The Snake River (18 page)

Sima stood and told of his life. He was born, he said, to a Shoshone woman. She died giving him birth. His father was a British trapper the people called Hairy. This father left before Sima was born. Sima was raised by his grandparents, but he was never accepted by the people. They mocked their young of mixed blood, and made it hard for them to become men, to marry, to become one of the people. So Sima decided to find his father and become a white man.

Flare noticed the lad’s English was pretty damn good. Sima had more brains than most of these missionaries. If he had more sense, too, they’d be gone from this place before long.

This decision to find his father, Sima said, was a great point in his life. Like you set out in a great ship on a great ocean, not know where you land. He had to go into a different world. Set out to walk one thousand miles alone, very hard and dangerous. Come among new people. Learn new language. Make self new person.

Took first few steps, came miracle. Fell down. Broke leg but fine now, he said with a grin. Went into little death—no conscious. Woke up in new world. Found by white people. Miles gone, danger gone. New world not in thousand miles, but in pass—through little death.

Now making self new person every day. Glad to be here.

Sima turned to sit down, but Dr. Full put a hand on his shoulder. “Sima,” he said, “do you seek your earthly father or your heavenly father?”

Sima hesitated. “Both,” he said.

Dr. Full beamed at the congregation.

“Do you understand that seeking your earthly father can be a way of expressing your need for a heavenly father?”

Sima looked uncertain. The lad wanted to please. “Yes,” he said.

“Will you accept this mission’s offer to help you find your heavenly father?”

Now he seemed to smile directly at Flare and said, “You bet!”

After the service almost all the adults went up to Sima and congratulated him on the great voyage he’d undertaken. And congratulated Dr. Full and Miss Jewel on the wonderful work they’d done with the boy.

Flare thought it was a great voyage, too, and he thought Sima was navigating well.

He was very impressed by the way Dr. Full, by putting the right frame around a picture, made it look like the picture he wanted.

Chapter Seventeen

When Sima came back from changing clothes, Flare and Miss Jewel were waiting, ready to walk to the Leslies for dinner.

Sima showed them his new white-man outfit—not the borrowed clothes for his talk in church, but the ones Mrs. Jick had given him. Pants. You had to undo some buttons and drop the front to urinate (he used Miss Jewel’s proper words) and lower the whole outfit to defecate. He looked at Flare conspiratorially. Yes, they were inconvenient, compared to a breechcloth. Shirt—he liked that pretty well. Boots—he hated those, because they hurt. Miss Jewel said his feet would be better when he had some socks. Flare chuckled and said they’d be better when he got some more moccasins.

He told Flare about the assault on his hair, not mentioning the lower hair, but he could see from his suppressed smiles that Flare knew.

“White people don’t have enough brotherly spirit to give residence to tiny creatures,” Flare said with a grin.

Sima didn’t think it was funny.

Sima got through the dinner well enough. He wasn’t used to chairs, and found using a fork awkward, but was able to eat the chicken with his hands. He thought Dr. Full gave him a funny look once, when he was tearing apart a thigh with relish. He’d developed a name for that expression—the Well-he’s-an-Indian look. For dessert they had something new to Sima, blueberry pie. He thought the best thing about the white people was the wonderful sweets they made.

The worst was the jokes they made. When he didn’t get them, he felt anxious again, left out, looking in from the outside. The jokes of other teenagers were the most painful. Sometimes Sima thought the kids were making fun of him. Miss Jewel had a way of knowing when he was feeling that way, and gave him a warm smile.

She had her own troubles, though. She and Reverend Leslie could barely stand each other. The tension between hung like a choking smoke in the air. She thought he and Mrs. Leslie had tried to make her their servant (like a slave, Sima understood). He was a portly, mannered fellow with a self-conscious way of speaking, so Sima couldn’t tell when he was joking and when he was acting important. Reverend Leslie irritated Miss Jewel often, and he didn’t care. Sima had an expression for this, too: white people.

But this was Sima’s time. He had talked to Flare about it and made up his mind. He would learn. He would put himself forward. He would become one of them. This afternoon he would do that by sharing part of himself.

“May I tell a story?” he said in a pause. Dinner was over, and they were drinking coffee around the fireplace. It was wintertime, so he could tell stories.

Everyone look at him uncertainly. “I thank you for your stories,” Sima plunged forward. He looked at them one by one, adults and children alike, taking confidence from the eyes of Flare and Miss Jewel, afraid to look closely at Dr. Full, Reverend Leslie, or their wives. “I am delight to know your ancient and honored stories of Jesus, John the Baptist, King David, Job, and others.” He’d been surprised to hear the stories just any time of year, and not in winter only, but he liked the stories. “They are…” He didn’t know quite what to say about them. To him they showed some connection with Spirit. “They are beautiful stories.

“I would like to give you in return one of the stories of my mother’s people, a tale of Pachee Goyo, who lived before the memories of the grandfathers of the oldest men.”

He looked at Flare for support and got a smile. “Pachee Goyo is a big man among us. He’s called Baldy, because he’s losing his hair and what’s left is gray.

