The Master Of Monterey: A Novel

Chapter One

Chapter One Although at the apogee of his power, the Commodore could not sleep that night, as all seemed fleeting and tenuous. He spent the night gliding back and forth across the beatenearth floor of the quarters he had taken in the Presidio, pondering the possibility that Mexico and the United States were not at war on the Southern Marches, and the rumors that Micheltorena had seven hundred and fifty men under arms. He wondered whether he had gotten the sign wrong, whether freedom and democracy were truly established in California. And he grew most pensive when he thought about Louisa Darling. No matter what lands he possessed in her name, no matter how far he spread the realm of freedom and democracy , he was uncertain that the end of his journeys would come until all his intentions had ended in her love. Just outside his door, Hannibal Memory slept soundly, snoring now and then, content that the Commodore's proclamation had opened a way for him to author his own line. But two doors down, Captain Rafael Rafael was also pacing, thinking about the woman in black who walked with the Virgin, who had looked at him in a way that made him forget death. Mister Lurkin had told him her name, Arcadia Serrano, although she +~ 161 -+ was promised, it was understood, to Don Ignacio Castro, one of the most powerful landowners in California. When the sun dawned the next day, the boatswain blew his pipes to the rising sun in a way that quickened the heart of every Jack Tar aboard ship. Liberty, liberty, sailor's liberty ashore on the newly conquered land. One quarter of the crew at a time, for twenty-four hours, sailor's liberty in Monterey. Lots were drawn, and the starboard-quarter watch, the watch ofJack Chase and Jimmy F. Bush, was chosen to be the first of the common sailors to go ashore. As the starboard-quarter watch drew buckets of fresh water, which was allowed in port, and soaped and rinsed themselves naked on deck, and brought out their go-ashore white duck trousers and blue jackets and neckerchiefs and beribboned straw hats, Chips took advantage of the commotion to creep quietly into the midshipmen's quarters, where William Waxdeck lay. The butterfly-shaped plate of silver in Chips's skull glinted softly as he slipped into the compartment, deserted except for the pale youth lying on a bunk littered with papers. Chips scratched his bearded cheek. Waxdeck slept, as he had hoped, a carven marble visage with a drop of green at the corner of the mouth. Chips was afraid of Waxdeck, as he was afraid of all those whose words had power, the ship's officers who could make men climb up flimsy rigging in a tempest to take in sail, the Captain who could with a word make a man a spread-eagle on the rigging to be marked with a dozen stripes from the colt, the Commodore who could turn a line of ships into battle with a simple utterance. He was afraid of them, and he had always +~ 162 -<~- worshiped them and served them, out of awe at their magnificence, and out of rancor and envy that he would never be like them. In his long seagoing career, which had begun further back than his own memory reached, he had sunk down in the ship's levels, from a maintopman, to a gunner's mate (where he had received the cavernous head wound stopped with silver), to the ship's carpenter concerned only with the keel and keelson deep in the bilges. But now, as the bilges filled with seeping sea water that had a tang of blood, and the oakum had been used up or sold by Keyes, he felt compelled to sneak up on Waxdeck. Chips's mouth was a ragged circle, and he stifled a moan of fear as he approached on his hands and knees, in a position of obeisance should the poet awake. At the foot of the bed, he lifted carefully from the blanket a number of sheets of paper, marked with even hexameters in India ink, though to Chips they were merely terrifying symbols that he clutched away from his sight, as though they were the head of a Gorgon. Then he backed up slowly, still bowed down, until, two steps from the door, he turned and scrambled out in a panic. Waxdeck stirred on the bed, but did not wake. Chips scuttled down to the bilges, where the water continued to creep higher, and wondered at the papers in his hands. He wished he knew something about words, and how to give them power. He wished he knew how to use these words in his hands, change them to make the pumps be manned and the leaks be fixed. One family of rats hovered near him, crouched in the shadow of the ship's ribs, questioning him about the leak with their sensitive quivering noses. But another family of rats, +~ 163 '0+ companions of his for many voyages to fight and conquer, had deserted ship, clutching to the stern of one of the stealthy boats that ghosted in with muffled oars under the chains at midnight. This family of rats too would soon be gone as well, recognizing no allegiance to the National Intention. He wondered at the letters again, slim discrete marks on the page that frightened him even though he had them in his possession . That Jones who