NANA
Chapter IX
THE GODS OF GHOST RIVER
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not.
Both are equally terrifying.”
- Arthur C. Clarke
Solitude, that ever-present state of being that seems to stick to my soul with unbridled persistence. Being acclimated to the feeling, I would assume that I’d welcome it, but the glow in my chest has since abandoned me, that emptiness slowly leeching back into the corners of my mind. Yet the flow of things continues, ever driving, ceaseless, time slipping through the rough contours of my healing fingers, finer than wisps of smoke. Or so it is and has been since my abrupt arrival at The Nautilus. Days bleed into one another, but the rhythm of Bobbi’s schedule, from a warm meal, to disappearing off to work, then home again for another warm meal, is the heartbeat of my life now. Within two days, the heavy indigo bruises disappeared, the bitterly painful tears on my hands and feet closing with unnatural rapidness. My body gaining the same strange, unearthly flush as that perfect skin on my left shoulder.
Placid nights, no apparitions or wrathful bat-like spirits to haunt my dreams, even my memories of Nico’s final minutes grow devoid of Navan’yu. I see him convulse, but against darkness, a sense of something that should be there, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s as though my mind has been hit with a mental blotter, smearing the ink of those moments. I’m queasy with the acute sense of missing elements of my conscious recollection. But, I dare not tell Bobbi… at least not yet.
My uneasiness tempered by the sheer exhaustion that grips me. All week, I sleep long into the day after stuffing my face with Bobbi’s excellent breakfasts, only waking in the late afternoons. If it weren’t for the silver pendant locked under a pile of clothing, I’d likely have forgotten about the beast altogether… the charm is something to anchor my cognition to. In the passing days, the panic over the discovery of Nico’s car on Split Canyon Road has all but worn off. Had local police or the BDC found anything tying me to it, they would’ve put a warrant out for me or at least announced publicly that I’m wanted for questioning. I’m just a ghost, Nico’s shadow, without personhood of my own, a state of being that’s likely shielded me, for now…
Until this morning… With a particularly intense stare, Bobbi breaks his natural rhythm over a plate of blue corn pancakes, “So I assume,” he gulps down a mouth full, “that it was Nico who abandoned you in the desert… Right?”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, the darkness in his eyes growing deeper… haunting, an intensity almost inhuman. I’ve never seen it before, but Bobbi, sweet, gentle Bobbi, has a dangerous side, a heaviness that lies within him, a gravity-well of energy, most of the time a fixed point of stability. But today, he pulls me towards him, my essence threatening to be held by the mass of his gaze. He’s not an idiot, Nico’s name’s been plastered all over the local news throughout the week, it’s foolish of me to assume he’s not been keeping up with it.
“This kind of shit isn’t out of character for that motherfucker. I dunno why you still run with him. I ain’t no snitch, but if you’re in real trouble, you‘re going to have to tell me at some point.”
I nod obediently.
“It doesn’t have to be now.”
“Bobbi… am I going crazy?”
“If you were, you probably wouldn’t be worrying about it,” he places his fork on the plate, “Know this, all of it will come out eventually, even if it’s just to me. In the meantime, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just drop it, just another low-life taken by the desert.”
Relief swells within me, Bobbi puts up with nothing, but he’s good people. Whatever the outcome, whatever happens to me, he’ll be in my corner. Not in a complacent way, probably closer to a tough love kind of way, letting the consequences of my actions unfold, but I won’t face them alone.
“Thanks.”
With that, Bobbi swallows what is left of his pancakes. Mine are left half-devoured, a snack cached away for later, I cover my plate in plastic and place it carefully in the fridge.
“So your appointment, you think you are ready for it?”
“Not really, but since it’s… today? I guess I don’t really have any time to mentally prepare,” I pause, “I need to pick up some cigs on the way back. Is that alright?”
The craving slowly creeping back into me, building over the last few days, growing into an untenable feeling. Today, somehow it’s worse, I need to satiate it. Strange that it disappeared, only to return with such vigor. Stress will do that. Maybe, my body was able to shut it off during my healing? So many questions with indiscernible answers, all of them lurking somewhere beyond my grasp.
“Should be fine. The rez Nautilus is also owned by Red Feather, I can get you a discount,” he smiles, but tempered with a tinge of disappointment, “We should head out, dishes can wait. The Ghost River Reservation is a bit of a drive.”
I stand in the doorway, struggling to put on my boots. They need maintenance, still caked in dirt from my adventure a week ago, bits of the once black leather scuffed and frayed. I hope it’s fixable, but today is not the day to let my damaged sense of vanity take hold. No, other priorities push into my head. A fevered excitement about what this exam might tell me, maybe I hit my head really hard? It would give me something concrete to hold onto, an answer to my hallucinatory dreams and my sense of lost information.
