Living the Dream (12 page)

“Not to be a party pooper, but I’m waiting for the big meltdown,” I told Helix. It came sooner than I thought.

Later that afternoon, stretching to get something off the shelf for Aunt Jeannie, Cody knocked an old-fashioned sweetie tin to the floor. The lid wasn’t put back properly and bags of tiny beads instantly emptied themselves all over the trailer. Cody looked at the hundreds of beads rolling everywhere and an old memory exploded from her mind to mine.

A little dark-haired girl in denim overalls, carefully picking up tiny beads between her finger and thumb and naming the colours in English, “Black, yellow, red.” Then she named them in her daddy’s language. “
Lzhini, litsoof, lichii
…”

Julia saw what she was doing. Her face went rigid. “Don’t let her play with those, Bonita,” she said sharply. “She might choke.”

“She’s fine. I’m watching her,” said a younger, mellower Aunt Bonita. “She’s learning her daddy’s language, aren’t you, clever girl?”

“Are you deaf! I said
no
!” Julia lunged at her daughter. Suddenly beads were flying everywhere and little Cody howled. In her two-year-old’s mind the spilled beads were somehow mixed up with the confusing adult emotions that were suddenly let loose in the room.

Back in the present, Cody collapsed in a storm of weeping. I was upset for her, also shocked. Cody had suffered more than any teenage girl should have to, but I’d never seen her shed a single tear until now. Aunt Bonita’s eyes went dark with sorrow, but she didn’t move to comfort her, just nodded tightly to herself. She seemed to guess what had triggered this outburst of grief.

I put my arms invisibly around Cody, murmuring soothing words. I don’t even know what. I could feel her raw emotions like jagged slices of glass. It was like long ago something inside Cody got broken and she’d only just now felt the pain.

Cody was still putting the beads into their proper compartments, sniffing back tears, when Jim Yellowbird arrived to pick up the truck.

“You’re doing a good job there,” he told her. “You planning to do some Navajo beadwork while you’re here?”

Cody ducked her head, not wanting this kind old man to see she’d been crying. “They got mixed up,” she mumbled. “I’m just putting them away.”

“My wife used to do beadwork. All the women in her family did. Next time I’m over I’ll bring some of her work. You might be interested.” Jim’s eyes twinkled. “Of course no one has the patience now. They’re all on - what’s it called? - Instant Messenger! Bet you’re one of them e-mail females too?”

Cody managed a watery smile. “I guess.”

“So how’re you settling into Ghost Canyon?” he asked her. “You’re probably missing your friends, am I right?”

“Not really…” she started.

Jim Yellowbird yelled through to the kitchen. “Hey, Bonita! You want to get Cody enrolled at the local high school. She doesn’t want to mope around here all day long.”

“But I like it here,” Cody protested. She sounded panicky. “I won’t be here long enough to go to school. Mom will be out of hospital in a couple of weeks, and I’ll have to go back.”

“That’s a real shame. It’s a good school.” Jim shifted position on the couch, removed a bead from under his behind and handed it solemnly to Cody. “Mind you,” he admitted, “I still get chills every time I go through those gates. How about you, Bonita?”

Aunt Bonita came in with the coffee pot. “Just remembering our school days gives me the chills, ” she said with feeling. “A lot of us were sent to government-run boarding schools,” she explained to Cody.

“Did they send you, Aunt Bonita?” Cody asked her.

Aunt Bonita poured Jim a cup of strong black coffee. “Me and all my sisters.”

“I bawled my eyes out every night that first year,” Jim remembered. “Navajo boys aren’t supposed to cry,” he explained ruefully to Cody, “and there I was, sobbing like a little girl.” He shook his head. “You know we were forbidden to talk our own language? If they caught us talking in Navajo the teachers gave us a beating.”

Worse than the beatings, according to Jim, was the food. “Cheese sandwiches every single day! When I went home for the holidays my mama said I smelled like a billy goat! All that cheese made my stomach swell up like a dead fish!”

“Navajo kids don’t tend to tolerate dairy so well,” Aunt Bonita explained to Cody.