brought to California s Breast / The blessings ofour Destiny Man'fest. He moaned as he took up the bucket of tar he had prepared, warm and gooey, as there was no more oakum to be had aboard ship. He took up the thick round brush, the sash tool, and gobbed tar onto both sides of one sheet of paper, melting the ink into one black smear. Then he took the tar-soaked paper and dove into the bilge, down wherethe ribs met the keel and water seeped in, and he shoved the paper between the timbers, holding his breath and tamping it in with a long-handled maul. He came up for air, soaked another leaf of paper in solid black, and dove again. The yeoman, Keyes, sat in the ship's waist with a marine guard at his back and several buckskin bags of silver dollars before him. As the liberty-men filed by, he counted out six dollars and marked carefully beside their names on the pay list, anguished at having to hand out money and consoled only by the fact that some of it would go to the stores of the captivating Mister Lurkin, who might then use it to buy more of the ship's goods, which Keyes would arrange to smuggle off. The circulation of money and goods, he reminded himself, would lead to the prosperity of all, until the sailors were drunk and penniless. +~ 164 -+ Jimmy sat at Jack Chase's side in the stern sheets of the first liberty boat, being rowed ashore like pay passengers by members of the port-quarter watch. He had the lambskin draped over his left shoulder, and he wore his blue jacket loose so it wouldn't chafe his back, scourged and suppurating from his last flogging. To the east, beyond the pueblo, twisting, treelined creeks ran to the bay between smooth hills of grass studded with solitary oak trees. Higher in the hills, tall evergreens, fir and redwood. A low blanket of sea fog softened over the pueblo, frayed into separate mist clouds in the tall trees, weightless and floating in the green prickly branches. When the liberty-men set foot ashore, everyone of them breathed in deeply, feeling master of himself and his time for the first time in months. They walked past the Custom House onto the rutted oxcart path that led to the Presidio, digging their feet into the plush, unaccustomed ground, six men suddenly free from the National/ntention and with wings on their feet. No bands greeted the liberty-men, no lines of dignitaries waited for them. But Mister Lurkin sat behind the counter of his trading house, ready with bottles and cups, where Jack Chase led them all for a round of pulque. They drank to the new land, which they had won for freedom . They drank to the end of the continent, and an end to wandering at last. They drank to the paradise found, where generous abundance would reign and contentment only was man's lot. They drank to themselves, the liberty-men, who had won the victory. And as they drank, wet the swab, spliced the main brace, and pushed more dollars across the counter to Mister Lurkin, California grew ever more lovely in their +~ 165 -0+ minds, and their own joy in freedom more invincible. They drank royally and gloriously, drank until they believed that everything they desired would come to them with the speaking of the word and their word was always the same: drink. They drank until they believed it would always be thus. Jimmy drank with the rest, paid for rounds with his store of dollars and downed the thick, warm liquor. From the rafters of the trading house hung a wedding dress, stiff and white, along with woven lariats and iron ploughshares. On the floor, barrels of seed corn and gunpowder crowded together, and the walls crawled with shelves, overflowing with calico and silk, cheap shoes and dried fruits and boxes of shot. Jimmy recognized some things from the National Intention - a kind of tinned biscuit, rolls of marline, and boxes of sewing needles - only now they didn't seem to belong to the National Intention, but rather to anyone - himself- who could rap the counter with a dollar. Someone called for another round, and Jimmy held up a fistful of coins. - I'll pay, he said. I'll pay. Jack Chase didn't seem drunk, no matter how many rounds of pulque were hoisted. Even when they had drunk enough to declare themselves sovereigns of all California, to proclaim that the land was their new homeland and that they would never leave, Jack drank as one who had many times declared his freedom to be invincible and as many times found himself back aboard one of the countless warships of the world. When Major McCormick and a squad of marines showed up at the door of the trading house, Jack didn't show surprise but only continued to sip his drink. +~ 166 -+ - Is everything in order, sir? asked the Major. - Indeed, Mister Lurkin said, scraping a dollar into a drawer . Everything is in order. - I wanted to remember the starboard-quarter watch, McCormick said, that their liberty ends tomorrow. We'll need them back aboard the National Intention then. Especially you, he said, fixing Jimmy with a piercing stare. To keep the ship on an even keel. -Aye, Major, Jack Chase said. We are remembered. When the Major