Читать книгу Cheyenne Madonna - Eddie Chuculate - Страница 3

ON THEIR SECOND DAY, Old Bull’s party began to see many wolves and coyotes in the distance, slung low to the ground, throwing backward glances. They appeared in the midafternoon as mirages through a heatwave gauze that rose off the plain and made things shimmer and seem not as they were. One stopped and sat on his haunches and looked behind him. He licked his chops then looked right at Old Bull before slinking away. Something extraordinary was happening, plainly, but Old Bull was unconcerned. There were many days to cover before this Great Lake he had heard so much of. They were Old Bull, Red Moon, Sandman, and Whiteshield. Other than strips of dried meat wrapped in skins, they carried no excess baggage other than an extra horse each on a side rope. Their horses were lean and muscled and born to run. But this wasn’t a war party or a scouting trip. This was plain-and-simple joyriding – an adventure – and who wants to be bogged down on an adventure? Privately, Old Bull thought the stories were exaggerated – days and days of water in either direction? The absolute end of the earth? Surely if this was true, this would be the very origin of their existence, he thought.

The water was very low in the Red River, and they let the horses drink after they crossed. Toward evening the antelope came – sand-brown like the terrain and splotched with white. First one, then in groups of twos and threes. Soon, Old Bull’s party was surrounded front and back by the usually very skittish animal. They stopped their horses and looked in all directions. Old Bull liked the way the antelope sprang in long graceful arcs, one after the other, like they were playing children’s games. But Sandman drew and shot an arrow into one’s neck right at the top of its jump. It fell on its two front legs and lay quivering in the grass. He got down and pulled out his arrow then cut its neck with a quick jerk. He did all this calmly. Old Bull shook his head. Red Moon laughed. That damned Sandman.

Later on, Whiteshield was almost thrown from his horse when it nearly stepped on a rattlesnake. The horse dipped suddenly and reared up, but Whiteshield brought him down and calmed him, scratching the side of his neck. Old Bull told him he better watch where he was going next time. They splashed through a small creek, and on top of the next rise a grasshopper flew into Old Bull’s face. Old Bull felt its scratchy little legs on his cheek. He went to flick it away but it leapt off. Sandman pointed. Old Bull looked and saw waves of flying insects coming toward them, heard their wings fluttering. There were locusts, grasshoppers, crickets. The riders hid their faces on the sides of their horses and galloped through the cloud of bugs. They slowed to a lope. The horses smelled the smoke first, raising their heads and flaring their nostrils. Old Bull’s horse sneezed sharply. Then Old Bull himself smelled the smoke. At the top of the hill, where they could see for miles all around, they saw the fire to the west. It rose up like the bluffs of a red canyon, lapping and advancing with thirsty orange flames. It was driving away animals as it progressed – more animals than Old Bull had ever seen at any one time. That night under a cottonwood grove with the remnants of the antelope fat spitting and sizzling on coals, they dozed on their pallets. A strand of Red Moon’s hair had wisped around and was caught in his lips. It went in and out as he snored. Breezes came and went, trembling leaves and making music.

* * *

The fire behind them, they rode on at sunup. Sometimes they rode in a lazy zig-zag, taking it easy, or abreast in an easy lope. Sandman’s horse would always begin to gallop when it smelled water, and Sandman had to check him in. They came to a hilly, elevated country after two days, and had to dismount and lead their horses around granite boulders and rocks and under clumps of juniper and pine. This landscape came upon them unexpectedly, protruding from the wildflower and grass-whipped prairie like a miniature mountain range. They bedded down near the top, with a wide open view of the plains to the south. Taking a leak, Red Moon saw a line of three or four schooner wagons, insect-like, crawling into the sunset. He joked with Old Bull that they better not tell Sandman. No telling what he’d do.

After two days their horses began to smell the water, raising and dipping their heads, wild-eyed, snorting, difficult to control. They were back down on flat ground now, on marshy lowland, and saltgrass and wispy cane had taken the place of wild cotton and tumbleweeds. A sudden gale slung Old Bull’s hair forward around his face, and he traced the wind ahead of him, its current visible as it curled through stands of Johnson grass and willow. Soon there was water everywhere: low-lying lakes, bayous, and swamps. They stopped and surveyed. Nearby, geese and crane covered a shallow pond, and more were dropping in, falling with spread wings and extended feet, settling with soft splashes. The birds bobbed upon the water, their mild puttering and clucking reminding Old Bull of a flock of wild turkeys he spied on once, up north. He was mildly disappointed though. There was a lot of water, but this couldn’t be the Great Lake. There were many lakes like this up north. Whiteshield said that they would probably have to cross here to make it farther south, because soon they would be too deep. With a yell, Sandman whipped his horse suddenly into the backwater, and his piercing scream, the splashing and frantic hollering of the geese, began to fill the universe. One by one, the entire raft of wildfowl rose up and blotted the sky, it grew dark, and Old Bull felt the wind from their wings on his skin.

