Walker of Time (11 page)

“Are you okay?” Tag asked. “What happened in there? You sort of blacked out or something. But your eyes were wide open. You looked as if you were seeing something.”

Turning to face Tag, Walker shook his head. “I'm not sure what happened. I did see something, but I don't . . .” his voice trailed off. His eyes fell to the ground.

Tag pressed, “What did you see?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Walker answered, “I'm not sure, or at least I don't understand what I saw.” Walker paused, staring down into the canyon. He let the sights, smells, and sounds drift around and through him. They were all so familiar. “Have you ever walked into a building or a room for the first time and had the feeling that you had been there before? Even when you knew you hadn't?”

Tag nodded. “It's called déjà vu. I guess everyone has felt that way at one time or another.”

“But felt it so strongly that it almost overwhelms them?” Walker bent down to pick up a small rock. Squeezing it in his right hand, he said, “I'm not sure what's happening here or why we are here. But something deep inside tells me,” Walker tossed the rock into the air and caught it with his other hand, “it's not just to teach the ancient ones to make pizza. I am also sure,” Walker said, looking toward Great Owl's home, “that they know why we are here.”

“Then why don't we just go back in there and ask them why in the heck we were zapped back here?” Tag demanded.

With a smile, Walker tossed the rock toward Tag. As Tag caught it, Walker stated, “It is not the Hopi way. Or these people's way to ask questions that will be answered in their own time and place.”

“You mean we are just going to wait around till who knows what happens to us?” Tag tossed the rock back to Walker.

Catching it in one hand, Walker answered, “Yes. More or less. Except while we wait, we are going to keep our eyes and our minds open. My Uncle used to tell me, ‘Answers to questions are all around you if you are willing to see them.' I think we should learn as much as we can about these people before their chief comes back.”

“You mean mix with the natives?” Tag's face broke into his toothy grin. “Great idea! There's a ton of things that I need to see. Most of their culture, their very way of life, was lost in time, so I need to . . .” Tag stopped, putting his hands on his thin hips. “Okay, what's so funny?”

Walker laughed, shaking his head. “You! Back in the future you said that you were sick of hearing your father talk about dead Indians all the time. Now you can hardly wait to start doing living archaeology.”

Smiling sheepishly, Tag shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I guess I have some of my Dad in me. Do you realize what we are seeing, hearing, and touching? We are with an ancient civilization that literally just disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving very little behind. People centuries from now are going to examine, study, and wonder about what we are actually living right now!”

Hearing noise behind them, they turned toward the houses. With some difficulty, Morning Flower crawled out of Great Owl's low door. Flute Maiden followed close behind with a water jug slung over each shoulder. Small Cub scrambled out behind her. The two women talked in soft voices for a minute. Then Morning Flower entered the T-shaped door of the dwelling next to Great Owl's.

“Time to learn the first and most basic aspect of daily life here,” Walker said, nodding his head toward Flute Maiden. Walking up to Flute Maiden, he took a jug from her shoulder. “Bahanas are expert water carriers,” he said, passing the jug to Tag. Tag took the jug and began to examine it with great interest. Walker chuckled. He took the other jug from Flute Maiden and put it on his own shoulder.

“I want to go, too! I want to go, too!” cried Small Cub, tugging at Flute Maiden's hand.

Smiling down at her nephew, Flute Maiden answered, “You may go, but you must carry your own water jug. Run get it.”

While they waited for Small Cub, Walker studied the houses. There were two other small dwellings also built under the limestone overhang. They were nestled under the low, tapering edges, one on each side of the main houses. Walker was almost sure that these low, compact rooms were used for food storage. How full were these rooms? wondered Walker.

“Do all bahanas have such . . . such . . . ,” Flute Maiden asked Walker, twirling her hand around her head.

“You mean curly hair. No. He's just lucky,” Walker answered with a chuckle, staring at Tag's wild mass of curls.

“Hey, you two are talking about me again, aren't you?” Tag demanded.

“What could we possibly say?” Walker answered, flashing a smile at Tag.

