“A’moo’ooh! A’moo’ooh!”
You have seen her
We will be blessed
again.
At noon one of old Grandma’s grand-nieces brought Ku’oosh two lard pails. The steam from one smelled like red chili stew; the other was full of oven bread and pieces of fried bread. They passed around the pail of stew, using pieces of bread to scoop out the meat and to soak up the chili. When they had finished, he followed them to the back of the kiva where the gourd dipper floated on top of the water pail; he drank last, and after he drank, Ku’oosh poked at the fire and dropped the dipper into the flames.
When the sun was dropping near the center of the west window, they stood up. They were going home to rest and eat supper; they would be back later, after dark, old man Ku’oosh told him. He could have water, but no food; he was not to leave the kiva. Ku’oosh showed him an old enamel chamber pot with a lid. He said to drink the water cupping it in the hands.
They unraveled
the dead skin
Coyote threw
on him.
They cut it up
bundle by bundle.
Every evil
which entangled him
was cut
to pieces.
They found Harley and Leroy together in the big boulders below the road off Paguate Hill. The old GMC pickup was crushed around them like the shiny metal coffin the Veterans Office bought for each of them. In that way it was not much different than if they had died at Wake Island or Iwo Jima: the bodies were dismembered beyond recognition and the coffins were sealed. The morning of the funeral an honor guard from Albuquerque fired the salute; two big flags covered the coffins completely, and it looked as if the people from the village had gathered only to bury the flags.
Auntie talked to him now the way she had talked to Robert and old Grandma all those years, with an edge of accusation about to surface between her words. But after old man Ku’oosh had come around, her eyes dropped from his face as if there were nothing left to watch for. But she said that now the women at Church came to her privately, after mass or before the bingo games, to ask her how she had managed all those years to face the troubles which had been dropped into her lap. And she remarked to old Grandma, dozing beside her stove with the dial turned all the way to HIGH, and to Tayo who was oiling his hunting boots: “I tell them, ‘It isn’t easy. It never has been easy,’ I say.”
She came in from mass that morning with a look of triumph.
“Pinkie finally got killed,” she said, without even bothering to remind them she had said it would happen all along, ever since he had lost those sheep of hers while he was at their sheep camp.
“How did it happen?”
“Yes, what happened?” old Grandma said, coming out of a doze to sit up straight in her chair.
“He was washing dishes at Sarracino’s sheep camp.”
“Aww, that lazy old thing,” old Grandma said. “How could he have been washing dishes?”
“Remember how I warned you, Tayo? I told you I didn’t want that crowd hanging around our ranch with their drinking and carrying on.”
“Was Emo there?” Tayo asked.
“Well, he was the one! He did it! Pinkie was standing there, washing dishes in a pan on top of the stove. The others were sitting around the table drinking. They say there were empty beer cans and wine bottles all over the place. Anyway, they say they got to playing around with that rifle Sarracino keeps there.”
Old Grandma scuffed her slippers against the floor in front of her chair and rattled her cane against the chair leg. “Dear, could you give Tayo that money in my pocketbook? I think my stove is getting low on oil.” She buttoned the top buttons of her old black sweater and pulled her shawl up around her chin.
“Mama,” Auntie said, “I’m trying to tell you how poor Pinkie got killed instantly. Shot in the back of the head. Besides, Robert filled it yesterday.”
Old Grandma acted as if she didn’t hear what Auntie said. “Is he in jail?”
“The FBI called it an accident.” Auntie shook her head. “After all the trouble he made for us — that time with Tayo — but I heard they told him to go away. They told him to never come back around here. The old man said that. They told him.” Auntie paused. “I heard he went to California,” she said.
“California,” Tayo repeated softly, “that’s a good place for him.”
Old Grandma shook her head slowly, and closed her cloudy eyes again. “I guess I must be getting old,” she said, “because these goings-on around Laguna don’t get me excited any more.” She sighed, and laid her head back on the chair. “It seems like I already heard these stories before. . only thing is, the names sound different.”
Whirling darkness
started its journey
with its witchery
and
its witchery
has returned upon it.
Its witchery
has returned
into its belly.
Its own witchery
has returned
all around it.
Whirling darkness
has come back on itself.
It keeps all its witchery
to itself.
It doesn’t open its eyes
with its witchery.
It has stiffened
with the effects of its own witchery.
It is dead for now.
It is dead for now.
It is dead for now.
It is dead for now.
Sunrise,
accept this offering,
Sunrise.