by Lia Conklin
She left early in the morning, taking an ATV to within a mile of the trailhead. As she walked, she realized how different this trip back to the highway was compared to her first. Before, when she had emerged from the trail, she had encountered only an empty expanse of highway. This time, once she crested the last ridge, Paul would be there. And this time, he would not fly off at her approach.
As she made her final descent to the highway, she imagined what the powwow would be like. She had been to one in Minnesota as part of an elementary school multicultural experience. She remembered the flurry of vividly colored regalia and the dancing chorus of the jingle dresses as they swooped and spun in their revolution around the throbbing heartbeat of the drums. She remembered the drum pulsing in her veins, urging her from her seat in the bleachers. Somehow, she had denied its urgency, but today she would not.
Even her daydreaming of pounding drums, wailing vocals, and jingling dresses could not mask the sounds of the approaching vehicle. It was obvious to Amelia from the cacophony that grew louder that Paul’s iPhone came at a great expense to his transportation options.
The oxidized metal dinosaur roared and clanked to a stop just as Amelia stepped onto the side of the highway.
“Hurry!” Paul motioned frantically from his window. “Get in before Ole Betty dies!”
Amelia opened the passenger door, letting it scrape along the asphalt as its dislocated hinge settled out of socket. Once inside, she heaved the door up and in and eased herself back into the cracks and scales of the green vinyl seat. No need to look for a seatbelt that may or may not have still existed, for two tons of metal between her and anything else on the highway made her feel safe enough.
“Hey, Amelia! How was the walk?” Paul shouted over the engine.
“I had some help this time!” She shouted back. “Mr. ATV is parked a short way up the trail.”
“Yeah, I remember dropping you off the first time. We all had a good laugh on the way home wondering if you’d get there before dark. I put my money on you. Looks like I get to collect.”
“Well, I made it there before dark but not so much luck on the way back.”
“You had to walk back?”
“Yeah, I got turned away the first time.”
Amelia proceeded to fill him in on all that had happened since their first meeting. She told him about the slimy truck driver who picked her up and took her back to Billings, about her time at the library and the campground, her second meeting with Jack Stanton and first meeting with his lovely wife. She told him about Russ and Raymundo, the trail rides and the ranch work. Though she spoke of many things, she was aware it was the unspoken things that told her real story—the words between the lines, the silences between the uttered thoughts. She wondered if Paul understood silences as she did.
Chapter 19
The reservation town was more dismal than she had imagined. Everywhere she looked, gray and dilapidated, one-level houses stood guarded by metal dinosaurs heaped in backyards. As Amelia took in the gray surroundings, she began to fill in the missing colors of the familiar Honduran village she saw upon the pages of this uncolored coloring book. Only the children offered the vivid splashes of color she remembered as they sat on stoops, played catch, and tossed rocks.
Then the color outside her passenger window suddenly increased as small groups of brightly colored dancers and visitors straggled towards the powwow grounds. The Chevy climbed a steep slope and rounded a final bend in the road, and that’s when she saw it. Lewis and Clark couldn’t have been more awed than she felt now when they, when she, saw their first tepee encampment.
“Welcome to the Teepee Capital of the World!” Paul announced cheerfully as Amelia looked down at the thousands of teepees that permeated the valley like white triangular brushstrokes upon a large, grassy canvas. Sprigs of willows, scrawny pines, and scraggly junipers interrupted the clusters of white teepees, adding rough texture to an otherwise soft landscape. Only the rumble of Ole Betty reminded Amelia that she was not sitting bareback upon a painted pony, looking down upon her ancestors…his ancestors, she corrected herself.
As they descended into the encampment, the Dance Arbor came into view, and the color and activity of the big day burst forth like a patch of Indian paintbrushes twisting in a wind-worn field. They drove past the vendors, busy setting up their tents and stands. Then past the early arrivers who quickly scooped up the first batch of fried bread and stood chomping it down with honey as their young children, aflame in dance regalia, began testing the steps of their grandparents, feeling the hardened earth through hand-me-down moccasins and listening to the drumbeat that already flowed through their veins.
