Ahkuna

Ahkuna

1.

                 

                As true as a bullet from a gun, John Ahkuna’s arrow found its mark on the elk, entering through the ribcage and coming to a rest halfway out the other side.  The animal didn’t immediately fall but instead bolted awkwardly across the field.  John walked through his hiding of tall grass, thick brush and trees, following droplets of blood until he came to the spot where the animal lay in an expanding crimson pool.  With his foot on the side of the elk, he removed the arrow.  He laid his bow next to the arrow in the grass beside the elk, knelt on one knee and bowed his head to continue with the Ahkuna tradition.  He thanked the elk for providing him food, he thanked the land for providing the elk, and he thanked the Creator for providing it all.  

                Standing, scanning the horizon for any approaching predators and finding none, he pulled his skinning knife from its sheath and knelt again next to the elk.  With his hand firmly around the bone handle of the knife (bone possibly from this elk’s ancestor) and lifting the head of the elk by an antler, he drew the blade across its throat in one fast motion.  As the blood flowed in a steaming river from the animal’s neck John grabbed hold of its hind legs and began dragging it toward a nearby tree.  When under the tree he let the elk’s legs fall, lifted the strap of his leather hunting satchel over his head and placed it on the ground.  He untied the strings that held the top shut and removed a length of rope.  He fastened an end of the rope to the hind legs and threw the remaining end over a tree branch.  He pulled, using the branch as a pulley, until the elk lifted off of the ground and tied the end of the rope to the tree trunk to hold it there.

                He cut through the hide from between the elk’s back legs to the ribcage, spilling the bowels and stomach to the ground beneath its head.  Steam rose from the guts and from the open cavity where they once were and he watched as it dissipated.  Into the air and to the sky the spirit rises, his grandfather’s voice said, and blood and body to the earth. 

He cleaned out the cavity where the guts had been with his hands.  He sliced open the stomach spilling from it half digested grass and berries that the elk had eaten.  After scraping out the remainder he balled the stomach and placed it into the now empty leather satchel.  He worked what excrement he could from the pile of intestines and put those into the satchel, as well as the heart, liver, and kidneys.  All of this would be fully cleaned later.  But none would be wasted, that was the Ahkuna way.

                He cleaned his knife and as meticulous as a surgeon began to separate the hide from the flesh the way his grandfather had taught him when he was only a child.  For the sake of the animal that has given its life so that you may live, your clothes and your blankets with which to stay warm must be kept as the animal wore them, and you must wear them with the same pride.

 Although his grandfather had been gone for years John still held the fear of piercing through the hide with his skinning knife and ruining the integrity of the elk’s remembrance as a noble creature.  But as the hides all had been since the day his grandfather taught him, this hide remained true when finished.  He laid the coat on a tuft of dry grass to prepare the animal for its trip to the reservation.

                He snapped limbs from the fir tree the elk hung from and placed them underneath the skinned and gutted animal.  With precut leather straps pulled from the bottom of his coat he tied the limbs into bows.  He untied the rope from the tree and lowered the animal, now a little lighter, onto the bows.

 He picked up the hide from the grass and pulled it over his shoulders like a shawl.  He slung the stuffed leather satchel back over his shoulder by the strap.  He untied the rope from the elk’s back legs and used it to tie its antlers to the branch ends of the bows it lay on.  With the other end of the rope he began dragging his kill through the grass on the fir branch sled. 

                John felt his age when he began dragging the elk but he tried to ignore it realizing that he could have done this for miles when younger and he only had about a mile to get home.  Sometimes his two boys were there to help him but today they were in school and he wouldn’t dream of pulling them from class for a chore like this.  Someday they would be out of school – all the more wise and bringing the old man his elk when he could no longer hunt.  Besides, time spent alone afforded him time to think and from what his grandfather had taught him, this was as much food to the mind as the elk was food to the body.  Most of the terrain was flat plain, anyway.

                He ignored the burning in his calf muscles as he walked, leaning forward and moving at a steady pace, watching his footing and looking up only to make sure he was still traveling in the right direction.  He thought of his boys sitting in their classroom using computers, working from textbooks, learning how the rest of the world worked while he was dragging his elk.  His boys would undoubtedly be spending the evening telling their father about things he would never understand.  Luckily – at least he thought – they still enjoyed learning a few of the old ways from their father.  He couldn’t help but think of these things on his long walks.  The world was changing.  Even those from his tribe that lived with him on the reservation were changing, modernizing.  As time went on his people looked less like natives, talked less like natives, and lived less like natives.  This included his own sons.  But this didn’t bother him and it was to be expected.  Balance, his grandfathers’ voice said, change is good when there is balance.  

