Love to Water My Soul (Dreamcatcher) Page 21

  Finished, it sat, brought a pale paw to its mouth and licked, looking soft and friendly, its stomach extended out like a once crabby baby’s, satisfied.

  It stretched low, then sprang as though shot from a bow toward a tree felled by the wind into another. It moved up into the branches, and I saw its tail hang low in the distance, twitching softly. The cat licked her face, then eased her way back down, making her way to a rocky ledge instead. Its eyes closed within minutes into gentle sleep, a moment of softness cradled in the midst of vicious death.

  Flake jerked on my hands, sore where the leather thong cut into the palm. I could not even speak to him, made some effort at using my hand to signal him quiet. His throat harbored a low growl that stopped as I started to move, slowly, easing our way toward the felled deer. Much meat remained on the deer’s carcass, and with Lukwsh’s small obsidian knife, I took some, cut the loin almost untouched from the deer’s back. With the hafted knife between my teeth, I hung the length of red meat cut back from his spine and draped the flesh around my neck. Then with quick, quick movements I had seen Grey Doe use, I sliced strips from the shoulder. My eyes scanned quickly as I worked, sought signs of sudden danger. From the corner of my eye I watched the sleeping animal, willed it to share its kill without a struggle. The cat slept.

  Flake buried his head in the deer’s ripped side, lay down, and tore at the meat held between his paws.

  Satisfied, we slipped out low to the ground over the rise from which we’d watched. I placed the meat in the burden basket, and we made our way quickly, crossing the river to swallow our scent.

  The roasted venison tasted as sweet and soft as sage gum, and we both ate our fill, Flake threatening to lick the juice from my chin. I dried more for travel so the deer meat could last several days.

  With a fuller stomach, I had confidence to spend time stripping sagebrush and some willows to form twists and coils to stick with pitch to the bottoms of my thin moccasins. I made sage rope into cordage to trap ducks that swam along the river banks close to gravel bars appearing like long spears in the water. Flake startled the ducks into the crude nets, and I strangled one, then two, skinned them and kept the hides and roasted the meat.

  I wondered if I should just stay, form a lodge of sagebrush, and fish and hunt with Flake. Surely, no one followed. Perhaps this was the place where I could spend my days, not search for Sunmiet’s tibo, not worry about walking in a world with owls.

  For the first time since the charming, I allowed myself to feel satisfied, capable, trust there were some choices for me, both a future and a hope.

  So my downfall should not have come as a surprise. Bad things always follow after good in my life, meant to keep me humble.

  It was midday, warm. We had stopped to drink and refill the water basket. Flake chased butterflies that flitted through the grasses beside the river. Cattle tracks punched into broken river banks, sure signs of settlers. The cow’s feet left puddles that collected familiar seeds that were soft but tasty when I put tiny fragments to my tongue. High lava rocks not unlike the ridge I once fell from lined the river. The day grew hot and still.

  Along the lower ridges, shallow caves promised protection and cool. Wuzzie would have sought “cave power” found in sacred places.

  We made the short climb toward an opening in the rocks, and I heard the buzz in the grass before I saw the rattler.

  “I do not wish to breathe snake breath, Flake,” I told him.

  Flake barked at the coil, darted forward and back, set the snake straight as to who was in charge of this space. The snake eventually slithered out of its twist and into the grass. Because it left us unharmed, I thought the danger past.

  The birds’ silence came to me first, as though some wind had swept through and stolen all their voices. The air lingered, as stagnant as an old pond, the sage intensely fragrant.

  From my perch in the shallow cave, I could see the river wander through a flat area lined by nubby rocky ridges the colors of rainbows. In the distance, the cattle grazed on the river-fed grass like cranes in a sea of green. Then the cows began to run with their tails up high, fanning out in all directions. I had seen horses run when flies became unbearable, but these cows kicked and jumped, then clustered into groups and ran again like ragged rays parting from a once friendly sun.

  Flake whined, panted, stood up, sneezed. He walked beyond me, but came back when I called. A cluster of ducks lifted up as though startled, but nothing else moved as they flew into the sun.

