It was going to be a long ride home for fifteen Navajo children. Dropping kids off five, ten, and twenty miles apart is no small task. We were committed for the night. The sun had just vanished behind Giant's Knuckles, causing those in the back of the pickup to huddle close.
“It gets cold in the desert,” I said.
“It's winter,” one of the children replied. They covered their mouths with their hands, giggling, as we continued to bump along the dirt roads surrounding Montezuma Creek. What did the driver and I know? We were Anglos.
We had been down by the river for the afternoon. A thin veneer of ice had coalesced along its edge, and the children, bending down, would break off pieces and hold them between their thumbs and forefingers. Before the ice would melt, some brought the thin sheet to their eyes as a lens, while others placed it in their mouths and sucked on the river. Still others winged the ice sheets across the cobbles, watching, listening to them shatter like glass.
Life on the river's edge was explored through whirligig beetles, water skaters, and caddis fly larvae under stones. Canada geese flew above the channel, landing for brief intervals, then continuing on their way. The children followed tracks, expecting to meet a pack of stray dogs hiding in the tamarisks. Our shadows grew longer with the last light of day reflecting on river rapids and willows.
The hours by the river were well spent. Now, in the back of the pickup, the children told tales of days when a horse could enter a hogan and leave as a man; of skinwalkers disguised as coyotes who stalk the reservation with bones in their hands, scratching white crosses on the doors of ill-fated households. They spoke of white owls, ghostly flashes of light that could turn the blood of mice into milk.
Just then, my friend hit the brakes and those of us in the back fell forward.
“What was that?” The driver leaned his head out the window so we could hear him. “Did you see that?”
“What?” we all asked.
“A mountain lion! It streaked across the road. I'll swear it was all tail!”
The children whispered among themselves, “Mountain Lion …”
We filed out of the truck. My friend and I walked a few feet ahead. We found the tracks. A rosette. Five-toed pads, clawless, imprinted on the sand in spite of the cold.
“No question,” I said. “Lion. I wonder where she is now?
Looking into the darkness, I could only imagine the desert cat staring back at us. I looked at the children; most of them were leaning against the truck as headlights approached.
“What's going on?” a local Navajo asked as he rolled down the window of his pickup, his motor idling.
My friend recognized him as the uncle of one of the children. “We think we saw a mountain lion,” he said.
“Where? How long ago?”
The other man in the cab of the truck asked if we were sure.
“Pretty sure,” I said. “Look at these tracks.”
The men got out of their vehicle and shined their flashlights on the ground until they picked up the prints. One of the men knelt down and touched them.
“This is not good,” the uncle said. “They kill our sheep.” He looked into the night and then back at us. “What color of eyes did it have?”
My friend and I looked at each other. The Navajo elder began reciting the color of animals’ eyes at night.
“Deer's eyes are blue. Coyote's eyes are red.” His nephew interrupted him. “Green—the lion's eyes were green.”
The two men said they would be back with their guns and sons tomorrow.
We returned to the truck, the driver with a handful of kids up front and the rest in the back around me as we nestled together under blankets. The children became unusually quiet, speaking in low, serious voices about why mountain lions are considered dangerous.
“It's more than just killing sheep,” one child explained. “Mountain Lion is a god, one of the supernaturals that has power over us.”
Each child gave away little bits of knowledge concerning the lion: that it chirps like a bird to fool you; that parts of its body are used for medicine; that in the old days hunters used the sinew of lion for their bows. The children grew more and more anxious as fear seized their voices like two hands around their throats. They were hushed.
We traveled through the starlit desert in silence, except for the hum of the motor and four wheels flying over the washboard.
In time, from the rear of the pickup, came a slow, deliberate chant. Navajo words—gentle, deep meanderings of music born out of healing. I could not tell who had initiated the song, but one by one each child entered the melody. Over and over they sang the same monotonous notes, dreamlike at first, until gradually the cadence quickened. The children's mood began to lighten and they swayed back and forth. What had begun as a cautious, fearful tone emerged as a joyous one. Their elders had taught them well. They had sung themselves back to hózho, where the world is balanced and whole.
After the last child had been taken home, my friend and I were left with each other, but the echo of the children's chant remained. With many miles to go, we rolled down the windows in the cab of the truck letting the chilled air blow through. Mountain Lion, whose eyes I did not see, lay on the mesa, her whiskers retrieving each note carried by the wind.