House Made of Dawn (21 page)

It was gray before the dawn and there was a thin frost on the leaves, and he saddled up and started out again, slowly, after the track and into the wind. At sunrise he came upon the ridge of the mountain. For hours he followed the ridge, and he could see for miles across the land. It was late in the autumn and clear, and the great shining slopes, green and blue, rose out of the shadows on either side, and the sunlit groves of aspen shone bright with clusters of yellow leaves and thin white lines of bark, and far below in the deep folds of the land he could see the tops of the black pines swaying. At midmorning he was low in a saddle of the ridge, and he came upon a huge outcrop of rock and the track was lost. An ancient watercourse fell away like a flight of stairs to the left, the falls broad and shallow at first, but ever more narrow and deep farther down. He tied the horses and started down the rock on foot, using the rifle to balance himself. He went slowly, quietly down until he came to a deep open funnel in the rock. The ground on either side sloped sharply down to a broad ravine and the edge of the timber beyond, and he saw the scored earth where the bear had left the rock and gone sliding down, and the swath in the brush of the ravine. He thought of going the same way; it would be quick and easy, and he was close to the kill, closing in and growing restless. But he must make no sound of hurry. The bear knew he was coming, knew better than he how close he was, was even now watching him from the wood, waiting, but still he must make no sound of hurry. The walls of the funnel were deep and smooth, and they converged at the bank of
the ravine some twenty feet below, and the ravine was filled with sweet clover and paint-brush and sage. He held the rifle out as far as he could reach and let it go; it fell upon a stand of tall sweet clover with scarcely any sound, and the dull stock shone and the long barrel glinted among the curving green and yellow stalks. He let himself down into the funnel, little by little, supported only by the tension of his strength against the walls. The going was hard and slow, and near the end his arms and legs began to shake, but he was young and strong and he dropped from the point of the rock to the sand below and took up the rifle and went on, not hurrying but going only as fast as the bear had gone, going even in the bear's tracks, across the ravine and up the embankment and through the trees, unwary now, sensible only of closing in, going on and looking down at the tracks
.

And when at last he looked up, the timber stood around a pool of light, and the bear was standing still and small at the far side of the brake, careless, unheeding. He brought the rifle up, and the bear raised and turned its head and made no sign of fear. It was small and black in the deep shade and dappled with light, its body turned three-quarters away and standing perfectly still, and the flat head and the small black eyes that were fixed upon him hung around upon the shoulder and under the hump of the spine. The bear was young and heavy with tallow, and the underside of the body and the backs of its short, thick legs were tufted with winter hair, longer and lighter than the rest, and dull as dust. His hand tightened on the stock and the rifle bucked and the sharp report rang upon the walls and carried out upon the slopes, and he heard the sudden scattering of birds overhead and saw the darting shadows all around. The bullet slammed into the flesh and jarred the whole black body once, but the head remained motionless and the eyes level upon him. Then, and for one instant only, there was a sad and meaningless haste. The bear turned away and lumbered, though not with fear, not with any hurt, but haste, slightly reflexive, a single step, or two, or three, and it was overcome. It shuddered and looked around again and fell
.

The hunt was over, and only then could he hurry; it was over and well done. The wound was small and clean, behind the foreleg and low
on the body, where the fur and flesh were thin, and there was no blood at the mouth. He took out his pouch of pollen and made yellow streaks above the bear's eyes. It was almost noon, and he hurried. He disemboweled the bear and laid the flesh open with splints, so that the blood should not run into the fur and stain the hide. He ate quickly of the bear's liver, taking it with him, thinking what he must do, remembering now his descent upon the rock and the whole lay of the land, all the angles of his vision from the ridge. He went quickly, a quarter of a mile or more down the ravine, until he came to a place where the horses could keep their footing on the near side of the ridge. The blood of the bear was on him, and the bear's liver was warm and wet in his hand. He came upon the ridge and the colt grew wild in its eyes and blew, pulling away, and its hoofs clattered on the rock and the skin crawled at the roots of its mane. He approached it slowly, talking to it, and took hold of the reins. The hunting horse watched, full of age and indifference, switching its tail. There was no time to lose. He held hard to the reins, turning down the bit in the colt's mouth, and his voice rose a little and was edged. Slowly he brought the bear's flesh up to the flaring nostrils of the colt and smeared the muzzle with it
.