  Those were the memories of warnings.

  I heard the sounds of the rocks like someone scrambling over them in a hurry, watched a small chunk dribble downhill, gain speed. My mind told me no animal could be above us, cause such sounds, but the rocks kept coming. Could people climb there? Had I missed an easy ascent from the other side? Who had followed me? Why did they bother? My heart pounded, my body tingled as though struck with willow sticks all over.

  I shook and shivered in my fear, could not walk out to see for sure who might be above me. I watched cattle running, running as if wild. Even grasses moved outside the cave within the stillness of the wind. Flake broke my hold on him and raced out.

  “No!” I shouted, hoping none but him would hear me. “Come back!” He barked at me. “They’ll see you!” I shouted with a whine. “Stay here. Oh, please stay here!”

  I started after him then but could not make my feet be steady. My fear, I thought. I grabbed the sides of the shallow cave wall that moved like gentle waves. I yelled again for Flake, my voice barely rising above the falling rocks.

  But he was gone. He had moved on down the ridge, then turned back to hear me. He stood, watched, his ears perked forward in a question, his eyes locked onto mine.

  So we did not see the boulder high above us break, bounce like a hollow gourd, crack like thunder, hit here and there before it struck him on the side.

  The rock stayed only seconds before bounding on, resting finally in a mighty splash close to the river’s edge. A shower of rocks, some smaller, some larger, gouged the ground as they rolled and bounced and beat the dry earth like a hollow drum. They landed beside the dog, bounced well beyond.

  My mind still could make no sense of who could push so many rocks and make the grass move without wind, how the cave could keep me stumbling so I could not reach my dog.

  The cave wall calmed. My eyes skimmed across the cattle grazing like quiet children, pawing the grass for seeds, no sign they ever ran in all directions. No rocks rolled. Birds flitted and flew. The grass lay quiet.

  I did not wish to see the still, dark form before me.

  There remained not even a moment to be with him yet in life, to rest his soft head in my lap while he could hear my words. I talked to him, said his name out loud, smoothed the fur of his ears, his head, his bleeding side. My buckskin felt cold beneath his head, and when I lifted it, I saw blood oozed onto me. The air moved his thick fur that now covered stillness; his eyes stayed open into stare.

  The boulder had twisted Flake’s neck in a strange angle not fitting for the friend he was. I straightened it, my fingers slippery with his blood, and buried my face in his fur.

  I told myself later that he would not have wished to live with all his wounds and damage. I reminded myself when I felt the surge of loss well up and burn my chest that he was just a dog, not some precious child, not a parent or a mate, not a valued friend. A dog, just a dog. And still, I could not stop the ache of losing him, of wondering why again I would be left, yet must go on.

  As best I could, I dragged his heavy body to where the rock that struck him had dug a depression in the earth before bounding and careening to the river. Through tears I told him I was sorry that the rock should form his final place.

  My limbs did not feel the growing numbness until later. I worked, gathering rocks, and in between my breathy sobs my mind repeated, “You are alone, now. Flake is gone.” And I would have to stop awhile and cry.

  When Flake’s form was almost covered, a
ll except his massive head, I lost all hope to carry on, perhaps because I knew my calls lured him to the boulder’s path. Wuzzie had promised his dancing would bring the shaking earth. He had warned me what would happen if I disobeyed. I had no hope in running off to nowhere all alone to search for people no more real than misty memories.

  I decided to bury all that I had with him, let my life end as Wuzzie intended.

  I wrapped the scrap of headband over the dog’s eyes so he would not stare at the rocks or woman-child who caused his death. The burden basket with what venison remained I laid beneath his muzzle. The duck hides filled the space in the dog’s head crushed in by the rock. Even Wren’s tiny tule dog, her flints, I laid there beside Lukwsh’s knife, the tule water basket, the spear point. My hand brushed against the soft hide that remained of my dress and I lifted it over my shoulders, laid it over him.

  I started to cover up his head when I spied the knots of leather.

  “Trade,” I told him.