“One day he and his brother Pia-wi-he, which means Big Knife, went to the lake near Wind River where buffalo live underwater.

“Among my people, my
other
people, this lake is a frightening place. A white buffalo was drowned there once. In the winter you can still hear his roar carried across the ice by the wind. People are afraid to go there. If you want to become a man of medicine, of
poha
, you must sleep there one night in the winter. Many men have failed this test.”

Sima was watching his audience. That word “medicine” made him nervous. Whites seemed to speak it mockingly, not knowing it meant power of spirit. Still, he thought he had their attention, especially the kids’. Maybe Dr. Full was looking a little superior, but it was going well.

“When Pachee Goyo and Big Knife went there, the lake was not frozen. After they camped overnight, Big Knife suggested they hunt the buffalo who live underwater there. Big Knife said he would bring a buffalo out of the lake. Pachee Goyo was just to wait on the shore and shoot it with arrows when it came out.

“So Big Knife waded into the water with nothing but his breechcloth and a rawhide thong. Suddenly the lake whipped up in high waves. Pachee Goyo shot angrily at the whitecaps with his arrows, one right after the other, cursing the lake for drowning his brother. When all his arrows were gone, he threw his bow into the lake and hightailed it.

“When the lake calmed, out came Big Knife, leading a buffalo. He wondered what had happened to Pachee Goyo, who was supposed to shoot the creature. Big Knife picked a broken arrow out of the water and killed the buffalo.

“Then he saw their great-uncle Basee Wauts the Snail. But Snail had not seen Pachee Goyo. Big Knife butchered the buffalo and gave Snail some fat and the stomach filled with water and asked him to find Pachee Goyo and give him these things.

“Old man Snail crept over mountains and rivers and finally spotted Baldy in a desert. Pachee Goyo was on his knees, very still, his head under a cactus plant. When Snail touched him with a cane, Pachee Goyo complained that his meditation was spoiled.

“Snail gave him the food and water. Pachee Goyo wolfed it down and hurried back to the lake.

“That evening while the two brothers were broiling buffalo steaks, Snail strolled into camp. They gave him meat to take home, but before leaving, he warned them: ‘Cook lots of meat,’ he said, ‘because Pachee Goyo is a big eater. Don’t build a fire at night. And don’t sleep on the ground—build a platform in a tree. Take the meat up there so you won’t get hungry.’

“They did as they were told. When Big Knife fell asleep in the tree, Pachee Goyo finished all the meat and was still sitting there hungry. He told Big Knife he was going down to build a fire and cook some more meat.

“‘Don’t you dare!’ asserted Big Knife. To keep Pachee Goyo from going down, Big Knife gave him the rest of his own meat.

“When Pachee Goyo finished this meat, he was still hungry. He told Big Knife he was going down the tree to build a fire and cook more. Complaining that Pachee Goyo just wouldn’t learn, Big Knife said all right.

“Soon Pachee Goyo was eating by the fire. Suddenly he heard a great whirring. The trees trembled, and the fire nearly went out. A huge horned owl lighted and sat by the fire, watching Pachee Goyo.

“Pachee Goyo offered him a legbone. The owl just looked at Pachee Goyo. Thinking maybe Owl wanted to be fed, Pachee Goyo rubbed the bone against the bird’s beak and tried to pry its mouth open. Owl didn’t budge. Finally Pachee Goyo got disgusted. He clobbered Owl in the head with the bone and knocked it unconscious. Then he went back to eating.”

Some of the kids tittered. Evidently they thought Giant Owl was pretty silly stuff.

“Owl’s claws shot out,” Sima went on, “and grabbed Pachee Goyo. Baldy screamed for Big Knife’s help. He sobbed and cried. But Big Knife lay in the tree quietly. He knew that Owl would gladly get him, too. He thought, Oh, Pachee Goyo, why didn’t you listen to me and Snail?

“Owl rose up. It flapped its wings. It lifted off with Pachee Goyo in its great claws. As they soared in the sky, the last thing Big Knife heard was Pachee Goyo screaming, ‘Big Kn-i-i-fe!’”

“Very good!” exclaimed Dr. Full, jumping up from his chair. “A wonderful children’s tale!”

“But there’s more,” said Sima.

Flare saw the lad was offended by the interruption.

Dr. Full looked around at the Christian adults. He spread his arms. “It’s very entertaining, but I’m not certain of the influence…”

“Let him finish,” said Flare with a growl. “It’s one of his people’s sacred stories.”

“Well, that’s what concerns me. What do you think, Reverend Leslie? The subtle suggestion that this…invention is like a Bible story…”

“Objectionable,” affirmed David Leslie.

“Let him finish,” Flare snapped.

Miss Jewel intervened. “Sima, would you like to tell the rest of your story?”

“Yes,” the lad said simply, with an emphatic nod.

“Most of your audience is eager to hear it,” Miss Jewel said. She glared at Dr. Full until he sat back down. Flare thought, He’ll make you pay later, Maggie.

