Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Say It with Horses
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
I was troubled in my mind about my parcel getting foreclosed upon, a man situation I’d’ve liked to improve, and Dog’s vet bill from a tumor. I put Dog in the pickup and drove down to Ghost Ranch.
Ghost Ranch is one of those places God or the chief Katsinas didn’t leave to any odd-job angel to make. The canyons speak with red and orange voices, glitter with cottonwoods. Half of my ancestors called it Canyon of the Witches, avoiding it like hell unless they felt the need for some cave painting; the other half, that showed up late and pale to the Turtle Island party, just loves it here.
“Sleep with me, bella Izzy?” asked my friend Felipe when I got out of the truck.
“Nope. I’ll cook, though.”
“You look awful. Not here to see me, are you.”
“Nope. Though I’m glad to.”
Up past the guest houses and the classrooms, the road runs up into the canyons. I parked the truck.
We walked the rest of the way up above the mouth of the wash. Nobody was going to come down here from Box Canyon, the reason being, nobody can get into it. I shared my sandwich with Dog and the spirits. I scattered corn pollen for them, telling them, “I can’t sleep up at my old place. I hope you’ll excuse me ‘til I can find some answers.”
After moonrise Dog and I listened to the coyotes singing like witches.
I don’t remember falling asleep; maybe Dog does. I remember the horses. They came down from Box Canyon that has no way in. There were painted ponies, palominos and appaloosas and one big Clydesdale, which is how I knew a variety of ancestors had sent them. They came down quick like thunder. I knew they’d trample me.
They did. I felt their hooves in my skull and ribcage, crushing my lungs and hips.
I woke up with rain on my face. The thunder had gone down the canyon like horses. Dog sat up, looking at me thoughtfully.
I still had my skull. Hips, too, and lungs.
I stood in the rain and offered up both corn pollen and my fears. The man would manage; the land I could ask for help on; Dog’s vet wouldn’t starve yet.
I left a note for Felipe: “Got told. Cook next time. Love, Isabella.”
Pirates of the Caribbean
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
The skull and crossbones flag wasn’t flying high with impunity like it used to but James considering himself lucky that at least the Red Cassandra wasn’t full of cannon balls in Davy Jones’ locker. The Royal Navies had put so many at the end of a rope. He didn’t like being out manned or out gunned.
The crew had finished repairing and caulking their hull after their last close call. Wind rustled through the palms on shore. The moon hung over its lonely reflection. One more quiet night in the hidden bay and then it was back to the shipping lanes to hunt. Easy prey was in such short supply.
Something whisked overhead, whistling like the mother of all cannon balls. Had the British found them, even here? No other cannonballs followed. James looked up in time to see a huge shooting star with fiery red tail streak across the sky and disappear over the trees. Fireworks? A thunderous crash came from beyond the trees followed by column of water.
“I seen it, Captain,” Billy cried from the crows nest. “A ship fell from the sky. And it was on fire!”
James ordered the Red Cassandra to the inlet on the other side of the island. In the shallows lodged between the sandbar and the reef was the wreck of the strangest ship he had ever seen. A sleek oval schooner with no sails. It was made of a glistening metal that looked like silver and gold.
James and Billy and some of the crew approached in the dingy.
“There’s no crew in here,” Billy said from inside the torn belly of the strange ship. “They must have abandoned. But wait, I think I found guns, Captain.”
James had an idea. He fired his rifle. The ball dinged harmlessly off the metal hull.
Then he ordered the crew to fire the Red Cassandra’s cannons. The cannonballs were easily repelled.
They spent the next weeks living on fresh fruit and fish and plating the Red Cassandra’s hull with the salvaged metal. They mounted the new guns in the cannon ports and the on the deck.
James mounted a strange device from the other ship’s bridge in front of the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure what it did but it seemed to be a map of the stars and that could prove useful. It cast the ship in a glow like artificial moonlight. He liked how ominous it made them look.
To the shipping lanes, Captain James ordered.
He raised the Jolly Roger. The men cheered. James smiled.
Let the Navy come, he thought. Looks the skull and cross bones will be flying high on these seas a while longer.