Headed Home for the Holidays

A young Indian man, a Sailor was bent on getting home by Thanksgiving.
He had his duffel bag and was headed out from San Franciso back to the
rez. It was raining and with it he knew it would be snowing in the
Sierras. He wanted to get home so he hit the road and began hitchhiking
home heading East.

He had been drafted and found that the one thing he missed most of all
were dry socks. The jungle heat and being continually wet in the Delta
of Vietnam started rotting his socks before they even got to his feet.
It seems that somehow they knew they would start to fall apart as soon
as his Mom sent him some. He was always looking for dry wool socks,
just a good pair of socks that could stand to get wet all the time. It
is funny the things you think about when you are hitchhiking.


He got a chance for leave and jumped at it, a chance to go home back on
the rez. If he pushed he could get there by Thanksgiving. The buses
were full and there was no train. He tried to get on standby at the
base maybe to catch a flight but they were all full. So he just got on
the road and headed out.


Getting on the road he seemed to walk forever, catching rides here and
there. The rides were not real long ones but they helped. It started to
get cold and the storm clouds ahead held more snow. He wrapped himself
in his dark blue Navy P-coat and continued on, placing one foot in
front of the other. When you are walking like that the wet slowly sinks
in, the cold wraps itself around you and when the breeze comes can you
feel it all the way to the bone. The duffel bag gets heavy and you
shift it from side to side, this is how it is.


You hope for ride and take it anyway you can get it. He walked all
night and finally caught a ride into Reno. He got a bite to eat and
looked around, the casinos were calling to him, but he kept on going.


He looked for a 64 Chevy, because in Vietnam all you talk about is home
and getting some wheels under you and driving it around once you get
there. He thought about a convertible, a blue one with the top down;
his buddies Top Cat, Circle K, Tom Mix and Wiley would all do that when
they got back. He could see them driving down the main drag here with
the top down and their hair frozen to their heads because it was too
cold and he laughed at the thought; but thinking about it they would
probably have done it anyway.


This was Paiute country, Northern Nevada. Catching a ride with a family
from Pyramid Lake they fed him and gave him a place to sleep for the
night, they were Paiutes and treated him like he was one of the family.
He slept for a little bit, getting up early. The father gave him a ride
in the old 52 Chevy to Winnemucca and so he went on waving goodbye to
him as he headed down the road.


It was cold as he crossed this high desert and rides were slow. the
road was long and lonely, and his feet were cold, but you just keep
going, one step then another and you go on. Before long sunset was
coming and another cold night ahead, but he kept going. The clothes he
wore were wet and dark but somehow he caught a ride with a trucker and
got to sleep a little bit. They stopped for some coffee at a greasy
spoon. The trucker was headed South, so he prepared to begin walking
again. The waitress gave him a little extra food, she saw his short
hair, duffel bag and Navy P-coat and asked him where he was going, he
told her was headed home. She asked him where that was and he said, a
long ways from here, a wide spot at the then of the road. He told it
was called Where the Mountain is Split and the Water Flows in his
language. She wondered what a place like that looked like. He said it
looked like home.


As he was leaving she tore up the check and said, Go on get out of
here, smiling at him as he left. He walked on down the road and it was
still snowing.


What comes to a person as they walk alone by themselves so far from
home. He thought about the Mountain rising from the flat lands, to the
hills and Mountain of his place.


It is far away the Four Sacred Mountains, how does it go, the words
came in the wind. His mind raced far ahead of him, thoughts like
lightning to the tops of the places he knoew, he could see them clearly
as if he were transported on a rainbow to their peaks. It was within
this land he was born, the mesas, valleys, canyons and high places.
Tsinajinni, to the East, Dibensa to the North, he would slide along
it's edge headed for home. Then there was Doko-oslid and Tsodichl,
Swift and far I journey, swift upon a rainbow, look the places, their
are holy, I remember them. Home tis I go let my feet take me, now shall
I journey, home on a rainbow, to Dibensa, the Mountain of the North, it
lays in Colorado within it's sight is my home.


How did the old ones come to sing this song, it comes from ceremony,
but yet they knew home is protected within these mountains. In the
stilness of early morning the song came to him, and he sang it quietly
walking along this road, it was the Mountain Song.


Thanksgiving day at home the family was up early, the woman got up, it
was his Mom. She greeted the day, the early light of dawn, Hoxhogo
Nahasdlii, the refrain began, it was an offering of corn pollen, saying
a prayer that all her children walk in beauty, that they were safe and
protected that day, that all that they found was good, that beauty
would surround them and they might find beauty in everything they did,
that it would cover them. She sprinkled it with her voice in the wind.


She took the thawed turkey and stuffed it putting in the oven to cook
early in the morning. Her husband was feeding the two horses out in the
field making sure they did not suffer too much from the cold and snow
outside. A little girl in the bedroom got up and walked around sleepy
eyed looking outside at the snow falling. She went back to her room and
crawled back under the warm covers. This was a small community of 200
or so on the reservation, just one street and the place was pretty
simple.


Old man Scabby and his wife Sarah came from a little ways down the road
and brought a pumpkin pie. They were relations, grandparents to the
little girl. It was not just a pie but the old fashioned kind that was
pretty big. Sarah when she was young had gone to the trading post, a
small store and found a baby girl dumped in the trash heap by the store
and brought her home. She put the baby in the oven to warm her up and
then raised her as her own daughter. The baby girl's mother could not
take care of her, so she became Sarah's. Now this baby girl had grown
up and had a family of her own with a son in Vietnam.


It was warm inside and the potatoes were peeled, cut into little
pieces. The little girl liked this because Old man Scabby would stand
by the side of the stove and fry up the potato skins and she and him
would munch on them while her mom and Sarah fixed Thanksgiving dinner.
The squash was cooked, and corn was cooked over the fire, cranberries,
hot bread, pudding and Indian tea was made and everything was ready. It
was getting toward three in the afternoon or so when they sat down to
eat.


The old man could see out the window facing West. He saw a lonely
figure of a man walking down the road. It was snowing and the wind was
blowing. It was the kind that whistled. The snow swirled around this
outline and it was unusual and so he said, "Look there is someone out
there. Who would be going anywhere on a day like this?"


Everybody got up and looked outside, crowding around the window to take
a look. As they watched he came closer and turned down toward the house
and walked up to it. They could not see his face, but when he got to
the steps they went to see who it was. He did not knock, just walked in
covered with frost. He stood there almost frozen with the snow covering
him. They gathered around to look at this person. He lifted his
stocking cap and turned down his collar. It was their son.


Oh, the look on his Mom's face and they all were surprised to see him
home on this day. How had he come home, so far away and yet he was
here. She reached out to touch him as he knelt down and swept the snow
from his duffel bag, reaching in he pulled out something, it was a blue
and white teddy bear. He looked at his little sister with her hair in
braids, standing there with wonder in her eyes and he said, "I came all
this way just to give this to you," as he smiled and he gave it her.
They gathered around him and they held him, so it is such things that
soldiers, and sailors when they come home it is glorious when there is
such a homecoming.

rustywire