Chapter 31

 

 

Shaking the droplets of water from his hair, Nathan stood for a moment in front of the waterfall, breathing deeply and looking out at the range land below. In some ways it felt as if he was seeing his home for the last time. Perhaps, he was. But for now he let his eyes take in his surroundings.

Lush grass dotted the land to his right, indicating the edge of the second pasture. Flocks of sheep roamed freely, watched over from a distance by men whose entire life revolved around tending livestock. Were those his grandmother’s Churro sheep? His grandmother and his uncle both had some of the fleece-rich animals. Maybe one of the old men who came to get him was a herder. Many of the old people were. But as a vocation it was dying out. What teen or twenty-something would want to get stuck out here? Maybe, if there were enough drugs.

To be fair, there was something calming about watching the flocks methodically eat their way across the valley floor. But who would want to sit out here contemplating … what? A future that might not exist? He wanted more; even if it meant losing his identity, becoming more than all this or maybe just in addition to all this.

In that moment he knew his mind was made up. He took a deep breath, relaxed, and pushed the long side of his mohawk haircut behind his ear. The man standing directly behind him gave him a nudge, a sign that they needed to get going. There were four horses tied to the brush below—and one of them was Apache. The horse looked his way as he started down the path from the cave and whinnied loudly, pawing the hard-packed clay and pulling back on the lead rope that tethered him to a small bush.

The other horses carried saddles. But that was okay. Nathan had ridden bareback since he was a child. He’d used a saddle when he was teaching Zac to ride Rain, worried that someone not used to riding might struggle with balance. Otherwise, Nathan preferred feeling the horse beneath him, able to guide it expertly with his legs, without the constricting stiffness of leather and a blanket.

He quickly untied Apache, who nickered softly pushing his head into Nathan’s shoulder. After a hug and a few rubs behind his ears, Nathan jumped to land mid-section first across the horse’s back before swinging a leg up and over, scrambling quickly to sit upright. Apache did a fancy little two-step, kicking up dust, happy to have his owner aboard.

It was six miles to his uncle’s house, a hogan with two corrals, its own well, a summer stick house and a sweat lodge. Nathan knew, compared to others, he was rich—a landowner, with several houses, and several hundred sheep. No doubt some of these riches resulted from his position in the society of witches. His uncle held immense power in the tribe, mostly garnered out of fear. When he was younger, his uncle had been a Shaman; only in later life did he weave evil into his practice of good. Nathan always wondered how two complete opposites could join to make a whole. How could you make people well only to possibly kill them?

His uncle had seen many changes on the reservation in his lifetime, yet still represented the old ways. Even when others brought in trailers like the one Nathan had lived in with his grandmother, or built block houses, his uncle remained traditional—an eight-sided hogan built out of logs, saplings, and covered with weeds, grass, and bark before a layer of mud was applied. There was a hole in the center for the smoke from a cook fire to escape and the doorway opened to the east to welcome the morning sun and receive good blessings.

Nathan had a friend who bragged about how much money his family made by renting out their traditional house during the summer. There were people who wanted ‘an authentic experience’, he used to say—would pay big money to sleep on a mattress on the dirt floor and cook outside, grinding condiments in a metate. He wasn’t sure his friend was telling the truth.

Nathan turned Apache loose in the corral farthest from the hogan after a quick brushing and making certain the horse had fresh water. And then, just in case the horse hadn’t eaten that morning, he tossed a flake of grass/hay mix into the feed trough. Then he carefully rolled the lead rope into a circle and looped it over a post not visible from the hogan. Before he walked back to the hogan, he moved Rain to the same corral and tossed out another flake. The horses had been together since they were foals and were seldom separated now.

The day was warm and someone had moved his uncle to the summer stick house to lie on a pallet of mattresses where he could be fanned by a natural breeze. His skin had shrunk to cling to the bones of his face and hands, outlining the cavities that had once been plump cheeks and a pencil thinness that had once been fleshy fingers. These were the only parts of his body not covered by a light wool blanket. There were dark patches of skin beneath his eyes and his body seemed brittle and small beneath the covering. His eyes were closed and every fourth or fifth breath seemed to stick in his throat causing a gurgling sound before escaping. Nathan sat in the dirt beside his uncle’s makeshift cot. The old men who had brought Nathan here stayed in the background out of respect for the dying and a fear of contamination. Any death was to be shunned.

There was no doubt his uncle was dying. As the only living family member, Nathan would have to choose the two or three men who would dig the grave and carry his uncle to his final place of rest. As part of the Witchery Way ritual, the grave would remain a secret but his uncle would probably join others from the society who had passed before him, and more than likely would end up in an area close to the caves of his ancestors. In death the Anasazi were not a threat.

In fact, it was believed that the newly dead added their power to the graves of the ancients, feeding the evil of the Witchery Way, making certain that Skinwalkers could draw upon this power by always having access to it.

Growing up, Nathan heard stories about how Skinwalkers who died of natural causes—like old age—would not be buried but left naked in a sacred place so that they could more easily return to their animal form. Would this be how his uncle’s body was prepared for an afterlife? Would a Pronghorn Antelope take on his spirit, the old man melding into the very flesh of something so alive?

To continue his evil?

From his perch within the stick house, Nathan watched the sun slide lower in the west. His uncle’s condition hadn’t changed, but his labored breathing had slowed and become more of a rattle. The minute his uncle passed, and after he had helped tie the body to a horse for its last journey, Nathan would have a narrow window to seize his own freedom. As the afternoon hours crept on, the boy knew exactly what he would do. He felt a blip of excitement, knowing that a new life was almost within reach.