Говард Уолдроп: Them Bones

‘How many are there?’

‘Oh, every town has one. Thousands, I guess, maybe more. We belong to this confederacy, most of it’s on the other side of the River. To the west, that’s where the Huastecas, the Meshicas, live. They speak a language in which their god’s name sounds like a bird fart. They’re mean people, but we trade with them and have a few ritual wars.’

‘What do your people do most of the time?’

‘Hunt. Fish. Raise crops. I make pipes, others tan hides, make spears, stuff like that. We trade with other Sun Villages. Bury folks, raise kids, the usual things.’

‘And trade with these Traders and Northerners?’

‘Once a year or so. You missed them. Have to wait till the spring, just before the crops, before you can see them. We spend most of the winter making geejaws and doodads. They trade us cloth, axes, knives, beads, things we’re too lazy to learn how to make ourselves.’

There was a group of people near one of the larger huts north of the plaza. Most of them, men and women, were tattooed heavily with weird designs. Like the ones on the three guys I’d seen in the afternoon.

In fact, Moe and Curly were in the group. Curly waved to Took-His-Time.

‘That’s one of the hunters I saw this afternoon,’ I said.

Another guy turned to stare at me. His face was a green design of lightning bolts and tears. A third weeping eye was tattooed on his forehead. He wore bear’s teeth earrings. His hands had outlines of hands incised on them, smaller and smaller in infinite regress.

‘Those are the Buzzard Cult people,’ said Took-His-Time, not looking at the man who stared back. ‘The man looking at you is Hamboon Bokulla, which means Dreaming Killer. He is their leader.’

‘Buzzard Cult?’

‘Our people, the Sun People, take death as it comes. We bury our dead in big piles of dirt, and put nice things in with them in death. But the Buzzard Cult people are something new. They worship Death itself, mourning, weeping, decay. All those hand and eye things. They don’t worship the Woodpecker.’ He nodded toward the temple.

‘But they’re still part of the village,’ he said. ‘They’ve sprung up everywhere. They think the world is going to end soon, and they dance a little dance to help it along.’

‘What do you believe?’

‘I believe supper’s ready.’

That’s how it started. That’s how I’m living in this village of two hundred huts on the Mississippi River, with people who worship a woodpecker, and who bury their dead in mounds.

I didn’t mean to end up living here, but it happened. I was conscientious. I was trying to find out where and when I was, and nobody seemed to know.

I moved the horse in near the plaza on my second day there. People piled food around it, and stood talking about it for hours.

In those first few days I checked my radio beacon locator every few hours to see if anything had happened at the time portal. Took-His-Time introduced me to Sun Man, a nice old thin guy, and his nephew, who is likely to be the next Sun Man. (When a Sun Man dies, all the women get together and choose a new one. The closest kin a new Sun Man can be to the old one is on the old Sun Man’s sister’s side.) I tried to find out what I could, which is the stuff everybody seems to know – how many Sun Villages there are, how long the River is, when the crops should be planted, the best places to fish, how to make babies. For all this, Took-His-Time, patient as his name, acted as interpreter. I was picking up a few words and phrases from him, and from Sunflower (‘kick,’ for instance).

The village is called the Village, the river is the River, the sky the Sky, and the people the People. The third day I was there, Took and Sunflower had a conference, and asked me if I’d like to stay as a guest until I found the people I was looking for.

I said yes. I began to help Sunflower around the hut, went on walks with Took, tried to see how he made pipes. I learned words and looked after the horse.

At first, I oiled my rifle every night, and kept my knife sharp. I checked the beacon every few hours, then once a day, every two days.

I put the carbine into an oiled skin, put it behind my place in the hut. I washed my fatigues in the River, learned the local customs. (On the second day, I’d asked Took about certain functions. He pointed outside the village to a bank leading down to the River. ‘That’s called Shit Hill,’ he said. ‘Watch your step up there. Piss anywhere past the crop lines.’)

So here I am, learning about pipestone. Sunflower just made me a breechcloth. I felt silly, but took off my fatigues (behind a skin frame) and bundled them away with my military gear.

I modeled the loincloth for them.

Sunflower said something. ‘What?’ I asked.

‘She says you’d never know your dong wasn’t whacked.’

I smiled, I blushed.

‘Thank you, Sunflower,’ I said.

Smith’s Diary

We have music now, if you can call it that. Specialist Jones, against orders, brought his portable minicassette deck, and what he thought were twenty of his best tapes. He’d stashed it in his combat gear.

Only before he left, somebody went through his stuff, took all the music he’d picked, and left him with three tapes.

They are: Great Movie Love Themes sung by Roger Whitaker , 16 Hits by Glenn Miller and Rip My Duck by Moe and the Meanies. That’s about as eclectic as you can get.

We know all this because Specialist Jones brought the deck to us on the sixth day of our exile. He wasn’t the only one who noticed people going out of their minds from boredom. He volunteered his music for morale.

Sergeant Sigmo, the commo NCO, rigged it to the PA and alarm system. From 1400 to dusk every day, we have music.

The Miller tape is getting the most wear. Moe and the Meanies drive you right up the tent walls in thirty seconds, but then, that was their stated aim. I’ve seen people jokingly ease the safety catches off their carbines every time Roger Whitaker comes on. It beats staring at the bayou, or filling sandbags, or feeding the horses, or whatever else there is to do while we wait for the scouts.

Spaulding just called an officer’s meeting. The recon from the north just returned.

Call him Ishmael.

We had gone down to the edge of the River to see what was there. The day was warm and the sun was bright, though by my reckoning it should be late November.

Took had a fishing spear with him. Mounted on the shaft were three copper prongs. A rawhide thong passed through the head, through the shaft and onto a coil tied around his waist.

He walked to the sandbar’s edge and studied the water, shading his eyes against the sun.

Something large was moving under the water down the bank.

‘What’s that?’ I asked. I thought it might be an alligator. Took turned, saw what I pointed at. He grabbed my arm, squeezed it in a sign for me to be quiet. He held out his hand for my javelin. I gave it to him.

He walked slowly back off the sandbar, then turned into the grass alongside the River. I stayed where I was. I couldn’t see him for a few minutes, but knew he was moving slowly through the tall grass. I saw a few fronds bend.

Whatever the thing was, it disappeared underwater from time to time, surfacing nearer or farther from the bank. I still couldn’t tell what it was. It looked like a dark lump in the shadows from the overhanging trees.

I didn’t see Took until his fishing spear shot out on its thong from the last of the grass. It flashed in the water.