Shell Shaker Read online

  The child looks away from my face and follows the crowd with interest as they murmur softly to each other. Again I wait for someone to respond. I search the crowd, anticipating the words that should be spoken. I wonder how Onatima, my mother’s mother, managed to wait for months in total silence when she was unhappy with the speeches the men were making in councils.

  I still remember the day when she stopped speaking to me, too. I’d offended her by stealing vermilion to paint my face. Onatima would not acknowledge me for weeks afterwards. That day had begun with an unusual event. A warrior was making a ceremony to his enemy in the center of Yanàbi Town. I was curious and wanted to watch, while the other children were frightened and ran away. Even though I was young, I had known warriors who’d been dragged off by marauding bands of Inkilish okla. I wanted to see what would happen to me if I were captured by our enemy, so I watched and waited.

  The warrior, Ilapintabi, Kills It Himself, jammed the head of his victim onto a post, then thrust his sharp blade into the soft flesh of the neck, fastening it to the wood. Then he painted his own face red. Tied hawk feathers in his hair. Danced and sang in a defiant gravel voice:

  Head man of the horseflies, you cannot stop what’s coming. My face is painted so you cannot see me. I ravage, ravage, ravage. There I went along and you saw my tracks. Head man of the horseflies, my face is painted so you cannot see me. You saw my tracks and cried. Too late. Head man of the horseflies you cannot stop what is coming.

  Ilapintabi’s cries washed over me like a soothing rain. To me, he’d become a magnificent bird. His hawk feathers kettled in the air just above his head, like amputated glory whirling in the wind. After his song I was cleansed of fear.

  I remained with Ilapintabi until my mother wrestled me away to help gather food for our meal. I hurriedly collected corn, beans, and squash from our fields, then raced back to the center of town. Ilapintabi was still there, but the head of the killed was gone. Disappointed that I’d missed the last part of his ceremony, I walked within inches of Ilapintabi. He was now covered head to toe in white chalk, signifying that he’d made peace with his adversary. He sat totally still and did not move when I touched his face.

  So that was na tohbi, the something white. I’d overheard the elders discussing it many times, but until that moment I had never understood what they meant. Ilapintabi had slipped out of his body and into na tohbi.

  In my eagerness to join him, I’d run back to Onatima’s cabin and stolen a small pot of vermilion and a knife. With a stick I dabbed the red paint all over my face. I held my small palms out to Hashtali, whose eye is the Sun. My feet moved in a circle and I stretched my arms like a soaring bird.

  Just as I charged back to show Ilapintabi, Onatima grabbed me off the path to town. Her mouth dropped wide as a scoop when she saw the knife clutched in my hand like a weapon and my face painted for war. She plucked the knife from my hands and mumbled ancient prayers. Her maternal belly sagged and heaved as she searched for the vermilion. I scrambled to find it, but it was lost. Mortified, I ran out of the yard and threw myself into the cold river and cried as I washed the red stains from my face and body.

  After a month of endless silences, when it seemed to me that my shadow shrank to a tiny reflection of itself, Onatima finally spoke to me.

  “Come and sit by the fire, alla tek, my girl. Let’s have a smoke and gossip about our cousins, the Crawfish People. Have I told you why they call us the Long Hairs?”

  My spirit revived. Being asked to gossip with the old woman was a sign I could again sit at her campfire. I believed the incident was forgotten, but I was wrong.

  When Onatima lay dying many years later, I offered her water, and she refused me. “Never steal from your family, we lose confidence in you and won’t drink from your hands. Red is the color for warriors. What a terrible fate for a granddaughter of peacemakers.”

  A wave of shame filled me so thoroughly that I cut a lock of my hair to show my disgrace. This was the lesson I would not forget, one that I taught my daughters. Never steal from your family. Never wear the vermilion unless you plan to kill or seek revenge.

  I am living in a very different time from Onatima. Wars are more prevalent. The alikchi, our doctors, can’t cure the diseases of the invaders. The epidemic that ate my skin still tortures me. Patience is a thing I can no longer afford. At last I shout, “Do you accept my daughter’s innocence?”

  “Yummak osh alhpesa,” replies one of the women. “That is it.”

