CommonSense 2 is pleased to present Barry Greenawalt’s novella Dirt, appearing here for the first time. We hope you’ll enjoy, as we have, the punch and rawness of this story, an examination of difference, spiritual mystery, loss, and healing. Dirt will appear in successive installments through upcoming issues.

Barry, an old friend and probably a distant kinsman, has been a frequent contributor to our poetry section in recent months. For many years he’s worked in fiction, poetry, journalism and music. These days he teaches English and special education at KidsPeace National Center, where he’s chair of the Language Arts Committee.

J.R.

 

PROLOGUE

 

1.

Along a soggy creek bed in the foothills of the Mid-Atlantic States stands a yellow oak tree whose age and size defy belief. The tree is “The Sacred Oak.” Humbled by the apparently fatal illness of his wife a Lenape chief prayed to the immense tree centuries earlier and begged for his wife’s life to be spared. The tree answered the leader in obvious and inexplicable ways…

2.

From her birthing bed in the wigwam River Woman’s moans tore the village to pieces. She cried in pain. The child labor had damaged her and she had little energy remaining to survive.

Spear Point her husband and the band’s leader cringed to feel his wife’s death moans. His love for her dwarfed many of the other considerations in his life. If it were not for her his responsibilities and accomplishments would have little meaning. She was the embodiment of life for him and for many of the band members. River Woman walked the path in a sacred manner.

He was desperate and by himself in their dilemma. But he knew that he was not alone. His moccasin-clad feet always felt Mother Earth beneath them. His hair always felt the wind. He always walked in one of the four directions. He climbed to the top of the ridge to his sacred spot and prayed.

Prayer always brought visions to him. As he prayed to the seven directions his mind was filled with the image of a hillside on which a square sided house rested. In front of that house was a glowing burial mound. It glowed with blinking red and amber light. The house was definitely not Lenape. The vision confused Spear Point.

Spear Point made his way back to the village from the ridge. He did not know what to do. Tears clouded his vision. He was unhappy but he wanted to rid himself of this feeling. Even though River Woman might pass over unhappiness was not a state in which Spear Point indulged. His world was one of lightning response. His being moved at a faster rate.

He began to sink into the wet earth. His thoughts had caused him to wander. He was in the wet place where grandfather tree lived. He looked to see the tree’s immense arms open to his presence. Once again the vision of the blinking red and yellow lights at the strange burial mound filled his mind. His tears dispersed and his heart calmed. He reached for his tobacco pouch and gathered a palm’s worth of the dark fragrant dried plant. He felt the skin tingle in his left arm as the medicine of the plant danced toward his heart from his left hand. The tingle came to rest in his breast and his head at the same instant. He released his prayers to the Great Spirit. He requested the Great Spirit to allow his love for River Woman to continue in this world to allow her and the baby to be together. He raised a portion of the tobacco toward the sky to the earth then to the east to the south to the west to the north and to his heart. The prayer circle was complete.

He looked up to encounter the broad girth of the yellow oak. The tree spoke him in tree talk—a displeased hiss. The tree was not satisfied that Spear Point was speaking as a band leader should. The tree did not exist without the earth and sky and the water and sun. Spear Point was praying selfishly. The tree was unimpressed and demanded with a swish of its crown leaves that Spear Point know his responsibilities before any further communication could proceed.

Spear Point understood. He was ashamed and regretted overlooking such an obvious responsibility in his prayers. The lightning struck quickly and loudly. He shot out of the earth like an arrow landed like a cougar and stood up slowly. Yellow and red light surrounded the yellow oak. Spear Point heard the song of the dawn in the voice of the tree. New energy is what the dawn song sings. He was gone quickly.

At the wigwam he went quickly to River Woman’s side. He knelt down beside her and kissed her fevered lips then kissed her forehead her eyes her hair. He held her close. Energy surged from him to her.

The boy was born a little while later. River Woman’s labor was considerable but she was strong human being. She was nurturing the little one at dawn.

At noon River Woman and Spear Point thanked the Creator. Spear Point told River Woman about the lightning and the red and yellow lights.

River Woman said only one thing “The ways of the Creator are mysterious, and what you see may not be clear to you until much later.”

3.

