James Doss - The Shaman Laughs

The shaman tarried in the foot path, flipping the pages of the newspaper slowly, absorbing these fascinating bits of information, correlating them, searching for connections. There was something here, but she could not quite see it. Almost unconsciously, she whispered: "maybe the pitukupf will show me."

The tired old woman was climbing the front porch with the warm sun on her back when she noticed her shadow on the aluminum wall of her trailer.

Her short, thick shadow began to grow. It became tall, the shoulders broad.

The mail slipped from Daisy's hand; she gripped her skirts with cold, bloodless fingers.

The shadow raised its arms. The arms became great wings, with feathers that fluttered as if troubled by a wind.

The shaman stood frozen, unable even to cry out. Trembling, she watched the shadow wings spread as if for flight; they began to move in a slow rhythmic motion. Would they carry her away?

She closed her eyes. "Dear Jesus," she whispered, "you can make it go away." When she opened her eyes, her ordinary shadow was on the aluminum wall-the shadow arms were at her side where they belonged. Immediately, the shaman understood the meaning of her vision. She knew who had killed Arlo Nightbird.

That night, Daisy tossed uneasily in her bed staring alternately at the ceiling, then through the small window into the frigid darkness. What to do? Perhaps this dark knowledge was best kept secret. Or forgotten altogether.

She shivered. Cold as frog spit, that's what it was. The top of Chimney Rock was just now catching a faint glow of light from the east. Daisy trudged unsteadily along, eager to feel the warm light from the sun that would soon rise above the blue profile of Eight Mile Mesa. The paved road was a dark ribbon at her left hand, the waters of the Piedra rushed by at her right. She would occasionally pause to lean on her oak staff and wait until her breathing slowed. Ignacio was miles away and there was no traffic on the road at this early hour.

Her troubled thoughts were on her vision of the dark shadow that became an owl. And the owl was transformed back into a misty shadow. Sometimes what you saw in a vision wasn't the real thing, but just a hint of what the actual thing was. It had been that way in the ancient days, when Joseph had explained the meaning of the old Pharaoh's troublesome dreams. Fat cattle meant good crops-thin ones meant famine. Shadows and owls and other symbols were like arrows that pointed toward the truth.

There was still no explanation for the mutilation of Gorman's bull, or of the strange disappearance of Rolling Thunder, but the shaman had worked out a part of the puzzle.

There was no doubt about who had killed Arlo Nightbird. But Arlo was dead. Canon del Espiritu still lived. And the canyon was the only home the dwarf had ever known. Or, she supposed, the only home he could ever know. Like Daisy, the pitukupfwas too old and set in his ways to move. Aside from the dwarf, there were the peaceful old spirits that inhabited the ancient canyon. How could they rest if the matukach buried these dangerous things under the floor of their home? The old woman had awakened before daylight with an overpowering sense that she must take personal action.

As she leaned on her staff and considered all of these things, the river began to speak to the shaman. The Piedra, which normally whispered in that secret language of all rivers, now muttered words that she could understand. Bloody bloody bloody… trouble trouble trouble , the waters said. She began to walk. As her halting steps brought her near a small rapids, the voices were much louder: BLOODY TROUBLE… BLOODY TROUBLE… BLOODY TROUBLE . The shaman paused; she frowned at the rolling surface of the river, which briefly assumed a crimson cast in the first direct rays of morning sunlight. These urgent words and scarlet colors from the waters were warnings; as clear as the painted signs along the highway.

With an arm that trembled, the old woman raised her walking staff toward the mountains. "It's me, God," she whispered hoarsely. "I am very old now. My legs hurt when I walk and my ankles swell up. My hands… they shake like the leaves on the aspen." She held one hand out so that God might see this slight palsy. "I'm all worn out… can't take another step. It's up to you to do something." She sat down by the roadside. To wait.

After a time, the urgent voices of the river quieted to a whisper, then fell completely silent. The surface of the Piedra was like a pond. The shaman sensed, rather than heard, a gentle voice speak to her. This message was also clear. Because of her stubbornness, Daisy would be permitted to go to Ignacio, to witness what would happen there.

To learn the folly of it. Above all, she was not to do battle with the tribal council to save her home at the mouth of Canon del Espiritu .

Another home was already being prepared for her.

In most of his dealings, Albert Gibbons was a man with a whimsical, even gay disposition. But when he traveled, the Reverend Gibbons was a most cautious man. He made meticulous plans and he stuck to them. Albert was, so he believed, on his way to Colorado Springs to deliver a learned paper that would electrify the annual convention of Wisdom Literature Theologians. In fact, he was rolling down Route 151 toward Arboles and the northern finger of Navajo Lake. His right brain rehearsed his erudite speech on subtle parallels between sections of Ecclesiasticus and the Sama-Veda , while his left brain raised questions that were of some practical importance:

Can this narrow little road possibly be the highway that will take us through Alamosa and thence to Walsenburg and Interstate 25? And should the sun not rise before us? Wake up, Albert!

He shifted his gaze between a crumpled map and the highway and his sleepy wife. "Can't figure how we got off on this little back road," he muttered. It was partly Pamela's fault. She should have been paying attention. He glanced at the sun rising on his left. "We must be heading south."

"I gotta go pee-pee," little Billy bawled from the backseat.

"Albert," his wife said, "look at the old woman sitting by the road." She tugged at his sleeve, causing the station wagon to swerve slightly. "I think she's an Indian. She looks so… so forlorn."

Albert corrected his steering. "We'll stop and see if she needs some help."

"Neato," Billy squawked, "I ain't seen no real Indians yet." The child's stubby vocal chords vibrated with that nerve-jarring quality of broken fingernails scraping over a chalky blackboard.

Albert braked the big automobile to a crawl.

Pamela pushed a button to lower the window. "Dearie," she called out, "over here. You need a ride?"

"It's about time you got here," Daisy said gruffly as she pushed herself erect with the wooden staff. "Open the door for me, I got the arthritis in my hands."

"I'm Albert," the driver said, cheerfully resigned to his fate. "This is Pamela. That's our son Billy in the backseat."

"I'm tired," the old woman said. "My feet and knees hurt." She noticed his clerical collar. "You a priest?"

"That I am," Albert replied. But he did not wish to be mistaken for a priest with pastoral duties. This woman was very old and feeble. And there was a hint of guilt in her expression. Neither last rites nor confessions were his cup of tea. "I teach at a small seminary in Arizona." Five years and still no tenure.

The old woman leaned on her staff and squinted suspiciously at this matukach and at the woman seated next to him. "We have us a priest over in Ignacio… but that Pope over in Rome won't let him have a wife." Daisy turned her glare upon the homely child in the rear seat, who had his nose pressed hard against the glass. He resembled a little pig with freckles; Daisy shuddered inwardly.