You Don't Know About Me (27 page)

“Hetchetu aloh,”
the crowd whispered.

He looked up at a buffalo skull hanging below the fork in the top of the tree. The huge skull faced the torches in the east. Its nostril holes and eye sockets were stuffed with pale green sage. “This is our brother, Buffalo. Every people
has a brother like the buffalo. Without him, the people will go naked, and hungry, and die.”

He pulled two big white feathers off the tree. “These are the feathers of our sister, Eagle. Every people has a sister like the eagle. Without her, the people cannot see from great heights, can have no knowledge or good medicine. Without her, the people would go stupid, and sicken, and die.”

He took a bead necklace off the tree. A thin bone hung from it, and from that dangled a fluffy white eagle plume. “And this is the eagle-bone whistle that carries the cries of our prayer to the Maker of All Things.” He put the necklace around his neck. The drumming got frantic and scary. In the torchlight, I could see two dark streaks on his chest. They were scars.

He lifted two long leather cords secured to the tree up by the buffalo head. He walked them back to the torches in the outer circle. “And these are the branches of the Tree of Life. They are branches bearing no fruit.” He stretched the cords tight. Each end had a short wooden peg. “Here is the prayer of Wachpanne Papa.” He faced the Tree of Life with the buffalo skull. “If the Tree of Life is to keep bearing fruit … if our Earth Mother's breaking heart is to be mended …” The drumming stopped and Yellow-haired Woman moved toward the circle. “If we are to hear her soul sing again, we must make offerings to the Great Spirit.” Yellow-haired Woman stepped into the circle. Wachpanne Papa raised the two leather cords high. “We must bring our
own
fruit to the tree.”

Yellow-haired Woman stepped in front of him. I saw a
flash as she lifted a knife. She grabbed the scarred skin on his chest, pinched it, and ran the knife through the bunched skin. People gasped, but most of the audience stared, hypnotized. I stole a look at Spring. Her eyes were as bright and fiery as the torches. When I looked back a streak of blood ran down Wachpanne Papa's chest.

He lowered one of the pegs attached to a cord. She threaded the peg through the wound. He sucked in air and shouted, “In this way we renew the balance of the world.” Using a short loop of rawhide she turned the peg into a stirrup running though his flesh. He chanted,
“Hetchetu aloh.”

The audience echoed,
“Hetchetu aloh.”

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was more than being on another planet. I was in another century.

She made the same cut at the top of his other pec. He grimaced, shouting, “In this way we heal the wounds of the world.” Blood ran down his torso. He lowered the second peg. As she secured it he shouted,
“Hetchetu aloh!”

“Hetchetu aloh!”

With the two cords stretching from his chest to the tree, he was tied to the buffalo skull. Yellow-haired Woman went out of the circle, and began drumming a steady beat, faster and louder than before.

Wachpanne Papa dance-shuffled from the east gate of torches toward the Tree of Life, letting the cords go slack. “East, hear me,” he chanted. “You are where the morning star rises to give men hope and wisdom. Now your star rises with hopelessness and fear. You are where the sun rises with light and knowledge. But now your sun rises behind clouds of terror and hate.”

When he reached the tree, he raised the eagle feathers toward the buffalo. Then he danced back, straightening the cords. “O East, hear me. I offer the only thing that belongs to me, my flesh, to make the Great East whole again.” He stuck the eagle-bone whistle in his mouth and jerked back on the cords. The whistle screamed as his flesh stretched out from his chest. The drum pounded. Streaks of blood streamed from the wounds.

I wanted to not look, and I wanted to keep watching the most pagan thing I'd ever seen. I looked at Spring. Her face was locked in a faint smile. A tear rolled down her cheek, turning green as it gathered paint.

The screaming whistle stopped and dropped from Wachpanne Papa's mouth. Keeping the cords straight, but not pulling, he shuffle-danced to his left, chanting. “I send a prayer as I dance.” The buffalo skull turned with him. It was rigged to pivot around the tree. It was only a skull stuffed with sage, but when it moved it looked totally alive.

