Forever Shores (26 page)

‘Ester, I know about the Navajo and Waso. I know about the first names.'

‘I just thought that being out on walkabout for so long you wouldn't—'

‘Introduce us, please.'

We walked out to this latest nazca, stepped onto the first scorch circle, sixteen metres in diameter, crossed it to the linking corridor, four metres wide, twelve long, reached the larger, thirty-two metre circle where three of the four Dineh stood holding their scanners and clipboards, watching us approach.

They had the same sanded mahogany skin-tones, the same obsidian gaze and tall, deep-chested physiques, with calm expressions on their rough handsome faces and, yes, though with different spellings, the same first names. And not Navajo, I reminded myself. Dineh. Their own name. The People.

I let Ester work through the introductions. John Dance and Jon Cipher, the older hatathalis, both had shoulder-length, steel-grey hair and badges of office in turquoise and silver pinned to their ochre-coloured university fatigues. John Mele, one of two younger field-service trainees and apprentice shamans, had his black hair back in a tight ponytail and wore Thunderbird and other
yei
motifs on his jacket. As Ester and I drew near, the fourth Dineh came towards us from the opposite end of the skypainting. This latest nazca was so large that it would easily take him a minute to reach us.

‘
Ya eeh teh
, Hosteen Dance, Hosteen Cipher,' I said when Ester was done, and to the younger man already with our group, ‘
Ya eeh teh.
'

‘
Ya eeh teh
, Captain,' John Dance said, clearly pleased by the formal courtesy so far from home. ‘And first names here, Tom. Thank you for joining us. We know it is difficult for you now.' He deliberately broke eye-contact and gestured at the expanse of the skypainting on which we stood, encompassing the fourth Dineh still on his way. ‘Again, scorching and staining both. Volatised pigments that possibly were not present before the manifestation, though how can we know? Many insist a chosen site is primed beforehand. What do you make of this?'

It was no empty question. ‘What you know. The usual thing. That it's Colios. New practices are being defined, meanings sought, as ever. The link to old crop circles is deliberate. But saltings, as you say. Fakery. A need for signs. John, I am no help here.'

John Dance nodded and waited for the second apprentice to reach us, a most striking figure, I saw as he drew near, dressed less ornately than John Mele and the older hatathalis, just simple black fatigues, but an amazing sight with his long white hair and gaunt, scarred face, twenty years old made a hundred and twenty to judge by the head and face alone. It was a sight made more disturbing by the darting, sidelong glances he gave as he approached. Ester was clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of meeting him again; she excused herself and headed back to town.

‘John,' the older Dineh said, acknowledging him when he reached us. ‘This is Blue Tyson. The Tom Tyson we have spoken of.'

‘
Ya eeh teh
, Tom Rynosseros,' the old-young man said, his gaze steadying. ‘I am John Coyote. Easy to remember.'

‘
Ya eeh teh
, John,' I said, trying not to show any reaction to his appearance or the significance of such a surname for a Dineh. A coyote traditionally stood for evil and misfortune, for malicious pranks and things going wrong. Jass Lassi had mentioned this apprentice's name on his recent visit, had told me how four years ago, camping outside Teny in Dinetah, this young Navajo had been struck by lightning and survived. Only now did the connection make it more than a curiosity, another of Jass's stories.

Fortunately, John Dance read the moment and answered my earlier remark.

‘Your three Madhouse signs are mental antecedents, we realise,' the elder said. ‘Possibly placed within your consciousness by others. These are—as you say—no doubt saltings and fakery, but they mark the time. And, so that you know, Captain Tom, it is not the stigmata dreams of Totem Rule or your own signs that made us ask for you. Serafina images and Soul iconography have little to do with this.'

‘Then what, John? I'm at a loss.'

‘Let's say that it is your search among the world's symbol systems. Things like this.' He gestured to where Cervantes stood beneath its pall of black smoke, to where the lines of its tribal and National inhabitants moved through the rising on-shore wind to add their dolls to the fires. That freshening wind made the pall curve over us even more than before. ‘We hear, too, that you have been assisting with various investigations.'

‘Hardly scientific, John. More the restless spirit.'