They started out before sunrise, and as they rode the stars paled and the sky turned a deep clear blue. Red Moon halted and pointed out the Indian. A figure, apparently smeared in clay, knelt at the edge of a mirror-surfaced black-water lagoon. The riders stroked and whispered to their horses, keeping them silent. The Indian rose and carried water up and over a hill, out of sight. They untied and secured their spare horses, and followed. They were very quiet; steam trailed from the horses’ nostrils. There were about a dozen Indians facing them with bows drawn when they topped the hill. Sandman reached for his bow but Old Bull grabbed his arm and with his other arm waved back and forth, friendly-like. He told the others to do the same. They did, then an arrow flew by Whiteshield’s ear and slammed into the riverbank, buried to the feather.

They whirled and galloped down to where their spare horses were tied behind a cottonwood stand. Old Bull tried it again when the Indians appeared on the rise – waving, gesturing. No weapons, see? Friendly. Red Moon and Whiteshield had their bows out but were hidden behind the network of trees. Sandman rubbed his knife, made sure it was there. Old Bull walked out further into the open, arms up. He tried to signal that they had come from the north, were trying to go that way, to the big water, and that they meant no harm. His arms were wide-open; they could have shot him through the heart. Sandman came out as well, on his horse, followed by Red Moon and Whiteshield. They flanked Old Bull, showed no weapons. Wanted peace. The Indians lowered their bows and began downhill. Old Bull said, “Come on, let’s meet them halfway.”

They were odd, very odd, Old Bull thought, unlike any other Indians he had seen. They appeared smeared in some sort of grease, their faces half clay red and half black, nipples pierced with slivers of cane. The bows they held were as tall as they were. Red Moon untied his spare horse, the palomino, and went up and offered it to what he assumed was their headman, the one Old Bull was trying to deal with. That was the icebreaker. The group began to yell and chant and retreat. The headman signaled for them to come. As they were untying their horses, Old Bull said this Great Lake had better be worth it.

All night until dawn the Indians gave a big dance for them, the craziest dance Old Bull had ever seen. The women shook rattles made out of snapping-turtle shells tied onto sticks with leather straps, and some of the men played little flutes made out of reeds. The bird-like sounds made Red Moon smile. There were drummers and chanters, some of whom blew low mournful sounds from pinkish-colored shells. Of course it all made no sense to the Cheyennes, but it seemed to make their hosts happy. The dancers contorted around a big fire, bending backward or spinning sideways, seemingly without design or purpose, sometimes leaping through the flames. Some of them wore the strangest rainbow-colored feathers and necklaces of teeth. A spark flew into a dancer’s hair, and he jumped and yelped and slapped himself on the head as he continued around the fire. The Cheyennes assumed it was part of the dance. Platters of roasted scallops, shrimp, and oysters were passed along to the guests. The headman showed them how to shuck out the meat with a wooden, spoonlike device and dab it onto sea salt that had dried out in a depression on a stone slab. Sandman didn’t believe he had ever tasted anything as fine and ate so much his stomach protruded.

That night the Indian they had seen getting water that morning came up to Sandman and signaled that it was him who had been getting a drink, and that he saw them, in the reflection of the water. Sandman told the others, and they had a big laugh while the dancing and music played on.

The next day the headman and three others drug out four canoes, and they set off down the canal. Old Bull and the headman in one canoe, and Sandman, Red Moon, and Whiteshield in the other three with their guides. At the end of the narrow stretch, where it emptied into a broad bay, they rowed to shore. Each pair carried their canoes over their heads down a well-worn path, through palmetto and sawgrass. They had to put in once more and paddle across a wide tributary. The headman untangled a limber net constructed of vine and let it unfurl alongside in the water while Old Bull paddled. When they reached the opposite shore the net held three big fish and dozens of fat long-whiskered shrimp. They pulled the boats inland and flipped them upside down. The headman motioned, over there. While their hosts set about making a fire and gutting the fish, the Cheyennes hacked through some more sugarcane into an open clearing and there spread before them was a startling expanse of blinding blue and white, roar of surf, glimmer of sand. Old Bull showed no expression, but his heart leaped.

They walked together along the beach, saw gulls whirl and dip. Sandman picked up and blew loudly through a shell he had found. Almost immediately one of the Indians came trotting out of the thicket to investigate, then retreated. Old Bull walked to the edge of the water. He liked the way the little stick-legged shorebirds followed the water as it rushed out to sea, then tiptoed madly back in front of it as the surf came in again. “That’s how you run,” he joked to Whiteshield.

