Year's Best Science Fiction 02 # 1985

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “Steve, this is Sam Starts-to-Dance,” John said.

  He doesn’t look like an Indian, Stephen thought as he shook hands with Sam. Sam’s features were fine and thin, almost nordic; but he wore a beaded shirt and a headband … and he did have that black hair.

  “I’m glad you came,” Sam said to John, as they all walked over the stones of a dry riverbed onto a well-worn path that wound up a gentle incline. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

  “I told you I’d be here,” John said flatly.

  “We got the sweat-lodge ready,” Sam said, “and the women went and got the meat; they’re preparing it now. Are you going to take flesh?”

  “Didn’t Whiteshirt take flesh?” John asked. He stopped walking just before they reached the crest of the hill.

  “He said he thought it was proper for you to do that.”

  John nodded. “That’s good … how are things going? Still bad blood?”

  “Whiteshirt’s doing what he’s supposed to,” Sam said. “He’s helping me to do this thing. But it feels very bad between us. Most of the people that were with him in Virginia have left. He’s got new people, too many Wannabees.”

  “What’s that?” Stephen asked.

  But John laughed. “A Wannabee is a white who wants to be an Indian.” Stephen felt his face grow hot. “Don’t worry about that,” John said.

  “Anyway,” Sam said, “I hear that there’s some bad stuff going down there at Whiteshirt’s place.”

  “Is he back together with Janet?” John asked.

  “Yeah, she’s here with him. She’s taking care of the other women.”

  “Well … that’s good.”

  “She did a lot of sweats, and vision-quested, and the spirits told her to stay with Whiteshirt and help him out. That’s what she says. But it’s over between us. Even though she says she doesn’t love Whiteshirt, what we did was wrong. It was my fault, and you were right, it was a human thing.”

  “Happens,” John said. “Maybe it can be put behind all of you.”

  “But I still think something’s going on.”

  “Bad blood doesn’t mean there has to be bad medicine,” John said.

  Sam didn’t say anything; he looked down at the ground. Then he said, “Janet told me some things … that Whiteshirt blames you for what happened. He thinks you sent me to him to bring him trouble.”

  “Why would he think that?” John asked.

  “He says the spirits told him that you were using bad medicine on him because you’d lost your power … because you’d stopped being a medicine man. He thinks you’re a witch.” After an awkward pause, Sam said, “I think Whiteshirt’s jealous of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because most people come to see you when they have problems, even when you’re drinking … most traditional Indian people don’t have much respect for Whiteshirt. They call him a white man’s medicine man.”

  “Maybe we’ll talk about it,” John said, “or pray about it.”

  “I think you should be very careful, anyway,” Sam said. “Whiteshirt’s changed. He’s not the man you used to know.”

  “I’ll think right about him until I see otherwise.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Sam said. “It’s going to be right for me now, I can feel it.”

  “Well, we’re soon going to find out,” John said; and then he turned to Stephen and asked, “You know how Sam got his name?” John had put on another one of his masks and switched moods. “He touched a rock in the sweat-lodge once and jumped around so much that he got a new name.”

  “It certainly beats being called Sam Smith,” Sam said, and then he went on ahead to let everyone know John was here and going to take flesh.

  “Sam likes you, I can tell,” John said.

  “How can you tell that?” Stephen asked, distracted. He was uneasy about all this. Sam and John talked about magic as if it were a given. They didn’t even question it!

  “You think he’d talk like that if he didn’t?” John asked. “You can feel right about Sam.”

  “What’s this taking flesh business?” Stephen asked. If it’s what I think it is, then I will have to leave, he told himself. It was almost a relief to think about leaving … to have a valid excuse.

  “You got that bad face on again,” John said. “You don’t have to come along on this, I told you. If you’re worried and—”

  “Just tell me about this flesh business. What do you do, cut somebody up?” Although he’d committed himself to trying to find God or something inside the burning steam of the sweat-lodge, Stephen would not stand by and watch someone get mutilated.