The boy grew strong and reckless. He was called Stone Axe. When he was still a toddler he subdued a raccoon that had tried to steal food from the village cache. He took Spear Point’s axe and threw it at the intruder with all his strength. The axe hit the raccoon and made him scream. Everyone was alerted and the boy gained his name.

Stone Axe grew to be a robust young man. His stature and girth were larger than the normal Lenape. Stone Axe was a force of nature. Other humans animals the forest all seemed to give him pardon. Before he entered the camp or the path or the stream one could feel his presence. Something seemed to crackle from his bones out into the world around him.

It was when Stone Axe reached adulthood that great changes came to the people of the rivers. Spear Point’s disturbing vision at the sacred oak and other strange dreams that ensued presaged the coming of the ships to the mouth of the Schuylkill. Others came to the shores of the homeland. At first it was just gossip among the women and elders but then the lighter ones started to filter into the large villages.

Stone Axe enjoyed dealing with the strangers. He had no fear of them. He had little reason to fear anyone except maybe brother bear. The strangers looked at Stone Axe in awe. Seldom had any of them as well ever come across such an imposing human.

River Woman attempted to guide Stone Axe’s interactions with the europeans but he seldom heeded her words. Stone Axe was like The Crow amidst the lighter ones. What the Creator gave to Stone Axe to use with them always seemed to surprise and confuse them. His laughter his huge paws for hands his spitting his embrace. They could not tell where his heart was. He could tell where theirs was. The resulting confusion was hilarious for the Lenape at first but later became a source of talk around the fires. What if a misunderstood joke would cause bloodshed? What if the spirit water that caused much of what seemed worrisome to the Lenape would make Stone Axe and others react badly to their own people?

It was as if the wind was blowing from the east. It was as if the floods were coming in from the shore. The wise ones made ready for the worst.

Stone Axe brought the fox society together one autumn evening under the sacred oak and made words meant to convince his brothers that they were faced with a choice the matter of the Europeans. Trade was good metal goods were powerful spirit water was amusing—all of these things made Stone Axe feel good. Yet he told them that the hearts of the strangers were much different than theirs. He heard from the council of elders that these new people were asking to have for their own without the Lenape there great pieces of Lenape homeland. In fact the sacred oak was to be within the land that the Europeans wanted. The stranger’s chief William Penn said that a strong one among the europeans could take whatever he could walk in one sun’s time. Stone Axe was afraid for his people.

The fox society eventually allowed him to speak to the elders with the concern that the walking purchase should be resisted.

When Black Fawn had chosen Stone Axe for her husband she knew that his strong heart was like the force of lightning. She could tell him that he was foolish to resist the europeans because their ways were of too much force for the quiet Lenape. It was difficult to be heard when she wanted to tell Stone Axe what he was planning would not work this time. But Stone Axe was the son of Spear Point and that meant that there was great wisdom behind every step every word. Stone Axe no longer drank the spirit water. It was like a gnat in his head. He was confident that whatever the path he and his people would take would be for the better. Lightning destroyed and cured at the same time. The current situation needed either of those.

The colonials had to wait for the winter to end before the walking purchase could take place. The english were impatient and in no mind to have to receive leave from the delaware (as the Lenape were called) to perform the purchase. In conformity with the ways of the Creator—which are always mysterious hence the alternative name of the Creator the Great Mysterious—the english were allowed to display their immense propensity for predation. They sent as gifts among the delaware blankets infested with smallpox virus.

Stone Axe’s plans to resist evaporated in the fevers that his People endured before their painful deaths ensued. Stone Axe watched in horror as his loved ones disappeared in scores during that treacherous winter. His great heart burst from sadness.

Spear Point and Stone Axe’s People were called the grandfathers by those humans who admired them and were called women by those humans who meant to keep them in servitude—the infamous Iroquois chain. Because the Lenape had been allies with the Susquehannock who had warred with the Iroquois, they became women when the Susquehannock subsequently lost that war. Stone Axe’s people were warm and kind in direct connection with the Great Spirit. They were people on whom others could rely. They were like the smooth round mountains in whose graceful shadow they lived.

But the Lenni Lenape once roused by inequity or injustice had tempers. The fierceness and violence that could erupt were difficult to withstand.

And so Stone Axe stood grieved and frustrated and unable to have a true man’s position in these dire circumstances. He did what his father had done—he went to sacred oak. He prayed in the sacred manner. He waited for a sign to find a way to avenge the deaths of his friends and relatives.