He stopped at the south gate of torches and danced toward the tree. “South, hear me. Remember when you gave us nothing but warmth, the power of growing. You brought us the life of things. Now you deliver the death of things. You bring the flooding hurricanes, the poisoning oil, and the power of destruction.”

He raised his eagle feathers and danced backward. “O South, hear me. I offer the only thing that belongs to me, my flesh, to make the world whole again.” Whistle in mouth, he jerked back, pulling hard on the skewers in his chest.

I felt like I was watching a crucifixion. The only thing that didn't fit was the way his chest flesh stretched out. It
looked like two small breasts popping out of him. If it weren't so bloody and awful, it might've been funny.

He danced to the west gate, chanting and performing the same ritual. The buffalo skull followed, like it held Wachpanne Papa's reins. He moved to the tree. “West, remember when you sent us the thunder beings. When they came I knew the rain, my friend, was coming to visit. Now you send the choking clouds of the foul-air beings, and I know my enemy is here.” He danced back and jerked his reins tight. A peg almost ripped free.

I glanced at Spring. Her face was a weird mirror of Wachpanne Papa's. Blood ran down his chest, turning it crimson; tears streamed down her face, washing away her green paint.

As he danced toward the buffalo skull he staggered a little, but his words were clear. “Hear me, North, where the white giants live. Remember when you blew your cold white wind. You rubbed us with icy fingers until we were strong and robust. But now your white giants are old and shrunken. Every day they lose their great white teeth. Their icy fingers no longer reach us. The white giants are bleeding out.”

Under the buffalo skull, he raised his eagle feathers high. “To you, Great North, I dance this dance. To you, I make my offering this night.” He began to dance slowly back. “Hear me, pray with the broken heart of Mother Earth.” Reaching the north gate, stretching the cords tight, he stuck the eagle-bone whistle between his teeth. “Hear Mother Earth scream with me.” He yanked back, hard. The whistle screamed, the drum roared.

He pressed forward. It looked like he was sucking the stretches of bloody skin back into his chest. He shouted, “Hear us, pray for your great white giants to return—with their icy fingers—with their great white teeth.” He pulled back, yanking on the straining flesh. The whistle and drum screamed. He tilted forward, shouting over the frenzied drumming. “Hear us, pluck the fruit from the tree!” He pulled, the whistle screamed.

Then, with the reins still taut, the drumming grew quieter. His voice went low, cracking from pain. “Hear us make the world whole again.” The drumming boomed, the whistle screeched, he tugged from side to side. The pegs ripped free. The cords snapped toward the Tree of Life.

Everything went silent. It sounded like the silence I'd heard in the desert. The sound of God breathing.

Wachpanne Papa stood, knees bent, blood oozing from his open wounds. His arms hung, fingers still holding the eagle feathers. Staring up at the buffalo, he rasped, “See us, touch Mother Earth with healing feathers.” The feathers dropped from his hands, fluttered down, and landed inside the hoop of the world. He wavered and fell to his knees.

I sucked in a breath, like I hadn't breathed for a lifetime.

Yellow-haired Woman appeared with an Indian blanket covered in sage and cattails. She wrapped it around him. He slumped onto his shins. “Wachpanne Papa has gone to his vision,” she said quietly. “It is time for everyone to go to theirs.” She gave the crowd a nodding smile.
“Hetchetu aloh.”

“Hetchetu aloh,”
the crowd rumbled back.

I felt something on my knee. Spring was gripping it. For how long, I didn't know.

She stared through watery eyes. Her cheeks were a wild striping of green and white. She leaned in and kissed me on the mouth, hard. I kissed her back.

She was the first girl I'd ever kissed. I mean,
really
kissed. I don't count when I was ten and me and Suzie Werfleman traded ABC gum under the church steps. This kiss was something else. I never imagined lust could feel so clean. I wanted all my kisses to be like that: like I was flying.

As Spring pulled away I opened my eyes in time to catch her green eyes close and her real ones open. “We need space,” she whispered. She took my hand and led me out of the tent.

A breeze blew across the playa. The neon statues blurred in the dusty haze. We didn't speak. We were in a trance. We probably looked like some of the people I've seen after they were healed at a revival meeting. Zombies for the Lord.

