When Grnadfather Journeys Into Winter (2 page)

"Can I help?" said Little Thunder but not
sounding very eager.

"Only by stepping back," said the old man
solemnly. "This is one very angry rattlesnake. When I let him go, he is not going to be
happy."

"How far should I move back?" asked Little
Thunder.

"How far do you want to move back?" asked
Tayhua with a laugh.

The snake lunged, throwing its body off
Tayhua's arm. It whipped from side to side in an angry circle.

Little Thunder had already stepped
back.

"Could I move back to the house? Like into
my room for example?" said Little Thunder.

"Good idea," said Tayhua. "I already wish I
was there with you."

Little Thunder ran back toward the house.
Tayhua looked nervous. He bent over slowly, with the thrashing snake dangling from his
hands.

"It would be good to forget about all this
and just go your own way," said Tayhua but the snake did not seem to be listening.

Tayhua lifted the snake up high and marched
to the end of the rock border of his garden. "Go in peace, brother rattlesnake."

Tayhua dropped the snake suddenly on the
other side of the rocks. The snake hit the ground with a thump, reared back and then came up and
over the rocks and made straight for Tayhua's feet.

Tayhua yelped once and jumped back. He
turned and ran. The snake slithered right after him. The rattlesnake moved surprisingly quick and
relentlessly chased the old man all the way to the house.

Tayhua ran as fast as his old legs would
carry him which was not very fast. He did not stop until the front door of the house slammed
behind him. The snake was hot on his heels. The furious rattlesnake reared up and struck against
the battered wire mesh of the screen door.

Little Thunder had been watching from the
front window. He was laughing. Elk Woman, his mother, was also standing at the window with her
son. She was not laughing. "Serves you right if that rattlesnake bit your tail off," she said.
"Old man your age ought to know better."

Tayhua panted. He was out of breath. He
turned and looked through the screen door at the angry rattlesnake. The snake coiled in front of
the door, unwilling to abandon it's prey. It was still very angry.

The old man sighed and said defensively.
"Well, I was always good at catching rattlesnakes, everybody said so ."

Little Thunder's mother just laughed. "Sure
but it's the letting go part you never ever quite got right."

The old man nodded gloomily. "Remind me not
to catch any more of them."

"It's them catching you that's got me
worried," said Elk Woman. "Come eat your fry bread. You can bite that and it won't bite you
back," she said with a laugh.

"Sounds like a big improvement," said Tayhua
with a big smile and they all went into the kitchen to eat. And they stayed inside the house all
day, just in case a still angry rattlesnake was out there. 

The next day when the rattlesnake was long gone and it was safe to go outside
again, Tayhua and Little Thunder sat once again by the rock borders of the herb garden.

The old man drew signs in the thick gray
dust with a crooked stick. Tayhua drew the eagle sign and bear and deer and big turtle. Then he
drew a line along one edge of the symbols and began making another row.

His grandson, Little Thunder, was watching
very closely. His own hands were restless. He wanted to learn to make these signs
himself.

It was late in the afternoon, and the hot
sun made the sweat stand out on their faces. The dry dust that swirled around the squat, ugly
buildings on the reservation caked their faces. This was a place where dust was in everything.
Even in the lives of the old and the young.

Tayhua pushed his grayish braids behind his
shoulders and bent over close to the images in the dust. "You see, it is like this," said Tayhua,
"the signs are made thus and thus. These symbols represent the things that have been sacred to
our people since the world was little and the air was hot."

Little Thunder, down on his knees, crawled
closer. His fingers touched the lines of the drawings.

"You always draw them the same
way?"

The old man nodded. "You always call a fish
a fish, don't you?"

Little Thunder nodded yes, but then he
smiled. "Sometimes I call it something else, especially when I let it sit around in the sun too
long. Then I call it rotten."

Tayhua threw back his head and laughed
heartily.

"That's not quite the way I meant it,
bumblebee brain. How shall I teach you anything when your mind in on fish one meets too late in
the day?"

Little Thunder was laughing, too. He
shrugged. "I guess each picture, each symbol is the same like a word is always the
same."

Tayhua nodded. His face was grave, but there
was a note of laughter behind his eyes.

Tayhua motioned toward the figures in the
dust.

"Study them closely."

Little Thunder bent closer, fingers tracing
the lines.

"See how each line fits. There is a meaning
in all this, and you shall learn the proper way it is done."

Little Thunder concentrated, trying to move
his hands above the drawings in the exact order and pattern that Tayhua had used in creating
them. Tayhua continued working on the row of symbols on the other side of the line.

These symbols were very
different.

There was a half smile on the old man's face
as his hands pushed the stick through the dust. The figures he now drew were sometimes simple,
only a few lines, sometimes very complicated, almost complete little pictures in
themselves.

"Now look at these other signs," said the
old man. "You will see they are very different from the signs that are sacred to our people. That
is because these are some of the symbols that are sacred to white people."

"I didn't know anything was sacred to white
people," said Little Thunder.

"That is because you have never played poker
with any of them," said Tayhua.

Little Thunder looked at the new figures in
the dust. Some of them he recognized, and those made him smile. Some he had never seen before,
and those made him shrug.

Tayhua touched the first figure with his
stick. it was a dollar sign, $. "You know we have the symbol of the eagle. To us the eagle is a
brother in this world. He is a creature of great vision. A fierce, true thing that the sky and
wind worship because proud eagle has a heart that is free. That is one of our
symbols."

