The Woman at Otowi Crossing by Frank Waters

Author:Frank Waters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2023-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four

1.

As the spring equinox approached, Facundo persuaded Helen to drive him to visit a friend living in another pueblo. Not until she had committed herself did she find out that it was a remote pueblo downriver. Remonstrating at the distance and the time the trip would take, she finally learned that Facundo's friend was a kiva chief whose turn had come "to work for the sun" during this important time.

Now she saw in proper perspective the reason for his visit. Facundo's friend, with his kiva members, was immured in the underground kiva for forty days and nights. He wore only handmade moccasins and a blanket of handwoven native wool, without color or decoration; he ate no canned goods nor any prepared foods; he was not allowed to see nor talk to anyone without permission. His full thought and energy were consecrated with ceremonial prayer, song and recital to the task of strengthening Our Father Sun at this crucial time in the spring when his power was weak, so that he could continue his unremitting daily journeys across the sky. Praying too that his radiant, life-giving energy would continue to be infused in everything that lived—the tall wild grasses and corn plants, the tiny insects, the fish that leapt to the surface of the waters, the myriad birds of the sky, all the beasts of field and forest, and finally man—that they too might continue on their Road.

"It is permitted to take something," Facundo suggested gravely.

"Of course." She laid out a couple of heads of lettuce, a large firm head of cabbage.

She could see Facundo's mouth water. Green leaves! For one stuck down in the kiva, without sunlight and the touch of earth underfoot, what could be better than these crisp green leaves that tasted of both! He had known on many such occasions himself how they felt on the tongue and inside his shrunken bowels.

Helen added some fruit, then paused. "What do you think, Facundo?"

The old man did not know how to say it, even to her. "That which a man takes to do what he must do when he has forgotten how to do it. That medicine in a bottle. Si, mebbe so."

"Of course! I should have thought of it myself!" If there was one thing those men needed, confined without exercise or proper food, it was a good laxative. She put a bottle of a safe physic in the paper sack. "Now we're ready!"

Facundo delayed. "Mebbe that Governor smoke."

Facundo never forgot anything! Helen threw in a sack of Bull Durham and a package of Wheatstraws, and fled out to the car.

They drove steadily on the paved highway down the slope of the plateau, dipped into the wide plain, and turned off on a dirt road that led westward to the mountains. They stopped for a sandwich where the river poured out of the gorge in a wide bend. Then they crossed the rickety bridge and started climbing the foothills through a growth of sage and piñon.

It was nearly noon when they came to the pueblo, almost hidden in the hills.

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