Crossing

After five years in California, Charley Colorado was on his way back home to New Mexico. He had stopped to visit with his sister, Dianne, who lived in Palo Alto.

"Five years," he said, "I don't know what I expected but I don't have much to show for having come to California."

It was late afternoon, and they had been talking for a long time in Dianne's apartment. It was different now - that much was certain. Dianne was finishing law school and he had worked in San Francisco for five years. Indians were places they had never been; they were doing things they hadn't done before. They had talked about that, had even agreed on the certainty, and now they had grown quiet.

After a while, Charley picked up a photograph from a TV stand. He turned it over and read, Charles and Dianne 1961.

"I didn't know you had this. Do you remember where the photograph was taken?" Charley asked.

"It was in southern California where Dad was working. Mama, you and I went to visit him that summer. You were in your first year of Indian School," Dianne said.

"We went by train," Charley said. "Dad met us in Barstow and we stayed with relatives at the Indian Colony. Next day, we went where the track gang was, near San Clemente. You and I wanted to see the ocean right away, and we all walked down to the beach. I was so excited and scared when the ocean came into view. It took my breath away."

"You look so serious in the picture, Charley," Dianne said. "Just like you look now." She laughed.

Charley laughed too. "I was scared. I didn't like where Dad lived, that box bunk car. The whole thing would shake whenever a train passed by on the next track."

"We didn't stay there long," Dianne said. "We went back to the Indian Colony. Such a name, but that's what it was. The railroad company brought Indian people from New Mexico and put them in little firetrap houses on company owned land by the railroad yards."

The brother and sister both knew very certainly what had happened. After the railroad had taken the very best lands along the river in the 1890's, Indians couldn't make a living from the land they had left. So they took jobs on the railroad in meager compensation.

"Daddy would come home from laying track, and he would be all grimy and exhausted, groaning from pained muscles. It's no wonder he and other men drank until they couldn`t feel anything."

Charley would be dismayed. His father's speech would slur and he would stumble around when he was usually so graceful. Drunkenness was common at the Colony; there were always fights, there was always screaming. He would hide everytime his father and the other men got drunk. At the Indian Colony, he would see the men trudging off to work in thr mornings and returning in the evenings looking like they had just lost a battle.

"Do you remember that story Grandpa Santiago would tell? It was after the railroad came. Things had become so poor, the people were sick, there wasn't much to eat. There was little useful land left. The men decided to leave the Pueblo to find work." Dianne was simply stating a fact and a remembrance told by their grandfather when they were children.

"He said, `The men packed provisions for a long journey on burros and horses. Some men had neither so they were to take turns riding and walking. I was this tall, just a small boy. There was a great flurry of activity and apprehension for who knew what might happen - there were unforseen events and even danger. But being very young, I found it of great excitement. There was weeping upon the leave-taking. Wives, mothers, sons, daughters, beloved ones were crying and calling to them - Be well, avoid danger, come back; may fortune and the guiding spirits of our people be with you. They left singing this song:

Kalrrahuurrniah ah
Kalrrahuurrniah ah
Steh ehyuu uuh.

Yes, Charley remembered clearly the old man speaking; his voice had been somewhat sad but always resolute, knowing what had happened. `There was an old woman who could not see very well, who kept looking to the west long after the men had left. She kept murmuring prayers and saying, Tell the rain to come, young men. When you meet the clouds at the western edge, tell them we need their help. Bring the rain home with you, young men, from that great water. Your journey will be for all of us, young men, and for the land. And she sang. My brother and I sat with the old woman until it was too dark to see anything but the faint light over the mountains and a few red clouds. I imagined it was dust clouds being raised by the burros and the men.'

"Those men from the Pueblo decided to do what was necessary," Dianne said. "There was nothing else they could do; they had to try. It may sound odd, but they were like the Okies who, later on, came to California. What land they had left was worthless. No living could be made off it; the Okies couldn't either. It wasn't only duststorms, like some historians would have us believe. The people were being forced off the land."

Charley had asked his mother for details of the journey taken by the men. She told him, It happened that they arrived at a big river after they had travelled for many days. At the river, they were stopped by men who demanded payment for crossing the river which was a border. The men had guns and they told our beloved men they could cross only if they made payment for passage on a boat.

