People of the Mesa: A Novel of Native America. Ardath Mayhar
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people of the mesa, nobody really needed a turkey. The fowls gabbled and dusted themselves and got underfoot and dashed blindly into the middle of anything that might offer food. Many thought them an unmitigated nuisance, though they were undoubtedly useful for their feathers and their meat. They came from the wild to settle among the People, who must have seemed to be inexhaustible sources of food.
Strangely, he had found it in him to love one of those ungainly birds. What had been its name?
In his youthful ignorance, he had thought that bird the most magnificent gift he could offer to her. Ah! To-ho-pe-pe! That had been what he called that turkey! To-ho-pe-pe.
Uhtatse chuckled softly, recalling the magnificent tail the bird had taken such pride in spreading as he swelled his chest and empurpled his ugly face. He had gobbled louder than any turkey ever known before. Ahyallah had considered him a burden that no family should have to endure, but she had said little. Uhtatse had been so solitary a boy that she was happy for him to have even so unlikely a companion as this one.
* * * *
On the morning of his return, the bird had met him as he came back from his purification. To-ho-pe-pe had stomped about on the path before the key-shaped doorway of his mother’s part of the pueblo, waiting for him. And when Uhtatse walked away toward Sihala’s house, the bird followed, muttering and grumbling at his heels. It was as if the creature had missed him and was scolding him for leaving without any warning.
Other people had pets, of course, but those were rabbits and magpies that were caught and tamed or parakeets traded for with the Anensi, or even, sometimes, puppies. Kangaroo rats and chipmunks were the pets of children. But only Uhtatse had a turkey. The laughter of his contemporaries had never bothered the boy, and it didn’t bother him now. A friend was a friend, no matter if it had wattles hanging from its face and neck and terrible manners and worse habits. He was smiling as he listened to the constant mutter of turkey-talk behind him.
Ki-shi-o-te was waiting in his wife’s doorway, his face showing his gladness. They sat on the sunny side of the pueblo while Sihala moved back and forth with bags and baskets and cord, getting ready to store the vegetables as soon as they were harvested from the fields. She worried much, did Sihala, and much of her provender would spoil before winter came, but she never seemed to learn not to waste her time and strength.
Ihyannah sat on a stone, bent over her metate. Her grinding stone never faltered in its rhythm as Uhtatse approached, but he knew when she saw him. She went stiff for an instant, though her hand moved the mano without pause. Her dark eyes sparked as she turned to glance at him.
Neither spoke. That would be a breach of etiquette, for it was not fitting to show the emotions openly.
Squatting beside his teacher, the boy recounted the tale of his days in the niche. “Now I know,” he said earnestly. “Now I feel and I hear the voices of all the living things and those that are seemingly lifeless, as well. The taint of that spilled blood has left my body and my spirit. I believe that now I can become the Old One that my people need.”
The old man looked away over the lands far below the high spot where the pueblo stood. His eyes were bracketed with sad lines. “It is as well,” he said. “For your predecessor has gone to the Place Beyond. Two days ago he disappeared. We have danced and sung for him, and his spirit has not spoken to us. He has gone from among us.”
Uhtatse stared, shocked. “He was not ill...,” he began.
“No. It was the time for him. A stone he trusted broke beneath his foot. He fell from the cliff, and we have not found his body. That is where his spirit will be, grieving about the spot where his broken body is hidden. It will not be able to go to the Other Place, and that is a terrible thing.”
Uhtatse rose. “I will find the place. I will bring his body back, so that his bones can loose his spirit. He was my friend and the protector of our people. The grass will tell me where to look. The trees and bushes will reveal to me the spot where he lies.
“But before I go, I must ask you. Will your woman allow me to make a gift to her daughter?”
Ki-shi-o-te looked pleased. “You are now the One Who Smells the Wind,” he said. “It would not be fitting for her to object, though you must ask her, of course. And also you must ask Ihyannah if such a gift would please her.”
Uhtatse interrupted Sihala’s constant going and coming by putting himself before her doorway, so she could not enter her house. “It would give me pleasure to make a gift to your child Ihyannah. Will you grant permission?”
Sihala was even older than her husband. Her eyes had faded to a pale golden shade, and she squinted with her effort to see him clearly. The wrinkled hands smoothed the basket they held nervously, as if they were uncomfortable when they were not busy.
“If my daughter is pleased, then I have no objection,” she said, her voice thin with age and something like nervousness. “You must ask her. Ihyannah! You may leave your work.”
The girl rose from her place, leaving the mano still warm from her hand amid the half-ground corn.
“What does the One Who Smells the Wind want of me?” she asked. Her voice sounded meek, but her eyes were twinkling with laughter, and he could hear it in her voice as well.
That did not bother Uhtatse. Of all the young people on the mesa, only Ihyannah never laughed at him. She laughed at some secret inside herself that somehow she shared with him. He had always known that. And now the secret was coming out into the open, for when she looked deep into his eyes, he knew she had foreseen this day.
He smiled. “I have little to offer you, Ihyannah. Your mother is rich in blankets and food. Yet I have one friend in all the world. He thinks himself much greater than he is, but if you want him, he is yours.
“To-ho-pe-pe, this is your new mistress!”
Ihyannah leaned against the juniper that shaded the doorway and began to laugh. Even as she laughed, she held out her hand to the bird. A bit of meal clung to her fingers, and she let him pick it, though his beak must have hurt as he pecked.
“No one but Uhtatse would offer such a gift,” she gasped. “I have been offered necklaces brought by the Anensi, birds with bright feathers, aprons of softest turkey feathers, but I have rejected them all. For what I wanted, truly and always, was a turkey of this exact size and temperament. A bird who knows his worth. Uhtatse’s friend, as am I.” She scratched the creature’s ugly head, and he cocked his neck this way and that to let her reach the best spots for tickling.
The boy felt light, filled with joy and incredulity. Ihyannah was slim and strong, her thighs gleaming with oil, her small breasts just beginning to round into maturity. Her face was narrow and intelligent. Almost naked as she was, she glowed with the sunlight like the shells the Anensi brought from the distant sea, the light seeming to strike through her flesh. For such as she to wait for his gift was a wonderful thing, indeed.
He could not speak his feelings. He sought about in his mind for the proper words, but they were hidden in some cavern deep inside and would not come out for his use. Yet when she looked at him, he knew he need not tell her. She knew, and she had known for as long as he that they two were matched in their ways and their minds. It would be a good life, he knew.
“I must go now,” he said. “I must find my old friend’s body and bring it back. Think good thoughts for my search, Ihyannah.” And that was his first use of her name, as his promised wife.
Chapter Eight
When he left the walled space before the pueblo, the breeze brought to him many signals. He paused before heading for the spot from which Ki-shi-o-te had told him the old protector of the People had fallen. Throwing back his head, he breathed to the depths of his lungs, sorting out the scents that came to him.
There seemed to be nothing but the odors of growing plants, animals of all kinds and sizes, birds going about their business, and people and their affairs. There was no taint of death in the air, though he would have caught that unmistakable scent, no matter how far he might be above the place where