Understand.Understand.All that livesReturns to Me.
The singer, the singer that is not Dakota, approaches along the side of the stream. Her hair streams behind her like smoke. At wrist and neck she wears ornaments of turquoise and shell; worked in turquoise and malachite, a hummingbird spreads its wings across the breast of her buckskin dress. Koda bows low in reverence as the woman approaches. “Ina,” she whispers. “Ina Maka.”
The woman’s fingers brush her hair where she kneels. “Rise, child. Be welcome.”
“Ina,” she says again as she stands. She has seen the Mother many times in her visions. Never has she seen her before with such clarity, never heard such music in her voice. For here we see as through a glass, darkly. But there we shall see face to face. For the first time, Koda understands the meaning of those words, across years and the barriers of an alien faith. She remains with head bowed.
“Look up, daughter,” says Ina Maka gently. “Others are here to greet you.”
Koda does as she has bidden. Down the same path Ina Maka followed comes the form of a great wolf. His fur gleams jet and silver in the sun, his ruff as broad almost as a lion’s mane about his head and massive shoulders. With him walks a woman with her arms folded beneath a beaded shawl. She is not as tall as Koda, not as slender, but her eyes are bright above high cheekbones, the part of her hair painted vermilion. A beloved wife.
Wa Uspewikakiyape. Tali.
The peace that fills her swells, becomes joy. She gives a small cry and starts forward, but Ina Maka holds her back. “Wait,” she says. Let them come.”
With patience she could never have imagined in herself, Koda watches as her teacher and her wife cross the distance between them. When they step into the shade, the light follows them, as if they shine from within. They come to a halt on either side of Ina Maka and just behind her, waiting. For what seems forever, Ina Maka stands looking at Koda, then steps back a small distance. It is a time of judgement, and Koda bears it in silence.
Ina Maka says, “Every soul that passes from the Earth comes to Me. Not all come here, to this place—only My chosen ones. But for them, as for the others, a reckoning must be made. You know this.”
“I know it,” Koda says.
“See,” says Ina Maka. She folds her hands, then draws them apart. Between them appears a beaten copper bowl, filled with clear water. Koda trails a finger over its surface, sending ripples out from the center toward the rim. A cloud forms in its wake, swirling and spiraling in upon itself like the nebulae of space, clearing finally to show a still, dark mirror. Figures move within it, figures with faces she recognizes. “See,” says Ina Maka again, and she leans closer to look.
She sees her grandfather, seated crosslegged before an open-air fire, patiently grinding leaves and stems together in a clay bowl. “You must remember the proportions, Tunkshila. Just enough, this will ease Grandma Jumping Bull’s asthma. Too much, and it could kill her. Now say the names of the plants that we use.”
A high, childish voice recites, “Nightshade, datura, willow bark. Mash it all together so the sick person can smoke it.”
“And what happens if you put in too much datura?”
“The person sees things. Things that aren’t there.”
Her grandfather reaches up from his work to tousle her hair. “That’s good, little one. You’ll be a fine healer.”
“When you cried for a vision,” Ina Maka says, “you were called as a healer. You have healed the four-footed, the two-legged and the winged. You have comforted hurts of the body and of the spirit. You have done well. ”
The water clouds again, shifting, clears a second time.
She strides across the playground of Sacred Heart Lakota School, her arms at her sides stiff as her starched blouse, her fists clenched. “Don’t hit him. Don’t you dare hit him.”
An older boy, blond, turns sneering to her, his fists clenched. “And what are ya gonna do about it, prairie nigger? Prairie nigger bitch?” And with that he swings his fist back and hits, not Dakota, but a smaller boy with a delicate face almost like a girl’s. “Fucking liitle fag. Faggot. Faggot. Faggot..”
Later, much later, Dakota stands in the infirmary while Sister Frances bandages her knuckles. “Well,” the Sister smiles ruefully, “Our Lord did say he came to bring not peace but a sword. Next time, though, call one of the teachers, okay?”
The water shifts again, and Koda strides down a white corridor where women spill out from steel-doored cells, embracing Koda, embracing the soldiers who follow her. The soldiers multiply suddenly, till they are a company, a batallion, racing in Dakota’s wake as she runs like an antelope sure footed over the broken remains of a bridge to reinforce her brother’s troops on the far side, mowing down the inexorably advancing soldiers whose titanium hides shine in the sun, shouting her name, shouting again as she leads them back in triumph, shouting caution as the water roils yet again, and she battles her way around a curving corridor, fighting with stolen guns, a bronze sculpture like a hammer hung at her belt, grenades plucked from the enemy. And she staggers back against a door and is falling, falling, into nothingness, into here, into this place where the dimensions of space fold in upon themselves.
“When you cried for a vision,” Ina Maka says, “you asked Wakan Tanka to make you a warrior for the liberation of our people. The call has come, though late. You have fought with courage for justice and the freedom of all peoples. You have done well.”
And the water ripples yet a third time.
She climbs a narrow path along the flank of a mountain. The pack on her back pulls heavily at the shoulder straps, her belt drags at her waist, heavy with canteen and axe and flashlight. Ahead of her and above, so that her smooth brown knees are just at Koda’s eyelevel, Tali scrambles up the trail. “We’re—almost—there—” she pants. “Just—a hundred—or so—meters to go.”
“We’d better be. Next time—next time—we rent—a fuckin’—donkey.”
“Don’t care if—it fucks—or not. Just so—it carries— the stuff.”
At the summit they set up their camp, both grumbling. Later, though, as they sit at the edge of the overhang, with the wide plain of Argos stretched out before them in the evening light, Koda takes Tali’s hand in hers. She says, “You know, we’ve been taking a lot for granted.”
Tali turns troubled eyes to her. “Is something wrong?”
“Not if you answer my question right,” says Koda, tracing a circle around the base of the third slim finger on Tali’s left hand.
And the water shifts again, and Kirsten’s face looks up at her, hair pale as cornsilk, eyes bruised and staring blankly at something before her, something Koda cannot see. She does not speak; there is no need. It is the face of a woman who sees death in front of her. And welcomes it.
Ina Maka says, “You have loved greatly, not once but twice, both times with generosity and honor. All those things which Wakan Tanka planted in your soul at the moment of your creation have come to fruition in you. The part of you that is Wakan Tanka weighs equally with that part that is none but your own. And now there is a choice you must make.”
“It is a choice you must make freely,” Tali says softly.
“It is a choice you must make wisely,” the wolf adds, his human voice a rumble in his throat.
“What choice is that?” Koda’s glance darts from Ina Maka to Tali, back to Wa Uspewikakiyapi. She knows the teachings of her people. She will be sent back to Earth to be reborn. Or she will be allowed to follow the Ghost Road to its ending in the Other Side Camp, where she will sit at the fires of the wise for all the turnings of the ages. It is Ina Maka’s decision, not hers. “I don’t understand.”