Counting coup, p.6
Counting Coup, page 6
“If he’s crazy, then why’d you send Sam to him?” Charlie asked.
“I said he’s only a little bit crazy. And Sam needed to learn what Whiteshirt had to teach. Whiteshirt has considerable power. He’s a strong medicine man. That’s a rare and sacred thing.”
“So where’s this Whiteshirt now?” Charlie asked. The whole thing seemed fucked up to him.
“He’s at Sam’s … so is his wife, they got back together.”
“What?”
“There’s still a lot of bad blood,” John said, “but Whiteshirt has to help Sam out on his vision-quest whether he likes Sam or not … if he’s a real medicine man. Maybe doing some ceremonies together will help them all out.”
“What about you?” Charlie asked.
“Maybe it’ll help me out, too,” John said, smiling faintly. “But then again maybe the ceremonies won’t change Sam and Whiteshirt and the other people mixed up in this, maybe their hearts will stay hard. You’d better start slowing down now,” he said as Charlie came upon a sharp curve in the road.
On Charlie’s side of the car were hayfields stretching back to smooth, fir-covered hills. The fields were mottled green and brown. An old cannibalized mowing machine was rusting in the middle of one of the fields. On the other side of the road, on John’s side, were a few modern, expensive houses owned by executives who worked in town, but they were outnumbered by farms and the ever-present country shacks, their front yards littered with old car hulks and ancient appliances, their porches filled with mildewed mattresses and torn couches and broken cabinets.
“There’s the house,” John said, pointing. It was red clapboard, set about fifty feet from the road. Behind it on higher ground was a dilapidated red barn and several storage sheds. The sheds were unpainted, and one was caving in.
Charlie pulled into the driveway, behind a green Ford truck, which had a poster in the rear-view window proclaiming that it was an Official Indian Car. On the back of the truck was painted AKWESASNE in large block letters.
“What the hell does that mean?” Charlie asked.
“It’s a Mohawk reservation, not far from here,” John said. “It got invaded, you might say, by white folk … poachers, and the Indian people had it out with the state police. Sam was there, so was Whiteshirt. But there ain’t no more poachers.”
“What about you?” Charlie asked.
“I was home getting blind.” Then, after a beat, John said, “There might be people here who are really against me … do you still want to come?”
“Christ, I’m already here.”
“Anyway, you don’t believe in any of the superstitious nonsense like we were talking about, do you?” John asked, grinning, his demeanor suddenly changed, as if he had just put on a mask, or taken one off.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Charlie said.
* * *
They crossed the road and cut across a field, passing the rusting mowing machine. On the western edge of the field was woodland. They walked through the woods on a springy covering of red and yellow leaves. The woods opened into a clearing. John thought that the warm weather was a good sign for Sam’s vision-quest, as Sam wouldn’t have to freeze his ass off on a hill. But Charlie was getting nervous about the whole thing, especially when he saw the sharp decline they would have to negotiate if they were going to get over to the lowland on the other side.
“What the hell do I look like, a stunt man?” Charlie asked, as he looked at the riverbed below. A thin ribbon of water was flowing.
“Just follow me, it’s not nearly as bad as it looks.” John started climbing down, holding onto a branch, gaining a foothold, then taking a step and grabbing another branch or rock or outcropping.
Someone appeared on the other side, a man in his late twenties with jet-black shoulder-length hair. He waved up at John, and Charlie knew it was too late to turn back. He had his pride, after all.
The climb down wasn’t bad, although Charlie’s heart seemed to be pounding in his throat.
“Charlie, this is Sam Starts-to-Dance,” John said when Charlie crossed the stream.
He doesn’t look like an Indian, Charlie thought as he shook hands with Sam. Sam’s features were fine and thin, almost Nordic; but he wore a beaded shirt and a headband … and he did have that black hair.
“I’m glad you came,” Sam said to John, as they all stepped over riverbed stones onto a well-worn path that wound up a gentle incline. “I didn’t think you were going to make it. I knocked on your door a day or so ago, but nobody answered.”
