Leslie Silko - Ceremony

He watched the shadows carefully, checking up and down the wood-hauling road that came down the broken shale ridge and intersected the Acoma road. There had been no vehicles all night, but he had to make sure they weren’t waiting somewhere for daylight. The tall yellow rice grass and the broken gray shale ridge were undisturbed by outlines of darker objects that did not belong with the junipers and yuccas. Nothing moved up there. To the west the yellow sandstone cliffs were beginning to catch the light. In the distance he saw the windmill where he and Josiah had chased the spotted cattle after they had wandered through the Acoma fence. Somewhere around there the first gray mule had eaten a poison weed and died; the bones would be scattered in the tall grass around the windmill. It was too early to think of bones, even old gray mule bones, but he realized that all along the valley the cliffs were full of shallow caves and overhangs with springs. But there were other caves too, deeper and darker. He turned away. The cloudy yellow sandstone of Enchanted Mesa was still smoky blue before dawn, and only a faint hint of yellow light touched the highest point of the mesa. All things seemed to converge there: roads and wagon trails, canyons with springs, cliff paintings and shrines, the memory of Josiah with his cattle; but the other was distinct and strong like the violet-flowered weed that killed the mule, and the black markings on the cliffs, deep caves along the valley the Spaniards followed to their attack on Acoma. Yet at that moment in the sunrise, it was all so beautiful, everything, from all directions, evenly, perfectly, balancing day with night, summer months with winter. The valley was enclosing this totality, like the mind holding all thoughts together in a single moment.

The strength came from here, from this feeling. It had always been there. He stood there with the sun on his face, and he thought maybe he might make it after all.

He walked north on the Acoma road until the culvert and windmill were out of sight. The sun was climbing, and he could hear warbling meadow birds and mourning doves calling from the tall grass beside the road. The sun was nearing its autumn place in the sky, each day dropping lower, leaving more and more of the sky undilute blue. Before he could hear it, he felt the presence of something else; maybe he felt it through the soles of his boots on the road: vibrations of a vehicle approaching from behind. He stopped and listened until he could hear it, still in the distance; and he started looking for places on the side of the road where he could hide. He argued with himself that he was safe again; he felt strong, and the dread of the night before was gone. But he remembered the Army doctors in their dark green Government cars, and he moved suddenly from the road into the juniper trees. He knelt and looked between the sparse bottom branches of the tree; it seemed like a long time, and his hands were full of cold sweat when the pickup truck finally appeared. It was moving very slowly, the engine whining in low gear. Leroy’s truck. Leroy and Harley. His stomach smoothed out and he felt loose. He was smiling and suddenly close to tears because they had come when he needed friends most. He stepped out from behind the juniper tree and waved both arms above his head.

Harley leaned out the window on one elbow. He was wearing a short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt with red and white flowers all over it, and he had a pair of dark glasses in his shirt pocket. Leroy was wearing an old Army shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders. Tayo knew why Harley was driving; Leroy was so drunk that when he opened the door for Tayo, the door handle pulled him off the seat and halfway to the ground. Leroy swayed on the running board, holding the door handle tight, until Tayo steadied him and helped him back inside.

“Thanks, buddy,” Leroy said, staring straight ahead, slouching down on the seat.

Harley reached into the big shopping bag and pulled out a can of beer. He handed Tayo the opener. “You’re just in time for our party,” he said.

“Oh.”

“Celebrating the day we enlisted. When was it you and Rocky signed up?”

Tayo shook his head; suddenly he felt thin and dizzy. He was exhausted; even shoving Leroy back into the truck had made him sweat and breathe hard.

“I don’t remember,” he said, forcing out the words. He was still holding the beer in one hand and the opener in the other. Harley’s breath smelled like wine; his eyes were bloodshot and now he was driving the truck fast, talking all the time.

“Hey man, open it! Start drinking! We’re gonna have a party!”

Harley poked Leroy in the ribs with an elbow. “Open it for him!”

Leroy reached for the opener and beer can unsteadily. He jerked the opener out of Tayo’s hand and it fell on the floorboards.

“Ah shit!” Leroy slurred the words.

“I’ll get it.” The blood rushed to Tayo’s head and he felt around the floorboards blindly for the opener. He gave it to Leroy and sat back on the seat with his eyes closed, breathing hard.

“Hey! Are you sick or something?”

Tayo shook his head. Harley must have heard the rumors Emo had started.

“Just tired, that’s all.”

Harley didn’t slow down for the ruts or bumps, and the truck bounced hard. Leroy leaned hard against Tayo. “Goddamn it, Harley!” Leroy yelled. “I can’t open it when you drive that way!”

“Shit! You’re too drunk to open it! Here! Let me!” Harley let go of the steering wheel and grabbed the opener and beer can; he leaned over the steering wheel, steadying it with his chest while he punched open the can. Beer spurted out in a foamy spray. Harley shoved it into Tayo’s lap. He held his hand over it tight. His shirt and pants were soaked with beer. Leroy was laughing; there was beer dripping off his face. Harley had the accelerator all the way to the floor. The truck was swaying from one side of the road to the other, spinning up rocks and gravel that struck the underside of the truck.

“Hey! You gonna drink it or spill it?”

Leroy laughed while Tayo tried to get the can to his mouth without spilling it or being thrown against the dashboard. The foam was warm; it stung his tongue.

“You guys got a head start on me, don’t you?”

“We been at it all night,” Leroy said, blinking his eyes, trying to focus on Tayo’s face. “Driving around all night, huh, Harley, didn’t we?”

“Never listen to a drunk,” Harley said to Tayo. “This guy doesn’t remember nothing. We were in Gallup last night.”

Tayo tried to look at Harley’s face when he said that, but Harley was looking away, over his elbow out the window. He swallowed some more warm beer and tried to think calmly. The pickup had come from the south, down the Acoma road, so how could they have been in Gallup the night before unless they had taken the wagon road and come over the mesa the back way from McCartys? But they usually stayed on 66, where there was a bar every ten or fifteen miles, or “every six-pack,” as Harley liked to say. Harley and Leroy were his buddies. His friends. But he was feeling something terrible inside, and his heart was beating hard now, from what Leroy had said about “driving around all night”; they had come from the direction he had come, behind him, following him. He gripped the can tight, trying to squeeze away the shaking in his hands.

He finished the beer and threw the can out the window. He looked back and watched it bounce into the tall grass and tumbleweeds beside the road. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He had to relax and get hold of these thoughts before they scattered in all directions like a herd of sheep. These guys were his friends.

Leroy fumbled with another beer. “Too damn drunk to open them any more! Have to sober up some before I can open any more.”