Thursday
Note 2
Wisps of vapor burned off of the low vegetation along the edge of the road as the early morning sun warmed the cold asphalt. Will drank coffee from his Thermos cup while seated next to Hank. Hank drove the narrow road at 70 miles per hour in his old pickup truck.
Hank mumbled, "I guess Old Wolf is teaching Angela and Leah things."
Will sat quietly waiting for Hank to continue. Hank stared out the windshield at the road as he drove, but didn't say anything more. After a brief silence, Will ventured, "What sort of things there, Hank?"
"What?" Hank was startled.
"What sort of things is Old Wolf teaching Angela and Leah?"
"Did I say that out loud?"
"Yeah, you did."
Hank looked away embarrassed.
"What do you mean? What is Old Wolf teaching them?" pressed Will.
"All kinds of stuff, really. Angela seems to know a lot about some stuff. She talks to me about things like I should know what she's talking about. Sometimes, I don't." Hank often pulled subjects seemingly out of thin air. But he spoke continuations of his thoughts. "She asked me about Osiahapahnu--said she thinks he has something to do with Tap Neh Apahnu, and could I fill in the blanks for her. She said Dad told her that stuff."
"Tap Neh A-who?" Will's question was asked with restrained mirth. He sometimes make fun of things that he didn't understand. His sarcasm was never outright mean because he employed a sense of subtle dry humor. He had long battled with himself over this problem, especially when it hurt the ones he loved. But it would often creep out before he was able to stop himself. So now, looking at Hank with an affected solemn expression, he spoke. "Yeah, she talks to me about that stuff sometimes, too. Says I contracted Pahnu." He gritted his teeth. He had just done it again.
Hank remained composed, not willing to fall prey to his friend's setup. A look of thoughtful deliberation spread across his face as he weighed the consequences of sparring with Will. He took the bait. "Contracted? You mean, like a disease or something?"
"Yeah, I guess so, something like that. I'm thinking it's an Indian thing. Some sorta Indian spiritual stuff, right?"
"You're not making any sense, Will."
"Well whatever. I got it I guess. Angela says so," answered Will defensively. He waited, hoping Hank would engage him on the subject. When the silence undid his timing, he again pressed. "What is it?"
"What is what?"
"Pahnu, or what ever, what is it?"
"Thought you said Angela told you."
"She said I had it, didn't say what it was." Will reached for Hank's Thermos bottle and poured coffee into the cup, and then topped off his own. He nudged his friend's arm.
Hank looked down and took the cup. "Thanks."
"Well?" said Will after another brief silence.
"I said thanks."
"Not that, Pocahontas, Pahnu. What is it?"
"Oh, the coffee was a bribe?" asked Hank. "Might not be enough, what else you got?"
"I suppose I could give you a little kiss, maybe. But that would make me sort of a whore, wouldn't it?" The situation was becoming more comfortable for Will, now that Hank was teasing back.
Hank glared at him. "You don't want to do that, Will," He squinted, "you wouldn't like it." He sipped his coffee, and then continued. "Pahnu?"
"That's right, Pahnu," said Will, exaggerating the words.
"Well, it would seem that Angela thinks that you have a guardian guide or spiritual power sent from Tap Neh Apahnu. that's Pahnu. Tap Neh Apahnu is . . ." English definition was failing Hank, " . . . God, I guess. But not in the same sense that white people think of God. He's not some old man with a white beard and a big stick, waiting to whack you when you're bad. He's Spirit. Tap Neh Apahnu is not mad at us like the Christian God is." Hank hadn't tried to explain Tap Neh Apahnu to anyone for many years. He never spoke on the subject except to his Father, Old Wolf, and to certain older members of the tribe. He lapsed into his childhood tongue, "Da 'bai makua." He relaxed his shoulders and breathed deeply, calming himself. He tried to think of a better way of explaining to Will.
Will was aware of his friends difficulty and sat patiently quiet. After a few minutes, he spoke gently, "Don't really know what that is either, Hank. Don't quite know what you just said there."
"OK, Will. It's like this . . ." Hank sat up straight and cleared his throat, " . . . a long time ago--no body really knows how long ago--three young men of the tribe went off by themselves. The tribe didn't send them, they just left. When they returned, they told stories about seeing some strange things."
"What kind of things, Hank?"
Will's question lacked sarcasm and Hank discerned that he was truly interested. He smiled a hint of satisfaction and continued, "Some stuff they said made certain important ones angry. These young men claimed to have experienced a collective Puha. They experienced a vision of a big bear, but there were men accompanying the bear. No one had ever seen people in their Puha, so this story made the elders angry. they banished these men with their women and anyone who wanted to go with them. These men moved up onto Marble Mountain so they could watch the trail against attackers. they had enough water from the lake and they lived up there for many generations, actually starting their own tribe of people.
