Water Rites (7 page)

THE BEE MAN

N
ita Montoya’s brother sold her when she was fifteen — to the Bee Man who came around sometimes to sell honey to the field hands. At least, that’s what her other brother, Ignacio, called it.
Selling.
Alberto had slapped him and they almost started fighting, even though Ignacio was only two years older than Nita and a lot smaller than Alberto. Mama screamed at them both, and they stopped, but their bitterness scorched Nita, made her want to hide. There was no place to hide in the camp unit they lived in.

“She’s a good girl,” Alberto told the Bee Man. “She works as hard as any boy and she minds real good, even if she can’t talk.”

The Bee Man was old. His curly hair had gray in it, and his long face was lined and folded, brown as old leather. Alberto turned to look at her, and Nita flinched. He was mad. His anger hurt her, like the ache in his back hurt her when he came in from working the bushes, like Ignacio’s hating hurt her. Like Mama hurt her. Nita drew a line in the dust with her toe, wishing that she didn’t have to feel their anger and their aches. Alberto was mad because the foreman had tried to put his hands under Nita’s shirt, back behind the machine shed. Nita rubbed out the line, remembering the time she’d gone to the outhouse late and the foreman had been back there with one of the women. When he’d trapped her behind the machine shed, put his hands on her, his hot sticky excitement had been scary, but it had made Nita’s skin prickle with strange feelings.

She had run away when the foreman touched her, but Alberto had seen them. Now he was mad.

“You go with the man, Nita,” Alberto said to her, too loud and too slow, the way he always talked to her, as if she couldn’t hear. “You’re going to live with him now. You mind him.” He wasn’t looking at her any more. He was looking at the jug of honey in his hands. The honey looked yellow as pee.

“Come on.” The Bee Man smiled at Nita. “You carry these, all right?”

Nita took the pole he handed her, balanced it across one shoulder. It was a hollow piece of plastic pipe. More jugs — mostly empty — hung from each end, bowing the pole in front and behind, making it bounce as Nita walked. She followed the Bee Man down the dusty lane that led from long rows of units to the main road that led through the ag camp. Dust whirled away from their feet, and Nita’s shift stuck to her sweaty back.

The Bee Man felt . . . quiet. She studied the curve of his shoulders and back, bent beneath a heavy pack. His hair straggled down his neck in loose curls. He felt like the fields, dry and dusty, like the wind that never stopped blowing.

It wasn’t a happy feeling and it wasn’t a sad feeling. It was just . . . quiet. Nita relaxed a little as they walked across the sunbaked valley floor, toward the brown humps of the mountains. The bushes crowded the road on either side of them, their scratchy, upright branches holding in the heat. The valley was flat as a plate, and the salt crept up out of the ground, making white crusts on the bush stems, coating everything with gray powdery dust.

“They used to grow grass here, in the old days,” the Bee Man said suddenly. “Not for hay. Just for seed. It was cooler then. It rained. People had so much water that they grew grass in their yards, just to walk on. This whole valley was green.”

He didn’t look at her, just talked. Nita walked a little closer behind him, so she could hear his words.

“This is all tamarisk. Used to be a weed.” He flicked the dusty branches of the bushes that reached out above the racked asphalt of the road. “They engineered it to tolerate salt. And it’s tough. So now we pipe seawater over from the coast and save what sweet water we have left for drinking. Never mind that the salt kills the land.”

He made it sound like the fields weren’t a good thing. Mama, Ignacio. And Alberto worked in the fields, weeding the little bushes, cleaning the soaker-hoses, and cutting branches for the grinder. Magic turned the ground up bushes into food. So Alberto said. What would you do without bushes? Nita wondered about that. Maybe this man remembered the old days. He didn’t look that old though.

Papa had told her about the old days, when the riverbeds had been full of water like a cooking pot, when the rains had come soft and gentle and all the time. Nita didn’t like to think about Papa. Preoccupied, she nearly poked the Bee Man in the back with her pole as he stopped.

“You stay here.” He shrugged out of his pack. “I’ll be right back.”

He said the words too loud, like Alberto did, be he smiled at her again. Nita nodded, watching him drape a flimsy white scarf over his head. They were at the edge of the fields now. The empty land rose up in front of them, folded and rocky, streaked brown and dirty gray, dotted with a few dusty trees that still wore green leaves. She had never been beyond the fields before, and the bare land looked gray and empty.

