Plant Them Deep Page 11

  She had only about twenty yards left to go when she suddenly heard a twig snapping behind her. Thinking her son had followed, she turned around and looked through the underbrush. No one was about. She waited for several more moments, wondering if it had been an animal, but, unable to spot anything, began walking again.

  A few minutes later, on easy ground now, she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps close behind her. The person was clumsy, obviously no hunter. If he was trying to remain undiscovered, he had all the finesse of an elephant.

  “Who’s there?” she called out firmly, turning around slowly in a complete circle.

  There was no answer. The only thing she knew for sure now was that it wasn’t her son following her. He would have spoke up, not wanting to frighten her like this. Besides, when Clifford wanted to move through the underbrush silently, even the animals didn’t hear him. She reached down and picked up a stout piñon branch to use as a cane or a club.

  After a moment she continued on. Rose took advantage of the easier ground and increased her pace now. By the time she reached her truck, she was badly winded, but as soon as she started the engine and got under way, she felt substantially better, and discarded her temporary weapon out the window.

  Rose decided to head home—not out of fear, though admittedly this incident had unnerved her, but to regroup and try to plan out her next move.

  By the time Rose arrived at the house, Herman was sitting on her porch waiting. Surprised, she hurried over to him. “How long have you been out here in this heat?”

  “About an hour. Your granddaughter and her sitter offered me some tea. It was very good. Then they had to leave for a children’s birthday party. Boots invited me to stay inside until you got home, but I thought I’d rather stay on the porch.”

  Rose smiled. Herman was very old-fashioned, and probably thought it would be overstepping the bounds of their friendship if she returned and found him inside her house.

  “Come in with me,” she said, inviting him inside.

  Herman followed her to the kitchen and accepted another glass of tea, “I went home, then realized that you probably had something else up your sleeve, so I came back and waited. I was sure you’d find some new way to get yourself into trouble.” He studied her expression. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  Rose told him about the truck following her, and later the person on foot up by Beautiful Mountain. Then she made him promise not to tell her daughter. “She’ll worry because she’s my daughter—and what’s worse, she’ll make me crazy because she’s also a police officer. And the truth is that there’s nothing she can do. This person is trying to frighten me—nothing more. They haven’t actually committed a crime.”

  “But you can’t tell if that’s all they’re prepared to do. There are stalking laws now in this state.”

  “I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. If it continues, I’ll file a report with the police. But no matter what, I won’t let anyone prevent me from doing my job.”

  Herman wanted her to do more to protect herself, of course. They discussed her options for a full forty minutes, but were far from an agreement when Clifford stopped by.

  He greeted Herman warmly, then poured himself a glass of Rose’s herbal tea from the jug in the refrigerator.

  “Son, after I left, did the other medicine men think some more about what I’d proposed?” Rose asked him.

  “Yes, but they’ve decided to follow the advice of the new traditionalist,” he said, referring to John Joe. “That’s the first time that’s happened. None of us have ever taken him very seriously before. Let’s face it, he’s barely learned the Sings. It’s little wonder he gets uncertain results when he does one of his ceremonies.”

  Clifford shook his head despairingly. “Did you know that he also fancies himself an herbalist? Unfortunately, he’s made some major mistakes, but his incredible luck always bails him out. Some of his patients have spoken about it—in private, of course, because nobody likes to make an enemy of a medicine man. In one case, he mistakenly gave out the wrong herb. Then, when his patient got sicker, he told the man that someone had put a curse on him, and charged him for an extra ceremony. When the effects of the herb wore off, the man got better, of course.” Clifford expelled his breath loudly. “He’s an embarrassment to all of us.”

  “Yet, today, they followed his lead,” Rose commented, looking over at Herman, who was listening unobtrusively, sipping some tea.

  “In this, yes. Tradition has a lot to do with it, and he brought that up at just the right moment to sway the others. And then there’s the matter of your work for the tribe. They trust you, but they also know that you’re required to make reports to the tribal council on what you find. They’re afraid that any information they give you will eventually fall into the wrong hands, and they’ll end up compromising the collection sites they’re trying to protect. We’ve all heard that you travel with a camera, so even if you weren’t specific about the location of the collection sites in your reports to the tribe, someone familiar with our reservation might be able to find their way there.”

  “I don’t have to record what I find with the camera, son, and I don’t photograph the plants at an angle that reveals the background very specifically. The camera is only used to help in categorizing what I find, not where I found it. I can write the information in a way that doesn’t reveal precise locations.”

  “It’s still risky, Mother. We’re nearly certain that the thief has been following some of the medicine men. I haven’t seen anyone trailing me, but two other hataaliis have reported to us that their collection sites have been ravaged. And the new traditionalist warned us to watch our plants. He said there were some Navajos wandering around one of his gardens just this morning, but they drove off when he yelled at them. He couldn’t tell who it was.”

  One of his gardens, Rose thought, glancing over at Herman, whose eyebrows had risen slightly. She didn’t know for sure if John Joe had actually recognized her when she’d taken a look at his plants. Did he really have a second garden, or was he just trying to mislead her?

