Leslie Silko - The Almanac of the Dead

ANGELITA LOOKED AROUND the ballroom of the Tucson resort carefully. She was alert for familiar faces from the Freedom School in Mexico City. If the Israelis or Chinese had sent spies to the International Holistic Healers Convention that meant they were on to the plan. She saw none of the familiar faces, but that did not mean there were no spies. She had left Wacah and El Feo in the mountains with the people. Hundreds of people kept coming to listen to Wacah talk about the ancient prophecies and explain the future. German and Dutch tourists had witnessed Wacah’s sessions with the people, and soon a German television crew had trekked up the muddy paths with their equipment to record the odd new mystical movement among Indians in Mexico, who were growing their hair long and painting their faces again in imitation of the twin brothers, who served the macaw spirits, and who promised the people the ancient prophecies were about to be fulfilled.

The video cameras had recorded a slow but steady trickle of people, mostly Indian women and their children, trudging along muddy, steep paths and rutted, muddy roads. The people came from all directions, and many claimed they had been summoned in dreams. Wacah had proclaimed all human beings were welcome to live in harmony together. People from tribes farther south, peasants without land, mestizos, the homeless from the cities and even a busload of Europeans, had come to hear the spirit macaws speak through Wacah. The faithful waited quietly by their sleep shelters and belongings. After the German television report, the cash had started flowing in from “Indian lovers” in Belgium and Germany. They had received a large amount of cash from a Swiss collector of pre-Columbian pottery in Basel. A people’s army as big as theirs would not need weapons. Their sheer numbers were weapons enough. A people’s army needed food. Wacah said the people would eat as long as they were with him. All they had to do was walk north with him.

After the cable news report there had been trouble. Authorities heard rumors that the native religion and prophecies were a cover, and the true business of Wacah and his brother was to stir up the Indians, who were always grumbling about stolen land. The Mexican federal police had sent truckloads of armed agents to search the mountains for secret caves suspected to contain caches of weapons the Indians had allegedly received from the Cubans. But even the four-wheel-drive trucks the police drove could not cross the landslides which the mountains had shaken down in previous weeks. Straggling in to the villages on foot, the police had found nothing; all the able-bodied had followed the twins. Those too sick or weak to travel said the mountain spirits were shaking the earth and would not stop until the white man’s cities were destroyed.

The cable television news crew had still been at Wacah’s camp when the federal police arrived; the calm of the people and the frenzy of the police had been televised all over the world. But the police had soon realized they were greatly outnumbered and they had withdrawn. Wacah’s invitation to address the world convention of holistic healers had arrived within days of the federal police raid. But the spirit macaws would not permit Wacah or El Feo to leave. They had to walk with the people. Wacah and El Feo must not ride in automobiles or helicopters. The spirits required that the people walk. Wacah and El Feo had sent Angelita to the healers convention to make apologies for them, and to invite all those gathered to join them. All were welcome. It was only necessary to walk with the people and let go of all the greed and the selfishness in one’s heart. One must be able to let go of a great many comforts and all things European; but the reward would be peace and harmony with all living things. All they had to do was return to Mother Earth. No more blasting, digging, or burning.

Wacah’s message to the holistic healers assembly was to be prepared for the changes, welcome the arrival of the people, and send any money they could. All money went for food; the people were protected by the spirits and needed no weapons. The changes might require another hundred years, until the Europeans had been outnumbered and the people retook the land peacefully. All that might be okay for Wacah and El Feo, but Angelita had plans of her own. What Wacah and El Feo didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them. Angelita was in charge of “advance planning.” From villagers in Sonora, Angelita had heard about certain people and families living in Tucson who might wish to help.

Wacah, El Feo, and the people with them believed the spirit voices; if the people kept walking, if the people carried no weapons, then the old prophecies would come to pass, and all the dispossessed and the homeless would have land; the tribes of the Americas would retake the continents from pole to pole. They did not fear U.S. soldiers or bullets when they reached the border to the north because they did not believe the U.S. government would bomb its own border just to stop unarmed religious pilgrims. But Angelita wasn’t so sure. The U.S. Treasury might be nearly empty, and the United States might be caught in civil unrest and strikes — but the white men would spend their last dime to stop the people from the South. The U.S. government might have no money for the starving, but there was always government money for weapons and death. The Mexican Treasury had been bankrupt for months, but still the federal police got paid. The U.S. was no different. The people themselves might be finished with wars, but their generals and business tycoons were not.

El Feo and Wacah had to obey the spirit macaws. What they might personally think did not matter. Wacah believed the spirits would protect them, but personally El Feo had agreed with Angelita La Escapía, his comrade-in-arms: the U.S. government might not wait for the twin brothers and the people to reach the border. The unarmed people would most likely be shot down before they even reached the border, but still they must have faith that even the federal police and the soldiers would be caught up by the spirits and swept along by the thousands. How long could the soldiers and police keep pulling the triggers? They might fall by the hundreds but still the people would keep walking; not running or screaming or fighting, but always walking. Their faith lay in the spirits of the earth and the mountains that casually destroyed entire cities. Their faith lay in the spirits outraged by the Europeans who had burned alive the sacred macaws and parrots of Tenochtitlán; for these crimes and all the killing and destruction, now the Europeans would suffocate in their burning cities without rain or water any longer.

El Feo told Angelita she must do what she felt was best. What was coming could not be stopped; the people might join or not; the tribal people of North America could come to the aid of the twins and their followers or they could choose not to help. It made no difference because what was coming was relentless and inevitable; it might require five or ten years of great violence and conflict. It might require a hundred years of spirit voices and simple population growth, but the result would be the same: tribal people would retake the Americas; tribal people would retake ancestral land all over the world. This was what earth’s spirits wanted: her indigenous children who loved her and did not harm her.

The followers of the spirit macaws believed they must not shed blood or the destruction would continue to accompany them. But Wacah did say the pilgrims would be protected by natural forces set lose, forces raised by the spirits. Among these forces there would be human beings, warriors to defend the religious pilgrims. These warriors were already waiting far to the north. Wacah believed that one night the people would all dream the same dream, a dream sent by the spirits of the continent. The dream could not be sent until the people were ready to awaken with new hearts.