By: Addy Christmann
Sat on the edge of the old red couch, wrapped in wool blankets head to toe, I relaxed into this place I’d been a thousand times. My black hair braided in two sections and curled around my neck as a makeshift
scarf in the questionably heated mobile home. The dark wood paneling started to peel from the walls, the roof leaked in the kitchen, where a bowl was strategically placed under to catch all of the drippings, and the fake linoleum was yellowing and pulling up from the true floor.
I witnessed as my grandfather reached to the furthest parts of his memories, repeating ancient tales from his father, grandfather, tribe, and his Navajo ancestors. He had lived on this same plot of land since he was born, raised on the reservation, and wanted to die here too, and lie in peace next to the rest of his family. The same place that all these stories that lived in his mind were sculpted and shared.
He shifted with the ease of a rusted gate, latched and unmoved for years, each motion looked unnatural as he sank into his dark blue Lazy Boy chair and released his walker. The linesthat scoured his face were earned from many years working this land, from running and raisingcattle and keeping the bills paid for his family, scars hosted memories that ran across his body.
His chapped lips opened, paused, and licked his bottom lip before beginning.
“Those noises you hear at night?” He breathed, letting the question hang in the air, silence spilling into the living room with the lack of response. “Don’t look for the reasonings for it. Just act like you ain’t heard nothin’. Bury your head in your pillow, go to bed.” He seemed to be looking farther past the wall, past this house entirely, into a moment in time only he can see.
“But what if I ain’t inside?” My question squeezed out of me, my breath caught in my throat, but I pressed on, looking at my grandfather’s brown eyes, begging for him to look at me, “What if I’m out with the cows?”
His eyes locked with mine, snapping from the past to the present, and held on to mine with a pleading calling. “Do not. I mean it. Do not say their name aloud.” By just saying that, I knew what creature he was
referring to. The skinwalker.
“This creature will morph its appearance, gain your trust and attack you.” His breath had become unsteady, labored, and in this shack of a mobile home, I knew I’d have to run to the neighbors house almost a mile away to call for help if he got any worse.
Even at my young age, I knew the reservation had been left last to receive cell reception, and this old rancher of a grandfather of mine refused to put in a landline. But as he heaved, his breath had begun to steady, “Trusty cow dogs, friendly horses, good lookin’ deer and even-keeled neighbors shift into something bony and hellish, walking as though broken from the inside out. Or calls in the woods that sound like a woman screaming in pain, that’s them. Those…” His words began to fall apart, right where he was going to declare the name of the creature, the witch, the Yee Naaldlooshii.
I nodded my head, but still watched his face.
“The eyes glow you know,” his tone changed, he lifted his hand, his finger unable to point at me directly, but still extended nonetheless. “Even when they play dress up in human skin.”
“But what do I do?” I pleaded, my hands shook, pulled the blankets farther up my neck, as though they could protect me from this evil force.
“Well let me get there!” Grandfather chuffed, his face tightened and puckered up. “Never look ‘um in the eye, but don’t turn your back to ‘um. Move quietly, keep yourself hidden. Get to a shelter. I don’t give a
damn if it’s one of those toilet shacks out in the field, it’ll be better than nothing. Burn sage, tell an elder. They can help cleanse and protect.” He again seemed out of breath, as though he had run out of time to warn me.
“I’ll tell you one story, of when I saw one, well, in a way. I was out, I was in my teens, riding that suicide horse of mine, good ole Cash. Nothin’ special that day, just walking the fence, making sure everything
was alright. My daddy- your great-grandfather- he made that my job, checkin’ on those fences. And down by the creek, there used to be a big growth of pines. And just as I was passing it, I thought I heard a scream. Not no funny scream either. A gut wrenching, fearful cry, beggin’ for help.”
He sat forward in his chair, beckoned me to lean in. I scooted all the way to the end of the couch, leaning to hear what magic knowledge was to flow from his mouth.
“And don’t go tellin’ your dad. I ain’t never told him this. I’m dead serious kid.”
His voice dropped in a cold whisper, “My first thought was to help. Help that girl. Or what sounded like a girl. I started lopin’ Cash down that way. But even he stopped. He dug in his heels, refusing to go forward. I kicked and yanked his poor head, but he wouldn’t move a damn inch.” Cash had been the horse that had won my grandfather his first Suicide Race, he’d been the horse of legend in my family, with golden hair and a black mane and tail that dragged across the ground. Only photos, stories and colts of his lineage were left of him, but this story in particular had been left untold.