left, nobody called for a drink. The liberty -men had plummeted from the heights of delirium to the pit of ashes, and they thought that their liberty would only last twenty-four hours, and their sovereignty only as long as they could push a dollar across the counter to the man with shadowed eyes. Jimmy felt in his pockets and found that he had spent every penny, and he staggered over to Jack's side. Jack put an arm around his shoulder and straightened him up. - If you want to find your mother and father, you'd best go now. Perhaps you'll find them in a home I know naught of. You've paid with flesh enough, and more. Let the rest of us be damned to keeping the National Intention on an even keel. He embraced Jimmy, then pushed him toward the door. Before he reached the threshold, Mister Lurkin called to him. - Lad, he said. You might want some coin if you're leaving . I've admired that lambskin you're wearing, and just as a favor to you, I'll give you back what you've spent here in exchange for it. Jimmy looked at Jack, but the older seaman gave no tells and left it his own decision. He looked back at the sha- +~ 167 -+ dow over Lurkin's face. Then he turned and stumbled over the threshold. Jack Chase spoke to Mister Lurkin as though he could see through to the Trader's eyes. - He's going beyond your reach. Out of circulation, you might say. - For the time being, Lurkin said. Et in Arcadia Ego. Out the door, Jimmy F. Bush fell into a new world. The light of midmorning seemed thick and liquid, blurring the rounded hills and the dusky forest with a wash of gold. He staggered east, in the direction the light came from, certain that he was at last heading in the right direction, toward a rendezvous with his mother and father, who even now might be descending over the last foothills and into the great valley of California. He strayed off the ox-rutted path, following his own true compass, and barely pausing to vomit out a stew of eleven glasses of pulque, as well as that morning's lob-scouse, and the previous day's burgoo and dunderfunk. On the edge of town, a group of Ohlone vaqueros were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, while behind them a mare was grazing on the green, new-grown grass. The vaqueros didn't pay any attention to the mare, as none of them would ever ride anything but a stallion, and they had only the week before stampeded a herd of the overly plentiful mustangs into the sea to leave more pasturage for cattle. When they saw Jimmy walk unsteadily toward them, with a face pale as linen, they took off their hats to him. Jimmy took off his hat in turn, and he pointed at the mare. - Can I use that horse? he asked. +~ 168 -+ The vaqueros didn't understand him, as they only spoke two languages, and if they had understood him, they would have laughed, as the mare belonged to nobody. One of them, thinking that the boy was perhaps scared of the mare, slapped it on the hindquarters, and it moved several steps away. - Here, Jimmy said. Take my hat. And my neckerchief. The vaqueros took the hat and scarf into their hands, turning them over, admiring the dark blue of the scarf without understanding at all what the boy was saying. Jimmy then took off his jacket and shoes, and handed them over. The vaqueros were confused, and asked each other if giving away clothing was some strange custom of the new people who had come. Jimmy explained in very clear and simple English that he wanted to give them something for the horse grazing behind them, but they only discussed low among themselves what it could mean, handing the clothing from person to person and giving no sign that Jimmy could interpret as meaning that they were willing to part with the mare, in which, after all, they had no interest whatsoever. Then he took off his jersey and handed that over, and walked through the Ohlones to the mare, his lambskin draped across one naked shoulder. Jimmy's back crawled with luminous red flesh and hung with loose strings of skin, and it seemed to pulse as though one could see right through the punished body to the heart. He turned to face them, one hand on the mare's neck, his pale white skin barely stretching to fit over a pointy rack of bone. The vaqueros felt a sudden awe at the boy. One of them wondered aloud whether all the people of the ship had raw +~ 169 -+ wounds under their uniforms, and another asked if they all wore their hearts so close to the surface under mere rags of flesh. A third stated that although he had often seen indigenas beaten and had been beaten himself more than once, he had never seen a white man beaten. This boy, then, must be special in some way. Finally, one who was more pragmatic said that the boy obviously wanted the mare. They should put him on it, because whoever beat him before might come looking for him again, and beat them as well, as they would certainly beat an indio with less cause than a white man. This they all knew. The last one to speak knotted a hackamore for the mare, pushed it over her nose and around her cheeks, and then cupped his hands for Jimmy to mount. - Is it