Ookpik: Chapter 2

March 10, 2005

Chapter 2
(Mammoth Monthly January 2005)

On the night of the first snow, Juanita Clarita sat bolt upright in her bed and shrieked.

Someone—or something—shook her awake by the shoulders, kept hold, and whispered in her ear, as if to warn her.

“Holy …” she uttered, but she did not finish.

She opened her eyes wider but in the darkness of her bedroom she saw nothing.

“How can this be?”

Juanita Clarita balled up her hands into fists and swung both her arms around her. She was small—100 pounds, tops—but strong. An athlete. She touched nothing. Still, something had hold of her and rocked her shoulders and whispered in her ear.

She understood nothing. Whatever language this was, she had no place for it. It sounded vaguely Indian, vaguely from the North. She knew it, yet it was like nothing she knew.

She noticed a peculiar scent. Oily. Feathers.

She felt her back and neck arch, and she felt her head dip and turn. She lifted her nose and smelled a thousand thousand things. She could smell the snow as it blasted against the side of her building, sideways, through the pines. There was linen; pumice; engine oil; propane; wood and wood smoke, all the scents of the Ski Town.

She could smell that a dog was nearby—a dog she did not recognize. There was the old coyote nearby, too, but not close. She imagined the old coyote, standing in the blizzard.

She smelled her body and the scent of the bodies that had been beside her in this bed; she could smell … everything she ever smelled.

Juanita Clarita closed her eyes, and now she felt herself pulled and pushed from right to left and back again as she sat in her bed: a dance. Something strong moved from her shoulders and slid down her spine and encircled her under her arms and around her chest from behind, covering her breasts.

The peculiar scent became stronger: alluring.

Juanita Clarita lifted her arms outward, as if in prayer. The blanket fell away from her shoulders and she was naked. She opened her eyes, now accustomed to the darkness.

A thunderous sound outside. A tree falling. And at her window, the shadow of a face—a furious face; a man’s face; and then a red jacket, disappearing into the darkness of the night and the curtain of snow.

“Hans?” she cried. “Hans? Is that you?”

She could not break free.

“Hans? Hans!”

The wind blew harder. The sideways snow cut against the window where the face had been.

“I am helpless,” she said out loud, to herself.

She closed her eyes. She sighed deeply. The pressure on her back and chest became more powerful. Juanita Clarita’s body shook in waves, and then she felt herself float away.

The rocking; the shaking—the dance—stopped.

She pulled the blanket back around her shoulders. From where she sat in her bed she could see through the window that the first storm of the winter was bringing more snow than anyone had expected.

She tried to catch her breath.

“Hans?” she said. Her voice was not loud, and the face and the jacket did not reappear in her window. She reached beside herself, to the other side of the bed, and Hans Errmann was not there, either.

Juanita Clarita looked to her bedside alarm clock. In bright red numerals, the digital readout said 0:00. Very odd. The AM/PM icon blinked, indicating nothing.

Juanita Clarita wrapped her arms around herself under her blanket. She moved her eyes across the room and her bed.

From above, a white feather floated down and settled at the end of her bed, near her feet. She looked at the feather for a long time. Finally, she reached for the feather and held it against her mouth.

She smiled—fullfilled—and waited for morning.

Juanita Clarita used her foot to swipe the accumulating snow from in front of the door of the Ski Town’s coffee shop. She banged the snow off her boots, opened the door and entered.

Juanita Clarita gasped. There was an odd, yellowish light in the coffee shop today.

“Because of the snowstorm, probably,” she thought.

There was more.

Inside, the regulars, who normally sat at tables in conversational arrangements of twos and threes, instead were on their feet, chanting in a crazy rhythm and dancing to loud music in a kind of conga line.

The music was heavy. Steve Earle. “Exit 0.”

She looked at the clock on the wall behind the cash register. It was 8 o’clock. It was the day of the first big snowfall—an unexpected slammer that surprised everyone by veering south of Lake Tahoe overnight. The Ski Town now was in the process of getting feet, not inches. There was condensation on the windows of the coffee shop, throwing prisms of light onto the floor. It was hard for anyone to see anything outside, and hard to hear anyone inside.

“Crazy!” she said to herself.

Juanita Clarita came to the coffee shop every morning to gather the news and spread the news if she had any. Today she had news: that she was sure that she had seen a Great Snowy Owl—“Ookpik”—in the Ski Town the night before.

She dared not tell the whole story.

It took her a moment to understand what the people in the conga line were chanting, and to see who was leading the dance. Then she burst out laughing.

“DEE-on! DEE-on! DEE-on!” they chanted.

“Hola, Juanita!” someone cried above the roar. “Look who’s back in town!”

At the front of the conga line Juanita Clarita saw a bison with an enormous head. It danced on its hind legs. Its hair was wild and thick, twisted up and down in grape vines—an explosion of hair. The vines surrounded a burst of brown beard, which enclosed a copper face that smiled broadly as soon as it saw Juanita.

The bison lifted its hoof in greeting and shimmied its shoulders.

Deion Von Rondt, of indeterminate age, swiveled his hips and Juanita saw him throw his bison arms outward.