Clumps of spiny thistle, tufted with purple blossoms, clustered at the edge of the field. Nita watched the Bee Man bend over a piece of tree-trunk standing in the shade of a twisted oak. There weren’t any other trees around, and the heat beat at her. A water jug hung from the pack frame. Nita reached for the jug, sneaked a look at the Bee Man.

The air around him shimmered like heatwaves above asphalt, and Nita heard a low hum. It sang peace. It sang a song of fullness, of enough to eat, of comfort and no fear. She put the jug down, took a step closer, eyes on the humming shimmer.

It felt so peaceful. She hummed the sound in her throat. What would it be like to feel that way, always? She hummed louder, felt some of the song’s peace seep into her as she crept closer. The Bee Man’s head was wrapped in the scarf. It was so fine that Nita could see his face through the folds.

The air around him was full of . . . bees. They landed on his shoulders and on the flimsy cloth, patched his faded shirtsleeves like brown fur, filled the air with their soft comfort-song. Nita watched him reach into the hollow piece of treetrunk. It was full of bees. They crawled across the backs of his hands, flew up to land on his scarf and on his shirt. She’d never seen so many bees in her life — just one or two at a time, crawling around inside the yellow squash blossoms in the little garden they watered with part of their ration, or with water bought at the public meter.

“What are you doing here?” The Bee Man straightened with a jerk.

Nita flinched at the stab of his fright. The bees felt it, too. Their soft song turned harsh, and they swirled around his head like summer dust.

“Go back to the pack,” the Bee Man said sharply. “Right now! Run! Ow!”

He winced as a bee stung him. They were angry now. She hummed louder, trying to block out their shrill, painful note, groping for the tone of comfort. That was it! A hair lower, she found it, sang it to the bees, pitching it against their harsh sound. It spread slowly through the swirling cloud of bees, lowering their angry song, gentling it.

Humming, she watched bees land on her bare arms, crawl up the front of her shift. They tickled, but their bodies looked velvety soft.
Peace,
she hummed.
Comfort.
And she stroked one of the black-and-brown bodies delicately. A hand brushed the bees gently away, and Nita looked up with a start. She had forgotten about the Bee Man.

“Come away now.” He was frowning, but he wasn’t angry. “We’ll let them settle down.”

He was pleased with her. Pleased! Afraid to breathe, afraid she’d shatter this precious moment, Nita followed him back to the pack.

“I’m glad you like bees.” The Bee Man smiled at her. “The last kid I hired was scared to death of them.”

Nita looked down at the dust as he pulled off his scarf. She wanted to ask him about the bees and their song, but the words stuck in her throat like they always did.

“I’m going to lose this hive.” The Bee Man shouldered his pack, his pleased feeling fading. “The tamarisk doesn’t need my bees. They come from cell cultures, so they don’t have to bloom, and the salt’s killed off most of the native plants. I’d move the hive if I had a place for it, but the wildflower bloom in the hills is bad this year.”

The dusty wind blew through the Bee Man’s words. Nita let him walk ahead as they climbed into the hills, threading their way between straggling oaks with drooping dusty leaves and tall, tall firs. They walked for the rest of the afternoon. It was a long walk, up into the dry, folded hills of the hills. The dust didn’t burn up here. It was just dust, but you could still taste salt on your lips. They followed a cracked, curving road that led past a cluster of houses, a church, and a boarded-up store, sitting on the edge of a narrow creekbed. The street was empty and Nita didn’t feel any people.

“You can still pump water from some of the deep wells up here in the coast range,” the Bee Man said. “So a few people still farm up here —vegetables mostly. This is Falls City, where they hold the market on Sundays.

Alberto and Ignacio went to the market in the valley occasionally, and sometimes Mama went too, but Nita had never gone. She followed the Bee Man up the dry riverbed; it was hard going now, and she was tired. She couldn’t remember walking this far in her whole life. You only went as far as the fields, and then you came home. The riverbed was full of rocks and evening shadows, and they had to climb around an old waterfall. The honey jugs bumped and banged, and the pole snagged on the rocks. The Bee Man held out a hand to her, offering help, but she pretended she didn’t see it. If she worked it right, people would forget she was there, and then their feelings didn’t bother her so much.