He was disappointed by the effort even though he knew there was never a wasted prayer. All that occurred at the sacred oak was the overpowering aroma of the swamp earth. The musk of the wetland stayed in his nostrils for days afterward. It was odd because when he prayed it was so frigid that his moccasins became hard as a rock. In a dream a few nights later Stone Axe saw a sacred place. It was a burial mound. But the mound did not exist at the location that was in his dream. The location was on the north side of the hill beneath the quarry where they made the red stone for arrows. Above the mound red and yellow light glowed and moved. And in his dream he smelled the damp earth and heard the sound of giant thunder. His friends and relatives in the spirit land were dancing with these lights all about the mound. They were laughing and cavorting making victory dances and making prayer. They were happy and smiling and walking in peace. All animal relatives were there with them too smiling with their children and looking towards a long green lawn. All would stop from time to time to watch the young men play stickball on the long green lawn. In the spirit world the ball was white and seemed to float endlessly between strikes. Both teams played in the same direction. They both were intent on having the earth take the ball away from them. Obviously stickball was played differently on the other side. Everyone watched. Everyone was happy. Finally in the dream he saw his father walking with all the spirits of his People. They were all walking in the sunset. Green green earth; red red sky. All the animal relatives running and flying coated with the blood red sun. In the dream Stone Axe was so happy that his eyes filled with tears and his chest heaved in emotion.

When he awoke a warm southern breeze was filling the wigwam entranceway. He rose to tell Black Fawn and the others that it was time to bury the sadness and anger. He told them that he was given a place in his dreams to put the prepared frozen bodies to rest. The others were awed. What he said made their hearts peaceful. Stone Axe took them to the hillside and their dead and all their weapons and sacred objects were laid to rest facing the grandfather mountains and the courage and the strength of the north direction. It was a large mound taking days to prepare fill and complete. By the time Stone Axe’s people were finished spring had returned to the earth.

Stone Axe’s peace did not last long. The salt water people were not content to stay out of the area where Stone Axe’s village was. They came and they eventually fought his band for possession of their homeland. The fox society was brave in defense of what they considered paradise—the upper reaches of the Schuylkill River along the Manatawny and Saukunk Creeks. But the german intruders were tenacious. Many of the first ones to come were good and lived well amongst them. But eventually the greed of the many overturned the goodness of the few and the Lenape were driven out.

Stone Axe and Black Fawn could not leave their homeland. When the last of their People trudged westward over the Appalachians they found a lonely little valley in the mountains to set up their wigwam. As the years moved along a cabin replaced the wigwam. Stone Axe’s child grew up in the valley separate and by himself. They survived by secretly and stealthily hunting deer and bear in the hills.

The lives of the german settlers encompassed them and gradually included them. Stone Axe’s personality was one that found harmony with humans wherever and whenever. His talents at producing beautiful hides and potent herbal remedies found welcome with the practical and luxury loving farmers.

The germans called him Holzman, or woodsman, because he was synonymous with the dark forest from which he emerged like a spirit to be among them. Stone Axe in turn called his son Jakob so that the young boy would not seem strange to the Germans. Jacob Holzman was like a shadow in the forest an enigma of great strength and beauty. Like his father Jakob was an imposing physical presence. But unlike his father he was quick fluid—like a deer on the icy winter wind.

Jakob Holzman needed little time as a young man to find his way in the new world of europeans and orphaned Lenapes. He was so handsome that the most beautiful young settler girl in nearby Finch stalked him carefully and ensnared him with her overflowing love. That young girl Maria Fenster was the first european woman in the community to take to her heart a native american man. She adored Jakob and became his wife soon after she was able to make him notice her love and stop his furtive wandering.

The Finch community was not accepting of the marriage. In fact the pastor that served the community only allowed the wedding to take place at the Holzman cabin. Jakob was too proud and too sensitive to endure such ostracism. When Maria told him that a child was on the way Jakob looked carefully around the growing colonial community and saw no need to remain. The pastor’s wife especially gave him reason to flee. She somehow recognized that Maria was going to have a baby and told the entire community.

Jakob’s native sensibility did not understand the harshness of the reaction in the german settlers. To him all new life was sacred and deserving of receiving joy and happiness. His anger and then his fear of the villagers’ scorn brought him to his knees by his wife’s side in their dark cabin.