  “It’s a ceremony,” John said. “It’s a kind of prayer, a gift … the only thing we really have to give of our own is our flesh. That’s the only thing that’s really ours. So everyone who wants to make a gift for Sam, that he should have a good vision-quest and find what he’s looking for, everyone gives a little of himself. I usually take flesh off the arm, with a needle. I don’t carve out steaks, if that’s what you think.”

  “Are you going to do this to yourself, too?”

  “I might have Whiteshirt take my flesh after Sam’s vision-quest is over … if everything is okay. But not now, people might think I was following my ego and not my heart. After the vision-quest is a good time to do that; also, there’ll be lots of food, Indian food … a good time. You’ll see … maybe I’ll even take flesh from you.”

  “The hell you will!” Stephen said, and they walked down the hill toward the ceremonial grounds below. Stephen glanced up at the sky; there were certainly enough birds flapping around up there. Maybe some of those were John’s eagles, swooping around, waiting for John to get to be a medicine man again.

  Maybe they weren’t, either.

  John introduced Stephen to several people, one of whom was white: a young guy with shoulder-length dirty-blond hair who was wearing a headband, faded dungarees, and a teeshirt. He asked Stephen if he wanted to smoke his pipe. Stephen politely declined and sat down under a large oak to watch John take flesh from the men and women standing around him.

  Although he felt awkward and out of his depth, Stephen could not help but be awed by this place. It seemed to be completely secluded, a grotto. The sun filtered through trees, giving the place a dusty, soft quality, and the blanket of leaves on the ground made Stephen feel somehow secure here … and it seemed quiet, even though children were running around, shouting, playing games, and men and women and adolescents were all busy doing something: attending the large fire, which would heat the rocks for the sweat-lodge; tearing pieces of cloth; carrying stones and blankets; or just sitting around talking in huddled groups, passing pipes back and forth.

  But sitting under that tree, feeling the cool dampness of the ground, smelling grass and sage and the burning of the fire, Stephen felt as he had when he smoked the pipe with John.

  He watched John as he talked to a young woman wearing a sleeveless flower-patterned blouse. She had curly reddish hair and looked Mexican. She held John’s pipe in both hands upon her lap and stared at it. Her mouth moved. She must be praying, Stephen thought. Then John began making lines down her arm with a razorblade. He gave her a yellow piece of cloth to hold in her palm; and with a needle began to remove tiny pieces of her flesh. She didn’t flinch as John cut her, and Stephen noticed that she had scar-lines from previous cuttings … neat little indentations, pieces of flesh removed. They made Stephen think of tatoos.

  To Stephen’s right, about thirty feet away from him, was the sweat-lodge, a small, squat, round frame of willow shoots covered with old blankets. A dark-skinned woman with wiry hair pulled back from her face was piling up blankets and tarpaulins beside the lodge. About ten feet east of the sweat-lodge several men were attending a large, crackling fire, which had been prepared in a special way under the supervision of a scowling heavy-set man. Rocks for the sweat-lodge had been placed on the fire, and the heavy-set man squinted at them, as if he was reading the entrail
s of some sacred beast.

  “These rocks should be just about ready now,” one of the men shouted to John, who nodded.

  Stephen just looked at the sweat-lodge nervously and wondered how the hell anybody was going to fit in there. It was so small.

  The woman who had been piling up the blankets said something to the heavy-set man and walked over to Stephen. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall; she had a dark, flat face, high cheekbones, dark large almond eyes, and a thin mouth. She was missing a tooth, but there was a feral beauty about her; it was as if she, like John, had come from the earth. She carried a different map etched across her face, but the lines were there, even though she looked to be only in her mid-thirties. There were laugh lines and worry-lines on that face, which looked like it had never been touched by make-up. There was also a smell to her, the smell of the fire mixed with perspiration, a perfume like grass and mud, sweet and sour. “You came with John, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes … although I feel like a fish out of water.”

  She chuckled. “I’m Janet, Joe Whiteshirt’s woman. This is a good place, been some good ceremonies here, good feelings, before … before a lot of things turned sour and people’s hearts became hard to each other. But John is a good man … and so was … is Joe. Maybe Sam’s vision-quest will bring them close again. I know Sam told you about … us. He liked you.”