my horse now? Jimmy asked. The vaquero, although he didn't understand the question, explained that the horse belonged to nobody, that it was nobody's horse. He explained it first in the tongue of his people , and then in Spanish, that it was nobody's horse. Jimmy placed his foot in the cupped hands and pushed himself up onto the mare's saddleless back. - My horse, he said. Jimmy took the mare around in a circle, testing the hackamore against the mare's understandable desire to stay right where she was and continue grazing. Then he kicked the mare in the ribs, and the pragmatic vaquero slapped it on the flank with his hat, and Jimmy rode off to the east. He kept the mare mostly at a walk, as he was afraid he would fall off at a gallop, and when he tried to go at a trot, he felt so +~ 170 -+ shaken that he vomited out whatever vestiges of shipboard food that had remained. As he rode, he began to feel light and empty. His stomach was beginning to shrivel and his skin stretched tight upon his face. The world still seemed new and blurry, and as he rode, he sometimes had the feeling that his body was about to burst into feather. Jimmy rode easterly for three days. The mare walked willingly where he directed her, because there were fresh grasses everywhere, and she ate as she went, growing fatter and rounder as her rider grew thinner and lighter. At the end of the first day, Jimmy's pants split and he rode with his back leaking and only the fleece for covering. He spent that night in a tree with the mare tied to the trunk, wakeful throughout the night while the horse below grazed and dozed. On the second day, he passed through the village of Temecula, home of Pablo Assis and his young son, Alessandro, who was destined to be Ramona's unhappy husband and end in madness. As he rode through the village, people turned from him in fright and horror , although some women thought he looked like the Savior and ran out to kiss his feet and weep over his whipped and sunbeaten shoulders. On the third day, Jimmy struck the San Benito River and rode through the deep earthquake fault below the crumbling Mission San Juan Bautista. His head was light now, after three days without food, and everything seemed to waver brightly and unsteadily in his vision. Oak trees seemed to shimmer, as though illuminated by an inner fire that was always on the verge of breaking through, and each turning oak leaf was a quaking flame. The large stones that stood out in the fields +~ 171 -+ shifted position, animate and unpredictable. He knew, somewhere in his floating mind, that he was looking for his mother and father. But his mother and father had become unstuck from his image of them. He no longer could remember what they looked like. Perhaps they were that deer there, that black bird with flashes of white on its wings that looked at him curiously as he walked, that large-eared coyote. At the end of the day, he entered a rancheria of tule huts scattered around a grassless open space. People walked out and surrounded him, and one man took the rope hackamore from him. When Jimmy felt the rope slide from his hand, he thought for a moment he would rise into the air. But instead he fell down from the horse, into the arms of the village men and women around him. The rancheria was called by its people Pagsin. It was a hybrid village, made up mostly of former neophytes from the missions who, when the mission system decayed and fell after secularization, had sought out again a way of life they only had notions of in remembered old songs and dances, and in the minds of a few old ones. They had settled just beyond the boundaries of the land grants, joining with a few gentile natives from tribes that, although they had not been blessed with Christian Instruction, had still been instructed in the ways of smallpox and syphilis, and they spoke a fractured and pieced-together language, made up of Yokuts, Plains Miwok, Patwin, Ohlone, Spanish, and the Latin they had recited ignorantly on Holy Days. They laid Jimmy down gently, but when he felt the ground bite into his back, he rolled over. One old woman peeled off +~ 172 -+ part of the lambskin, and saw his back glowing and pulsing, crawling with naked ropes of muscle. Vade retro, Satana! she said as she had been taught, and they all drew back, leaving Jimmy prone and moaning in the middle of the ring. - What does this mean? they asked each other, and they looked to their Chief Man to speak. The Chief Man was one of the only survivors from a small tribe, a man who had never been to the missions, and he had been chosen chief because he still knew when to tell the people to go out and gather acorns, when to tell them to collect duck eggs and, later, fledglings. He knew how to wear a deer's head on his brow and paw in the grass, to draw the deer close enough for the kill, and he had been taught to close up a dead deer's eyeholes when its flesh was being dressed, so that its spirit would not be shocked and it would come again next year and bring its brothers. But as he looked at Jimmy, he didn't know what to do, because he