Her mouth twitched. "It translates as Thing-On-Its-Head-People,' because you weren't particularly valiant by the arrogant standards of my people, nor were you particularly outstanding in any other way, and the only way they could think to distinguish you from other nations was by the bandana the Cherokees wrapped around their heads."
She started giggling then, and after a moment, he saw the joke.
"Well, if my ancestors are twirling, yours are probably trying to beat a path back from the Summerlands to whup some sense into your head," he replied, with a weak laugh. "That is, if you're even considering it."
"Considering it?" She giggled again. "Good god, David, Grandfather actually predicted this two days ago, and I didn't believe him! How can I not do my best to help you when he said that he was going to oversee the whole shebang?"
"The whole shebang" began with a three-day fast, punctuated with sweatlodge ceremonies, which honestly was something he had expected. He wasn't completely ignorant of Medicine Ways after all.
Grandfather Talldeer-who he was now supposed to refer to as either "Mooncrow" or "Little Old Man"- insisted that he move into Jennie's spare room for the duration of the ceremony. But he was to bring nothing, not even clothing, other than what he had on his back.
The first day of his fast he didn't see Jennie at all; Mooncrow led him through a special bath, followed by a long stint in the sauna-cum-sweatlodge. The old man was a lot more pragmatic than David had expected, handling things very calmly, as if he did this sort of thing every day.
"In the old days," Mooncrow said, as he took a seat on the floor of the sauna, and poured a dipperful of water over the heated rocks, "we'd have a drummer and a singer in here, chanting to put your mind on the right path. But these days-well, my drummer's in Talequah running his gas station, and my singer's splitting his time between classes and asking 'do you want fries with that?' So we'll have to make do."
"Make do?" David asked, wondering what the old man had in mind.
Mooncrow grinned, and took a towel off a bright yellow sports-model cassette player. "Got to deal with modern ways, sometimes. This thing doesn't mind the heat, and doesn't have a job and a mortgage and kids to feed. Doesn't get tired, either."
David raised a skeptical eyebrow. If it had been his call, he would have thought this was way too much like buying a videotape of enlightenment . . . but if Mooncrow approved it. ...
But the tape Mooncrow started was not some synthesizer and Pan-flute, white-bread version of a drum chant. This was the real thing, recorded in a drum-circle, not a studio; it went straight into his chest and vibrated his entire body. His heart throbbed in time with it; his whole body swayed in time to it, and as Mooncrow lit a bundle of sweetgrass for smoke, David did not find it at all difficult to fall into the meditative state the old man demanded of him.
Three days of sweats and ritual baths, of tales and instruction, and in the end, it came down to this; standing barefoot in the middle of a clearing on some friend of Mooncrow's private land, wearing nothing but a loincloth of the old style and a medicine-bag Jennie had made for him. Mooncrow had awakened him this morning long before dawn, put him in his old pickup truck, and had left him here before the sun rose. David was light-headed from fasting, but his mind was clear, as clear as the sky overhead, and the breeze that brushed his body.
He felt like an entirely new and different person-one with more patience, fewer prejudices, and the wisdom to know he wasn't perfect. If this was a religious revelation- well-he figured he could get to like his "new self" in a hurry.
This part of the vision-quest was another change from the old days, Mooncrow told him, with some regret. In the old days he would have gone straight out into the wilderness from his own village and would have stayed out where he would never see another human, traveling in whatever direction the omens sent him, until he met his spirit-animal.
"Of course," Mooncrow had added with a chuckle, both strong hands holding the steering wheel, "in the old days you would have done this long ago, when you were a boy, and you would not have been permitted in the company of men until you had."
But there was no wilderness near enough to Tulsa to permit such a vision-quest; no place at all in the continental United States where he would not, sooner or later, encounter some other human if he began wandering,
So he would remain where he had been left, and his spirit-totem must come to him.
Along with the light-headedness of fasting, there was the light-headedness of excitement. He had been three days in preparation for this, and he had imagined many times what his spirit-animal might be. The Horse of his family name- the Puma-the Bear-the Wolf-best of all, the Eagle-
Don't focus on what you want, that's what Mooncrow said, he reminded himself. Don't focus on anything. Just wait, without expectations. Open yourself to the Earth. . . .
He did not even notice that he had settled, cross-legged, as easy as a leaf drifting down from the trees. He simply found himself sitting instead of standing, dismissed that, and as Mooncrow and Jennie had taught him, became a part of this little corner of the Earth, as still and as accepting as the grass.
He was not even aware of the passing of time, except as a change in the shadows and the patterns of shade and sunlight.
So when the white-tail buck stepped into the clearing and walked straight to him, he was not even excited. It was a beautiful animal, and he was lost in admiration of it. Sun gleamed on the buck's rust-brown sides, making him shine like a living statue of molten copper. He was a ten-pointer, and his rack shone black and bronze, gleaming as if it had been polished. His huge, liquid brown eyes stared directly at David; his black patent-leather nose twitched as he took in David's scent. He picked his way slowly and deliberately across the clearing, his ears pointed toward David, each hoof placed with such care that the dry leaves barely whispered as he passed.
At least, David was not excited, until the Deer dipped his nose to look into David's eyes, and said, "Well. And it certainly took you long enough to see me!"
Mooncrow sat on a rock beside him, sunlight shining on his crown of gray hair, and chuckled. "The Deer, hmm?"
