Later, Sister Salt and Indigo used to talk about the four nights of the dance. So much happened, so many amazing sights. Sister Salt told Indigo about the snowflakes: “They let me know how beautiful we are, how beautiful we will become.” Later she told Indigo she died that night so she wasn’t afraid to die anymore. Indigo was disappointed to learn that no ancestors showed their faces to Sister Salt — only the snowflakes. Grandma Fleet said the family spirits didn’t bother to put themselves in human forms because Sister Salt would not recognize them anyway — they were all gone or killed off before she was born. Indigo complained that she had seen nothing.
“You are too young to see such things,” Grandma Fleet said. “When you get to be a young woman like your Sister Salt, you will understand.” The dancers began to rise to their feet. Indigo started to get up to join them but Mama shook her head and smiled while she tucked the quilt around Indigo.
“It’s getting too cold. Dawn will be freezing. You stay curled up here where it’s warm,” Mama said.
All the others were sleeping when Indigo awoke. The sun was already climbing high, and Indigo felt too warm under the quilt with Sister Salt and Mama on either side. The fire the dancers circled had burned down to whitish red coals in circles of ash and mud mixed with the sacred red ocher dust. Indigo checked the position of the sun in the sky once more. It was almost time to take the baskets to sell to passengers on the westbound train. She woke Mama, but Mama said the dance was far more important than selling baskets. Indigo needed her rest so she could dance all night again. They all must dance four nights to move the dead, to help them to return.
While the others slept, Indigo walked around the camp looking at the strangers who had come from all directions for the dance. She heard Grandma Fleet say most of the visitors were Walapai and Havasupai, and of course Paiute; but a few traveled great distances from the north and from the east, because they heard the Messiah was coming. Indigo reached the edge of the encampment and was about to turn back when she heard white people talking. She saw the horses first, hobbled and grazing in a clearing surrounded by willow and tamarisk. Then she saw the wagon with bedding spread underneath, with people still asleep; but standing around a small campfire she saw a white woman and a white man. So the Paiute woman’s story about the Mormons was true! Small groups of Mormons came because the Mormons had been waiting for the Messiah’s return; they became very excited after they heard Wovoka preach. Mormons began to dance hand in hand with the other dancers; these Mormons who believed in Wovoka were generous and donated meat for the dancers. The white canvas for the dancers’ shawls was donated by the Mormons.
The second night more dancers circled the fire. Indigo counted eight Mormons — six men and two women; painted with white clay and wrapped in white robes, the Mormons looked like all the others. Indigo watched them that night and wondered if Mormons saw their ancestors when they danced. Watching the Mormons kept Indigo awake; she wanted to see one of them fall to the ground and moan from a visit by the old Mormon spirits. Try as she did, Indigo fell asleep after a few hours, and she had to rely on Sister Salt to tell her all that happened.
Early on the final night, Indigo got to see for herself what happened to a Mormon visited by his ancestors. The young man suddenly fell to his knees with his face in his hands, babbling and weeping before he slowly sank to the earth and lay quietly on his side, no different from any of the other dancers who visited with the spirits. Indigo was wide awake. This final night was the night the Messiah and his Holy Mother would come.
“The whirlwind! The whirlwind! The snowy earth floats before me! The snowy earth floats before me!” Grandma Fleet sang loudly even after dancing hard four nights straight. She squeezed their entwined fingers together firmly — Sister Salt on one side, Indigo on the other. They must sing hard if they wanted the Christ and his eleven children to come down from the mountains at dawn.
Around and around they danced, lightly caressing the Mother Earth with their feet. “Dust of the whirlwind, dust of the mountains in the whirlwind, even the rocks are ringing! Whirlwind in the mountains, rock dust rings. Rock dust rings,” they sang. The whirlwind would transform the Earth, the Paiute woman said. When the wind scoured away all impurities, then the Earth’s rebirth would follow.
On this final night, more dancers were visited by spirits than on previous nights. Indigo watched Mama stiffen, lean her head back, and sink to the ground shivering, without a word. They carefully stepped around Mama and they kept dancing. “Cottonwood! Cottonwood, so tall! Lush green leaves! Lush green leaves! Cottonwood so tall!” The voices of the dancers rose above the river. Indigo closed her eyes: the sound of the hundreds of voices was not human but mountain, as if out of the depths of the mountains a great humming rose. The Earth announced her labor; the ground must shudder and heave before she could be reborn. Indigo felt the Earth’s breathing through the soles of her feet; the sound gently carried her along, so she did not tire dancing. She was determined to stay awake; everyone seemed more alert. Sister Salt said the Messiah and his family were close by, waiting for the right moment to come to them.
As the dancers began the final song, the wind began to stir and the air smelled damp. The waning moon rose but soon disappeared behind the clouds. Big snowflakes began to hiss in the flames of the fire. The clouds and mist reflected the glow of the big campfire and illuminated the hills above the river and cast strange, giant shadows of the dancers. Later Grandma Fleet blamed those odd shadows for the townspeople’s fears, which brought the soldiers and Indian police.
Although scattered snow flurries remained, the mass of storm clouds drifted east; the buffalo horn moon was still visible as the morning star appeared on the horizon. While the others danced with eyes focused on the fire, Indigo watched the weird shadows play on the hillsides, so she was one of the first to see the Messiah and his family as they stepped out of the darkness into the glow of the swirling snowflakes. How their white robes shined! Indigo glanced around quickly to see if the others had noticed. She watched the Messiah and the others, who seemed almost to float as they descended the high sandy hill to the riverbank. How beautiful he was, just as the Paiute woman said. No wonder he called himself the morning star!
The others saw him now, but they all kept dancing, as they knew they must, until the Christ reached the middle of their circle. Wovoka the Prophet came too. He walked beside the Messiah’s mother; behind them came the Messiah’s eleven children. They all wore white robes but their dark faces were not painted. Now the dancers gathered around the Messiah and his family. Indigo held Sister Salt’s hand tightly and stood on her tiptoes so she could see between the dancers crowded around.
“You are hungry and tired because this dance has been going on for a long time,” the Holy Mother said. Then she opened her shawl, and the Messiah’s wife opened her shawl too, and Indigo was amazed to see plump orange squash blossoms tumble to the ground. The Holy Mother motioned for the dancers to step forward to help themselves to the squash flowers.
Now it was so quiet only the fire’s crackle could be heard; no one spoke as they waited their turn to take a squash flower. Later, when Indigo and Sister Salt discussed that night, they remembered with amazement that whenever the Messiah or the Holy Mother spoke, all the dancers could understand them, no matter what tribe they were from. The Paiutes swore the Messiah was speaking Paiute, but a Walapai woman laughed and shook her head; how silly, the Messiah spoke her language. When Grandma Fleet and Mama knelt to pick up blossoms, the Holy Mother blessed them in their Sand Lizard language. When the Mormons approached the Messiah, Sister Salt stayed nearby to listen for herself; she was amazed. As the Messiah gave his blessing to the Mormons, Sister Salt distinctly heard the words he spoke as Sand Lizard, not English, yet the Mormons understood his words and murmured their thanks to him.