Sandman threw down the shell, stripped his leggings, and sprinted into the ocean, screaming and scattering birds. He ran until he was up to his chest, then dove into the next incoming wave. He surfaced, swinging the hair from his face. He spat out a mouthful of water. “Salty!” he yelled. They all laughed. It was true, Old Bull thought, water as far as the eye could see. Absolute end of the earth.

The sun was sinking, a fat globe that laid down a watery orange stairway. The Johnson and sawgrass cuts stung when Old Bull entered the water, but he figured it was good for them. He tasted the water first on his palm then took a small drink. A little salt is good for you, he thought. It was warm near shore but grew cooler further out and was shockingly cold when he swam underneath and touched the sandy bottom. Surfacing, he saw Sandman showing Red Moon and Whiteshield a trick. When a wave curled in, creamy and white, Sandman would somehow float on his back and let the wave carry him closer to shore. They were all yelling and having a good time. Old Bull bobbed in the water, thinking. He wondered from what direction the white men had come and how many more would come. How big were their countries, and how far away? On what type of boats would they come over? How many days did it take? He carefully scanned the horizon for boats but saw none, blinded momentarily by a crescent of sun.

They ate boiled shrimp and roasted snapper and spent the night out on the sand around a fire on grass mats, which their hosts hastily arranged. Sandman braided his hair, looking into his little mirror occasionally. The Indians were fascinated by it, taking turns looking at themselves, but Sandman wasn’t about to give it up. In the morning the sky was mottled purple, and strong winds had created a rough, roiling surf. They all took wake-up dips and set off. At the camp, a crowd had gathered around two boys who had shot a big fish. Old Bull had never seen anything like the creature. With slick, leathery skin instead of scales, the fish was taller than either of the boys. An arrow protruded through the fish’s back and out the stomach. Its eyes were wide open, and one of the boys knelt down and pulled its jaws apart. “It’s got teeth like a bear!” Red Moon shouted.

Old Bull thought that it looked fierce, with its slanted eyes and rows of curving teeth. One of the boys signaled that the fish normally lives in the big water, but came up through the canal and got trapped, and they could see its fin poking above the shallow water, so they shot it. Old Bull told the headman that he and his friends would be leaving today, it would take seven days, they appreciated everything, they would be brothers.

Old Bull went to his horse and got a heavy knife with a sparkling beaded handle and gave it to the headman, and the headman took off the shark-tooth necklace he was wearing and gave it to Old Bull. The headman pointed at his mouth, then at the fish the boys were dragging off to the canal to clean. Soon, the dancing and singing began again, and the children rode the palomino around the periphery of the camp. “If we don’t leave now,” Old Bull said to Red Moon, “we’ll never get out of here. They’ll dance all night.”

They were dancing and singing even as the party rode off, four abreast, spare horses trailing. The headman and a few others stood on the top of a small hill and watched them, raising their hands once in farewell.

After a while, the sound of the Indians’ drums faded and blended with far-off thunder. Southerly winds picked up and brought gentle rain that wiped away the pressing humidity and ushered in cool air. Fat drops peppered Old Bull’s back. Flocks of honking geese went over, fleeing north in staggered V-formations. Looking behind them, Red Moon said it looked like storms, but that they’d probably blow over in an hour.

They found shelter under a thick cypress grove. Whiteshield passed around dried buffalo, delicious after their recent seafood diet. After an hour, though, the rain had intensified, and the treetops were bending north from a steady gale. They were all getting soaked. There was nothing to do but wait. Old Bull had weathered many storms before, but this one only grew stronger. It was dark, and they circled their horses and huddled between them. Blue lightning illuminated the horses briefly; their heads were lowered and eyes shut, as if to sleep through it all. The horizontal rain, the spooky howl of the wind, reminded Old Bull of a tornado he had experienced as a young man, but then the wind and rain had passed quickly, albeit ferociously. This storm had more stamina.

He heard leaves being stripped from their branches, then a big limb snapped with a wicked crack! As if on cue, the rain slowed to a trickle, and the trees stretched back to their original shape. The clouds broke to reveal a pure blue circle, in which gulls and terns swirled. Their cries came to Old Bull slowly, then with startling clarity after the din of the storm. Rain dripped steadily from overhead branches. They untied their horses and mounted, anxious to make time and find higher ground.

Pools of water lay all around, mirrorlike in the bright light. It seemed to Old Bull that the sun shattered off of every drop in each splash Red Moon’s galloping horse made in front of him. To their backs, spinning clouds and sheets of rain were swallowing the blue sky as the party rode all-out for the cover of a vacant adobe structure, rising forlornly near the edge of a bayou. It reminded Old Bull of some houses he had seen out west on the other side of the mountains while on a trading trip several autumns ago. White men in robes had lived in them. They squeezed into an archway and Old Bull was amazed to see that there was no roof.

