Death Chants (22 page)

The white man
stared at the pages, the writing forgotten, thinking of his own life perhaps, of a hunt he had
begun, of many hunts and a stalking season within himself.

The notebook had a
number on it, like a notch a hunter makes to number his kills.

Walking Wolf stared
at the white man, as if seeing him for the first time. The old man was full of sorrow, of
remembered grief.

"That is how a wolf
can bite an arm and rip out a heart," he said, and he stared down at the white man's notebook, as
a hunter stares at the weapons of another to appraise their worth.

"Why is it that
your hand is still?" asked the old man, "and you no longer take down in writing what you have
sought?"

The white man stood
up suddenly. There was a strange look on his face, a look that the old man almost understood. The
white man folded the notebook up, stared at it for a moment as if seeing something else in his
hand, then tossed it on the fire. It caught fire easily and began to burn.

"I stopped
writing," said the white man, "because a wolf bit my arm."

The old man did not
understand. "You think I lied," he said bitterly, and he pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and
showed die white man the old scar the wolf had made in a time long gone.

The white man held
out his arm, and rolled back his sleeve, "My scars don't show," he said. "But my heart was ripped
out too."

Then the old man
understood, as one hunter understands another.

He looked at the
white man.

And saw the
scars.

Of the old times,
before there was any world, there lived only Old Man Coyote. There was no earth, no trees or
mountains. All that there was, was water, just water everywhere.

"What shall I do?"
asked Old Man Coyote. But, of course, there was no one to answer him.

So Old Man Coyote
began singing to the sky and the water that was everywhere.

"I would like to
know what to do," he sang.

Then he met Old
Woman Coyote. She had been hiding some­where, no one knows just where even to this day. She never
gave away any of her secrets.

"What are you
doing?" asked Old Woman Coyote.

"I don't know. Do
you have any ideas?" asked Old Man Coy­ote.

"Why don't we make
the world?" suggested the woman.

And so they
did.

They made a song
together and when they had it the way it was supposed to be, they threw it up in the sky and it
became the earth.

When they looked up
in the sky, they saw the earth and they said, "Let's go there right away."

And so they did, in
one big jump.

They began
stretching the earth with their paws. That's how they made the world. They pushed with their paws
and they sang little songs as they worked. These little songs would fall to the ground and that's
how we got mountains and trees, and deer people, and the fish people and all the animal peoples,
all things that live in creation.

That was how
everything started. That, too, was the time when Old Man Coyote put us Indians on the face of
this world.

All the men and
women were put upon the world.

Old Man Coyote and
his wife were very pleased with what they had done.

They had made the
sun shine bright in the sky. They had made the birds sing because the world was so beautiful. And
it was very beautiful.

And it was that way
for many, many long years.

Old Man Coyote and
his wife were very happy with the world they had made. Because they were so happy, the sun always
shone, the birds always sang; it was the time of forever summer.

And so it was,
unchanged and unchanging.

Old Man Coyote had
given a song to all the beings of creation so that they might give birth to their own kind and
live forever.

It was a very good
world then, for there was no death and no night and every creature of creation was at peace with
all others.

But then one day
there was trouble.

Every creature in
the world was giving birth to its own kind. The bear had children and the bear's children had
children and then they too had children. The deer had children and the deer's children had
children, and so on.

Men and women had
children and they had children who grew up and had children, too. Trees made seeds that grew to
be other trees. Everything was growing, growing and bringing forth creatures of its own
kind.

But there was no
death. No death. The earth was small. Soon it was all filled up. There was no room for the new
deer children, for the new bear children and for the new people children.

Even the fish
children had filled up the sea so full that it was as solid with fish as ice upon a
river.

What did all the
peoples of creation say about this?

Old Man Coyote and
Old Woman Coyote they were up in the sky just taking a nap and so they did not know about this
trouble on earth.

The peoples of
creation were troubled. They were beginning to find things wrong with the way it was. "Every day
is the same," they said. "The sun always shines, the birds always sing, it is always
summer."

Now they didn't
know what was to be done. They didn't know.

So they said, "Let
us call on Old Man Coyote and Old Woman Coyote, who made us. They will know what to
do."

And so they made a
song, and they sent it across the sky when they sang it. Well, as you can imagine, with all those
thousands and thousands of peoples singing this one song, it was a very LOUD song.

It woke up Old Man
Coyote and Old Woman Coyote pretty quick.

They didn't like
that at all. They came jumping down to earth right away and they were pretty grouchy.

"What's wrong down
here?" they both said, in that grumpy kind of voice people get when they are awakened too
quickly. But, of course, they really didn't need to ask what was wrong. The minute they landed on
earth they both knew what was wrong. Why, there was hardly any room for Old Man Coyote and Old
Woman Coyote to land!

"It's the same
every day," said all the people. "The sun always shines, the birds always sing, it's summer
forever and there are so many peoples of every kind that there is no room for new children. We
want you to change it. We want you to do some­thing about this."

Old Man Coyote
looked at his wife. "What shall we do?" he asked her. Old Man Coyote was the strong one. But Old
Woman Coyote was the smart one. That made all the difference.