"A good symbol," said Little
Thunder.

"This first symbol is one of the most sacred
of the white man's symbols. Have you ever see it before?" asked Tayhua.

"I've seen it before on cash registers. It's
a dollar sign."

"Cash registers are not the only place you
will find it written," said the old man with a trace of bitterness.

"You will find in this world that there are
many sad people who have dollar signs written on their hearts. You will find many white man and
women who put this dollar sign high above all other things in their lives. They respect it in the
highest manner they know just as we respect the life of the eagle."

"Some of our people are like that, too,"
said Little Thunder. "It's sacred to some of our people, too."

Tayhua put his arm around his grandson's
shoulder and gave him an affectionate hug. "The little one is wise despite fondness for fish
jokes."

Tayhua point next to a small drawing of a
car.

"This is what white people use to go nowhere
in a big-time hurry. They drive cars on big freeways so they can go faster and get nowhere
sooner. I do not understand white people. I think they try to tell me that life is a journey by
car, but I do not believe them."

"I'd rather ride a horse," said Little
Thunder. "If I had one, I wouldn't have to ride the dumb school bus every day."

"Perhaps I can get you a horse," mused
Tayhua, thinking about it. "It would be a simple matter to buy one if it were not for the fact
that it is not a simple matter to get the money. I have three dollars in my other pair of pants
and roll of dimes."

"That's not quite enough to buy a horse,"
teased Little Thunder.

"Maybe I could buy you a picture of a horse,
instead. Then you could put a picture of yourself on its back and wait to see if you get to
school without the school bus."

"Not very practical," said Little
Thunder.

"Oh well, forget the horse idea." Tayhua
nodded at the next figure in the dust.

Tayhua pointed at the last symbol. The
mocking smile on his face faded.

The symbol was the letter F.

"This symbol," said Tayhua, putting his
hands on his hips and staring vey hard at Little Thunder, "is what there were three of on your
last report card from the white man's school! It stands for Falling down on the job. It stands
for Fooling and Failing and Frittering time away."

Little Thunder gulped. The school had mailed
the report card again instead of giving it to him.

"F stands for Fireball, which schoolwise you
are not," said Tayhua. "Perhaps Grandson would explain why he is so fond of this letter F that he
gets three of them?"

Little Thunder opened his mouth to speak,
but Tayhua wasn't finished just yet.

"F stands for the Fifth grade, which my
grandson is going to be in again next year if he doesn't quit bringing home these three F
signs."

"But..." began Little Thunder,
"but..."

"But is a word in front of a sentence you
better not tell me, because if I hear an excuse for this F fondness where no excuse is possible I
am going to show my grandson how to draw eagle, bear, deer and great-turtle sign in the dust with
his nose. Does my grandson understand what I am saying?"

Little Thunder nodded.

Tayhua took his hand and erased the symbols
in the dust. Little Thunder looked as unhappy as last place int the reservation horse race.
Tayhua uncrossed his legs, wincing a little at the stiffness in his joints, and stood
up.

Little Thunder was still down on his knees.
Tayhua reached down for him. Little Thunder caught Tayhua's outstretched hand and allowed himself
to be pulled to his feet. Little Thunder had a hard time meeting his grandfather's
eyes.

"Course," said Tayhua, "three F's out of
seven subjects isn't the worst thing in the world."

Little Thunder looked up in
surprise.

"It could have been seven F's out of seven.
Instead you are only half bad which is only half good," said Tayhua with a twinkle in his eyes.
"It is the white people's world we live in so we have to take them seriously. We have to go
through their schools to survive in their world. So it is something you should take
seriously--not too seriously, since most white people are as crazy as goats eating rocks, but a
little seriously.'

"My grades are going to get..."

"No promises are necessary," interrupted
Tayhua. "All you have to do is try to get one-half better. I know you'll do that."

Tayhua tossed away the stick and touched
Little Thunder's nose with the tip of his finger. "Besides, your nose is not as sharp as a stick
and to get the drawings just right I might have to sharpen it on a rock, and I'm pretty sure
because of that, that Grandson's grades are going to get better and better as time goes
by."

Little Thunder gulped and nodded yes. He
knew Grandfather was kidding about the rock and the drawing in the dust with his nose and
everything. At least, he hoped he was kidding. Sometimes with Grandfather Tayhua you couldn't
tell. Anyway the thought of what might happen if he actually got another F on his report card
gave him an itch in the place where he didn't do enough homework. Funny how now, the idea of
homework seemed like a good idea. Even a great idea.

There was a shrieking noise. It was somebody
female yelling for Tayhua and Little Thunder. The voice belonged to Little Thunder's mother and
it sounded like a loose fan belt on a '57 Chevy. Tayhua winced as the voice loudly informed them
that supper was ready.

"Looks like we better go in," said Little
Thunder. "She sounds mad."

"She also sounds like a cow swallowing
barbwire sandwiches," snorted Tayhua. "Why can't she yell more quieter? She's gonna wake up
everybody in the next reservation, in the next state!"

A short-haired brown dog ran howling past
the building beside Tayhua and Little Thunder. The dog seemed to be in full flight from the sound
of Little Thunder's mother's loud voice.

Tayhua watched the dog and shook his
head.

Several dogs around the reservation also
began howling.

Tayhua covered his ears as the shrill voice
called them once again.

"It happens every time. One of these days,
my two-legged screech owl of a daughter is going to call us in for supper and her yelling will
make the whole house fall on her head."