                He stopped for a moment to rest.  He checked to make sure the elk was still tied securely to the tree branches and then, taking note of the sun’s position in the sky above him, began pulling the animal through the grass again.

­2.

                Normally when he returned home with a kill this size he would be greeted with smiles and hellos.  Normally children would be running to tell their mothers that John Ahkuna had elk to be prepared.  This time it was different and he was alarmed.  Children stopped playing and only stared while he walked with the elk.  Women watched him from their doorsteps and porches with sullen expressions.  The men, who would always help him drag the animals home when he reached the reservation, only watched.  The reservation seemed too quiet, too still.

Reaching his house he found his wife, Shishauna, awaiting his arrival.  She was looking at him the way everyone else had since he had returned from his hunt and as he grew closer to her he saw her cheeks were wet with tears.  He dropped the rope leaving the elk in the front yard and went to her.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.  It wasn’t a question.

Shishaunas’ voice wavered when she spoke, trying to hold back sobs.  “A man came here today.  He was from the Four Seasons Insurance Company.  Said he was a friend of Glen and Darcy’s.  Said Darcy sent him.”

John looked at her, puzzled.  Glen was his younger brother and Darcy his brother’s wife.  After meeting Darcy, Glen left the reservation and worked for Darcy’s father, selling insurance.  Darcy didn’t approve of the way John and his family lived and John didn’t approve of Glen giving it all up.  John hadn’t seen or spoken to his brother in over a year.  He didn’t even know exactly where his brother lived.

“Is everything ok?” John asked.  “What did he say?”

“It’s Glen he’s…”  She started crying.

John held her. “What did he say?”

“He said Glen was in his office this morning and had an argument with a customer on the phone.  After that the man said it was quiet for a long time in Glen’s office so he went in to see if Glen wanted coffee.  He said he found Glen….”  She stopped, seeing the look of recognition on his face.  “Oh John.  I’m so sorry.”

It didn’t seem real what she was saying to him.  He couldn’t quite process it.

“How did it happen?”

“He had a heart attack.”

“And he’s –”

“Yes,” she interrupted, not wanting to hear him say it.  “The doctors said there was nothing anyone could have done.  It all happened very quickly.”

John stared across the plains into the hills that lay beyond waiting to hear his grandfather’s voice.  He heard only silence.

 So different he and his brother had been.  Such remorse he felt for not having spoken to him in so long.  And now at forty-five, so young, so far from home, he was gone.

He turned to Shishauna.  “When the boys return home, tell them to go to the neighbors to ask them to divide the elk up amongst themselves.  And you and I, we have to start packing.  We are going to town.”

Shishauna nodded, not questioning why, and headed into the house to begin gathering clothes and food.  Before going in himself to help her John looked again into the hills that surrounded their land.  He listened for the words of wisdom.  He listened for direction.  Still his grandfather was silent.   

 

3.

                   

    

               

                 Gordon Miner walked down the dirt pathway leading to his small manufactured home that sat just outside the cemetery.  His two Labrador retrievers, Max and Buddy, followed dutifully behind.  Bred and trained for bird hunting Max and Buddy were good dogs and also served as the cemetery’s only security system.  Gordon was the caretaker and on days like today, the gravedigger. 

                After his dogs trotted through, he clicked the gate shut, separating his front yard from the cemetery by a rustic cedar fence.  His wife, Vivian, sat on the front porch pouring iced tea into two glasses from a pitcher.  Gordon ascended the porch steps, set his glasses on the table and rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose before slumping into a wicker chair.

                “Rough day today?”  Vivian asked, handing Gordon a glass.

                 “Yeah,” he said, “had to bury the casket in that grave I dug yesterday.” 

                “That doesn’t usual make a rough day for you,” she said. “You have to do that all the time.”

                Max laid his head on Gordon’s lap and Gordon scratched him mindlessly between the ears while he took a long drink from his glass of tea.  He nodded at Vivian.  He did bury bodies quite often and it had never bothered him before.  He thought he would try to explain it to her but he still hadn’t been able to figure it out himself.

