Magpie Speaks

by R. Allen Chappell

  Charlie nodded. “Yes, he’s warned me about it several times, but you know how I feel about witches.” Charlie knew he couldn’t convince Lucy there was no need to worry. These old myths and beliefs were strong in the people and to his mind were keeping many on the reservation from enjoying a better and more productive life. “Witches only have power over those who choose to believe in them,” he said finally, but was careful not to look in her direction when he said it.

  Lucy Tallwoman stared at Charlie, as though she now might not know him as well as she previously thought. She had been brought up to believe the old way and sometimes thought she was even more traditional than Thomas Begay. Even her father, who occasionally worked for the Episcopal mission, could not help but believe there was some good in that way of thinking as well and might even borrow bits and pieces for his own use.

  “The Diné are not adverse to new ideas.” George Custer had once said. “The Navajo willingness to listen to new ideas and the thoughts of others may well be the reason they have come as far as they have.”

  The Journey

  When Alice awoke in the shabby room at the edge of town, it was with that clarity of mind that comes only with the dead certainty that no hope is left. She calmly, clinically went over what remained for her to do––not things that could change the course of her health, that was now preordained, but rather something significant enough to make a redeeming contribution in what little time remained.

  The Farmington doctor had not been as optimistic as the one in Gallup. “Six weeks,” he’d said when pressed, “and the last three or four will likely be unbearable without hospital care and proper pain management.” He said all this in the kindest way possible and later declined any sort of payment when it was offered. “Whatever you might feel you have to do you had best do it very soon… a certain cognitive degeneration may well precede the physical pain and incapacity.”

  Alice smiled to herself; the pain had already started and she had long been accustomed to mental aberrations––a legacy from her white father perhaps. He was said to have been a man totally without conscience or redeeming mores, other than a passable talent for teaching music. Alice had, apparently, not inherited even that ability. Too bad, she thought, that she hadn’t taken the trouble to track him down at some point. She might have learned something about herself, even if it wasn’t anything good. She had always figured her father would, more than likely, be found in a prison somewhere, or even a mental health facility, such as the one she herself had been brought to from time to time; never for very long, of course. There were very few facilities of that sort left these days, and even they were overtaxed. She had often thought finding her father might have been all it took to set her permanently over the edge, and that frightened her.

  Alice supposed it was true she had no real moral compass to speak of, else why would she have gone all these years without reaching out to any of her family, or even caring if they knew her whereabouts? And she had, after all, left her own grandfather alone and abandoned at the clinic only the day before… the one person in her family she had ever really cared about. She often blamed her mother and her dalliance at boarding school for the way things were. Yes, she was her father’s daughter all right.

  By the time she had dressed and paid her motel bill, she was still wondering if there might still be a way to leave behind some semblance of remorse or even regret for the life she’d led. Some little something that might leave people thinking there was more to her than they had thought.

  The day before, when she had been driving Harley Ponyboy around, he had ranted on and on about the Witch of Ganado and the many evils he had caused. He even mentioned the man’s name, Edward Bitsinnii. She had heard that name before, when she was little, and when told the meaning––The boney one––it had stuck in her mind.

  Later, when she and her grandfather were on their way to the clinic, she brought the conversation around to the subject of witches, and Edward Bitsinnii. Paul was surprised Alice had remembered the name but figured her mother might have spoken of him some time or other. There had been that time Edward had come to see them, too, “Just to visit,” he had said… Alice, still quite young at the time, recalled how terrified she had been of him, though he seemed quite ordinary in both appearance and manner. She had always been sensitive to what was sometimes referred to as the “halo” or aura some people seemed to carry with them. Paul was known for his ability to perceive this as well and always thought he and his granddaughter had a strong connection in that regard. It was not long before the singer realized his brother had actually come hoping Paul might be induced to teach him a certain secret ceremony, one even his uncle had been loath to impart. Despite his own moral failings, Elmore Shining Horse knew intuitively that when it came to this particular nephew, there were some things better left untaught.

  When Paul also refused to teach him what he wanted, Edward had become abusive, ranting that Paul would never become a great Hataalii and then assured him that he, Edward Bitsinnii, would make certain of it. The two men had not spoken since that time, but over the years, many were the private ceremony each held, one against the other.

