Chapter 33

Canada, Twenty-Eight Years Ago

“Noshi. Please. It’s okay,” Chepi said. “Let’s go outside for a minute.” She turned to the boy. “You stay here until we get back…”

Northern California, Present Time

After pulling her Glock in Danny’s house, Maggie was unsure she’d ever be welcome in his home again. Cathy’s call inviting her to the Pow Wow in Southern California came as a pleasant surprise.

“Jimmy is putting those girls in the tots dancing competition. We all want you with us there if you can get away from work for a day or two. Besides that, Jimmy and Danny want the girls to know more Indians outside the northern tribes.”

“I’d love to attend, Cathy, but it’s a long drive. I may be needed here for the investigation, and besides, I don’t know if Jimmy and Danny really want…”

“You come. It’s important you do something more to mend the family.”

“All right. I’ll be there, and thanks for including me. I’d love to see Flower and Bird dance.”

The day of the event, Bird and Flower dressed in full Yurok regalia, twirled and spun around the room on their toes. “Look at us, Aunt Maggie,” Bird said. Both girls turned one way and then the other to show off.

“I hope we win a prize,” Flower said. “We have been practicing. Grandpa is on the drums.”

“You both look beautiful,” Maggie said. “I can’t wait to see you out there. You’ll be the prettiest girls in the competition.”

While Danny and Cathy browsed the booths, Maggie and Jimmy took the girls to a story circle to hear some of the legends. A Soboba elder in beautiful regalia sat on a stump in the middle of the arena. Children gathered close around him.

“I’m going to tell you a scary Pauma Luiseño story about Dakwish, a bad medicine man who roasts and eats people,” he said.

“You sure you want the girls to hear this?” Maggie said to Jimmy.

“It’s good for them to learn Indian lore. They’re old enough.”

“There was a great chief named Tukupar, which in our language means ‘sky.’ Tukupar had an obedient son named Naukit. One day, Naukit went to hunt rabbits. In the forest he met up with Dakwish, a bad medicine man, who killed him, roasted him on a spit over a fire and ate him.

“Ew,” Bird and Flower said in unison.

When Naukit did not come home, Tukupar was worried. ‘Where has my son gone to?’ Tukupar looked and looked everywhere for Naukit but could not find him. He returned and told his people that Naukit was lost. The next day, he went again to look for his son, and on a big hill in the San Jacintos he found the burned remains of Naukit’s body, most of it eaten, his hair cut off. He knew Dakwish had killed him.

Tukupar was also a medicine man, a powerful magician, and he had a good plan. He called all his people together and said ‘Dakwish killed my son. I am going to Dakwish’s house. I will trick him to come here, and we will kill him.’ The villagers cried because everyone loved Naukit.

The storyteller lowered his voice and leaned into the children. He looked into the faces of each as if he were telling the story directly to only those whose eyes he caught with his own.

There was no ordinary way to enter Dakwish’s house because the door was a huge boulder that men could not open. Only a strong medicine man would know how. Tukupar made himself into a raven and with his beak and claws dug a hole big enough under the rock to get into Dakwish’s house. He carried with him two dead rabbits.

Maggie watched Bird and Flower. The girls were wide-eyed, focused on the elder with rapt attention.

Inside he found Dakwish’s mother who was very much afraid. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here to see Dakwish.’

‘He will kill you if he finds you here.’

‘I will see him anyway. Tell him I am his cousin.’

‘I warn you.’

Tukupar turned back into a man and sat down away from the door, hiding the rabbits.

Late that night, there was a big storm. The thunder clapped, and a big rain came. Rocks tumbled down the mountain. Tukupar waited for a long time. Dakwish came home and his mother met him at the door. ‘There is someone here to see you, one named Tukupar.’

‘I will roast him and eat him.’

‘No, don’t,’ Dakwish’s mother said. ‘He is your cousin.’

‘Then I will eat my cousin.’

Neither of the girls moved until Bird reached over and grasped Flower’s hand.

Dakwish ordered his mother to be quiet and found Tukupar in his house. He tried to grab Tukupar, but being a powerful magician, Tukupar disappeared into thin air and reappeared. Dakwish was impressed.

Dakwish went outside and brought in meat. He offered it to Tukupar, who did not eat it but ate instead the two rabbits he’d hidden. It was dark, so Dakwish did not see that Tukupar had eaten rabbits rather than the meat he’d offered. ‘Ha, ha. You ate human flesh,’ he said. “Now you are like me.”

The storyteller stood, paused, and scanned the faces of the audience. He did a double take when he saw Maggie. He backed up a step, nearly tripping himself on the stump. With his eyes still on Maggie, he sat down hard.

She turned her head from one side to the other looking at the crowd thinking he might be staring at someone else. No. He was looking straight at her.

“I think he likes you,” Jimmy whispered.

“I don’t get why he’s looking at me,” Maggie said.

“I’m telling you, the old guy thinks you’re hot.”

Maggie elbowed her nephew in the ribs. “Knock it off.”