“I told you I’d be here,” John said flatly.
They talked, and Charlie followed a few steps behind. He was angry and nervous and embarrassed. What the fuck was he doing here? Christ, even John was ignoring him, after making that big deal about needing a friend to go along with him. The asshole …
“We got the sweat-lodge ready,” Sam said, “and the women went and got the meat; they’re preparing it now. Are you going to take flesh?”
“Didn’t Whiteshirt take flesh?” John asked. He stopped walking just before they reached the crest of the hill.
“He said he thought it was proper for you to do that.”
John nodded. “That’s good … how are things going? Still bad blood?”
“Whiteshirt’s doing what he’s supposed to,” Sam said. “He’s helping me to do this thing. But it feels very bad between us. Most of the people that were with him at his camp have left. He’s got new people now, too many Wannabees.”
“What’s that?” Charlie asked. Fuck them, he thought. If he was here, he wasn’t going to be invisible. He could just as well turn around right now and go home if they gave him any shit.
But John laughed. “A Wannabee is a white who wants to be an Indian.” Charlie felt his face grow hot. “You certainly don’t have to worry about that,” John said.
“Anyway,” Sam said, “I hear that there’s some bad stuff going down there at Whiteshirt’s place.”
“Is he back together with Janet?” John asked.
“Yeah, she’s here with him. She’s taking care of the other women.”
“Well … that’s good.”
“She did a lot of sweats, and vision-quested, and the spirits told her to stay with Whiteshirt and help him out. That’s what she says. But it’s over between us. Even though she says she doesn’t love Whiteshirt, what we did was wrong. It was my fault, and you were right, it was a human thing.”
“Happens,” John said. “Maybe it can be put behind all of you.”
“But I still think something’s going on.”
“Bad blood doesn’t mean there has to be bad medicine,” John said.
Sam didn’t say anything; he looked down at the ground. Then he said, “Janet told me some things … that Whiteshirt blames you for what happened. He thinks you sent me to him to bring him trouble.”
“Why would he think that?” John asked.
“He says the spirits told him that you were using bad medicine on him because you’d lost your power … because you’d stopped being a medicine man. He thinks you’re a witch.” After an awkward pause, Sam said, “I think Whiteshirt’s still jealous of you.”
“Why?”
“Because most people come to see you when they have problems, even when you’re drinking … most traditional Indian people don’t have much respect for Whiteshirt. They call him a white man’s medicine man.”
“Maybe we’ll talk about that” John said, “or pray about it.”
“I think you should be very careful, anyway,” Sam said. “Whiteshirt’s changed. He’s not the man you used to know. I think it’s because of Violet.”
“Who?” John asked.
“He’s been living with a white woman who was always hanging around his camp. She likes to play mind-games on everybody. She thinks she’s an Indian.”
“How’d she get her hooks into Whiteshirt?”
“She hung around him,” Sam said. “Made herself useful. She’s got power over men; she always used to have somebody or another fighting over her. And Whiteshirt—he’s like you—he sometimes has trouble saying no to women. He likes them too much.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” John said, looking uncomfortable.
“She’s dangerous,” Sam continued. “She knows that Whiteshirt’s got a strong power, and she wants to use it … or take it for herself.”
“What about Janet?”
Sam shrugged. “He’s made her eat enough dirt for what we did. She’s been having to wait on them both hand and foot like a maid. She’s doing it … because the spirits told her to stay with him.”
“Whiteshirt may have his problems, but I’ve never known him to be sadistic or mean…” John said, as if thinking out loud. “I’m going to think right about him until I see otherwise.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Sam said. “It’s going to be right for me now, I can feel it.”
“Well, we’re soon going to find out,” John said; and then he turned to Charlie and asked, “You know how Sam got his name?” John had put on another one of his masks and switched moods. “He touched a rock in the sweat-lodge once and jumped around so much that he got a new name.”
