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Grinding Rock By Janet Rodriguez

I squat and release my bladder, breathing in the river’s green and looking up to the stars, just hours before we make our sacred journey to the grinding rock. The early morning sky is dark purple where it touches the earth, but the moon is round and high in the sky, painting foamy clouds yellow, pink and orange as they move near her. The longer I look, the more the sky changes, drawing twinkling stars toward each other, forming a new constellation—my mother, standing there in the sky. I have never seen the stars move like this, so I am frightened. My mother has been dead for more than twenty winters, but now her form is clear in the stars, looking down at me. Her face is bright, her unbraided hair flows over her shoulders, and her hands are glowing so brightly that I know she is here from the spirit life, where there is no need to grind acorns, or plant roots. She wears her celebration dress and head covering, tightly woven with the friendship design. When she speaks, her voice sounds like the whispers of wind:

Me’yula, my daughter, do not fear. Great change is coming for our people. On your journey to the grinding rock, take an extra basket strap with you in your baby’s cradle and be ready to trade it. White men will overtake you, but death will be quick. I will help you across the great river, into this world without boundaries. You have no need to worry—the harvest of acorns will last through the winter, but soon we will be outnumbered in our own land. The united chiefs will strike bargains with dishonest men. Soon, your husband will step across the bridge to the spirit life. Your daughter will be content among the living, even though she will join a people who are not her own. Trust me, my daughter.

She disappears as quickly as she came, and I am left there, still squatting and staring into the sky.

I stand up and look around. The river and moon are still bright; the stars are back in their places. I walk back to our house, wondering what just happened. A thousand questions dance in my head: Why had my mother not mentioned my son, Aku-aku? What about my twelve-year-old daughter, Piwan? Will I be able to avoid death if I do not journey to the grinding rock?

I reach our house and walk in the doorway. My husband, Toh’l, is asleep on his mat, snoring loudly. Our son, wrapped tightly, lightly snores next to him. Piwan, is already awake, sitting up and braiding her hair.

“Why is your face troubled?” she whispers.

“I went outside to pee,” I answer, picking up Aku-Aku. He wakes up as I unwrap the blanket that covers him. I begin to dress him in his day clothes, feeling Piwan’s eyes still on me. I sing as I bring the baby’s mouth to my breast.

“Did you see something outside?” Piwan asks.

“Get the basket ready,” I say. “We will leave as soon as Aku-aku finishes.”

***

The women of the three tribes gather once a year at the grinding rock, usually four days after the first harvest moon. Two days ago, it appeared in the evening sky, like a pale gold sun, floating just above the horizon. Its light cast an orange glow over the entire village, and my cousin, Y’amu and I made plans for the journey. I explained to Piwan that she would be able to join us for the first time, carrying our family’s acorn basket. I had never seen my daughter so happy. She is usually a very serious girl, but that night, as we ate bits of dry deer meat together, she could not stop smiling. She will soon see how heavy the basket is.

Ek’imut, the only other woman still alive in our village, will stay home. In the past year she has become unsteady on her feet, gnarled as tree roots. When I told her that it would not be wise for her to join us, her milky grey eyes were watery.

“I understand,” she said, but I could tell my words wounded her.

In the last few years, we have lost many people. Our tribe is no longer strong, even though we have survived disease, harsh droughts, and the violence of uninvited white men who want our land. We now live a life of grief, familiar with pain. This journey to the grinding rock is important for our community now. It may be our final one.

Yokut traditions involve ceremony and celebration—these we must keep alive for our souls to recover. The grinding rock is a sacred place, a wavy outcropping of limestone with more than a thousand mortar holes. Women travel from all directions, carry cone-shaped baskets filled with acorns, teach their daughters how to kneel on the grinding rock, grind the acorns with pestle stones in ancient mortar holes. We sing the songs of our ancestors, keeping the rhythm of shared tradition.

My own mother never took me to the grinding rock. By that time, she had crossed over the bridge to the spirit world, and Ba’amu was functioning as my Yokut mother, the one who taught me how to live as a Yokut woman.

