People of the Mesa: A Novel of Native America. Ardath Mayhar
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and friendship. Uhtatse did the same. Then, formalities done with, they lay together on the rock and looked down at the firelit scene below them.
“And are you a great hunter, as so many of your people are?” asked the Anensi.
Uhtatse grunted. “When I was a boy, my uncle taught me to use the atlatl and the spear, and I was not bad, if not good either. But now I cannot kill.”
Ra-onto turned onto his side and stared at him, his dark eyes shining in the firelight. “You cannot kill? Not anything? Not even a rattlesnake or a tarantula in your blanket?”
“Nothing. I cannot pick a leaf from a tree or even crush a blade of grass, if I can avoid touching it. To do that is to divide myself from the world. If I did so, the mesa and the creatures on it would not speak to me, and I could not hear, even if they did. I cannot help my mother to pull the weeds from her gardens. I cannot pick a flower in the spring. Yet, in return, I can see and hear and feel things that it is not given to many to understand. It is a fair trade, I think.”
Ra-onto nodded. “It seems to be. What can you feel now? Or is there too much noise and bustle here?”
Uhtatse had not tried sensing, in such circumstances. It was an interesting thought, and he felt that he could try. He stared away from the fire, down into the darkness behind the great stone where he lay. He opened his ears, his nose, his heart to the words of the light breeze blowing chill across the mesa top.
He felt a great owl swoop to pounce upon an unwary mouse in the grain field. A deer stirred, reaching for another nibble of oak leaves down in the Middle Way. The feel of the small herd around that individual came clearly to Uhtatse. A buck and two does and this single yearling.
Magpies quarreled softly in their roost. The water rippled in the wind across the catchments. Everything fitted together with seamless ease, nothing troubling the air or earth, the water or the creatures living in any of them.
“All is well,” he said. “I had not tried doing that before. I am glad it can be done, even in the middle of such confusion—it was as if my mind could close its door-hide, shutting out the light and the bustle.”
The other boy looked impressed. “I can see that you do, indeed, have a rare gift. One that I would like to share, if that were possible. Yet, moving as we do, it would not work for us. Things must be familiar always, for such magic to work its best.”
As he thought about the words, Uhtatse found that he agreed. Amid ever-changing surroundings, one could never hope to find that attunement necessary for his work. This made him realize how very different must be the life that Ra-onto lived. He wondered, in turn, if the boy might not find the mesa interesting. “Would you like to come tomorrow, with me? I will show you the mesa, as very few ever know it.”
Ra-onto’s eyes brightened. “I would, indeed, like to see your world through your eyes. I will go.”
Uhtatse rolled again onto his belly and looked down at the men, still talking quietly of things he would never see or smell or feel. But he no longer had a desire to follow the Anensi on their journeying. Something about the conversation with the boy at his side had given him a new appreciation for his own place and people. It was as if he had seen them all, for an instant, through the eyes of Ra-onto.
Now the chants that accompanied the distant dancers sounded fresh to his ears. The pots simmering beside the fires glowed with a new beauty. The very texture of his turkey-feather blanket almost felt unfamiliar to his fingers, as he rolled the stuff between them, feeling the twisted yucca fiber that caught bits of feather in every winding, forming the fluffy warmth. He had never thought of the way it was made, even while watching his people form the strands and weave them into cloth.
“I will show you the mesa,” he murmured to Ra-onto, “as you have shown it to me.”
Chapter Five
The visit of the Anensi came with the first of summer. It enlivened the talk about the evening fires for many weeks, and the things for which the Ahye-tum-datsehe had traded were enjoyed for far longer than that. Among those matters were the parakeets that Ra-onto had traded to Uhtatse for his feather blanket.
That had been a hard choice to make. Uhtatse had been given the blanket by his mother, and he hated to lose it. Yet he traded at last and presented the birds to Ahyallah.
She was very pleased with his gift. The creatures’ bright plumage and their shrill chatter filled her with joy, as she twisted yucca fibers with fur or feathers for the men to weave into blankets. She kept their cage near, whether in her room in the pueblo where she worked in winter or outside beneath a big piñon where she formed her fibers when the weather was fine.
She swore that the new blanket for her son would be a small price to pay for the pleasure she took in her new pets. And, indeed, it seemed that her fingers flew more swiftly to the accompaniment of the twitters of the parakeets.
It seemed to Uhtatse that he alone had been changed by the visit of the traders. Not only had he seen his own world with new eyes, but he had also been made aware that something was missing inside him, something necessary to his task of keeping his people safe. He felt, he smelled, he saw acutely, and he could interpret those sensations accurately. Yet he now knew that he lacked something vital, which had only now been revealed to him as he went about the mesa with Ra-onto.
The land itself did not speak directly to his heart, as it seemed to do for the old One Who Smelled the Wind. He had seen the man pause to bend over a plant, as if listening to some inaudible word it spoke. He had thought it strange and had not understood. Now he knew with sudden certainty, that it was the plant and the soil in which it grew that spoke to the Elder.
The Old One heard what was spoken with no lips and said with no tongue. Uhtatse knew with equal certainty that he had never heard such words, not even after all his effort at sensing his world.
It was as if, in leading Ra-onto about the mesa and pointing out the places where rabbits nested or magpies roosted or deer browsed, he had looked at those things with different eyes. He had recognized in them and in the trees and shrubs about him capacities that he had never attributed to any but men. With that new vision had come the understanding that he lacked the ability to know them.
It had troubled him ever since. He had gone to his elder and asked him for advice, as soon as the problem was clear in his mind. The One Who Smelled the Wind had not been able to help him.
“Each of us must find the Way for himself, young one. For me it was as if a snowflake fell from the sky onto my head, opening my eyes and ears and heart to all things. It has been harder for you, as I have seen. Yet I cannot tell you how you must proceed from here. I believe that you will learn what is needful, however.
“You are perceptive, apt for the task in all other ways. Even as you stand, you will become a better than excellent Smeller of the Wind for the Ahye-tum-datsehe.
“If you can only achieve the higher perceptions, you will become such a master as we have not seen for many generations.” The old man sighed and laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder as if in apology. “It will come to you,” he said, his voice hopeful.
So it was up to Uhtatse alone. He had suspected that might be true, from the beginning. He was now forming a notion of the thing that might be hindering his search.
He had shed blood. Not since his childhood, it was true, and never since his training began. Even when he was being taught to hunt, he had not killed often, and yet it had been done, all those years ago. Now it seemed that the acts must be atoned.
He went to Ki-shi-o-te, when he was certain of his course, and said, “I must purify myself. The shedding of blood, of rabbits and deer and birds, when I was young, is a barrier standing between me and the things I must learn. I must clean from my spirit all the small deaths that I have caused.”
The old man looked into his eyes and nodded. “I will tell your mother. Go, now, Uhtatse. Purify yourself and return, if the gods will have it so. And if we do not meet again, go with my affection. If you were my own nephew I could not feel more love for you. You have great potential