Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [119]
“No, them’s Adair Grasses. This is the Tahlequah Grasses.”
Alice listens as the argument winds its way through Grasses, Goingsnakes, Fourkillers, and Tailbobs. At that point Cash touches his sister’s arm and points to the fire circle. Both women give a little start and begin to move toward the fire. Cash leans down and touches Alice’s hand. “I’m going to go smoke this pipe. I’ll see you later on.”
The benches have filled up entirely and the chief now stands by the fire. He’s a man of slight build, maybe sixty, distinguished by the fact that a long, pale leather pouch hangs down from his belt. To Alice it looks like a bull’s scrotum.
Sugar appears in the lawn chair next to Alice, out of breath. She leans over and grabs Alice’s arm like a grammar-school girlfriend.
“I didn’t want to interfere with anything.”
Alice has had about enough of the entire Cherokee Nation organizing her love life. “What’s that he’s got on his belt?” she asks, nodding toward the chief. “Balls?”
“Naw, just tobacco and stuff. Plants. It’s his medicine. They’ll all smoke it directly. It isn’t nothing bad.”
“Well, I didn’t think that,” Alice says. She wouldn’t expect drugs; it has already struck her that there is no alcohol here. She can smell woodsmoke and coffee and the delicious animal scent of grease on a cooking fire, but none of that other familiar picnic odor. It’s odd, in a way. A hundred pickup trucks on a Saturday night, and not one beer.
The chief raises his head suddenly and sends a high, clean blessing to the tree branches. His voice is so clear it seems to be coming from somewhere above his ears. When he paces to the east of the fire he seems to grow taller, just from taking long strides. He takes some tobacco from his pouch and offers it to the fire, speaking to the fire itself, the way you might coax a beloved old dog to take a rib bone out of your hand. The fire accepts his offering, and the chief paces some more, talking all the while. He fills a slender white pipe that’s as long as Alice’s arm. The old people move toward the fire, then nearly everyone else shuffles into single file behind them, making a line that circles the whole clearing.
Sugar leans to get up. “I got to go smoke the pipe now,” she whispers. “Afterward, you come sit with me on the Bird Clan benches. You can’t sit with Cash, he’s not Bird, he’s Wolf Clan.” She winks at Alice. “Just as well. You can’t marry inside your clan.”
Sugar hurries to join the line, leaving Alice feeling bewildered and slightly annoyed. She surely had no idea she belonged to a clan. Also she’s apparently the only person for miles around, besides Cash, who isn’t making wedding plans.
The chief hands the pipe to the first old man, who closes his lips on the stem, closes his eyes, and breathes in. Then he rotates the pipe one complete turn, parallel with the ground. It’s an odd-looking gesture that takes both hands. He hands the pipe to the woman behind him in line, the one who was debating Grasses with Letty. The old man walks five or six careful steps toward the east and takes a place at the edge of the clearing. When the woman has gone through the same motions, she joins him. One by one each person takes the pipe; even children do.
Alice spots Annawake in line behind a barrel-chested boy and a slew of kids, and there is Cash, looking like a tall, congenial weed among a cluster of chrysanthemum-shaped women. He seems round-shouldered and easy with himself each time he takes another little step forward. It’s a slow process. Alice keeps her eye on two little twin girls dressed in identical frilled square-dancing skirts, moving patiently forward in the line. When their turn comes, the mother touches the pipe to her own mouth first, then holds it to her children’s lips, helping each one to rotate it afterward. When the last person in line has smoked the pipe and everyone moves to sit down, Sugar motions Alice over to what she says are the Bird Clan benches. “Third ones from the east, counterclockwise,” she points out with her finger. “So you