Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (12 page)

"Tsikkinichi nukkatun," Rafael whispered to me.

Aubrey scooped a mirror shard off of the ground and stood.  Stuart Stout had joined him.

"It's the prairie chicken dance," Rafael whispered, his mouth against my ear.  "It's a healing dance."

The At Dawn girls pounded on the double-skin drum.  Shaman Quick shook glass bells and sang in a voice pitched high in the back of his throat.  Aubrey and Stuart danced around the bonfire in stomping steps, their waists bent, Stuart's auburn hair curtaining his face.  They held their mirror shards aloft; and when the shimmering surfaces caught the light from the stars and the jumping flames, they flared like burning embers.

Ms. Siomme got up next.  Then Mary.  Then Reuben and Siobhan Stout and Rosa and Mrs. Summer Rose In Winter.  Each one picked up a piece of the broken mirror.  Each one danced around the fire with power and purpose.  Granny joined them, too; and Dad, and Thomas Little Hawk, and Mr. Red Clay and his mother.  Balto, excited by the noise, wove in and out of the dancers' legs.  Reverend Silver Wolf stood with Shaman Quick and helped him shake the bells.

Rafael took my hand and pulled me from my seat.  I would have gone with him anyway.  We walked together to the bonfire and he dropped my hand.  I found a mirror shard glimmering on the ground and picked it up.  No matter how loosely I clutched it, the glass drew blood.  Maybe it was supposed to.

I've never been a very spiritual person.  I don't put much stock into Christianity, and I'm not sure how I feel about God. 

Mr. Takes Flight's heart started pumping blood again at the end of November.  His physician, confounded, took out his pacemaker and stitched up his chest.  Two weeks later and Mr. Takes Flight was back on the farm with his sons, hauling winter squash out of the ground.

These things happen sometimes, Dr. Long Way said.  It's just science.

7

Protocol

I looked out on the reservation from my bedroom window.  The sun's trajectory was low, weak--exquisite, a silver luminary on every surface.  Winter crocuses poked out of the ground, childlike and innocent, frost-purple petals fringed with frost-white edges; they grew with the silver ferns in the shadows of the pines and the mudhills, silver-gray spikes brandished bravely like swords.  The oak trees had cast off their ostentatious leaves.  Bare, dauntless, and proud, they stood as gray monuments against a flawless, snow-white sky.

Not that there was any snow in Nettlebush.  It was sixty degrees.

I rolled out of bed and padded down the stairs.

"Put this on," Granny commanded.  She yanked a woolen turtleneck sweater over my head. 

Dad had decorated the house with fallen pine branches.  He liked the Christmas tree look, but didn't approve of the wholesale slaughter of forests.  He'd always argue with the guys at the Christmas tree lots:  "A pine tree needs one hundred years to grow to maturity.  You're cutting down fifty trees every year.  What are you going to do when you've run out of trees?  Postpone Christmas for a hundred years?"

I went into the kitchen and found Dad sitting at the scrubbed table, humming carols over his bowl of blue corn mush.  I smiled at him and shook my head.

"Good luck on your winter exams, Cubby," Dad said.

I let my tongue loll out of my mouth and rolled my eyes far into the back my head.  If there was one thing I disliked more than school, it was tests.

But that's exactly what I spent the morning doing.  The schoolhouse was quiet as Mr. Red Clay walked up and down the rows of tables and handed out thick packets of paper.  He set the timer on his stopwatch, stood back against the blackboard, and watched us with eagle eyes.  There were no sounds but pencils scratching on paper, pages turning, and the occasional cough.  Mr. Red Clay said we could leave as soon as we were finished.  Better still, school wouldn't resume until February.

"Aagh!" said Aubrey after school, his hands on his head.  "The Dawes Act was 1887.  I think I wrote 1881--but I
meant
1887, maybe he knows that--?"

I'd never been a very good student myself.  I don't find dates and numbers all that interesting, and when I read, my mind wanders.

I went with Annie back to her house and we baked big mounds of apple dumplings and almond cookies.  "Winter's a very big season for us," Annie said, flour dusting her hair and hands.  "We've got the Christmas party and New Year's--that's when we trade presents, you know, homemade things.  Then we've got the pauwau with the Paiute and the Bear River anniversary in Idaho.  And shinny, of course!"

