      |
Autumn Leaves
volume 7 number 6
Autumn Leaves volume 7 number 6 |
He was young,
an Indian boy, a Sailor
who was bent on
getting home for the Holidays.
He stood near the gates of Treasure Island
looking to the West.
He had his duffel bag and was headed out from San
Francisco back to the rez.
It was raining and he knew it would be snowing in
the Sierras.
He wanted to get home,
so he hit the road and began
hitchhiking home,
heading east.
He had been drafted, and with luck,
a lot of luck,
had
two weeks leave.
He found himself stateside,
remembering the one thing he
missed most of all were dry socks.
The jungle heat and being continually wet
in the Delta of Vietnam
started rotting his socks before they even got to
his feet.
They would start to fall apart as soon as his Mom sent him
some.
He was always looking for dry wool socks,
just a good pair of socks
that could stand to get wet all the time.
It is funny the things you think
about when you are hitchhiking.
He got a chance for leave and jumped at it,
a chance to
go home back on the rez.
If he pushed he could get there by
Thanksgiving.
The buses were full and there was no train.
He tried to get
on standby at the base, maybe to catch a flight, but they were all full.
So
he just got on the road and headed out.
Getting on the road he walked forever,
catching rides
here and there.
The rides were not real long ones but they helped.
It
started to get cold with a cold wind
and the storm clouds ahead held more
snow.
He wrapped himself in his dark blue Navy P-coat and continued
on,
placing one foot in front of the other.
When you are walking like
that, the wet slowly sinks in,
the cold wraps itself around you
and when
the breeze comes you can feel it all the way to the bone.
The duffel bag
gets heavy
and you shift it from side to side.
That is how it is.
You hope for a ride and take it anyway you can get it.
He
walked all night and finally caught a ride into Reno.
He got a bite to eat
and looked around.
The casinos were calling to him, but he kept on
going.
He looked for a 64 Chevy,
because in Vietnam all you talk about is
home
and getting some wheels under you
and driving it around once you get
there.
He thought about a convertible, a blue one with the top down.
His
buddies Top Cat, Circle K, Tom Mix and Wiley would all do that when they got
back.
He could see them driving down the main drag here with the top
down
and their hair frozen to their heads because it was too cold.
He
laughed at the thought,
but thinking about it they would probably have done
it anyway.
This was Paiute country, Northern Nevada.
An Indian
family stopped and he caught a ride.
They were from Pyramid Lake.
They
fed him and gave him a place to sleep for the night.
They were Paiutes and
treated him like he was one of the family.
He slept for a little bit,
getting up early.
The father gave him a ride in the old 52 Chevy to
Winnemucca;
and so he went on waving goodbye to him as he headed down the
road.
It was cold as he crossed the high desert, and rides were
slow.
The road was long and lonely, and his feet were cold,
but he just
kept going, one step then another.
Before long sunset was coming and another
cold night ahead.
He kept going.
The clothes he wore were wet and
dark,
but somehow he caught a ride with a trucker and got to sleep a little
bit.
They stopped for some coffee at a greasy spoon.
The trucker was
headed south, so he prepared to begin walking again.
The waitress gave him a little extra food.
She saw his
short hair, duffel bag and Navy P-coat and asked him where he was going.
He
told her was headed home.
She asked him where that was;
and he said, "A
long ways from here,
a wide spot at the end of the road."
He told it was
called Where the Mountain is Split and the Water Flows in his language.
She
wondered what a place like that looked like.
He said it looked like
home.
As he was leaving she tore up the check and said,
"Go on,
get out of here!"
smiling at him as he left.
He walked on down the road
and it was still snowing.
What comes to a person as they walk alone by themselves so
far from home?
He thought about the Mountain rising from the flat
lands,
to the hills and Mountain of his place.
It is far away, the Four Sacred Mountains.
How does it
go?
The words came in the wind.
