Dreams That Burn In The Night (26 page)

The beautiful red
pool had thickened and turned brown.

Dr. Vada sighed,
filled with a great sorrow. Something beauti­ful had passed out of his life.

That Army place on
your head where your hair used to be, that's the first thing that gets out the bus door, bent
over, down the steps and out. Long since got used to the absence of braids. Watching the bus boil
away in the dust, wondering how long it
going to be before you learn to walk like you ain't got a board rammed up your back. Damn
Army.

Leonard Wolfe and
Dave, his brother, are sitting in front of the gas station, eating crackers and drinking wine.
Some damn tour­ist taking pictures of them, just asking to get his jaw rewired.

"Damn," says
Leonard, taking the bottle away from his lips. "It's Yellow Dog." He waves him over with his
sweaty hat.

Yellow Dog grins
crooked, his jaw still sore from that big black sergeant's fist, and walks over to them. "Who's
that there?" he asks, pointing at the tourist.

They all look up at
the tourist and the idiot turns several shades of red and tries to hide behind his
camera.

"You want something
to drink?" Leonard hands the big old wine bottle up at the white man. The white man shakes his
head, scared at the way they're looking at him.

"They'll be
offended if you don't drink with them," says Yellow Dog, dropping his Army duffel bag on the
ground beside his friends. "They might get mad at you. They might think you're saying you're too
good to drink with them."

Yellow Dog is
looking serious but, down deep, laughing it up.

The tourist gulps
like he swallowed a wristwatch and reaches and takes the wine bottle. He starts to wipe the rim
of the bottle on his sleeve but Yellow Dog shakes his head no and the tourist swallows another
watch and shakes a little. He tilts the bottle up and swallows down a big gulp of warm wine, lips
wrinkled up.

He pulls the bottle
down and his eyes are bulging a little and he chokes and Yellow Dog is about ready to fall over a
laugh and bust himself open, belly first. It is that much funny. Dumb damn white tourist and his
frigging snap snap camera!

"Thanks a lot,"
says the tourist, spitting out his words. "Igotta gobyethanks for the drink." And 'fore you can
spit he's halfway gone and still going away, camera bouncing off his side like a rug beater as he
runs.

"Look at that
rascal go! Don't he make a coyote look stiff?" says Leonard Wolfe. "Hey, Yellow Dog, you damn
well home for good now?"

"Yeah, I guess,"
says Yellow Dog. "I guess this is home and I guess I'm here to stay."

"Sit yourself down
and drink with us then, brother," says Leonard, and he hands the bottle over to him. So he sat
down
with them and drank and told lies
about all them women he'd run and ate the late-afternoon dust and fought mosquitoes until dark
gave them mosquitoes too much advantage. They run out of wine too.

By then, the
headache was moving from that wine, yes, moving in him, spreading down through the arms and legs
and moving down into his back. Yellow Dog just getting loaded and fitting in and it's dark, the
dance starts up there 'cross the ways in Will Holds Horse's trading store. Hot damn.

Yellow Dog and
Leonard Wolfe and his brother, they crawl down that way to see what's giving.

Country music
blaring and a fight off in one corner and man it's just like always. They stagger in just as
Gladys Best Heart comes out all bloodied up, drunk and spitting out her two front teeth. That
damn Charlie Best Heart, he takes his drinking hard.

Loud voices and
this woman dancing in one corner when she don't want to and some fight gets started and that's
like how it al­most got started big but Leonard Wolfe go up and hit Hungry Thomas over the head
with a six-pack of beer and that end that.

Yellow Dog leaning
against the wall there, just watching and drinking and listening that music whanging
away.

Someone, maybe that
Tolbert woman from over across the road, try to get him to dance but he can't hardly stand up no
more so he let it pass.

Yellow Dog sipping
some beer that Leonard hand him, god­damn head begin to pound, feel like stuffed with pine
needles.

God, is he getting
sick? It might pass, woozy and shaking and legs sure feeling weak on him.

Leonard goes out,
and his brother follows, probably some kind of fight, and Yellow Dog hugging the wall, can't walk
to even get outside where the air is.

Damn inside air,
smoke and sweat and no windows in there, going to knock him right out.

Oh damn, here it
comes, sliding down the wall. Someone next to him, puking all over the floor. Got to get outside.
Now.

Yellow Dog stagger
away, bump into people, get pushed away, not too gentle, probably would have got mouth busted
good but he so wasted they let him slip by.

Staggering toward
the door. Hardly move, blur and dizzy. Head exploding.

Get out into the
air, stagger off to one side, grab hold the flag­pole, damn creosote agency flagpole, and that's
it. Damn guts let go and hug that pole and try to do it gentle, try to get rid of it smooth and
not tear up insides.

Heaving and
heaving, and sick inside and when you got to quit or die it seems, then damn it lets loose of
you, and slide back down, fall to the ground in your vomit and fall over on your back.

Damn, damn, curse
Yellow Dog, lying there on his back, star­ing up at nothing. Damn, saying Yellow Dog, and crying
a kind of empty in him, he look up through the liquor sickness at the moon and cry, "Oh damn,"
and tears in his eyes. "I'm home," he says.

One evening Old
Coat sat down in the fire. He did not wince or move his face. After a while the fire burned low.
No one spoke.

Old Coat's daughter
sat in the cornfield. Within her belly her sorrowing boy-child knew it would be born
dead.

Uzmea the conjuror
came in the night. Uzmea, the throat spreader, killed her and put her head in a red clay pot. Now
the story begins.

Uzmea the taker of
sacrifices lived in a cave of no color. No warrior went seeking Uzmea. He lived in the mountains
among the strange gods and devices of his race.