The storyteller gathered his composure, and continued.

‘I was hungry,’ Tukupar said.

‘Now you must dance,” Dakwish said.

‘I do not dance well,’ but he stood.

The storyteller rose from the stump and danced around it, then sat back down, but not before looking directly into Maggie’s face again. He tilted his head and wrinkled his brow.

“Looks like he knows you from somewhere and is trying to figure out where he’s met you,” Jimmy said.

The old man resumed his story.

Dakwish sang a song for Tukupar, who danced even though he said he could not, and while he danced he broke his own arms and legs. Then he rubbed his arms and legs and they healed. Dakwish was impressed. Tukupar said, ‘Now it is time for you to dance like I did and show me what you can do.’ He thought of his plan to trick Dakwish.

The storyteller tapped his temple with his forefinger.

Dakwish danced into a wild frenzy. He cut off his hair with a knife and threw his hair away, tore off his legs and cast them aside. He flew around with only his body and head, then he broke his head apart. From the middle of his body, feather vine, pewish, grew and twisted around his head and torso and that is how he put himself together again.

Tukupar was unafraid. He threw gnats, sengmalum, into the eyes of Dakwish to blind him. Dakwish went crazy because he could not see. ‘Heal me,” Dakwish said. ‘I know you can.’

Tukupar thought about it and decided to cure Dakwish because he had a better punishment in mind.

Dakwish was smart, and could sometimes see into men’s minds. ‘You have bad thoughts about me. Why are you here?” he asked.

‘Because I had a son and he is dead now. You know what happened to him.’

Dakwish said, ‘What are you going to do to me if it was I who killed him?’

“Can we leave the girls here by themselves if we can see them? I want to talk to you for a sec,” Maggie said to Jimmy.

“Sure.” He whispered to the twins. “You two stay here for a minute and listen to the rest of the story. We’ll be right back.”

Jimmy and Maggie rose and walked to a shady spot where they could keep an eye on the twins.

“I’m not trying to tell you how to raise Bird and Flower, so don’t get me wrong,” Maggie said “But don’t you think your little girls are too young to hear about cannibals roasting and eating people? All this stuff about killing and revenge can’t be good for them, especially in the wake of those child murders. This is a damned gruesome story for children.”

Jimmy put his hand up. “Stop right there. These stories have been told to children for centuries. Bird and Flower need to learn about native culture. You don’t even follow the native ways, so why should I care if you approve?”

“Sorry, Jimmy. You’re right. Let’s go back.”

As they made their way to their seats, the storyteller, still sharing the myth, tracked Maggie with his eyes until she took her seat. Several of the children in the front row turned their heads. One said, “What’s he looking at?” The old man averted his attention back to the children. He leaned over them.

“…afterwards Tukupar went to the people of his village. ‘You have to kill Dakwish for me.’ He invited Dakwish back to his village. Right away Dakwish did a terrible thing. He killed a young boy. He pounded him into mush with a pestle and ate him. The boy’s father tore at his hair in grief. When Dakwish was not looking, Tukupar signed to a man with a heavy war-club of oak, dadabish, and the man hit Dakwish on the back of the neck and knocked him down. Then the people pounded him with rocks until they killed him, smashing out his brains.’

Flower clamped her hands over her ears. Bird put a comforting arm around her sister.

Two men carried his body to a place near a spring and laid him down, covered him with wood, and burned him. When Dakwish began to burn, the sky thundered. There was a great noise and an explosion. Sparks went everywhere and Dakwish’s spirit flew into the air. The people said, ‘There he is flying away! The evil one has gone.’

“That is how Tukupar banished evil.”

Bird and Flower sat frozen, their mouths open. They uncrossed their legs, leapt from their seats and ran to Jimmy and Maggie who waited a short distance from the circle.

“Daddy, Auntie, that guy actually cooked and ate people. It’s so gross. He even killed a little boy,” Bird said.

Bird and Flower put their arms around Maggie and clung to her, burying their faces into her chest. She folded them in an embrace and said. “You know none of this is real. It’s only a story, a legend.”

Jimmy kneeled down and reached for his girls who turned to him for comfort. With his arms around his daughters, Jimmy looked up at his aunt. “I guess you were right about them still being a bit too young for this.”

But Maggie didn’t hear what Jimmy said because her attention had shifted to the storyteller. After having made a beeline toward her, he stopped a few feet away. Staring at her, the elder tilted his head one way, then the other. He knitted his brows. He took a step back and his eyes shot open in recognition. He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. I knew I’d seen you before.” He pointed at Maggie. “The Great Father, Cham-na’, showed you to me in a dream-vision. You will stop hichakati.”

“What is hichakati?”

“Wicked, evil. And, you are not listening to your mother. She has called you for a reason. She’s trying to tell you who you are. She asked me to tell you this.”

Without another word, the storyteller turned his back to Maggie. A thick knot of children pressed around the elder as the old man pushed back through the crowd to the center of the arena.

“That was weird,” Jimmy said.

“Yes, very.” An icy chill took hold of Maggie.