Thomas Perry: Dance for the Dead

He shrugged, went to close the door, then came back and picked up the grocery bag. "Bring your laundry?"

She took the bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne. "There was a power failure in the store, so I thought this was Tabasco sauce. I figured you might be able to use it."

"A common mistake, but I can't launch the ship in this weather. Maybe we can drink it or something."

She reached into the bag again and pulled out a bouquet of white roses.

He looked at her for a moment, puzzled. Finally he said, "Oh, you brought my roses back. Thanks. It was getting to be about time, but I didn't want to say anything." He took the roses and sniffed them. "Held up pretty well, didn't they?"

"Remarkably," Jane said, but she barely got it out because he scooped her up and started to carry her toward the staircase.

He took her up the stairs, set her gently on the big bed, and began by taking off her shoes. He proceeded to undress her slowly. When he had finished, he sank down on the bed with her. He said quietly, "I love you, Jane," and before she could answer, his lips were on hers, and then by the time she could have spoken and remembered what she had wanted to say, words seemed unnecessary.

Hours later, Carey McKinnon awoke in his dark bedroom and moved his arm to touch her. She was gone. He stood up and walked down the hall. He found her downstairs, sitting on the couch in his big, thick bathrobe, looking away from him to stare at the fireplace. She looked tiny, like a child. He could tell she had heard him. "Hi, Carey," she said.

"What are you doing, figuring out how you're going to redecorate when your regime comes into power?"

"No. Come sit with me."

He walked down the stairs and sat beside her. He saw that she was not smiling. "What's wrong?"

She leaned over and kissed him, then said, "I've been thinking about your offer."

"You look like you've made up your mind."

"I have," she said. "One year from tonight, the tenth of January, you can set the date. If you'll give me some notice, I'll be there with something borrowed and something blue. If not, I'll just be there."

He grinned, but then his eyes began to look troubled. "Why a year from now? I mean, I guess what I want to say is, 'I'm happy. Ecstatic. I love you.' But what is there about it that takes so long? It's not as though we don't know each other."

Jane turned to face him. "I'm going to tell you a story. At the end of it, you'll say that you understand."

"I will?" he asked. "Then the year is to see if I really do understand. So it's that kind of story."

"I'm going to tell you about my trip."

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EPILOGUE

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In the spring of the year, as they had forever, Seneca women met at Tonawanda one evening at dusk to sing the Ohgiwe, the Dance for the Dead. Spring was the time when the dead came back. There were no drums, no rattles or flutes or bells, only the sad, beautiful voices of the women.

In the center of the big longhouse-shaped room, there were six lead singers who knew the ancient songs of the Ohgiwe best and had melodious voices strong enough to last through the night. They would sing the burden, and the women who danced along the walls of the longhouse would answer in chorus. Tonight the lead group included two who were not among the usual singers. One was Jane Whitefield, who had not been to Ohgiwe in some years, and the other was Martha McCutcheon, senior mother of the Wolf Clan in Oklahoma. She had been the one to sponsor Sarah Cartman in open council - not the Sarah Cartman everyone had known since birth, but the new Sarah, the one who had been adopted with her son, Timmy, in accordance with ancient practice.

The new Sarah Cartman danced along the wall in the circle with the other Nundawaono women. Six months ago she had been Mary Perkins. Six years ago she had called herself something else - maybe Stoddard or Stafford or Comstock - but she had done nothing under any of those names that she wanted to remember, so she did not think of them tonight. Instead, for a moment she anxiously wondered if she would be home in time to pack Timmy's lunch box for school tomorrow, then remembered that tomorrow was Sunday. When she had been Mary Perkins, she had neglected to develop the habits of mind that she considered necessary to a good mother, so sometimes she overcompensated. Still, she was becoming more comfortable as Sarah Cartman, and after a time she had even begun to feel safe. By then she already had a name, a job, a household to run, and a son to raise. Doing had made her Sarah Cartman; being was an afterthought. Through the long night, as her feet became accustomed to the dance steps and she repeated the words in the unfamiliar language, she began to forget that she had not always known them.

There were nearly a hundred other Nundawaono women, old grandmothers and young girls barely out of puberty, who danced for the dead on this night. Some wore modest spring dresses, as Sarah did. Others wore the traditional tunic, skirt, leggings, and moccasins, beaded and embroidered with all of the flowers that grew on the back of the great turtle that was the Seneca world. They wore them because women were the keepers and the source of life, the force that fought endlessly against the Being that is Faceless.

There were guests among the dead tonight too, and there were those in the longhouse who could feel their presence. The women sang the Ohgiwe for all of them together and for each in his own right. Some sang for the first Sarah Cartman, who had died in an automobile accident this winter at a young age. There was one who sang for Timmy Cartman's first parents, and for the couple who had taken him in and raised him. And she sang for Mona and Dennis, the lovers who had died in the fall.

The women sang the Ohgiwe and danced together as the grandmothers had, for the brave and the unselfish, for the protectors. They sang until dawn, when the spirits of the dead were satisfied and returned to their rest, where they would not be tempted to disturb the dreams of the living.

The End