once in farewell.
After a while, the sound of the Indians’ drums faded and blended with far-off thunder. Southerly winds picked up and brought gentle rain that wiped away the pressing humidity and ushered in cool air. Fat drops peppered Old Bull’s back. Flocks of honking geese went over, fleeing north in staggered V-formations. Looking behind them, Red Moon said it looked like storms, but that they’d probably blow over in an hour.
They found shelter under a thick cypress grove. Whiteshield passed around dried buffalo, delicious after their recent seafood diet. After an hour, though, the rain had intensified, and the treetops were bending north from a steady gale. They were all getting soaked. There was nothing to do but wait. Old Bull had weathered many storms before, but this one only grew stronger. It was dark, and they circled their horses and huddled between them. Blue lightning illuminated the horses briefly; their heads were lowered and eyes shut, as if to sleep through it all. The horizontal rain, the spooky howl of the wind, reminded Old Bull of a tornado he had experienced as a young man, but then the wind and rain had passed quickly, albeit ferociously. This storm had more stamina.
He heard leaves being stripped from their branches, then a big limb snapped with a wicked crack! As if on cue, the rain slowed to a trickle, and the trees stretched back to their original shape. The clouds broke to reveal a pure blue circle, in which gulls and terns swirled. Their cries came to Old Bull slowly, then with startling clarity after the din of the storm. Rain dripped steadily from overhead branches. They untied their horses and mounted, anxious to make time and find higher ground.
Pools of water lay all around, mirrorlike in the bright light. It seemed to Old Bull that the sun shattered off of every drop in each splash Red Moon’s galloping horse made in front of him. To their backs, spinning clouds and sheets of rain were swallowing the blue sky as the party rode all-out for the cover of a vacant adobe structure, rising forlornly near the edge of a bayou. It reminded Old Bull of some houses he had seen out west on the other side of the mountains while on a trading trip several autumns ago. White men in robes had lived in them. They squeezed into an archway and Old Bull was amazed to see that there was no roof.
Fat mottled clouds raced overhead in the purplish twilight, so close Old Bull wished they could rope one and fly home. The walls and sides had already crumbled to the ground. All that remained was the facade, but it shielded the wind and rain, which was on them again. Gusts gathered into steady gales, the rain tilted sideways, darkness descended. For hours the rain and wind assaulted the mud bricks until they began to melt from the top. Red streams flowed down the sides and collected in gullies around their feet. A chunk of mud and straw flew off and splattered Whiteshield’s horse, causing it to bellow and rise, fighting at the air. He landed, bucked, and kicked hard with his hind legs, slamming the building solidly, and the entire east side of the wall caved in. The horse turned in nervous circles, this way and that, bewildered, until Whiteshield spoke to him and calmed him, rubbing his neck.
The Cheyennes all huddled with their backs against the west wall now, their horses faced away from the rain, heads lowered. Then the winds lessened, the rain suddenly quit. They stood and looked south. The sky was an electric pink. A blast of cold air delivered a hard spray of sleet and, glancing at the white pellets, Old Bull saw they were up to their ankles in water from the overflowing lagoon. Lightning popped over their heads, the horses jumped. Sandman’s pinto pony, ears twitching, heard the whistle first, monotone, distant, but growing louder. Again, lightning cracked the air above them. Again, the horses jumped. The whistle turned into a roar; they looked all around, up at the low ceiling of sky, out over the lagoon. They all pointed at once.
Skinny dancing ropes, three of them, had dropped from the wall of bruised clouds, hovering over a big tree. The tree began to lean backward, slowly, reaching as if pulled magnetically. When its tops began to brush the ground, the trunk exploded and stark white chunks as big as clubs splintered free, whirled and speared the mud wall. “Ride!” Red Moon yelled.
They jumped the south wall. Behind them the three ropes had meshed into a fat snout that whined and skipped along the ground. They were showered with mud and rocks. Old Bull kicked and whipped his horse to catch up with the others; a tree limb sailed overhead. Red Moon, Whiteshield, and Sandman plunged into the bay, intent on crossing at a narrow inlet. But it was too deep and the horses lost footing, listed sideways and tried to swim. Instantly it grew dark again, a shadow enveloped the earth. Old Bull yelled, but the wind snatched away his voice. He felt himself being lifted from his horse, or rather had the sensation that he and his horse were being elevated, because he felt his horse under him, then suddenly his horse wasn’t there, and Sandman was twirling above him, mouth open in a silent scream, his face a dazed mask. They reached for each other but were repelled. Three vertical arrows floated past him at eye level, followed by a limp swamp rat and Red Moon’s appaloosa, upside down.
Old Bull felt himself turn a flip, one slow revolution as he pawed at the air, then he was dunked under water. He opened his eyes briefly, saw midnight. Deeper and deeper he sank until jolting softly on his back against a muddy bottom. He paused a moment, stunned, before comprehending he was out of breath. In a sudden panic, he sprung off the bayou floor and shot up, kicking his legs and fanning his arms. He rose and rose and just when he thought he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he broke through, gasping and spewing water, arms flailing. It was dark out, but from nightfall. He grabbed onto a tree trunk bobbing past him in the roiling current. He floated swiftly at first, between what appeared to be the bluffs on either side of him, then the water lessened, then simply ran out, and he was beached on the floor of a small canyon. He stumbled to his feet, slipping in mud. It was still and quiet, a silver spray of stars pulsed in the bleached sky. He began to walk, northward he hoped. He called out once, loud, “Anybody out there?” but his words only echoed back to him: out there, out there, out there. . . .
He never saw Sandman, Red Moon, or Whiteshield again but dreamt of them often, even as an old man. It took him ten days to reach home, riding the final two nights on a horse coaxed from the fringe of a camp in the dead of night. When he was certain he was in his homeland, he relaxed, nearly hallucinating, and drifted in and out of sleep. That was how his people saw him when he arrived, riding, but slouched over with his face buried in the horse’s mane. He was nearly naked, shirtless, shoeless, and wore a strange necklace of teeth that clicked softly when they pulled him off the horse. It took a while, but he recuperated on corn soup and antelope meat. He didn’t speak of the trip for some time, but eventually told his wife and fellow chiefs all that had happened. There were dances for Sandman, Red Moon, and Whiteshield late every fall. Gradually the trip assumed a dreamlike quality in his mind, and children and grandchildren loved to hear the stories of turquoise-colored fish, screaming pigs with tusks, birds that talked and wore yellow and blue feathers and had orange beaks. He embellished when telling the children, who were awestruck to hear of white men from different worlds who rode on big ships with billowing sails and wore brown robes and lived in mud houses, of giant fish with big sharp teeth like a bear’s that ate people. He held up his necklace as evidence. Old Bull dreamed of these things and wasn’t entirely unconvinced himself.
YoYo
A TURTLE, its carapace shining black and streaked with yellow, began to emerge from the water and climb its way up the steep clay face. It grabbed Jordan’s attention from the other side of the pond. Stretched out on the grass with his German shepherd’s head in his lap, he had almost fallen asleep watching the clouds stream overhead like silent ships, but the turtle caught his eye. At first, he thought it was a snake. As it neared the rim of the bank the turtle – its shell already dry and dull brown – slipped and flipped over and tumbled back down to the edge of the water, right side up. It waited a while, then poked its tiny red-eyed head out and began again, stubbornly going nowhere in the plenty of time. Jordan lobbed a dirt clod at it in a high arc but missed and startled a bullfrog into the water. The splash lingered in the air, then it was silent again. Suddenly Butch sprang up, vision locked on the new house across the field. There was movement – heads trailing in and out of the garage. Jordan gathered
