Death Chants (19 page)

The dark beast
turned inward, fell through the black abyss until in the depths of his own vitals, he saw what he
sought, felt the great dark sting that uncoiled itself.

The beast tore the
sting from the center of its backbone, tore it out of the reeking flesh.

"I shall make a
thing for men. A great bull-roarer! A noise that will drown out the sound of women."

Having said that,
he left to make a bull-roarer. It took a night and a day and a night. When it was ready, the
great beast went into the village and attacked the women with it.

Adorned in feathers
and forbidden jade, he fell upon the I lute-playing women. As he got close, he whirled the great
bull-roarer around his head.

The sound of it
broke the graceful dancers, set them on fire and women and children ran screaming before the
onslaught. Beauty fading, the bodies of women and children were singed by the great male
sound.

The sting terrified
them, set the women and children ablaze, burned them, blackened them, until blistered and torn
and songless, they lay within the skin of their houses, near death and driven to hide.

"Yes, hide in your
aging houses!" cried the great beast. "For this is the new killing sound of men, and the sight of
you offends me!"

The sound of the
bull-roarer was a wave that washed over the world and touched the sun, so mighty was it. The
flutes of the women lay shattered in the dust.

Slowly, joyously,
the men came out of their houses, and began dancing on the broken bones of the once beautiful
flutes, grind­ing them into dust.

The sky filled with
the sting of death. And the men began to dance the first war dance.

Inside the houses,
robbed of grace and beauty, silenced, women sat in a new shadow and cried for children not yet
born. Cried because the sound of the bull-roarer was the sound of something new and dark and
terrible in the world that grace and beauty had no power against.

It was the sound of
war.

Men in their
stupidity, had brought it.

Women in their
beauty, could not stop it.

When I was born,
the clouds danced above me like angry deer in a forest of silver and the sun sand-painted the sky
with sacred earth colors.

Then it rained like
hell for two days.

I tried to tell
this to my grandfather, White Fox. It happened on the day I meant to leave Cheyenne and go to New
York to find my father, Elk Too Tall to Go Through the Sky, who had been missing for twenty years
or more.

"I remember when
the clouds danced like angry deer in a silver something or other and the sun sand-painted the sky
with I forget what. And then it rained like hell for two days."

The old man wasn't
having any of it.

"When you talk, a
horse lifts up its tail," said the old man. "You are too young to remember your birth. Also you
are too young to remember your dreams," said White Fox. "Just as I am now too old to have any new
ones."

My grandfather,
White Fox, is very wise for someone who isn't even here.

He just sat there
cross-legged, like the picture of him they had once used on a box of cigars, and stared at
nothing, looking out (he shack's only window at the empty land of the reservation. He could see
miles and miles of nothing. When you get to our reservation, it's the only thing that is not
scarce. There is sure a lot of nothing to go around.

"Today is the time
of going away," he said. "Always for us Indians, is the time of going away."

"Are you talking
about me going away, you dying, or the end of the world?" I asked, counting the choices on my
fingers.

"Both," said White
Fox.

"Which
both?"

"Both both," said
White Fox, whose math was not much bet­ter than his English.

"You are a crazy
old man," I said because it was true. "And you are probably right. Also nothing can be done about
it. So why worry?"

"What do I worry
about? I worry about nothing, because like every Indian ever born, I am not even
here."

White Fox was a
disappeared person, or so he claimed. Grand­mother always agreed he was right about that, so I
always be­lieved it too. By a disappeared person, I do not mean he was a person who had simply
picked up and left. I mean, he was a person who had ceased to exist.

I don't know if
White Fox ceased to exist forever, like most of the Indian tribes that once lived in North
America, or if he ceased to exist in a temporary way like a white man's promise made in a
treaty.

White Fox can be a
confusing person to deal with. I have always been puzzled by his disappearance. Grandmother would
never explain it either, no matter how often I asked.

I suppose I could
have asked Grandfather about it, but his disappearance made it impossible.

"I think tomorrow,
or maybe even today, I am going to travel to New York and find my father, Elk Too Tall to Go
Through the Sky," I said, and I offered the old man a cigarette.

"Why look for
trouble? Why chase problems?" said the old man. "Being lost is the best thing your father ever
did. It is the only thing he ever did right. Twenty years is one very good lost. Why want to
spoil his aim? Maybe he is not wanting to be found and ruin his one good thing?"

The old man took
the cigarette and put it between his yellow teeth and munched it the way a horse nibbles
grass.

The old man ate two
packs of cigarettes a day. He especially liked the kind with filters. He said the crunchy part
always made him lick his lips.

Well, maybe White
Fox was right about my father. A man gets lost, sometimes it's because he wants to. My
grandfather is often right, which is not surprising for someone who has ceased to exist. When you
are no longer around, you can afford to be right.

"I think maybe
later I am going to lay down on my stomach and die dead," said the old man, putting his hand out
for an­other cigarette. The shreds of the last cigarette were still cling­ing to his teeth.
"Maybe in an hour, maybe less."

"Even if it's
messing up my father's only thing done good, I am still going to New York. There's things I want
to ask him about. Personal things."

"Did I say you
shouldn't? Besides, better you go. You always
did annoy me most of all. You always asked the worst questions
of anyone I ever knew. You would probably ask me a dumb

question when I am
lying on my stomach, dying myself dead."

