St. Clair (Gives Light Series) (40 page)

I touched my fingers to my throat. I wondered how

long it would be before the shadows of our past

stopped haunting the reservation. For me,

probably never. I could still feel the thirteen-year-

old scars stretched across my neck. Scars my

mother's murderer had left with me for life. Scars

his son had tried his hardest to kiss away.

I was due for a cancer checkup in August.

The back doorknob rattled. The door didn't budge,

of course; it was bolted shut. All the same, I sat up

slowly, my spine running cold.

Alright, I thought. This is ridiculous. I turned off

the computer monitor and stood up. I climbed the

staircase to my bedroom lightly, heat from the

hearth rising after me. Nights are always cold in

Nettlebush. I blame the xeriscape.

I went into my father's bedroom. The cold air of

unlived-in neglect hit me like a brick to the

forehead. Just standing in here, I felt as though I

were drowning. I felt as though the house were

trying to pull me down beneath its musty

foundation. Back into the earth whence all Plains

People came.

I threw open Dad's closet and found his baseball

bat. I picked it up; it felt familiar in my hands. It

felt horrible.

I missed him so much.

I climbed back down the staircase, Dad's bat over

my shoulder. I unlocked the back door. I stepped

out into the rushing, cold night air and snapped the

door shut behind me, leaning against it with my

weight.

The oak trees rustled in the wind. The pines stood

their ground, rooted and firm. I scanned the terrain

with my eyes. I didn't see any coywolves. I heard

the soft hooting of the owls as they hid behind the

foliage, wise eyes keeping a watch for

unsuspecting prey.

The water pump next to the outhouse was dripping

with fresh water. The lumber box was knocked on

its side, cut firewood fallen to the ground.

Hesitant, Dad's baseball bat at my side, I

approached and righted the lumber box. My eyes

darted back and forth between the timber and the

back door; if someone with malintent was really

lurking out here, no way was I letting him get to

Granny without bashing his skull in. I inched over

to the water pump. I lodged the lever back and the

faucet stopped dripping. I looked again at the

doorway. No one. Nobody was here.

I knew somebody had been here.

Nettlebush was silent in the dead of night. No

sound except for the wind when it touched the

treetops, or when it pressed against the old

foundations of the log cabins.

I wondered, suddenly, what Nettlebush must have

looked like two hundred years ago, when the

Plains Shoshone first fled south after the Bear

River Massacre. Were there log cabins here?

Probably not. Shoshone used to use tipis and

wickiups back then. I tried to imagine what

Nettlebush had looked like when everyone lived in

animal hide houses and brush lodges. I tried to

imagine the men and women wearing deerhide and

elkskins without calling them regalia.

It was quiet enough that I could hear a second

doorknob rattling. This time it came from the front

of the house.

I ran through the back door, the warmth of the

firelight washing over me. I wedged the door shut

and locked it. I strode across the room; into the

front room; I threw open the front door.

No one was there.

Come on, I thought, frustrated. I was starting to

feel like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock film. I

trudged back inside the house. I closed and locked

the door.

I turned the computer monitor on. I closed my

mostly-blank template and clicked on the tribal

website's "Chat" button.

Very few people were online. Not that I had

expected many people to be online. I typed a

quick message:

does anybody else have a creepy stranger

trying to get in their house?

Nope, Stuart wrote. Jeez, thanks a lot.

you're getting that, too? Daisy wrote.

somebody tried to open our door. dad's

getting paranoid!

Uu ha tsoapichia ti'iwanna? Immaculata

wrote.

The general consensus was to stay indoors. Stuart

started acting businesslike, which I took as my

official cue to sign off. I said a quick goodbye and

shut off my computer, lost in thought.

Who would have tried to enter both my house and

Daisy's? Maybe some drunkard had wandered in

off the turnpike. Maybe I ought to call the tribal

police. The tribal council had given all of us

pagers in the event that we needed help. My pager

was upstairs; I'd left it on the bedside table.

I climbed the staircase again. I was starting to feel

groggy. I padded into my bedroom. I scooped the

pager into my hand, stifling a yawn.

Dad, I suddenly thought.

I carried the pager and the baseball bat back down

the staircase. I threw open the front door. I

stepped onto the porch and locked the door behind

me with the key in my pocket. And I started down

the north road.

I'm sure it sounds sad. But what if Dad had

somehow escaped the penitentiary? Or what if

Nola had found another brilliant legal loophole to

get him out of serving time? Of course he would

first try to enter his own home. Finding it locked,

it made sense that he would move on to Mr. At

Dawn's house. Mr. At Dawn was his best friend.

I stopped outside the At Dawn house, just north of

the country lane. The oil lamps were glowing in

the front windows. Nobody was outside.

I frowned slowly. And the more I thought about it,

the dumber it was. Dad wouldn't try to open Mr.

At Dawn's door. He would probably knock.

Somebody came walking down the dirt road

toward me. I steeled myself, my grip on Dad's

baseball bat tightening. But I saw the beam of a

flashlight; and I saw the strong hand holding it; and

I realized it was only Rafael.

I almost burst out laughing. He was carrying his

hunting spear.