David was a little chagrined at the identity of his spirit-animal; not disappointed, but chagrined. After all of Mooncrow's admonitions not to expect any particular animal, he still had fallen into the trap of hoping for something, well, a little more macho. If his spirit animal had to be one of the deer family-it would have been nice to have something like the wapiti, the great Elk, and not the white-tail buck. A little more like a power symbol and less like Bambi. . . .
"You don't sound surprised," David remarked, after a moment. He had to be gratified by one thing, at least. It couldn't be more than noon, by the sun. His spirit-totem had revealed itself to him in a very short time. He had heard stories of it taking anywhere from one day to a whole week, sometimes more.
The old man smiled, giving him a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. "I'm not surprised," he replied. "I already knew. Kestrel saw him."
The first thing, the very first thing, that came into his mind, was why didn't they tell me! It was inevitable; if they knew, it followed by logic that this whole spirit-quest could have been bypassed.
But he knew why. What was the point in telling him? This was not some kind of Monte Hall giveaway; this was a quest, his quest, of self-discovery. What would the point have been of telling him? If they had, it would have meant nothing.
But the second question that occurred to him was to wonder when Kestrel-Jennie-had seen his spirit-animal.
"She saw Deer trying to warn you the other night," the old man went on, blandly, as David started again. Was Mooncrow some kind of mind reader? "It was when you almost tripped that bomb, and he was trying to get you to leave it alone."
"Oh," was all he could say. Mooncrow favored him with another enigmatic smile.
"Deer is a very proud creature," the old man continued. "Sometimes-too proud. He lifts his antlers high and displays for the ladies at times when he should be watching for hunters. The scent of a female can make him forget all caution. And when he scents another male-that makes him forget everything else but locking horns!"
David flushed and hoped Mooncrow wouldn't notice, because much as he hated to admit it, Mooncrow's description of Deer certainly fit David. . . .
"But those are his vices," Mooncrow said with a shrug. "I am certain that you can think of his virtues for yourself. But among the Children of the Middle Waters, his chief virtues are cleverness, speed, strength, and agility. Perhaps among your people he has virtues beyond those."
David shrugged slightly; he really didn't know. But once again, he had to admit that Deer certainly fit him. He liked to think of himself as being clever and a quick thinker; and in school, he'd been in track and field.
"This does not mean that you are to stop learning, Spotted Horse," Mooncrow went on, serenely. "Your spirit-animal only shows you what you are, and will be your guide to the other spirit-creatures from which you must learn. Every creature has virtues and vices, and you must learn to acquire the virtues and conquer the weaknesses. Reject no spirit as being unable to teach. Even Spider can teach a powerful lesson, All things come lo my web and break their necks therein. That is why one of our gentes is the gente of the Spider, and why our women in the old days had the Spider tattooed upon their hands. Or Crayfish! Crayfish gave us the four sacred colors of clay! There is nothing so weak and small that it cannot have power-and nothing so powerful that something weak and small cannot overcome it."
David nodded, earnestly, and suddenly felt as if he were being watched by hundreds of eyes. . . .
He looked around, covertly. He was being watched by hundreds of eyes! The clearing was full of animals, all listening to Mooncrow and nodding their heads in agreement- and watching David to see if he was paying attention. 'Is this a hallucination, or-'
"A hallucination is only an uncontrolled glimpse elsewhere, Spotted Horse," Mooncrow interrupted the thought. "Sometimes the 'elsewhere' is the spirit world, sometimes it is only the inside of your own head. You should be able to tell the difference, soon. Both can teach you something."
David's temper flared a little. "Are you a showman, or a shaman?" he snapped, without thinking.
But Mooncrow only laughed, throwing his head back and crinkling up his eyes. Then he turned a face full of innocence toward David, and said, "Yes." Just that.
Now, so far, every person David had met who had ever claimed to be a Medicine Person would react to that question with varying degrees of anger. Either shamed anger that he had caught them out, or anger that he would even consider that they were not what they claimed to be. No one had ever answered him "yes" to both!
He couldn't help it; he sat and stared incredulously, as the animals rustled and stirred, and seemed to be laughing too.
"David, that is a silly question," Jennie chided, from behind him. He turned his head, and there she was, although he had not seen or heard her approaching. Like her grandfather, she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, although both of them wore eagle feathers in their hair, just as he had seen in the triple vision. The hard tail-feather on the right side, the soft under-tail covert, dyed red, on the left. Now he knew what that meant; that they knew the medicines of both the Hunkahand the Tzi-Sho, and of all of the gentes of both divisions. They were Medicine People the like of which could not have existed in the old days. Small wonder the Osage on Calligan's crews respected them so much.
"Why's it silly?" he asked, a little belligerently.
She chuckled. "Because it's either or, very simplistic. But the real situation isn't at all simple, for every good shaman has to be a showman as well; sometimes people simply won't believe a thing until you've wrapped it up in fancy paper and ribbon, and bestowed it with a fireworks display. And because in order to counterfeit something that is genuine, you have to at least understand the appearance of the genuine, every showman has at least a little shaman in him. For that matter, there is no reason why a showman can't teach you something valuable. It's perfectly possible to learn all the right lessons from the wrong source, if your heart is right."
"Or as I tell the kids who come to play Nintendo with me," Mooncrow said, his voice still full of warmth and amusement, "Luke Skywalker learned as much from Darth Vader as he did from Ben Kenobi and Yoda. He even learned a thing or two from that ne'er-do-well, Han Solo!"