One day of
blackness and ground clouds, Uzmea came into Chota and stood silently by the village house.
Warriors, women,
and small ones gathered
around him. No one dared move too close, for it was rumored that arms would drop from hands that
touched Uzmea.

Uzmea had lived in
the place of no color longer than the mem­ory of the pretty women. He had been with our people
from back into the time of the big cold land. He was not of our way. He wore strange plates of
yellow metal around his chest. Upon his head was a strange metal shield with a tall bird plume.
Around his neck was a string of glass stones that were red and blue and glitter. He worshipped
strange gods. Gods of the sky and another more powerful, a snake god with feathers.

Twice had Uzmea
come into Chota. Twice had the ground shaken the roots of houses and trees down. Twice water in
the river had risen and fallen like the tide of the big water, the bot­toms of lakes became
hills, the earth cracked with the great wounds, and the hot foul breath of demons went into the
air.

And each time Uzmea
had spoken in a strange tongue to the sun. And then to us he spoke of this world-shake. It was a
warn­ing that the land would have new masters, Uzmea said.

Now Uzmea stood in
the village again. Many hearts were tight with fear. Uzmea spoke to the sun in his strange
tongue. Then he turned to the real people and said in our tongue:

"Listen and I shall
tell you of a time long ago. I am the not-alive and the not-dead. I came to this place many
animal ages ago. I made prophecy that the great white brothers would come. For the Delawares were
upon you and your fires had sunk low. I told your oldest fathers of this place and of the coming
of the white brothers who would keep your fires high. And I took blood that my prophecy would
grow.

"It was many
lifetimes before the whites came. They were not the white brothers I had prophesied. These white
men came in ships across the big water. Uzmea sat in his cave dreaming and waiting. The real
people had forgotten him except in fire talk but Uzmea did not forget.

"These white men
became your brothers but they were not the white brothers of the time of need. Once again I spoke
to the oldest of your fathers. I said: The white man will take your land. He will point you to
the West, but there is no home for you there. He will make you become like him. He will say your
way is no good. He will make roads across your heart so that he may come
and look at you. He will teach you his tongue and the
strange markings that are his you will learn. He will teach your people to spin and weave clothes
that cover what you are not. He will teach you not to hunt and not to fight but to take food out
of the ground. By these means he will destroy. He will marry your women and the children will be
born boneless and bloodless.

"Some believed
Uzmea and some did not. Hide, my children. Go to sleep, I said. Those who believed Uzmea hid in
the caves and the high places. They stayed pure. Today I have come to this gathering place for
the last time.

"In the eyes of the
whites, you are outlaws, the ones who did not move West. Your bones are strong and your blood
sings. I have seen the clearness, the vision. I shall speak this once and go to the cave of my
race for all time. I have seen the white brother who is yet to come. Perhaps they will come
quickly or not in your breathing time. Time has no feeling to them. Years are days to these white
brothers. But come now or for your children, they will know your need. He will look upon your
bodies that are thin with hair. He will look at the blood of your children and it shall be his
blood.

"Their ways are
strange but that which was taken from you the white brother will give back. They are mighty. They
come across the place where no man walks. Give them the strange things of the ground so that your
brothers may live and breed in his home far from this place. This is my prophecy."

Then Uzmea beckoned
with his hand to Old Coat.

Old Coat did not
show fear as he walked toward Uzmea. He was walking to his death, he knew.

Uzmea stared at Old
Coat with ugly prophecy eyes and raised his hands in front of his unsleeping eyes. Old Coat stood
before Uzmea. He looked straight into Uzmea's eyes, his back straight. Uzmea's hands fell upon
Old Coat's face and Old Coat became as one dead. His eyes were dead fish-eyes in his
head.

"Do you see?" asked
Uzmea.

Old Coat's voice
came from the faraway of the grave. "I see."

Uzmea drew his robe
about him. "Three deaths will feed this dream. Three blood lives will grow my
prophecy."

As swift as hawk
shadow, Uzmea went away from them and disappeared into the hill trees.

Old Coat stood on
his dead legs. He began walking with stiffness and the real people parted and let him pass. He
went to
his house and called his
daughter's name. She lay within, heavy with child. She came out and many were the people who gave
moan. For she was dead too.

Old Coat and his
dead daughter stood in front of the council fire. Old Coat lifted his arms and pointed at the
lights in the sky. "They are there," his voice said. "The home of the white brothers is in the
sky. The stars are their home. They shall come in round pots through the place where no man
walks. They shall give the false white brother the sickness and he will wither as in winter. We
will live as we did before. The prophecy is spoken. We must fall asleep and wait and watch the
sky."

That night Old Coat
sat down in the fire. He did not wince or move his face. After a while the fire burned out. No
one spoke.

Old Coat's daughter
sat in the cornfield. Within her belly her sorrowing boy-child knew it would be born
dead.

Uzmea the conjuror
came in the night and killed her and put her head in a red clay pot. He set the pot high in the
mountains. Her eyes were pointed to the stars to guide the white brothers through the place where
no man walks. No one speaks of this. They are all asleep. Uzmea alone is awake. Uzmea waits and
watches beneath the stars.

The story has
begun.

I guess it is the
comets that I remember with the most joy. In the good old days a comet was a joke on the things
that later got la­beled in the popular press as planets. Ah, those comets! Comets looked a great
deal like planets but they were thinner, more athletically inclined, and did not hurt so hard
when they hit anybody as a planet invariably does. We called it a comet on account of its hair
but later we found that the bald comets gave just as much satisfaction as the younger, more
handsome kind.