“It certainly beats being called Sam Smith,” Sam said, and then he went on ahead to let everyone know John was here and going to take flesh.
“Sam likes you, I can tell,” John said.
“How can you tell that?” Charlie asked.
“You think he’d talk like that if he didn’t? You can feel right about Sam.”
“What’s this taking flesh business?” Charlie asked. And what the hell am I getting myself into? he asked himself.
“You got that bad face on again,” John said. “You don’t have to come along on this, I told you. If you’re worried and—”
“Just tell me about this flesh business. What do you do, cut somebody up?” Charlie had already committed himself, and he was going to see this thing through, no matter what. He was a man of honor, goddammit, and he had fought in the goddamn war. Of course, he wouldn’t just stand by and watch someone get mutilated …
“It’s a ceremony,” John said. “It’s a kind of prayer, a gift … the only thing we really have to give of our own is our flesh. That’s the only thing that’s really ours. So everyone who wants to make a gift for Sam, that he should have a good vision-quest and find what he’s looking for, everyone gives a little of himself. I usually take flesh off the arm, with a razor and a needle. I don’t carve out steaks, if that’s what you think.”
“Are you going to do this to yourself, too?”
“I might have Whiteshirt take my flesh after Sam’s vision-quest is over … if everything is okay. But not now, people might think I was following my ego and not my heart. After the vision-quest is a good time to do that; also, there’ll be lots of food, Indian food … a good time. You’ll see … maybe I’ll even take flesh from you.”
“The hell you will,” Charlie said, and they walked down the hill toward the ceremonial grounds below. Charlie glanced up at the sky; there were certainly enough goddamn birds flapping around up there. Maybe some of those were John’s eagles, swooping around, waiting for John to get to be a medicine man again. Christ, who the fuck knew what could be going on around here?
“Lot’s of birds flying up there,” John said matter-of-factly. He didn’t tell Charlie that none of them were eagles.
* * *
John introduced Charlie to several people, one of whom was white: a young guy with shoulder-length dirty-blond hair who was wearing a headband, faded dungarees, and a T-shirt. He asked Charlie if he wanted to smoke his pipe. Charlie politely declined and sat down under a large oak to watch John take flesh from the men and women standing around him.
Although he felt awkward and out of his depth, Charlie could not help but be awed by this place. As it was in a hollow, it seemed to be completely secluded. The surrounding banks were covered with trees, and there was a moist, earthen smell that reminded Charlie of caves he had explored when he was a boy. The sun filtered through branch and leaf, giving the place a dusty, soft, almost magical quality. Charlie felt somehow secure here … and it seemed quiet, even though children were shouting and playing games and running around on the blanket of leaves that covered the open ceremonial area, and men and women and adolescents were all busy doing something: attending the large fire, which would heat the rocks for the sweat-lodge; tearing pieces of cloth; carrying stones and blankets; or just sitting around talking in huddled groups, passing pipes back and forth.
But sitting under that tree, feeling the cool dampness of the ground, smelling grass and sage and the burning of the fire, Charlie felt as he had when he smoked the pipe with John.
He watched John, who was talking to a young woman wearing a sleeveless flower-patterned blouse. She had curly black hair and looked Mexican. She held John’s pipe in both hands upon her lap and stared at it. Her mouth moved. She must be praying, Charlie thought. Then John began making lines down her arm with a razor blade. He gave her a yellow piece of cloth to hold in her palm, and began to remove tiny pieces of her flesh with a needle. She didn’t flinch as John cut her, and Charlie noticed that she had scar-lines from previous cuttings—just as John did. Charlie had never noticed that before. Both of John’s arms were scarred. Neat little indentations. Pieces of flesh removed. They made Charlie think of tattoos.
