Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (3 page)

The nurse led us into a blinding white room and checked my weight and my blood pressure.  I wished he wouldn't.  Rosa had already done all that in August.

"I've been wondering..." Dad said.  "How exactly did the two of you become friends?"

I sat on the exam table while the nurse shunted out of the room to fetch Dr. Stout.  I regarded Dad thoughtfully.  He sat on a chair by the scales, fumbling with a keychain in his hands, his eyes downcast, his face as serenely somber as an ancient statue.  We were completely different from each other, he and I, even down to the shapes of our fingers: his short and stubby, mine long and thin.

I took a folded sheet of paper out of my back pocket.  Peripherally, I saw Dad's eyes raise.  I unfolded the paper, smoothed it out, and handed it to him.  He took it delicately, surprised, and perused it.

For once, I saw a real expression on his face.  The problem is, I couldn't read it.

"Did Rafael draw this?" Dad asked.

I nodded.

Rafael was an amazing artist, the kind who could capture the heart and soul of a moment with nothing but charcoal. 

The drawing depicted my mom as she had been in life: bushy, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail, freckles running up and down her arms, her teeth poking innocently out of her mouth in a rabbit-like underbite.  I knew because I had studied it again and again by lamplight, in the privacy of my bedroom, overwhelmed by emotion.

Dad lowered the paper.  He met my gaze, the still water of his eyes wavering.

"He's a good boy," he said quietly.

I could only smile.

Dr. Stout came into the room at last and chatted with Dad for a few minutes while he picked his way, awkwardly, through the conversation.  I looked away when Dr. Stout uncapped a plastic syringe and filled it with whatever Godforsaken vaccination I should have had years ago.  I practically broke my neck, straining my head away from her gloved hands.  And then she stabbed the needle in my arm and
Ow, holy crap!
, and I must have been making a really weird face because Dad struggled not to laugh.

It was around noon when Dad and I left the hospital, my arm smarting and my ego bruised. 

"That's a very nice bandaid, Cubby," Dad said gently.  I gave him a sulky look.  He
would
say that about teddy bears.

We went home for lunch, after which Dad said he had to leave for a visit with Meredith Siomme.  Ms. Siomme was a member of the tribal council; she and Dad had been friends since before I was born.  I waved goodbye; and then, when he was gone, I set out for the grotto.

Years and years ago, when Annie was a little girl, she had found a natural rock cave in the woods, a grotto flanked by a creek and a weeping willow tree.  I hadn't known Annie back in those days; but she'd decided to share the grotto with me last summer, and it quickly became one of our favorite spots.  Aubrey and Rafael used it, too, but never without Annie.  Not usually.

The dense forest overgrowth was shadowy and cool.  I heard the bubbling of the creek long before I saw it, a cascading, iridescent sliver as smooth as a jewel.  The drooping tendrils of the willow tree swayed with even the faintest breeze; glass windchimes tied high around their boughs clinked together musically.  The mouth of the cave was decked in a colorful mural of hand-painted stars.

I saw Rafael sitting on the other side of the creek, his head bent, his face buried in a book.  Lost in the literary world, as always.

I had an idea.  I smiled to myself, a secretive, impish smile.  He was distracted.  Could I sneak up on him?  If I went around the other side of the willow tree, maybe I could approach him from behind.  I like playing jokes on people.  Maybe that's not very nice of me, but the world's never at a surplus of laughter.

I crept up on the willow and hid behind the thick trunk.  I watched Rafael through the curtains of the hanging boughs.  Man, was he involved in that book.  I could have just run up in front of him and he probably wouldn't have noticed.  But where was the fun in that?

I slithered around the tree trunk.  I wedged myself between the open mouth of the cave and Rafael's broad back.  He looked nice in that lightweight gray jacket.  I wouldn't have worn it, though.  It was still pretty hot outside, September or not.

Rafael turned the page.

Just a little closer, I thought.  I inched forward.  I extended my arms, my hands like claws.  Muahahaha--

"I can hear you, dumbass."