I was especially looking forward to meeting the Paiute.  I'd heard so much about our historic alliance with them.

Joseph trudged into the kitchen in jingling bell bracelets and a headband of twigs.  I think he was supposed to be a reindeer.

Annie took one look at him and flared up.  "
Lila!
"

"Nope," Grandpa Little Hawk said breezily, his ruddy face smiling.  "That one was me."

The farmland out west was blanketed in a gold haze, winter stalks of wheat, rye, and barley ripe and ready for the sickles.  I went out to the badlands with a willow basket, slow and vigilant.  The unstable terrain out there had me paranoid of landslides; but when I saw how easily Balto navigated the chalk and clay, guided by his coyote blood, no doubt, I felt safer by proxy.  I pulled the glasswort from the gullies and dug out the sand hiding beneath the crumbling, blue-gray clay.  I ground up the plants and the sand and spent my afternoons making glass ornaments for New Year's gifts: a cat for Dad, because he liked cats; a loom for Granny, who boasted the best knitting skills on the reservation.  Aubrey liked orange candy and Annie liked mixed tapes.  Rafael liked horrible power metal and I bused out to Paldones and bought him the new Nightwish CD, feeling all the while like I owed Gabriel's eardrums an apology.  I mailed Kaya a Christmas card and she sent me back a handmade cornhusk doll.  I put the doll on my bedside table next to a photo of Mom and Dad and Rafael's orange caltrop.

Construction of the radio tower was finished by the first week of December.  Men and women tromped in and out of the studio and sang the songs their grandparents had taught them, or else they played hand drums or elderberry clapsticks.  I went into the studio one morning with little Morgan Stout, Lila's friend.  The walls were carpeted to absorb sound, the ceiling insulated for acoustics.  We played our plains flutes together until afternoon and managed to make two tapes full of material.  The old woman in charge of the airwaves beamed toothily at us as we left.

"Do you think I'll ever be a man, Mr. St. Clair?" Morgan asked me, soulful and solemn.  "I want to marry Lila, but I'm young still."

I ruffled his hair and gave him a serious look.

Annie and Aubrey and I went to Rafael's house; Aubrey and Rafael fought over the radio dial in Rafael's room until finally, we heard Mrs. Red Clay's calm, impenetrable voice carrying on a conversation with an anthropology professor from ASU.

"No, sir," Mrs. Red Clay was saying.  "Shoshone are descended from the same ancestor as the Aztecs.  We did not immigrate to America.  We have been here since the dawn of time."

"Ah, isn't this exciting?" Aubrey clamored.  "First the internet, now the radio!  We're conquering the world!"

We went out to the windmill field, where Dad, Mr. Little Hawk, Mr. Owns Forty, and Mr. Black Day were building a wood stage for the children's Christmas pageant.  "I played the Black Bear when I was five," Rafael told us.  Families traipsed into the field to set up stalls, booths, and tables while Mr. Red Clay sat on the grass with a delegation of small children, assigning them their roles.  Annie handed out bottles of water to the men and they rested beneath the whirring windmill blades.

Dad came over and sat with us on the rim of a stone firepit--thankfully unlit.

"Cubby," he said awkwardly.  "Could I have a word?"

I stood up.

"You too, Rafael," he said.

Oh boy.

Rafael and I followed Dad to the other side of a windmill.  I could see the isolated Owns Forty house in the distance.  Rafael looked apprehensive.

"Now," Dad started.  He stopped.  He started again.  "Rafael, do you play shinny?"

Rafael grinned shyly.  I swear my heart stopped.  "Who doesn't?"

"You may find it hard to believe," Dad said, "but when I was your age--how old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Well, a little younger than you, then.  When I was a child, boys couldn't play.  Imagine how jealous we were."

"That's lame.  Aubrey's the best player we've got and he's a guy."

I never would have singled Aubrey out for sportsmanship.  Just goes to show you how people can surprise you.

"You see what I mean, then."  Dad went on, a bit constrained, "Maybe we'll play together in February."