And he rode the colt back down the mountain, leading the hunting horse with the bear on its back, and, like the old hunting horse and the young black bear, he and the colt had cóme of age and were hunters, too. He made camp that night far down in the peneplain and saw the stars and heard the coyotes away by the river. And in the early morning he rode into the town. He was a man then, and smeared with the blood of a bear. He shouted, and the men came out to meet him. They came with rifles, and he gave them strips of the bear's flesh, which they wrapped around the barrels of their guns. And soon the women came with switches, and they spoke to the bear and laid the switches to its hide. The men and women were jubilant and all around, and he rode stonefaced in their midst, looking straight ahead
.

 

She was the child of a witch. She was wild like her mother, that old Pecos woman whom he feared, whom everyone feared because she had long white hair about her mouth and she hated them and kept to
herself. But the girl was young and beautiful, and her name was Porcingula. The women of the town talked about her behind her back, but she only laughed; she had her way with their sons, and her eyes blazed and gave them back their scorn
.

It was a warm summer night, and she waited for him by the river. He came upon the sand in the cut of the bank and did not see her. He stood looking around and called her name. There was no answer, and the river ran in the moonlight and the leaves of the cottonwood were still and black against the sky. And at last she came out of hiding, laughing and full of the devil. “Well, you were early after all,” she said, “and Mariano had not done with me.” “Come,” he said, and he took her breasts in his hands and moved against her and kissed her mouth. But first she must have her way, playful and mocking. Was he not a sacristan now? Francisco was his name, and had he not been sired by the old consumptive priest? Had he not been told by his father who she was? So she went on, would go on for a while, keeping him on a string, but he stroked her body and she grew quiet and supple with hunger. Ana she drew him down upon the sand and placed his hands on her naked flesh, the warm curve of her belly and the long dark hollows of her thighs, pressing the tips of his fingers to the tendons and the angle of the hair, into the hot wet flesh that sucked open and closed and quickened to his touch. And then she was wild and on fire and she opened her thighs and he came upon her suddenly and hard and deep, and she writhed under him, pleading and cursing and catching at her breath, and she made small hard hooks of her hands and heels and set them with all her strength into his shoulders and his back, holding the awful swerve of his force down and upon her, into the buck of her loins
.

She laughed and wept and carried his child through the winter, and as her time drew near she became more and more beautiful. The wild brittle shine fell away from her eyes and the hard high laughter from her voice, and her eyes were sad and lovely and deep, and she was whole and small and given up to him. But he was wary; the women of the town whispered among themselves, and the old priest hid away and stared at his back. And sometimes in the night, when she lay close
beside him, he thought of who she was and turned away. The child was stillborn, and she saw that the sight of it made him afraid, and it was over. The shine came again upon her eyes, and she threw herself away and laughed
.

 

“Abelito! Ándale, muchacho!”

He would go soon to the fields, but first there was something he must do, and he sent Vidal ahead in the wagon. He put his younger grandson in front of him on the horse and they rode out a little way north from the town. They crossed the broad Arroyo Bajo which ran south and east from Vallecitos and came to the cinch of the valley. There in the plain, between the blue hills and the low line of the red cliffs, was the round red rock. As they approached it from the south, it seemed only a grade, a gentle rise in the plain, but when they came upon it the land fell away. He took the boy down from the horse, and they stood on the edge of the rock, facing north, and the deep red face of the rock dropped under them forty feet to the plain. The near fields lay out below, and they could see across a hundred hills to the mouth of the canyon. “Listen,” he said, and they stood perfectly still on the edge of the rock. The sun took hold of the valley, and a morning breeze rose out of the shadows and the long black line of the eastern mesa backed away. Far below, the breeze ran upon the shining blades of corn, and they heard the footsteps running. It was faint at first and far away, but it rose and drew near, steadily, a hundred men running, two hundred, three, not fast, but running easily and forever, the one sound of a hundred men running. “Listen,” he said. “It is the race of the dead, and it happens here”
.