"Dad says they never left for the southern hunting grounds in winter. He says their strong Puha brought them game.
"Sometimes people would climb up to them to learn about the things they had seen, but always in secret, never wanting no one to know they had gone up there."
"Is that who wrote that stuff up there on them rocks?" asked Will.
"Dad thinks so, yes. Some of the old ones have kept the stories alive. The stories are about two medicines that are struggling for control of people. It is why my dad has worked so hard all of his life to buy that land around Marble Lake. He wants to keep it safe. It's sacred. The tribe don't care a lick about it. It's not even reservation land."
"Hank, what's Puha?"
"Oh, that's something accepted by everyone. You see, when a boy is to become a man, there is a great ceremony and he his driven out of the camp. He goes far off on his own without food or water. As he lives alone for a number of days, he has a vision. In this vision he sees an animal. It might be a bear, a wolf or a bird. What ever comes to him in this vision is his Puha and it remains with him for life. He returns to the tribe as a man. You never hunt your Puha for food, but your Puha helps you hunt and brings game to your family."
"And what about you, Hank? You got Puha?"
"That's none of your business, Will."
"Sorry."
"It's OK. It's just a personal thing." Hank sipped more coffee and continued, "These men that went off by themselves, they said they saw a big bear. But there were men standing with the bear. these men warned them of others who were coming. They said these others would try to fool them and that my people should not listen.
"Later, when white men came, preaching Christianity, it sounded a lot like what these men had been saying. When my people listened to the white men and learned of this Christianity, where the God is angry and will harm us, we almost ceased to be." Hank lowered his voice to a loud whisper, "Knowledge comes from old men. We understand when they teach us and when we first hear it, it is like we have always known. The old ones teach and it is like we already knew. Old Wold, my father, is the last of the old ones who knows these stories. I know some, but most are lost now. When I ask Old Wolf to tell them to me, he only smiles and says, 'most of the stories are useless now. There are only a few things remaining.' It's funny in a way. He tells these stories to Little Leah. She knows more than any of us. Angels hears them too, but I doubt she understands so well.
"Daiboo'," said Hank with an indignant tone. "All are gone now, Tsuqupe' deesua-." Again he fell silent. He looked at Will as if Will should know what he had just said and would be in agreement.
Will shrugged, a confused expression spreading across his face.
Hank didn't wait for him to ask, "Tsuqupe' deesua--old men. White men don't have teachers. You have old men, but no one listens to them. But it doesn't matter anyway, because your old men don't know anything. Now we are becoming like you. our old men and old women still teach, but no one listens. We have become like you." Hank relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. He realized how angry and tense the subject had made him as he had explained things to Will.
"OK Will. I'll sum it all up for you: Tap Neh Apahnu watches us all. People don't mind because they don't give Him any thought. So they don't find Him and His wisdom. No one looks and no one asks. Tap Neh Apahnu grants wisdom, power and protection to those who search for it. One can never search for these things unless they feel the need. Most people are just fine the way they are and they feel no need.
"So you see, you probably do not have Pahnu. Angela was being nice to you I think. But don't feel bad, no one really believes in any of this any more anyway."
"Except your tribe, right?" offered Will.
"No, Will. No one believes in it. Mostly no one has ever heard of it, except a few of the remaining old people, and they say it is bad and wrong. No one talks about it anymore."
Hanks truck radio was turned on but it wasn't tuned to a station. It emitted a low level white noise that was all but drowned out by the whine of the tires on the pavement and the breeze whistling steadily through the truck's worn window seals. After several minutes of deep deliberation, trying to get his mind around the things that Hank had told him, Will sighed and then spoke, "Leah was talking about protectors the other day."
"Protectors?" said Hank.
"Yeah, she said that Old Wolf told her that she had protectors. I was thinking of it as maybe being guardian angels Indian style."
"Will, this is what I've been telling you. this is Pahnu. Old Wolf believes Angela when she tells him about Osiahapahnu coming to her in her dreams. He believes Osiahapahnu is real. You see, Will, the animal we see in vision quest is our Puha, and the people who come talk with us are Pahnu. But only to a few of us. Got it?"
"I think so. But Hank, how does she call her protector? Is there a dance? Do you shake rattles or something?" Will again kicked himself for again being cynical when he really wanted an answer to his question. He was afraid he had insulted Hank.
