The Hummingbird's Cage (21 page)

Simon appeared at my elbow with two bowls of mutton stew. “He could start right now, if he likes.”

“Don't rush him, Simon,” Jasper said with a smile.

Simon handed me one bowl and offered the other to Jessie. She waved it away as she handed the baby off to his father.

“I'm off to find that man of mine,” she said. “You two youngsters enjoy yourselves.”

*   *   *

Simon led me to the back of the house, where there was a screened porch warmed by a wood-burning chiminea next to a sofa. We sat to eat, spreading a wool blanket across our laps. Through the screen we could see the river snaking past, and the earthen dome of the hogan. We could hear the faint sound of drums and chants.

“They're doing a Blessing Way,” Simon explained, nodding toward the hogan.

I'd heard of the ceremony. “They do that for expectant mothers,” I said.

“For others, too. Someone who's sick, for instance. Or a warrior going off to battle. Sometimes they hold one because it's been a while and it seems like a good idea.”

“Who's this one for?”

He hesitated. “This . . . is to restore balance,” he said vaguely. “Health. Strength.”

“Did they have one for you, when you went off to war?”

He paused again.

“Not before I left, but when I came back,” he said. “It's a different ceremony, though, when you come back. Called the Enemy Way, and it's more . . . intense. Lasts about a week. It restores balance, too, but first you have to drive away the ugliness, the violence, of battle. Chase off the ghosts of men you've killed.”

As he went quiet, I reached for his hand. “Whenever you're ready,” I said, “you can tell me anything.”

“I know, sweetheart. But not yet.”

There was a movement in the doorway, and Reuben and Bree entered.

“How's the fire?” Reuben asked. He hiked up the sleeves of his sweater and laid a small mesquite log inside the wide mouth of the chiminea. Then he and Bree sank into nearby chairs.

“We were just listening to the chanting,” I said. “Is it for your brother?”

“The Hozhooji ritual,” said Reuben. “It should last a while yet. It's for him and . . . whoever might need it.”

He was gazing at me frankly, his dark eyes suddenly unreadable, and it flustered me.

“For little Samuel, then,” I said. “Who's his mother?”

“That would be Emmi, my sister.”

“Actually,” said Bree, “Emmi would be his cousin. But in the clan system, they're brother and sister. Or might as well be.”

“Add it all up,” I said, “and it makes for one huge family.”

Bree laughed. “A real tribe.”

“So,” said Simon, “is Trang happy about the pinto?”

“Picked him out himself,” Reuben said. “From Great-Grandmother's herd.”

“He's got a good eye,” Simon said.

“He's a long way from Vietnam,” I said. “How did he come to be in your family?”

“Quite a story, actually,” said Reuben. “When he was little, he lived in a village with his parents. Straw huts, the whole deal. One day his older brother took him fishing, and while they were gone soldiers came through, shot up the place, torched it. Killed his parents. Trang was six or so.”

“God. The poor kid,” I said.

“That's only the half of it,” Reuben said. “After a few years, they made it to the States. His brother got a job on a shrimp boat off Louisiana and they lived there awhile. Then one day his brother was out in the Gulf when a big storm blew through. Swept him overboard.”

“Did they find him?”

Reuben shook his head. “Lost at sea. Trang waited a week till the coast guard gave up the search. When the food and money ran out, he packed up one night and hit the road.”

“Where did he think he was going?” I asked.

“West. He heard once that he had an uncle in San Francisco—it was all he had to go on. He walked, slept under overpasses and bridges. Hitched rides with truckers when he
could. Some of them bought him meals. Then one morning my sister Angela—”

“
Cousin
Angela,” Bree murmured.

“Angela,”
Reuben continued, smiling, “was tanking up at the truck stop—you know, the big one outside Grants—when she saw this skinny, scrappy kid thumbing a ride. She picked him up and brought him back here. It was supposed to be for a meal and a bed, then send him on his way in the morning. But the family took to him and he took to us. So he just . . . stayed.”