I deflated.  I slumped across Rafael's back and draped my arms over his shoulders.  He dropped his book and turned his head, scrutinizing me mercilessly.

"You'd think a mute guy would be stealthy."

I showed him my best imitation of Lila Little Hawk's bratty, insouciant pout.  He rolled his eyes.  I flicked his earring for revenge.

He rolled me to the ground and pinned me down.

Suspended above me, dark hair falling around our faces, he looked like a reward, a secret gift I wanted to take and keep and hide away from the world.  I saw his rare grin swallow up his face, the one that set my heart ablaze, boyish and bright, all his sharp, sharklike teeth and the tooth missing at the back of his mouth.

"Big damn elephant," he remarked.

I dragged my fingers up and down Rafael's sides.  Predictably, he burst into uncontrollable laughter.  Ha, I thought, triumphant, and slid out from beneath him, running to the shelter of the willow tree.  Nobody messes with Skylar St. Clair.

I sat under the shade of the willow tree.  Rafael lumbered after me and spilled to the ground at my side.

"You're an ass," he told me, grinning brightly.

From Rafael, I considered that a compliment.  Smugly, I kissed him on the nose.  His eyes crossed when they followed my lips--probably unconsciously--and then, with what I thought must have been contentment and peace, he lay back on his elbows, watching the creek run by.

"I can't believe it's the last day of summer vacation," he said distastefully.

Me neither, I thought.  Summer had been like a whirlwind fantasy, and now it was over.  It was bittersweet, in a way.  I felt wistful that the lazy days were gone, but excited at what the rest of the year might bring. 

I thought:  Annie and I had spent most of our summer mornings cooking dinners for the reservation.  I wondered who was going to pick up the slack while we were in school.

"Where are Annie and Aubrey, anyway?"

Annie's visiting family
, I signed.  I couldn't remember whether I'd taught Rafael how to say "family" in sign language.  I paused.  That accounted for Annie, but what about Aubrey?  He always joined us at the grotto in the afternoons.

I shrugged, nonplussed.

"Huh.  Guess we'll find out tomorrow."

I nodded, satisfied.  I lay on my back, hands folded atop my stomach, and gazed up at the thick, tangled tree limbs and the gnarled leaves that hung like wet linens.  I watched the windchimes, glass butterflies, dancing in the shade.  It was perfect here.  It was easy to forget about time, about the outside world.

I felt a pair of soft lips brush against my cheek.  Surprised, I turned on my side.

Rafael lay in a position mirroring mine, determinedly silent.  I could tell from the way his eyes moved, roaming without purpose, that he was flustered.

Poor Rafael.  It must have been hard, having all those emotions battling for dominance in his head.  I felt a smile, involuntary, affectionate, stitch its way across my face.  I reached for his hand and took it for my own, gently weaving our fingers together.

He shifted on his side, facing me.  His eyes danced with light amid a dark face.  Slowly, his free hand settled on the curve of my cheek.  The calloused pads of his fingertips brushed over my skin, over my curls, exploratory, reverent.  Maybe it's crazy; but I felt like the luckiest guy on the planet.

"Why are you wearing a teddy bear bandaid?"

An irrepressible grin spread across my face.  I shoved his shoulder.  He shoved me back.

We spent the next hour practicing sign language together.  Rafael was getting better at identifying hand signals, I thought, but he was a very slow learner, the kind who needs everything repeated two and three times before it sinks in.  Not that there was anything wrong with that.  Actually, it was kind of endearing.  At the end of the lesson, Rafael asked me to play him a song on the plains flute.  I realized I'd left my flute in the cave a few days ago, so I got up and went into the cave to retrieve it.  I knelt and pushed aside bowls of beads and willow baskets.  I spotted the flute hanging by its leather cord on one of Aubrey's prayer sticks--no idea how it got there--I picked it up and hung it around my neck.

