Text Size A A A

Books & Poetry

Excerpt: Wild Sorrow by Sandi Ault

Web exclusive

Excerpt
Wild Sorrow
By Sandi Ault
Berkley Hardcover (2009)

It was cold and dark when we set out for Tanoah Pueblo the next morning, Kerry in his truck, and Mountain in my Jeep with me. We had been invited to come prepare for the solstice rituals and then participate in the festivities.

• Buy the book

At the pueblo, Kerry took Mountain along when he and a few of the men went to gather up wood from the foothills of Sacred Mountain. Here in the pueblo, there was to be no using machinery, digging, chopping of wood, or excessive moving about during this time of "staying still" or Quiet Time, as it was commonly known. Kerry, a non-Indian and thus immune from these restrictions, would bring the previously stacked, cut, and dried wood back from the store-piles in the foothills by the truckload, and under the direction of the men from the pueblo — and with their help — pile it in great mounds, dotting the large dirt plaza in the center of the walled pueblo. This firewood would be used for the solstice ceremonies, and to build huge bonfires on Christmas Eve for the procession.

Momma Anna had instructed me to meet her outside the church after the first morning mass, but I was early. I stood outside the low adobe churchyard wall, wrapped in a blanket my medicine teacher had given me. I waited in the cold, listening to the sound of water flowing under the ice that nearly covered the small rio that ran through the center of the village. Big tissue-paper flakes of snow began to float down from the dark sky.

I heard a hinge creak, and a Tanoah man emerged from a nearby doorway, wrapped in a blanket. He stepped out onto the hard-packed earth in front of his home, holding one hand high to offer cedar to the coming sunrise. As his soft moccasins marched in place, he closed his eyes and gestured with the offering to the seven directions — first to the east and the rising sun, then to the south, the west, the north, the earth below, the sky above, and to the "Within," holding his pinch of cedar to his heart. As he completed this ritual by sprinkling the cedar tips over the ground, he opened his eyes and saw me. He walked in my direction, but stopped a few yards away from me. We studied one another for a moment, and I recognized Sevenguns just as he discerned that it was me. "It is cold," he said. "You want some coffee?"

"That sounds good," I answered emphatically. Once again, the morning had reminded me of how painfully stiff and sore I still felt from the beating I'd taken in the avalanche two days ago. The cold seemed to exacerbate the experience. "I think I have a while to wait before the early mass is over."

"You could go on in there," he said, pointing at the church. "Might get some Jesus."

"No, that's okay," I grinned. "I was told to wait outside, so that's what I'll do."

"You come to my house." He waved an arm for me to follow him. "I leave the door open, you are just like outside. Only I got coffee and a good fire over there."