They will poison the water they will spin the water away and there will be drought the people will starve.
They will fear what they find They will fear the people They kill what they fear.
Entire villages will be wiped out They will slaughter whole tribes.
Corpses for us
Blood for us
Killing killing killing killing.
And those they do not kill will die anyway at the destruction they see at the loss at the loss of the children the loss will destroy the rest.
Stolen rivers and mountains
the stolen land will eat their hearts
and jerk their mouths from the Mother.
The people will starve.
They will bring terrible diseases
the people have never known.
Entire tribes will die out
covered with festered sores
shitting blood
vomiting blood.
Corpses for our work
Set in motion now set in motion by our witchery set in motion to work for us.
They will take this world from ocean to ocean they will turn on each other they will destroy each other Up here in these hills they will find the rocks, rocks with veins of green and yellow and black. They will lay the final pattern with these rocks they will lay it across the world and explode everything.
Set in motion now set in motion To destroy To kill Objects to work for us objects to act for us Performing the witchery for suffering for torment for the still-born the deformed the sterile the dead. Whirling whirling whirling whirling set into motion now set into motion.
So the other witches said
“Okay you win; you take the prize,
but what you said just now—
it isn’t so funny
It doesn’t sound so good.
We are doing okay without it
we can get along without that kind of thing.
Take it back.
Call that story back.”
But the witch just shook its head
at the others in their stinking animal skins, fur and feathers.
It’s already turned loose.
It’s already coming.
It can’t be called back.
They left on horseback before dawn. The old man rode a skinny pinto mare with hip bones and ribs poking against the hide like springs of an old car seat. But she was strong and moved nimbly up the narrow rocky path north of Betonie’s hogan. The old man’s helper rode a black pony, hunching low over its neck with his face in the mane. Maybe he rode like that for warmth, because it was cold in those foothills before dawn; the night air of the high mountains was chilled by the light of the stars and the shadows of the moon. The brown gelding stumbled with Tayo; he reined it in and walked it more slowly. Behind them in the valley, the highway was a faint dark vein through the yellow sand and red rock. He smelled piñon and sage in the wind that blew across the stony backbone of the ridge. They left the red sandstone and the valley and rode into the lava-rock foothills and pine of the Chuska Mountains.
“We’ll have the second night here,” Betonie said, indicating a stone hogan set back from the edge of the rimrock.
Tayo stood near the horses, looking down the path over the way they had come. The plateaus and canyons spread out below him like clouds falling into each other past the horizon. The world below was distant and small; it was dwarfed by a sky so blue and vast the clouds were lost in it. Far into the south there were smoky blue ridges of the mountain haze at Zuni. He smoothed his hand over the top of his head and felt the sun. The mountain wind was cool; it smelled like springs hidden deep in mossy black stone. He could see no signs of what had been set loose upon the earth: the highways, the towns, even the fences were gone. This was the highest point on the earth: he could feel it. It had nothing to do with measurements or height. It was a special place. He was smiling. He felt strong. He had to touch his own hand to remember what year it was: thick welted scars from the shattered bottle glass.
His mother-in-law suspected something.
She smelled coyote piss one morning.
She told her daughter.
She figured Coyote was doing this.
She knew her son-in-law was missing.
There was no telling what Coyote had done to him.
Four of them went to track the man.
They tracked him to the place he found deer tracks.
They found the place the deer was arrow-wounded
where the man started chasing it.
Then they found the place where Coyote got him.
Sure enough those coyote tracks went right along there
Right around the marks in the sand where the man lay.
The human tracks went off toward the mountain where the man must have crawled. They followed the tracks to a hard oak tree where he had spent a night. From there he had crawled some distance farther and slept under a scrub oak tree. Then his tracks went to a piñon tree and then under the juniper where he slept another night. The tracks went on and on but finally they caught up with him sleeping under the wild rose bush. “What happened? Are you the one who left four days ago, my grandchild?” A coyote whine was the only sound he made. “Four days ago you left, are you that one, my grandchild?” The man tried to speak but only a coyote sound was heard, and the tail moved back and forth sweeping ridges in the sand. He was suffering from thirst and hunger he was almost too weak to raise his head. But he nodded his head “yes.”
“This is him all right, but what can we do to save him?”
They ran to the holy places they asked what might be done.
“At the summit of Dark Mountain ask the four old Bear People. They are the only possible hope they have the power to restore the mind. Time and again it has been done.”
Big Fly went to tell them. The old Bear People said they would come They said Prepare hard oak scrub oak piñon juniper and wild rose twigs Make hoops tie bundles of weeds into hoops. Make four bundles tie them with yucca spruce mixed with charcoal from burned weeds snakeweed and gramma grass and rock sage. Make four bundles.
The rainbows were crossed. They had been his former means of travel. Their purpose was to restore this to him.
They made Pollen Boy right in the center of the white corn painting. His eyes were blue pollen his mouth was blue pollen his neck was too There were pinches of blue pollen at his joints.