  Small rocks ground into my knees as I bent over him. Bumps of cold formed on my skin. I felt myself shake. I removed the gold chain from around my neck and placed it in a clump near his, the gold glittering against the shiny black fur.

  “I do not belong to the love this necklace promised,” I told him. The knots slipped over his ears, easily, into my hands. “If I should live, it will be not because of anything I did, not from the treasures of the basket given me by others. I live only to remember. The mistakes I made, my pride, my unwillingness to bend, how I harmed others. My knots of memory go with me from where I once belonged.”

  I draped the knots over my head. With my hands as claws, I covered Flake—his head, the gold of the chain—with the sparse dirt and pebbles. At the river’s edge, I found grasses easily pulled and dry sagebrush and laid them on his grave. My stomach was a hollow core. I finished the mound with larger rocks stacked high until my arms ached and my legs wore scratches from the rocks’ sharp edges gouging my legs as I carried and walked.

  I had no tears left.

  The night air turned cool. I huddled outside the cave, collecting warmth, hoping to die before morning.

  It was not to be.

  Instead, I awoke shivering, my stomach growling, my body wishing to make water. I hated myself that such needs should wake me, force me to remember where I was, that I was at all.

  I made my way to the water’s edge, dipped my hand, drank, and returned to the edge of the cave, waiting in my place beside the dead.

  How many days passed like this I do not know; the days drifted into each other like leaves collecting and moving in a slow stream. But one morning I noticed movement in the dry grasses close to the base of the ledge. Something bobbed and wove yet did not move away, stayed just beyond the weeds. It continued without stopping, changing only to grow larger at times, as though it had wings but could not fly. As though in a trance, I moved toward it.

  I felt like the fawn I’d charmed and wondered if I had been lured to the curious that harbored harm. My head buzzed from the sun and hunger. Perhaps the weaving was not there at all. As I moved closer, I saw the thing had eyes circled with a ring of brown. And it had wings that it pulled around itself, its head bobbing as though blind. It was a young owl.

  It lunged toward me when it heard. High above us I spied a smaller cave and the remains of a nest that must have shaken loose in the earth’s quaking. The bird jabbed at my feet, missed completely, and I realized it was blind, the sunlight taking away its vision given only for night. I picked it up and wrapped the wings over its eyes. It felt warm in my hands, soft.

  “You don’t belong here,” I told it, stroking the smooth feathers. The bird struggled; its talons poked at my hands. It gave in.

  “You belong where you can do what you were meant to,” I said but heard the words as though spoken to myself. I carried it into the darkness of the cave, set it down. It kept its wings over its eyes by choice until I stepped back. The weaving and bobbing stopped, and it lowered its wings and stared, moved from side to side on its slender feet, moved deeper into the cave, away from danger. Its strength returned. It had found its place.

  As though walking in a sleep, I backed out and made my way to Flake.

  “I have things to do, Flake,” I told him, rolling rocks near his head. I hoped he would forgive me for robbing his grave.

  My fingers clutched the dirt-laden buckskin, and when I pulled it from the earth, it resisted me. A yank toppled me backward. I sat back up, breathing hard, still clutching the buckskin. Beside it, glittering in the sun, came the necklace, too.

  “You give this back?” I asked the dog. A breeze ruffled a section of fur I had uncovered. “I take it, then,” I said, pushing dirt and rocks back over him, “since it belongs more with my kind than yours.”

  I brushed off the buckskin dress, which was more like a shirt now, so many of the leather strips had been cut and chewed. I slipped it over my head and pushed the wide opening to stop at my waist. In a cluster of sage, I stripped bark, rubbed my fingers raw with the pulling and tearing, and rolled it against my thighs, twist after twist, weaving the strands together until I had enough. I eased a slice in the center of the sagebrush material, pulled it over my head like a man’s poncho, and tied a belt with the thong of knots that once circled my throat.

  I paused at Flake’s grave.

  “I go to Sunmiet’s place, but I will not forget who you are and what you gave me. And I will be as good a friend, Flake, as you were to me.”

  I stepped back, stood awhile longer. It was not saying good-bye, but the speaking of a promise.