didn't know what the boy meant. Nothing seemed to mean in the same way it used to, in the way it did in songs. The world was more confounding now than it had been for his grandfather. Even his language seemed to be decaying, as he could not speak it with the people, and he found himself speaking words of Spanish as the world ripped around him. He had a dream he could not control, a dream in which he had lost a word. The word was not a physical object, but in his dream he looked for it as though it were a physical object, under rocks and along the banks of the slough. The word was lost, and when he tried to speak it, foreign words came from his mouth, +~ 173 -+ which were sometimes close, but never just the right word, and the word he was seeking was the central word, and no other words meant what they were supposed to without the word as a roof pole. All other words meant what they meant in relation to that word he had lost. When the sun came up in the morning , he was still looking in his dream. He had dreamed this many times. Jimmy raised up his head and saw the Chief Man deliberating . He said in pained syllables that he was looking for his mother and father, but he had discovered while riding that he no longer knew exactly who or what they were, they were changing, shedding their skin, and he didn't know if they were only going to turn out the same on the inside as on the outside. - I only lost them because they were always moving, and I'm moving because I want to find them. But if I go to where they were, I'll never be where they are. Exhausted, Jimmy let his head go limp. The boy's words troubled the Chief Man further, although he kept his face impassive. If the boy had come with a bundle of arrows clutched in his hand, the Chief would have known what that meant. Or if he had come with white feathers threaded on top ofa wand, or a cord with seven knots, he would have known what that meant. But he had come on a horse with his back flayed, and he spoke a rude and uncouth tongue, and the Chief suddenly feared that some of the boy's words were the words he himself had spoken in his dream, in search of the lost word. The people were still looking at him, waiting for him to speak. The last thing he wanted to do was to make a hasty deci- +~ 174 -<~- sion that would lead the rancheria into bad luck, war from the boy's people, or haunting from the boy's ghost. At last he said, - Where is the Doctor? - Away from the village, one answered. Since morning. That pleased the Chief Man. He didn't like the Doctor, but he was afraid of her. Nobody knew where she went when she left. She might be out gathering herbs, or she might be singing in a secret place. But she had not been there to keep this sickness and disorder from entering the world. The best solution was perhaps to let the Doctor decide what to do, and then blame her if the decision proved ill. - The Doctor will return soon, the Chief Man said. Perhaps the boy is to be cured, and she will do so. Then Sigelizu Joseph stepped forward, a man who had been a neophyte at Carmel Mission. He had refused to work for the great landowners once the mission lands had passed into their hands, and he had been one of the leaders of those who had chosen to seek out a place beyond the land grants. He had always been a rival of the Chief Man because he knew more about the white men who now lived near the shore, and he had powerful dreams that the tribe would once again live by the ocean. - No, he said. This boy cannot be cured. None of them can be cured. They are all wounded, and they will kill us to cure themselves, but they cannot be cured. I know who this boy is. He is the rolling head. A shudder ran through the crowd, and the Chief Man stepped back from Jimmy. They all knew the story. It belonged to Sigelizu Joseph, and he had told it before. But now he told it +~ 175 -+ again, to put the boy into it, so that the boy would no longer be unknowable, so that he would exist in their language. A group of four brothers was living together The youngest brother had not yet been marked by Kuksu He could not stay in the sweat lodge for long And he had not yet dreamed of killing a deer. All this, his brothers knew And they said to him: Stay home while we hunt Stay home and gather acorns Stay home and help our mother Stay home! But the boy had a dream that he tasted blood with his brothers. A dangerous dream! A bloody dream. A dream of blood. (but the boy didn't know it) And when the brothers went out to hunt With their talking bows and favorite arrows (you see, they knew how) The boy followed them. The boy followed them even though he was forbidden. The boy followed them to the edge of a meadow Where one brother waved a piece of deerskin To attract the curious antelope. The brothers knew he was there But they did not speak to him. +~ 176 -<~- But they did not take notice of him. The brothers wanted him not there. The boy took out his bow and one arrow. (It was like his dream) And he said, "I'll shoot the antelope, and we'll dry the meat." And he said, "Antelope meat is better than acorns." And