“Better late than never,” countered the old man. “But when a path seems attractive, take a moment to ask yourself why it seems that way. It might be that it is the path you should follow. Maybe, though, what makes it attractive is something that needs fixing here. Every path has a lesson for those sharp enough to see it.”
Gordon sat next to the old man in the cold for two more hours, the new storm fast upon the pueblo, listening to the old man, watching the snowfall, hearing from Hosteen Ahiga many of the things he should have heard from parents, grandparents, uncles, teachers, and friends. Then Gordon turned up his collar against the storm and walked across the river up into the foothills to Nascha Redcliff’s hogan. The next morning before sunrise, standing with his mother in the new snow upon Bear Rock, Gordon helped Nascha bring up the sun and defeat evil.
Seven years later, near the end of Gordon’s senior year in high school, Nascha Redcliff died in her sleep. Hosteen Ahiga, one of his sons—Jim Ahiga—and council member Michael Sweet came and did what no one could do when Gordon’s mother was alive: bring her into the Diné. Naked except for moccasins and ashes, Hosteen Ahiga and Michael Sweet washed and dressed Nascha’s body. By the time they were done Gordon and Jim Ahiga had finished chopping through the logs on the hogan’s north side. Iron Eyes and Mike passed Nascha’s body through the corpse hole where it was received by two Bilagana funeral home men who took care of the burial. Hosteen Ahiga plugged up the smoke hole and Mike Sweet boarded up the east-facing entrance, abandoning the hogan forever to Nascha’s ghost. Before the sun was down, Nascha Redcliff’s body was buried and Gordon was sitting next to Hosteen Ahiga on the meeting house bench waiting on the bus to his future.
“Now she is Diné,” said Gordon.
“Better late than never,” said the old man, a twinkle in his eyes. “Mike said the school would send you your diploma.”
“Thank you for your help. I didn’t thank your son or Mike Sweet. Could you tell them how much I appreciate their help?”
Hosteen Ahiga nodded. “I will tell them.”
The exaggerated hiss of the bus stopping across the road signaled the need to end goodbyes. Before Gordon could say anything to the old man, Hosteen Ahiga handed the boy a small package wrapped in blue cloth and tied with a thin strip of leather. “Take this, Grandson. In the times to come, wear it when you can.”
Gordon opened the package and in it was a black hand-tooled leather belt with silver tip and buckle. The leather in the belt’s center was worked and stained into an image of Coyote. The rest of the belt was dotted with stars against a night sky. The buckle also carried an image of Coyote, one eye closed in a wink. On the inside of the belt was the maker’s name: U. Ahiga. “You made this? Are you U. Ahiga?”
Hosteen Ahiga nodded.
“This is beautiful. Thank you.” Gordon put on the belt. After admiring his present, Gordon frowned and looked at the old man. “What does the U stand for? What’s your first name?”
“Ulysses. My father named me after Ulysses S. Grant.”
“Why? He was a terrible president.”
“True. But Ulysses S. Grant was a great warrior, Grandson, who wrote a great book that my father read from cover to cover and finished the last page just before I was born.” He grinned widely and laughed. “I much prefer Iron Eyes.”
Laughing, Gordon got on the bus that would take him to the Army recruiting station in Albuquerque. He took a seat, waved at the old man through the window, and saw the old man wave back as the bus pulled away. In basic training five weeks later he was notified that Ulysses Ahiga had died in his sleep two days before. He had been just short of his ninety-sixth birthday. Wood smoke: Hosteen Ahiga always smelled like wood smoke in the winter.
“God’n head,” said Pela, interrupting his reverie. Gordon turned and looked at this woman from another time lying next to him. She tapped the side of her own head with the heel of her left hand, “God’n head full ashili.” With her hand she made like a multi-legged creature crawling across the ground. Bugs. Pela drew a picture in snow. Ants. His head was full of ants. He smiled. His head was overfilled with thoughts, worries.
“Pela sees much,” he said. He looked at her crestfallen expression. “That is good,” he quickly added. Her smile returned.
“God’n head hurt better?”
“Some better.” He held the thumb and index finger of his right hand closely together.
“Tahi,” she said.
“Some better a little,” he answered her.
She pulled down the furs covering her, climbed over Gordon, and began coaxing the fire to life by placing scraped birch bark, dried grass, and tiny cedar slivers on a few coals and blowing upon them. When she had a flame, she began adding sticks. “God’n ants what?” she asked, without looking back at him. What was he thinking about?
“Old man.”
“Father?”
“Tribe elder; gifted in years.” Gordon tried to represent what Hosteen Ahiga had meant to him with the words he knew in Pela’s language. Still much to learn. “Good man,” he said. “Like father.”
“How many summers?” she asked.
He thought for a moment, then flashed nine sets of ten fingers at her followed by five fingers of one hand and one from the other. She appeared stunned at the age Gordon claimed for the elder. “Much gifted in years,” she said.
Gordon pulled down his cover, rolled painfully to his side, struggled to his feet, and stood holding onto the lean-to’s cross pole for support until a wave of dizziness passed. As he reached down to get his white fur poncho, every muscle in his back and legs protested.
He slipped on the poncho, a pain in his right shoulder making him grunt. With his fur poncho on, he grabbed again at the cross pole as another wave of dizziness washed over him. When he could again risk opening his eyes, he saw on the bed of cedar boughs his new hat. He bent over a second time and picked it up. The circle Pela had cut from the white fur poncho to make a hole for his head served as the top of the head covering. Its sides, however, were made of a deep black fur that felt like mink. He touched its softness with his fingers, stroked it against his cheek, and smelled the herbs with which Pela had treated the pelts. It smelled of balsam fir. He placed the hat on his head, and it fit comfortably over the tops of his ears to keep them warm. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Pela looking up at him.
“God’n like hat? Want change? I fix.”
“I like hat.” He didn’t have the word for perfect. “I like hat very much.”
A river of pain flowed behind his eyes, he held the cross pole tightly as his knees sagged. As the pain lessened, he felt her standing next to him. “Head hurt not so better,” he said with a smile. Time. He didn’t have the word for time. “Better a little soon.” He squeezed her arm.
She nodded, feigned business as usual as she turned and added another stick to the fire. He frowned against the pain, thinking that Pela was waiting for something. The thinking was hurting his head right then, and he turned and began pulling himself toward the graves, one halting step after another. Once past the shelter, he stood looking across the valley with its still unfrozen waters.
Gordon looked down at the river, reviewing his lessons from Pela. The river’s name was Avina. She was the goddess who gave them water, fish, reeds, sewing thread, medicinal and beauty herbs, shellfish, skin mud, and building mud. Avina cleaned their clothes and bodies and rose once or twice a year to replenish the intervale lands for planting. The gentle river gave no hint that soon she would become an endless towering column of mud, rocks, and shattered trees that would seal this entire valley with death.