  When I hear this I am relieved. “Then you also accept my decision to take my daughter’s place in the blood sacrifice.”

  “Yummak osh alhpesa. The Inholahta people honor your decision and we take Anoleta into our hearts,” she answers.

  “On this day I will follow our Choctaw ancestors to our Mother Mound at Nanih Waiya. When released by the bone-picking, I will grow and sprout up like green corn. From the mound I will watch over our people. Do not cry for me, I am a fast grower.” Then my relatives repeat their pledge to me four more times.

  I am scarcely aware of what I am doing after that. I turn to my brother, Nitakechi, and ask him to invite the Red Fox people to eat with us. It is proper for them to join us in a feast, a final gesture of reconciliation. In a short while he comes back with a large delegation of hungry Red Fox people. He motions for the men to move to one side of the yard, and the women to the other. He brings a large pot of corn and deer meat soup, and our guests use their hands like greedy spoons to fill their mouths.

  I watch my brother closely as happy Red Fox people, wearing their finest regalia, shove their way toward him expecting more food. A young Red Fox boy begs for more and Nitakechi dutifully walks to the fire to fetch more meat. I hold my breath when I see how his hands tremble; his eyes have the menacing look of hatak apa, a cannibal. I know they are testing him, trying to see if he really wants to make peace. When he returns with a haunch of deer, our eyes meet briefly and I hear him say to the pushy boy, “Yes, feed your hunger. Next time you will feed me.” Then he walks away on the verge of tears. I know why. He wanted to kill that child. For Inholahta elders this is heresy.

  I admit I do not understand the Red Fox clan of the Chickasaws, even though we are cousins. We share hunting lands and we understand each other’s language. But unlike us, the Red Fox people are envious and selfish. I think this explains why the victim hated my daughter. When she saw how beautiful Anoleta was, she must have flown into a rage.

  I am told that the Red Fox woman ran at my girl like a rabid animal shouting, “isht ahollo,” witch, and throwing handfuls of rotting turkey heads at my girl. Jealousy must have consumed her. I can think of no other reason. Soon four other Red Fox women captured Anoleta. They held her down and cut handfuls of her long hair. Then they chased her out of their yard and pushed her into the swamp. Anoleta had to flee through the murky waters and high grass until she reached a town within our district. The next morning, the jealous Red Fox woman was found lying on the floor of her cabin in a grisly mess. Her legs were spread wide apart and bloody. Her face was frozen in a sexed smile, as if delighted to death by the worker ants eating her. Cradled in the crook of her arm was her shriveled heart, torn from her body.

  At the time, I thought it was delicious justice. After all, they’d cut Anoleta’s hair and thrown her to the alligators. But the method of murder was not our way. Yanàbi Town people always aim for the head. Not the heart. The Red Fox people were outraged and whipped themselves into a frenzy. They claimed Anoleta had committed the murder in a fit of revenge. They demanded blood for blood. In preparation for war, the Red Fox dispatched one hundred warriors and elders to seek the support of the Alibamu Conchatys.

  The Alibamu Conchatys are the cousins of both the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and they often judge the disputes between squabbling tribes. An old woman who remembered our family sent a runner to Yanàbi Town to warn us that the Red Fox were crying for war. They were famous whiners. The Red Fox never missed an opportunity to turn misfortune in
to providence. Think of all the food they save by eating out of others’ hands.

  The night we received the news Nitakechi lit the pipes in the council. He said the Chickasaw woman from the Red Fox village was dead because the Inkilish okla wanted our land.

  How could this be? Women were the land. Intek aliha, the sisterhood, controlled the rich fertile fields that sustained the people. Killing a woman for land would be like killing the future. “Why would the Red Fox allow such a thing to happen?” I asked.

  “Because they are under the influence of the Inkilish okla, who map their lands with the graves of women. They have convinced the greedy Red Fox clan that Anoleta is a killer. If we go to war against Red Fox clan, the rest of the Chickasaws will join in the fight against us. Then the Inkilish okla will devour everyone’s land after we’re all dead. The Inkilish okla are somehow responsible for this woman’s death, I believe it,” said my brother. “If the Red Fox people weren’t so busy making brats they’d see it, too.”