  “I understand their concerns—and yours,” Rose said, putting speculation aside for the moment. “But I can be especially careful and simply not drive to any collection sites if there’s any chance I’m being followed.”

  “You taught me that knowledge is a living thing that’s meant to be shared. And I must admit that I’ve heard some of the healers discussing the collection sites others use, usually with good intentions in mind. But you also told me that it’s a sign of wisdom to know what to withhold. The new traditionalist was correct to remind us of our teachings. Can you understand that this isn’t simply a matter of trust? It’s about survival and about protecting the Plant People.”

  “If you prefer, I can give you a list of the plants that are said to be endangered. You can then tell me if they’re still at the locations you normally search.”

  “I can do that.” He leaned forward on the table and stared at his hands.

  “There’s something more on your mind,” Rose observed, her voice soft. “Tell me why you came.” She suspected he had bad news.

  Herman started to stand and excuse himself, but Clifford motioned for him to remain seated. Herman looked at Rose, who nodded.

  Clifford took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I spoke to your friend’s Anglo doctor earlier today.” He paused. “What he told me isn’t good.”

  Rose tried to brace herself. She had to remain strong now—for herself and for Lena. “The Anglo doctors don’t always know everything.”

  Clifford nodded. “They know she’s very ill, but they can’t figure out what’s wrong with her. So far they’ve only been treating the symptoms, not the cause behind them.”

  “Then you have to be the one to help her,” Rose said firmly. Herman nodded in agreement.

  “To select the ceremony that will help her most, I need to bring in a hand trembler to help with the diagnosis. But this case
is a difficult one and I need to get the best. I’m going to try and contact the woman who lives close to where the old trading post at Hogback used to be. She’s the only one I’m certain will be able to accurately diagnose the trouble quickly and let me know which rite to perform.”

  Rose knew the woman, Sara Manus. She was a gifted diagnostician. “Have you ever worked with her before?”

  Clifford shook his head. “I’ve asked for her help in the past, but her schedule is always full. It probably still is, but I’m going to try.”

  “When you go to her this time, tell her you’re my son.” Rose went to the drawer in the living room and brought out a small leather drawstring pouch. Inside was a small bear fetish. “Give her the fetish, and tell her I need her now. She won’t refuse you.”

  Clifford looked at his mother in surprise. “You two know each other?”

  Rose nodded. “When we were both girls, we were very close. A few days before our kin-nahl-dah, womanhood ceremony, we made a friendship pact. I gave her an eagle feather that my father had given me, and that his father had given him. She gave me this hunting fetish that had been in her family for generations and had recently been passed on to her.”

  “Do you think she’ll remember?” Clifford asked.

  “Although we haven’t seen each other in decades, she’ll remember. Women don’t forget things like this,” she added with a smile.

  “Then I’ll go today.”

  “While you do that, I’ll go to our family’s shrine and leave prayersticks. Afterwards, I’ll carry on with the work I’ve been given by the tribe. It’s what my friend would want.”

  After Clifford left, Herman remained seated at the kitchen table, and they both ate cold roast beef sandwiches and sipped iced tea. “I would like to go with you to the shrine.”

  “I don’t want you to come only because you’re worried about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Herman said. “The reason I’d like to go with you is because I’ve already made a bundle of pollen and white shell, but my family’s shrine is a day’s drive from here. Yours is closer and, with your permission, I’d like to leave my offering there.”

  “Okay, but give me a few moments to gather up some things. I want to make sure my offerings are ones the gods can’t turn down.” Unlike in her husband’s Anglo religion, when a Navajo prayed he never humbled himself. To plead or grovel showed the gods you were coming to them out of weakness, and they wouldn’t respect or honor such a request. Offerings followed age-old rules that were meant to compel the deities to help.

  She continued, “I have some blue pollen and I’ve collected bits of turquoise, hard coal, and abalone shell that I can leave, along with the prayersticks. And I know a Hozonji, a Song of Blessing, that’s the property of my family. It calls for blessings for our family—but my friend is like family to me.”

  He nodded. “I also know a Song. We’ll work together.”

  “Wait. There’s one more thing I need.” She walked to a drawer in the living room and pulled out a prayerstick wrapped in muslin. “This is a very special prayerstick. It’s covered in whiteshell, turquoise, and abalone, and wrapped in buckskin. It was made for my protection by an old hataalii when I was just a teenager. Like a chanter’s prayerstick, it will make what you pray for a reality if it’s held while you make your request to the gods. So when I ask that my friend’s health be restored, it will happen, if the gods accept my offering.”

  “These days, you should carry that prayerstick with you always no matter where you go,” Herman said. “Protection would be a very good thing for you to have.”

  “We could all use some protection right now,” she said softly, thinking of her friend and her beloved Dinetah.

  TEN

  Rose and Herman walked up the rocky path that led to her family’s shrine in the piñon-juniper foothills near Beclabito. Many of her clan came here to this spot where the small cairn of rocks stood inside a crevice between two sandstone boulders, under a low cliff face. Once, long ago, when her clan had first come from Arizona, they’d run completely out of water by the time they’d reached this spot. Both animals and humans were close to dying. Afraid and out of options, they’d done a Song of Blessing and left an offering for Changing Woman. The very next day they’d found a nearby spring.

