Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters Page 3

  Twin Child Was Arapaho

  TOLD BY MAGGIE MARIE MILLER, NORTHERN ARAPAHO, OGLALA SIOUX, WYOMING

  To save time as I drive from Laramie, Wyoming, to visit my family in Fort Collins, Colorado, I often take a shortcut that leads through an ancient battlefield. Here Indian ancestors, perhaps of today’s Arapaho and Sioux, once fought each other in bloody wars. I have always felt safe driving through this area. And I always carry sweetgrass, our traditional plant that purifies and protects us from evil spirits. But my uncle, who is a medicine man, told me never to go through that place at night. Now I know why.

  My five-year-old twins and I were driving from Wyoming to Colo-rado, just the three of us. It was late, but we had less than an hour to reach our destination, and I wanted to keep driving. One twin was sleeping, and the other was watching videos on her tablet. I usually take an alternate route during our numerous trips, which they never did like passing through at night. When I’d ask them why, they’d say, “You know why, Mommy,” and look at me as if I should understand the reason.

  I knew the area was once a battleground where Indian enemies fought each other, and many people were killed and buried here. But that was long ago. Today, it is a quiet, deserted, rocky stretch through the Laramie Mountains. At night you might hear an animal call or see shadows shifting, but nothing more. Besides, the route cut off so much time, and tonight the girls didn’t seem to be paying attention. So, I thought, OK … we will be fine. I have sweetgrass on the dashboard to keep away spirits.

  We were almost halfway through the shortcut when the twin who was awake started screaming. I slammed on the brakes as she threw her tablet down and was fighting to get out of her car seat, calling for me to help her.

  “Mommy!” she screamed. “There’s too many, Mommy! I’m scared! Get me out now!”

  “Hold on, baby,” I shouted back. “I’m pulling over!”

  “No! Don’t stop, Mommy! Just get me out—now!”

  I slowed down just enough to reach back and unbuckle her, and she jumped like a shot into the front seat.

  “Buckle up!” I ordered.

  “Mommy!” she cried. “Hold the sweetgrass, Mommy, and pray!”

  Grasping the sweetgrass over the steering wheel, I started praying out loud. I prayed to my grandmother and grandfather, to all our ancestors. “Protect us,” I called to them.

  Every so often I’d glance over. My daughter was glued to the window, looking up to the sky, shaking.

  Then I remembered my great-great-grandmother. She and her twin sister were the only survivors of the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado. Like my two little girls, she, too, had been a twin. And she had seen spirits all throughout her life—good and terrible.

  “What is it?” I asked frantically, between prayers.

  “They’re going up into the sky now, see!” she cried. “There were just too many of them, Mommy, so I got scared!”

  “Too many what?” I asked. “I didn’t see anything!”

  “Those spirits! There were a lot, Mommy, but they went back to the sky—but keep holding the sweetgrass and praying till we get there, OK?”

  “Watch over us, grandparents,” I prayed again, and she started to calm down. “Tell me what they looked like,” I said.

  “They were riding next to us on horses and they were painted with all different colors. They had long hair. They wanted us to come with them.”

  Then she asked for her tablet. She had thrown it down onto the floor of the back seat, so I told her I had to stop the car to look for it.

  “No! Mommy!” Her voice was still shaking. “Don’t stop. Just give me your phone.”

  I had no internet connection, so she started clicking through my saved videos and pictures. Soon she stopped at the pictures of different moccasins. “Mommy,” she said, “Mommy, look at these moccasins.”

  I glanced over. “Yes, I need to make you girls some moccasins, so I saved those for ideas.”

  She was silent for a moment, then she said, “Oh. I used to have some that looked like these, but mine were Arapaho ones.” She lifted the screen to show me a pair of the beaded leather shoes.

  “No, baby,” I said. “Yours were Oglala Sioux moccasins that your uncle made for you.”

  She looked up at me, frowning. “No, Mommy, not those ones—I’m talking about the ones I used to wear when I was alive before. They were Arapaho because I was Arapaho.”

  I thought for a moment: That was nothing to be concerned about. I said, “You have both Sioux and Arapaho ancestors, baby.”

  She replied, “Yes, I know, but I was only Arapaho then.”

  Then she got quiet and started watching videos again.

  I didn’t know what to say. But I don’t take that shortcut through the battlefield at night anymore.

  The Deer Hunter

  TOLD BY DAN SASUWEH JONES, PONCA, WHILE VISITING THE RIVER PEOPLE

  Our Ponca elders have long taught us that our present is connected to our past and to our future. They have also taught us to read signs that might tell us about the future. We believe that animals such as deer communicate with one another not by sounds alone but by sight and by a silent language. The spirit world, our culture says, also communicates with us by signs. Sometimes the signs are so obvious that they stop us in our tracks and make us carefully consider our future actions.

  My friend Sonny and I were young men, hunting for the tribe. We fed many families, some too old to hunt and some too young. It’s not like the tribe paid us to do this—it’s something all young men do. It’s how we’re taught: You take care of those who have a hard time taking care of themselves. It’s what makes a tribe work.

