American West by Loren D. Estleman

Author:Loren D. Estleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

The Living Land

JANET E. GRAEBNER

The spiritual life of the American Indian was an intensely physical one as well. Janet E. Graebner, a native Minnesotan now living in Colorado, has published articles in regional and national business magazines, has worked as a consultant and editor, and is the author of two nonfiction books. In her spare time she studies Sanskrit and Lakota.

AKÍYA WALKED QUICKLY AND quietly, his eyes fastened on the mountain in front of him. Like a woman certain of his intention, it beckoned him to climb the tree-darkened slope.

He obeyed the summons, shortening his stride to plant his bare feet better and grip the taunting hillside. His naked hard body blended with the surroundings: muscle and stone, brown flesh and earth, tenacity and endurance.

Toes curled into the dirt as his feet picked their way around red-ant hills, across broken shale, and over sage clumps that released silver-green pungency in the wet chill of the morning.

No sound issued in the false dawn. No stir of small animals or the visit of birds. Not even a sigh of exertion yet escaped his lips, for Akíya was in excellent physical condition, twenty-seven winters old, and an Oglala warrior of the Teton Lakhóta.

Looking over his shoulder to the south, he saw the land below spread wider and longer. Forward, the sky pressed down as the slope began to tilt up. The incline grew steeper. What had looked easily approachable from the valley now showed its true self as rugged terrain. Broken rocks, loosed from the eroding ledges above and exposing sharp white-gray edges, strewed his path, biting his feet. Others had lain for … how long? … their edges smoothed by wind and water and grit, their surfaces covered by a shield of gray-green lichen.

A rock-thrust tall as a lodge loomed before him, and as he skirted around it to his right, he saw the morning’s first light fringing the horizon. The soft rosy colors gradually fanned into cartwheeling golds and oranges as Wi, Father Sun, began his daily ascent.

Akíya carried only a buffalo robe and a red clay pipe, its bowl sealed. It was safely tucked into an unadorned elkskin case and slung over his shoulder by a braided horsehair strap. His discarded breechclout and moccasins were snugged in the crotch of a tree below, earthly goods that had been abandoned in a sign of humility. To seek a vision one must come before Wakantanka, the great mystery, poor in the things of this world, bare of all but a sincere desire to receive Wakantanka’s messengers.

He shifted the heavy robe for better balance and did not see the juniper root waiting to snag his foot. He stumbled, disturbing a rock, whose clatter as it fell broke the morning’s silence. A magpie skreeked. A lizard scurried in front of him, scattering grains of sand as it slid under a rock. A startled rabbit broke from the brush to his left. Akíya smiled, pleased, for the rabbit was a good sign. In Lakhóta tradition, the soft, quiet little animal represented humility.

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