  I knew my brother was speaking the truth. The Inkilish okla were evil. They had traded me disease for our corn. It was in their blankets, the ones I brought back to Yanàbi Town. The disease destroyed many of our people and knapped my body like a piece of flint. Since then, I’d often dreamed of hanging Inkilish okla intestines in the trees so everyone could see their shit.

  “Kill them. Kill them all, Inkilish okla and Red Fox alike,” I said. “As for me, I will speak to my friend Bienville and ask him to join us in wiping out the Chickasaws.”

  Nitakechi smoked a long time before answering me. He was embarrassed that I’d shown my true feelings, which was very improper for an Inholahta woman.

  “No,” he said. “It is better to negotiate. If we merely defeat the Red Fox we will end up feeding them the rest of their lives. And ours.”

  Seven days later, Yanàbi Town sent two hundred and fifty men from the Imoklasha iksa to the Alibamu Conchatys’ town. Our warriors stained their feet and legs red, and set fire to bundles of cane. They challenged the Red Fox to come out of the protective bosom of the Alibamu Conchatys and die like men. We had to show our strength so that everyone, Red Fox and Alibamu Conchatys alike, would want to negotiate. But I was told the Red Fox laughed and laughed when they saw the warriors from Yanàbi Town. Who knows the humor of the Red Fox? Probably they laughed because, like dogs, they’d shitted themselves in fear.

  The Alibamu Conchatys elders agreed to judge the conflict. I knew what this would mean. Feeding hundreds of mouths was a daunting task. I was told that even the council of leaders had to hunt so there would be enough meat to feed everyone. I could almost see the grandmothers and the nursing women with sick babies stirring pots of pashofa night and day, holding off bellies hungry for war. Everyone would remember this time as the costly season.

  My brother, sent as a representative of the Inholahta, was up against a flamboyant talker at the councils. A Red Fox woman had covered her face in blue paint as a sign that she was telling the truth. She had monopolized all meetings. She repeated her claims that Anoleta had killed her friend.

  Nitakechi had mistakenly believed that his audience could be swayed by logic. He explained that Anoleta was not a witch, and that she knew nothing about conjuring the hearts out of people. He admitted that she might have improperly bragged about her husband, calling him the Imataha Chitto, the greatest giver, the one who would one day unite the tribes. My brother explained that Anoleta was not a killer, nor was she jealous of the Red Fox woman. He used all the methods of peacemaking that had been passed down from Grandmother of Birds. He tried to explain that this incident was another plan of the foreigners to divide and conquer us. “The foreigners will never be strong enough to destroy us. We will do it for them.” He talked and cajoled the council for four weeks, until his voice grew hoarse.

  A long time had passed before my brother returned from the Alibamu Conchatys. His face had the awful appearance of someone who had not slept for many days. He tried not to show his pain. I didn’t listen carefully to what he said. Just distant thinking. I already knew what he was going to say. The Alibamu Conchatys believed my daughter must be the killer because she and the Red Fox woman were both wives of the renegade warrior, Red Shoes. The warrior we’d once taken into our hearts had grown into a giant Osano in the tradition of Hispano de Soto. Red Shoes always hungered for more. Often he would spy on our towns for the Inkilish okla in return for trade goods and weapons. How had he hidden his true self for so long; that was a question I repeatedly asked myself.

  Several days before my brother’s return, my husband, Koi Chitto, had come to my cabin to present me with a gift. A porcupine skin. He had obtained it when he hunted with the Alibamu Conchatys and Red Fox warriors while the negotiations were going on to save our daughter. He reminded me that when our ancestors lived further north they believed the porcupine was another symbol of the sun. He said that in the moonlight the animal’s quills seemed to radiate light, a sign that one thing can hold the essence of another. Then he left. I realized why he had told me that story. It was his way of saying that nothing is ever lost.

  I had prepared the skin and stitched the stories of our Seven Grandmothers into a sash that I wrapped around me. I felt like it was my protection against what was coming. I told all this to Nitakechi the day he brought the news. We smoked tobacco and for the longest time talked of our family. Of small things. The color of sky, the taste of this year’s berries, the sweet smell of green corn in spring. We also spoke at length about who the Imataha Chitto might be. I teased him by saying that the Imataha Chitto was most likely a woman. “Probably the woman in your dreams. I think it is time you found her and became her husband.” He laughed, saying only, “You are right.”