                 “Normally it’s easier than my maintenance work.  But this one was different somehow.  This guy – this Indian guy –  stared at me the entire time.  While the rest of them watched the casket lowering into the grave, crying and what not, he looked right at me.  I don’t think he even blinked once.  They had to lead him away so I could put the dirt back in the hole.  Otherwise, I think he would have stared at me the whole time.  He was lookin’ at me like I killed the guy or something.  And this guy was like a real Indian.  Not like the ones we see in town from the reservation.  Him and his wife – not their two boys so much – but they were straight out of a western movie.  They wore animal skins, headdresses, all that stuff.  It was weird and I can’t seem to stop thinking about how that guy was just staring at me.”

                He took a drink of his tea, more to stop himself from talking than to quench thirst.  He felt ridiculous the way he was rambling on. 

                Vivian waved her hand dismissively. “Oh Gordy, you know those Indians…. “ 

                “Yeah, I s’pose they’re a strange bunch,” he said, speaking more to himself than to Vivian and looking out over the cemetery.

                Vivian picked up the pitcher and empty glasses from the table and started into the house.  Gordon liked his job; she knew that about her husband.  It wasn’t an easy job – at least not physically – but he liked it because it was mostly a stress free job.  Never had she seen him this way before. 

                She had been a schoolteacher, teaching high school English, and had liked her job as well.  She had retired four years earlier and although Gordon had been eligible for it before she was, he insisted that he wanted to continue working, that he would get bored if he didn’t.  She was starting to think that maybe it was time. 

                Noticing his wife entering the house Gorgon opened a cedar humidor that sat on the wicker table.  From it he pulled three paper sacks with writing on them.  One was marked binder, one was marked wrapper, and the largest of the three bags was marked filler.  From the bag marked binder he pulled a long tobacco leaf and laid it on top of the humidor.  Using a straight razor he trimmed the jagged edges, making it almost rectangular.  He pulled a handful of filler tobacco from its bag and set it on the wrapper, separating and organizing it to roll evenly.  He rolled it quickly using a dab of vegetable gum from a small jar to adhere the end of the binder leaf.  He pulled the wrapper from the last bag, trimmed it as he had with the wrapper and finished the cigar, adding the last bit of vegetable gum to secure the wrapper when Vivian returned from the house.

                “I wish you would quit smoking those things,” she said.  “It makes your clothes stink.”

                Gordon ignored her, putting the cigar in his mouth to check the draw.  It was perfectly rolled, just the way his grandfather had taught him when he was still too young to smoke them.  He lit the cigar using a match and began putting the bags of tobacco back in the humidor.

                Vivian had traded the tea for a bottle of wine for herself and a bottle of scotch for her husband.  He looked like he needed it.  She poured the scotch into a small ice filled glass for Gordon. She then poured another after he drank the first in one swallow.

                “Still thinking about that Indian aren’t you?”  Vivian asked, pouring herself a glass of wine.

                Gordon exhaled a thick plume of cigar smoke.  “I just can’t seem to get it out of my head.  It was the Indian guys’ brother I buried today and he wanted the remains buried on the family’s reservation.  I think he blames me ‘cause I was the one putting him in the hole.”

                Vivian finished her wine in a long drink, seemingly trying to keep up with her husband, and poured herself another glass.  Gordon eyed her.  She wasn’t much of a drinker and a buzz came quickly when she did drink.

                Vivian asked, “And how do you know it was the guy’s brother?”

                “This morning the Indian and his brothers’ wife got into an argument,” he said and took a drink from his glass before continuing. “I was trimming the grass around some headstones by the funeral home and I heard them.”

                “A little nosy aren’t we?” She laughed a little loudly and, to Gordon’s dismay, took another long drink of wine.

                He ignored the remark.  “They were arguing about where to bury him, the Indian saying they all got buried on the reservation.  The lady was saying that her husband didn’t care about that stuff anymore, that it didn’t matter to him.  She even said she would give the family some of the life insurance money if he would just let it go.”

                “Well that’s a nice gesture, I think.”

                “That’s what I thought too, at first.  But I think she knew a guy like that really has no real use for money.  He seemed a little insulted by it too. 