“Almost home,” the Bee Man said at last. He turned down a narrow streambed that led up into the slope above the larger creekbed they’d been following.

Small green plants with waxy leaves grew between the rocks under their feet, and a few firs spread shadowy branches above their heads, turning the bed into a tunnel of twilight. Nita paused. Bees? She heard them, saw them streaking down into a narrow crack in the rocky fence of the bank. They sang a different song, this time. Louder. Harsher. Curious, Nita went closer, trying to catch the new note.

“Nita, don’t!” the Bee Man yelled.

Bees erupted from the crack, whirling toward her like a gust of dark wind. Nita cried out at the first stings. She dropped the jugs and tried to run, but the pole tripped her. Bees swarmed over her, burning like fire as she clawed at them.

Then the Bee Man was slapping at them, hissing through his teeth as the bees stung him, too. He wrapped his scarf around her head, yanked her to her feet. Sobbing, Nita stumbled blindly along in his grip as he pulled her into a run. Hot pain spread across her skin as the Bee Man dragged her up the stream bed.

“Keep running!” he panted in her ear. “Just a little more and it’ll be all right . . .”

They were running uphill now. Rocks stubbed her toes and Nita fell again. This time the Bee Man didn’t make her get up. She curled herself into a ball, face pressed against her knees, afraid that she would hear the bees following her, humming loud, humming angry as Mama.

“Here, now. Here, this’ll help.” The Bee Man was back, unwinding the scarf from her face, coaxing her to sit up.

Nita sucked in her breath as cool wetness soothed the hot burning. Mud? She touched the tawny smears he was dabbing onto her dark skin. It was mud, and it helped.

“I’m sorry. I should have warned you about that damn nest, but I didn’t think.” The Bee Man dipped more mud from the plastic bowl in his hand. “They call them killers for good reason. The whole nest’ll come after you, and, if it happens, you run. That’s all you can do. If you don’t, you can get enough stings to kill you.” He grunted. “They came up from South America, a long time ago. From Africa, before that. They do real good in the Dry, but you can’t work with ’em and they don’t give much honey, anyway. I would have taken out that nest a long time ago, but it’s way back in the rock.” He combed a dead bee out of Nita’s tangled hair. “You’re not swelling anyway, so you’ll be alla right, I guess.”

Nita looked down at the bee, too full of pain to even nod. It didn’t look any different than the honey bees. Killers. That felt right. It matched their ugly, violent song. Nita shivered, fear crawling up her spine. She knew the killers’ song now.

The Bee Man set down the bowl and stood up. Nita watched him disappear into a tent made out of faded green plastic. Rock shelved out above her head to make a shallow cave that breathed cool, damp air on her burning skin. They were on a flat space, like a rocky shelf above the streambed. In the thickening darkness, Nita could barely make out a big, blackened cook pot on a ring of stones, and a stack of chopped branches. A light went on inside the tent, making the green walls glow.

“Those killer stings hurt. I still jump and I hardly even notice the honey bee stings any more.” The Bee Man ducked out of the tent, a jug in one hand and a small solar lantern in the other. “This will make you feel a little better, anyway.” He poured pale, golden liquid into a plastic cup.

Dry with thirst, Nita gulped at the liquid. It wasn’t water. It tasted sweet, with a faint honey smell, and it felt bubbly on her tongue. She held out her empty cup hopefully.

“Not too much, or you’ll have a headache in the morning. This stuff has some kick to it.” He filled her cup half full of the bubbly honey-water. “There’s plenty of water. Bees showed me a little seep-spring back in the rock. It hasn’t dried up yet.” He nodded at the cool darkness under the overhang. “If you’re hungry, there’s bread and some dried fruit in that basket. Not fancy, but edible. I was going to hire another boy at the market,” the Bee Man said slowly. “Alberto asked me to take you, instead.”

He was afraid, she realized suddenly. Of her? Nita swirled the last of the honey-water in her cup, frowning a little. Why should this man, taller than Alberto, be afraid of her?

“Water’s in that jug there, drink all you want. You can use this sleeping bag.” The Bee Man stood suddenly and picked up the honey-water jug. “Don’t wander off, okay? You could get lost, and you can die of thirst, even this early in the year.” He paused in the doorway of the tent. “Damn it, Alberto,” he muttered. “We’re even. I’m never going to live this down.”