  Only the day before, on their way into town, Alice’s grandfather had spent a good bit of time talking to her about the Beauty Way, and how that path could change a person’s life, make their hozo right, should they allow it. She had heard it all before, since she was a child in fact, and while she thought it might certainly work for some, she had never felt it would work for her; that white blood again. The longer Alice thought these things, the more she speculated. She recalled the last thing her grandfather had told her, “It is not how much Indian blood you have in you that counts––it is how much Indian you have in your blood.”

  ~~~~~~

  Thomas Begay always thought it somehow odd that sagebrush does better in the autumn and not in the spring like most other plants. Just when those others lost foliage and went dormant, the sage came magically alive. The clean scent of it was heavy on the morning breeze as he and Harley set out for Ganado. The two Diné breathed deeply of the holy fragrance and felt themselves the better for it.

  Harley sat on the far side of the truck, leaning into the door, head nearly out the window. Sage is big medicine for the Diné and he let the essence of it wash through him, clearing the cobwebs left by the alcohol. He was singing the song about sage directly into the wind and while Thomas couldn’t quite make out the words, he knew that’s what Harley was singing.

  “Feeling better now?” Thomas had to shout above the wind and the roar of the diesel engine.

  Harley turned and looked at him but gave no indication he understood.

  They followed Highway 491, south toward Gallup and then fell off on 264, west toward Window Rock and beyond to Ganado. After the turnoff the scenery didn’t change much. They were truly in the middle of nowhere, and there wasn’t much to it. Harley hoped they weren’t on a wild goose chase.

  Thomas was good at sensing doubt. “Are you sure Ganado’s where this guy still lives? Doesn’t sound like anyone’s heard from him in years.”

  Harley groaned, stretched, and nodded. “I expect he’s still there all right. Paul said he married a Many Goats woman from out past the old Hubble Trading Post. Her family raises cattle, and she works for health services last he’d heard. He lives with them.” Harley’s face had a yellowish tinge, such was the strain drinking had put on his liver.

  “You are going to feel a lot better by tonight.” In years past the two of them had been through this healing process numerous times, and each could gauge the other’s recovery to a remarkable degree. Thomas had read the signs and knew.

  Harley thought he actually had felt better the night before, and was now afraid the sickness was climbing back on him.

  Privately, Thomas reckoned it might be more than the alcohol that was making Harley weak and nervous. He thought it might be the idea of meeting up with Edward Bitsinnii that was causing it. Thomas knew Harley feared
very little in the mortal world, but the Witch of Ganado was another matter. Though Harley had once physically beaten the man senseless, that was before he knew Edward was a witch. He was convinced now that the man had attained greater powers over the years.

  Thomas read his thoughts and nodded grimly. “Old man Paul T’Sosi is looking out for us, you know. I’ll bet he’s making some ceremony to help us right now, an Enemy Way maybe.” He said this knowing the Enemy Way was much too long and complicated a sing for one old man. He hoped it was true the old singer knew as much as some thought he did, and was still able to put it to use. Thomas took his eyes off the road for a moment and glanced over at Harley. “If you want, I’ll go alone to talk to Edward Bitsinnii.” While Thomas was afraid of witches himself, and doubted his own courage in such a business, he still was determined to help his friend despite the consequences.

  Paul T’Sosi had first insisted he should come along––thought he could help them deal with the witch––until the two younger men were able to convince him he might do more good remaining at home. Someone would have to care for the sheep they told him. The children were in school during the week, not to mention Lucy being in the final stages of completing the Ye’i blanket. Thomas touched on how the proceeds from that blanket would make up a goodly portion of the family’s income for the year. If Paul stayed home, he said, he could pray and do those things that might fight the coming evil. “When the snake’s nest is invaded, that is the time for fire,” he told the old man, though he had no idea of what he meant by it.

  As usual, Thomas and Harley had no real plan to speak of, but they knew one thing for certain––nothing would come easy.

  ~~~~~~

  When Lucy Tallwoman returned from her meeting with Charlie Yazzie, she didn’t see Thomas’s truck, nor did she see Harley Ponyboy, so she asked Paul where they had gone. When told the pair were on their way to Ganado, she felt a chill down her back and knew in her heart no good could come of it. She suspected this had been in their minds even before she left that morning. She was sure now this was the reason Thomas chose not to go with her to Legal Services. Lucy had hoped the men would at least think on it a day or so to consider the possible downside of such a foolhardy move. But no, she thought, this was the way those two operated when together.

  Silently she cursed her old uncle, that witch of Ganado, Edward Bitsinnii, and wondered how much of the family’s hard luck, over the years, had come from his bad thoughts and evil magic––maybe even her daughter’s mental state could be laid at his door. Alice had seemed quite normal as a baby, and even as a young child, had been bright and happy. It was only later that Lucy saw a change come over her, but then couldn’t remember if this was before or after the visit from her uncle.

  Lucy Tallwoman stood at the old cedar-framed loom and contemplated the work of many months. This had been her mother’s loom and her mother’s mother’s before her––polished smooth by their own hands. She hoped she had not let bad thoughts shadow the spirit of this piece. She had only that morning fashioned the little yarn tail, the ch’ihónít’t, (many thought it only a loose thread) at the bottom corner of the blanket. It was that thread that allowed the weaver’s spirit to escape the finished piece and not be trapped. It was said people had gone mad from such a thing.

  Once the blanket had been taken from the loom Lucy would be free of its hold forever and could move on to the next work. Once this blanket was gone she would not think of it again nor could it influence her later work.

  Lucy knew her white patrons pictured her life on the reservation as peacefully languid, simple, nearly idyllic, but for those who follow the old Diné ways life can be more complicated––a spider’s web of myth and superstition. Often she found herself walking a thin line between the two worlds and was not always sure she had taken the right path.

