“Just another day on the job, huh?”
I nodded, returned the coin to my pocket, and glanced around at the two-thousand-foot cliffs. My eyes were drawn to the thick belt of the Milky Way galaxy and the dense stream of stars that ran from one end of the canyon to the other, still visible even with the falling flurries—the Hanging Road, as the Cheyenne and Crow called it, the path the owls used to take messages back and forth between the land of the living and the Camp of the Dead.
“You’re wrong about one thing, though.”
I looked down at her. “What’s that?”
She glanced at the road, but then her attention turned south, toward the northern entrance of the north tunnel. “The silver dollars may be warnings of impending disasters, but we have the power to avert them.”
“Excuse me?”
“At least you do. You could’ve been hit by the car, but the coin saved you, and I could’ve drowned, but you saved me. So that means that the silver dollars and therefore the highwayman don’t have absolute sway.”
I thought about it. “Yep, but then again if this dollar saved me and I saved you, then maybe they do.” Draping an arm over her shoulders, I turned her around, steering her toward the Indian ceremony. “C’mon, let’s go listen to some chanting and magical words.”
She reached up and gripped my arm as we approached the promontory that stretched out past the guardrail. “Will there be incense?” Her voice carried a false enthusiasm. “You said there would be incense.”
I sighed. “There’s always incense, cedar, or sage. You want to put money on it?”
“I’ll bet you a dollar.”
I laughed and hugged her in a little. “I bet you will.”
? ? ?
“Nenéé-’ ne-nihiióó.” Kimama raised her arms and looked out over the roiling water of the Wind River, raising her face to the gentle snowflakes and crying out in a strange rhythm that was at once startling and melodic. “Tei’yoonóh’-o’ hootn-I’-iiióó-i’.”
There wasn’t much room out on the point where she’d decided to have the ceremony because of the small fire, so the rest of us were relegated to watching her from behind. Sam Little Soldier was the closest, along with Henry, who stood holding the ubiquitous pottery bowl, the sweet-grass bundles, and the juniper or big cedar, a third in a duel with ghosts.
“Noh heetéetoo-no.”
The Bear had discussed the ceremony with me, explaining that it wasn’t an exorcism but more of a plea that the spirit should find peace in this world and finally be allowed to proceed to the next. “Noncombative” was the way the Cheyenne Nation had described it. He had laughed at this point and posited the thought that trying to get the spirits of the departed to do what we wanted was a low-sum game in that they had lost everything, and what in the world did we have to offer in exchange?
“Ci’céésé nenéé-né-nihiioo.”
I’d repeated the quote from Kimama about the dead wanting only what the living wanted—understanding. He’d made a face and asked if all I really wanted in life was to be understood, and I’d told him that a comfortable pair of boots was nice.
“Niicííhoh-o nonohkú-nihiit-ówoo.”
“I’m glad there’s incense.”
I glanced down at Rosey and was happy to see that some of her old energy had returned. “I’m glad the AIRFA was passed, or we would all have been arrested.”
Leaning into me, she whispered. “The what?”
“American Indian Religious Freedom Act—it was established to allow the Native peoples the right to preserve their religious and cultural practices. It allows them access to sacred sites and the freedom to worship through ceremony with possession of objects considered sacred.”
“Hihcébe niiéi’-noh’eeséihi-n biikóó.”
“Ancient history.”
“1978.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Talk about an infringement on your religious freedoms, huh?”
“Cih-tokoohob-éi’ee.”
Rosey focused on the woman presiding over the ceremony. “She looks familiar to me.”
“You stop her?”
She took a moment. “I don’t think so, but maybe that’s it.”
“Cih-’ówouunon-in.”
“Kimama had some interesting things to say this afternoon; evidently, she was with Bobby Womack the evening he was killed.”
Rosey turned to look at me. “Really?”
“She was having an affair with him.”
“Bobby wasn’t married.”
“No, but she was.”
“Cese’éihii técénéniihenéihii niihii-een.”
“She would drive up into the canyon at night to spend time with him in some crappy station wagon she drove.” I noticed a peculiar look on Rosey’s face. “Those were her words. Something wrong?”
Her brow twisted. She saw me studying her and laughed lightly. “It’s nothing. I’m just getting sentimental about my mother lately. “My father died a number of years ago, but my mother’s health is starting to fail.”
“Nookóox noh neixóó! Cih-eeh’étii-’!”