eyes. Walker had seen this same worry many times in the eyes of his people when the rains didn’t fall and the crops died.

  Tag squatted down beside him, followed by Small Cub. Tag questioned, “What is it?”

  “It was a garden. Guessing by the size of it, I think it was a corn field that had maybe ten or twelve plants at the most.”


  “You mean like the small patches of corn that your people grow on the sides of hills and at the foot of the mesas?” Tag asked. He picked up some soil. Small Cub dug his fingers into the dirt.

  Walker nodded. “These people are dry farmers, too. In order to survive, they have to plant every useable piece of earth and use every available drop of moisture. In the last few minutes, we have passed ten areas like this one.” Walker turned to look at Tag. “All of them have been abandoned for a couple of years at least.”

  “So the stream must have been dry that long?” Tag asked.

  “Longer. They probably still planted here even after the stream dried up, hauling water to each plant and hoping for the monsoon rains to come. I am sure that they needed to keep these areas growing and did. Until . . .”

  “Until it became impossible to keep them alive because of the lack of water,” Tag finished. He shook his head and stood up. Small Cub popped up beside him.

  Walker rose, brushing his hands off. “Flute Maiden is waiting for us.”

  They followed the streambed for another ten minutes before they came to an area that was planted with corn. The wilted, brown stalks were only knee high. Walker could see only one small ear of corn on each of the ten or so plants.

  They passed three more small gardens, all promising little or no harvest. Walker wondered where the men who worked these areas were. As if Flute Maiden had read his mind, she said, “Some of the younger boys grow corn here. The men farm the fields on top of the canyon’s rim.”

  How big were those fields? wondered Walker, following Flute Maiden. If there wasn’t enough moisture to sustain crops here in the canyon, how could there be enough on the rim of the canyon? Walker’s uneasiness knotted up in his stomach. How can these people survive? he asked himself.

  Within minutes Walker smelled water. A small stream seemed to appear out of nowhere. The clear water bubbled up out of the ground between giant boulders at the foot of a deep ravine that ran to the top of the canyon. The ancient ones had dammed up the area, making a shallow pool about three feet by five feet wide. There was not even a trickle of overflow to wet the wide, dry streambed that continued to wander down the canyon. How much longer could this small spring support all the people? wondered Walker, staring at what seemed to be the only useable water source.