Am rande hocktder Maerchenerzaehler. . ..
Her eyes skim the page to the end:
Heiss willkommen den Fremden.Du wirst ein Fremder sein.Bald.
Warmly welcome the stranger.You will be a stranger.Soon.
The sound of soft footsteps comes to her from the corridor. “Dakota? Is that you?”
“I’m here. In the kitchen.” She closes the book and sets it on the stack of clothing to be carried to what is now her room.
Kirsten appears in the doorway, her glasses shoved up onto the top of her head, her eyes weary. Koda glances up at her, taking in the slump of her shoulders, the small lines at the corners of her mouth. To Dakota, it is one of the sweetest sights she’s ever seen. Even dog-tired, Kirsten has an aura of strength and vitality about her that speaks deeply to Koda’s soul. A powerful, intense intelligence, honed to a razor’s edge, blazes even from tired eyes. The innate goodness within, and the beauty without, shine rose and gold, like the setting sun on a warm summer’s day. She wonders, briefly, why it has taken her so long to truly see this—or if not to see, then to admit. “You need a break,” she says aloud, shrugging mental shoulders over questions she might not ever be able to answer.
“I feel like my damned neck’s already broken.” Kirsten scrubs her knuckles over the tight muscles running from her shoulders up to the back of her head. “Those techs Maggie lent me are worth their weight in microchips, but looking for a micron sized needle in a planet sized haystack is what headaches are made of. When it gets like this I’m afraid I’m going to look straight at the smoking gun and not recognize it. And the whole world will slip back to living in caves and hunting with bone spears because I’m too tired to know what I’m looking at.” She smiles, then, a sparkle of life coming to beautiful jade eyes. “I’m optimistic, though. We’re making damn good progress. If we’re lucky, and the creek don’t rise, as my dad used to say, we might have some preliminary data within the next couple of days.”
“Good news for sure. How about the search for the mole? Any progress?”
Kirsten’s smile fades. “No. Maggie’s up in arms, professionally, of course, but her job’s even harder than mine, I’m afraid. We’re keeping this on a strictly ‘need to know’ basis. She hasn’t even let Hart in on it.”
“Trust no one.”
“Except for me and thee,” Kirsten jokes, smiling again. Then she winces as a bolt of pain shoots up her neck and takes up residence in the back of her head.
Rising to her feet, Koda slides her hand along Kirsten’s shoulder and up her neck. “Oh yeah,” she says. “You could bounce tennis balls off that and never feel it. How about some chamomile tea?”
Kirsten’s mouth purses in distaste. “How about a shot of Johnnie Walker?”
“If we had any.” Koda grins. “How about some horse liniment?”
“You don’t—you’re kidding me, aren’t you?”
“Compromise?” Koda holds up the box of herbal tea and begins to fill a small saucepan with water. “Ina sent some honey. You won’t have to drink it plain.”
“Your mom’s an amazing woman. Food, clothes, books. . ..” Koda follows Kirsten’s gaze as she takes in the unexpected bounty. “What’s this in the bottom? It looks like bedding.”
“It probably is. And a snakebite kit, and a needle and thread, and a roadside flare, and—”
“—a partridge in a pear tree.” Kirsten finishes.
“Nah. The partridge is already in the freezer.” While the water boils, Koda moves the books her mother has sent into the living room, leaving some on the low chest that serves as a coffee table, shelving others. The clothes she hangs in the half of the closet of Maggie’s room that has become hers. If she is honest, the room is hers, too, and possibly the house; if Hart breaks entirely, Maggie will probably move into the commandant’s quarters. Koda returns to the kitchen to find Kirsten scooping the herbal mixture into the warmed pot, with cups and honey set on the counter. “Ready?”
“Almost,” Kirsten answers, turning to take the water off the burner and pour it over the chamomile. “Let me help you with that large bundle while this steeps.”
“I’ve got it. It’s just some—” Koda breaks off abruptly as she runs her hands down the sides of the box to lift the parcel out. It does not feel like sheets and towels at all. “No, it isn’t. It’s a blanket or a quilt, I think.” Wedged tight at the bottom, the bundle comes free suddenly, its muslin wrapper falling away to reveal a blazing spectrum of reds and oranges and golden yellow, highlighted here and there by deep peacock shades of blue and violet.
“Well, that would have been handy back in February— ” Kirsten, turning toward the stove, stops as if rooted to the floor, her hand halfway to the handle of the saucpan. “God, that’s beautiful!”
Koda runs her hand gently over the myriad small lozenges that make up the pattern, letting the folds of the quilt fall open to reveal the full design. “It’s a star quilt,” she says quietly.
“It looks almost like a Maltese cross,” Kirsten says. Carefully, she turns off the burner and pours the hot water into the teapot. “May I?”
Koda nods, and together they maneuver the half-open quilt out of the kitchen and into the living room, spreading it over the back of the couch in front of the fire burning low in the grate. Kirsten gasps as the design comes into full view, the eight-pointed star covering almost the entire field of the quilt, worked all in the colors of fire, from its blue heart to its white edges. Kneeling in front of the couch, running her hands gently over the fabric, she says, “It means something, doesn’t it? I mean, you don’t just sleep under this, do you?”
“You can, but no, not usually.” Koda moves a couple books and sits on the chest. Her fingers trace the gradual shading from electric blue at the heart of the star, through yellow and flame orange and red and yellow again. Almost she can feel heat rising from it, the blaze at the heart of the star searing her skin. “A quilt like this is given at times of change in a person’s life. A marriage, a promotion, a coming of age. Sometimes it’s the commemoration of a death.”
“Your wolf,” Kirsten says softly.
“Wa Uspewikakiyape. Yes.” Again Koda runs her hand over the quilt’s surface, tracing the impossibly small, even stitches. “Mother had this one on the frame when I left home back in December.”
“Why a star?”
Koda pauses a moment, studying Kirsten’s face. Love is there, in the softly parted lips; pain in the shadowed eyes. The other woman is a scientist, though, finding her truth in numbers and measurements, in electrons streaming down the tidy paths cut by mathematical formulae. How much of the unquantifiable shaman’s way can she tolerate? How far be willing to follow? “In Lakota tradition,” Koda says, slowly, choosing her words carefully, “there are two roads. One, the Red Road, begins in the east with the dawn, and moves toward the west. This is our life on Ina Maka, our Mother Earth.”
“From sunrise to sunset.”
“Yes, but also from Morning Star to Evening Star. They have their counterparts in North Star and Southern Star, and the Blue Road of spirit runs between them. One who leaves the earth goes to walk the Wanaghi Tacanku, the Ghost Road, guided by Wohpe, whom we also call White Buffalo Calf Woman. At some point along that road, she makes a decision about each soul.”
“Like a last judgement? Heaven and Hell?”
Kirsten’s brow draws into a frown, and Koda reaches out a hand to smooth it away. “It depends. Some of our great teachers, like Wanblee Mato, Frank Fools Crow, say that the spirit goes on to be with Wakan Tanka for eternity. But they have been influenced by the missionaries the government sent to ‘civilize’ us.” Koda makes no effort to keep the bitterness from her voice. “A soul that is not worthy of Great Mystery is turned loose to wander forever, and I suppose that would qualify as hell.”