‘But intuitive and dedicated,' Jon Cipher added. ‘Anything might help.'

And, surprising the two elders, John Coyote spoke. ‘You are steeped in other signs now, Captain,' he said, his gaze fixed on me ‘Your medallion, your gun, your rhino head, probably that sword you wear. Even your Bladed Sun, so like our Zia sign—'

‘Yes,' John Dance continued smoothly, saving us from some old point of tension between Jon Cipher and this young, clearly precocious, strangely named man. It was there in how their dark gazes locked and held as the other senior hatathali spoke. ‘We accept these stainings, these skypaintings, nazca, whatever we call them, because they exist. Because of Colios and this re-focused practice of burning the sand-dolls on bale-fires. It is widespread now: during Tafa at Inlansay, Saralon at Port Allure. Even Koronai. Hosteen Cipher and myself see some pre-Tribation connection with the old European corn-doll rites. With similar autumn harvest festivals from all over the world transported and revived here, given new purchase. Even mixed up with the old plague practices of burning the dead.'

‘The Black Death?' I said, looking over at the line of bale-fires, at the happy if solemn parents and gleeful children bringing in what they had made to cast on the smouldering pyres. The westering sun turned them into silhouettes, shadow puppets, so many striking dolls themselves. ‘I've never thought of it that way.'

‘And similar plagues in history,' John Dance said. ‘Smallpox plagues. Typhus. Cholera. Or the funeral pyres after any natural disaster: flood, famine, before the epidemics set in. Burning the dead during sieges. But all sorts of things. Rituals were often built around them.'

‘Burning the Guy as well,' John Coyote added, making Jon Cipher's eyes lock hard on him again. He was clearly not meant to speak. ‘Old Guy Fawkes transplanted. Few dolls among the Nyoongar, Yolngu, Koori or other tribal ancestors, as far as we can tell, but clay dolls made so little girls could suckle them at clay breasts on the Mornington Peninsula—'

‘Old customs always feed the new.' Again John Dance continued as if the interruption hadn't occurred. ‘We accept these things because they exist. We accept you with no less wonder. Science may reveal it all.'

‘But patterning,' I said, being careful because of the delicate situation here, because of the Line drawing to its end, because of how it had always been; needing to be careful because I had chosen wrongly in the past, made mistakes, committed butherum among the tribes as blundering National and bearer of a Hero Colour. Who knew what offence I might now commit among these Navajo shaman-scholars? These Dineh, yes.

‘Patterning,' John Dance echoed, and gestured at the skypainting on which we stood. ‘In all our legends there may be an answer for these.'

Who really needs one? I almost said, playing devil's advocate to myself, but the other elder spoke first.

‘Be with us, Captain.' Jon Cipher gave a wonderful smile, so much at odds with his manner towards John Coyote. ‘Share this. Let us talk. Anything.'

And we all looked out at this corner of apocalypse: at the nazca leading off from where we stood, at the great cloisters of darkness building on all sides, creating the sense of being inside an immense black cathedral or within the fingers of a shadowing hand.

Or rather all but John Coyote did. I glanced back to find him watching me, his dark eyes filled with an alarming intensity, his face racked now and then by nervous tics. Here was a troublemaker, a maverick, someone probably worth speaking with alone. I nodded once, gift of sanction, then made myself study the skypainting again: the darker stained and scorched sand of the circles and the connecting corridor, noting the ancillary flourishes, the curious metre-wide swastika arms, two in the smaller circle, three in the larger. Overdone, if anything. Too much like the old twentieth and twenty-first century end-stage crop-circles before they were debunked. Trying too hard.

Jon Cipher might have read my mind. ‘We've been to Totem Rule, Captain. Guests claim to be having more stigmata dreams since the skypaintings. It's to be expected. We've seen the Image Books for the Soul and Ephemeris, talked to what mirage divers would speak with us. We know the iconographies for the Air and the Inland Sea. We've matched them to those from the Atlas Mountains and the Wadi Rum, from our own deserts in Dinetah.'

‘You must have considered the sats. Orbital strike.'

