The Hundred Years Woman

Of course Mary, a Pawnee medicine woman, wasn’t yet a hundred years old, but a great deal closer to it than anyone else there. Even closer than Atmar’s uncle, who estimated himself to be seventy. Who knows? Uncle Cutter had shrugged, not really knowing his own precise age. But he did remember hearing of Mary Smart way back when he was a boy.

It was Uncle Cutter, as well as Atmar’s brother, Edgar, who sought out Mary Smart, bargaining with her and, in the end, paying her to travel from Oklahoma to Texas. Although payment is a European concept, not an Indian one, it was said Mary bartered her services for a solid brick house built beside the creek where she’d lived since time before memory. What valued service had she to offer? Mary Smart, widely known to be a strong medicine woman, came to repair Atmar’s spirit, sick since World War II. Neither she nor anyone else could heal Atmar’s liver, but she reportedly knew the age-old prayers and songs that would strengthen a wounded warrior. Perhaps to solace a dying Indian’s soul, as well.

To the MacKay boys and to George, Atmar’s thoroughly modern son, it all sounded like voodoo. Perhaps it was even un-Christian. Not so, Mrs. MacKay told the boys. Momma MacKay, church organist for the Methodists, presumably knew Christianity inside and out. Surprising some, Momma MacKay taught her boys that certain ancient religions that never heard of Christ still fell within the purview of the Holy Ghost.

As well as religion, Momma MacKay knew something of ailing spirits and broken hearts, having lost Mr. MacKay in 1959. It had been a sad, sick time for her. The MacKay matriarch herself would have welcomed any available medicine woman. And if Mary, a relic from Atmar’s childhood religion, could balm the man’s troubled soul, it was Momma’s Christian duty to facilitate. Momma believed returning Atmar’s spiritual health was important if Atmar was soon to stand before his God. Momma also welcomed any extra dose of religion her boys’ might get. That, she figured, would do them a world of good. So, to those ends, Mrs. MacKay welcomed the shaman priestess.

For the journey to Texas, Mary had a helper, a devastatingly lovely seventeen year old girl named Raven. The girl had been assigned to care for Mary, be the old lady’s crutch, and — most importantly — to position Mary’s rocking chair and fetch her shawl. Raven, with a cognizance unusual in a young person, happily attended her elder’s needs.

•••

With the coming of the Oklahomans, Momma Mackay evicted Mike and Larry from the Little House so the visiting ladies and the small children didn’t have to camp outside with the men. No lady should have to use an outhouse, Momma said. The Little House still had the two boys’ schoolbooks, so that’s how Mike happened to be in there when Mary settled into her chair and announced the poor-qua tale.

Mary attracted a small audience of children who settled on the floor. Mike sat cross-legged on the floor, his usual position, comfortable for him. He beckoned for Larry to come, sit. Willie and his shadow, Howie, joined them, looking for any diversion that got them out of daylong Saturday chores.

“Every tribe has a poor-qua,” Mary started. “This is a story of the long time ago… when the world began and the first people came here. This is the poor-qua of all,” Mary said to a little girl, maybe ten, standing shyly in the doorway.

If Mary’s English sometimes missed the grammatical bulls-eye, she nevertheless gave an engaging description of a cold, dark, empty universe. Empty but for Tiráwa — her word for God — who took an ear of corn and scattered the countless kernels, each a living spirit, across the sky as stars over which He, as the sun, ruled by night and by day. Tiráwa then had children, earthbound spirits that dwelt in water, in rocks, in trees, and in animals, His favorite son being Wolf. Mary equated the earth to the mother. “Our mother makes corn,” Mary said, “to feed her hungry children. Squash she gives us. Tiráwa lets his children have his fish and his buffalo, if we honor our mother. So it is right to thank Her and work for Her wellness. If you do not,” Mary warned, “you will be hungry.”

Her fantastical story, interspersed with talking animals and spirits, held the audience’s attention. Not even the littlest child squirmed or fidgeted. Mary herself grew tired, finally hoisting herself to a stooped stand. Raven lent an arm to get the old woman further upright.