She looked up from her beads. “I eat dairy.”

“And your belly feels bad all the time, ain’t that right?” said her aunt quietly.

“It was my grandmother who saved me,” said Jim Yellowbird. “She said I mustn’t be ashamed of crying. She said some people take on the pain and suffering for the whole tribe, so others can be brave. After that it didn’t feel so bad.”

I saw Cody absorbing this information. “Did she really mean that?” she asked a little shyly.

Aunt Bonita lightly passed her hand over Cody’s head in its knitted beanie. It was the first openly loving gesture I’d seen her make to her great niece. “Jim’s grandma was a wise woman. Some people, like your mom, seem to carry the whole world’s pain inside their bellies. You’re that way yourself, Cody.”

Cody went quiet. I don’t think anyone had ever talked about her mum’s illness in that way. Instead of something shameful, Aunt Bonita made it sound like a painful kind of gift.

That evening Roxie dropped off little Tazbah for the night so she could go out dancing with her boyfriend Dwayne. I never quite figured out what relation Roxie was to the aunts, but you could tell Tazbah stayed with them a LOT. She waved a cheery bye-bye to her mum, and was soon building card houses with Cody. When she got tired, Aunt Jeannie rocked her, singing an old Navajo lullaby.

Cody abruptly vanished into her room, dragging her curtain across for privacy. I found her sitting on her bed, rocking herself in her own arms. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Do you think she remembers the lullaby?” I whispered to Helix.

Yes and it hurts
, Helix beamed back.
Martin sang that same lullaby the night before her mum took her away from Arizona. They were the last Navajo words Cody heard spoken - until you brought her back to the Rez.

“The aunts brought her back, not me,” I objected. “The aunts and Ambriel. I just tagged along.”

Rubbish
! said Helix briskly.
The Universe brought you and Cody together for a v. important reason, so important it’s setting off major alarm bells in the Hell dimensions as we speak.

“Seriously?”

The Dark Powers can see all their work going up in smoke. They’re not happy about it. Be on your guard, sweetie, OK?
Her warning left me on edge.

After Cody was asleep I sat up listening to my iPod, using just one of the little ear-buds, leaving the other ear free in case something kicked off.

I was listening to “Melanie’s Song” (Version Two), idly scrolling through my iPod menu. I felt a pang as I came across a home movie Lola shot months ago, a montage of me and Reubs kidding around on a boat trip on one of the Heavenly canals. It upset me too much to watch. I paused the movie on Reuben’s laughing face.

Where ARE you, angel boy
? I wondered helplessly. I’d had a text from Lola telling me they’d arrived safely, that they’d be out searching every day, and she’d let me know when there was any news. After that, nothing.

Suddenly something didn’t feel right. I whipped out my ear-bud, and the night suddenly erupted with furious yips and howls. Something was freaking the dogs.

Next minute I was flying to the front door. I charged out into the darkness yelling every battle cry I’d ever learned in angelic history at the top of my voice. The hideous creature in front of me reared up on its hind legs in surprise like a bear. Hairless as a monstrous worm, its skin glowed with a sickly green light.

For an instant our eyes met in mutual loathing, before it dropped on to all fours, baring its pointed teeth in a snarl of fury. Then it loped off with the aunts’ dogs hurtling after it.

Behind me I heard Aunt Bonita come stumbling out of her room. She flung open the door, screaming in Navajo. “Get away from here, you Death Eater! This time she’s staying!”

Her oldest, fiercest dog, an elderly bulldog cross, was the first to disappear into the trees snarling its own ferocious battle cry. I heard a harrowing scream and knew I was listening to that brave dog’s death throes.

I was shaking. I wished I knew a way to delete the creature’s disgusting image from my memory bank, but it had burned itself into my brain.

Aunt Bonita disappeared back into the trailer. I assumed she’d gone to check on Tazbah. Then I smelled pungent scorching smell and Cody’s aunt appeared with a smouldering branch of sage brush. She hobbled outside in her flowery, old lady PJs and started swirling the cleansing smoke around her home, north, south, east and west, purifying her trailer of the evil vibes. Then she grabbed a torch and went to find her dog.