he said, "We'll store antelope meat for the winter." But he cut his finger on the arrowhead And he began to bleed. He began to bleed red blood. At first he wiped it away. But then he licked it. (It was like his dream, you see) And it tasted good. He sucked the sweet fat out of his finger, And then he ate the finger and he ate his hand. The curious antelope turned and ran away, Turned and ran away before any arrows were shot, And the brothers knew that something was wrong. "Where is the boy?" they asked. "The boy who should have stayed home?" The boy was tearing off pieces of his own flesh. The boy was tearing off and eating pieces of his own flesh Until there was nothing left but his head. The brothers asked, "Where is the boy?" Until the boy's head bounced and rolled toward them. (There was no more body, you see) The brothers began to run for their sweat lodge. +~ 177 ..+ But the rolling head caught one of them. Caught him, Killed him, Ate him. The other two went into the sweat lodge and put logs over the entry. They placed a sandstone over the smoke hole. The rolling head said: "Let me in, my brothers." The brothers whispered to each other, "Don't let him in." The rolling head said again: "Let me in, my brothers." The brothers whispered to each other, "Don't let him in." When he saw they would not let him in, he reared back And came at the sweat lodge with a great rush. (He was strong, you see) The sweat lodge shook, but did not burst. He came at the sweat lodge many times. Each time, it shook, but did not burst. (The sweat lodge was strong, you see) The rolling head stopped and lay on the ground. "I dreamt 1was with my brothers and 1tasted blood," it said. "Where will 1 go now?" It bounded west and met some people, Threw them in its mouth, Ate them. It went around the world, searching for people. Each evening, it comes home to the closed sweat lodge. +~ 178 ",+ Each morning, it goes around the world, searching for people. Always, it goes searching That is all. - That's who this boy is, Sigelizu Joseph said. He has not yet become a monster, but he will. The best place for his head is on a pike outside the village, to warn off other rolling heads. Those who have been among them know I am right. The Chief Man knew that if he let the boy be killed now, Sigelizu Joseph would gain power. But he thought, looking around the faces of the people, that most of them wanted the boy killed, either for revenge on the whites, or to rid the world of a monster, or just because they were afraid. The Chief Man knew he had remained Chief because he had done what the people wanted to do anyway. But now he didn't know what to do. Even if they followed the counsel of Sigelizu Joseph, any bad luck that followed would be blamed on him. He thought now that ifhe knew the word that he had lost, ifhe could speak the word he searched for in his dream, he would know exactly what should be done. Then he heard the moth cocoon rattles ofthe Doctor, and he felt relieved that he would not have to decide. Sigelizu Joseph was as afraid of her as he was, and nobody would go against her word. The Doctor walked into the circle, wearing a skirt of overlapping raven feathers and a headdress of red flicker feathers woven into basketry, and she carried her otterskin medicine bundle. Everyone knew then that she had been singing, not +~ 179 -+ just gathering herbs, singing in her secret place. Three blue bars were tattooed down her chin, and her ears and nose were pierced and held ornaments of abalone, like the women who knew. She walked all around Jimmy, who lay quiet with his back raw and crawling, and then she looked at the Chief Man. - What has he brought as a gift? she asked. - The mare, there, the Chief Man said after a moment's hesitation. And the skin. - Good, good. She lifted the fleece gently from Jimmy's back and understood exactly what his problem was. The Doctor was an old woman, old enough to have seen the last years of Junipero Serra's life. She had been stolen by Spanish soldiers on a recruiting mission for Carmel Mission when she was three years old, and her parents, out of love for her, had left the mountains three days later and joined others from their tribe under the direction of the Franciscans. She remembered seeing Junipero Serra strip himself to the waist and hold a candle flame to his naked flesh until it burned, and then whip himself with a scourge until his back was cut and bleeding, much like this boy's was now. Once, during one of Serra's self-mutilations, an Indian overcome with emotion had leaped up with tears in his eyes, taken the scourge from Serra's hand, and beat himself until he passed out. When the Indian died the next day, she remembered the Padre Presidente teaching that he had gone without a doubt directly to Paradise and was sitting at the right hand ofGod. Beatings were blessings, he taught, and so nobody should complain when they were beaten or put in the stocks for failing to hoe the garden or pronounce Latin properly. +~ 180 -<~- Despite the padre's teachings, she hadn't truly understood anything about the