  “That’s what John told me,” Stephen said, “but you couldn’t prove anything by me. He hasn’t said anything to me—he was talking to John.”

  “Before a vision-quest is a quiet time, you’re not supposed to talk much or mingle around. A vision-quest is dangerous. Sam’s getting ready. Sometimes people who go up on the hill don’t come back … people have been known to just disappear.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Yes,” Janet said, “I do.”

  More bullshit, Stephen thought with a sudden flash of renewed skepticism, but he kept his mouth shut about that. “Why do they do it, then?” he asked almost embarrassedly.

  “We go to have a vision, sometimes find a name … the spirits give us things there … medicine. You find out who your spirits are, where you came from. Hasn’t John told you anything about this?”

  “A little,” Stephen said. “I guess I never felt right about asking.”

  “I can see why he likes you. I once heard John tell Joe that we’re like trees, all of us. But when you look at a tree you only see the trunk and branches and leaves, but deep down in the roots is where we take our life from, that’s where the dreams and visions are … that’s where our life comes from. That’s why we vision-quest … to go back to the roots … and don’t you worry while you’re in the sweat, no matter how hot it gets,” she said, changing the subject. She gave him a sprig of sage, pressed it into his hand. “Use this in the sweat-lodge, it’ll help you breathe easier. You breathe through it like this”—and she showed him—“so you won’t feel the heat so bad. It really helps.”

  “Thanks,” Stephen said, feeling awkward.

  “Everyone will take care of you,” Janet continued. “No matter what’s between John and Joe, neither one will let any harm come to you.” But she averted her eyes from his when she said that, as if she wanted to believe it, but somehow couldn’t.

  “Which one is your husband?” Stephen asked. He was on edge—soon he would be in the sweat-lodge with them all, helpless.

  “The big one, tending the rocks on the fire.”

  Stephen looked towards the fire and saw Whiteshirt, the same heavyset man he had seen before. Whiteshirt had a large belly and huge arms. His black hair was long, and for an instant, when their eyes met, Stephen felt a chill feather up his spine. The man seemed to be looking right through him.

  “Those rocks have to be hot for the sweat-lodge; they glow like coals,” Janet said.

  Then there was a loud crack, and something hit the tree just above Stephen. Stephen and Janet jumped away from the tree.

  “It’s those damn river rocks,” Janet said apologetically. “They explode sometimes like that. The next time, if there is a next time, we’re going to bring our own rocks.”

  But Stephen had the uneasy feeling that Whiteshirt had somehow willed that rock to explode … as surely and as certainly as if he had fired a warning shot from a pistol.

  The women brought out bowls of raw heart and raw liver. Everyone took a piece, even the children. When it was Stephen’s turn, John said, “Eat just a little. It’s good for you, give you strength.” Then John bit down on a large piece of raw liver.

  Stephen ate a piece of the chewy, slippery meat quickly, not knowing whether he was eating heart or liver, hoping he wouldn’t gag. God knows what kind of germs are crawling around on this meat, he thought. He wondered if he’d get sick on it, or develop worms … .

  It was time to go into the sweat. The willow-stick skeleton of the lodge had been covered with old blankets and large tarpaulins.

  John and Stephen took off their clothes behind a tree and left them in a pile. Stephen hadn’t brought a towel or blanket for himself, but John got one for him. They walked around the sweat-lodge, careful not to walk between the altar and the lodge. The altar was a mound of dirt set back from the opening of the sweat-lodge; the ceremonial pipes were propped against it. John told Stephen to wait, that Janet—who was keeping the door, as he called it—would tell him when to enter. Then John crawled in through the low, narrow opening, and said, “Pila miya, thank you.” Whiteshirt crawled in after him, but not before giving Stephen a look of pure hatred, as if he hated Stephen just because he was with John. But the others would no doubt interpret it as simply Whiteshirt’s dislike for honkies. Two young whites and two Indians, who looked like brothers, followed Whiteshirt into the sweat-lodge.

  Stephen stood back, feeling anxious and also foolish wrapped in a blanket and holding the sprig of sage that Janet had given him. He didn’t want to sweat … not with Whiteshirt in there.