“So he starts getting upset and then she starts getting upset.  She starts telling him to stop playing make believe. Says him and his brother didn’t even have real Indian names.  Says he should get with the times.  Then he gets really mad, starts yellin’ something about balance or something.  And she just walks off telling him there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.”

                “Well I think maybe he was overreacting just a little.  Once you’re dead you’re dead, what’s it matter where they put you in the ground?” Vivian said, pouring another glass of wine.

                “I think you’re going to be drunk if you keep refilling that glass every five minutes.  Why don’t you take it easy we haven’t even had dinner.” 

She ignored him.

He looked back out across the cemetery. “These people have traditions.  We got a certain way of doing things and they got a certain way of doing things.”

                “I worked with plenty of Indian people at the school,” Vivian said, “and they didn’t carry on with a bunch of `brother-moon mother-earth father-sun’ talk.  They were just like us.  Not that I have anything wrong with it, but their traditions started…who knows how long ago.  How long in this day in age can you plan on putting feathers in your hair, doing rain dances, hunting the buffalo that are almost gone – “

                “Like painting and hiding Easter eggs?” 

“ – and making your clothes from animal skins?  How long can you expect the population isn’t increasing without you and that the earth is just going to give you – “

                “Like a fat man coming down the chimney to give you gifts?”

                “ – all the things you want to hunt an pillage without planting and working and making your own things?  Really Gordon how long do they think they can live that way?”

                He could see the she was annoyed by his interruption.  He couldn’t figure out why, but it bothered him that Vivian would so easily take sides against the Indian.  Maybe she was playing devil’s advocate, trying to help him figure it out.  Either way he wanted to finish his story.

                “You might think differently about them if you’d seen the look on the guys face,” he said.  “Anyway, all of a sudden the Indian stops yelling and I look up and he’s looking at me.  I think he knew I was listening.  So I left and then like I said, the whole time I was dropping the casket he was looking at me.”

                “Well you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.  He was probably mad about that.”

                Gordon finished his second glass of scotch. “No.  I don’t think he was mad at me at all.  I think he thought I could stop it somehow.  I think he was pleading with me.”

                “Oh Gordy, just let it go.  Those Indians are so concerned about their culture.  But look at all the broken down cars they leave on their free property.  All the animals they kill that are endangered but they think they still have the right to kill all of them they want to.  The casinos they make millions off of.  And they want to complain about some old tradition.  I think they should be hap – “

                “You’re drunk!” Gordon said, surprised at his outburst.  “What do you know about Indians?”

                Vivian glanced at the bottle of wine on the table, the better part of it gone now.  She defiantly poured herself another glass.

                “What do you know about Indians?”  She said.

                “A hell of a lot more than you do!” he snapped.  “You didn’t see what I saw today.  The look on the guys face.  You just don’t get what I’m talking about.”

                Vivian almost fell as she stood from her chair, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.  She picked up her glass and bottle of wine.

                “I’m sorry Vivian, sit back down.  I didn’t mean to – “

                “I’m going to bed.  You can just sit out here until you wind down.  I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight about that Indian but I’m finished trying to help you figure it out.”

                Vivian left the porch, swaying while she walked, closing the door a little too hard when she went into the house.  Gordon instantly felt bad.  He couldn’t figure out why he had gotten so upset.  Maybe Vivian was right.  He should just let it go.  He poured another glass of scotch and sipped at it.  Max and Buddy lay at his feet, both staring up at him questioningly as if to ask what his problem was. 

4.

                Gordon picked up the book of matches and the half smoked cigar sitting in the ashtray next to him.  Before lighting it he held it in front of him looking at his craftsmanship.  It was easier to buy cigars but he enjoyed the challenge of rolling his own.  It was an art, his grandfather had told him, that few knew and it would someday be forgotten when machines started doing it all.  He lit the cigar letting the smoke roll around in his mouth, tasting the richness of the tobacco before blowing it out.

                Suddenly, at least in some way, he realized why – maybe for the first time – burying a casket had gotten to him.  He rolled his own cigars.  He refused to buy a new hat although his porkpie was worn out and many years old.  He wore suspenders instead of a belt.  He wore glasses and shunned contact lenses.  Maybe it wasn’t much, Gordon thought, but maybe he and the Indian weren’t that different after all.  He sat in his chair sipping from his glass satisfied with this explanation, satisfied as well that he could let it go.  Maybe.

