Sacrifice

There was no rain. The corn kernels couldn't take root in the dry, cracked ground. The stream that flowed through the village became narrower, and the farmers could no longer splash and swim in it, so they sat next to it, dipped their feet in the sluggish, muddy water, and worried. The rain goddess had forgotten to send rain. To remind her, the men put on masks made from green and orange gourds and antelope antlers, the only clothing that was ever worn; everyone usually went naked. Around a large stone where they usually burned the corn offering, about twenty men danced, chanted, and pounded heavy drums made from dried pumpkins until their palms were pink and raw. The little boys joined in, beating hollow gourds with sticks.
The goddess paid no attention. There were no clouds. The floating blue water that was the sky hovered above, taunting the farmers.
Perhaps if the farmers were fruitful, they thought, the goddess would send rain and fertilize their crops. The men and women climbed onto the stone altar and had sex. Their brown, tanned bodies tore at each other, tangles of hair and flesh. Only about ten bodies could fit on the gray slab of stone, so some fell off and grappled with each other on the hard dirt below. The children imitated their elders, rubbing their bodies together and rolling around on the ground. The antelope horns kept poking people in awkward places, so the men removed their masks. Unlike the orgies at their regular festivals, this wasn't enjoyable. They felt tingling and muscle spasms, but there was no ecstasy. Afterwards, they lay in a heap, their genitals feeling raw.
The goddess ignored them. The empty blue sky mocked them. The stream of water was down to a muddy trickle. The farmers wondered why this was happening to them.
The medicine man knew why this was happening to them.
“When you burned corn on the altar, you didn't give her the best ears of corn,” he told the farmers. “You gave ears with missing kernels and sometimes even with bugs. And you didn't set it nicely on the altar or arrange it in an eye-pleasing pattern. You just tossed it up there like a bundle of sticks and set it on fire.”
They had to give the goddess something important to show how sorry they were—the best of what they had—so they went to the hut where they stored the last of the dried corn from the previous year's harvest. They brought the corn to the stone altar and carefully arranged it, making a beautiful mosaic of an antelope dancing among clouds.
The men, wearing their antelope masks, woefully slapped their drums. The boys reluctantly beat their gourds. The medicine man lifted his arms up to the empty blue sky and begged the goddess to send them rain. Then he set a torch to the dried corn, which erupted into a blazing fire. Soon, popping noises came from the fire, and an aromatic smell filled the air. White balls of puff, like clouds, spilled off the stone altar and landed on the hard dirt. The farmer's mouth's watered and their stomachs gurgled. They wanted to rush up to the altar and stuff the popped corn kernels in their mouths, but the medicine man told them not to—the corn belonged to the goddess. The medicine man ducked around the flames, picked up white, fluffy corn, and tossed it back on the blazing altar. The smoke became thick and black. It rose in plumes to the empty blue sky. The farmers stepped away, covering their mouths from the noxious fumes. The goddess liked this smell? The farmers hoped so. And they hoped that she would send them some sweet-smelling rain.
But after the black smoke dissipated, the sky remained blue and cloudless. The stream dried up completely. The farmers dug holes where the stream had been and sucked water out of the mud. There was no more corn, so the farmers dug up roots. The roots were bitter. To eat them, they had to hold their noses and chew quickly. After a few days of eating roots, the farmers bodies were lethargic, their faces numb from bitterness, and they felt the bitter smell wafting from their pores.
They approached the medicine man by the altar. What should they do now?
The medicine man nodded his head and stuck out his chest.
“Sex,” the medicine man said. “We must have sex on the altar. But this time you must do it with your whole heart in it. Before, you were only going through the motions. You weren't giving it all you had. You must keep your masks on this time.”
One of the farmers, a man named Odakota, picked up a large rock about the size of a human skull and heaved it at the medicine man. It hit him in the face and shattered his teeth. Blood splashed on the dry dirt. The medicine man fell down; his arms and legs twitched. Odakota picked up the heavy rock with both hands, his legs straining under its weight, and brought the rock down on the medicine man's head. The old man stopped twitching. Blood pooled around the corpse. The thirsty earth soaked up the blood, leaving a dark stain. The men cheered and let out ululating cries. Odakota sniffed his bloody fingers and smiled.
“The goddess doesn't want burnt corn,” he told the farmers. “She hates the smell as much as we do. And she doesn't want sex, no matter how much we put our hearts into it. She wants blood. If we rain blood on her altar, she'll rain rain on our soil. Blood is the food of the gods. We need a sacrifice.”
The people cheered. Odakota's confidence lifted their spirits. And what he said made sense.
“And who should the sacrifice be?” Odakota asked.
