Butterfly Moon: Short Stories

Where the Bones Are

37 Where the Bones Are Sonora, Mexico, 1530s I smelled smoke. I started running home, sliding on the sand, fear engulfing me. Smoke billowed up near my home. Had the cooking fire flared up? Was she in danger? I should’ve never left her alone. I skidded to a stop as I passed the fence of mesquite and cacti that surrounded our home. Mother stood, slightly bent, with a thin cotton shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her unbrushed hair was covered with falling ash. “Mother! Ae!” She turned toward the sound of my voice. “Burn. Burn.” Our house was smoldering. The palm mat roof had caved in, the support poles were black and smoking, the interior was a charred mess of broken pots. Everything was ruined. I was speechless. “Burn. Sickness.” Mother tried to explain. She pulled off the shawl and her clothes and threw them into the flames, motioning for me to do the same. Now we were naked. I saw the comal, or flat cooking stone, the pestle and mortar, and field tools propped against a tree. The granary had been spared. She had stored some simple cotton ponchos in a bamboo chest on the platform. I got them and we threw them over our bodies. Our People’s houses had been swept away by floods and shredded by fierce winds in the past. But we’d all been together then. It was easy to rebuild. We wanted to rebuild. Now we were few and weak and discouraged. I plopped down on the ground. My mother sat on her gaunt haunches next to me. Our faces were streaked with soot. She sobbed and threw warm ashes on her legs, gulping and howling until I covered my ears. I remembered a story Father once told me. 38 There was Wo’i, Coyote, who was hunting one day. He found a stinkbug, juva chinai, and was going to eat it, when the bug swore that it knew the secrets of the Enchanted World. “I can tell you what the spirits are saying,” it promised. Coyote took his paw off the bug and cocked an ear. “What are they saying, then?” The stinkbug listened. “The Spirit People say that any dirty Wo’i who leaves his shit lying around for other animals to step on will burn in a big fire.” Coyote gasped. He raced along the desert, picking up his dung, as well as other animals’ droppings. The stinkbug giggled and took off in the other direction. Like Coyote, I wanted to hurry away from this place of burning. The shit of death. The reeking bed mats. The fever. The house fire. The destruction of all that was important to me. I wanted to run into the desert and never come back. But I didn’t want to be foolish like Wo’i. I had responsibilities. I grabbed baskets of food and tied them around my waist. The living fence of mesquite and prickly pear would soon crowd out the remains of the house. The loom would blow over in the first big winds. The granary platform would topple to the earth. It was time to leave. Like a child, Mother held on to my hand. I gave her a walking cane, and she shuffled her way to the river. “Let’s wash ourselves, Mother,” I suggested, kneeling on the sand. The river trickled by, from mountain to the sea, not caring that it was washing away our grief. We made grass skirts, drank our fill, and slept. Then we made our way to the field shelter. In the middle of the maize fields, Father had built a lean-to, a place to nap or get out of the hot sun. We stayed there. During the day, I searched for other survivors. My uncle’s home stank of death. I called and called. But no one answered. I ran away. The neighbors across the river were dead, flies swarming over the rotted flesh and bones. I went to Seahamut’s house. It was built in the traditional way with a roof of woven sticks and palm. The walls, loosely intertwined bamboo, let in the breeze. Three rooms opened on two sides connected by doorways. There was the sleeping room, the workroom, and the storage area. Seahamut’s storeroom contained drying herbs and plaited yucca baskets full of roots and packets of prepared medications. Everything had been neat and orderly. I had spent many happy hours there, following Seahamut’s directions...