Small Cub reappeared carrying a small water jug slung over his thin shoulder. Flute Maiden started down the path. Walker followed behind her, with Tag next. Small Cub trotted close on Tag's heels, watching every movement the bahana made.

The trail was well worn and narrow. It wrapped around in front of another limestone overhang that housed seven or eight dwellings of various sizes. Clusters of women and small children gathered around the homes. The women were talking, but their voices quieted when they saw the group approaching. Only the eyes of the children continued to watch them as Flute Maiden stopped at the first home.

“Gray Dove,” said Flute Maiden in a soft voice to a middle-aged woman sitting in the doorway. “How is your mother's cough today?”

Gray Dove looked up from the piece of leather that she was scraping with a sharp stone knife. Her black hair was streaked with gray, yet her pretty face was youthful. Only her eyes looked tired and old. The stone knife trembled in her hand as she spoke. “The tea you left helps calm the cough.” There was gratefulness in her voice, but it had a cautious undertone to it.

Flute Maiden nodded. “Gray Dove, these are our visitors, Walker and Tag.” Turning to Walker, she continued, “Gray Dove is well known for her great skill with leather. People from all over bring their uncured skins and hides to her. She makes very beautiful moccasins, clothes, bags, and other items from them. To wear or own one of Gray Dove's creations is an honor.”

Gray Dove's face shown with pride, but her eyes remained on her work.

At the adjoining home, two women, obviously a mother and daughter, sat on yucca mats working with wet, gray clay. Nearby, three newly formed bowls and pots were drying in the sun on a flat limestone slab. A sleeping infant lay strapped in a cradle board near the younger woman. After asking the women about their families, Flute Maiden once again introduced Walker and Tag.

The oldest woman, whose shoulders were hunched forward a bit, looked up at Walker. Her small, deep-set eyes studied his face for a minute, then fell upon Walker's turquoise pendant. Her thin lips parted in a smile. “Welcome.” Her voice was thin yet held warmth.

Walker saw a look of surprise in the daughter's face at hearing her mother's words. She was about sixteen years old with a pretty but anxious-looking face. Her graceful fingers were shaping a long, snakelike coil of clay. She wrapped and pinched the coil into a vase-shaped pot, her eyes never leaving her creation.

Tag knelt down in front of the young woman. “That's going to be a beautiful pot when you are finished,” he said, watching her every movement.

At the sound of the strange words, the young woman's face filled with fear. Her fingers stopped. Her hands trembled.

“My friend says your pot is very beautiful,” Walker interpreted, kneeling next to Tag.

Small Cub plopped down by Tag. “Fawn makes the best pots in all of our village. She made my drinking mug,” he said with pride.

The fear left Fawn's face. Her lips turned up, but her eyes were still riveted to the wet clay she molded. They sat watching her skillful fingers shape her vase. Walker realized she was using the same coiling technique that he had seen Hopi potters use. With one last pinch, Fawn turned the wet clay around in her hands, inspecting its graceful lines. She picked up a piece of dried gourd that lay by her hip. With careful, gentle strokes, she started to smooth the coiled sides of the vase with the piece of gourd. Walker knew that it would take her a long time to smooth and even out the walls of the vase using this primitive tool. It would take her even longer to polish the vase's entire surface with the small,
flat river stone that lay in her lap, ready to use. Walker's scalp tingled. How many times had he seen these same kinds of crude tools, which had been handed down from generation to generation, used by Hopi women to create their beautiful pottery?

At each door in the cluster of homes, the same scene was repeated. Flute Maiden inquired about the health of the family, then introduced Walker and Tag. Walker could see fear mixed with suspicion in each face. Yet Flute Maiden had a way of easing this with her words. She was well liked and respected by these women. Walker sensed that she was enlisting the women's trust, along with their support for what lay ahead.

Tag's friendly smile and Small Cub's obvious admiration toward him helped win over the children. By the second home, Tag was holding Small Cub's little, dark hand in his large, freckled one.