mortification of the flesh until she had become a doctor, in the year after the missions closed. Then, although she was already an old woman, she had a dream in which she was dancing on the brink of the world, and she saw blood dripping from the seam between sea and sky. She saw someone dressed something like a padre, gray-robed, a child of the Mule, who broke off a piece of the horizon and gave it to her, saying, "The horizon is blood." It was like a sharp piece of ice, cold and bloody and sharp at both ends in her mouth. This was her first pain. She was sick four days before she could control the pain. Then, with another doctor present, she craved something from the ocean. A piece ofabalone was brought to her, and when she swallowed it, she felt nauseous. The other doctor said - Let it come out. And she vomited forth her pain, sharp-tipped and bloody. Then, at the other doctor's direction, she sucked it back in again, and was able to keep it in her body and control it. As she took the path of curing, she was able to suck other people's pains out of them - sometimes bits of coyote fur, or grasshopper legs, or cougar whiskers, or small lizards - and when she could swallow them and control them, she became a more powerful and respected doctor. And as she gained in power, she began to understand the Padre Presidente, staring at a crucifix held in his left hand and whipping himself with a metal-tipped scourge. He had a pain inside him, a pain perhaps near the heart or near the groin, a pain he had never been able to control. He was trying to find the location of the pain, to make it come out, so he could take it back inside him and con- +~ 181 -+ trol it. But he had never been able to, and so he hated his body, because it had a pain inside it, incurable and uncontrollable. And he turned to trying to make his pain come out of others who did not have his pain, beating them for the relief of his hatred. This boy, lying on the ground, had the same pain as Serra. She could see it inside him, glowing through the suppurating flesh. She placed the lambskin on the earth beside him, sat down on it, and took an eagle feather from her medicine bundle . She began to sing softly. Back well. Well back. You are well on your way back. Jimmy felt hands coolon his back, working some kind ofpoultice into his wounds, draping them with cobwebs. He revived, lifted his head up to see an old woman waving a feather over his back and singing softly. He saw her eyes note his open, and he felt her singing change, her song lines become questions asking for him to respond. The Doctor sang in her language Good sun, I wish to get well Water, run not over me Open, cloud, my body Good sun, go down to the water When she repeated her song, Jimmy responded - +~ 182 -<~- Good sun, I wish to get well I don't know where I was born Water, run not over me. I'm tired oflooking Open, cloud, my body I want to be home at last Good sun, go down to the water A place where I don't have to move The Doctor nodded. The sick should repeat what the doctor said, and so far as she could tell, he had in his own way. She took from her medicine bundle a bone tube and began to seek for the exact location of the pain in his body. The people around her and the boy leaned in, half afraid but fascinated by her medicine. She ran her hands over him, gradually centering on a spot that was hot and crawling. Her face stiffened, and she wrapped her lips around the bone tube, put the other end of the tube onto the spot on the boy's body she had found, and began to suck. She sucked ferociously at the pain, calling on all her allies, all the powers she had gained through chanting and dancing, all the other pains she had controlled and held inside her. Then she gagged terribly, retched out into her hand what she had sucked up from the boy's body. It was a centipede, a hundred-legged beast, all of its legs still moving like lines of restless oars down its armored back, twisting and writhing, trying to march forward. She held it up for the people to see, then she sat down, exhausted. - Is the pain good? the Chief Man asked. +~ 183 -+ - The pain is good, she answered. But she looked at the curling unquiet life in her hands and thought that she could not swallow this pain, could not take this one into her and control it. This pain would kill her. Jimmy F. Bush rose unsteadily to his feet. He asked if he could stay with them. Until his back healed, or longer. He was tired of moving. The Doctor spoke in a tired voice. - Put him in the prayer lodge and let him sweat out more poison. - Do so, the Chief Man said. Jimmy let four men lead him gently underground, into the darkness, to become forever lost to his old mother and father, to his shipmates, to his ship the National Intention. The Chief Man looked at the old woman doctor, sitting still and exhausted , and he wondered if she knew the word from his dream, the word he had lost. The Doctor contemplated with awful severity the pain in her hand, that hundred-legged American pain that she would never control if it were in her body. +~ 184 -<~- ...