His grin stretched across his face. Juanita saw that the points of his mouth ended just below each horn on the top of his head. He stopped, planted his hooves, put his hoofhands on his hips, shook his head and snorted. The regulars—there must have been two dozen of them, even at that hour—howled.

“Yeah Deion!” someone yelled.

Juanita wondered if anyone else could see that this was a bison, or if it was just her.

On the sound system, Steve Earle: “The Week of Living Dangerously.”

Juanita pulled her ski jacket from her shoulders, threw the jacket across a table as fast as she could, then skipped across the floor toward Deion Von Rondt, pushing chairs out of her way. She saw that there was a fire in the big fireplace for the first time since when?—last May?

She felt her heart catch the flame. It burned and she began to laugh. She did not care.

The conga line stepped back, swaying.

The bison dipped his knees just as Juanita Clarita leaped toward him. He caught her. She wrapped her arms around his massive head and neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. Juanita Clarita could feel with her thighs that Deion Von Rondt was still strong, still lean.

“I feel like a fly again!” she said out loud, and she spun her gossamer fly wings, her long black hair dancing off her back.

Juanita Clarita put her nose in Deion Von Rondt’s tangled vines. She inhaled, then made a face.

“You old buffalo!” she laughed, and the gang in the café laughed with her. “Back in my legs again!”

Deion Von Rondt laughed, too. While Juanita clung to him, the bison, swaying in time to the music, reached one hoof toward a large ceramic cup on the table and, turning his head all the way to one side, lifted it to his mouth and finished off whatever it was.

“Fire for Juanita Clarita!” the bison proclaimed, lifting the cup in a toast. “Fire for the manna snow!” he yelled in another toast. “Fire for all these friends of mine!” Then he put the cup down and the regulars lifted their voices in cacophony.

Juanita slipped out of Deion Von Rondt’s arms. He held on to one of her hands and she completed a dance step: a twirl. She broke from his grip. She picked up the ceramic cup and sniffed what was by now only vapor. She very nearly gagged.

“Deion Von Rondt, you crazy old shaman!” she laughed. “What have you brought this time?”

The crowd yelled on cue.

“Fire!” they cried.

Juanita Clarita believed fire was the natural light of the gods.

Deion Von Rondt growled and snorted and laughed.

“Mrrmfrghrphagahrrr,” he said.

“You are too long in the desert with the peyote, Deion!” yelled a man. The man laughed and laughed and others did, too.

“Deion my old lover, where is the bus, ‘Isis?”’ yelled another, a woman.

Deion Von Rondt pointed toward the window. A woman with a leopardskin hat swished her mittens across the window and the condensation. Outside, the crazy old Toyota Dolphin was being buried in the snow. Beads and vines danged from its mirrors. The top of its windshield was stenciled art.

Juanita said, “You’ve been to Oaxaca!”

Deion Von Rondt made mysterious and long forays into the deserts, both north and south of the Mexican border, and into the eastern Oregon high desert.

His clothes were a crazy-quilt amalgam of polypro, down, nylon and leather, all different colors of worn-out. He wore several loops of necklaces at the same time. The necklaces were of rock and metal, beads and cloth.

No one knew what the necklaces meant.

Hanging off loops near the pockets of his jacket were two pouches. They appeared to be filled.

The conga line was back in form now, Deion Von Rondt leading again. Juanita saw the bison grab at one of the women. The woman swished his hoof away with her hand but laughed and laughed. She presented herself again, just out of his reach, and he snorted and reached and laughed and growled so that everyone could hear.

The conga line moved past a row of pictures, some of which featured a very much younger Deion Von Rondt, hoisting a beer with one hand and an impossibly fat reefer with the other. Ski poles dangled off each of his wrists.

“Ski Town Champion, Village Championships.” On a line below it, the picture’s caption read, “The 10th for Deion Von Rondt.”

Juanita had elected not to join him in the picture on that day, even though she was a champion, too.

Soon after that, she elected not to join him at all, in spite of her own judgment.

She did not know if she regretted her decision.

At the time the picture was taken, Deion had not grown horns.

On the sound system, someone switched out Steve Earle for Joe Ely.

“White Line Fever.”

Near the picture of Deion Von Rondt was a photo of Juanita and Hans Errmann, head of the Ski Patrol, both current Village Champions.

Juanita Clarita was the Ski Town Village Champion for 12 straight years in the women’s division. Her results in six of the 12 years were faster than the men’s champion. Errmann, strong, smooth-shaven, ruddy-faced, had his arm around Juanita. In the picture, Juanita had her head tilted toward Errmann, delighted.

Errmann was Village Champion in each of the years that Deion Von Rondt was not in town.

“Juanita!” yelled a voice from the conga line. “Will The Mountain open today?”

“Juanita!” It was another voice. “We have heard no guns today! Is the Patrol going to open the mountain?”

The dancing stopped.

Juanita shrugged, palms up. She spoke to the room. Her voice was strong. Her accent was from the Pleiades. Everyone was enthralled.