My mother died as she struggled to bring my baby brother into this world. She was already weak from the virus that killed our people that winter. I was younger than Piwan is now, but the women allowed me to stay for the birth, even when it got hard. Mama squatted over a hole in the middle of the dirt floor, one sister on each side of her, holding her elbows as she pushed. Mama kept falling backward, moaning and weeping, asking if she could lie down. The women sang, dried her tears, and encouraged her as long as they could, but when her body collapsed and her eyes rolled back, the elder women jumped up.

“Lay her down!” they shouted. “Ca’ama, reach in and pull the baby out!”

I watched, silently, as two sisters removed a grey, lifeless baby from Mama and placed it on the basket tray. I looked at Mama’s face. Her eyes were open, but nothing was in them. I looked around, wondering what I should do. Ba’amu was suddenly at my side, taking my hand.

“Your mother and brother left this life,” she said. “They have flown away to a better place.”

“I want to go with them,” I cried.

Ba’amu shook her head. “Not today.”

As the women sang the death song, Ba’amu took me by the hand to the river, where she said my father was waiting for us. As we walked, Ba’amu sang the death song slowly.

“Try to sing with me,” she said. She was an elder, so I obeyed her, singing the strange words. I felt something like the flapping of feathers inside of me, a caged bird, trying to escape. We sang softly, but when we came close to the river, Ba’amu stopped.

“Wait here,” she said. “I must tell your father by myself.” She walked on, but I followed her quietly, until I could see the place where my father and my Uncle K’Anu were standing by the river, talking. At first, they did not see Ba’amu approaching, but soon my father stood up straight and stepped toward her, ready to hear he had a son.

I saw Ba’amu lift her right palm in front of her, a sign of refusal.

“Your wife took your son to the next world,” she said. “They will be able to live there forever, without conflict.”

My father’s face did not change at first, but then he pulled off his buckskin pants, threw them to the side, and sank to his knees. He lifted handfuls of dirt to his face and smeared it all over himself. He hit the ground in front of him and began to cry tears. My Uncle K’Anu pulled him to his feet.

“Be strong, my brother,” he said. He put his arm around him and they walked a few paces. I watched my father’s face, frightened of this emotion that I had never seen in him. As I watched, my tears did not come.

In the next few months, my father and I lived like shadows. People brought us food and we ate it. When night came, we slept. We did not sing or laugh. My father did not pretend to chase me, like a bear, nor did he hunt with Uncle K’Anu. We both missed her—the heart of our family. I missed my mother’s brightness, and I missed the baby brother I never knew.

The Mourning Ceremony happened in the summer, after the twelfth moon. Our tribe gathered near the river, and our chief, the great Leucha, led neighboring chiefs and their people as we all mourned for the ones we lost that year.

The first day of the ceremony, we sang and began the weeping. For the first time since Mama died, my father and I cried together, wailing for the two of them. We did this for two days, our tears so plentiful that they made a ring of water around us. I hardly noticed the other mourners, crying in the circle with us.

On the third day, we made straw figures of the people we lost, taking up green and dried tules and string to tie them together. I made a small figure of Mama. With the bark of the strip tree, I created a dancing dress for her, just like the one she wore to celebrations. When I was finished, I made a smaller figure: a baby in a tiny cradle. I tied the cradle to Mama’s back, weeping as I did. I tied both figures to my chest with string, but Ba’amu came close to me and cut the string with her knife.

“Never attach yourself to the dead,” she whispered to me. “Let them go.”

I wept. At night, I fell asleep in her lap.

The next day, I woke to the sounds of the big drum. When I woke, I could see the medicine men singing and dancing in their bright costumes and headdresses, moving in a circle around a large fire. I took my place in the circle, sitting between Ba’amu and my father. People began to dance in a circle, lifting their grieving dolls to the sky and then throwing them into the flames. Ba’amu showed me how to wave the smoke into my faces, breathing in the burning grief of others so we could share the burden of grief.

When my father got up to dance, two of our elders joined him. The drum beat steadily and the song continued. My father held his dolls, one as large as the other, and shouted as he cast them into the flames. Ba’amu rose and danced, and without thinking, I joined her, feeling the drum take control of my arms and legs. We danced, following the rhythms of the song. My dolls reached for the fire and I released them to it. The fire burned away these objects that held my grief and disappointment.