“Giant Horned Owl carried Pachee Goyo over mountains, over plains, over ocean,” said Sima.

“At last they landed on a small, rocky island. Owl set Pachee Goyo down on a rocky cliff among thousands of skeletons of human beings. The bird teetered over to the fresh corpse of a person. It tore open the body with its big claws and drank bright, live-giving blood from the trunk.”

Dr. Full and Reverend Leslie were showing their disgust in their faces for the benefit of the others. Flare wanted to throttle them. But Sima, lost in his narrative, didn’t seem to notice.

“Then Owl teetered over to the swamp and drank fresh water. Then it spread its wings, flapped, and headed out across the sea for more victims.

“With the sound of the whirring of the huge wings still in his ears, Pachee Goyo got up and walked around to check out his circumstances. By the shore, among cattails and grasses, smoke rose from a brush hut. Pachee Goyo walked down and peeked in.

“An old woman, a
hepit-soo
, sat by the fire. Her skin was stretched tight over her old bones. She invited Pachee Goyo in and gave him eggs to eat, boiled eggs of ducks and geese.

“‘Many years ago,’ she said, ‘when I was young, Giant Owl carried me here. It never bothers me. It only eats the others, the ones it brings back.

“‘I know how you can get away,’ she said. ‘Is there a fresh body for it to eat?’

“‘Yes,’ said Pachee Goyo, ‘half of one.’ Now he felt ready to listen to the advice of an older person.

“‘When it comes back,’ said the old woman, the
hepit-soo
, ‘lay down where it put you. Now listen. Every time it eats, the bird drinks from the swamp, always in the same place. Take this bow and these arrows. Hide them now behind the rock where it drinks.’

“Pachee Goyo asked where she got the bow and arrows. The old woman said most of the warriors Owl brought back were carrying quivers and bows.

“‘When you’ve hidden the weapons,’ the old woman went on, ‘find some obsidian and break it into tiny pieces. Put the pieces into the blood of the corpse. Owl will drink the obsidian in the blood, and the glass will cut up its insides.

“‘When Owl is finished drinking, it will head for the swamp. Then you’ve got to move fast and get behind the rock. Owl will stoop for a long time, drinking. Then let fly with every arrow you’ve got!’

“When Pachee Goyo finished his preparations, he went back to the old woman. She had no more instructions, and she heard Owl coming. ‘Get back where it left you,’ she said, ‘the exact position it left you. You’re lucky there’s a fresh corpse or you’d be its meal.’

“Pachee Goyo ran back and played dead in his original position. The huge Owl landed, tore at the fresh corpse, and drank the blood with obsidian in it. Finally the bird wobbled down to the swamp, lowered its head, and began to drink.

“Pachee Goyo ran for his life to the rock, grabbed the bow and arrows, and volleyed arrows into Owl.

“The great bird turned, staggered, and fell dead.”

Sima saw he had his audience now.

“Pachee Goyo ran back to the
hepit-soo
, the old woman, and told her he’d killed Giant Horned Owl. She gave him some sinew and loaned him her obsidian ax. ‘Here’s what you need to do,’ she said. ‘Chop the wings off with my ax and sew them together with this sinew to make a boat. Put dirt on the bottom. Gather up lots of firewood and pile it on one end. But you must build fires at night—
only
at night.

“‘When you’re finished with that, gather every goose and duck egg you can find and bring them to me. I’ll boil them for you. On the journey you’ll throw one egg into the ocean every day. Now get to it!’

“After a while Pachee Goyo got all his jobs done. Then he said to the old woman, ‘What are you going to do?’

“‘I want to stay here and live my life,” she said. She wished him good sailing and good luck finding his people.

“Pachee Goyo sailed on the wing boat for days and nights and nights and days. He threw an egg into the sea every day and built a fire every night. He looked out over the vast expanse of ocean and wondered where he would land, when he would land, whether he would land.

“Eventually he threw his last egg into the sea. That night he built a fire with the last of his wood. He watched the fire sadly, wondering what would happen to him when it burned out. Finally he put his bow and arrows on the embers to keep the fire going a little longer.

“Suddenly, from the darkness, came glad sounds, laughter, shouts.

“It was his
ata
, uncles Bazook the Otter, Babegee the Weasel, and Baboca the Muskrat! They saw the last glow of the fire, guessed it was their nephew Pachee Goyo, and swam out to help him.

“When they crawled onto the wing boat, they were laughing. But Pachee Goyo pulled a long face. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ he wailed. ‘The fire’s almost out.’

“They said in a chorus, ‘We’ll pull you to shore before it dies.’

“They took turns pulling, Weasel first, then Muskrat. The two of them got the boat halfway to shore but one by one plopped back into the boat, drained. With the embers barely glowing, Otter jumped into the water. He pulled the boat terrifically fast. Just as the last fire died, he pulled them out onto the shore.

“Otter lay on the sand a while, exhausted. Then Pachee Goyo’s uncles advised him to spend the night in a tree, and left.”

“In the night came the Joahwayho, the scaly maneaters.”