  I reassured Nitakechi that my decision to exchange my life for Anoleta’s life was final, and I exacted his promise that he would prepare my body for the burial scaffold after the execution. When evening came my brother said he would remember this day the rest of his life. He took a look around my cabin and said it’s always been like this between us. I said yes it has. And it will be after my death.

  After carting the last basket of smoked meat to the Red Fox women in my yard, I lug pots of cool water from the ox-bow pond for them to wash their hands in. This is my final lesson to my daughters. How to make Inholahta hospitality. In this case how to host gangs. Finally I go to find a comfortable seat away from everyone. I want to be alone with my thoughts.

  I find a pale wild onion pushing up through the dirt. Narrow and bent. It is the last of its kind this season. I am down to my own one self too, so I pull it up and bite into it. Pungent and tough, the onion kisses my tongue. The taste curls my lips into a smile.

  I turn toward the cypress trees. I watch the light cap them in blazing reds and yellows. The forest breathes heavily around me. At sunset the bluebirds chitter in the tops of the trees. People and things I’ve forgotten come rushing back to me. Grandmothers planting corn, making pots, cutting cane for baskets, scraping hides, reciting morning prayers, singing sleep to tired children. I long to have lived to see my own grandchildren, but this is not meant to be.

  I brush the dirt off my hands. It seems to me that an entirely different woman danced beneath these trees with my husband Koi Chitto so many years ago. In those days my hair streamed down my back and made a cape over my arms. Now it is thin and stringy like a starving dog’s. The effects of the disease.

  The night we met, I wore a short deerskin dress fastened around my breasts that left my buttocks partially exposed. At the time it was fashionable for young girls to flaunt themselves that way. I felt beautiful when I stepped onto the dance grounds. There were so many dancers that night. I had to strain to hear the singers above the hundreds of dancers. When Koi Chitto walked across my mother’s yard and led me in the Pleasure Dance, I quit listening to the song and thought about him as a potential husband.

  I’d noticed him two seasons before, but decided he wasn’t much. Too bony. He was already making children
with an older woman from Yashoo Town. I thought he wasn’t a good enough hunter to support two families. But that night I changed my mind. He seemed mysterious and strange. He held my hands so tightly during the last dance that the juice of his palms crawled up my arms and entered my mouth like a sweet vapor. Swallowing, I’d tasted love.

  Koi Chitto was a warrior from Imoklasha, the war clan. Since there were no rules against multiple marriages, I moved him into my mother’s house. Within a season my belly swelled in contentment. Anoleta was born, followed by Neshoba, and Haya. The next twenty years he lived and hunted around our territory, providing meat and hides for us. It seems Koi Chitto tethered my heart to his skinny bones and there I remain.

  I stretch my legs. They still ache from the Inkilish okla disease. When all the sick and dying were placed in sweat tents I prayed to the disease to kill me. Prayed that my relatives would abandon me. Prayed to the fire to smother me. After I recovered I asked Neshoba to put Koi Chitto’s things outside the door of my cabin. He picked them up and never returned to my bed. He understood that I couldn’t bear to have him look at the disease under my skirt. Until the catastrophe at the Red Fox village I hadn’t known why I lived and others died. Now it is clear to me. I am to be the first warrior killed in battle against the Red Fox. Red Shoes and the Inkilish okla must be planning to attack our town.

  Suddenly, I realize that there is so little time left. I have so much to do. When I reach my cabin Haya is crying gulping sobs. I pull her to me and tell her that she can close her eyes if she wants, or Neshoba will take her away before it happens.

  “You can’t go, Mother,” she says in a pleading voice. “I will take Anoleta’s place in the blood revenge. Chishke apela... help me Mother, nothing good will come of me after you are gone.”

  I blame myself for Haya’s nervousness. Before I had realized I was making another baby, I’d eaten too much rabbit. Too much rabbit makes a child twitch. It can’t be helped now. All these rules for making babies—too much deer and you bring a child who runs away; too much big cat and you bring a child who turns assassin. I hope my girls remember all the rules.