His mind raced far ahead of
him,
thoughts like lightning to the tops of the places he knew;
he could
see them clearly as if he were transported on a rainbow to their peaks.
It
was within this land he was born,
the mesas, valleys, canyons and high
places.
Tsinajinni to the East, Dibensa to the North.
He would slide
along its edge headed for home.
Then there was Doko-oslid and Tsodichl.
Swift and far I journey,
swift upon a rainbow,
look at
the places,
they are holy,
I remember them.
Home I go,
let my feet
take me,
now shall I journey,
home on a rainbow
to Dibensa, the
Mountain of the North.
It lays in Colorado
within its sight is my
home.
How did the old ones come to sing this song?
It comes
from ceremony,
but yet they knew home is protected within these
mountains.
In the Stillness of early morning the song came to him,
and he
sang it quietly walking along this road.
It was the Mountain Song.
Thanksgiving Day at home, the family was up early,
the
woman got up, it was his Mom.
She greeted the day, the early light of
dawn,
Hozhogo Nahasdlii the refrain began.
It was an offering of corn
pollen,
saying a prayer that all her children walk in beauty,
that they
be safe and protected that day,
that all that they found be good,
that
beauty surround them
and they might find beauty in everything they
did,
that beauty would cover them.
She sprinkled it with her voice in the
wind.
She took the thawed turkey and stuffed it,
putting in the
oven to cook early in the morning.
Her husband was feeding the two horses
out in the field,
making sure they did not suffer too much from the cold and
snow outside.
A little girl in the bedroom got up and walked
around,
sleepy eyed, looking outside at the snow falling.
She went back
to her room and crawled back under the warm covers.
This was a small
community of 200 or so on the reservation,
just one street
and the place
was pretty simple.
Old man Scabby and his wife Sarah came from a little ways
down the road
and brought a pumpkin pie.
They were
relations,
grandparents to the little girl.
It was not just a pie but the
old fashioned kind that was pretty big.
Sarah, when she was young, had gone
to the trading post, a small store
and found a baby girl dumped in the trash
heap by the store
and brought her home.
She put the baby in the oven to
warm her up
and then raised her as her own daughter.
The baby girl's
mother could not take care of her, so she became Sarah's.
Now this baby girl
had grown up and had a family of her own
with a son in Vietnam.
It was warm inside and the potatoes were peeled,
cut into
little pieces.
The little girl liked this
because Old Man Scabby would
stand by the side of the stove
and fry up the potato skins;
and she and
him would munch on them
while her mom and Sarah fixed Thanksgiving
dinner.
The squash was cooked,
and corn was cooked over the
fire;
cranberries, hot bread, pudding and Indian tea was made,
and
everything was ready.
It was getting toward three in the afternoon or so
when they sat down to eat.
The old man could see out the window facing West.
He saw
a lonely figure of a man walking down the road.
It was snowing and the wind
was blowing.
It was the kind that whistled.
The snow swirled around this
outline and it was unusual
and so he said, "Look there is someone out
there.
Who would be going anywhere on a day like this?"
Everybody got up
and looked outside,
crowding around the window to take a look.
As they
watched he came closer and turned down toward the house and walked up to
it.
They could not see his face,
but when he got to the steps they went
to see who it was.
He did not knock,
just walked in covered with
frost.
He stood there almost frozen with the snow covering him.
They
gathered around to look at this person.
He lifted his stocking cap and
turned down his collar.
It was their son.
Oh, the look on his Mom's face
and they all were
surprised to see him home on this day.
How had he come home,
so far
away,
and yet he was here.
She reached out to touch him as he knelt
down
and swept the snow from his duffel bag.
Reaching in, he pulled out
something.
It was a blue and white teddy bear.
He looked at his little
sister with her hair in braids,
standing there with wonder in her
eyes
and he said, "I came all this way just to give this to you,"
As she
smiled, he gave it to her.
They gathered around him and they held him.
It
is such things that soldiers and sailors long to come home to,
and it is
glorious when there is such a homecoming.