Old Woman Coyote
said, "We will have to stop the sun from shining. We will have to make the birds go away and not
sing all the time. Summer will have to go. All these peoples, we can't have all these peoples. It
will have to be changed." "But how will we do that?" asked Old Man Coyote. "I know what to do,"
said Old Woman Coyote. "It is one of my secrets. I will use one of my secrets and change
things."

Old Man Coyote
asked the peoples if that was what they wanted. "It cannot be changed once it is done," he warned
them.

"Change it," cried
all the peoples, "and hurry. We have been living all these years and years and we are tired of
this. We need some rest."

"Very well," said
Old Woman Coyote, and she drew her cloak around her so that no one could see how she used her
secret.

Suddenly, the sun
went dark. All the peoples were frightened, very frightened, as they did not know what this
was.

It was night. That
is what the darkness was.

All the peoples lay
down and discovered how to sleep.

That was how the
day that had lasted almost forever ended.

That was not all
there was of the secret. No, it was only a little bit of Old Woman Coyote's secret.

The next morning
when the sun came up, some of the peoples could not wake up.

They could not wake
up.

"What is wrong?"
all the peoples who had come awake cried. "Why can't these other creatures of creation get
up?"

They were
dead.

That was part of
Old Woman Coyote's secret. Not all of it, but part of it.

The last part of
Old Woman Coyote's secret came a little while

later.

One morning, when
the peoples woke up, all the trees had turned many colors and the leaves of the trees had fallen
to the ground.

Old Woman Coyote
had given them night and death and

seasons. And night
and death and seasons had given everything in

creation a
rest.

In the winter, the
birds flew away so that the people would not have to listen to them sing all the time. That was
the way it was.

The birds became
the special messengers of the seasons. When the birds stopped singing and began to fly away, it
re­minded all the peoples of creation that a season had ended. It reminded them that each
person's life has a season and that one day, like summer, it must end.

And that is the way
of the world Old Man Coyote sang into being.

And that is the end
of the story.

They were climbing
a hill on the way to oblivion.

Other Indians had
been there before them. More would prob­ably follow them. Sometimes the world is built that
way.

It was a small
tribe consisting of two young men and one old one.

Tato and Elk Boy
were carrying Natchez, the old man. They had him cradled in their arms between them.

They were making
halting progress directly toward the mid­dle of nowhere.

It is possible they
have been carrying the old man ever since the world began.

Tato struggled with
the weight of the old man and almost stumbled on the uneven ground.

"How far is it
anyway, to the burying ground, Elk Boy?"

"I don't know,
Tato. But dead people sure are heavy," said Elk Boy.

"Dead people ought
to be like tires. That way you could let the air out of them and they'd be easier to carry,"
grumbled Tato.

"Or you could leave
the air in and roll them to the grave. Course with our luck, we'd probably have a traffic
accident."

Natchez opened his
eyes, blinking in the harsh sunlight. He seemed surprised about something.

"I'm not dead yet,"
he said.

Tato shook his
head. "Yes you are. Shut up!"

Natchez appealed to
them. "I'm not dead. No, really, I'm almost well."

Tato and Elk Boy
halted their forward progress and eyed each other uncertainly across their burden. Elk Boy
shrugged. He personally could have cared less but Tato began to get angry.

"Stop making
trouble. You ought to be glad we volunteered to carry you," said Tato.

Elk Boy nodded in
agreement. "Some people! You lug them to hell and gone and what thanks do you get, nothing, just
at the last minute, somebody wants to start an argument. That's old people for you." He shook his
head, looking displeased. "You just can't do them a favor!"

Natchez tried to be
reasonable. "Look, I ought to be able to tell whether I am dead or not."

Tato was furious.
"Listen, old man, if we let everybody decide everything for themselves, what kind of world would
this be?"

"A far better world
than . . ." began Natchez but he got cut off.

"Stop your damn
complaining!" admonished Elk Boy. "We are doing all the work. We are doing all the sweating. All
you have to be is dead. It's easy. There's no work involved."

"Easy! Who cares
about easy! Let go of me!" Natchez began lo struggle in the young men's arms and it was all they
could do lo hold on to him. "You can't bury me! I'M NOT DEAD YET!" roared the old man.

Elk Boy almost
stumbled and fell. "You opinionated old peo­ple are always making trouble. You have to have
everything your way or you complain, complain, complain. Listen, at your age, you're lucky to be
dead."

Natchez renewed his
wriggling in their arms. It threw the young men off balance. They tripped and all three of them
fell to (he ground with a crash.

Natchez was the
first to recover. He jumped to his feet and stood over the two fallen men.

"See. I now present
an even more convincing argument. I am standing up. Could I stand up if I were dead?"

Tato dusted off the
seat of his pants and helped Elk Boy to his feet. He muttered to Elk Boy, "Must be rigor mortis.
I've heard < >l < ases like this. Yep. The old man is stiff as all get out. He ain't
really standing up. He's just stuck in the ground like a war lance."

"So watch this and
be convinced," snapped Natchez, really almost at the end of his patience. To refute their last
statement,
Natchez immediately bent over
double to show his living elastic­ity.