fashioned from foot-long stems of ricegrass bound with thread into a short tube shape, the fibers spread on one end for sweeping. She used the broom to fan the smoke over me in a ritual of cleansing and preparation. As she bathed me with the smoke, she mumbled a prayer in Tiwa.
After the prayer, she returned the shovel to the top of the woodstove and left the room without speaking. I stood where I was, inhaling the clean, sharp scent of the purifying smoke. Momma Anna returned with a folded blanket, atop which rested a large elk hide bag. She spread the colorful Pendleton on the floor of her living room in front of the sofa. “Sit down.”
I sat cross-legged on the blanket, and so did she, placing the bag beside her. She reached inside and brought out a small drum made in the Pueblo tradition-from a hollowed-out log covered at both ends with stretched and laced rawhide. This drum was no bigger than six inches in diameter, and not as tall. Next, she brought out the beater-a peeled aspen stick, wrapped on one end with a wad of padding covered with deer hide and tied with sinew. Once more, my medicine teacher reached into the bag, and she drew out a small hand-sewn deerskin pouch, tied with a leather thong. When she had arranged these items between us on the blanket, she looked at me and smiled. She picked up the drum and began beating on it in a steady rhythm. After a minute or two of drumming, she set the instrument down and reached for the pouch. “Hold out hand,” she said.
I extended my palm and she took it with one hand and, with her other hand, turned the pouch upside down and shook it. I cupped my fingers to catch the smooth stones that fell from the bag. I looked down to see what I had. Seven or eight small flat ovals of river rock rested in my palm.
“Choose,” Momma Anna said.
I used my finger to sort through the lot and selected one of the smallest, a smooth black disc. “I like this one best.”
She snorted. “Maybe you not like best, next other time. Best teacher not always one you like. That ancestor,” she said, pointing to the stone in my hand, “got big lesson for you.” She snatched up the other stones and put them back in the pouch, tied it with the thong, and returned it to the elk hide bag. She straightened her back, her legs folded in front of her, and she put out her hand. “Now we see about that lesson. Let me see Old One.”
I handed her the stone.
She closed her fingers around it and then held her fist against her chest. She looked at me and took a deep breath, as if she were drawing air through the stone. Time passed, but she did not breathe out. Her eyes remained fixed on my face. Then she let out a blast of air and extended her open palm to me. “Now, you.”
I took the stone and did as Momma Anna had done, holding it to my chest and watching her as I did so. I drew in air and held it.
Momma Anna’s eyes did not move. They were like the stone-shiny and black and smooth.
I felt my chest tightening, wanting to release the air, but I held on for as long as I could. Finally, I let my breath out.
Momma Anna picked up the beater and began playing her drum again. When she stopped, she said, “Now, we got pies ready.”
We removed the trays full of perfectly browned pies from the horno, and the delicious smell of the warm fruit and the crisp pastry reminded me that I hadn’t eaten that day. Momma Anna took one of the cotton dish towels she had used to cover the pies before baking and put two of the little tarts inside. She tied the corners of the cloth, creating a hobo pouch. She handed this to me, and when I took it the contents felt warm in my hand. “You need forgiveness,” she said.
My mouth came open. “What?”
She frowned. One thing my medicine teacher had taught me was that the Tiwa considered it rude to ask questions. Even one-word questions. She softened her expression. “Ask. You ask forgiveness, everyone you care about.”
“But… I don’t know what I’ve done. I don’t know what to ask forgiveness for.”
“You are human being. All people need forgiveness.”
“But, I mean-”
“You go now,” she said, picking up my free hand and placing it over my cloth bundle and patting it, like one might pat the hand of a child. “Go ask forgiveness. You need that. You take Old One with you.”
I had tucked the stone in the pocket of my jeans when we had gotten up from the blanket. Now, I reached my fingers in the pocket and started to take it out.
“No!” Momma Anna said. “Keep him there.” She reached out and took me by the shoulder and started shepherding me to the corner of the house so I could go back around front.
“But Momma Anna,” I protested, “I’m confused. I don’t understand.”
She stopped and let out a blast of air. “This your lesson. When you do your lesson, then you understand. Not this time, but next other time when lesson finish. Now go. Do.”
6
Before going home that evening, I decided to get in the exercise I had missed earlier that day. I drove past the small tent that had been set up for a command center on the east side of the gorge bridge and saw a sheriff’s deputy sitting on a folding chair, outside its entrance, reading a magazine. He looked up and waved as I drove past. I proceeded slowly across the bridge, my eyes drawn to the center viewing balcony from which I had seen the man on the cross descend that morning. The bridge was deserted, and the canyon below lay in shadow. Once across, I drove into the west rim rest area and took the roundabout road to the back edge of the circle. I parked my car near the trailhead and got out. I looked back at the five-hundred-foot-long silver steel structure that spanned this fracture in the earth’s crust-where a vein of a river had worked its way through sheer rock and carved a deep and jagged crack in the high desert mesa. To the east, the rugged blue Sangre de Cristo Mountains stood guard over the Taos Valley. The sky was cloudless; amber light from the late day sun flooded the miles of lonely sage and pinon flats between here and the mountains.
Because no one was around, I didn’t even bother to go in the restroom to change. Instead, I opened the rear hatch of my Jeep and sat on the back deck to remove my boots, then quickly slipped off my jeans and pulled on the running pants that I kept in my backpack. I laced up my running shoes and set out on the trail. I couldn’t help myself-I kept looking back at the bridge, as if I needed to be sure that another travesty wasn’t about to take place. Almost no traffic. A car passed over from east to west. A few minutes later, a car headed east. The next two times I looked, nothing. I started to relax my vigilance and focus on the run. I breathed deeply, the smell of sage and sun-baked earth rising to my nostrils as I ran the long portion of the loop that crossed open, flat ground. I felt the day’s grip on me loosening as I jogged at a steady tempo, the rhythm of my footsteps reminding me of Momma Anna’s drumming.
Where the trail turned and circled back, it skimmed along the canyon rim, then dipped below the edge onto a fifty-yard stretch of narrow path bordered by a sharp precipice. I slowed to a brisk walk, intending to savor the shady hues of the rock face on the opposite side of the canyon. But the dark walls of the gorge seemed sinister to me now. I tried to shake the feeling, and I stopped to look down at the Rio Grande rushing beneath me, hoping to experience the feeling of awe and inspiration that usually accompanied this view. But the memory of the cross with its naked passenger being carried off in the rushing water flashed across my memory screen, and I no longer wanted to look at the river. Instead, I suddenly longed to go home to the comfort of my little cabin, and I felt as if I couldn’t get there soon enough. I picked up my pace again and headed up the path to the boulders above, then pushed hard as I chugged the last quarter mile of the loop.
As I neared the end of my route, the sinking sun had turned the mountains pink and the light softened to a rosy glow. The temperature was dropping, and I felt the chill air against my arms. I slowed to walk the last hundred yards to cool down. When I came over the rise just before the trailhead, I spotted three guys in the parking lot, two of them going through my Jeep and the third standing nearby, looking in the opposite direction, toward the bridge. I stopped, my mouth falling open like the doors of my violated vehicle. Without thinking, I yelled, “Hey!”
They froze for an instant, all three of them turning to look at me like startled antelope.
