St. Clair (Gives Light Series) (35 page)

"Is she going to get him out?" Gabriel asked.

"It's my understanding that she's trying to get a plea

bargain..."

No
, I wanted to scream. Plea bargain means

prison time.

I reached for Mr. At Dawn's thick wrists and

grabbed them. I wanted to know where my father

was. The city--the prison--anything.

Mr. At Dawn didn't have Dad's attunement to my

intentions. He gave me a wistful look. "I'm very

sorry, Skylar," he said.

I dropped my hands to my sides.

"Wait," Mary cut in. "Are you guys saying Nola

can't get him out of this? Because Nola could get a

needle out of a haystack without scattering the

grain. Are you serious?"

"Nola is very skilled at interpreting the law in

unconventional ways," Mr. At Dawn said,

sounding troubled. "But about making evidence

disappear, I don't think even she can do such a

thing. And for everything you think to cover up, in

the heat of the moment, there are always fifty things

you've forgotten."

He scared me just then.

We stood around the building a little while longer.

But it became clear to me that there was nothing

any of us could do; Mr. At Dawn was repeating

himself, Gabriel rubbing his face with what I

thought was disbelief.

I revolved on the spot and ran from the building.

I don't know whether anyone tried to follow me. I

think they were all too busy trying to figure out

their next step. I already knew my next step. I ran

back to Granny's house; I threw open the front

door. I heard her calling to me from the lawn,

where she sat at work on her loom. I didn't stop to

answer her. In hindsight, I wish I had. You don't

ignore your elders like that, no matter how worried

you are.

I tore up the staircase and into my room. I dug

through my drawers and my mattress. I had spare

money hidden in small places, cash I had earned

selling recordings and herbs over the tribal

website. I stuffed the cash in my schoolbag. I

went looking through my closet for my duffel bag.

I searched my bedroom until I found my beeper--

Dad's beeper--tucked safely away beneath my

bedside table.

I started back down the staircase, my backpack on

my back, my bag in my hand. I crossed the

threshold and out through the front door. I started

across the lawn.

"Hold it!" Granny yelled.

I halted.

Granny got up from her loom and circled me, her

eyes sharp, missing nothing. I waited for her to

finish, secretly thinking that the longer she took, the

harder it would be to find Dad. I tried to ignore

the whispering voice at the back of my head, the

one that knew there was nothing I could do to

protect him from federal charges.

"So," Granny said. "Your father's in trouble yet

again."

I nodded.

"Hmph. I expect nothing better from him. Very

well. Leave if you must, so long as you come back

here with or without him."

Of course I was coming back. I always came

back.

"Another thing," Granny said. "I don't want you

leaving alone."

I hesitated. If Granny meant to come with me... Of

course I appreciated the gesture. But Granny,

tough though she was, was ornery and elderly. I

was afraid she would hold us back.

"Go find the Gives Light boy. I don't trust anyone

else to look after you. For heavens' sakes,

wandering about the country, and not three months

after cancer treatment..."

She muttered to herself and sat back down at her

loom, plucking with dissatisfaction at the heddle

rod.

I didn't for a second intend to involve Rafael in

this. He had his own family to take care of,

especially little Charity. And if I had to be honest,

Rafael was many things--each of them amazing--

but he wasn't very street smart. If it was a matter

of finding Dad's booking center and actually

getting the warden to let me in, I'd rather have help

from someone like Mary, who knew how to grate

just perfectly on people's nerves.

I didn't have a choice. Rafael caught up with me

when I was traveling south through the reservation.

"Hey," he said, jogging over to me. He fixed his

crooked glasses, looking worried. "Uncle Gabe

told me what happened to your dad."

I smiled noncommittally.

Rafael took in the sight of my duffel bag and

backpack. His eyes narrowed. "Where are you

going?"

Dismissively, I shook my head.

He wasn't to be deterred. He stopped me, his hand

on my shoulder. "Are you serious? Do you even

know where you're going?"

I came to a standstill, rubbing my forehead. I

didn't know where I was going. I had a couple of

ideas. If Dad was arrested on federal charges,

they weren't going to take him to county booking.

It had to be a federal building. I knew there was a

federal penitentiary in Phoenix. Maybe I could

start there.

"I'm going with you," Rafael said.

I wanted really badly to protest. How were two

clueless people better than one? Rafael must have

known what was on my mind. Neither one of us

got the chance to preempt the other--my duffel bag

started beeping.

Rafael jumped. He looked around like he'd been

bitten.

I unzipped the duffel bag and dug out Dad's

beeper. It was bright outside, too bright to make

out the incoming text. I cupped my hand around the

digital screen and squinted at the dimly glowing

letters.

FCC Tucson
, the beeper read.

Dad must have used his allotted phonecall on me.

"Where we headed?" Rafael asked.

Arguing wasn't going to get us anywhere. I handed

him the beeper.

"FCC Tucson?" he repeated, bewildered. "What's

that?"

I took the beeper back and dropped it in my duffel

bag. I grabbed him by the hand and led him out to

the turnpike.