                He sat on the porch in silence until twilight before deciding he would go in and see if Vivian was still awake.  She probably wouldn’t be by now but he wanted to apologize and maybe try to explain his little epiphany.  But before he could stand Max and Buddy simultaneously began barking, standing, running for the fence line.   Gordon stood and walked to the handrail of the porch where he kept a pair of binoculars hanging from a nail by the strap.  He looked through them scanning the cemetery.  It was almost dark now and the tombstones cast ominous shadows throughout the graveyard, but there were no signs of movement. 

                “Everything ok out there?”  Vivian called from an open bedroom window.  “Why’re the dogs barking?  Gordy?”

                He turned and called back to her, “there’s nothing going on out there.  Dogs must’ve heard a dear or something.  You can go back to bed.”

                Max and Buddy continued to bark, jumping up and down at the fence.  Gordon put the binoculars back in front of his eyes to scan the cemetery again.  This time he saw movement, dark shapes running between the tombstones.  He hung the binoculars back on the rail and walked toward the house to get the phone.  The dogs continued to bark. 

                About to turn the knob to go into the house Gordon suddenly stopped.  He should make sure he knew what he was looking at before calling the police.  It could just be an animal.  He walked back to the railing and picked up the binoculars.  The shapes that had been running were now stopped at a grave, and he wasn’t at all surprised to find that it was the grave he had filled earlier that day.  He picked up his glasses from the table, put them on and looked again through the binoculars.  Although featureless he could still recognize well enough the silhouettes of the Indian, his wife and the two sons.  He could also tell that they were shoveling the dirt, still soft, from the grave. 

                He knew he should get the phone and call the police.  He knew when it was discovered, Vivian would know what the dogs had been barking at and she would know that he was lying.  But for the time being he just watched.

                With mounds of dirt piled around the open grave he saw one of the boys drop into the hole.  He saw the Indian drop something to the boy and then throw something over the branch of an overhanging tree.  Gordon thought it looked like a coil of rope.  The boy, after a moment of toiling with the rope, used it to climb from the grave.  The woman climbed the tree and broke branches from it, dropping them to the others below.  They laid the branches next to the grave.

                “Gordy are you sure there’s nothing out there?  Why’re the dogs still barking?”

                It was his last chance to come clean.  He looked over at the ashtray on the table and at the butt of his handmade cigar.

                “Everything’s fine Viv.  Just go back to bed now ok?  Then to the dogs: “Here Max!  Here Buddy!”

                His dogs came to him and with an effort he quieted them.  He looked through the binoculars in time to see the four Indians pulling the rope, raising the casket.  When it was above the grave and above the dirt piled around the grave, they brought the casket down, the woman pulling it to the side and onto the branches while it was lowered by the other three.  Gordon was amazed at the ingenuity as they tied the casket around the branches using them as a sled to drag it across the cemetery.  He watched them move the casket at an astonishing speed until the four silhouettes disappeared into the darkness.  He hung the binoculars back on the handrail. 

                He went in the house to check on Vivian and found her asleep in bed.  She snored loudly. She wasn’t much of a drinker.  She got a buzz quickly.  For tonight that was a good thing.

 Sure that Vivian wouldn’t wake again, he shut the bedroom door.  Before returning to the porch he removed the key ring that hung beside the front door, checking to make sure it had the key for the cemetery equipment shed and the key for his school bus-yellow backhoe.  Satisfied that he had what he needed he locked the front door, shut it and returned to the porch.  He opened the humidor, removing the bags of tobacco and although it was now dark, rolled himself another perfect cigar.  He poured another glass of scotch wishing it was coffee instead.  It was going to be a late night.

“C’mon Max!  C’mon Buddy!  Time to get to work boys.”

He finished his drink, left the empty glass on the table, and switched on a flashlight starting down the pathway to the gate with the two dogs following, excited for their late night duties. 

Down the pathway, into the equipment shed, until he started the diesel engine of the machine, Vivian’s voice echoed in his mind: “Once you’re dead you’re dead, what’s it matter where they put you in the ground?”

After releasing the clutch pedal the backhoe jerked forward and with Max and Buddy running behind he set out to fill Glen Ahkuna’s empty grave.