Land of Echoes

53

The old Keedays' place was transformed. The Evil Way was not as large or long a ceremony as others, but it still required substantial preparation. Tommy's closest aunts, uncles, and cousins had come to participate and help out, along with a few nonfamily, including Cree, Julieta, Joseph, and Joseph's uncle. With the medicine man and his two assistants, there were around two dozen. Pickup trucks and station wagons were parked haphazardly all around the grandparents' home. The kitchen stove in the trailer was going, and a couple of fire pits had been set up outside to help prepare the food needed to nourish the gathering during the two-day Way. Two sheep had been butchered and now hung from the branches of a small cottonwood, soon to be roasted.

Cree helped Ellen make piles of fry bread, dropping the dough disks into smoking oil, spearing them with a fork, rotating them as they bubbled, flipping them when the underside was golden brown. It was good to see Ellen again, to bask in her goodwill and good humor.

She met relatives, tried to keep track of their names and connections to Tommy, gave up, decided it didn't matter. They were all family. They were here to help him. To heal him. To remind him who he was.

The mood was mixed. In general, the preparations created a festive atmosphere: people laughing quietly as they worked, exchanging gossip, chipping in food and money, giving orders to each other, complaining. But there were no young children present, and an undertone of solemnity and concern grew as the time for the ceremony itself drew closer. Being possessed by a spirit was serious and dangerous. Even the inevitable half dozen dogs seemed restrained and generally stayed out from underfoot.

Ts'aa'lil'ini, the Singer, was a small, vigorous man in his sixties. He was dressed in khakis and a white shirt with an antique Pendleton blanket worn over his shoulders as a robe, and had a serious face. Cree found his dignity and gravity imposing. Ellen and the grandparents introduced her to him, explaining in Navajo her connection to the situation. He nodded his head, his bright, knowing eyes on Cree's, and invited her to participate. Cree thanked him sincerely, explained she'd be more comfortable just helping out on the periphery of things, and let him go about his work.

Cree watched as Ts'aa'lil'ini and his helpers brought the ceremonial materials from their pickup and laid them out in the appropriate order. Corn pollen, plant materials, colored sand for sand paintings, mountain tobacco, spirit gifts, fire materials: One of the assistants, a chubby man in his late twenties, explained the significance of each and the role it would play in the ceremony. The basket on which offerings would be placed was made of sumac bark, he told her, which gave it its scent. The whole thing was intricate and full of symbolism that was rooted all the way back in the beautiful and complex Navajo creation stories. Cree was aware of standing on the far side of a vast cultural canyon that made real comprehension difficult. After a while, awed and overwhelmed, she excused herself and went to sit over near one of the sheep sheds, where she could take it all in but not get underfoot.

She had done her part. What Tommy needed now, she couldn't help with. He was in the best possible hands.

Julieta and Joseph had come together, made the rounds of introductions, and got right to work with the others. The mutton would be buried in coals, so Joseph and a couple of other men were digging shallow trenches near the fires. Julieta helped bring firewood, lugged cases of soft drinks from trucks, joined Ellen at the fry bread assembly line. Sometimes Joseph paused to watch Julieta. Sometimes she'd turn her head to check on him. When they passed near each other, Cree saw, you could practically see it in the air between them: a shimmer of mutual awareness, fraught with desire and anticipation. The sight was very gratifying.

A tall, very thin Navajo man came toward her from the hogan, cupping a match around a cigarette as he walked. Joseph's uncle, Cree remembered. She'd met him only briefly but had liked him instantly. He was elderly but hale, his nose veined from too much whiskey, fingers stained from too many cigarettes, his suit somewhat out of date but clean and well pressed. He struck her as the kind of guy Pop would have liked.

"Yaateeh," Cree said.

"Hey, you say that pretty well!" Uncle Joe said, looking impressed. He sat down stiffly against the log fence next to her, unconcerned about getting his suit dirty. He spat out a tidbit of tobacco and squinted at the men working near the fire pits. "Know what it means? It's how we say hello, but it means 'It is good.'"

"I didn't know. That's lovely."

"Nice day for this. Perfect weather. That's a good sign for the ceremony." Uncle Joe looked up at the benign sky, then glanced over at her. "Taking a breather?"

"Oh, I was just getting in the way. It looks like it's all under control." She smiled over at him and he returned it. "I'm a little tired," she confessed.

"From what Joseph tells me, you've already done old Ts'aa'lil'ini's work for him. He should return some of the gifts."

"Not at all. This is just what Tommy needs. This is just right."

Uncle Joe chuckled at himself. "Listen to me! 'Old'? Who am I to talk? The guy's younger than me! Did anyone tell you what his name means-Ts'aa'lil'ini?"

"Nope. What?"

" 'Basket Maker.'"

He gave her a sideways grin and a sharp look as if this information was a gift or surprise for her, and Cree nodded as though she understood. She found him enormously charming and concluded that he must have been quite the lady-killer in his younger years. Like Ellen, he was the kind of person you immediately felt you'd known for a lifetime.

Uncle Joe got serious and narrowed his eyes as he continued watching his nephew. Joseph had taken off his white shirt and was digging in his T-shirt. He had a good build, nice proportions, muscles that moved smoothly in his shoulders as he levered and lifted the shovel. Over near the trailer, Julieta turned her head to admire him briefly. Cree was surprised to feel a little pang of jealousy.

After another moment, Uncle Joe sighed, explained he'd better go help out, and creaked to his feet. Still looking at Joseph and Julieta, he dusted the seat of his pants and straightened his jacket.