  One summer I was a guest of Sonny and his tribe—who called themselves the River People—far from my own tribe. For the six months I lived with them, I camped on their wooded land near their home. They treated me as their own.

  Sonny’s best friend was Sam. The two grew up together and shared hundreds of hunting stories. Sam lived across the reservation with his own family but was related to Sonny’s family and spent a good deal of time there when he and Sonny weren’t hunting.

  Once Sonny introduced us, Sam and I became friends right off, and many times it was just Sam and me who would go out hunting. We had to be very careful what deer we would take. If we delivered to the elders the meat of a big deer, like a healthy buck with large antlers, the elders would chastise us. The big deer were breeders, so the old folks wanted them left alone. Besides, the meat was tough and its wild flavor was too strong. They wanted the weaker animals—the very young or very old. It was an ideal way to keep herds healthy. So we always hunted in balance with nature, no different than the way wolves would hunt. It required good judgment on the hunter’s part.

  It was one of those times when Sam and I were both looking at a young deer well within range. I was lying flat and so was he. I looked over my shoulder at him to confirm that this was indeed the right animal to take, and he gave me a nod. I always said a prayer as I sighted in on the animal and controlled my breathing. I was aiming just below its ear, high on its neck. If the bullet was true, it would be an instant-kill shot—no suffering; the animal would not even know it was hit. In another second I squeezed the trigger, and with a loud explosion the deer folded, dropping straight to the ground, a perfect shot! I turned to Sam, who appeared to still be holding his rifle at the ready, and I said, “Got him, a clean shot.”

  Sam looked at me, puzzled, saying, “I didn’t hear you shoot, but I got him.” I was as puzzled as he was: “I didn’t hear you shoot,” I said. As we drove our truck to pick up the deer, we argued. When we reached the deer, we paused and both said a prayer for the animal’s spirit and in thanks for its sacrifice. Then we looked carefully and found two entrance wounds—one almost exactly on top of the other. “What are the odds of that happening?” Sam said, astounded. I added, “And the reason I didn’t hear you and you didn’t hear me is because we shot at the same time.” The exact same time!

 
Back at Sonny’s house, we cut up the deer. Sam divided some meat for Sonny’s family, then drove off to deliver most of it to other tribal families he knew needed the food.

  The next morning, I saw Sonny drive up to my camp and I went out to meet him. “Morning, Sonny, how about a cup of coffee?” He didn’t get out of his truck and his head was down. When he looked up to me, his eyes were bloodred. He had been crying.

  “What’s wrong, Sonny?”

  I wasn’t ready for his words: “Sam was in a wreck last night, and he … he didn’t make it. I’ll be with his family for the next few days. Sam would want you to come to his funeral. I’ll come back for you when it’s time. You’ll be ready?”

  “Yes,” I replied, “of course, Sonny, if there is anything I can do, just let me know, OK? And, Sonny, I’m so sorry.” Sonny left to be with his friends and relatives. All that day I couldn’t help but think of the incident Sam and I had had with the deer. Was it related in any way? If so, in what way?

  Later that evening I decided to walk over to the main house, where Sonny and his family lived. It was a good half mile through the woods, but it was a clear, warm night with just enough moonlight to see pretty well. I wanted the time to think, and I needed to understand how this terrible thing had happened. Maybe the family had more information by now.

  When I reached the house, Sonny’s truck had returned from Sam’s house. I went inside, and immediately I sensed something was very wrong—even beyond Sam’s tragic death. The few people I saw were the oldest members of Sonny’s family, and a look of shock filled their faces.

  Then I heard it: A violent sound coming from down the hallway. Loud banging. Someone screaming. Sonny?

  As I walked toward Sonny’s room, his door opened, and his grandmother stood in the doorway. What I saw behind her I will never forget as long as I live: Sonny on his bed, screaming, in violent convulsions. He was being bent in half from the waist and raised up from the bed to a sitting position, then slammed back down on the bed at a speed that was impossibly fast—again and again—shaken like a rag doll by a powerful force.

  As his grandmother exited the room, she laid her hand directly on my chest, moving me backward while closing the door behind her. “Oh no, dear, oh no, you have to leave here, you shouldn’t be here now.”

  “Yes, I need to go!” I said. As I turned and headed to the front door, his grandmother grabbed my hand and placed something in it. Outside I saw that it was cedar and sage, tied in a small bundle. On the front porch a couple of family members had gathered. Under the porch light, Sonny’s brother-in-law spoke up.

  “Sonny was at a ceremony for Sam. Sam’s family had called in some elder medicine people because things were flying off the wall, people were being thrown to the floor, things like that! The medicine people told the family that Sam was angry because of the way he died, so they were holding a ceremony at the body to direct his spirit, let it understand what happened to him, and help it onto its journey.”

  The brother-in-law continued, “Sonny joined the ceremony, and during it he got sick, real sick. He wanted to leave the circle, but the elders told him not to. He left anyway and came home, and something awful came with him!”