The men didn't have any money. All they had was the desire to work; that's why they had made the decision to go to California. So they didn't know what to do at first. Some wanted to cross at another place but others said it would be dangerous. There were men with guns on the other side of the river who would demand paper evidence of having paid for crossing. Some men said it was fruitless to go on and they wanted to go home.

We all have to be of one mind and purpose and we all have to decide, the leaders said. We came on this journey to find work because we have the ability and the desire to work, but it is obvious these people here will not let us pass without payment and they have said they do not want more Indians in their state anyway. But we have a purpose, to help our people who are suffering a difficult time - remember them. So the men, beloved, decided to sell what possessions they had, their burros and horses and even their weapons, in order to pay for the passage of several of their number.

It must have been a sad time, Charley's mother said. When the men who couldn't cross returned home, they almost had nothing left. It was about 1911, and it was a dim and hard time for our people then.

Dianne said to Charley, "For a long time, I thought the story was kind of sad because most of the men didn't get to California and they returned with nothing. But then, thinking about it, it's not sad. The men decided what to do. They sold everything in order to have a few go on. They didn't just turn back. A few would make that crossing for whatever it meant - to make a living, to summon the rain from the ocean - just as they had all set out to do. I only heard Santiago tell the story when we were children but I remember every detail."

The next morning came with the sunlight streaming through thin curtains onto the red carpet of Dianne's apartment. For several moments, Charley, lying face down on the edge of the sofa bed made up for him by his sister, could not shake the dream that was happening. First One was shouting, Come, hurry, we're almost there!

He could barely hear the shout as it came from a vast distance across a valley. And the valley was filled with a furious molten motion of lava which hissed, and sputtered, and leaped up in rippling surges.

He, the Second One, was afraid and he trembled. First One called again. Even at the distance, Second One could see that where his brother was it was green, lush with grass, and the land above and beyond him was filled with tall trees. And above the trees and beyond were clouds, white and thick rain clouds.

They had been sent to take word to the rain clouds. But his fear froze him to the ground, and he could not move. The very ground, rocky and barren, he stood upon shook with the surging of the molten rock. He was desperate; he did not want to fail; the people were waiting for the rain.

Faintly, across the vast fearsome valley, he heard his brother's voice call, "Look behind you!"

He looked and there was nothing but barren rocky hills and dried tree trunks and beyond that the flat white sky. What was he to see? he moaned with a parched throat. And then in the distance, indistinct at first, coming very slowly, was someone. His eyes burning, he strained to see who it was.

It was an old woman with white hair, painfully making her way among huge boulders in her way, and she was blind. Without thinking, Second One ran to her and said, Grandmother, there is danger ahead, you should not be walking toward it: turn back. And the old woman looked at him with her white-turned eyes and said, Grandson, I have come to help you on your mission to help the people and the land.

She was so old even her words were slow, and she put her hand in an apron pocket and brought out a flowered handkerchief. Untying the knot, she showed him a white stone nestled in cornmeal, and she drew the stone out and handed it across to him.

Take this, she said, tie it to your arrow and let it fly across to the other side. She took the cornmeal and breathing upon it all around in a circle to the horizons, she sprinkled it on the ground and shook out her handkerchief.

He did as he was told, quickly tied the stone to the arrowshaft with sinew, and then pulling on his bow with all his might, he let the arrow fly. It flew until he lost sight of it and suddenly in the path of its flight appeared a silver thread arcing above the ferocious valley of lava.

Quickly, Grandson, the old woman said, go as fast as you can. Don't worry, it will hold you.

Calling, "Thank you , Grandmother," he stepped on the thread and ran as fast as he could. From below, he could feel the furious red heat leaping up to his face.

Charley shook his head and squinted his eyes at the morning light falling on his face and the carpet. "Thank you," he said quietly. "All around and beyond, thank you, for the journey here and the journey home to the Pueblo and for the crossing, thank you."

Books by Simon Ortiz

Woven Stone, Simon Ortiz, Univ. Arizona Press. (Hardcover)

Men on the Moon : Collected Short Stories, Simon Ortiz, Univ. Arizona Press. (Hardcover)

After and Before the Lightning , Simon Ortiz, Univ. Arizona Press. (Hardcover)

Speaking for the Generations : Native Writers on Writing, Simon Ortiz (Editor), Univ. Arizona Press.

From Sand Creek : Rising in This Heart Which Is Our America, Simon Ortiz, Univ. Arizona Press.

The People Shall Continue, Simon Ortiz, Children's Book Press. (Library Binding)