As Paul and Amelia finally stepped out of Ole Betty, who knowing that she was now supposed to die decided instead to choke and sputter, Paul filled Amelia in on the events that were to come. The primary event, the powwow, would start around seven that evening, featuring drummers and singers from different tribes all over Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota.
Their first stop was the fried bread stand. They arrived just in time to sample the next fresh batch. Paul assured her it wasn’t as good as his mom’s but pretty close. Then they walked around looking at the artwork and crafts that over the next hour gradually spilled onto the tables that unfolded in front of them. Amelia was amazed how her coloring book had so quickly changed from stark outlines of colorless forms to this technicolored bustle of activity.
The day passed quickly with so much to see, hear, touch, and experience. At 7:00 p.m. exactly, the Grand Entry of the powwow began. Under a sun that showed no mercy even as it tilted toward the western horizon, the painted and bedecked dancers filed into the Dance Arbor one by one in a flurry of color and bustle. There were male Grass dancers with their multicolored streamers blurring into a kaleidoscope of colors with each rapid, swirling turn; male Chicken dancers mimicking the prairie chicken with its floating steps, sharp jerks of the head, and craning body and neck; female Fancy dancers with light, lilting steps—two steps forward, one step back—shawls spread like playful wings swooping and swaying above the earth; female traditional dancers in elk tooth and Plains traditional dresses, prancing forward in prim elegance; and girls in jingle dresses spurring the whole procession forward with melodious bounces upon spry, moccasined feet. The unbridled energy of the earth flowed and fluttered before Amelia, transfixing not only her gaze, but also her breath. Breathe, she had to remind herself, momentarily dizzied by the hypnotic swirl of sensations before her.
By 8:00 p.m., the first beats of the drums announced the beginning of the dance competitions, and impatient children took to dancing more seriously while their parents and grandparents on the periphery began, themselves, to ease their stiffened joints into the ebb and flow of the dance. By that time, Paul and Amelia had managed to reassemble the original pickup occupants and they all stood around on the outskirts of the dancers, talking, laughing and commenting on certain dancers who really knew how to dance and others who were no more than cocks strutting their plumage before a fight. They filled Amelia in on some of the history of the dances and what made for well-executed steps and moves. They enjoyed watching the children the most, untainted by the arrogance and artificiality of some of the adult dancers.
“Look at that guy, for example,” Darian pointed out. “See how he looks at his heel each time it touches down and then back out at the crowd. He knows the dance is good, but that’s not good enough for him. He needs to know that we know it’s good. That’s fake dance. Real dance is when you feel the music, let it flow through you. You don’t notice your foot and definitely not the crowd watching it. It’s just you and the rhythm…and the earth.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Paul said. “For him it’s all about getting the girls! Now he’s the one being fake.”
Paul earned himself an elbow to the arm.
“When will you dance?” Amelia asked them as the next set of drummers set up their equipment.
“We’ll wait ’til the co
mpetition is over,” Paul said. “It’ll be another hour or so, especially since they’ve got another giveaway or two.”
Several family groups were gathered on the periphery of the Dance Arbor, heaps of blankets laid out before them ready to be given away to those who had helped the family achieve honor, success, or good fortune. Paul explained to Amelia that it was not only their way of giving thanks to their community but also of “keeping things even” among tribesmen.
“Keeps us from getting our heads too big and our pockets too full at the expense of others. Anyway, what we get is only lent to us, blessings from the Great Spirit. We can’t really take credit for it.”
Amelia glanced up at him, surprised at his uncustomary display of spiritual wisdom. Caught off guard himself, Paul blushed and flashed his even, white teeth.
