That was her first change of heart. Papillon. She made it not without a tremendous strain to what was left. Her ruptured appendix had gone untreated for two weeks. She'd gone septic. Her insides twisted as violently as her body, bowels removed, replaced, removed, replaced, removed, and replaced. She was sewn up for the third time, for good. If she could quit drinking she could eat a rat. Her options were slim but still extended farther than she thought they would. She had to be thin, the plastic torso installed required that much of her. Sometimes she was able to trap a hand full of birds for songbird soup. She was developing a taste for the things she knew best in that place where memory fails to make a conscious show of itself. Hawk. García Márquez. If it was good enough for them she knew it would be good for her.
She was starving.
She kept the feathers for trade. A possible bag, she was having one made by NIKIL. The scalped man came and left bundles for her. He fed them both, four nights a week. Shimá saní teaching her to stretch what he brought. The rest she culled from the small garden she kept in pots along the pavement. Her back door opened up to a five by five square of concrete and she'd found a seed bag left in the corner, one morning while she was walking in circles.
He reminded her of her uncle Alvin. He lost his life to a street sweeper, passed out on the streets of Longmont Colorado. The driver said he couldn't see him. They had that problem, no one could ever see them. She saw him, between the cracks of the Chinese language newspapers that lined her windows. His arm severed at the elbow, his scalp peeled back behind his ears and his left eye blacked to the cheek. He wore work pants and a button down shirt. His feet flat and naked against the pavement. Across his shoulder he wore a beaded knife sheath she had given him. The possible bag, for the tobacco gifts she gave when he brought fresh supplies and meat, still in process.
He wasn't allowed a return. Those scalped in battle were, according to their ways, Sahnish people, transformed spirits. They were required to shun humans and human contact. They lived on their own. tshunúxu' lived in the park, off Lincoln, at the outskirts of a populated area. With its pockets that opened and closed. You could find yourself inside one, then hidden from view. Then with one step you were outside, again, beneath the sky on the Chain of Lakes. The bison paddock was just remodeled. The horse stables are in disrepair. She wanders the paths as they are laid out, her footing lacking a muscular structure.
They met there in the thick morning fog and he took her into the trunk of a tree. His lodge was round, in the corner a beautifully tanned buffalo hide. He lit a fire and it was warm. He cooked them meat; she ate what she was served. It was vast, his home, in the center of the tree. Age had hollowed the frame. They sat inside, together. He talked. He needed tobacco. Colored men, they did this to her, recognized her on the streets, especially at night, especially when they were drunk. Winos and black men knew her best. She figured it was her grandfather. He kept nearby. It was his seed bag she'd found. She knew it was him helping her maintain the small pots of soil that yielded her sage, coneflower and lemon. They could see him, or they could just see her. It was more than many were willing to do. Recognize she was one.
From that day on he'd brought her meat, good meat: dried elk, mutton, fresh buffalo and jerky. She fed herself and she fed NIKIL. Together K'é, it is the law. She lives by it. She asked him to watch over NIKIL. She is going on the warpath. She is going. Shich'oni. naawiinakuúnu'. She goes. He watches over, ensuring that nothing is difficult for her. She defaces the city, sign after sign, and no one catches her. She marks the space with their words. The men, Son of Star promised, she is one. He gives her time to leave her messages. He gives her hawk feathers for silence. He gives her a fast pass for the Owl. He had a name, this one, tshunúxu', he told it to Papillon. She keeps it there, to herself. Bi'choni, she doesn't tell her. On the war path. she goes. tiraa'iitUxtaáNIˆs. It is true. This war. This story I tell.
wetAhneesí'it. Now I am letting go of the gut.
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