No way had my insides gone zombie. My brain was shouting that I'd just witnessed idol worship and my next vision might be God's wrath. My heart was screaming that I'd just tumbled into lust, and God was reaching for his smite stick. But none of these fears could stop the biggest
feeling surging through me. The kiss had been like a chocolate that starts in your mouth and rolls through your body. When you get a kiss like that, you don't want just one, you want the whole box.

Out at the edge of the playa it was empty, quiet. There were so many stars it looked like Heaven had blown up.

“Wanna play high-low?” Spring asked.

“What's that?”

She pulled my hand and we sat in the soft dust. “We tell the best moment and the worst moment of the dance. You first.”

“The low was all the blood. The high was—does the kiss count?”

She laughed. “No.”

I thought about it. “My high was the buffalo head turning with him. It was freaky and cool, like it was alive. Your turn.”

She shifted onto her shins. “Low: that I have to wait an entire year before Wachpanne Papa comes back and offers his flesh to the East. High—besides the fact that we just took a giant step toward healing the planet—is when he showed how all religions and beliefs are spokes leading to the same center. I love that.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Yes, but I have a different way of looking at it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know when you lie in bed at night and watch a lightning storm out your window?”

“Yeah.”

“When there's a lightning flash, the outdoors lights up and you see everything clearly for a second, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, for me, every religion is like a lightning flash that illuminates everything for a moment. But the flash is in slow motion and burns longer than a lightning bolt. It can illuminate as long as a Sun Dance, or blaze for a lifetime, like it does for Christians, Muslims, Jews, whoever. But then there's me. I don't see God's divine flash once, from a house. My window on the divine is moving, like in a car. I'm driving through God's lightning storm of truth, and every time He reveals the divine I see a different landscape, a different divine-scape. That's what I love about the Sun Dance. It accepts every religion that ever was, and says”—she raised her hands to the sky—“ ‘Let's all gather at the Tree of Life and heal the world!' ”

She stayed there for a moment, then dropped her hands on her cattail-covered thighs. She looked at me and shut her eyes. Her mouth twisted with a smile as her green tattoo eyes stared. “You don't want to talk about this anymore, do you? You want another kiss, don't you?”

I waited for her real eyes to open. I nodded.

She leaned forward. The kiss was just as fantastic as the first … until I felt something. A new taste. It was sweet, and slick. At first I thought she was sucking on some kind of candy. Then I realized what it was. Saliva + dust = clay. Huck had fallen for a girl “full of sand.” I was kissing a girl full of dust.

She pulled back, wiping her lip with a finger. “I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“I forgot to give Wachpanne Papa the traditional gift.”

“What gift?”

“My cattails.” She pulled at her dress. “If I give them to you, will you make sure he gets them?”

“Okay.” I wasn't exactly sure what she meant. It didn't stop my heart from beating like the Sun Dance drum.

She started pulling at ties on the front of her dress. When she undid the last one, she looked at me. “Okay, Gob-smack. Don't be surprised.”

I swallowed. “Why should I be surprised? I've been looking at naked boobs all day.”

She laughed. “I'm sure you have. But none like these.” She lowered the cattails.

I think I gasped, I don't remember. She was right. They were the most awesome breasts I'd ever seen. But that wasn't all. They were glow-in-the-dark, electric green.

She rose to her knees, bringing her breasts closer. She giggled. “Spring awaits you.”

I felt strange. My hand wanted to touch, but my eyes said
Don't move
. Something wasn't right. It was like when I saw Wachpanne Papa's chest skin stretch out like cartoon boobs. He wasn't supposed to have boobs. Spring was supposed to have breasts, but not glowing green ones.

The sound of a gunning engine pulled me away. Headlights flickered across the dusty playa. They were coming fast, right at us. We jumped up.

Spring didn't bother covering up. “Who's that?”

“I dunno.”

I squinted into the headlights as they slowed and
swerved. A van skidded to a stop beside us, throwing up dust.

Momi leaned out the driver's window. The passenger seat was empty. She gave us a quick look. “Sorry to interrupt, but we gotta go. Wachpanne Papa's not looking good.”