Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series) (17 page)

"Where is he getting that from?" she asked.  "We never curse in front of him.  No, it must be Zeke's fault--"

"It's probably Mickey's," I said.  "I'm really sorry."

"Oh, well, that's fine...  I'll just have a talk with him later, I suppose..."

We rolled the dough into dumplings and dropped them into the pot on the stove.  I watched little Leon through the window as he quacked at the ducks resting on the pond's warm waters.

"You know what?" Annie said.  "We haven't been to the grotto in ages."

There's a rock cave out in the woods--southeast from the main path, not terribly easy to uncover unless you're purposely looking for it.  Annie had discovered that grotto when she was about six or seven years old.  In our teens, we'd made it into a kind of secret hideout.  Annie and I used to spend hours out there with Aubrey, Zeke, and Rafael.  I don't think our parents ever figured out what we were up to.  And for the longest time, I'd assumed no one else on the reservation even knew about the place.

I thought about Uncle Julius falling from the willow tree.

I smiled quickly and slid the lid over the pot.  "We should take the kids sometime," I said.  "Before school starts up.  I'm sure they'd like it."

"I can't believe it's almost time for school already," Annie remarked.  "Never mind that; I can't believe Leon's starting first grade."

"Poor, poor Mr. Red Clay," I lamented, shaking my head.

"Skylar!"

"You were thinking it."

"That's completely beside the point!"

We sat together at the picnic table that night.  Jessica joined us eventually with Stuart Stout, a member of the tribal council.  Good luck ever cracking a smile out of Stuart's face.  He always looks tired--and irritated.

"Hello, Stuart," I said.  I felt like he had broken some kind of unspoken pact--a pact between ex-classmates:  Never date your classmate's little sister.  Especially if she's a decade younger than you, for crying out loud.  Still, I felt the need to retain at least some modicum of civility.  "How's everything going with Bear River?"

"More or less the same," Stuart said.  His voice was hoarse; his hair was auburn, his eyes pale.  "We're exporting water, that's the main thing.  The Burnt Hope Reservation's natural reservoirs are completely contaminated; I suppose that's what happens when a uranium factory sets up shop next door.  We've set up fifty acres in trust with the Lemhi--"

"Never mind," I said, and I walked off in search of DeShawn and Autumn Rose.  "Sister stealer."

DeShawn and Dad were sitting beneath a pinyon pine with Autumn Rose In Winter, a very excitable young woman who squeaked and waved when she saw me approaching.  Dad nodded almost imperceptibly, his back against the tree trunk.

"Skylar, we were just talking about the upcoming ghost dance," DeShawn said, adjusting his eyeglasses.  "What do you think about using the tribal fund to bring some of the Paiute down here?  After all, they're the ones who started the dance."

"I think that's a great idea," I said.  I thought about our cousin Marilu, a Paiute woman.  I hadn't seen her since winter.  "What do you think, Dad?"

He didn't hear me.  His eyes were fixed on the firepit, flames climbing and tumbling atop the piles of stone.

Shoshone used to practice self-immolation.  Usually it was a scare tactic the warriors used when the Europeans started terrorizing Native families.  The Shoshone were always a peace-loving, noncombatant tribe; that we came up with counting coup pretty much proves my point.  So maybe you can see why we preferred killing ourselves to killing our enemies.

I can't tell you what was going through my mind when I looked between Dad and the burning firepit.  I can't tell you how I made the connection.  All I know is that my heart suddenly seized, and my blood froze over in my veins; and I excused myself politely while I went looking for Racine.

I found her sitting with Rosa on a couple of folding chairs while they listened to baseball scores on a portable radio.

"You need to keep an eye on Dad," I said, before I could stop myself; before I could apologize.

Racine looked up at me, her empathetic brown eyes unusually guarded.  I knew, suddenly, that she was already aware of the problem.

I was in a bad way after dinner, and I think Rafael noticed.  I was quiet on the walk home--although really, quiet was familiar; quiet was comforting--and when Mickey went upstairs to bed, I almost forgot to say good night.