The men became silent and gazed at their toes. Each tried to make himself smaller, hoping Odakota wouldn't pick him.
“The little girl with the blue eye,” Odakota said. “That eye is exactly the same color as the water in the sky. And she's always staring at the sky when she should be looking down.”
The men agreed. Certainly if they gave Ukele, the girl with the sky-colored eye, as a sacrifice, the goddess would send down rain. Everyone else had two dark black eyes. It was unnatural for her eye to look like the sky.
While the men decided to sacrifice Ukele on the goddess's stone altar, Ukele was sitting with the other women by the huts. The other women were cleaning crumbling soil off of little white roots with their fingers. Ukele sat on the ground, scraping a dull stone against a sharp piece of flint that the men used as a harvesting sickle. No corn grew yet, but Ukele figured that if the sickles were sharp, the goddess would have to send rain. Ukele's mother, who was pulling tangles out of Ukele's hair, said the sickle was sharp enough—if Ukele sharpened it any more, the flint would break. Ukele tested the edge with her finger. The sharpness threatened to break the flesh of her fingertip. She set down the smooth stone, trying to resist the urge to scrape at the sickle more.
Ukele felt her face and wondered which of the men had planted the seed that grew her. She often wondered about this. None of the farmers knew who their fathers were. Everyone had sex with everyone, not just on the altar, but in the huts, in the corn field—everywhere.
The distant sound of drumbeats came from up the hill by the stone altar. Soon this was joined by the sound of sticks beating gourds. The men were probably dancing again, trying to persuade the goddess to send rain. Ukele hoped it worked. She knew that they would all die if it didn't rain soon.
The drumbeats got louder. They were getting closer. The men were probably coming to gather up the women for another orgy on the altar. Ukele couldn't wait to grow up. In a few years, her breasts would swell and hair would grow on her body. Then could join in the sex on the altar. But now none of the men were interested in touching her. She had to roll around on the ground, groping the little boys.
The men were wearing their antelope masks as they ran down the hill, banging on their drums. They ran filled with hope. The women jumped up to see what was going on. Ukele set down the sickle and stood up.
Ukele recognized the medicine man's mask—it had 3 antelope horns instead of 2—but it wasn't the medicine man wearing it. It was Odakota, recognizable by the bumps on his inner thighs. He raised his hand and the drumming and shouting ceased.
“The goddess thirsts for blood,” Odakota said. “There's no rain on the soil because there's no rain on the altar.”
He motioned towards Ukele. Several men grabbed her arms and started to drag her away. Ukele screamed and tried to wiggle away, but the men were too strong for her. She bit one of the men in the forearm, but he slapped her, gripped her hair, and held her mouth away from them. Ukele's mother tried to run after her daughter, but the other women tackled her and pinned her to the ground. Soon Ukele was away from the huts and couldn't hear her mother's screams; she only heard the deep boom of pumpkin drums. Ukele's heart pounded along with the drums. She shook uncontrollably and her legs stopped working, so the men pulled her along. Her feet dragged in the dirt behind her. She knew the farmers didn't like her eye, but she didn't expect that they would kill her. The boys she had played with all her life now danced alongside her, sang, and beat their gourds with sticks.
As they approached the stone altar, Ukele saw the medicine man's body laying in the dirt, his skull crushed in, white brains spilling onto a dark patch of earth. Ukele felt like she would throw up.
A thick layer of black soot from the burning corn was still on the altar. The men pushed Ukele up on the altar and she landed on her face in the stale ash. They flipped her on her back on the gritty soot, which was hot from the sunlight. Two men grabbed her wrists; two grabbed her ankles. They stretched her out on the altar. Her shoulders felt ready to pop out of their sockets.
The men in antelope masks pressed in close around the altar. The boys complained that they couldn't see, so the men picked them up and set them on their shoulders. Above the antelope masks, the boys gazed down excitedly, grasping onto the antelope horns to keep their balance.
Odakota, wearing the medicine man's mask, climbed up on the altar. He held a large black curved piece of flint—a reaping sickle. He danced around, kicking up a cloud of black ash with his feet.
Ukele's eyes scanned the sky for clouds. There were none. The sun burned her eyes, but she didn't close them or look away. It didn't matter if she went blind. She didn't need her eyes anymore.
Odakota held his arms up and screamed into the empty sky. They were giving one of their own people, he said, so just as they were removing the blue from themselves, the goddess should remove the blue from the sky and send dark thunderclouds. The farmers screamed their approval and pounded their drums, which sounded like thunder. The boys slapped their gourds against the antelope horns—it sounded like rain pattering down on dry soil.