“Maria, my love, there is something we have to do” he told her.

She watched the muscles of his shoulders tense as he enveloped her with his arms.

“Jakob, what are you saying?”

“I want to leave to the west as soon as possible. We must make a way for ourselves somewhere else. Further from germans and others, farther into the frontier. Many of my father’s people are elsewhere, members of the fox society and their children. They still live well and bravely. We have to go.”

“What about your parents, Jakob?”

“They are getting too old to move. I am sure that father will want to stay here in our homeland. He is bound here by his love of this place, germans or no germans. I know that he will not go. He will even change himself for his love of our homeland. He is not one to flee, to pull up roots.”

“Well, my love, we better get started. What will become of the cabin when your father and mother are gone?”

“Father will know what to do with the cabin. He will have it kept for us or share it with the right person.”

“It will make me cry to leave this place, Jakob,” Maria said matter of factly.

“I am beginning to understand some things about life,” Jakob told her, “and, even though leaving is difficult, we will be fine because we make this change. It is the good thing to do. I don’t think that you need to be sad.”

4.

Quietly in the cold dawn of an October morning Jakob and Maria Holzman stole away over the first ridges of the Appalachian Mountains and like the winds that precede a storm from the sea ran westward beneath the giant boughs of grandfather forest.

Their journey was as difficult as travel was in those early days of the European conquest of the continent. They were required to sidestep certain villages and towns, certain stations and forts, in order to travel safely.

Their departure included some fear for their own safety because Jakob was angered by the things that the pastor’s wife had said and done. Johanna Heffner’s main love in life was her team of thoroughbred carriage horses that she had shrewdly purchased from the synod bishop in lancaster. The bishop was not aware of the horses’ bloodlines when his congregation gave him the team. Even though they told him they were the best horses in the region he did not seem to understand what meant to his parishioners or to the community at large.

What the bishop valued on the other hand were fine houses. And his desire to purchase a large new home in annville for his growing family and him overrode the value of his carriage team. The sale of the horses to Johanna Heffner brought him the money he needed to install himself in the house of his dreams along the highway even if the price did not reflect the value of the steeds.

Jakob was incensed enough to make a vengeful departing statement to Johanna. He subdued the dogs behind the pastor’s house quickly bridled Johanna’s team and guided them to a prearranged spot where Maria was waiting.

They mounted the gorgeous animals loaded their worldly possessions and raced away over the little-used mountain road.

Gone to the westward lands as lawbreakers.

5.

Stone Axe did not outlive Black Fawn. She was only 45 when he passed over having fought many years and having lived resignedly many years. Jakob’s departure had saddened his heart as did the fact that he would not see his grandchild. He was struck down by a strange fever after Christmas the next year after Jakob and Maria went west. Black Fawn buried her husband at the sad mound with his People.

She needed help to survive in Finch. Her kindness and skill in healing had made her many friends. She was taken in by a wealthy farmer named Gruber. She became a kitchen maid. She was given a small salary and was allowed to remain living at the cabin.

Two years later when Gruber’s wife and two children died in a carriage accident Black Fawn succored the brokenhearted man. He fell in love with her and in their shared grief and passion they brought a child into the world. It was Black Fawn’s excellent health and strength that made bearing a child possible. Her second son was born. They called him Daniel. He would need the strength and courage of that name to withstand the forces of the german community.

6.

After Jakob and Maria crossed the Mississippi River the continent opened up into the huge expanse of prairie lands. Travel was easier and less furtive for them. No one had caught up to them since cairo ohio where Jakob bested a parishioner’s son who for adventure had taken their trail. Young Christian Berk was no match for Jakob. Jakob only needed to toss Christian to the ground several times in order to knock the sauce out of him.

Jakob gave Christian a small amount of money and told him to find a way for himself here in the west lands. Christian’s adventuresome spirit became enamored of the idea and he did not return to Finch. Jakob and Maria escaped pursuit thereafter.

They turned up towards Missouri River country. They heard word of relatives who might be in that region. But their journey brought them to the lands of the great horse tribes of the prairie. At a river camp during the next summer after their departure they met a band of Lakota who had come far east to fish and visit with distant relatives. These horsemen could not believe the beauty of Jakob and Maria’s stolen horses. Although communication was difficult the young couple (with child in utero) sensed a willingness for the band to accept them. It was not a difficult choice to acquiesce to since Maria’s labor pains had begun.

