After the End(87)

Miles starts babbling something about a dream, and I can tell he hasn’t got long before he will pass out. Which would probably be a good thing, because this is going to hurt. I could sedate him with some brugmansia but don’t have the time it would need to take effect. I’ve got to do this now. I turn the knife blade inside the candle flame and summon all my courage.

Holding Miles’s wound open with my left hand, I insert the knife tip into the hole alongside the bullet and follow it down. Miles lets out a tortured scream, convulses, and then falls unconscious. His movement has made the knife slice slightly to the side. I straighten it and then quickly dig down, wedging the blade tip under the bullet, and pull upward. Once it is partially through the skin, I pull it out the rest of the way with my fingertips. Blood begins to pour out of the hole.

I pull off my long-sleeved shirt, leaving only my tank top, wad it up to press against the wound, and roll him back and forth to pass a shirtsleeve underneath his torso. I tie it off and sit back to inspect my work.

The bullet’s out, but he’s lost a lot of blood. And although my knife was clean, I know he could get an infection, unlike me and my clan, who heal quickly and cleanly from the occasional accident. His skin has become ashen, and if he wasn’t breathing, I would think he was already dead.

My heart beats so hard I feel it pattering in my throat. What else can I do? And then it occurs to me. There is something I can do. Although I’ve never performed it alone, I know that I am able. I have a moment of hesitation: will it even work on someone who has not grown up with the Yara? Then I remember—Mother and Father didn’t grow up with the Yara, and it worked for them. Whit was going to sell it to the outside world, so he must at least think it will work on anyone. Besides, I have no other choice but to sit and let Miles die. One look at his bloody form and my decision is made.

I carefully empty my pack until all its contents are spread across the floor, making sure I have everything I need. I begin picking up stones and bunches of herbs and lay them out in lines. I take a packet of mixed plants and minerals and place it next to Miles’s head, along with the agate cup and the ceremonial blade.

I put a large moonstone in each of Miles’s hands. I arrange the candles in a halo around his head. And I begin the Rite.

I think of what I am doing and wonder how much of it is necessary and how much just for show. Until Miles’s dad began going on about the ingestion of medicine before we stopped aging, I hadn’t questioned the Rite. No one questioned the Rite. Only Whit and I knew how to do it, I having taken the place of my mother before me. He told me that it had to be performed by a woman, that he was just there for show, but I wonder now why he wasn’t able to do it himself.

And although I know now that most of what I’ve been taught is in effect a smokescreen for the drug, it makes me feel better to perform the preparations for the Rite as I always have. Unfortunately, in Miles’s case, I don’t have all the time in the world, like I usually do.

Working quickly, I strip off the rest of Miles’s clothes, and then, taking two gold nuggets, I bind them to the underside of each foot using strips of cotton cloth. I sing as I work, the song the children sing outside Whit’s yurt, where the body will lie during the death-sleep. I sing about death and rebirth. I sing of sleeping and awakening; the winter hibernation of the animals and the renewal of life in spring.

It’s not the singing, it’s the drug, I remind myself, but Miles deserves this treatment. Even if it’s needless ritual, it’s meant to symbolically tie the spirit of the person to the Yara. To join their life to nature. To give it more meaning than just living for themselves—after the Rite, they are so integrally entwined with nature that they live for everything and everyone on the planet. I want that for Miles. I think that he would want it himself, if he understood. Even if it’s all a sham, it means something to me.

I feel myself descending into the trancelike state I fall into when performing the Rite. My body doesn’t matter anymore. I move outside it, watching myself circle Miles three times, crumbling dried herbs above his body and letting them fall like dust to his skin. I join it again to pick up the cup and empty the packet of herbs and minerals into it.

“Miles,” I say, and shake him gently. “Miles, are you still here with me?”

He takes a shallow breath and says, “I think so.” He tries to open his eyes, blinks a few times, and then stops trying. At least he’s conscious again. I must work fast.

Taking the small, curved ceremonial knife, I cut the palm of my hand and let my blood drip onto the greenish powder, and then stir it with the knife’s spoon-shaped hilt.