“Hey. Even we ‘me-generation’ Indians are sometimes afflicted with ancient wisdom! Don’t be so surprised!” Then quickly changing the topic he continued, “Anyway, after they finish these boring giveaways, they’ll open up the Arbor to the real dancers! Then you can show us what you’ve got!”
“Now that’s what Paul’s been waiting for all night!” Darian chided, nodding to his buddies around him. Instead of paying him back with an elbow, Paul wrestled him to the ground, where they rolled around a bit until one of their friends kicked Paul in the rump and whispered, “Cops!” They untangled themselves and managed to stand up, dusting themselves off by the time one of the reservation officers arrived.
“You boys doin’ alright?” the rez cop asked, putting his face in close to theirs to subtly sniff. Not catching any scent of alcohol on their breath as they uttered various versions of “We’re fine, sir,” he continued on his way through the crowd. In a matter of seconds, Darian was back on the ground, and this time Paul had him immobilized as the rest of them shouted a three count.
Darian may have been down for three, but coming up he was back in the game. “Bet you’re impressed, Amelia. Paul’s always had a knack for rubbing up on other guys.” This time Darian took refuge behind Amelia, and all Paul could do was promise with a grin and a wagging finger that his would come.
The next two hours passed in much the same way. And in spite of the giveaways that dragged on and on, interrupting the intensity of the dancing and drumming, for Amelia the fabric of time became warped by the weight of this new friendship. In a single evening, she had spent a lifetime with these young men who baptized her into their fraternity with a stranglehold and a knuckle rub to the head.
As the last of the blankets were distributed and the first drum group began, they made their way into the Arbor. And somehow Amelia, without knowing the right steps, felt as if she had spent her life practicing this dance that took her deep inside herself and deep into the Earth. She drifted around the circle, more and more inebriated with each pulse of the drum and wail of the men, whose voices came from somewhere within the Earth’s bubbling core: violent notes spurting forth like lava spears to burst through cold mantels prehistorically formed; molten notes ascending in fire to cool in the fertile soils of the sprouting roots that formed the great trees and sod paths of the birds and beasts that marked their patterns upon the Earth.
To Amelia, the sky seemed to grow darker. In her mind she was sure they made their way around an ancient campfire, its sparks flying upwards to join the stars, its flames stretching heavenward like dragon’s wings. The drums grew louder, the voices hotter. Sparks and flames and drums and voices pulsed around her, within her. She heard the high pitches go higher, saw the red flames in her mind grow redder until their wailing and flashing reflected back at her from every point in the sky.
Then she smelled it in the air. She tried not to breathe but could not resist. It filled her lungs in one horrifying gulp. She tried to cough it up, dispel it with a single heave, but it caught in her throat. As she fell to the ground, she saw their bodies in front of her, cauterized corpses looking back at her through molten eyes. In one cannibalistic gulp, she swallowed the odor of their burnt flesh. Then she lost consciousness.
Chapter 20
Amelia was not sure how much time had passed, only that it was not enough before the memory came back to her. She clenched her eyes shut then flung them open desperately with the hope that the memory would retreat with her eyelids. Instead she saw them everywhere, their charred bodies bouncing off the myriad of faces that hovered over her. She sat up, almost knocking heads with the man that leaned over her. She had to get out of there. She pushed him from her as she rose to her feet. The people around her with their hideous reflections drew back as she stumbled forward. Someone caught her arm from behind, and she yanked it away. She teetered for a moment, blinking away the swirling red lights in her head that swam across the faces all around her. She felt again a pull on her arm, and this time as she yanked it free, her knees buckled. Amelia was vaguely aware of a strong arm that caught her waist before she eagerly succumbed to the blackness.