At each house they witnessed living archaeology. They watched one woman sewing tiny shells onto a kilt with a thin bone needle. At another home, a very young girl was learning to make corn cakes from her very old grandmother. Tag sat enthralled, watching a middle-aged woman skillfully plaiting yucca leaves into sandals. At the last house in the group, a mother was teaching her small children the words of a song while she worked on weaving a large basket. Her voice was strong and clear, her fingers skillful and fast. The basket, made from long strips of yucca, grew before their eyes.

About fifty feet down the path, they came to another group of homes nestled under a cliff. Again at each house, Walker and Tag were introduced and fears were calmed while they watched the village women at their daily work.
At the last home, a woman stood at a large, waist-high boulder just outside her door. She held a mano, a smooth grinding stone, in her hands. With long, even strokes she moved the mano back and forth on the top of the boulder. Walker could see a well-worn trough in the boulder's surface where the corn was being ground into fine cornmeal.

Flute Maiden stopped. “Littlest Star, how is your baby today?”

The petite woman looked up from her work. Her large, expressive eyes spoke of great worry. “She is asleep now. Her older sister sits with her. She still can't hold food very long.” The woman shook her head, wiping her brow. “She grows as thin as a blade of grass.”

“I will come back to see her after I get water,” Flute Maiden promised, reaching out to touch the woman's thin shoulder. “There is a very strong tea made from the dried stems of a special plant that grows only on the Sacred Mountain. I think it is time that we try it. I will bring some for her.”

Littlest Star nodded. “Thank you.” Her eyes stole a glance at Walker, then returned to Flute Maiden with a questioning look. Her hand tightened on the mano, turning her knuckles white.

Flute Maiden said, “Walker and Tag have come in peace. They are our friends.”

Littlest Star raised her eyes to glance at the strangers. Her eyes met Walker's for an instant and held. Lowering her gaze back to her grinding rock, she nodded and started back to work.

“Littlest Star's husband is Scar Cheek,” Flute Maiden said, as they moved on down the trail. “They are good people. People you can trust.”

“You know,” Tag told Walker, “that very boulder she is using as a metate or grinding stone is still there. I mean in the future. It's right on the paved trail that the tourists take. I must have passed it a thousand times. I never really thought about someone actually using it!” Tag smiled. “She's lucky to have a metate just outside her door, and it's one that she can even stand at. You have to kneel down to grind on most metates,” Tag explained. “All that kneeling must be murder on your back, not to mention your knees.” Bobbing his head up and down, he concluded, “Someone was real smart to start using that boulder as a metate.”

Walker thought of the small grinding room at his village. Four deeply troughed metates sat on the hard dirt floor. They were placed in two rows facing each other so that the women could visit while they worked. No one had spoken to him as he had ground the red corn for Náat's grave. A wave of grief washed over him. Tears clouded his eyes. Tag was right. Kneeling to grind the red corn had been painful to his knees and back, almost as painful as it had been to his heart.

At the very last home in the village, Flute Maiden knelt down beside an old woman sitting in front her doorway. The woman's white hair was tied into a bun at the base of her thin neck. Her face was a sea of wrinkles from which two small eyes peered. Walker could see a cloud of film over each eye. Her wrinkled hands were busy weaving long strips of yucca fibers into a mat. Her eyes stared straight forward.

Flute Maiden knelt down beside the woman. “Singing Woman, it's Flute Maiden,” she said, hugging the blind woman. The old woman smiled, patting Flute Maiden's
hand. Flute Maiden looked down at the half-finished mat. “I've never seen such a beautiful design in a mat before.”

“Neither have I,” the old woman said with a merry chuckle, “but I like the feel of it on my fingertips.”

Pushing his way forward, Small Cub knelt beside Singing Woman. “I'm here, too,” he said. “We brought the strangers with us. One of them is speckled like a bird's egg and his hair is all . . .”

“Hush,” the old woman scolded, reaching for Small Cub, hugging him to her. “You are too old for such rudeness. They are our guests.” Then in a loud whisper, she teased, “I wish I could see the speckled one's hair that flies in circles every which way.”

Small Cub squealed in delight. Walker and Flute Maiden exchanged glances, looked at Tag, and began to laugh.