To Charlie’s right, about thirty feet away from him, was the sweat-lodge, a small, squat, round frame of willow shoots covered with old blankets. Charlie wondered how the hell anybody was going to fit in there. A woman with soft frizzy red hair was piling up blankets and tarpaulins beside the lodge. She seemed to know when Charlie was watching her, for she turned around. Although she was pretty—rather pale and petite—she looked arrogant and hard-faced. There was also something very erotic about her. But she stared Charlie down as if she knew who he was … as if she hated him.
Charlie looked away from her.
About ten feet east of the sweat-lodge several men were attending a large, crackling fire, which had been prepared in a special way under the supervision of a scowling heavy-set man. Rocks for the sweat-lodge had been placed on the fire. “These rocks should be just about ready now,” one of the men shouted to John, who nodded.
The heavy-set man squatted close to the fire and squinted at the rocks, as if he was reading the entrails of some sacred beast. The woman who had been piling blankets shouted something to him, and he looked at Charlie for an instant, then returned his gaze to the fire.
Charlie had a coughing fit. Maybe it was the smoke from the fire, which the wind wafted toward him, or pollen, but he felt as if he was going to cough his lungs out. He used the inhaler, but his hand was shaking so much that it took two squirts before he could feel the mist in his throat and then the tickle as he inhaled it. But he couldn’t get any air. Jesus Christ, he thought, I can’t buy the fucking farm right now, not here. Jesus Christ …
It subsided, as they all did, but, Christ, that was a bad one. Suddenly Charlie realized that someone was touching his arm, rubbing his back. He looked up, right into a woman’s face: a dark, flat face, high cheekbones, large dark almond eyes, and a thin mouth. She was missing a tooth, but there was a feral beauty about her; it was as if she, like John, had come from the earth. She carried a different map etched across her face, but the lines were there, even though she looked to be only in her mid-thirties. There were laugh-lines and worry-lines on that face, which looked like it had never been touched by make-up. There was also a smell to her, the smell of the fire mixed with perspiration, a perfume like grass and mud, sweet and sour. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. “Take some of this,” she said, giving him a sprig of sage. “Cup it right in your hand and hold it over your mouth after you cough. It’ll help you breathe easier. Use it in the sweat-lodge, too. You breathe through it like this”—and she showed him—“so you won’t feel the heat so bad. It really helps.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said. He smelled the sage—and it did smell good—but his coughing spell was over, anyway. He turned away from her to spit.
“You came with John, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah … although I feel like a fish out of water.”
She chuckled. “I’m Janet, Joe Whiteshirt’s wife. This is a good place, been some good ceremonies here, good feelings, before … before a lot of things turned sour and people’s hearts became hard to each other. But John is a good man … and so was … is Joe. Maybe Sam’s vision-quest will bring them close again. I know Sam told you about … us. He likes you.”
“That’s what John told me,” Charlie said, “but you couldn’t prove anything by me. He hasn’t said anything to me—he was talking to John.”
“Before a vision-quest is a quiet time, you’re not supposed to talk much or mingle around. A vision-quest is dangerous. Sam’s getting ready. Sometimes people who go up on the hill don’t come back … people have been known to just disappear.”
More bullshit, Charlie thought. “Do you believe that?” he asked.
“Yes,” Janet said. “I do.” She smiled wistfully. “But you don’t have to.” She paused. “Hasn’t John told you anything about this?”
“Yeah, he told me a little,” Charlie said, feeling awkward. “I never felt right about pushing, though.”
“I can see why he likes you. I once heard John tell Joe that we’re like trees, all of us. But when you look at a tree, you only see the trunk and branches and leaves; but deep down in the roots is where we take our life from, that’s where the dreams and visions are … that’s where our life comes from. That’s why we vision-quest … to go back to the roots … and don’t you worry while you’re in the sweat, no matter how hot it gets. Just keep some sage in front of your nose and pray. Everyone will take care of you. No matter what’s between John and Joe, neither one will let any harm come to you.” But she averted her eyes from his when she said that, as if she wanted to believe it, but somehow couldn’t.
“Which one is your husband?” Charlie asked.