I sat on the sofa in the sitting room.  Rafael lit the hearth and sat next to me.

He put his arm around me.  He drew me close to him, his hand stroking idle patterns against my hip.  I love that about him.  I love everything about him--but I love that we don't need to talk to know what the other is thinking.

I laughed, mentally exhausted.  I remembered a time when my laughs were soundless.  "When did we grow up, Rafael?"

"We grew up?" Rafael murmured.

"Apparently."

"I don't remember that."

"I know.  It's bizarre."

I rested my head on his shoulder and he carded his fingers through my hair.  I wish I could put into words how good that felt.  Sometimes I just wanted to meld into him and forget about the part of me that wasn't a part of him.  God, it felt good to be a part of him.  It felt like everything made sense for a moment, even the harshness of life, even the insanity.  It felt like my heart had found its second heartbeat.  Everyone has a second heartbeat, you know.  Ask any Shoshone.  They say that the living earth has a pulse of its own, and if you listen very closely, you can hear it echoing in your heart.  But I say:  Well, I have no room for the earth's pulse.  I'd rather have Rafael's.

I pulled back.  I tugged on one of Rafael's braids.

"What?" he asked.

"When's the last time I thanked you?"

His eyebrows furrowed.  "You don't have to thank me for anything."

"No, I mean...when's the last time I
thanked
you?"

"Oh," he said.  I saw the dawning in his eyes.  "Oh," he said again.  He looked over his shoulder toward the staircase.  Was Mickey asleep yet?  Was it likely she was going to need us in the middle of the night?  I knew exactly what was going through his head.  I'd had a great many years to acquaint myself with that beautiful repository of nonsense.  He looked at me once more--but his mind was already made up for him.  He's long since accepted that I do the thinking for the both of us.  "I don't remember," he said.  "You should thank me now."

"Upstairs," I said.  "I'll thank you upstairs."

"Yeah.  Bad etiquette to go around thanking people in the living room..."

"You ought to know.  Do you remember that time Racine was staying over, and she walked in on you thanking me in the kitchen?"

"Remember it?  You're kidding, right?  I still can't look her in the eye..."

9

Ten Minutes

August in Nettlebush is a month of remembrance.  August is when we celebrate the ghost dance.

If you've never heard of the ghost dance, it's a ritual that started with the Paiute tribe, but spread all throughout the Plains in the 1800s.  A lot of different intentions went into the creation of the ghost dance.  To begin with, the Paiute still believe that Jesus is going to be reincarnated as a Native American.  Ghost dancing is their way of saying:  "We're waiting, pal."  But for the rest of us, the ghost dance is how the souls of the living reconnect with the souls of the dead.

I headed out to the radio station early Monday morning.  And I thought about my mother.

Sometimes she creeps up on me when I least expect it, and then I have to stop whatever I'm doing, paralyzed with loss, with disbelief, and take in the fact that she's been dead for twenty-eight years.  It still feels like it was only yesterday when I walked into her room, lured by muffled cries, and found her lying still on her bed, her throat torn open.  And the hulking shadow next to her bed...  The shadow that rushed at me, knife glinting in its hand...

I was halfway around the lake when I came to a sudden stop.  I'd grown skilled over the years at removing my mother from my memory.  I'd also grown skilled at removing her killer.  But I could see him now, clear as day, as though he were standing right in front of me.  I could see his long black hair and his acrid black eyes.  I could see the square shape of his jaw, the short bridge of his nose.  His face was burned into the backs of my eyes.  His face was Rafael's face.

Just like that, I couldn't breathe.  I hate that about memories.  You can work your hardest to cull them and toss them away, but they'll always come back.  One day you're doing something as simple as taking a walk around the lake and the past grips your shoulders in cold, clammy hands.  And it doesn't let go.

Rafael is not his father, I thought.  I hated that I still needed to remind myself.  Rafael is not his father, and you are not your mother, and nobody is going to cut your throat again.