Fat mottled clouds raced overhead in the purplish twilight, so close Old Bull wished they could rope one and fly home. The walls and sides had already crumbled to the ground. All that remained was the facade, but it shielded the wind and rain, which was on them again. Gusts gathered into steady gales, the rain tilted sideways, darkness descended. For hours the rain and wind assaulted the mud bricks until they began to melt from the top. Red streams flowed down the sides and collected in gullies around their feet. A chunk of mud and straw flew off and splattered Whiteshield’s horse, causing it to bellow and rise, fighting at the air. He landed, bucked, and kicked hard with his hind legs, slamming the building solidly, and the entire east side of the wall caved in. The horse turned in nervous circles, this way and that, bewildered, until Whiteshield spoke to him and calmed him, rubbing his neck.

The Cheyennes all huddled with their backs against the west wall now, their horses faced away from the rain, heads lowered. Then the winds lessened, the rain suddenly quit. They stood and looked south. The sky was an electric pink. A blast of cold air delivered a hard spray of sleet and, glancing at the white pellets, Old Bull saw they were up to their ankles in water from the overflowing lagoon. Lightning popped over their heads, the horses jumped. Sandman’s pinto pony, ears twitching, heard the whistle first, monotone, distant, but growing louder. Again, lightning cracked the air above them. Again, the horses jumped. The whistle turned into a roar; they looked all around, up at the low ceiling of sky, out over the lagoon. They all pointed at once.

Skinny dancing ropes, three of them, had dropped from the wall of bruised clouds, hovering over a big tree. The tree began to lean backward, slowly, reaching as if pulled magnetically. When its tops began to brush the ground, the trunk exploded and stark white chunks as big as clubs splintered free, whirled and speared the mud wall. “Ride!” Red Moon yelled.

They jumped the south wall. Behind them the three ropes had meshed into a fat snout that whined and skipped along the ground. They were showered with mud and rocks. Old Bull kicked and whipped his horse to catch up with the others; a tree limb sailed overhead. Red Moon, Whiteshield, and Sandman plunged into the bay, intent on crossing at a narrow inlet. But it was too deep and the horses lost footing, listed sideways and tried to swim. Instantly it grew dark again, a shadow enveloped the earth. Old Bull yelled, but the wind snatched away his voice. He felt himself being lifted from his horse, or rather had the sensation that he and his horse were being elevated, because he felt his horse under him, then suddenly his horse wasn’t there, and Sandman was twirling above him, mouth open in a silent scream, his face a dazed mask. They reached for each other but were repelled. Three vertical arrows floated past him at eye level, followed by a limp swamp rat and Red Moon’s appaloosa, upside down.

Old Bull felt himself turn a flip, one slow revolution as he pawed at the air, then he was dunked under water. He opened his eyes briefly, saw midnight. Deeper and deeper he sank until jolting softly on his back against a muddy bottom. He paused a moment, stunned, before comprehending he was out of breath. In a sudden panic, he sprung off the bayou floor and shot up, kicking his legs and fanning his arms. He rose and rose and just when he thought he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he broke through, gasping and spewing water, arms flailing. It was dark out, but from nightfall. He grabbed onto a tree trunk bobbing past him in the roiling current. He floated swiftly at first, between what appeared to be the bluffs on either side of him, then the water lessened, then simply ran out, and he was beached on the floor of a small canyon. He stumbled to his feet, slipping in mud. It was still and quiet, a silver spray of stars pulsed in the bleached sky. He began to walk, northward he hoped. He called out once, loud, “Anybody out there?” but his words only echoed back to him: out there, out there, out there. . . .

He never saw Sandman, Red Moon, or Whiteshield again but dreamt of them often, even as an old man. It took him ten days to reach home, riding the final two nights on a horse coaxed from the fringe of a camp in the dead of night. When he was certain he was in his homeland, he relaxed, nearly hallucinating, and drifted in and out of sleep. That was how his people saw him when he arrived, riding, but slouched over with his face buried in the horse’s mane. He was nearly naked, shirtless, shoeless, and wore a strange necklace of teeth that clicked softly when they pulled him off the horse. It took a while, but he recuperated on corn soup and antelope meat. He didn’t speak of the trip for some time, but eventually told his wife and fellow chiefs all that had happened. There were dances for Sandman, Red Moon, and Whiteshield late every fall. Gradually the trip assumed a dreamlike quality in his mind, and children and grandchildren loved to hear the stories of turquoise-colored fish, screaming pigs with tusks, birds that talked and wore yellow and blue feathers and had orange beaks. He embellished when telling the children, who were awestruck to hear of white men from different worlds who rode on big ships with billowing sails and wore brown robes and lived in mud houses, of giant fish with big sharp teeth like a bear’s that ate people. He held up his necklace as evidence. Old Bull dreamed of these things and wasn’t entirely unconvinced himself.