"I didn't tell Uncle Gabe I'm leaving," Rafael said.

I mimed a phone with my free hand. Tucson wasn't

far from Nettlebush, and there were payphones out

there. We'd probably be in the city before Gabriel

even realized Rafael was gone.

We walked the ramps along the turnpike and sat

down at the bus stop. I looked through my duffel

bag one last time. I'd packed too many things I

probably wouldn't need--a change of clothes, my

spark plug, the road map I'd purchased the last

time I ran away with Danny Patreya. Better safe

than sorry, I guess.

The bus pulled up to the bench six minutes later. I

grabbed Rafael's wrist and we climbed on board.

I left change in the receptacle and the driver

nodded, the doors gushing closed behind us.

The bus was crowded. Rafael and I found seats on

the desert-facing side. Rafael let me sit by the

window; he knew I liked to watch the caltrops and

the hackberries as the road passed by. I didn't

really feel like looking out the window just now.

"How far away is Tucson?" Rafael asked. "I've

never been."

I held up ten fingers, then five. Fifteen miles. Half

an hour on the highway, maybe less.

"Okay," Rafael said. "That's not bad."

I smiled at him.

The bus slogged along Route 89 to I-10. It was

early afternoon, the sun bright through the filmy

windows. I touched the plains flute hanging

around my neck. I closed my eyes and tried to

think.

If Mrs. Red Clay was trying to get a plea bargain

for Dad, that meant there was some kind of definite

evidence that put him in the same room as Rafael's

father when Rafael's father died. The plea bargain

was for both parties; the lawyers couldn't be

bothered mucking through the lengthy courtroom

process, and the defendant knew he was standing

in quicksand. So Dad was going to prison no

matter what happened.

So what could I really do for him? Break him

out? Yeah, right, I thought. Good luck breaking

anyone out of a federal prison. Even if I managed

it, by some vast miracle, the Department of

Transportation still owned our houses. Without

our say in the matter. Dad could never go home

again. The government officially had its hands on

our reservation. The one place the government

wasn't supposed to touch.

God, did that make me angry. And I don't wear

anger well.

I felt Rafael's hand on my shoulder. It was like

spellwork. I started slowly to relax.

"Do you have a notebook?" Rafael asked.

I swung my backpack off my shoulder. I pulled out

one of my empty copybooks and handed it to him.

I very rarely took notes during school unless there

was no way around it.

"Thanks," Rafael said. He shook out his hair and

found a pencil--typical--behind his ear. He

hunched over and started to draw.

When were visiting hours at the FCC? Maybe I

should have checked online. Would that kind of

information even be online? Fine, I thought. If

they don't let me in when I get there, I'll just wait

outside until they do.

The bus passed over a bump in the road. I

watched Rafael sideways, his earring hanging next

to his cheek, his bottom lip between his teeth. It

just seemed natural that he should be with me. In

light of that, I couldn't remember why I had

protested bringing him along.

He looked up, suddenly, close to frowning. He

closed my notebook around his pencil.

"Why do you think those Catholic fundies hate us,

anyway?"

I bit back a laugh. "Catholic fundies" sounded

really foreign coming from his mouth.

"I'm serious," Rafael said stubbornly.

I didn't think it mattered. People are either going

to like you or dislike you, and they'll find whatever

reason they want to do it. When they've made up

their minds, there's very little you can do to change

them.

"You're not like me, I guess," Rafael said. "You

don't care what people think about you. I wish I

could be like that. I'm somewhere between you

and Mary. When she was little, Mary got

depressed after Dad... She hurt herself

sometimes. The worst thing for her was that the

other girls didn't want to be friends with her." He

rubbed his shoulder. "I guess I'm more like her

than I thought."

I needed approval more than he knew. I liked

being liked. I liked it a little too much. I just knew

enough to realize that the human brain is

frighteningly immutable.

I took the notebook and the pencil from his hands.

I opened to a clean page and started to write.

People who hate you
, I wrote,
don't really know

you. If they knew you, they couldn't hate you.

People who hate you because of who you love

don't know how to think for themselves. They're

so incapable of individual thought that they have

to rely on a book written thousands of years ago

by an outdated loony. Okay?

Rafael read the page slowly. A grin started at the

corner of his mouth and worked its way across his

face.

"Outdated loony," he murmured.

I stuck the pencil behind his ear and wiggled my

eyebrows.

"Yeah," he said. "You know what? If you don't

care, then I don't care. Those people don't make a

difference to me. Indian religion's been around

way, way longer than anything the westerners make

up, and Indian religion says two-spirit are sacred.

And anyway, you've gotta be really naive to think

something's unnatural when it occurs in every

species on the planet."

Why do you think that happens?
I signed. I don't

mean to imply that animals can't love the way

humans can. I think they know love even better

than we do. The procreation matter kind of

confuses things, though.

"It's an evolutionary thing," Rafael said.

Sometimes I forgot he was a hunter. "Like, okay,

say you've got four bison, three guys and one girl.