"The kids'll be good looking, idn't it?" He tightened his tie while checking his reflection in a hubcap nailed to the shed wall and looked pleased with what he saw. "Runs in the family," he explained.

Later, Julieta took a break and came over to join Cree. She looked ravishing, ten years younger than she had just three days ago. She gathered her big skirt and held it as she crouched down next to Cree. They watched people come and go for a moment in silence.

"They're going to be starting soon. You sure you don't want to be in the hogan?"

"I'm sure, Julieta. I'm just an outsider. I'd rather be over here right now. But I'll go along with the ceremony from here, trust me. If anybody wonders about the strange bilagaana sitting out here in lotus position, just tell them I'm weird but harmless."

"It's not a problem. The family's glad to have you. They're grateful." They sat in silence for a moment, and then Julieta turned to Cree again.

"Tommy wasn't the only one who was possessed." It was not a question.

"Yeah, well. We've all got our ghosts," Cree said. She remembered vividly the sensation of expulsion, of being emptied, that she'd felt as much in Julieta as in Tommy when Peter had stepped off the porch and into nowhere. Despite all the wrenching emotion and danger, Julieta had handled the whole encounter with admirable grace and strength. She doubted that if Mike appeared to her, returning to her ten years after his death, she'd be able to find the way.

"I have a lot to thank you for, Cree. Joseph and I both do."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?" Cree shot her a mischievous grin. "I want details!"

Julieta looked away, her face reddening, and made her own, private smile. "You're terrible! And you're too observant for your own good, Dr. Black. He is a marvelous man. But I'll leave the details to your imagination."

They sat for another moment.

"Anyway, I wanted to return something of the favor. Or the challenge, however you might look at it. Forgive my presumption, Cree."

Julieta's seriousness stalled Cree in midair.

"You have a… boyfriend, right? In New Orleans?"

"There's someone I'm getting to know, yes. I'll be going out there in a couple of weeks. Why?"

"I was wondering. You've known Edgar Mayfield a long time, haven't you? You two seem very close."

Cree felt her serenity fall away, replaced by uneasiness. A feeling of exposure and doubt. When she'd seen Edgar and Joyce off, she'd been reluctant to physically let go of Ed. She'd wished he wasn't so blue, that he'd seen how much he'd helped her even if it wasn't in the technological or scientific sense. She'd resolved to try to tell him when she saw him back in Seattle. Then she'd gotten confused again, thinking about just what she'd say.

Julieta bit her lips. She looked like she wanted to say more, but then must have second-guessed herself. She stood quickly, brushing the dust from her skirt. "I should get back," she said.

Okay, Cree was thinking. Right, okay. She's right, and I don't want to wait eighteen years to figure out something that important. She felt close to crying and couldn't figure out just why.

But Tommy had emerged from the grandparents' trailer. He was dressed in new jeans and a bright white shirt, a broad silver-inlaid belt, a heavy turquoise necklace, and a brilliant headband. His red moccasins were exquisite, no doubt lovingly made by one of his aunts. He walked solemnly between his grandfather and his uncle Raymond, looking a little embarrassed at being the center of attention, sobered and intimidated by the seriousness of the ritual. Still, when he saw Cree, he tossed her a quick, shy smile before continuing on to the hogan door.

It was a smile Cree knew she'd remember for a long time, the kind you take out of memory and touch and treasure, like a favorite piece of jewelry from its box.

She watched them go into the hogan, and after a few minutes the compound was empty. It was quiet except for the low voices from inside, muffled by the blanket that hung over the open doorway. She shut her eyes and savored the feel of the event. A soft wind moved through the shallow canyon, past the derelict hogans and sheds, and caressed the cottonwood trees. The clean scent of the desert, tinged with sage, mixed with the smells of roasting mutton and woodsmoke. Cree realized again just how much she'd miss this place, these people. The thought of leaving broke her heart. Everything broke her heart.

She took off her shoes and pulled her feet onto her thighs. She shut her eyes and felt herself drawn into the hogan, the hearthlike place at the center where all those energies converged. The air changed when she heard Hastiin Ts'aa'lil'ini's voice inside, and though she couldn't understand the words she was spellbound by its rhythms, awed by his authority.

Cree intuitively felt what he was doing and tried to find a synesthetic metaphor that would describe it. It was a weaving together, she decided. In daily life, all the energies of living and dead were disparate, often conflicted and chaotic. But the ceremony had invited the living people here as well as the important ghosts and now the medicine man was bringing together all their separate lines. Through the prescribed actions of the ritual, he was gathering the strands of the individual lives and personalities and psyches one by one and guiding them into a beautiful weave of ancient design.

Basket Maker! Cree realized abruptly. Joseph's uncle must be an amazing man, to have known she'd discover the meaning of the medicine man's name.

Eyes shut, feeling like she was floating in the soft desert air, Cree could sense the ceremony, almost see it: Yes, it was like a basket, honoring each strand, giving each participant a purpose, containing and protecting each individual psyche. The People and their ghosts were the basket even as they were in the basket being woven here. Ts'aa'lil'ini was gathering the strips in his strong hands, bending them gently, weaving together living and ghosts and past and future into a beautiful thing much more durable than the fleeting present. The troubled ghosts would be acknowledged, included, and calmed. He guided each strand to where it must be, creating the basket that for thousands of years had proved so beautiful, practical, enduring.

Today Tommy would know he was safe in the center of the basket, and, just as important, that he was himself a crucial strand.

Cree just sat, awed and humbled. Stunned. Grateful. Heart wrenched wide open. Still on the verge of tears. There was so much she had to learn.

Yaateeh, she thought. It is good. Yaateeh.