“What were his words, mother? Tell me.”
“The old man, Napiw, he is unhappy, said the ponoká. There is no bond between the earth and its people any longer, he said. There is no kinship between the people and the animals. People no longer respect the animals and no longer pay homage to the earth that suckled them and nurses them still.”
“The white one, it said all this to you, mother?”
“Yes, Benjamin, and much more. Much more.”
“Yes, go on.”
The aged matriarch turned to the window. She pointed out the glass to the south.
“Do you see the mountains, Benjamin?”
“Yes, of course, mother.”
“Do you see the valley between the mountains. The mountains follow the valley on both sides. Do you see?”
“Yes, mother.”
“The thunder in the earth, it comes from there, in the distance, in the valley between the mountains as far away as you can see.” She turned away from the window and looked her son in the eye. “The white elk, he said that he was fleeing the valley and going far away to the north. He was going to the ice country, where you live, Benjamin.”
“Why would he want to do that, mother?”
“This is why. This is what the white one told me. He said the mountains will rise up and touch the sky. The valley will turn over and disappear beneath the mountains. Then the mountains will fall down. This will happen soon, very soon.”
White Elk sat still. He did not think his mother’s words to be the rant of a withering mind. He knew his mother’s words to be true, always. Since his childhood, she had taught him that no honor would come to a Blackfoot who did not speak truthfully at every juncture. To speak an untruth would lead to the undermining of a man’s credibility. People would begin not to trust words and deeds, actions, everything. Honor would be lost forever.
“The ponoká, he said the sun will sink into the earth and not rise again. The land will burn and turn to dust. The people in the land, the white people who took our homelands, they will burn and turn to dust, too.”
“Do you say, mother, that all people will die? What will happen to our people?”
The woman bowed her head and held a hand to it to comfort her soul. “Son, the animals and the first people in the land, they will suffer terribly when the mountains rise up. He told me that a great Blackfoot elder will come forward when the day turns to night, and he will carry the suffering of the people on his shoulders.”
The ancient soul cast her eyes on her son. She held her gaze. “Benjamin, the white one was talking about you.”
“Mother, how do you know this?” Benjamin said in a tone uttered to brush aside her assertion.
“Son, the white ponoká came to you as a young man. You bear his name, White Elk. He has come to me, because I am here and he is here. He told me this so that I may tell you. I am only an instrument. I am only passing his words on to you. He is talking through me to you. I am just the air through which the words travel. He is talking to you, Benjamin.”
Low vibrations slithered through the room. All the objects in the living space rattled quietly for ten seconds.
“That is the white one talking, too, Benjamin.”
“That’s a small earthquake tremor, mother.”
“Yes, but it is speaking about what is to come.”
“What did it say to you, mother?”
“You must leave tomorrow, after you rest. You must go home to Otatso Creek. Do not delay.”
“I cannot go tomorrow, mother.”
“You must. You have to tell our people to ready themselves, to prepare,” the aged one insisted.
“Prepare? What would I have them do to prepare, mother?”
The matriarch scowled at her son. She raised a frail hand and pointed a finger into his face.
“Before there was food in metal and plastic and paper, there was food that walked the plains and grew every year in the mountains. Before there was gas fuel for the stove, there was firewood at every turn. All we had to do was pick it up. We knew everything. We knew how to live well. The earth provided everything. We needed to buy nothing.
“You go home and tell our people to prepare in the old ways, to hunt and fish now. Dry the meat and the fish now. Harvest every green thing that sprouts, every fruit that ripens in the sun, and dry it, preserve it. You must do this. You have no time. You must go. Go. Get some rest and go home.”
“Mother, I came to see you for a few days and to go to a gathering tomorrow.”
“You do not have a few days.”
“How do you know that, mother?”
“When the white ponoká spoke to me, son, he told me that when the full moon next rises, it will rise covered in blood.”
“Blood?”
“It will be the color of blood.”
“Tomorrow, I want to take you out so that we can be together.”
“I will not see you tomorrow.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It is not crazy, Benjamin. You have to leave right away. If you do not leave, the anger of Napiw will swallow us all.”
“And what about you, mother? If what you say comes to pass, what will happen to you? I can’t leave you here.”
The elderly woman frowned and her voice rose in anger.
“What I said are not my words, Benjamin! They are the words of the white one. I told you that. What I said will happen.” She pouted and reached for her son’s hand.
“Benjamin, there is no point in my leaving here. I do not want to travel a whole day in a car to the Otatso. I am too tired. If my life ends here, I will be content. I will know that you will see our people through to a new life, one like our people once enjoyed.”
“I cannot leave you, mother.”
“Oh, yes you can, Benjamin,” the old woman muttered quietly. She smiled at her son. “When you were a young man, you left your mother, as all young people do. Now you must do what you were raised to do, what our people expect you to do. Now go.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hundreds of identical polished black columns soared above Route 89, dwarfing Wesley’s truck as it sped south. The formation, bunched together in the hands of ancient gods and set down roughly, unceremoniously, at the head of little Beaver Lake, stood twenty miles south of Mammoth Hot Springs headquarters.
The stone columns were dark, glassy, volcanic obsidian, a material much prized by vanished American native peoples. Chips of the obsidian glass made exquisite spear and arrow points and cutting tools. Paleolithic peoples traded in it extensively, so much so that the glass points and utility objects unearthed by scientists and amateurs alike as far away as Indiana and Missouri had the telltale chemical composition of Yellowstone obsidian mined from the outcropping that bore the rock’s name: Obsidian Cliff.
Wesley thought nothing of the rock formation. He was concerned with a jumbled rockslide across the highway and a cluster of people on the lip of the eastern shore of Beaver Lake, the waters billowing clouds of silver vapor. Something was in the water—a small truck. Burrowing in among the men on at the water’s edge, Wesley found them idle, talking rapid fire but doing little.
A man in a Park Service parka recognized Wesley and hailed him.
“Wesley, come down here, will you?” said the fellow.
“What have you got here, Lucky?”
“We’ve got kids in the lake. Careful, watch the water.”
“Why?”
“It’s boiling hot. See for yourself.”
A Dodge Ram pickup truck rested on its side, all but the passenger-side-rear tire and quarter panel submerged. The truck’s flank had been crushed by the impact of falling rock tumbling from the face of Obsidian Cliff, the impact strong enough to catapult the vehicle off the road, over the guardrail and into the water.