"Hey," Rafael said, sounding puzzled. "Someone

tried to get into our house. Was it you?"

I shook my head. I gestured to the baseball bat.

"You too, huh? The hell's going on?"

I shrugged helplessly.

"Well," he said, "Uncle Gabe called the other

guys--I mean the police guys, whatever--and

they're scoping out the reserve. Actually," he

admitted, "he told me to stay indoors. But I hate

staying indoors. You got any idea where the creep

went?"

I gestured toward the At Dawns' house.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's check around back.

Probably not there anymore, though."

We walked around the back of the At Dawns'

house. I walked close to his side.

He was right, though. As far as I could see, there

was nothing out here. Daisy had left her hunting

knife on the windowsill, but that was about it.

"It better not be those goddamn land junkies,"

Rafael swore.

I smiled quizzically. Why would the Bureau have

come back here? They already had what they

wanted.

Mr. At Dawn must have heard us moving around.

He opened his back door, alert. He relaxed when

he saw it was only us. Rafael stood and chatted

with him for a while. Finally we were forced to

admit that the trespasser, whoever he was, had

moved on.

"I don't wanna leave the girls for too long," Rafael

said. "Do you wanna get your grandma and bring

her back to my house? I'm kind of freaked out by

this."

With good reason, I thought. The serial murders

from not so long ago were still fresh on everyone's

minds.

Rafael walked me home. He waited in the sitting

room while I knocked on Granny's door.

"
What
?" Granny demanded, shuffling out irately in

her nightgown.

"Uh, Mrs. Looks Over?" Rafael said. "There's a

trespasser on the reservation. You wanna come

back to my house? There's more people there, so

we can protect you better."

It was all Granny needed to hear. She pulled a

coat on, and the three of us went out the front door.

The tension in the air was so thick, you could cut it

with a knife. I didn't see anyone walking around

outside; but I knew how news traveled in

Nettlebush. The doors were locked and double-

locked. Families were sitting wide awake,

wondering whether we had a second Eli on our

hands.

That's how it was in Rafael's house. Mary, Rosa,

and Charity were all gathered in the kitchen. All

three of them were in pajamas. I guessed they

didn't feel comfortable in the sitting room with all

those windows.

"Maybe it's a Water Ghost," Mary said with a dark

grin.

The Shoshone believe--well, believed--that ghosts

inhabited rivers and lakes. Sometimes they were

helpful. Sometimes they were malevolent.

Rosa held her baby close, worry written all over

her face. I could tell what she was thinking. Her

child's namesake had died the last time a man

broke into her home.

"Do you want, uh, tea, Mrs. Looks Over?" Rafael

said.

"No, thank you. Has anyone seen what this

trespasser looks like?"

"C'mon, Mrs. Looks Over," Mary said. "You

know what a Water Ghost looks like. It looks like

a ghost."

"You fool girl! A Water Ghost wouldn't knock!"

Clearly, I thought wryly.

Rosa handed Charity to Mary. She took over at the

stove where a clueless Rafael had tried to boil

water.

Gabriel came home about a half hour later while

Rosa and I were sipping tea. "If he's still around,"

Gabriel said, "he must be hiding pretty well. We

checked the farms and the church. I'm pretty sure

he's gone, Racine's telling everyone to stay

indoors."

"Really," Mary said, "it was probably just some

bum who came in from the city. Remember

Christmas four years ago? The skinny guy dressed

like Santa?"

"The guy with the booze on his breath?" Rafael

said. "Didn't he just get off the bus at the wrong

stop? Man, that guy was weird."

"Catherine," Gabriel said, "if you'd like me to

walk you home, I'd be happy to."

Granny preened, but declined. "I've got my

grandbaby," she said. "I don't see that I need your

help."

I very nearly blushed at that.

We said goodbye and headed through the sitting

room. Rafael saw me off at the front door and

handed me Dad's baseball bat. "Be safe, okay?"

he said. I kissed him on the cheek. He grinned at

me, innocent and mischievous all at once.

Granny and I set off together, the door closing

behind us.

I was feeling pretty tired by the time we made it

home. I unlocked the front door and Granny

shuffled inside without a backwards glance. I

snapped the door shut behind me and sighed.

Just because Dad hadn't come home tonight, I

thought, didn't mean he wasn't coming home. I

looked toward the computer, the machine turned

off. I could still hear the owls in the distance. I

couldn't hear the coywolves anymore.

I locked the front door and went upstairs to bed.

With each step I climbed, my heart thawed.

I slid into bed, the covers cold, friends and family

hanging on my closet door.

I don't know for sure whether I fell asleep that

night. Sometimes there's that half-sleep between

dormant and awake; your thoughts are messy and

frantic; you don't know whether you're thinking or

dreaming.

All I know is that something--and I don't know

what to call it--roused me from my bed. It was

like an instinct; I couldn't ignore it. I lit the oil

lamp on the side table.

I thrust open my window and scaled the side of the

log cabin.

The crickets sang softly from the tops of the pines.

The night sky was a dark slate blue, a blue that

reminded me of Rafael's eyes.

My nerves were singing; my mind was at peace.

Water Ghost, I thought, the rushing of the treetops