That night, everyone ate from baskets of fish, foul, acorn bread, berries, onions and squash. I ate so much food that I felt sick. I went to shit several times before I went to sleep in my house, but I was alive again.

After the Mourning Ceremony, my father and I began to speak to each other again.

“Daughter,” he said one evening, not using my name—Me’yula—because it sounds like the name of my mother, Ma’aila, and it is dangerous to speak the name of someone who has died. “Ba’amu will be your Yokut mother now. She will show you the ways to be a woman.”

The ducks on the river called out, squawking and celebrating each member of the family, but I remained silent. I did not want to hear my father’s words; I did not want a new mother. I could feel my father watching me closely, so I answered.

“Yes, Father.”

The following day, I walked the path to Ba’amu’s house. She was not there. I looked around, and saw her praying by the great river, stretching out her arms and lifting her face to the wind. I walked down to Ba’amu, and lifted my own face to the sky, hoping that I would feel connection to the spirits, but I did not. When I looked back at Ba’amu, she was facing me.

“Your own mother has crossed the bridge into the spirit world,” she said. “Now you have a life to live. Do you want to learn the ways of your people?”

I looked down at my feet and then back at her. “Yes.”

She nodded. “I will teach you the ways, but I know I will never take her place.”

And from that day forward, I was happy to call Ba’amu my Yokut Mother.

***

To remove the bitter taste from the acorn meal, you must treat it with hot water like this. This cooking basket is different from your water basket, where you cannot put water or the fire stones. Do you see how the long wooden tongs are used to drop fire stones in the water? I keep these tongs for the family. See how I lay the acorn meal on the sand and pat it down like this? The sand will not get into the meal, even when we pour the hot water over the mush. They are all working together. Are you watching? Good. Pour the hot water over the meal like this. Not to the side, but over it. See how the water is draining? Now, I will put these rocks back in the fire with the tongs. See how I lift them? Now I push them into the fire. Now we wait for them to get hot again. We will repeat this process four times, each time the water will filter through the acorn meal. Once it is finished, we take out the meal and let it dry out in the sun again. This is how we make the acorn ready to cook.

***

Aku-Aku smiles at me as I strap him in his cradle. Piwan picks up her new buckskin strap that my husband, Toh’l, has made for her, seasoning it with water and salmon oil. She is excited to use it, and when she takes it outside, I can hear her attach the acorn basket to its ends and then pull it up with her forehead. I take my own basket strap from beneath the blankets in the corner and tuck it beneath Aku-aku’s feet, safe in the cradle just as my mother told me. I lift the cradle and join Piwan outside.

Y’amuis already in the clearing, waiting for us, and Piwan helps me lift the cradle strap over my head, and adjusts it on my shoulders.

“Who will go to the rock with us?” she asks me.

“All of the women who have walked this road before us,” I answer. “They are always with us.” When I face her, I see her eyes are filled with a hope so bright, it makes me weep.

We join Y’amu in the clearing and begin our walk.

***

We start to sing the grinding song, encouraging our feet as we climb the slow grade to the grinding rock. Y’amu and Piwan sing, not paying too much attention to the rising sun, climbing over the hill. We are nearly at the top of our hill, a place where we can stop and rest and look down at our village, when I decide to tell them.

“Wait,” I say, stopping where I am. They turn and face me, stopping their song and looking at me.

“What is it?” Y’amu asks. She looks at the hem of my dress, expecting to see a tangle of thorns near my feet, or something else that stops me. Instead she only sees me, shaking my head.

“The spirit of my mother came to me this morning,” I say.

Piwan looks at me, and I can tell she is frightened. Y’amuis no longer looking at me, but over my shoulder. She lowers her acorn basket, and points at the river.

“Look!”

I turn around and see our village, silent in the mist. The rising sun shimmers on the river’s surface, and the boats look like floating animal skins, even though they are actually sturdy tree trunks, held together by ropes.

“They must have tied them to our tree,” she says, kneeling down. Piwan and I kneel beside Y’amu, and we all watch the river.

As I focus, I see a few men, dressed in mining clothes, smoking small pipes together. They have guns on their backs. I swallow.

“Mama,” Piwan whispers, “Shall we go warn the men?”

