Where the Lost Wander(103)

John is struggling to translate. Transcendence is hard to explain. He and Washakie talk for several minutes, a flurry of discussion that I don’t understand.

“Washakie wants to know how she did that,” John says, turning to me.

Are you angry with the bird because he can fly, or angry with the horse for her beauty, or angry with the bear because he has fearsome teeth and claws? Because he’s bigger than you are? Stronger too? Destroying all the things you hate won’t change any of that. You still won’t be a bear or a bird or a horse. Hating men won’t make you a man. Hating your womb or your breasts or your own weakness won’t make those things go away. Hating never fixed anything.

It’s like Ma is right here, reciting all her simple wisdom in my head, and I tell Washakie what she told me.

“Ma said transcendence is when we rise above the things we can’t change,” I add.

“How do we know what we can’t change?” Washakie asks John, and John asks me.

I shake my head. I don’t know the answer to that.

“We can’t change what is. Or what was,” John says slowly. “Only what could be.”

Transcendence is a world, a place, beyond this one. It’s what could be.

Washakie mulls that over, and then he touches the elk skin and looks at me. He’s ready for me to paint.

“He had this dream—this vision—a few years ago. He was worried about the lands of the Shoshoni being overrun by other tribes who were pushed out by the white tide. He went away by himself and fasted and . . . prayed . . . for three days. These are the things he saw,” John says.

Washakie is quiet for a moment, his eyes closed and body still, like he’s trying to remember. When he begins to speak again, I don’t think. I just paint, using my fingers and a few horsehair brushes that John made me for finer details.

He talks of carriages that pull themselves and horses made of iron. He describes people flying on giant birds that aren’t birds, going to places he never knew existed. He says the world will be small and the land will be different, and the Indians will be gone. Red blood and blue blood will flow together, becoming one blood. One people. John’s voice cracks with emotion as he interprets, and tears drip down my nose, but I keep painting, listening, and Washakie keeps talking.

“I saw my life. My birth, my death, and the days between. The feathers on my head and a weapon in one hand, a pipe in the other. In the dream . . . I was told not to fight,” he says. “To choose the pipe. To choose peace with the white man whenever I can. So that is what I will do.”





JOHN


Washakie does not take his painting when he leaves. Naomi isn’t finished. She’s been at it for hours, hardly conscious of me at all. I keep the wick of my lantern burning, the coals hot, and she works, paint up to her wrists and dotting her doeskin dress. She doesn’t have any clothes that don’t have some paint somewhere. Her hair was tidy when the process began, but her braid has come undone, and she swipes at the loose strands absently, making a black streak across her face. I gather her hair in my hands and knot it up again with a bit of rope, gazing down over her bowed head at the dreamscape she’s created. She looks up at me, almost startled, and touches her hair.

“I have paint in it, don’t I?”

I crouch down beside her. “Yeah. You do. And everywhere else. But it was worth it.”

She sits back on her knees and studies the painting. “I’ve never done anything like this before. But . . . I’m finished.” The details of the vision are in clusters of action that focus, then fade, following the path of Washakie’s narrative. It’s blurred but not dreamy. It’s harsh but not hopeless, and she has captured Washakie’s despair and desire in the swirling lines and discordant scenes. Color, confrontation, and connection merge in Washakie’s image.

“I can see his face,” I exclaim, stunned. “It’s not obvious the first time you look at it, but now I can’t see anything else.”

“It emerged as I went. His face—more than anything else—tells the story. It’s his vision.”

“Naomi and her many faces,” I say. “It’s—” I pause, trying to find the right word. “It’s . . . transcendent.”

She smiles at me, her eyes wet, her lips soft. “Do you think he’ll . . . like it?” she whispers.

“It’s not that kind of a picture, honey.”

She smiles at my endearment and pats my cheek. “No. I guess it isn’t.”

“But maybe it’ll give him comfort . . . or courage . . . or a place to lift his eyes when he starts feeling lost.”

“You’re a good man, John Lowry.” She leans into me, her hands on my jaw, holding me to her as she kisses my mouth. “You’re a good man . . . and now you have paint all over your face,” she says, giggling. “I’m sorry.”

“So do you.” I laugh. “But I know where we can fix that.” It’s late, no one is wandering about, and I’ve been dreaming about that hot spring since we walked into the valley.

We strip off our clothes and wrap ourselves in buffalo robes and tiptoe out of the sleeping camp up to the pool secluded in the trees. We scare an owl and something bigger away but slip into the heat with a gasp and a moan. I brought a lump of soap, and we remove all the paint from our faces and Naomi’s hair, but her hands are too stained to fix with soap and water.