Odakota knelt down. He took off his mask and set it in the ash. His eyes were bloodshot and didn't point in quite the same direction. Ukele's whole body screamed with adrenaline. She thought of her mother, who would be all alone from now on. Odakota brought the sickle down to Ukele's throat. Its edge was jagged, not smooth like the ones she sharpened—this would really hurt.
Ukele tried to pull away. The men held her wrists and ankles fast. Odakota moved his face close to hers and smiled at her with the few teeth that remained in his mouth. Ukele felt his breath and the cold flint tickle her throat. The back of her skull pressed against the hard stone of the altar. She pulled her face away, pressing her cheek into the thick black ash. Odakota delicately traced a vein on her throat with the sickle, savoring the moment. Ukele sucked in a mouthful of bitter ash, filling her cheeks with it. She turned her face to Odakota and blew the ash in his face. He coughed, sneezed, and rubbed at his eyes. The shouting and drum-beating ceased. The children continued to slap their gourds against the antelope horns for a moment before they realized that they should stop. Ukele burped out ash. It tasted terrible—worse than bitter root. How could the goddess eat this stuff?
Odakota staggered and fell off the side of the altar into one of the men holding one of Ukele's ankles. The man lost his grip. Ukele kicked him hard in the gourd mask, sending him sprawling back. She kicked the other ankle-holding man's face and his hands slipped off her ankle. She rolled her hips back over her shoulders and kicked the masks of the two men holding her wrists. They lost their grip on her. Other men grabbed at her. She slipped out of their clutches, scurrying through the black ash on her belly. Now, completely covered with black ash, she jumped to her feet, ran across the stone, and leaped over the men's heads, landing hard but on her feet. Several of the boys fell to the hard dirt and started to cry.
Ukele ran. She jumped over the medicine man's corpse and sped away. A gourd hit her in the back of the the head, but she kept running.
The men ran after her, but their masks and heavy pumpkin drums slowed them down. They reluctantly dropped their drums and removed their masks. Then they started to gain on her.
Sweat stung Ukele's eyes. She sucked air into her burning lungs. She searched the sky for a cloud, but it was empty and blue.
Ukele realized she was running towards her mother's hut in the middle of the village. She should have run out of the village and wandered in the wasteland, where she would still die, but at least not at the hands of her own people.
As Ukele approached the huts, she saw her mother lying prostrate in the dirt and sobbing. Her scalp was shorn and bloody with tufts of hair here and there. Most of her hair was on the ground. She scraped at the ground with a bloody flint sickle, trying to bury her hair, but the earth was hard as stone. When her head lifted up and her eyes met Ukele's, she screamed, dropped the sickle, and reached her arms out to her daughter.
Fingertips snatched from behind at Ukele's hair. She whipped her hair forward, out of their grip, sending a cloud of ash in the air. Ukele leaped down at her mother's feet and grabbed the sickle. She jumped up and waved it at the farmers. Their yelling stopped and they backed away a few steps. Ukele's mother tried to hug and kiss her daughter, but Ukele held her back. She needed freedom of movement to defend herself.
“Stay back,” Ukele warned the farmers. “First one to get close gets cut.”
The farmers glanced around at each other. They outnumbered her, but the first one to charge could get hurt. None of them wanted to be the first. They glanced back at their discarded masks and drums. If they had their drums to thunder courage into their hearts, then they could charge her. The boys picked up sticks and beat their gourds, but that didn't make the men's hearts pound with courage; it just made them hiss like cowardly snakes.
The women and girls peered out from their huts, but they stayed inside.
Odakota came limping up with his flint sickle, his face and chest streaked with black ash. He smiled at Ukele and casually asked her, “Do you think it will rain?”
The farmers chuckled. Ukele didn't respond to Odakota. She was afraid a faltering voice would give away her faltering nerves. She tightened her grip on the sickle and glared at the farmers.
Odakota pressed his sickle between his teeth and bit down to hold it there. Then he raised his hands and clapped them together over his head. He clapped over and over again. Soon the other farmers joined in. The boys dropped their colorful gourds and clapped their little hands. The clapping didn't fill the men with courage as well as the drums did, but it was effective. Their hearts swelled with courage and their jaws became set. The hand clapping swelled to a crescendo, and the farmers couldn't contain their courage any longer. They set themselves to pounce.
Ukele brought the blade of the sickle to her own throat, pressing it against her flesh. The clapping stopped.
“Stay back!” Ukele screamed. “Stay back or I'll kill myself and you won't be able to sacrifice me!”
“No!” her mother screamed, grabbing at her daughter's arm.
Ukele stepped away from her and gazed furiously at the farmers. Her knees shook, her fingers trembled, and she worried that she would drop the sickle, but she grit her teeth and tried to ignore her mother's frenzied weeping. Ukele focused on what she might have to do—kill herself. It was better than going back to that ash-covered altar and having antelope masks surround her when they killed her.