It was November. The long line of wagons lay out on the road, and there was a low roar of fires and voices on the town. All morning the sky had been gray, and the gray haze of the smoke lay still above the roofs, and pale squadrons of geese flew south on the river. But at noon the smoke rose away and the sky cleared. Then the weather was clear and cold, and a sudden burst of colors came out upon the land. The walls deepened into gold and the fires ran into the glowing earth and the sun struck fire upon the scarlet pods that bled from the vigas.
The squash clan came from the kiva, and he with them, standing apart with the drum. The dancers took their places, and he waited; it seemed a long time before they were ready, and he waited. He had never carried the drum before, and he was self-conscious and afraid. The old men, the singers and officials, would watch him, were watching him now. He wore white pants and a borrowed silver belt. The queue of his hair was wrapped around with a bright new cloth, and there was a rust-colored rouge under his eyes. He tried to think ahead to the songs, to all the dips and turns of the dancers, the rattle of the gourds, to all the measured breaks in the breath and the skipping beat of the drum, but it all ran together in his mind, and he waited under the eyes of the elders, fidgeting and full of dread. The chant began low and away, and the two dancers at the heads of the lines moved out, and one after another the others followed, so that a perfect chain of motion ran slowly upon the lines from front to back and the lines drew slowly out and sound swelled upon them. The drum rolled like thunder in his hand, and he had no memory of setting the deep sound upon it. It had happened, and he no longer had fear, not even any thought of fear. He was mindless in the wake of the dancers, riding high like the gourds on the long bright parallels of motion. He had no need of seeing, nor did the dancers dance to the drum. Their feet fell upon the earth and his hand struck thunder to the drum, and it was the same thing, one motion made of sound. He lost track of the time. An old man came beside him with another drum, larger and warm from the fire. He waited, going on, not counting, having no fear and waiting for the pass, only nodding to the beat. And the moment came in mid-motion, and he crossed the stick to the heated drum and the heavy heated drum was in his hand and the old man turned—and nothing was lost, nothing; there had been nothing of time lost, no miss in the motion of the mind, only the certain strange fall of the pitch, the deeper swell of the sound on the warm taut head of the drum. It was perfect. And when it was over, the women of the town came out with baskets of food. They went among the singers and the crowd, throwing out the food in celebration of his perfect act. And from then on he had a voice in the clan, and the next year he healed a child who had been sick from birth
.

 

There was a moment in which he knew he could not go on. He had begun at the wrong pace, another and better man's pace, had seen the man come almost at once to the top of his strength, hitting his stride without effort, unlimbering and lining out and away. And like a fool he had taken up the bait, whole and at once, had allowed himself to be run into the ground. In the next instant his lungs should burst, for now they were burning with pain and the pain had crowded out the last and least element of his breath, and he should stumble and fall. But the moment passed. The moment passed, and the next and the next, and he was running still, and still he could see the dark shape of the man running away in the swirling mist, like a motionless shadow. And he held on to the shadow and ran beyond his pain
.