Jakob relinquished one of the team to the band’s leader and their membership in the community was secured. Two nights later Jakob and Maria’s daughter was born. They named her native style in Lakota. At her birth at the Lakota camp the sun rose just after the baby girl was born. They named her Sparrow after the first bird to make its call.

A week later the Lakota band left the west bank of the Missouri and headed back to the headwaters of the White River their homeland. Jakob Maria and little Sparrow left with them. As the band covered the miles west Jakob’s jaw continually dropped open at the sights of the open prairie and the hills that the Lakota called the Black Hills.

The Black Hills was a sacred place for the Lakota and many other nations of the horsemen of the plains. The young family settled into life easily with the band whose warm hearts were similar to theirs.

Jakob rescued three young girls from the band from an angry grizzly bear mother whose cubs strayed too near to the common water hole at the creek near the camp. Jakob’s skillful handling of the grizzly an animal with which he was definitely unfamiliar impressed the band’s leader so much that the leader gave Jakob a new name. From that time forward he was known as Slow Hand. He had slowly waved his large hands in quiet circles at the grizzly as he carefully approached the girls. The bear’s head began to bob along with the motion and eventually the bear turned and lumbered away. The double meaning of his name which was more important to the Lakota was that he did not attempt to kill the bear a god—his hand was slow to kill. This was something of great value in warrior to the Lakota.

Slow Hand and Maria had another child while with the Lakota. The baby boy was born at a camp while hunting bison. He was more european looking than Sparrow. His hair was lighter and curly; his eyes were light. But his heart was strong and deep. Slow Hand’s prize horse performed a great deed of bravery amongst the thundering bison. He had swerved several times protecting Slow Hand’s legs from being crushed by the iron like flanks of the stampeding bison. In honor of the horse’s protection Slow Hand named his son Brave Horse. The light young man became a legend among the Lakota. He was truly brave and honorable. He eventually became the band’s leader and aided them in their fight and troubles in staying a free People when his homeland was eventually invaded from the east by the blue soldiers and the black clad medicine men.

Brave Horse was so dedicated to his People that he was not normal in the usual sense of the word among the Lakota. He shared every power and possession that he had. He did not take a wife until one woman was in desperate need after her husband was killed in the battle of Iron Kettle. It was not that he did not marry for love. The woman Spirit Cloud was someone who he had loved all of his life. He just did not declare his intentions to her or her family when they were young because he knew that his life would be busy with his responsibilities. Brave Horse had little of value for a marriage as a young man either. He took little pride in owning a great number of horses or numbers of elk killed in the hunt. Spirit Cloud’s father was a vain man and wanted much bride price for his daughter. Flint her deceased husband was a great leader of raids and owned so many horses that Spirit Cloud’s father did not even have to deliberate on his decision to allow the marriage.

But Spirit Cloud welcomed Brave Horse to her heart and bed. They had always held each other close in their thoughts and feelings. Brave Horse had always played with her young children. They loved the strange brave leader. He made them feel strong and wise.

The sad legacy of those days is bitter and cruel. The huge sky could not contain the hurt the Lakota felt as they were continually hunted down and deceived. Brave Horse and the rest of the mobile band leaders attempted to keep ahead of the pursuit and the slaughter. They made a victory at the Greasy Grass. They slaughtered the troops and the commander with the hair lighter than Brave Horse’s. But that only increased and intensified the hunt for them.

In the end the trail stopped. Brave Horse Spirit Cloud and her children and Sparrow and her children were among the dead at Wounded Knee. Their participation in the Ghost Dance earlier whose occurrence brought down the wrathful troops among them lightened their spirits so that accepting their deaths was of little consequence.

When Brave Horse’s spirit was released from his body he saw the trail from the east to west of his father and mother and he saw all of his Lenape relatives in their former paradise and on their difficult journeys of flight and persecution. He saw in the dawn light a vast scene of things of which he did not know: yellow and red lights hovering above a sacred place; noisy structures and dust; long green meadows with large groups of humans walking; talking boxes and talking hides; an orange sunset into which he was riding upon a great steed high in the air above the Black Hills; and then he closed his eyes to rest.

Dirt Continues in the March Issue of CommonSense 2