Warren Murphy: An Old Fashioned War

"Hey, Bill fella, good to see you back, man," said Running Deere. Running Deere was named after a tractor because everyone knew a tractor was more reliable than any animal. Besides, real deer hadn't run around the Ojupa lands for decades now, but John Deere tractors almost always seemed to run.

"I've come home," said Bill Buffalo.

"How's life in the big city?" asked Running Deere, hoisting his balloon paunch over his too-tight Levi's. He wore a T-shirt proclaiming his love for Enid, Oklahoma.

"I want to get away from it. I want to get away from everything I learned there. I don't know who I am anymore. I'm going to visit my brother's grave. I'm going to sing the death chant. Would you come with me, Running Deere? Would you bring others who know the Ojupa tongue? Would you bring the medicine man?"

"You sure you don't want a beer first?"

"I don't want beer. I don't want whiskey. I don't want tractors. I want Ojupa ways. I don't even want these white man's clothes."

"Hey, if you don't want those cool jeans, I'll take them," said Running Deere.

"You can have everything. Just chant with me at my brother's grave and don't forget the medicine man and Little Elk, and my father. And never again call me Bill, but Big Buffalo," said Bill.

That night he put on clothes that felt right and natural, leaving his legs and arms free, not bound, and gave up his shirt and jeans and went with the friends of his childhood to his brother's grave, and there in the full Oklahoma moon he joined those of his blood in reverence for one of the tribe who had gone to join those who no longer lived in this world.

The night was cold and his skin prickled with goose bumps, but he didn't mind as he felt the old chants come back to him. Warm as his mother's milk, familiar as a hug, the words came from the back of his throat, dancing on his tongue, clicking at his teeth as though he had never forgotten them. All the Chicago boarding rooms and all the hours of study in the library were gone as he felt his feet join with the earth and himself become one with his people. It had worked. Ms. Tracto, the landlady, was right. He was home, and he would never leave again. The words poured out, about loss, about return, until, totally one with the Ojupa words themselves, he said: "Atque in perpetuum frater, ave atque valle."

And smiling he turned to his tribesmen, to see their faces blank and the medicine man, normally the last to show any emotion on his withered seventy-year-old-face, shocked. His tribesmen looked at each other in confusion.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"What language you speaking, Big Buffalo?"

"Ojupa. It was beautiful. I said to my brother, 'And so, brother, forever, hello and good-bye.' "

"That ain't Ojupa, never has been," said Running Deere.

The medicine man, in his feathers and sacred paint, shook his head.

"But the words came right from my soul," said Big Buffalo. "It's the most famous Ojupa saying. Hello and good-bye. It's from a poem about a young man who returns from abroad and finds his brother dead, and says, 'And so, brother, forever, hello and goodbye.' Ave atque valle."

Big Buffalo slapped his forehead and groaned. He had just recited a Latin poem from Catullus. The "abroad" he had referred to was the other end of the long-dead Roman Empire.

He fell to his knees before the medicine man. "Save me. Save me. Kill the foreign spirits in me. Rid me of the white man's curse. I don't want his education. I don't want his languages. I want to dream in my people's tongues."

But the medicine man shook his head.

"This I cannot do," he said sadly. "There is only one way to rid you of the curse, and it is the most ancient and dangerous ceremony of our heritage."

"I don't mind dying. I'm already dead," said Big Buffalo.

"It's not your death I fear," said the medicine man.

"Hey, give the guy what he wants," said Running Deere. He had always liked Big Buffalo and felt the medicine man too much a stickler for the old ways. Besides, there weren't that many old ways left, considering the television and booze and pickup trucks that had become the real life of the Ojupa tribe.

But the medicine man shook his head. They were on sacred ground, the small hill that held the remains of those who had passed on to the other world of the Ojupa. It had been made sacred by the buffalo horns and the fires of the dried mushrooms, and the grasses of the plains and the good spirits that had been called here by previous medicine men. There were crosses here too, because some Ojupa were Christians. But it was still sacred ground because the medicine men of the tribe had prepared it first. The war dead were here also, those who had fought against the white man's cavalry and those who, in later wars, for the white men against other white men. There were marines and soldiers here as well as braves.

"Hey, medicine man, why you shaking your head?" asked Little Elk. He was a construction worker in nearby Enid and he was big enough to stick the old man under an arm and carry him around like a parcel.

"Big Buffalo's problems are bad. There are tales of a man who has lost the soul of his people. This is not new. But the whole tribe must ask the spirits to visit if he is to be saved."

"Okay. You're always doin' that stuff with spirits and things."

"There are spirits and there are spirits. These are the spirits of blood and anger and pride and the great spirit of misjudgment."

"Misjudgment?" asked Little Elk. He laughed. He had never heard of that one and it didn't sound too frightening. Besides, they were running out of beer, and the cemetery on the hill gave him the willies. He didn't like any cemetery, especially at night. Big Buffalo, who had been the smartest kid at the reservation school, was crying on his knees, his hands up in the air, babbling that strange foreign language. Running Deere was looking at his watch because he knew the liquor store was closing soon in nearby Enid, and the others were slapping their arms because the Oklahoma night was getting very cold.

The stars looked brighter on a cold night, thought Little Elk. He hated stars. He hated anything having to do with the outdoors. He hated loud noises. Little Elk liked computers and air-conditioned rooms and people who never raised their voices. Running Deere was yelling at the medicine man and Big Buffalo was crying, and finally Little Elk said:

"Medicine man, do the prayers. Say the chants. C'mon. It's late. It's cold. Big Buffalo has always been a nice guy. One of the nicest. Give him a break. And give me a break too. And the rest of us."

"Yeah," said Running Deere.

And the others joined in too, so that the medicine man finally and wearily said, "I am old. I will not have to live with what happens, but you will, all of you."

"Hey, medicine man, nothing ever happens. If our medicine is so strong, what are we doing in a stinking patch of ground the white man left us? Just do it, make Big Buffalo happy, and let's get out of here and get a drink." Thus spoke Little Elk, but he spoke for all of them.

The old man lowered himself to his knees, and stretched out his arms, palms upward, and began to chant, earth tones with the rhythm of the earth, sky tones with the rhythms of the universe sparkling above them on the little cemetery hill of Ojupa land. Big Buffalo joined the chant with his funny language. Running Deere felt an urge to build a fire, and Little Elk, who normally hated anything physical, scurried around gathering twigs for the fire. The medicine man lowered his head to the earth, and reaching into his waistband withdrew a handful of sacred mushrooms.

He dropped them into the fire, and the fire smoked and they gathered around the little blaze and breathed in the sacred smoke and exhaled the chants, the medicine man and the young braves in the Ojupa tongue and poor Big Buffalo in the crazy language.