KUJUR
The rich aroma of roasting meat wakes me, but I’m so tired I just roll to my side and tug the curly buffalo hide more tightly around me. The fur has been turned in for warmth, creating a soft cushion for my aching body. If only I could sleep here for a moon, I’m sure I would heal.
Still half asleep, I think I’m in Sky Ice Village, but I don’t feel my family moving around me, and Mother and Father always rise before I do. Every morning since they adopted me, I have wakened to the soft sounds of their voices, and it’s made me happy. Not only that, the pungency of zyme does not suffuse the air.
Instead, dust fills my nostrils.
Where am I?
Pushing down the hide, I see the Flame Bird nestled in a hole she’s dug in the ground five paces away from the campfire. She’s clearly been taking a dust bath, for dirt coats her scales.
“I didn’t know that creatures without fur or feathers took dust baths.”
The Flame Bird scratches up more dirt and flops onto her side to roll her right wing in it, then she switches, flops to her other side and rustles around, throwing a haze of firelit dust into the air.
I blink at the rocky cliff that seems to lean over our camp. There’s no snow or ice, just massive ridges of blood-red sandstone that slither serpent-like across the desert. Searching the campfires of the dead, I try to find some pattern that seems familiar. The Wolf Pup constellation should be right there, and Bear Hunter should be over there, but they’re not. I don’t recognize anything. Bewildered, I scan the entire sky from horizon to horizon.
Slowly, the truth dawns on me.
“Am I dead?”
Rose-red light rims the Flame Bird’s nostrils as she flares them to smell me.
Hard to say. Life and death blur in both directions.
“If I’m dead, where are my ancestors? My ancestors are supposed to greet me.”
The Flame Bird rises, shakes off the dirt, and walks through the dust cloud to stand on the opposite side of the fire from me. With her long, toothy muzzle she points to the stick of roasted meat leaning over the flames keeping warm.
“Thank you.” I grab the stick and take a cautious bite of the hot meat. “This is good. I haven’t eaten in . . . well, I don’t know how long, but it seems like forever. What is this meat? I’ve never eaten it before.”
Desert cottontails died out before the zyme was born.
While I chew the tender meat, I notice for the first time that the Flame Bird is so thin her ribs catch the firelight. They resemble bright bars down the length of her scaled chest. Is she sick?
“Are you hungry?” I hold out the stick. “Do you want part of this?”
The Flame Bird extends her neck, rips off a hunk of the meat, and gobbles it down.
I alternate with her. First I take a bite, then she takes a bite.
Chewing slowly, I let the strength of the desert cottontail seep into my body. After I’ve eaten enough, I hand the rest of the meat to her and she snatches the stick from my hand with her talons, tears the last chunk off, and swallows it whole, bones and all.
“This place smells strange,” I whisper as I sniff at the fragrances drifting on the night breeze—damp earth and some sort of blossoms I don’t recognize. On occasion, I hear owls hoot, but their calls are very different from the owls I know. It’s as though we have journeyed across the shining blackness and stepped into a bright new world.
“Why is it so warm here? I didn’t know there was a warm place left in the world.”
Sometimes souls get lost. Random coordinates draw you to look over the edge of the precipice.
Frowning, I ask, “You mean I’m lost?”
I’m lost.
She heaves a sigh and slowly blinks at the ground. I think maybe she’s sad or lonely.
“So . . . we’re lost?”
The Flame Bird suddenly tilts her head and listens to the night. She stands so still her silver eyelids glow as though aflame. It takes a long while before she whispers: Hear them?
I listen. “What?”
Voices so sublime they make moths weep because the creators made eyes instead of ears on their wings.
I listen harder. Finally, the warm breeze carries the lilting melody to me through the darkness. The notes are deep and resonant, like millions of buffalo singing in unison as they run across endless meadows. Even the campfires of the dead seem to stand motionless in the sky lest they disturb the song with their sparkling.
“Feels like they’re runnin’ in my chest,” I whisper.
Don’t let them get too far ahead.
The Flame Bird rises, and a wave of reflected brilliance moves over her body. She starts marching southward—at least I think it’s southward.
“Is this the way to the Land of the Dead?” I leap up and rush to follow in her steps.
The buffalo call us home.
“Is it far?”
Home is always far away and a long time ago. But you must not let your heart be dried out by the vast empty places you must search. Do you understand?
I think about it. “If you’re with me, I’ll be all right.”
Gazing around at the towering red cliffs, I notice the swath of big bird tracks in the dirt before me. “That’s a lot of tracks. How often do you take this trail?”
Never. I exist, Kujur, but I’m not real. In summer, others follow the flash of fireflies. In winter, they follow the breath of the buffalo.
I rub my dust-clogged runny nose. “If you’re not real, why do I see you?”
There are little shadows that run across the grass and lose themselves in the sunset. I’m right there. Between the shadow and the sunset. That’s where you see me.
The Flame Bird picks up her pace and lifts into the air to fly above the trail. It’s stunning to see her huge body flapping over my head.
I have to run hard to keep up.