“You have your tribal card?” Bobbi calls from the living room.
“Yeah, right here!”
“Good, also don’t forget this. He pulls Marta’s Navan’yu pendant from the shirt cave I made for it all of those days ago, “She’ll be wanting this back.”
It boggles my mind, he is annoyingly quick, doesn’t miss a thing, “That’s right…”
He hands the specter to me. My stomach drops, my fingers tracing the artistically stamped sliver, those round mother-of-pearl orbs staring back at me. Ugh, part of me still doesn’t want to look at it, but that morbid curiosity slowly worms its way to my attention. Following Bobbi out the door, the morning air a little heavy with moisture, but it won’t last. In less than an hour, it’ll be unbearably hot. His vehicle dappled with morning dew, greeting us with a warm shimmer. Popping open the door, I slide in, the chattering necklace still in hand.
“I forgot to properly introduce you to my car,” Bobbi giggles, patting the dashboard,” this is Carl!”
“Carl the Car?”
“Ya, Carl is a dependable dude, never underestimate dependability.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” the comforting sound of the engine turning over is music to my ears. First time out in awhile, I’m keen to see something more than the inside of Bobbi’s apartment, even with the spectacular view.
He tunes into a radio station, the ambient rhythms of post-psychedelic melodies permeate the space. Not my scene, but beats country or mariachi, the two dominant genres of Deerhorn County. I keep running the tips of my fingers over the shape of the medallion, trying to get a fix on what the Mistwalker looked like. Fuzzy recollection attempting to be known, I struggle to place the strange formless shape in my memory. Since a week ago, that gnawing heaviness that left me a near catatonic wreck alone my room is slinking back in, like some kind of unwelcome parasite. I can’t shake it or let it go. Maybe it isn’t just the lurking uneasiness of the depression taking hold once again. Despite the fear, the pain, at least I felt something... An urge to be alive again, a drug more powerful than anything else I’ve experienced.
Why can’t I recall things? Picking through the days, I try to remember if there was a time that my mind was clear. I gaze at the malevolent visage of the Navan’yu pendant staring back up at me. Looking out the window, the Vermillion Hills speeding by in maroon stripes, almost a blur of banded color. Peering into the midmorning light, I search for dark silhouettes. Nothing out there, just the piles of sediment and distant blonde box canyons. The thing that defended me from my death might be gone for good. It’s kind of a lonely thought, an empty desert, no shadow at my back. I realize, in my contemplation, I’ve been fidgeting with the silver necklace.
An expanse of barren sandstone lines the edge of the opening valley, I readjust myself in the coarse upholstered seat of Carl to get a better look. My neck aches, stiff and sore from the couch slumbering I’ve become accustomed to. The morning sunlight a hair higher through the windshield, a jade green sign greets us as we turn right. “Welcome to the Ghost River Reservation – You Are Now on Tribal Land.”
“Nearly there,” Bobbi almost chirps like a songbird.
An upcoming sign announces the drop in speed limit, a grueling twenty miles per-hour, but the road looks freshly paved.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“New Town is pretty swanky,” Bobbi explains,” The Tribal Council had a big boost in revenue with the casino traffic, and honestly we wouldn’t have the health center without it. I just kind of wish it got out to some of the folks in Old Town or even the outskirts. But hey, at least it’s something. Mom started out here when the health center opened, so she is kind a fixture of New Town. She isn’t the only one who came back to the rez when it all opened too.”
Our little path climbs treacherous red rocks, up onto a low plateau. We turn back and forth between the pinnacles, until the ridgeline opens up. To the south, a distant single snowcapped peak stands, a forlorn sentinel. A small reminder where the high desert came from, the crust of the earth pushed violently upward, only to be cast into perpetual rain shadow. A small cliff face is its edifice, plunging into the valley below. Stretched out beneath the plateau are the distant shapes of Old Town, maybe a few miles off. To the west, scattered lays the sprawl of new build, all styled to look like adobe, one has modern geometric structures contrasted with cream stucco.
“Oh, that’s the cultural building, it has a museum and indigenous language center. Brings in some tourism dollars, too… Your Nana had a hand in its creation!” Bobbi continues excitedly, this is his show and tell moment.
To the east, along the mesa, stands a gaudy over-exaggeration of an adobe village accompanied by an oh-so familiar Nautilus gas station. The enormous lights of the mega complex glimmering extravagantly, ‘Ghost River Resort & Casino’. In its driveway, a bronze geometric eagle stands aloof, perched upon an aesthetically pleasing rock. Sculpted to promote the exoticism of the hotel, but not in the traditional Aolu’yi way, as to not scare off the white folks. Glancing at the pendant, I imagine the response if a statue of Navan’yu stood in its place. The wealthy and their designer super cars barely able to take the road up the plateau, I envision her bulging eyes and raging expression driving terror into their privileged little hearts. Pedal to the metal, they floor it, leaving the badlands to themselves. The corners of my mouth twitch into a smirk at the thought.