It seemed like a long time before I heard her return, staggering slightly under its weight. The dog was already turning stiff in her arms. I heard her talking to it with rough affection. “You died a good death protecting Martin’s daughter. This Earth walk is finished for you. Now your spirit can run free in the canyon.”

I sat outside the trailer for the rest of the night. I didn’t think the creature would be back in a hurry, but an angel on your front step never hurts.

Tazbah woke up at first light, singing, “Morning’s here! Morning’s here!” Roxie’s little girl seemed to think the sunrise had been arranged totally for her benefit!

Careful not to wake Cody, Aunt Bonita got Tazbah dressed and fed, then she called Aunt Evalina on the phone. “Get over here right away and bring Jeannie,” she told her in a low voice. Minutes later the old ladies softly let themselves in, still in their nightclothes.

“It killed one of my dogs,” Aunt Bonita told them in an undertone. “I burned sage, but sage won’t keep that one away for long. I’m gonna call Earl, ask him if he’ll drop Cody off at the school. We’ll be back before school’s out.”

“Where are we going?” asked Aunt Jeannie.

Aunt Evalina already knew. “We’re going to see Butterfly Woman.”

Chapter Sixteen

A
n hour later the aunts were buttoning coats over bunchy Navajo skirts and Cody was whingeing about having to spend her day in school. “Why can’t I come see her too?” She knew they were hiding something from her and it made her act like a cranky little kid. “How will you even get there?” she asked, thinking up new objections. “Jim Yellowbird took the truck.”

“Walk,” said Aunt Bonita crisply. “It’s less than sixty minutes to Butterfly Woman’s house if you walk fast.”

“That’s not her actual name, right, ‘Butterfly Woman’?” Cody’s nostrils flared, like it was the stupidest name she’d ever heard.

“Trust me!” I warned her. “Butterfly Woman is her real name!” I got goosebumps every time I heard it. I didn’t need anyone to tell me she was a woman of power.

“Butterfly Woman is nearly a hundred years old; her name is her own business,” Aunt Bonita snapped.

“Earl’s here,” Aunt Evalina told Cody.

Cody stomped out to the waiting patrol car. Earl took one look and said humorously, “Oh, it’s like that!” She hunched her shoulders, ignoring the aunts’ waves as the car bumped off down the track.

Earl just let her be. After a while she complained, “I just don’t get why they had to go rushing off to see this Butterfly person. They never said last night. Oh, don’t tell me,” she added grumpily. “It’s ‘the Navajo way’!”

Earl spread his hands. “I ain’t saying a word while you’re in this mood. I might get my head snapped off!”

They drove in silence for a while then Cody snorted, “Admit it, I am going to have the worst day. What do you bet Lily’s going to introduce me to the kids as a lost bird?”

He shook his head. “I doubt it. When I saw her yesterday she was a bag of nerves. This is a big day for Lily. The school’s holding its first ever Grandparents’ Day. Lily’s been organising it for months. She’s terrified no one will turn up.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” asked Cody.

“Some of the old-timers on the Rez didn’t have such good school experiences. Lily’s hoping to show them that’s all changed and modern Navajo schools can be welcoming, friendly places.” He glanced across at Cody. “I know Lily can be a bit intense, but her heart’s in the right place.”

When Lily saw Cody hovering awkwardly at the back of the school hall she almost cried with relief. “Cody, what a sight for sore eyes! I am desperate for another pair of hands!”

The hall was full of overexcited little kids running around in their underwear. Some of the older kids were helping them into their costumes, others were frantically practising either their lines or their dance steps. You could see, everyone was half off their heads with stage fright.

For a moment Cody looked like she wanted to run, then she took a breath. “Tell me what to do.” And next minute she was helping a little boy called Toby Manybeads into a pair of home-made eagle’s wings.

Lily had been right to worry as it turned out. Cody helped her set out two hundred chairs, but less than twenty grandparents showed up for her big day. Those who made the effort, though, obviously had a ball.