``There's people would love to hear your songs, grandmother, and your stories, but we have forgotten them. If we could record them we could make a CD - make some money -'' They saw their CD in the World Music section at Music Millennium. They were brother and sister who had returned to the reservation only three times in their city born lives.
Their grandmother was stuffing newspaper in the gaps around the window where the east wind liked to get in. She forced the paper into the cracks with the point of a long knife. She did not turn to speak to them.
``There's Pepsi in the ice box.''
She was thinking. They did not know that the music was sacred. Could not be heard in public places. Belonged only to the People.
But she had lost her check at the Black Jack table in Reno and a hungry month stretched ahead of her. Was anyone left to care? Sam Twosnakes lingered on, but could not see, could not hear. The others were all dead. Would the dead care? There was a way to find out.
So she sang the getting ready for war song and she pounded on the table with her big arthritic fists and the young ones listened and recorded and thought this is not what we want but their hearts were moved.
``Now we will eat,'' she said, ``and then we will go to Roaring Mountain and consult the spirits of the dead.''
They ate boiled rabbit and fry bread and jam then they wrapped themselves in blankets and went out into the evening dark.
The Honda did not get far on the dirt road. Low clearance. ``City car,'' said their grandmother. They pulled the blankets tight around them and followed at their grandmother's heels. The east wind penetrated their clothes and warned their naked selves to get away to shelter. They stopped at some anonymous place in the sagebrush.
``This is the place,'' their grandmother said, ``this is the place where we listen.''
A truck on the freeway, a train in the night, a crowd at a football game. It was a roaring sound that came and went from the top of the small mountain above them.
``Do the dead speak?'' they asked.
``They say nothing,'' said the grandmother.
They turned to go home. Just then the Pond people's horses came down off the mountain to drink at Dog Creek as they did every evening. The horses moved past them in the dark as though they were not there.
``Its them,'' the young ones said.
``The Pond people's horses,'' said their grandmother.
``They spoke to us through horses,'' the boy said.
``They do not want us to sell the sacred songs. Bad things will happen.''
Back at the house their grandmother looked at the propane tank. Half empty. Sam Twosnakes' spirit passed through the room on his way to forever. ``If you didn't gamble like you do you wouldn't be in trouble,'' Sam Twosnakes' spirit said.
``I have a gambler's spirit,'' she answered, ``and my gambler's spirit tells me to record the sacred songs so the living world will know them. It is my bet no harm will come.''
She turned to her grandchildren, ``I will sing the songs and tell the stories. You must honor them.'' She turned off the light. ``I'm going to bed.''
Her grandchildren drove past the few lights of the reservation town and headed for the freeway and their hearts were troubled.