He had, but Hank let it fall off of him. Instead of being angry, he answered Will's question with a suggestion, "It's simple enough, Will. Even Little Leah understands how. Why don't you ask her? Maybe you can understand if she tells you, maybe if she talks real slow." With this, Hank threw his head back and laughed hard.
.
Will chuckled and shook his head. It seemed to him that only days had passed, instead of decades, since he and his best friend had had this conversation that morning on their way to work in Marion.
"What's so funny, old man?" said Angela, "It's a good thing we live up here in the trees. The way you're always talking and giggling to yourself, most folks'd have put you away a long time ago." She closed her eyes and spoke softly. "You'd better be good to me. You just never know when I'll come to my senses about you."
Will answered quietly, "Oh it's nothing really, Anj. I was just thinking about the first time that Hank told me about Tap Neh Apahnu."
Angela opened her eyes and looked up at her husband. "That was a long time ago, Will." She was silent for half a minute, then she gently probed, "It took you a long time to believe those stories. Do you still speak with Him?"
"Hank? yeah sure, of course I . . ."
"Tap Neh Apahnu."
Will raised his eyebrows as a touch of red came to his cheeks. This was the only subject that made him shy around his wife. It was deeply personal. He deflected, "Do you, Anj?"
"Yes," she whispered with a smile, "and Osiahapahnu still comes to me when I dream."
Will smiled back at her and nodded approvingly.
The gas lamp on the kitchen wall of the Banner cabin burned dimly. Long shadows mixed with soft yellow light danced in the living area of the open main floor. When the light flickered, the shadows contracted. Then, just as suddenly, they stretched to exaggerated length. In the corner of the room, behind smokey glass, fire crackled in a wood stove, providing accompaniment to the shadow dance. A thin haze hung in the upper atmosphere of the high room's log structure. The bedroom loft extended halfway into the vaulted area, directly above the position of Angela's daybed on the main floor. Snaps of pitch exploded in the stove sending fragrant pine perfume out into the room.
Full daylight would reveal a complete view of Marble Lake from the kitchen's east window. The west wall, consisting mostly of modestly draperied glass, held a door of two center panels which egressed to a large pine deck. Beyond the deck was a meadow of tall grass. To the north of this meadow, forest, and beyond the deck to the west of the cabin, the terrain dotted with boulders and patches of sage. The ground sloped up from this point and formed the ridge that semi-circled the lake valley.
Will Banner smiled at his wife Angela, stroking her hair as she lay on the daybed in the great room of their cabin. He sat next to her on a stool. "Doc Sally would have you feeling fit in no time, Anj, if you'd just let me take you to town."
Angela reaffirmed her intention to wait out her illness, free of medical assistance. "I do not want to go into Big Knife, Will. If you take me down there and put me in St. Michael's, they'll never let me out. I'll die there. that's what old people do in hospitals--die. Do you really believe they would let you bring me back up home? They'd probably stick me in that god-forsaken old folks' center they've got down there." She narrowed her eyes, boring into her husband's. "Are you wantin' rid of me?"
Will's attention had drifted. He stared at the large family portrait that hung on the south wall of the great room in a rough pine frame. the photo, taken twenty-three years earlier, presented a dark haired version of himself sporting gray temples. He was leaning forward to lessen his height as he smiled for the camera from over his wife's right shoulder. Angela, posed sitting slightly sideways, her head turned toward the photographer, smiled her closed-lip smile. And seventeen year old Leah sat directly in front of and below her mother, beaming. The photo was taken the last year that she had lived at home on the lake.
"Hey. Where'd you go? Are you listening to me?" demanded Angela.
Will trembled a single subtle jerk. He looked down at Angela, as if just discovering her lying there. His eyes refocused and he was back. "Huh?"
"What did I just say?"
"You said you think you might be pregnant."
"Will!" she said, looking away with feigned exasperation.
"No Doctor? How about a medicine man?" Will became animated. "I know the best in all of Big Knife Valley. I could send up some smoke signals from the stove there." Will nodded to the corner of the room where the stove burned warmly. "I could signal Hank. Hank, the Medicine Man." Will's face expressed pride, staring into the distance, he enunciated the last words deliberately, his left eyebrow raised.
"You'd probably get it wrong and send up 'spank the medicine man' and I'd have to explain to Hank that you aren't stupid really, just no good at spelling with smoke." Angela's mouth turned up at the right corner, her tired eyes sparkled as she spoke softly.
"Yes, that's true," said Will, his gaze again fixed on something distant, his face frozen in a pleased expression.
Angela laughed out loud. "What are you talking about?" Pain shot through her and she moaned, closing her eyes as her playful expression soured to a scowl. "Will honey, my eyes are so hot and tired. I wonder if Medicine Man Hank has something for dry eyes."