  To their clan this was now a place of good luck. Rose placed an offering of turquoise, abalone, and a piece of rare cannel coal on the cairn, then sprinkled blue pollen on it. Finished, she sang her Song. It was a powerful chant but a simple one. She called to the mountains, and Mother Earth and Father Sky. Her song rose upward, reverberating with power and the strength of the ones who had come before her. As the last note faded away and silence prevailed, she stepped back.

  Herman came forward and placed his offering down on the rock cairn. Even the birds grew quiet as his chant rose upward, filling the air with the richness and strength of spirit that had held the Dineh together since the beginning of time. His Song appealed to Sun and the Hero Twins, calling for peace and harmony.

  When they at last stood in silence, they felt the comfort that came from having united in beliefs that were as old as the desert itself.

  “I’m glad you came with me,” Rose said simply.

  As they walked away from the sacred place, Herman took the path that led to where he’d parked his pickup, but Rose stopped him before they’d gone more than a few yards. “I’d like to search the low areas around here for the missing Plant People. Can you stay a little longer?”

  “Sure. As long as we have enough daylight to work, that’s no problem.”

  “Darkness doesn’t set in until eight or so right now. We’ll have at least two hours.” Rose reached into her purse and automatically brought out her camera. Then, realizing what she’d done, she stared at it for a moment. “My son is right. There are times when knowledge has to be withheld. I’ll have to take close-ups of the plants so the professor can identify them, but also be very careful not to give away where they are. The council will have to get by without knowing the Plant People’s exact locations. There’s no telling where that information will end up unless I protect it.”

  “I agree completely. It could do more harm than good,” Herman said, nodding. “Who is this professor you mentioned?”

  “He’s an Anglo man my daughter’s professor friend recommended. He seems to know a great deal about plants in New Mexico,” Rose said. “I think he’ll be a very good work partner for me. I provide him with the photos, and he’ll fill in the scientific names the council wants included in the report. They’re determined to make sure that the report is written in a way that will command respect in the Anglo world in case they have to present it to a federal agency to get special funding. Of course, the professor’s credentials are ones the Anglo world will accept easily.”

  “What about the Navajo man assigned to work with you, the one connected to the nursery?”

  “I think he was put there because of his political influence. He wants to make himself look better and make me seem incompetent, and maybe even sabotage the project in the meantime. He’s been no help. That’s why I’ve found a way to work around him.”

  “I’m glad that everything is working out.” He took a deep breath as the breeze rustled the evergreens, filling the air with the familiar scent of pine and juniper, and the subtle sharp but dry aroma of gray-green sagebrush. “Tell me which of the Plant People you’re looking for. If I know them, I can help you look.”

  “This is an area where ‘oak under a tree’ was once found. The leaves and twigs are wonderful rheumatism medicine, but are usually very close to the ground, like a creeping vine. It’s an evergreen. Bits of the plant can also be used to remove bad luck.”

  “I know it. The plant has a habit of growing where nothing else does, like in the shade and around the base of ponderosa pines. It has small yellow flowers.”

  “That’s the one,” she said. “Also keep an eye out for ‘hummingbird
food.’ My friend likes to make a drink by boiling the scarlet flower. It’s sweet to the taste and very good,” Rose said. “I’d like to bring her some, if I can find it.”

  As they went farther into the narrow canyon searching for these particular plants, Rose heard laughter and, through a break in the underbrush and trees, saw some youngsters crouched beside some plants.

  She placed a finger to her lips and crept forward. Herman tried to hold her back, but Rose pulled away and continued ahead. She was determined to find out if the teens were the ones responsible for digging up the native plants.

  Rose crept up carefully, Herman right behind her. Well hidden behind mature sagebrush, she crouched down and watched.

  There were three young teens, two girls and a boy. The oldest couldn’t have been more than maybe sixteen. Rose didn’t recognize any of them.

  “Yeah, that’s the plant we’re looking for,” the boy said, checking the small notebook he carried. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that said CHIEFTAINS, Shiprock’s public high school team. “I heard my mom say that everyone wants this plant and nobody can find it. That’s why I borrowed her book. Now that we’ve found it, we can sell the plant and pick up some cash for ourselves.”

  “What’s it called?” the smallest of the two girls said, trying to look over his shoulder. She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “It’s called ‘hidden one.’ No, wait, that’s just what they call the root. But that’s the part we need. It’s supposed to be good for treating sore gums, and also for making dye to color yarn and stuff.”

  “I burned my gums the other day on a microwaved burrito and have a sore spot. I want to keep a piece for myself, okay?”

  The boy nodded. “Yeah, you won’t even have to pay if you’re nice to me.”

  “You wish. Just hurry and dig it up, will you? I thought we were going to that movie in Farmington tonight,” the other girl said. She was wearing heavy makeup and a cranberry-red tank top that was obviously a few sizes too small.