Listing to the right, we leave the Casino in the rear view mirror, one turn past the cultural building. Down the road arises a campus roughly the size of a large high school. The two-story facade is the same as the other buildings in New Town, it’s tan with ornamental wooden beams adorned with a sign that reads, “Deerhorn County Tribal Health”. Slipping past the Emergency Room entrance, a mostly empty parking lot sits nearly abandoned.
“We technically have one of the best trauma centers in seven counties. Folks get airlifted in from outdoor accidents. That’s kind of our bread and butter, pays the bills. Mom’s working in general care, she and Dr. Navakkakin almost exclusively run the family medicine unit, since it’s only for the Ghost River Reservation. Everyone else here are specialists working in emergency care,” he rattles on, parking Carl in his choice of closest spot.
I keep my head down and amble out of the car, hesitating… it’s zero hour, time to find out if I’m losing my mind. We push forward as automatic glass doors open into the atrium of the hospital. Unlike the elegant adobe buildings constructed for the eyes of tourists, the interior is extremely utilitarian. A couple of traditional geometric rugs hang on the walls, but that’s about it, just a sea of beige. A portly man with his dark hair tied in a low ponytail greets us at a bland masonite check-in desk.
“Your name… and date of birth,” he drones.
“Riley Yates… October seventeenth, nineteen eighty-six. I have an appointment, with Marta White Fox.”
The man behind the desk looks up at me, the burnout reading heavy in his expression, “Tribal card?”
“Yeah, right here,” I hand the trashed piece of plastic to him. To my surprise, he scans it without a hitch.
“Your information looks correct, but the card needs replacing. Can you step over here for a moment? We can get that ID photo taken and a new card will be ready for you when you finish your appointment.”
I shrug, and follow the receptionist down the hall to a wall with a sky blue background. Cerulean, a reminder of what awaits for me just outside of these prefab barriers.
“Don’t smile for this, drivers license rules.”
“Sure, not really in a smiley mood anyways,” I mumble to myself.
“One, two… three.”
The flash dazzles me for half a second. Ah, bureaucracy at work, but at least the Casino dollars pay for it, no co-pay for me, at least not for family medicine.
“Good, all set, follow the hall down to the end and turn right. There’s a waiting room and you can fill out your forms there,” he turns away from me and barks, “Bobbi, you’ll have to stay here.”
“It’s okay Jason, I know the drill,” Bobbi gives me the cheesiest grin he can muster, followed by a double thumbs up.
I pull a face in response to his goofiness. Seeing my reaction, he settles himself into a vinyl seat in the lobby, scooping up a magazine, called “Suburban Garden & Home.” As I head down the hall, I take a quick glance back to see a single eye peering over the glossy paper, likely making another asinine smile behind his equally out of place shield. I chuckle to myself, somehow, it’s a welcome change to hanging with Nico, a lot more laughter to be had. Thinking back, I can’t remember a time I really felt any semblance of joy around him. Just emptiness and anxiety… maybe a sign of what was to come… A warning I heeded too late.
The waiting room matches the vibe of the rest of the building, everything overwhelmingly taupe. Only color to be seen is the Aolu’yi earrings adorning the receptionist, at least six in each ear, all with predominately turquoise beadwork stitched into thick studs.
“Uhhh, hi… I’m here for an eleven thirty appointment with Marta White Fox.”
She eyes me probingly, “Oh, you must be Riley. Don’t worry, you are all checked in, I just need you to fill out these forms.”
I nod and pick up the clipboard, at least four pages of paperwork. Mostly the usual questions about familial medical history, as well as my own, drug allergies, nothing about seeing spirits in the night. Why would there be? Just me and my fucked up brain, I guess.
Studying the questionnaire, I’m struck how little I really know about my family. I mean, dad split very soon after Darion was born, and I was only, maybe two at the time? I can’t remember his face, let alone any aliments he may have had. It isn’t like mom ever talks about him either. Sitting, my frustration getting the better of me, I feel like any answer I give is a lie, somehow even an “I don’t know” seems disingenuous. Really, I only have mom and Nana’s records, but I can’t even remember much of that, both seemed pretty healthy, no history of heart disease or cancer. My memories of Nana, so far removed from the cold and clinical sterility of the modern world.