  “My God,” I said to myself, clutching the cedar and sage. Looking into the darkness, I was having second thoughts about going alone through the woods back to my camp. But I politely turned down a ride and struck off walking. I had nothing to fear, did I?

  I had a flashlight with me and it helped, but I couldn’t get that picture of Sonny being pounded against his bed out of my mind. I must have been about halfway back to my camp when a horrible smell almost gagged me. I hadn’t noticed that smell as I came by here not thirty minutes ago. That’s when I noticed it was getting colder. Then I could see my breath. I had chills. Suddenly my flashlight went out. I was panicking, shaking that flashlight and hitting it against my leg until it came back on. I was still a good city block from my camp and I wanted to run, but I knew there was a powerful force with me. Something kept telling me to pray, and I did out loud.

  The words “something awful came with him” kept repeating in my mind. On what had been a warm, clear night, the freezing air bit at my skin. My light kept going out. And that god-awful smell … I was scared. Only a few yards from my tepee a wind slammed into me, making me fight the last few steps to the door, then whipping the door into the air like it was trapped in a whirlwind. I grabbed the door, ducked inside, and desperately tied it down. Inside I stoked hot coals still in the firebox, then sprinkled cedar and sage over the coals. As the smoke rose, I felt a weight lifting from me. My tepee warmed. Outside, I could hear that the windstorm had ceased.

  I didn’t sleep that night. I just kept the fire going, and now and then I’d burn a little more cedar and sage, until the sun came up at last—to a very beautiful day.

  I made my way over to Sonny’s house, and there he was, outside, walking with a cane. He looked noticeably older.

  “Are you OK?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” His voice didn’t sound the same. “The funeral is today; are you going?”

  I looked down. “I don’t know if Sam told you about the deer we shot, the day of the accident. We hit it in the same place at the same time. I don’t know what it means, if anything, but I do believe things like that happen for a reason. And I do believe it has connected us in some way. So, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay here.”

  The Rock Baby

  TRADITIONAL KAWAIISU TALE, CALIFORNIA

  Have you ever seen a pictograph—ancient artwork that is inscribed on a rocky cave or cliff? Don’t touch it, says a legend of the Kawaiisu people of California’s Sierra Nevada. It belongs to the spirit who lives inside the rock: “Rock Baby,” or “uwani azi.” Its name in Kawaiisu sounds like the cry an infant makes: “uwa uwa.” The picture is always changing, say the Kawaiisu, because Rock Baby is always working on it. A passerby must never touch the art— or look upon the artist.

  Some people who lived along the south fork of the Kern River went out to gather chia seeds. It was a beautiful sunny day. The poppies and clover were blooming along the river, and as the people walked toward the desert, they began to notice the rock walls were covered with pictures of people painted in red and yellow.

  All was quiet as they hunted for food. One man wandered especially close to the rocks as he gathered his food.

  “Uwa! Uwa!” cried a small voice from above him.

  The man looked up. There he saw a crying infant wedged between two rocks. It had no blanket or other covering. Even though the sun was shining, it appeared to be shivering. He made his way up the hill, gathered the infant into his warm, strong arms, and carried the child gently down the rocky slope.

  “Come and see the child I’ve found!” said the man.

  The people looked at the man as he stepped down from the rocks. Quickly they put their hands over their eyes. They were afraid to look.

  “It could be Rock Baby!” cried a young girl. “Don’t you see that he has been working on his pictures right here?”

  “He will harm you!” an old woman gasped.

  But the man looked at the baby and felt sorry for it. His wife left her women companions and came over to join her husband. She, too, looked at the baby. The child’s small round face cooed up at them. Its head was covered with thick black hair. They could not tell whether the child was a boy or a girl. It continued to coo in sweet, low tones.

  “We must take the child with us,” said the wife.

  The couple had recently given birth to their own baby. They agreed that they should bring this child home as their own. But the others continued to call out to them in fear, their eyes covered.

  “Take him back!” cried the young girl again. “He will bring harm upon all of us!”

  “Listen to her!” The rest of the party joined her plea. They all turned around and began to run back toward the river.

  The baby began to cry now, and the husband took even more pity
on it. He cooed back, stroking its hair. But the wife stopped. A chill ran through her. Something in its cry did not sound like the baby’s cry she knew so well from her own child. It sounded ancient and evil. The wife became frightened.

  “Take the baby back where you found it!” she cried suddenly. “I will wait here. But go quickly. Soon it will be dark and we’ll lose the others.”

  Sadly the man made his way up the rock face. As he climbed, he braced himself against the walls covered with paintings in red and yellow and black. The baby quieted and started to coo again.

  The man found the spot where the baby had first cried out and gently placed the baby back into its rocky shelter. Underneath the child he placed his own shirt as a pillow. Then he stepped away to take one last look.

  To his surprise, the baby stood up. It nodded at him. The sweet, cooing mouth twisted into an evil sneer. Then it turned around to the cliff wall and stepped inside. Tied to its back was a baby’s cradle.