‘The obvious and most likely answer, but look at the precision, the detail. Not impossible, but improbable. Look at the colours—'

‘Then something local. I hear that nearly all the nazca are on this side of the continent.'

And John Coyote was there again. ‘There is a Gerias Kite tethered over near the rotors—'

Jon Cipher spoke in Navajo, quick guttural words, and John Coyote became silent at once. His eyes began their mad darting again, reading the landscape, refusing to settle.

‘Excuse John, please, Captain Tom,' John Dance said. ‘His youthful enthusiasm makes him forget our agreed protocols.'

I nodded, and again deliberately scanned the distances of ochre and red sand that stretched to the horizon, again found myself marvelling at how these Navajo—these Dineh!—were out of Waso without the usual tribal supervision. The Waso concession was permitted under the strictest rules, the watch community there nearly fifty strong, but treated as if the Way of the Dineh, an amenable but contrary metaphysic, might disturb the local truths.

John Dance left me to my thoughts as we resumed walking across the vast shapes. After a few minutes, he spoke once more. ‘We know you are—outlaw now, whatever that means. Pirate. Privateer. We did not expect you to come. This might endanger you.'

‘I was never hiding, John. And
they
have never been far away.'

‘They're watching?'

‘They will be watching, listening, yes. Have to, given what I am. As it is for you. You are watched.'

‘Yes,' John Dance agreed as we neared the northern edge of the largest shape. The other Dineh followed several paces behind. ‘You will know why we're allowed Waso. They needed Teny in Dinetah, a place for looking back at here, for exploring the songlines and haldanes and Dreamings, all the Djuringa mysteries,
away
from this key locus. We requested the same, reciprocal liberties, to explore our Ways in due privacy, the curing and stabilising ceremonies we use to keep the universe in balance.'

‘
Hozho.
'

John Dance nodded, again pleased. ‘You know the word. Good.'

‘Superficially, John. There is so much to know.'

‘So we choose carefully, yes?'

‘John Coyote mentioned a Gerias Kite.'

‘There is one tethered over by the rotors, yes. Someone has flown in for Colios, probably a Prince out of Lostnest to allow such a privilege. Such things are banned here, we know, but we're told that his small domain is off the coast, that there is a special dispensation. He could be the one. The only question is why would a tribal Prince create skypaintings?'

‘What we said earlier, John. It's Colios. A new time, one still being defined, full of old things merged with the new. These are its forms, icons and sacred sites.'

‘Just people adding things to the mix, you think?'

‘We're all desperate for meaning. You know that belief systems almost always start out simple and become complicated by the shrewder, more enterprising followers.' I glanced back to make sure that Jon Cipher had the two younger shamans safely away from us. ‘John, I admit to being curious. Tell me about John Coyote if you can. A friend from Arizona once spoke of him. That name …'

The hatathali glanced over to where the other three were testing soil samples with their scanners.

‘I promised he could speak with you, but it was to be after this first meeting. He is, well, unstable. We make allowances. He forgot himself and I apologise. The name Coyote he chose for himself after he was struck by lightning the second time—'

‘
Second
time! John, I knew only of the once.'

‘You know of the spectacular thunderstorms we have in the high deserts of the American south-west. The first strike was when he was a boy. Burnt him, but he lived. The second was four years ago, very close to Teny. It turned his hair white, changed him in other ways, damaged his mind but focused him really, made a good thing out of what we feared would be a bad. That's when he took the name. He pleaded to come with us to Waso, the only thing he has ever asked of us really.' Then John Dance glanced up into the sky, not as a spiritual or reflective act, but as a reminder that we would have listeners. ‘So, let me ask you, what do you know of the sand-dolls they burn here today?' He gestured, indicating the modest but unending lines of townspeople servicing the bale-fires.

‘Only what I've heard from locals, nomads, sailors. It's a new thing, or another old thing made new. For five, six years it's been happening, all across the continent.'

‘What they told us in Cervantes, Tom. It's like the cluster of flags on Cervantes Island and along Old Ronsard Strand. Very important, everyone says, but ask why they are there? No one knows for sure.'

‘So how should I play this? You say John Coyote wants to talk to me.'