Shooting Chant Read Free Page B

that had come in the aftermath of that incident. He’d gone through his own version of Hell, facing betrayal, heartache, and almost the loss of his own life.
    “What do you think, Professor Wilson?” one of the girls asked.
    Wilson glanced down at the pair by his elbow.“I’m sorry, girls. What were you saying?”
    “So many people are angry over the show that the Agricultural Society held,” Marcie, a little girl of about eight, said. “A lot of the winners were people who had used special Anglo feeds for their animals instead of having them eat what our animals always have eaten—what the land gives us freely.”
    “It’s still fair,” Alice argued. “That feed is availableto everyone.”
    “But the animals were even bred in funny ways,” Marcie said. “Artificially, or something.”
    Alice crossed her arms. “So what?” She looked up at Ella. “You have traditionalists in your family, Investigator Clah, but you also went to school off the reservation. Do you believe that if we do stuff like that the gods will be angry?”
    “The Plant People will think they’re not needed andmove away,” Marcie said.
    “What are Plant People?” Alice asked. “I never understand stuff like that!”
    “Because your family’s forgotten what it’s like to be Navajo,” Marcie said.
    Ella knew that their were echoing their parents and the old arguments between the traditionalists and the progressives. “Our tribe calls all plants the Plant People because, like people, they can be our friends, or not,”Ella answered. “Some plants are good, but others have to be guarded against. That’s a fact that stays the same whether you’re a progressive or a traditionalist.”
    “My mother said that the Plant People move away when things aren’t right because, like us, they like to live among friends,” Marcie said. “That’s why we used to have a lot of Indian rice grass and goosefoot which people and livestockcould eat, but now all we have are snakeweed and tumbleweed.”
    Ella considered her answer carefully. The last thing she needed to do was start trouble for Wilson. “I’m not sure why things have changed, but that’s why we need our Plant Watchers more than ever. They know where to find the plants we need,” Ella said, starting the short lecture she’d prepared on plants and the group of herbalistsknown as the Plant Watchers.
    After completing her talk and answering all of the kids’ questions, Ella turned the meeting over to Wilson. He was a natural with the kids and they looked up to him.
    Time passed quickly. It was a pleasure to work with younger children. Their outlooks were filled with a freshness and vitality she seldom saw in her line of work, where cynicism often ruled.
    As thelast traces of the sun began to disappear, the meeting was closed. She stood at the door with Wilson and watched the kids as their rides came to pick them up or they left to walk home. Once everyone was gone, Ella helped Wilson put away the folding chairs. She worked in silence, worries crowding her mind.
    “It’s not like you to be so quiet,” Wilson said at last.
    “I just wish there was a way tointegrate the old ways with the new. They each have value. Unless we can do that, I’m afraid that the kids will grow up being neither Navajo nor Anglo, and having no idea where they fit into things.”
    Wilson nodded. “Our culture is slipping away and, with it, our special way of life. I was at a Chapter House meeting a few days ago. One of the elders reminded us that we seldom place pollen in thewaters these days, yet we complain when the river becomes polluted and hurts the tribe instead of helping us. He said it’ll be that way with everything unless we learn to work with our gods again.”
    “We’re trapped, you know. The new ways seem to destroy the old in so many ways, and yet we need both.”
    “What happened tonight that made you late? You looked really preoccupied when you came in.”
    “We had a problem at