“He must be resilient as anything,” I said.

“He's having the time of his life now,” said Reuben.

*   *   *

It was near dusk by the time the birthday gifts were presented. As the big family crowded outside the stable, I tried to pick out Trang from among them, but couldn't.

Teenage boys came running from the direction of the river, jostling and laughing; they were among the group we'd passed playing volleyball when we'd arrived.

They pushed one boy forward—smaller than most, skinny and dark, his glossy black hair shaped in a bowl cut, black brows arching over almond eyes. He grinned up at Morgan Begay, standing at the stable door.

So this was Trang.

Begay gestured for the boy to come closer, then spoke to him. I couldn't understand the words. Then Begay turned and entered the stable. He returned leading Shilah, by then decked out in a handsome silver-tipped leather saddle and full tack, including my hackamore.

I was surprised, though, to see the pinto's white mane and
tail covered with dozens of streaming bows of colored yarn. He looked like a rainbow on the hoof. Laurel was standing nearby with Olin and Jessie, beaming.

With others calling out encouragement, Trang stepped to the pinto's side, slipped his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself into the saddle. He kicked off and the horse vaulted forward. Off they rode—down toward the river, then along its banks—hooves throwing up hunks of snow and mud.

Laurel ran to my side. “Did you see my ribbons, Mommy?”

“Honey, I don't think you missed a single color.”

“You know,” Simon told her, “that's the way they deck out their horses for special ceremonies. Then they all mount up and ride across the valley. It's a sight.”

“When's the next one?” Laurel asked him.

“Don't worry—you'll see it.”

*   *   *

A waning moon was rising, fogbound and hugging the Mountain. The stinging smell of wood smoke intensified as fires lit up along the riverbank. Laurel took my hand, then Simon's. We headed across the compound, taking our time, toward a white trailer where Begay had said a birthday cake was waiting for the kids.

The trailer door was wide-open, spilling yellow light and the voices of children. Trang sat at a kitchen table facing a big white cake with candles. A gold party hat was strapped to his head. Someone placed a toddler in his lap, and he slid a steadying arm around her.

“You two go on,” I said. “I couldn't eat another bite.”

Simon looked back quizzically as Laurel pulled him toward the trailer.

“Really, I'm fine,” I insisted. “I just want to enjoy the quiet.”

I found a seat on a tree stump near a stand of junipers. There was a fire crackling a few yards off, with three men hovering over it watching a skillet of meat and fry bread on a grill. Now and then the burning wood spat out a spark in a soaring arc that was hypnotic to watch.

I turned to the trailer again and the children playing inside, loud and giddy. Each of them had a story like Trang's; I was sure of it. Only—God willing—not so tragic. Stories that were cut short. They looked happy enough, all of them. But how many would choose to stay here, and how many would take up their stories again, if only they could? And Laurel . . . on her next birthday, would she be just as happy here in Morro? Would she turn eight years old, or would she be seven forever, here in the forever place?

That first day at breakfast, Olin had told me I still had something to accomplish. Laurel, too. He'd seemed so certain . . .

“It's the violet hour, isn't it?”

I started at the voice—female, coming from behind me. I turned, and there was a dark shape next to a juniper tree—a shadow within a shadow—not ten feet off. It shifted, apparently to reposition itself in a better light so I could make it out.

It was Jean Toliver, cocooned in a woolen blanket from neck to ankles.

“I didn't startle you, did I?” she asked.

“Well, no.”

“Good. I always do like the dusk—don't you? I like to greet it alone when I can.”

“Ah,” I said, finally getting the drift of her remark. “Eliot's violet hour—‘The evening hour that strives homeward, and brings the sailor home from the sea.'”

Jean rose from her seat and moved closer, settling on a fallen log. She drew her blanket over her head.

“Not quite,” she said. “I was thinking more along the lines of DeVoto.”

I wasn't sure if she was referring to a person or a car—the name meant nothing to me.

“Sorry?”