“Hans said last night that they were not expecting the jet stream to drop this far south,” and everyone laughed, because Hans Errmann had an uncanny sense of prognostication. He was never wrong.

“He said they were not expecting this much snow. I haven’t seen him today, though. He was out all night.”

The crowd yelled and began to dance again.

Deion Von Rondt moved close to Juanita Clarita and motioned for her to bring her ear close to him.

“Strange, though,” he buffaloed, “that we have not heard the avvy guns.”

Juanita nodded her head.

“That’s not the half of ‘strange,’” she said.

“Tell me more,” said Deion Von Rondt.

“There is a stranger in town,” she said, “with a dog. No one has ever seen him before. He has an aura. When he walks, it is as if he does not touch the ground.”

“Eh?” growled Deion. “Tell me more.”

“He speaks in Quebecois French,” she said. “And so does his dog. A Siberian Husky named Barco.”

Deion Von Rondt lifted his eyebrows. He smiled.

“Good name,” he said.

The bison reached for one of the pouches that hung off his jacket. He reached two fingers inside and pinched, then lifted the two fingers to his large nostrils and inhaled.

The crowd danced. Joe Ely sang. The snow came down.

“Tell me more,” snorted Deion Von Rondt.

“I love him. I have never seen him before, and I love him.”

Deion Von Rondt’s mouth zigzagged into a suspicious smile. He lifted his eyebrows again.

“And Hans,” he said, “does he know this? Because if he knows, that is one Quebecois in some serious danger. Hans might take one of those avvy rounds and throw it straight through him.”

Juanita pulled her head back.

Deion Von Rondt laughed.

“I promise not to talk about it,” Deion Von Rondt said. “At least not for now. Ain’t this some kind of party? I spiked the coffee pot again. Who’s going to work on a day like this, anyway?”

“There’s more,” Juanita said.

“Eh?” Deion Von Rondt snorted and wiped the side of his nose with his hoofhand.

“I saw a Snowy Owl last night. In the snowfall.”

Deion Von Rondt lost his smile. He lifted both of his bison brows and his eyes widened. He exhaled a low whistle.

“Ookpik?” he whispered.

Juanita Clarita nodded. She thought she heard the room grow silent.

“Have you told your people at the Forest? Not that they’d actually get it.”

“I’m not sure I do, either,” said Juanita Clarita.

“Not many would,” said Deion Von Rondt. “No one will believe you. These owls are usually up in Canada, lots of them, in the East.”

“Exactly,” Juanita Clarita said. “From Quebec.”

Deion Von Rondt put his hoof in the air, palm outward, pausing the conversation for a moment. He reached into the pouch again, two bison fingers, and pinched. He brought his hoof-fingers to his nostrils, inhaled deeply, closed his eyelids and, after a moment, shivered as whatever it was kicked in.

“What color are the stranger’s eyes?” Deion Von Rondt asked, and Juanita bit her lower lip.

“Yellow,” she said. “With a third eyelid. I saw it.”

Deion Von Rondt pulled her close to him. He put his bison mouth next to her ear and grunted.

“And then what happens?” he said, leading her on. “Me, myself, Deion Von Rondt. I come into town on that very night, steering the Isis in through the storm, coming up out of nowhere. Coincidence?”

Juanita pushed in, closer to the bison.

“You have been very much close to that owl,” Deion Von Rondt said. “I can smell the owl on your skin.”

The room roiled. The crowd shrieked.

“Juanita!” yelled the woman at the cash register. Juanita spun around. The woman at the cash register lifted a package.

“A man left it for you this morning. He was waiting here when I opened. In the snow.”

Juanita Clarita walked to the counter and took the package in her hands. It was wrapped in tissue paper, with ribbon crisscrossing on top. There was a card on the top. Juanita Clarita set the package on the counter and read the card.

“I was in Oaxaca once. You remind me of that time. I offer to you a gift in greeting.”

The note was signed, “Yankton Rondeau.”

She unwrapped the package carefully. Inside, she found a white cotton blouse, exquisitely sewn, with beautiful embroidery, in the Zapotec tradition. She held the fabric to her nose and smelled the ruins of Monte Alban. She felt herself sink and she looked for a chair.

“Beautiful,” she said.

She held the blouse in front of her.

“This is beautiful,” she repeated.

The crowd danced in the conga line. Deion Von Rondt howled.

The door of the coffee house burst open. Cold air rushed through the room. Snow blew in. The conga line stopped and grew quiet instantly. The people stopped dancing and. looked toward the open door. Deion Von Rondt stopped, too. He licked the lower lip of his bison mouth.

In the doorway stood a man with a red jacket. There was a white cross on his jacket. His boots were caked in snow. The man was a ski patrolman.

“Deion, I heard you were here,” said the man. Juanita saw that he looked straight at the bison. The wind and snow blew through the open door. It blew sideways. A true blizzard.

The ski patrolman found the eyes of Juanita Clarita.

“I heard you were here, too,” said the ski patrolman.

The woman behind the counter turned off the music. The room was silent, except for the sound of the wind and the snow.

“Hans Errmann is lost,” said the ski patrolman. “We need you.”

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