Rafael checked at that, suspicious.  "Sure..."

Oh, Dad.  I couldn't help but smile.

Dad suddenly looked sober.  What was that about?  He shuffled from one foot to the other, his eyes focused elsewhere.  Rafael stuffed his hands into his pockets and hunched over.

I rocked on my heels and swung my arms.

"You'll have to forgive me," Dad said.  His mouth was moving very little, a sign that he was tense.  "I'm not...familiar with...the protocol.  For boys like you.  But I..."

I felt my face turning red.  No, no, no.  Quit while you're ahead, Dad.  Please.

"I'm sure you have...urges," Dad went on.  "All teenage boys have...urges.  I don't know whether you've...tried anything--"

I said please!

"Just as long as you're safe.  That's very important.  You still have to be safe, even if you're both boys.  I don't know what that really...um, entails.  You know.  How you...do things.  I could look it up for you--"

I clapped my hand over Dad's mouth.  I took him by his arm, my face burning, and dragged him back to the field.

Come Christmas Eve, the windmill field was transformed.  The stalls and stage were decorated with garlands and poinsettias.  The air wafted with the heady scents of apple dumplings and corn soup, wild rose blossom and wild onions and baked winter squash, fried, sugared strawberries and mutton wrapped in frybread, almond cookies and almond cakes and honey and marzipan cakes.  It was fifty degrees outside and we set fire to the firepits long before evening.  The kids put on a play about the Sun and the Winter Winds; the Black Bear and the Gray Bear and Wolf, Spider, and Coyote all made special appearances.  Reverend Silver Wolf read passages from the Bible about King Herod and the baby Jesus, and Officer Hargrove and her family showed up midway through the festivities.

I'd never seen Officer Hargrove out of uniform before.  She looked cute in her Christmas tree sweater and matching light-up pin.  She waved and led her kids to the table where Granny, Dad, and I were sitting with the Little Hawk family. 

"I brought cookies," Officer Hargrove said.  "Don't worry, they're from the supermarket."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Granny, which was her way of showing kindness.

Officer Hargrove's son stuck his hand out for me to shake, formal and militaristic.  He was about twelve years old.

"DeShawn," he said very seriously.  "How do you do."

I tried not to laugh.  I failed.  I shook his hand.

"Mommy," said the little girl, pointing down the table, "what's that?"

Dad quickly hid the calumet from view.

Balto snuggled up to me underneath the table.  I rubbed his head between my palms.  I looked around the lot until I saw Rafael sitting at a table with Rosa, Mary, Gabriel, and the hospital receptionist.  I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it looked like the burden of conversation fell on Rosa's shoulders; Gabriel wasn't looking at Rafael.

"Attention, please!" boomed Mr. At Dawn, standing on the edge of a firepit.  "It's time for the warm dance!"

Officer Hargrove's daughter pinched my arm.  "What's a warm dance?" she asked.

"Jessica," Officer Hargrove scolded.  "What did I tell you about Skylar?"

I didn't mind.  I rubbed my hands up and down Jessica's arms.

Jessica giggled.  "Warm," she said.

"Many years ago," Dad explained, "we lived in a cold place.  We danced the warm dance to send blessings to the animals who needed to brave the cold."

"Sir, your history is fascinating," DeShawn said.

"Thank you."

Granny got up from her seat to join the warm dancers.  Dad offered Officer Hargrove a beer.

"No thanks," she said.  "I'm driving."

"That's alright, it's only Holsten."

"In that case, gimme!"

I watched the dancers branch into groups, Lila tugging Jessica by her hand.  It was a simple dance, sweeping bows and raised arms hailing the heat of the flames.  I smothered a laugh when Autumn Rose In Winter lost one of her shoes. 

Rafael came over and took Granny's empty seat.

"I hate him," Rafael said passionately.

I knew he was talking about his uncle; and I knew he didn't mean it.  I glanced over at the table Rafael had abandoned.  Gabriel was shaking his head, his face cradled in his hands.  Rosa rubbed his back and talked to him in undertones.  She kept sending worrisome looks Rafael's way.  I didn't see Mary anywhere.