  Sam walked over to Stephen and said, “Come on, your turn next.” Then he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll be a good sweat, good ceremony. Jim and George, they’re brothers, they know some old songs, and John, he’s one of the best sweat-lodge men around. He says you and he are a lot alike.” Sam laughed. “Both fucked up.”

  Stephen forced a smile and crawled into the sweat-lodge, trying not to crawl on his blanket and trying to keep it around his waist. Sage and sweetgrass had been scattered over the earthen floor, and their smell was overpowering. He already felt claustrophobic, even though the door of the lodge was still open, letting in some light. But he felt locked in—the blankets and tarpaulins and willow sticks of the sweat-lodge might as well have been made of steel. He could hear the women standing and chatting outside. They would listen to the prayers and watch for the eagles to dive out of the sky into the top of the sweat-lodge.

  “Did John ever tell you about his eagles?” Sam asked Stephen in a whisper. He was sitting on John’s right. “Those eagles can really be something. We’ve had them right here inside the sweat-lodge … .”

  What the hell am I doing here? Stephen asked himself as he grunted something back to Sam. He sat back against one of the willows, but the sweat-lodge was so small that he couldn’t sit up straight. He looked at John, who looked back at him, but didn’t say a word; then he looked at Whiteshirt, who was gazing into the pit in the center of the sweat-lodge, where the rocks would be placed. Everyone sat with his legs crossed, but even then, toes were almost touching the pit. Stephen would have to watch himself, lest he burn his feet.

  There was a tension in here, palpable, growing stronger. Stephen felt a pressure on his eyes, and he looked up. He caught Whiteshirt glowering at him. Whiteshirt averted his eyes and stared once again into the pit.

  But Stephen was certain that Whiteshirt was going to make trouble … for all of them. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. It was too late to get out now.

  “Okay,” John said, “let me have a small rock,
” and Janet handed in a glowing coal on the end of a shovel. John used a forked stick to push it into the hole. He asked for his pipe, which he purified over the coal. He sprinkled sweetgrass on the rock, and the sweetgrass sparkled like fireflies.

  John passed the pipe around, and everyone made a prayer. Stephen just asked that he get out of here alive. Then John asked for more rocks, and Janet brought in a shovelful. John took a large rock and placed it in the center of the hole with his stick, and said “Ho Tunkashila,” which everyone repeated … everyone except Whiteshirt, who seemed to be praying on his own, as if he had to purify the lodge himself, as if John was making them impure. But John ignored Whiteshirt and scraped the rocks from the shovel. Stephen could feel the heat already, and then John said, “Okay, close the door,” and everything was darkness, except for the reddish glowing rocks. Every bit of light was blotted out, for the women outside stamped down the blankets wherever the men saw any light.

  “Aha,” John said, “we thank the rock people, the rock nation, for these good rocks which are sacred, we pray they will not break and kill us in the darkness. It is from your sacred breath, the breath of life, that we inhale, that our people will live. Oh, rocks, you have no eyes, no ears, and you cannot walk, yet you are life itself, as we are.”

  Then John explained the ceremony. He talked about how the Inipi, the sweat-bath, was probably the oldest ceremony in Indian religion. “The steam brings friends and families and even enemies together. It heals. It is the strongest medicine. The sweat is a way to make ourselves pure, and it gives us much of our power. No matter what the ceremony—sun-dance or vision-quest—we do this first. It binds us. Even though Sam here is going to vision-quest alone on the hill, we all sweat with him now. We pray together and suffer together. We’ll help him now, and he’ll remember when he’s alone on the hill tonight facing the dreams and spirits.” Everyone agreed, and there was much yeaing in the darkness. Only Whiteshirt was silent.

  John prayed to the Grandfathers and the Four Directions. He prayed to Wakan-Tanka, he prayed for the two-leggeds and four-leggeds and wingeds and everything else on the earth, but he also seemed to be talking to God as if He were a presence in the sweat-lodge. He prayed for everyone in the sweat-lodge, for Stephen who he said was walking a different path, yet they were all walking together … whatever the hell that meant, Stephen thought.