  She wondered now if she should go back to Legal Services, make Charlie Yazzie aware of Thomas and Harley’s trip to Ganado… but Charlie didn’t believe in witches, or the evil they could conjure; it would, in any case, be too late to stop them now. She moved outside to the warmth of the sun and thought on these things, hoping no bad would come of her husband’s hasty move against someone so powerful as the witch of Ganado.

  Aa’a’ii, the magpie, chose this moment to fly down and alight there on the edge of the brush shelter. He dipped his head at her and chortled some secret message, and with a bold and curious eye followed her every move. Lucy thought him audacious, a common trait in those of his tribe. She wondered if he might be one of those birds taken by a child sometime in the past to be raised as a pet. Her father had once remarked, “Aa’a’ii never forgets a hurt and will someday take his revenge should he get the chance.”

  Paul T’Sosi often told of the time his family lived under the bluffs along the San Juan––after that river was joined by another. The river early Mexicans called Rio de Las Animas Perdidas, the River Of Lost Souls, which tumbled out of that country belonging to the Anasazi. In his youth, Paul himself had caught magpies and secretly hid them out in the cottonwoods along the river so his father wouldn’t know. The government was offering fifteen cents each as a bounty. Magpies were decimating the eggs of quail and other ground-nesters, and were known to sometimes kill or make off with other baby birds as well. They might even peck out the eye of a newborn lamb. White people couldn’t hang a newly killed beef in a tree or under a shed without it being desecrated. They considered the birds a nuisance and often shot them on sight.

  It occurred to Lucy that these recent visits from Aa’a’ii might indeed have something to do with past raids against their tribe. Aa’a’ii had been quick to catch on in those dangerous times and soon learned to avoid man altogether… and good that they had, lest there might be none left today.

  This particular magpie appeared more concerned with what was inside the brush arbor than his own safety. He took final stock of the woman, then shrieked in a most alarming manner and hopped about, first on one foot and then the other in that little war dance peculiar to his tribe.

  Lucy watched in astonishment as the bird swooped past her and into the arbor, where it spied the loose spirit thread at the corner of the Ye’i blanket. Grasping the yarn tail with his beak, he pulled it loose and took to the air, leaving the shelter in a whoosh and quickly became just a speck on the horizon. Lucy stood openmouthed and screamed for her father, “Shih-chai… Shih-chaiiii…”

  The old man rushed from the hogan and picking up a hoe, hurried to confront whatever danger was upon them.

  “What is it, girl?” He looked her up and down. “Is it a snake that has bit you?” He glanced this way and that but saw nothing of a threatening nature and slowly lowered his weapon. “What?”

  Lucy clapped her hands to her face and looked through trembling fingers at the blanket, then pointed at the place the ch’ihónít’t had been. If only it had been a snake, she thought. A snake could be dealt with.

  Upon hearing what happened, Paul, too, was taken aback at the effrontery of the bird, and while he knew Aa’a’ii to be a trickster and sometimes a thief, this action might indeed be magic from another place. Perhaps the war had already begun.

  Paul thought long and hard on the consequences that might result from this new mischief. It was not a small thing to have a blanket’s spirit path stolen. His late wife once had a mouse chew off a ch’ihónít’t before the blanket could be taken from the loom. She had insisted on unraveling the entire bottom of the piece to reweave a proper path. While one could not be too careful dealing with such things, this was a poor time to have an additional problem put upon them. He knew his daughter could not let the piece go until she had properly separated herself from it.

  After closely examining the course of the nearly indiscernible thread he thought he saw a place where it had already been spliced in the original spinning of the yarn. “If it were to be done right,” he said, “I believe you could reconnect the thread in this warp, and should the proper song be sung while doing it, I beli
eve it would work.”

  Paul was not at all sure it would work. The important thing was that his daughter should believe it would work. The old man had not lived these many years without learning a bit about how the mind and the heart are joined.

  ~~~~~~

  Charlie Yazzie thought lunch with his former archaeology professor had been more than interesting. The professor figured he might employ as many as a dozen people in his new business, and that didn’t include the subcontracted work for the heavy dirt moving, etc. There were any number of people on the reservation that could handle that work. Salvage archaeology might very well provide a little income stream for the tribe. That this would include his friends Harley Ponyboy and Thomas Begay was icing on the cake.

  “It should provide a nice little boost for the local economy,” George Custer had said, mentioning he already had secured tentative contracts with several of the energy companies operating on the reservation. He foresaw the bulk of his business being centered right there in the four corners area. He hoped Charlie would again help pave the way for tribal permits, as he had on previous projects, though those had been done under the auspices of the university and were not so complicated as these for salvage work.

  Charlie had become nearly as excited as the professor. “George, I truly hope this works out for you. I can’t see any downside to it, myself.” Then Dr. Custer had gone so far as to offer Charlie a position in the new enterprise, should he be so inclined. He knew Charlie Yazzie’s interest in the prehistory of the area was as keen as ever and saw he was fascinated by the entire idea. Not only would Charlie be overseeing fieldwork on the various projects, he told him, but would also be involved with certain “legal” aspects, including negotiating and expediting contracts, and the acquisition of private land rights.