This time her name, spoken softly yet urgently, reached through her blackness. Wanting the voice to stop, to leave her to her darkness, she shook her head brusquely. Instantly, her head exploded in pain. Her eyes popped open to see her name formed upon long, lean lips that partially concealed strong, even teeth. They weren’t Paul’s teeth. They belonged to a different nose. And to eyes that were wider, darker, deeper. They held her own that pulsed with the throbbing pain of her forehead. The eyes blurred, reflecting back her pooling tears. Then a gentle finger traced the path of tears as they spilled down her temple. Eyes still locked, she let her tears fall, and somehow it was better than the blackness.
With the return of consciousness came the return of other senses, and Amelia could no longer block out the urgent calling of her name. She broke her locked gaze and found Paul’s face leaning toward her from behind the broad shoulders of the man who currently cradled her head in the crook of his arm. Catching her eye, his signature teeth broke into a smile with relief and bewilderment tugging at its corners.
“Amelia,” he said. “Can you hear me? Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
She tried to shake her head, but the pain in her head detained her, and her only movement was a wince.
“Don’t try to move,” the voice above her soothed. “You’ve got a pretty good cut on your temple. The ambulance will be here any moment. You’ll probably need a few stitches, but you’ll be just fine.”
The deep resonance of the voice seemed familiar. Looking again into his wide eyes, she realized his voice echoed the vibration of the drums that still rang in her head. She willed him to speak again and pull her into the magnetic earthiness of his voice. He seemed about to comply when the sirens that had lain masked by the buzz of the crowd reached the unmistakable pitch of arrival. He turned his head and motioned with his free arm for the crowd to part.
Seconds later Amelia was being hoisted upon the gurney and jockeyed through the crowd to the awaiting ambulance. Pushing through the throbbing pain in her head, she searched the faces above for his face. She did not see it. Instead, she found Paul’s, and though somewhat disappointed, she was relieved to have his company as the ambulance door enclosed them.
Chapter 21
Six stitches later and a diagnosed concussion, she lay in a reservation hospital bed for an overnight observation, waiting for the painkillers to take her into oblivion. The throbbing in her head had eased enough that her memories were returning. She could not bear to face them, yet she did not have the strength to deny them either. Now that Paul had gone, she was left with little alternative but to remember or to be saved by sleep. She focused on her grogginess and watched its waves lap at the cadavers appearing before her until the waves enveloped them completely and she mercifully succumbed to sleep.
She awoke in the morning to a nurse checking her pulse and to the pain that had returned at full tilt. She gratefully swallowed the painkillers the nurse handed her and for the first time forced herself to speak.
“When can I leave?” she asked the nur
se.
“Anytime now,” she said. “But let’s have the doctor check you over before we say for sure.”
The doctor came minutes later. After asking Amelia a series of questions, he determined that she was ready to be released.
“We want to release you to someone, however,” he said. “I don’t recommend that you leave by yourself, and you certainly are not allowed to drive. Is someone coming for you?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia answered, wondering if Paul would come soon and if so, what she would do once she was released to him. “I think my friend Paul will come for me.”
“Well, as soon as he arrives, you should be fine to leave, but I don’t recommend any physical activity for the next few days. I’m writing you a prescription for some painkillers that you can take every four to six hours when the pain gets too much. Once the prescription runs out, the pain should be at a manageable level, but let me know if its intensity continues and we’ll have another look.”
The doctor handed her the prescription and wished her a fast recovery. He was about to leave when he turned back towards her.
“I know this is unorthodox,” he said, “but I get the feeling there is something much deeper than that cut going on in your head. You might want to take advantage of the fact that you are on an Indian reservation to see our local medicine man. I’m very good at healing cuts and broken bones, but he heals the soul. His name is Martin Real Bird, just in case you’re interested. Ask anyone in town where you can find him, but mention that Dr. Blacksmith sent you. They’re pretty protective of their medicine men when it comes to outsiders. Take care.”
Amelia thanked him and watched him leave. She was surprised that she was so transparent. She realized the evening’s events had stripped her of her protective shell. Even her eyelids could no longer hide the horrifying truth that now surfaced in her eyes.
