James Doss: The Shaman Laughs

Gorman Sweetwater, whose reprieve from the cold fingers of Death had improved his mood considerably, glanced over the rim of his coffee cup at his cousin. He smiled only with the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, "Maybe it's that old pitukupf who lives up the canyon in his badger hole; I doubt if that little fellow has took himself a bath for… prob'ly twelve or eight hundred years. More or less."

The old woman pretended not to hear this foolish talk. Her cousin, who had once lost a good horse because he didn't show proper respect to the pitukupf , should know better than to make jokes about the dwarf-spirit. But Gorman, like most old men, was apt to forget the hard lessons he'd learned in life.

And then there was Charlie Moon. There would be no point in telling the policeman that she sensed something terrible out there. Her nephew would treat her with respect, but he would pay little attention to a warning based on her intuition. Daisy Perika closed her eyes and tried to see into the darkness. Tonight, she knew, sleep would not come at all.

The Policeman's Home

on the Banks of the Los Pinos

It was almost midnight when Charlie Moon finally unbuckled his cowhide cartridge belt and draped it over the back of a heavy oak chair. He pulled off his boots. The Ute policeman's thoughts drifted to Benita Sweetwater. Any day now, Gorman's daughter would be home from Fort Lewis College in Durango. He could almost see Benita's dark eyes, the flash of her sweet smile. But such thoughts were distracting and would rob him of sleep. Moon forced his mind to other matters. Such as Police Chief Severo's upcoming vacation and his replacement by Scott Parris for those few weeks. Moon smiled at this thought; it would be good to spend some time with his friend again. The Ute also considered his unfinished adobe home; there was so much work be done, and never enough time. And finally, Charlie Moon let his thoughts drift to his aunt Daisy. It wasn't good for the old woman's mind, living by herself at the mouth of that haunted canyon. It was a place that more prudent Utes preferred to avoid. The isolation turned her thoughts inward, made fantasies come alive and dance around her little bed after the sun slipped behind the mesa. But there was no use talking to her about moving. The old woman was stubbornly fixed on the notion that because she had entered into this world at the mouth of Canon del Espiritu , from that sacred place she would also depart.

But Charlie Moon did not entertain those troublesome thoughts that keep less fortunate souls sleepless far into the depths of night. For this reason, the Ute policeman was usually asleep within a minute after his heavy frame hit the mattress. On this night, Moon rolled over in his bed and was soon lost in the infinite, ever-changing landscape of his mind. As a finger of cold moonlight reached gently through the window and touched his face, the dream began innocently enough, without any hint of that which was to come. * * *

The dreamer walked along a much-used trail. Without knowing how it could be so, Charlie Moon was certain that his feet had made this path.

This place was unremarkable except for its striking familiarity. Before him was a field of black basalt boulders, scattered patches of juniper and pinon, and irregular clumps of fringed sage. White four-petal fendlerbush blossoms waved at him, mountain bluebirds and yucca moths were on the wing, tireless honeybees droned from pink rose to purple aster. The Ute paused to watch a buffalo cow grazing on the lush grasses; her mate drank from the waters of the rolling stream. And what was his grandmother's name for this creek that churned its reddish-brown waters through the shallow valley? Sweet Waters of Forgetting? Blood of Manitou? Tears of the Sky Virgin? He could not remember. But one landmark was unmistakable. The stark profile of the Coch-etopa Hills rose into a morning sky that was a whitish blue. But the dreamer could see over the horizon-far to the east, this endless sea, this sky-blanket over the earth patched with billows of clouds that rolled and swelled-great vaporous waves driven before an unseen storm that had not yet reached its full fury. A small wooden ship pitched upon the rolling surface of this sky-sea, square sails bent before the winds. A craft that would bring the fierce Blue Eyes to this land of the grandmother of all his grandfathers. Some of these first would be killed, a few would be enslaved, fewer still would be absorbed into the confederation of tribes who lived in that place where the sun came up. But there would be many others who would come over the cold waters. Many beyond counting. The ship vanished into a deep fog.

The Ute knew that he had walked this trail many times, a thousand winters before the People had been given the horse, even before the bow and arrow had replaced the flint-tipped dart and atl-atl throwing stick. Charlie Moon also knew that he would be here again. Soon. Before the Apache Plume gave her last petals to North Wind. He heard a low rumbling sound, like summer thunder over the San Juans. It was the buffalo bull; the great animal pawed the sod ner-vously as he bellowed his words to the clouds. The cow continued her grazing.

Moon was suddenly distracted from the buffalo; he turned to see an old man, dressed in leather breeches and a spotless white shirt with silver buttons. His legs were bowed, his short form bent forward. The man's long hair was straight and coarse-coal black tinged with streaks of snowy white. The face was ancient and wrinkled, the nose flattened, the skin dark like polished walnut. The beaded band around the old man's head was a marvel to the dreamer; this ornament shimmered with more colors than a rainbow-amber and turquoise and cornflower and jasper and rose quartz and a dozen other hues that Charlie Moon had never seen nor imagined and would not remember after this dream.

The old man's lips sighed, then formed soundless words. "Son of Buckskin Moon, son of Alice Winterheart… will you look upon what I must show you?"

Moon nodded. There was something hauntingly familiar about this elder, but his identity was hidden from the dreamer.

The venerable figure raised his arm; he pointed to a small forest of piflon and juniper. He stared at the young Ute with an expression of unutterable sadness, then turned away. The stooped figure left the path and walked into the small forest of evergreens. Moon was not eager to follow, but he found that his legs were in charge. They made long, heavy strides.

In Middle World, thunder rolled down the broad valley, along the muddy banks of the Los Pinos, off the rocky face of Shellhammer Ridge, over the painted steel roof of the house where the dreamer slept. The west wind sighed heavily, rippling the waters of the Pinos, bending the limbs of great cotton woods and limber willows along the river's banks. Just above the foaming rapids in the elbow of the river, in the home built of adobe bricks, the dreamer heard the thunder speak. Charlie Moon also heard the nervous chatter of the cottonwood leaves, the dark whisper of the willows. He stirred uneasily, but did not escape the prison of his dream.

Moon was now aware that he was running. He wanted to turn away, but the dreamer's legs were like great pumping pistons, driving him toward some uncertain dark shore. But now, in a clearing among the juniper and pinon and scrub oak, his legs slowed to a walk. But it was very strange-the light of the sun did not touch this place of dark mists! Worse still, the old man was not here.

There was a small half-alive tree isolated in the center of the clearing; even the dry grasses did not grow near its roots… The big Ute moved toward this tortured growth and was suddenly stopped as if by a wall of smoky glass. Barely visible through the folds of darkness, Charlie Moon could see a form suspended from a branch in the tree. It must be an animal. A fresh deer carcass waiting to be butchered.