Grandfather’s face had become heated, his lips going pale. “I dropped those reins and got off, yellin’ out for her, tellin’ her I could help’er outta there, but she just kept yellin’ for help. So I started walkin’ in, but I could almost feel someone breathing down my neck. And just out of the corner of my eye I saw it once I got deeper in those trees. It looked like a dog, mangey though, sick like and thinner than shit.”
“We’ll what’d you do? Run?” I blurted out, anxiety prickled at my throat.
“Almost!” This time a laugh followed his words, but it was hollow. “I backed out, as fast as I could. Scanning the ground, lookin’ for it. Makin’ sure it wasn’t following me back.”
“Cash, as good as always, was still there, but he was pacing and digging at the ground, angry at me- understandably by the way. I ran up as fast as my little legs could carry me, jumped on his back and turned him back home. He ran as fast as he could, no encouragement needed that time.”
“When we made it home, I yanked the bridle off and ran in the house, grabbed all the sage tucked away and burned it all.” Grandfather began to reach into his pocket and struggled to tug something out. “So
I’m givin’ this to you. Wear it around your neck, and keep a lighter on your person.”
Reaching out, I could see a silver chain dripping from between his fingers, and when he dropped the medallion, it was in the shape of a circle, about an inch wide, with the family brand, the open A6, gold
plated in the front. I rotated it in my hand. I could feel the weight behind it, and saw the screw top, and gently opened it with a slight quiver in my hands, and peered inside.
My childlike brain had to take a moment to realize what was inside- a little bundle of sage.
“Burn it when you need it, we can always refill it.” He paused, the softness in his voice was so different from the man I had grown to know. “Rather be safe than sorry. Okay kid?” His eyes once again locked with mine, and I could see how important it was to him.
I nodded, and in almost a whisper I asked, “Could you put it on for me?”
“You know my hands don’t work so good no more, but I’ll give it a go.”
Unwrapping myself from the cocoon of warmth, I knelt with my back to my grandfather, and with his shaky hands, he clipped the necklace together, and hugged me tightly, “I’m not sayin’ any of this to scare
you, I know you are such a big girl. I just want you to be able to take care of yourself.”
I looked at him again and nodded, my eyes brimmed with tears
as I buried my head in his shoulder tightly.
…
The haze of the memory melts from my mind, and I am standing in the middle of what was my grandfather’s kitchen. I run my fingers over the necklace he had given me fifteen years ago, the same sage sitting in the medallion. All the years I had spent here, with that grouchy old man were still intact, including the floor and walls that were falling apart.
The sun is starting to set, darkness creeping into the house, where most of the lights are either burnt out or missing completely. Just another thing to add to the list.
I allow myself to sit and soak in the reality of the situation. He is gone. He left the house and everything in it to me, along with the swayback horses and plump cattle in the rocky fields. As I feel the sting of tears begin, I close my eyes, and listen to the crickets that surround the house. I beg to hear the scuff of his slipper, the smell of coffee brewing, the news plaything from the tv, any remnant of him.
But I know it won’t come, not today, not ever again.
Now all I have left is a list of chores to get done around the house
and a notebook full of handwritten dates.
Then I hear it. It is so faint.
Almost impossible to notice.
It’s his voice.
Coming from the walls?
No. Outside.
I jump, race to the door, begging to be able to wrench it open and see that old man. But deep down I know it isn’t true. Heart pounding almost out of my chest, bile nearing the top of my throat, I lean against
the wood, pressing my ear against it to hear. Pausing.
Because this can’t be real.
Right?
I want it to be him so badly.
Again it calls, “Lakota, open the door. Please!” My hands reach out before I can even think. I furiously struggle with the door, pleading my fingers to work, but just before I turn the deadbolt, I pause again.
“Grandpa? Is that you?” I force out, and sneak a peek out of the peephole to catch a look, praying though it is impossible that it is him.
And there it is. Inhuman, bony, contorted and ugly. Then it’s gone. That is not my grandfather. But I remember what he said about the monstrous creature that he had encountered years ago, and the sage
he had kept hidden.
Then a pounding begins, like a knock at the door, becoming more rapid, and feverish, moving to the other side of the house, too fast for a person to be moving. The knocking fills the air, and I can feel it in
my chest.
I back away, and reach forward to lock the rest of the door back up, and run for the stash of sage under the sink and begin to burn them, my hand shaking as I hold the lighter, setting each one next to the window, as I hear it scream again.
“Come on Lakota, please just let me in!”
It begins to fade, but my shaking does not. A tear slips down my cheek as I close my eyes and I add two more things to my list of to dos. Call Elder James and buy some more sage.