"I am sorry to see
you die so early in the day. If you could have
held off till this afternoon, David Round Fox was maybe going to
come over with some beer," I said, telling him the latest
rumor.

The old man looked
disgusted.

"That no-good Round
Fox. That is just like him to go buy beer and then not show up till too late for me to drink it.
When I think of all the cigarettes he smoked of mine all these years, must have been hundreds I
could have eat myself, why, I can hardly stand not to want to knock him down with my
fists."

Grandfather looked
all around the house. There wasn't much to see. Maybe eight thousand empty cigarette packs in one
cor­ner and a bunch of old Indian souvenirs, which we had made in 1 long Kong so we could sell
them to white tourists at six times (heir original cost.

There was no
furniture in the house because the old man had always insisted that a house should be open enough
to ride a horse through.

Every once in a
while White Fox would ride a horse through it, just to see if it was the kind of house he wanted
to live in.

Grandmother had a
house of her own because Grandfather didn't exist, and she wasn't about to have a stupid old man
who didn't exist riding his horse through her house.

Me, I always
thought she was probably right to do that. It is difficult to live in a house that is full of
running horses. Even one running horse makes it difficult. Now that Grandfather was ready to die,
there was a lot of stuff suddenly to take care of.

I looked out the
window at the sun to see what time it was.

That is how Indians
tell time. It is one of the special talents passed on to me by my people. From the position of
the sun overhead, I knew that it was Tuesday.

White people do not
have this gift. All they can ever tell about the time from looking at the sun, is that, if they
can see it, it must not be night.

But I, full of my
own Indianness, and impatient to get to New York, knew it was Tuesday. Well, maybe Tuesday or
Wednesday. Sometimes Tuesday looks a lot like Wednesday.

It was already
getting pretty late in the day, whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday, so I thought I better find
out how quick I could wrap this death thing up.

"This dying thing.
Are you going to go quick or are you going to linger?"

The old man
shrugged. "It don't matter to me. I could go like that." He tried to snap his finger, but it was
so old and brittle, it broke.

"Yeeow!" cried
White Fox, waving his broken finger in the air. "That hurt like a porcupine in the face!" He held
the crooked finger up in front of his eyes. "That is what is so nut-crazy about getting old. Is
no goddamn junkyard where you can get spare parts."

White Fox put his
finger on the floor, took one boot and deftly smashed the finger under his foot. The finger
straightened out, but not without hurting even more. The old man's eyes bugged out and his false
teeth fell into his lap.

White Fox took his
foot off his finger. It was straight now, but beginning to swell up. He stuck his teeth back in
his mouth and flexed his jaw until they were back in place.

I was going to ask
White Fox why go to all the bother since he was going to lie down and die pretty soon, but he
waved his sore hand at me.

"Need fingers
straight for last big magics. Got to leave re­corded message for next generation. Big curse and
prediction of future and other kinds of noise," he said by way of explanation.

Now I was in for
it. Grandfather was going to do every last damn piece of business there was. It was going to take
one long forever.

"Couldn't we maybe
skip most of that and get to the good stuff right away?"

The old man
sneered. "Tough news! We go through all the business, so shut up already."

I
sighed.

"What do you want
me to do?"

"Bring me the lower
hair of a virgin," said the old man.

I rolled my eyes
and stared at the sky, which was easy to see through the bullet holes in the shack
roof.

Grandfather often
killed flies on the ceiling with his rifle. It helped relieve the boredom. Doing this was about
all the excite­ment there was to be had on the reservation.

It was also a
sure-fire way to kill flies because White Fox was a good shot, but it was kind of hard on the
roof, which was pretty well shot away by now.

"The lower hair of
a . . . You have got to be kidding," I said, regarding him suspiciously. You have to be careful
when dealing with people who aren't there.

The old man
laughed. "I was just trying to see if you were awake. This dying is very funny and very serious
business, so you try and stay awake all through the whole damn thing. That is my final wish. Try
not to fall asleep until I am pretty well deaded

up"

The old man
suddenly belched, and a partially digested ciga­rette filter popped out of his mouth.

The old man
frowned. "Damn! I got less time that I thought. I better do this whole thing pretty damn
quick!

"Get me a tomahawk.
And a war lance. Also some bald eagle leathers and ..." The old man tucked his hands under his
armpits, trying to think of what he needed. ". . . and, OK, need some bear grease. Also fire from
mesquite and willow branches."

He remembered
something else. "Also need two arrows and a bowl of deer blood."

"Maybe you should
just keep on living," I said. "What do you think I am, supermarket of museum
curiosities?"

The old man got
angry. Maybe he was angry. His face was all screwed up. Maybe he just had a stomachache from too
many cigarette filters.

"You don't have to
blab it to everybody, especially the Great Spirit," I said between jumps.

"I call 'em like I
see 'em, so shut up already!" snapped the old man. "Don't interrupt me 'cause I am just getting
to the most important stuff."

The old man coughed
once more from the smoke.

"Now where was I?"
he asked. He looked at me through the thickening clouds of black smoke. "You got the bear
grease?"

I stopped stamping
out the fire in the floor long enough to hand him the bottle of sheep dip.

He looked at the
label and swore some hot words.