She turned toward me, and I could see the flames from the grill fire dancing in the round lenses of her glasses. She reminded me of an owl.

“Bernard DeVoto. Historian and author. ‘This is the violet hour,' he wrote. ‘The hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.'”

Her voice was tremulous.

“That's lovely,” I said. “A poem?”

“A cocktail manifesto. Would you like some?”

The blanket rustled and I looked down. She was holding a small silver flask, half buried in the folds. She put a warning finger to her lips.
“Shhh.”

I choked back a laugh. If the Navajo reservation was dry, apparently Jean would make do.

The flask was etched with Celtic knots. I uncapped it and took a sip. It went down with a scouring that made me shiver.

I handed the flask back to her. “What is it?”

“Rye whiskey,” she said, stealing a quick sip before recapping it and tucking it back in the folds. “Chilled.”

She murmured the last word primly. Then together we burst into snorting giggles that drew the attention of the men around the fire.

“Too much of that and you
will
be seeing unicorns,” I whispered.

“Wouldn't that be charming?”

“And yet a unicorn wouldn't be the strangest thing I've seen since I came here.”

“New place, new rules,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“I think the most important thing when you're a stranger in a strange land is to try to enjoy it while you're there. Besides, the farther back you go, there are no strangers, are there?”

I began to wonder how long she'd been tippling from that flask.

“Come, Joanna. You've noticed it—I know you have.” Jean was nodding meaningfully at Trang, still framed in the open doorway. She waited.

She was trying to herd me toward something. But what?

I looked at Trang. At the toddler in his lap. At the faces of the other children gathered around the table. What was I seeing? Except for Laurel, nothing but dark eyes, dark hair on dark heads. Nothing unusual. I looked from one face to the next, sifting through . . .

Till I realized: this was precisely what Jean was talking about.

Nothing unusual
.

Aside from Laurel, the faces were nearly indistinguishable from one another. Southeast Asian . . . Diné . . . hair, features, skin . . . so similar . . . so familial.

Cousin, kin, clan.

Jean sighed with pleasure and shifted on the log.

“Athabascan,” she murmured.

I reached back to my U.S. history lessons and dredged up
what I could about Athabascans. Crossed from the Asian continent thousands of years ago. Their descendants became the Inuits in Canada. Then much later some turned south and migrated again—latecomers, compared to other tribes. And their descendants became the Apache, Hopi, Zuni—and the Navajo.

“They crossed the Beringia on foot,” said Jean, still watching Trang. “Followed the migrating bison south along the Rockies. They retain so much of the look of their Asian forebears, don't you think?”

In my mind's eye I could see with utter clarity what she was describing. The slow southward progression of clans at the end of the last ice age. If you stretched back far enough, Trang and the Begays could easily share common ancestors.

Unlike those first immigrants, of course, Trang didn't cross the land bridge into Alaska. He rounded the globe from a different direction entirely—to connect through sheer happenstance with cousins a thousand generations removed.

Millennia of separation until—a homecoming.

“It wasn't an adoption,” I murmured. “It was a reunion.”

“At any moment”—Jean nodded, uncapping her flask—“we may see a unicorn.”

*   *   *

We were back in the great room saying our good-byes before heading out when Jessie led me toward the kitchen.

“Let's pay our respects to Begay's grandmother. She's old as they come, and all this”—her hand circled in the air—“all this is hers.”

I knew the old Navajo tradition was matrilineal, and it was
daughters who inherited livestock and land. But I didn't know it was a custom still followed.

The kitchen was crowded with women talking animatedly in English and Navajo. Seated in a chair against the far wall was a petite, wizened woman, her white wisps of hair twisted into a traditional bun. She wore a red velvet blouse cinched at the waist with a sash, a black skirt to her ankles and soft deerskin boots. Slung over her shoulders was a simple gray blanket with stripes of white and black. The lines of her face were so deep-set, they didn't seem so much the wrinkles of age as the fissures of natural erosion.