The farmers glanced around at each other. They weren't sure what to do. If she killed herself, would it still be a valid sacrifice? Would the goddess send rain? They looked to Odakota. Could she cut her own throat or did someone else have to do it? Could it be here by the huts or did it have to be on the stone altar?
Odakota smiled. “The stone altar is just a tradition—it's not a necessity,” he said. He rubbed the sickle against his lips and inhaled through his nostrils. “But she can't cut her own throat. I have to do that.”
He stepped towards Ukele.
“Get back!” she shouted.
But Odakota kept walking closer, a sinister smile on his face.
Ukele steeled herself for driving the sickle into her throat. She looked at her mother's sobbing face. She wanted her mother's face to be the last thing she saw –not the farmers, not the empty sky.
Odakota's powerful arm grabbed Ukele's mother by the remaining tufts of hair on her bloody, shorn head. He forced her down to her knees and pressed his sickle to her throat.
“Drop your sickle,” he told Ukele, “or she dies.”
“Don't do it!” Ukele's mother screamed. Tears poured down her face.
Odakota tightened the sickle on Ukele's mother's neck, so she couldn't speak or even swallow without being cut.
Ukele's grip on the sickle grew slack. She felt it start to slip out of her hand. She prepared to press her eyes shut in case her mother's blood sprayed out.
“Let her go!” Ukele threatened, but her voice wavered.
“It doesn't matter to me if it's you or your mother,” Odakota said. “We're going to have a sacrifice. Now drop that sickle!”
Ukele looked at her mother's tearful face, her mournful eyes. If Ukele killed herself, her mother would still die. She looked up at the sky, scanning from horizon to horizon, hoping to see a puff of a white cloud. But it was only blue. There was nowhere to run—the men surrounded her. Her mother was the only one who loved her, the only one who hadn't betrayed her. Ukele could at least save her.
She let the sickle slip out of her fingers. It crashed to the hard dirt at her feet. Her mother let out a piercing scream. Odakota grinned and shoved Ukele's mother to the ground. He lunged at Ukele and slashed with the sickle. Ukele grabbed his wrist and tried to push the sickle away, but he was too strong. He knocked her on her back on the hard ground and pressed the sharp sickle at her throat. Ukele sank her teeth into the veins of Odakota's wrist. He screamed and tried to pull away, but Ukele clamped her teeth down tightly. His blood tasted horrible, worse than bitter root, worse than the ashes on the altar. Its taste made her think of death, like the blood of a corpse. But she kept her teeth clenched tightly into his wrist. The sickle dropped out of Odakota's fingers.
Odakota lifted his free hand to punch Ukele, but Ukele's mother jumped on his back, wrapped her arms around his neck, and choked him. He swatted at her behind his head with his free arm. She lost her grip on his neck, but held on tight to his hair.
Grasping around beside her shoulder, Ukele grabbed the sickle that Odakota had dropped. She clutched it tightly and jammed it into Odakota's neck. His eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to scream, but only a hoarse whistling came out. Blood spurted out of his neck into Ukele's face. Ukele released her bite. Odakota tried to protect his neck, but Ukele's mother pulled his head back, keeping his Adam's apple exposed. Ukele slashed at his neck with the sickle over and over again. Blood poured down on her. She could see the white insides of his throat. His heavy body collapsed on top of her and she couldn't breathe. She was afraid she would suffocate, but her mother pulled her out from under Odakota's dead body. Ukele and her mother hugged each other and sobbed. The farmers stood around, staring at this sight in silence. The women and girls finally came out of their huts and stared. No one was sure what to do. The girl with the blue eye had just killed Odakota. The sacrifice slit the throat of the one doing the sacrifice.
“He's the reason!” Ukele screamed, pointing the bloody flint sickle at Odakota's mutilated body. “He's the reason there's no rain! Now he's dead and the rain will come!”
The farmers glanced around. Then they broke into smiles and cheers. Men ran to get the drums they had abandoned. Boys beat their gourds with sticks. Everyone felt saved. Certainly rain would fall now. They could happily eat bitter roots for a couple months until the corn crop ripened.
The men put on their antelope masks and pounded their drums. The farmers—men, women, and children—danced and shouted in a circle around Odakota's corpse. Ukele looked at the faces of the people she knew her whole life and now saw them differently. They weren't really farmers. Those were just farmer masks that they wore. When they couldn't farm, the masks came off and they revealed their true faces—the faces of animals.
Gazing over her mother's shoulder at the distant horizon, Ukele saw faint white clouds hovering.