Abel was suddenly awake, wide awake and listening. The lamp had
gone out. Nothing had awakened him. There was no sound in the room. He sat bolt upright, staring into the corner where his grandfather lay. There was a deep red glow on the embers, and the soft light opened and closed upon the walls. There was no wind outside, nor any sound; only a thin chill had come in from the night and it lay like the cold of a cave on the earthen floor. He could see no movement, and he knew that the old man was dead. He looked around at the windowpanes, those coal-black squares of dim reflection. There was nothing. It was a while still before the dawn, before the first light should break in advance of the seventh dawn, and he got up and began to get ready. There was no need for the singers to come; it made no difference, and he knew what had to be done. He drew the old man's head erect and laid water to the hair. He fashioned the long white hair in a queue and wound it around with yarn. He dressed the body in bright ceremonial colors: the old man's wine velveteen shirt, white trousers, and low moccasins, soft and white with kaolin. From the rafters he took down the pouches of pollen and of meal, the sacred feathers and the ledger book. These, together with ears of colored corn, he placed at his grandfather's side after he had sprinkled meal in the four directions. He wrapped the body in a blanket.

It was pitch black before the dawn, and he went out along the corrals and through the orchards to the mission. The motor turned and, one after another, the lights went on upstairs and in the stair well and in the hall, and Father Olguin threw open the door.

“What in God's name—?” he said.

“My grandfather is dead,” Abel said. “You must bury him.”

“Dead? Oh… yes—yes, of course. But,
good heavens
, couldn't you have waited until—”

“My grandfather is dead,” Abel repeated. His voice was low and even. There was no emotion, nothing.

“Yes, yes. I heard you,” said the priest, rubbing his good eye. “Good Lord, what time is it, anyway? Do you know what
time
it is? I can understand how you must feel, but—”

But Abel was gone. Father Olguin shivered with cold and peered out into the darkness. “I can understand,” he said. “I understand, do you hear?” And he began to shout. “I understand!
Oh God! I understand—I understand!”

 

Abel did not return to his grandfather's house. He walked hurriedly southward along the edge of the town. At the last house he paused and took off his shirt. His body was numb and ached with cold, and he knelt at the mouth of the oven. He reached inside and placed his hands in the frozen crust and rubbed his arms and chest with ashes. And he got up and went on hurriedly to the road and south on the wagon road in the darkness. There was no sound but his own quick, even steps on the hard crust of the snow, and he went on and on, far out on the road.

The pale light grew upon the land, and it was only a trick of the darkness at first, the slow stirring and standing away of the night; and then the murky, leaden swell of light upon the snow and the dunes and the black evergreen spines. And the east deepened into light above the black highland, soft and milky and streaked with gray. He was almost there, and he saw the runners standing away in the distance.

He came among them, and they huddled in the cold together, waiting, and the pale light before the dawn rose up in the valley. A single cloud lay over the world, heavy and still. It lay out upon the black mesa, smudging out the margin and spilling over the lee. But at the saddle there was nothing. There was only the clear pool of eternity. They held their eyes upon it, waiting, and, too slow and various to see, the void began to deepen and to change: pumice, and pearl, and mother-of-pearl, and the pale and brilliant blush of orange and of rose. And then the deep hanging rim ran with fire and the sudden cold flare of the dawn struck upon the arc, and the runners sprang away.

The soft and sudden sound of their going, swift and breaking away all at once, startled him, and he began to run after them. He was running, and his body cracked open with pain, and he was running on. He was running and there was no reason to run but the running itself and the land and the dawn appearing. The sun rose up in the saddle and shone in shafts upon the road across the snow-covered valley and the hills, and the chill of the night fell away and it began to rain. He saw the slim black bodies of the runners in the distance, gliding away without sound through the slanting light and the rain. He was running and a cold sweat broke out upon him and his breath heaved with the pain of running. His legs buckled and he fell in the snow. The rain fell around him in the snow and he saw his broken hands, how the rain made streaks upon them and dripped soot upon the snow. And he got up and ran on. He was alone and running on. All of his being was concentrated in the sheer motion of running on, and he was past caring about the pain. Pure exhaustion laid hold of his mind, and he could see at last without having to think. He could see the canyon and the mountains and the sky. He could see the rain and the river and the fields beyond. He could see the dark hills at dawn. He was running, and under his breath he began to sing. There was no sound, and he had no voice; he had only the words of a song. And he went running on the rise of the song.
House made of pollen, house made of dawn. Qtsedaba
.