  I followed the river north. I had nowhere else to go.

  Several days passed before I reached the place where a road broke off and split west, away from the wide river, toward a chain of snow-capped mountains in the distance. It was still the Dalles-Canyon City Military Highway, I believed, but now it rolled across prairie land dotted with tall grasses. Deep, wide ravines promised the breaks of another major river. Sunmiet said she lived in the shadow of such mountains strung like white shells against the sky.

  Where the trails separated, a small building with a hitching post in front attracted many travelers. I sat and watched from a distance as people came out of it, mounted up, and traveled the direction from which I’d come. Several Indians rode untroubled beside armed soldiers. The Indians had guns too. I looked to see if the Indians were free to leave. It seemed so. Their bodies simply blended together as they disappeared in the distance. It was the first place I ventured where owls and Indians rode together, and I believed I must be close to where I needed to be.

  I headed toward the mountains, passed through sultry winds blowing over sagebrush and purple lilies blooming in a single slender stem that shot up from the desert floor. My feet kicked up dust on a trail around a treeless ridge. It was wide enough for narrow wagons, though there were few tracks but those of horses. The sides rose up steeply, leaving me no place to hide if a rider came my way, but I met no one. I noticed only areas where rock had recently fallen, been gouged out like the boulder that felled my friend.

  I followed the twisting road until it took me above the promised river. Fierce rapids plunged against rocks that shot spray far beyond the river’s edge. White water rushed through steep, rocky banks. Farther on, the stream narrowed, twisting past a rock wall that cut into a blue sky as though sliced out by Lukwsh’s knife.

  Then I saw what made the roar I heard: a falls, twisting like a rabbit rope through cramped boulders, forcing the river to spill and fall upon itself before plunging to flat rocks below. Empty platforms, like log rafts hung in the air, extended out over the water, but otherwise it was quiet, with no sign of people, and so I believed this could not be the place Sunmiet spoke of. Where she lived would be activity, she promised, fishing and families gathered for the season.

  I stood for some time listening to the water, watching sea gulls dip and dive to the pools of fish clustered in the winding water below the falls. I stood and stared,
lost in the noise and splendor splashed before my eyes, lost to the sadness that had joined me as companion.

  So at first I did not notice the being who came to greet me in this place so unfamiliar, cautiously came to meet me, prepared to take me to another world.

  THE FOURTEENTH KNOT

  PASSAGE

  The small, reddish-brown dog with pointy ears advanced with hair standing, head lowered, mouth still. It stopped and stared. Behind him, on the ridge we shared, I detected men. Sounds of chopping reached my ears, though no trees broke the view. Voices carried over the ravines like straight arrows in still air.

  I did not wish to encounter others as I did not believe this was the place that Sunmiet said. I wanted to move on.

  More voices. I saw one or two men with rugged tools of iron like those brought back in raids by Oytes and Stink Bug. Men, through the mist of rabbit brush and sage, emerged from around the bend. Others followed, moving like beetles, slowly but with purpose. Some stopped and chopped at sagebrush; some pulled at roots and stacked the pale green in piles. For a brief moment I stood with Grey Doe and the time of my passage.

  Behind them, I heard the whistles and shouts of encouragement said to horses and mules pulling wagons of rocks and dirt. I thought I heard a jumble of English, something else. A steamy warmth rose off the road as the men put their backs to their work, their shoulders glistening with sweat. Bodies of dark colors and light bent to tasks together, laying rocks to make the road wider, give it a place to go, or so it seemed.

  A low growl rising from the dog regained my attention. Though not large, he wore a fierce look. He rolled his lips back to reveal black gums and large teeth. A short-legged dog compared to Flake, he almost crept on his belly toward me, wary, as though uncertain of my smell, my being.

  “Here dog,” I said.

  His ears perked forward and he stopped, twisted his head and sat, panting in the heat, watching me. Two tan spots like thumbprints marked areas above his eyes. The same light color lined his muzzle and throat, his chest, the insides of his squat legs. He had an unusual nabawici but appeared neither frightened nor lost. I promised myself to behave the same.