I went back outside the cave and found Rafael standing by the creek, stock-still.  I drew closer.  He brought his finger to his lips, silencing me--ironic, I know.  He pointed.

There was a coywolf pup rummaging around a pale yellow creosote bush.

Rafael and I exchanged a look.  Coywolves aren't solitary creatures.  Half-coyote, half-wolf, they're supposed to live and travel in packs.  More pressingly, creosote leaves are really bad for consumption.  The petals are okay, though.  They make a good remedy for snakebite and chickenpox.

"Hey," Rafael said.  "Wasn't that coywolf hanging around here a couple of weeks ago?"

Rafael was right, I realized.  I looked back at the coywolf.  The little guy was skinny and gangly, with big, round ears, his sandy coat interspersed with gray.  Too skinny.  He was hungry.  My heart wrenched.  Why was he foraging on his own?  Where had his pack gone?

I ran back to the cave.  We kept a store of chokecherries in there, in the event that one of us got hungry before dinnertime.  I found the chokecherries next to the candles and scooped them off the smooth cavern floor.

Rafael had followed me to the mouth of the cave.  He glanced in dubiously.  "Don't," he warned.  "If he starts relying on humans, he'll never fit in with his pack."

I gave Rafael a questionable look.  It was pretty obvious to me that he already didn't fit in with his pack.

I emerged from the cave with an armful of chokecherries.  I set them down beneath the weeping willow and took a cautious step back.  Rafael joined me, a heavy hand on my shoulder, frowning, unsure.  The coywolf's head shot up eagerly; he sniffed at the air, no doubt picking up the sweet, distinct scent on the lush breeze.  He ran from the creosote bush on clumsy little legs, skittering alongside the creek, and dove beneath the willow tree. 

"His mom might have abandoned him," Rafael said haltingly.

I looked at him, alarmed.

"Coywolves are monogamous," Rafael said.  "If his mom mated with a coywolf who wasn't her rightful mate, she might have abandoned the litter to avoid conflict within the pack.  Don't know how he survived without her milk, but it happens.  Animals aren't all that different from people.  Don't forget that we're animals, too."

A mother should never abandon her child, I thought, weighted with sadness.

"Don't be like that," Rafael said, his tone unexpectedly soft.  "The gray wolves might adopt him.  Full-blooded wolves are good like that.  They'll take in any lone wolf they find wandering around."

I watched the pup, his head bent over his dinner, his tufted tail wagging with happiness.  I sure hoped someone would take him in.  It wasn't like he could change who his parents were.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Rafael and I gathered our belongings--his book under his arm, my flute around my neck--and made our way west through the woods, heading back to the community.  Rafael ranted about the girl in his book, the main character, I think, and how she was the only girl on a cargo ship in the 1800s and how she became a sailor after one of the crew members died.  "That chick is awesome," he swore.  I nodded politely.  I was happy to listen to him, but I didn't like books all that much.

We barely had time to say goodbye when a loud crash captured our attention.  Rafael jumped.  We looked around, disconcerted, for the source of the sound.

Someone had thrown their computer through the window of their home, and the monitor had landed on its side next to the tribal firepit.  The screen was shattered, the cables split, like the whole setup had been yanked unceremoniously out of the wall.  The culprit, a little old man in a Panama hat, stood outside his house, pointing at the machine as though it were the devil himself.

Rafael and I looked at each other, slowly.

"I don't think the internet's going to catch on," he said.

Probably not.

2

Balto

I like mornings.  Dawn is my favorite time of day, when the sun hasn't risen just yet, but its errant light has already escaped into the sky.  You don't see colors like those anywhere else in nature.  It's like a song all its own.

One of these days, I thought, watching the sunrise from my bedroom window, I was going to capture that song and play it.  But I doubted I would ever do it justice.

I shut my alarm clock off before it had the chance to bang and clang all over the bedside table.  I dressed quickly and went downstairs for breakfast.

Granny attacked me with a comb before I even had the chance to sit at the kitchen table.