“The men know,” I say, confident that Toh’l is crouching in the tall grass, hidden from our view, ready to strike the boatmen, if necessary.

“We must go back,” Y’amu says.

“No,” I say. “There is danger there and it is good we are here.”

Y’amu looks at me harshly.

“You stay here,” I say, carefully unstrapping the cradle from my head. I rest it on the ground next to me. Aku-aku is sleeping, and I hand his cradle to Piwan. “I am the fastest runner,” I say, “I can run to the grinding rock and get help.”

A jackrabbit darts past us, and we all turn to see why. Three white men, wearing hats, long pants, and shirts are walking toward us, each of them moving carefully, but without fear. I feel my bladder release as I watch them. They carry short guns, not rifles. They look like the miners who travel the river, looking for gold. They look like they are smiling, but their eyes are hard. One of them says something to us, looking down at us in our kneeling position. I try to remember Mama’s words. She told me to not fear them.

The white man who speaks has yellow hair. He holds out his hand and points to the flat part of it.

I stand up, and Piwan cries. Y’amu grabs her arm.

The yellow haired man says something else. He points to his hand again.

I turn to see Y’amu and Piwan cowering in the grass, shielding Aku-aku with their trembling bodies.

“Do not be afraid,” I say to them. “Even if I die, you must not fear.”

I kneel over Aku-aku’s cradle and reach underneath him for the extra basket strap, which comes out easily. He does not stir when I put my forehead on his small body and whisper that I love him. I touch Piwan, who is crying.

“Stay here,” I tell her.

I stand up and walk toward the men. The yellow haired one steps back; the other two watch me closely, their small guns still in their hands. They all smell of filth; they have not bathed. I hold out the strap with both hands, offering it to the yellow-haired one, my eyes downcast. He steps toward me, holding the short gun with one hand and taking the strap from my hands with the other. He tries to examine it, but he cannot do it while he is holding the gun. He lowers himself to the grass, never taking his eyes off me, and sits on his haunches; I do the same. We are now only an arm’s length from one another. He lays his gun down in the grass next to him and unfolds the strap. The other two men come near him and lean over to admire the tight weave, our pattern of health and friendship.

None of them notice when I pull yellow-hair’s gun toward me. I want to throw it in the tall grasses, or take it home for my husband. Heavy as a pestle stone in my two hands, I am unprepared to feel the thunder as it explodes. Two of the men jump and turn to me, startled. The yellow-haired man falls forward, on his face. He drops my strap in the grass, spotted with blood now. One of the men bounds down the hill like the jackrabbit. Piwan and Y’amu are screaming, covering the cradle with their bodies. The last man is facing me, shouting. He is trying to hold his gun, but he is trembling and his hands are not working properly. I can see that he is only a boy, desperate and frightened. I try to offer the gun to him, but something hits my chest with the speed of a hawk crashing into me. I fall to the ground, without breath.

Mama is suddenly next to me, taking my hand and pulling me toward the river. There is no ground beneath our feet, only the sky. I look down and see Y’amu and Piwan over my empty body, weeping as they claw at their faces. I see the body of the yellow-haired man, lifeless over the blue grass—my strap next to him, speckled with blood. The man who shot me is beside him, on his knees, shaking the body of his friend. The one who bounded down the hill is approaching Toh’l, crouching and waiting for him in the tall grass.

My mother and I are flying away, and I suddenly I feel her hand in mine. I can feel her heart pumping with joy, and she can feel mine. We sing a new song, one without words that celebrates the sweet faithfulness of the bridge that stretches between the limitless spirit world and the fading green river of the living.

Janet Rodriguez is an author and editor living in Sacramento with her husband, extended family, two dogs and one cat. In the United States, her work has appeared in Salon.com, American River Review, Calaveras Station, and The Sacramento Family Guide. Rodriguez has also co-authored two memoirs that have been published in South Africa. Her short stories, essays, and poetry usually deal with themes involving the mixed-race identity and experiences taking place in a culturally binary world. Currently she is an MFA candidate at Antioch University, Los Angeles, where she serves as an editor for the magazine, Lunch Ticket.

#Women #Short Fiction #Green River #Grinding Rock #CWQJ Winter 2019

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