Leslie Silko - The Almanac of the Dead

“The water bed,” Edith Kaye had yelled at him, “the water bed, you stupid man! This water bed sinks down! It isn’t like a hard mattress! It sinks down! I won’t hurt you!” But the way she had been yelling and the hatred in her face had terrified Sterling. When he tried to crawl away from her and escape off the other side of the bed, he remembered reading an account of combat soldiers who described how endless ten or twelve feet were. He floundered and sank like a horse in quicksand. The water bed really did sink down, and Sterling could never quite reach bottom to brace a hand or leg to get out. In the end, all that had saved him was Edith Kaye’s fury and her feverish maneuvers to reach him. Great waves began tossing Sterling until suddenly he found himself free, lying on the floor. He had carefully avoided all possible encounters with Edith Kaye since that night. In fact, one of his motives for taking the film commissioner position had been so he would have some excuse if she insisted he come over to the house for dinner again.

So Edith Kaye had ranted and raved, waving both hands, pointing out to the Council it was sacrilege to allow outsiders to make an image of the snake on film. Why, this sacrilege might even be worse than eighty years ago when the stone idols were stolen. Because once outsiders saw the great stone snake, they would want to steal it or destroy it. Sterling was consoled a little by the discomfort the others in the Council Chamber displayed as Edith Kaye raged on. He saw he was not the only one who feared saying no to her. Finally, after she had for the fourth time stated her belief that Sterling had conspired to steal the giant stone snake, Edith Kaye sat down panting.

OLD AUNT MARIE

STERLING HAD limped home in the dark. He had always developed a mysterious limp whenever he got too tired. Aunt Marie had gone to bed and turned off her light to express her displeasure with him. But the warming oven in the old wood stove was full of warm plates of food wrapped in clean cotton dish towels. He rummaged around in the drawer for a fork and spoon. Aunt Marie had called from her bed “Is that you?” and he had managed a miserable “Yes, Auntie.” He had meant to sound weak and sad, although he realized she was very old now and would not last much longer. He was happy and relieved when she came slowly into the kitchen, carrying her glasses in one hand, blinking and rubbing her eyes with the other. She was in her long flannel nightgown and her long white hair was in a single loose braid down her back. As long as he lived, he would remember how much he had loved her at that moment and how much he was going to miss her when she was gone. He wanted to throw his arms around her and have her hug him close as she had when he had been a child and she had whispered “Ahh moot” over and over again softly. But he was fifty-nine years old and he could tell she was upset about something.

“Sterling!” Aunt Marie began. “Everyone is saying that you were using drugs with those Hollywood people!” Sterling had been buttering a piece of bread. He groaned. He had forgotten that the worst that would be said about him would not be said in the Tribal Council Chamber. The worst charges traveled in wildfire gossip propelled from village to village by imaginations so uncontrolled and so vivid that ordinary and innocent actions were transformed into high intrigue. Sterling himself had never cared much about television because he had grown up with village gossip for entertainment. Sterling had never seen anything on television to match Laguna gossip for scandal and graphic details. And as for speed, Sterling was one who could never understand the need for telephones in Laguna houses unless it was for long-distance calls.

“Auntie, I never used drugs. I never even saw any of the drugs. All I ever did was ride around and tell them where they could or could not make their film.” Aunt Marie continued. She said the story was going around that he had been involved in the love triangle involving the young man who claimed he was an Indian. The story alleged Sterling had known the young man previously in California. “California! California! Why does everybody on this reservation get so worked up against California?”

If only Sterling had not mentioned the giant stone snake to Snell. Sterling hung his head. Aunt Marie poured two cups of tea and set one down in front of him. She stirred sugar in hers and said, “They say you were going to help the movie people steal the stone snake so you and the movie people could buy more drugs with the money.” Sterling didn’t speak. He just sat there shaking his head, tracing little patterns with his finger on the oilcloth table cover. Sterling had only mentioned the stone snake because it was relatively new to him too; it had been discovered only a few months before Sterling had retired and returned home. On the other hand, as Sterling had tried to argue earlier before the governor and Tribal Council, there had been a number of young Laguna people employed by the film company. One of them might even have told the cinematographer about the stone snake and where to find it. The answer, of course, had been that regardless of how they had learned of the sacred shrine to the snake, Sterling had been appointed tribal film commissioner to prevent just this sort of incident from occurring.

“Well, don’t worry about it too much, dear,” Aunt Marie had said as she put a stack of sugar cookies next to his teacup. She knew they were his favorites, and all the years he had been away she had sent him a two-pound coffee can full of the cinnamon-dusted cookies each month. Sterling could not bring himself to talk about the attack by Edith Kaye because Aunt Marie had warned him about accepting any sort of dinner or lunch invitations from her. Sterling knew Aunt Marie would hear all about it the next day anyway. He suddenly felt terribly weak and tired halfway through his fourth cookie.

When Sterling got to bed, he could not sleep. He could feel himself shaking. Aunt Marie was snoring in the next room. Although Sterling had been telling himself not to worry, a voice deeper inside told him there was bad trouble on the way. The voice told him mostly it was due to his long absence from the village — first, going away to boarding school so young, and then going to work for the railroad right after high school. Then, the voice continued, there was the fact that except for Aunt Marie, his close family and clanspeople had died out over the years. Who was going to plead his case for him? It was considered shabby to stand up and defend oneself. It amounted to bragging. It was far better to have friends and in-laws vouch for your good deeds and truthfulness. He lay there in the dark and regretted that he had not done more socializing in the six months he’d been back. He had taken things easy when he first retired because he had thought he’d have plenty of time to go around renewing friendships from the past. He had taken a couple of months working on the roof of Aunt Marie’s little house because it was starting to leak pretty bad, especially in the corner where his bed was. He had been careful to stop hammering or brushing tar on holes whenever anyone passed by and greeted him. In fact, that had been the reason the repairs had taken two months to complete. When Sterling had finally got to sleep, the sky was beginning to turn light gray.

BANISHED

THE CONCLUSION of the Tribal Council had been reached behind closed doors while Sterling was at the clinic with Aunt Marie. The doctor had checked her out completely and announced she had the heart of a woman half her age. But her mind was made up. She had pointed to her eyes and said, “Well, a heart of a forty-year-old isn’t much good when all the rest is ninety years old. I have seen too much lately. I have begun to dislike what I see, and what I hear.” The doctor did not understand her reference to the Tribal Council proceedings against Sterling. The decision came out of the Council about four o’clock, and the governor sent word for Sterling to come. The messenger was an old man who did janitorial chores around the tribal office building. He announced that the decision had not been good. He said the Council had concluded that “conspirators” could not be permitted to live on the reservation because, in their opinion, all of the current ills facing the people of Laguna could be traced back to “conspirators,” legions of conspirators who had passed through Laguna Pueblo since Coronado and his men first came through five hundred years ago. Sterling shook his head. This was terrible. They had probably confused “conspirator” with “conquistador.”