I thought about Rafael's eyes, deep blue, expressive.  I thought about how much kindness I'd seen in those eyes over the years.  I thought about his father's eyes like infected blood, like gaping, infected wounds.  Different eyes.  Different men.  I started to relax.

"Hello, Skylar."

Morgan Stout came shuffling over to my side.  He was Stuart's younger brother--meaning I was morally obligated to hate him--but I couldn't find it in my heart to give him the cold shoulder.  Really, with his soft demeanor and his soulful, solemn eyes, the guy's like an overgrown kid.  I wish Jessica were dating him instead.

We walked together into the little studio beneath the latticed iron tower.  Musicians in Nettlebush always contribute to the airwaves.  More music means more revenue.  Sarah Two Eagles waved distractedly at us, then pointed at the soundproof glass.  I looked grimly through the window.  Mary and a few of her weird hard rock stoner friends were already using the recording room. 

"Oh," Morgan said glumly.  "They'll be there for hours."

"Are you going to play for the ghost dance, Morgan?" I asked.

I thought about my mother again, her freckled arms and her rabbit-like underbite.

"I think so," he said.  "We could both play.  Siobhan's coming home, that should be nice..."

"You must miss her."

"Yeah.  It's lonely."

We sat on the grass together and waved at DeShawn and Joseph, their fishing boat out on the lake.  Fortunately we didn't have long to wait.  Mary and her odd friends tromped out of the recording studio.  The air suddenly smelled like pot.

"Oh..." Morgan said.

We hurried into the sound studio, the air thick and unpleasant.  Morgan kept coughing--not a good sign for a flautist--and we hastened through our repertoire of Plains music.  I cheated and played a few Arapaho songs.  It's not like non-Natives know the difference, anyway.  We shook hands a few hours later and Morgan headed out to the badlands to meet up with Lila on the hunt.

I was still thinking about Mom on my walk home.  What would it have been like if she were still alive?  I'm sure she and Dad still would have divorced--but would she live on the reservation with us?  What would she think of Rafael?  Of Mickey?

The truth is that I don't know my mother.  I was five when she died.  I don't know whether she would have liked Rafael, or even whether she would have liked me.  Shoshone don't even bat an eye at same-sex couples; they see it as nature, as harmless.  It's been a recognized part of their culture for thousands of years.  Mom wasn't Shoshone.  She was Finnish.  I don't know what her beliefs looked like.  I don't even know what her favorite color was.

I stepped inside the house.  The first thing I noticed was the scent of burnt popcorn.  I followed it into the kitchen where my fears were confirmed.

"It didn't come out right," Mickey said, and held up a messy bowl of scorched blue kernels.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rafael said.  "It tastes fine to me."

I made them hotbread and wojapi for lunch, wondering, as I'd always wondered, about the garbage disposal Rafael called a stomach.  Mickey sat scribbling on a sheet of paper at the pine table, a crayon clutched in her hand.  She showed me her work when I handed her a plate.

"Rafael's teaching me how to draw," she said.

It was a face.  Or I thought it was a face.  The features were kind of squashed and disproportionate, but for a kid's first chickenscratch, it looked pretty good.

"You recognize that face?" Rafael asked boorishly.

I took a second look at the drawing.  A long brown ponytail and dark green eyes.  A strong chin.  I'd seen a face like that before.  I just didn't know where.

"It's nobody!" Mickey insisted, balling up the paper with agitated haste.

I locked eyes with Rafael.  I raised my eyebrows.  A nobody who looked an awful lot like Henry Siomme.

After lunch I composed a quick e-mail to Carole Svensen; and then I headed east to the lake again.  With Mom so fresh on my mind lately, the last thing I wanted was to lose contact with the parent I still had left.

I found Dad sitting on the lakeshore, unkempt grass rising to his knees.  His fishing rod was cast into the shallow water--but whether or not he'd had any bites, I don't think he noticed.  His eyes looked like frozen winter water.  I thought of Bear River in winter with a shudder.