Pausing Mary’s exit, one bright little boy said “God took away the buffalo.” Not a question, but a statement that nonetheless needed a response.

“No, the White Man took away the buffalo. Then he put cattle. Tiráwa did not stop the White Man, so maybe cattle are good. Mother feeds them much grass. So they are good.”

The boys looked at each other, the only representatives of the White Man on hand. Thus they they stood accused of sniping buffalo into extinction.

“That’s us,” Mike muttered.

Larry said “If one of those little kids turns around and points at me, I’ll die on the spot from shame.”

Donny said “Not me, man. Cows are good. I mean, they weren’t getting any milk out of buffaloes, were they?”

“Do Indians drink milk?” Mike asked.

“You know,” Donny shook his head, “sometimes your questions….”

“Well, they don’t in the movies.”

•••

With children out from underfoot, Momma MacKay and the other mothers spent the morning making tubs of potato and macaroni salad. They sliced a mountain of ham for sandwiches and spread a picnic lunch on the tables in the yard. They called lunch with the brass dinner bell beside the back porch. “Lunchtime,” they announced. “Big kids help the little ones.”

The men, George and Atmar’s kinfolk, came wandering in from the farthest barn where they’d ended their tour of Robert MacKay’s farm. All morning George and Atmar explained no-till farming to their uncles, cousins and brothers. There was no tractor, no plow, no harrow to scar the earth. Clearly, the soft airy soil didn’t want two-ton machinery rolling over it. Covered with straw for the winter, nourished with a layer of compost in the spring, the garden put out far more than needed.

Why are the compost bins empty? the visitors asked, and were told Mr. MacKay’s method composted piles in three weeks, not six months. They turned out tons of compost as often as wanted in the spring and summer.

The men looked at everything from the barns and stable, to the distant pastures. They saw the milk goats and the milk cows, the hives and the honeybees. There were fine, healthy pigs foraging for windfall figs and pears. Chickens scratched through the autumn garden remains. The hay barn was full, the fences whitewashed. It was a farm with no bug-spray.

And for the most part, the farm was run by schoolboys and a widow-woman. Larry managed the crops with the aid of an eight-year chart bequeathed him by his father. He and Mike took care of the outbuildings. The bees were James’s; he put up the honey. George and Donny managed the milking and sold the extra milk. Everyone worked the garden, but it was Willy and Howie who hawked fresh produce down at the highway.

Hard to believe the visiting men were hungry — they’d nibbled on blackberries, figs, peaches, and pears along the way. Nevertheless, they meandered toward the bell and a real lunchtime spread.

•••

Reaching for a paper plate, Mike said “Maybe they don’t think of us as the White Man. Per se.”

Willy said “Have you looked in a mirror, paleface? Besides, it was you Yankees wanting buffalo robes, and all.”

“I’ve never worn a buffalo robe. Never even seen one.”

“That’s what they told us in school. Murderin’ Yankees did it.”

“Murdering Yankees? That’s what they told you, huh?” Mike asked.

“For shittin’ sure, Yankee-boy.”

Donny said “It sounded like Adam and Eve, huh? God made the earth and all the animals…”

“Nope,” Howie said. “God didn’t fling spirits across the sky.”

“Angels. What are they?”

“Not stars.”

“You know for a fact? Just how many angels have you seen, Howie?”

“None, but I’ve seen stars.”

“What about Seraphim and Cherubim.”

“What about ‘em?”

“They’re Angels too.”

“Angels, the Holy Ghost, the Heavenly Host, they’re all just spirits, you know.”

“Tiráwa’s a fable,” Mike reminded them. “The Bible too. They’re both fables.”

Willy said “That’s sacrilegious. You’re hell-bound, buffalo murderin’ Yankee.”

Howie proclaimed “Rock and tree spirits are un-holy.”

“Nuh-unh,” Donny said.

“Yessir, you’ve spent too much time in the woods.”

“Nosir, you haven’t spent enough.”