•••
Darion fidgets on the floor, old splintering grey wood nips into my calves, but I don’t mind. Nana’s house smells like spices, fry bread, and juniper berries. All of the good things! She sits on a worn chair, mint paint peeling from air devoid of moisture, her silver hair tied in traditional Aolu’yi double buns. Her gnarled hands peeling poblanos, shucking the seeds into a small fuchsia plastic trash can.
“NANA, ANOTHER STORY,” Darion blubbers, the way five year olds have a habit of doing.
Nana doesn’t look up from her task, the sting of the capsaicin on her fingers not even phasing her. She pauses just long enough to drop a stem covered in white seeds into the can, “Do you want to hear one about good little spirits or one about what happens to bad little boys who are impatient?”
Darion sits completely still, holding his breath, so as to not be noisy, until he turns purple and gives up with a flailing wiggle, “How about one about good little boys! Riley and me are good boys, we aren’t mean to nobody. We take care of mom and do all of our chores, I always clean up my stuff. I’m so good!”
“You sure? You don’t think He Who Weaves Lies might find your heart impure and bend you to do dark things? Or Elk Woman might lead you to your untimely end?”
“NO! No mean old dumb owl would be able to do that! We are too good and too tough,” Darion shouts, flexing his string bean muscles like a super hero.
“Okay, okay, you have convinced me, although this one isn’t about a little boy, it is about a little girl!” Nana sets down her finished green pepper on a platter and clasps her hands together, “There once was a little Aolu’yi girl, she, like you two, was very, very good. Respected her elders and did all of her chores. One day, she had to go gather herbs and spices for her mother, who was so busy. But to find them, she had to go far away to Tuul’aku’yoo, The Old One’s Rest, to find these delights. The journey was long, and took a whole day round trip. Back then, cars were rare in Old Town, so a lot of her people had to walk to get what they required. Her brothers packed cornbread and her water skin, made sure she had everything she needed.
“Whooooh, I can’t believe there weren’t cars here, must have been a very long time ago,” Darion says, rubbing his nose, his little fingers threatening to pick it.
“Not as long ago as you might think, the world was a much bigger place back then. There wasn’t even the highway through here yet. Didn’t come until ten years later! So the little girl thanked her brothers and set out, she knew the path, but it was the first time she went all by herself. It was her sixth year you see, this time she was strong enough and big enough to do it all by herself.
She took the dirt path, but once she got there, she would leave it behind and go into the wilds to find the ingredients for her satchel. It was late in the afternoon when she saw the great canyons of Tuul’aku’yoo. Her brothers told her to be careful, to leave something nice for the spirits, or they will get angry about what you take. In her sack, she carried little turquoise jingle beads, a favorite amongst the old ones. The little girl was proud of these gifts, the spirits would be happy with them without a doubt.
Through the day, she found all kinds of tasty treats, herbs, rare berries, and delicious mushrooms in the shade of the canyons. As twilight set in, she realized she couldn’t find her path back. At first, she was brave and confident, but as the darkness took this ancient place, she started to understand that she was lost.
She sat in the closing blackness and wrapped herself in her wool shawl, hoping no hungry creatures took notice, and silently started to cry.
Darion stares, wide eyed, “Nana, does she live? Or do the hungry animals eat her!”
“Darion, I am getting to the best part!” Nana chuckles, “Just as she was giving up, out of the night came a great specter, tall, with fingers, body, and robe made of colorful woven grass; hues of orange, green, yellow, and blue. She strode over to the lost girl.
‘Dear child of Nhokah, why are you so lost?’ the spirit’s great slit eyes narrowed in the gloom.
Between sobs, she said, ‘I came to find spices and herbs for my family, so we can fill our bellies. I thought I knew the way, but I got lost.’
‘It is wise to know when you have been out done, little one.’
‘I have cornbread and jingle beads, if you want them,’ the little girl said sheepishly.
‘Well, that is a kind gesture,’ the old one seated herself next to the good little girl.
The little girl slipped into dreams of the great desert as the grass spirit watched over her. Come daybreak, the old one was still there, her form grew clear in the morning light.
‘Sometimes, we need to stop and listen to the quiet to see the path,’ the ghostly shape explained, ‘only then do we find our way, little one.’
The little girl listened to the silent land, and just when she was about to give up, she heard a strangely soft sound, music, almost a whisper.
‘I hear it! How can I ever thank you!... What do I call you?’
‘I am the one many call Prairie Mother, but I have many names.’
In all of her six years, the little girl never felt so sure of where she needed to go. She followed the sound through the canyons, leaving her new friend behind. The music of the desert grew louder and louder, until her toes met the dirt path once more.
“So, who was she?” I ask Nana.
“Can you two keep a really big secret?” she asks mischievously.
Darion and I nod excitedly.
“That little girl is me, children.”
•••