Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series) (9 page)

"You could have been killed," Rafael went on.  "Sky could have been killed.  Did you even think about that?"

Reluctantly, Michaela shook her head.

"Are you going to do this again?"

Again, she shook her head.

"I don't believe you," he said.  "I don't want you playing outside anymore."

Michaela lifted her head.  "But--!"

"Rafael..." I said.

"Don't give me that crap," he said to me.  "I don't trust her.  Do you?"

I hesitated.

"Do you?"

"Not at the moment, no," I said.

"But you came for me," Michaela said.

"Yes," I said.  "We're always going to come for you."

"Then why can't I play with Charity anymore?"

"You can," Rafael said.  "Inside the house.  Get me to trust you again and you can go outside."

Her lips pinched, her brows furrowing in ten-year-old righteous rage.  She spun around--her hair tossing around her like a cape--and ran up the staircase to her room.  I decided I'd better go fit the new window in its frame lest she jump to freedom.

"She hates us," Rafael said miserably.

I looked at him with some level of surprise.  "No, she doesn't," I said.  "If she hated us, she wouldn't have run."

I don't think he followed.  His expression was nothing short of puzzled.

"You'll see," I promised.  "Give it time.  I guarantee she's going to calm down once she knows she's safe."

"You should've been a psychiatrist," Rafael mumbled.  "Not a lawyer."

I paused.  "That's okay," I said.  "I don't like psychiatrists."

By sunset, all of Nettlebush gathered around the communal firepit for dinner.  The sky was soaked in red and gray, the sun copper and spent.  The At Dawn twins sat playing Sai Paa Hupia on the double-skin drum.  And Michaela sat at the picnic table, glowering at me.

"I see which one of you she takes after," Caias Siomme said to me, the reservation school's sole teacher.

I've known this guy since I was his student.  Back then he was just Mr. Red Clay, the tough-as-nails human encyclopedia.  He married and had children some time after I graduated from his class, and that's why he's Mr. Siomme now.  But I can't quite wrap my head around that, so I'm just going to call him Mr. Red Clay.

Mr. Red Clay is Dad's age--hitting his sixties--but he's still ridiculously handsome.  I'm sure a sizable fraction of the female population would agree with me on that.

"I'm hoping we still have her in September," I said.

"Then I can look forward to having her in my class.  Why do you say 'hope'?"

I quirked a smile.  "She's kind of a problem child."

Mr. Red Clay raised an eyebrow.  "And Rafael wasn't?"

I thought:  He's right.  Growing up, Rafael was one of the most problematic kids on the reservation.  I can't count the number of classmates he decked across the face.  His worst fight landed his brawling partner in the hospital--and got the both of them a year-long suspension from school.

"I'm of the opinion," Mr. Red Clay said, "that love can fix anything.  You'll notice Rafael calmed down considerably when he met you."

"Well," I said, "don't embarrass me."  But really, isn't that true, in a way?  I'm pretty sure all anyone wants in this world is to know they're loved.  Once you've got love under your belt, it's a whole lot easier to deal with the smaller stuff.

I watched Jessica as she tried to coax a stern and taciturn Stuart Stout into dancing by the fire.  I watched Rafael sketching in a bound notebook by the firelight.  I watched DeShawn handing out baked acorn squash to the children sitting on the smooth soil.  Yes, I thought.  A whole lot easier.

When the sky was darker than it was light, when the moon was as bright as a beacon at sea, it was time, at last, to head home.  William Has Two Enemies picked up a barrel full of water and dumped it over the stone firepit; the embers hissed and smoldered wetly, rising smoke occluding the stars.

Michaela walked between Rafael and me, her head down, her eyes on the moonlit path.  The forest path forked and we followed it north, the house at the end of the dirt road.

I lit the oil lamp in the front room.  Michaela stood staring at me.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"Okay," I said, and wiggled my eyebrows.

Michaela went up to bed very shortly after that.  I lit the hearth for the night, owls calling noisily outside the windows, coywolves yipping back as they settled down to sleep.

"I guess I thought it was gonna be happy all the time," Rafael grumbled, when he and I went up to bed.

"Why?" I asked, smothering a laugh.  "Was your household always pleasant when you were a kid?"

He paused.  "No," he confessed, and grinned at some obscure memory.  "I was a pain in the ass.  But Mary was the bigger pain."

"I'm sure she was," I remarked.  I knew better.

I didn't have a chance to turn off the lamp.  The door burst open, and Michaela ran in in plain white pajamas.

"What is it?" I asked.

"What's this?" Michaela asked.  She invited herself up onto the bed and waved a sheet of paper at us.

I couldn't actually figure out what it was, because she wouldn't hold it still.  Rafael intervened.  He took the paper from her little hands and smoothed it out.  Now I saw it for what it really was; a drawing in colored pencil.

"That's Nai Nukkwi," Rafael said.

Michaela wrinkled her face.  "Who?"

"Nai Nukkwi," he said.  "She was Shoshone, like us.  She lived a long, long time ago.  When she was nine or ten, an enemy tribe captured her.  They were going to sell her to white fur trappers as a slave.  But Nai Nukkwi escaped.  She ran a thousand miles home, all by herself."

"Why's there a bear in the picture?" Michaela asked.

"Okay," said Rafael, "when she was on the run, she came across an angry sleuth of bears.  There were dozens of them, and they were standing between her and the Lemhi Valley.  But she wasn't afraid.  She knew that if she wanted to survive, she had to stand up straight, and look the leader in the eye."

I took a closer look at little Nai Nukkwi in her colored elkskin dress.  A hungry black bear towered over her on hind legs, jaws wide open.

"But she looks like
me
," Michaela said.

And that was true.  I saw freckles on Nai Nukkwi's face, her nose small and snubbed, her hair straight and brown.

"How do you draw like that?" Michaela said.  "Can I draw like that?"

"I could teach you," Rafael said.

My heart tightened in my chest.  Rafael's father had taught him how to draw.

"Okay," Michaela said.  "You do that."

"But if you act like a brat again," Rafael said brashly, "then I'm gonna stop teaching you.  So you've gotta behave from now on."

Michaela let out a great big sigh.  "Fine."

She padded out of our bedroom, the drawing clutched possessively in her hands.  I heard her trundle down the hall; I heard her door click shut.

"Softy," I accused.

"Shut up," Rafael said, and turned his head away so I wouldn't see his smile.

5

Mickey

The date of the annual raft race was mid-June.  Probably a good thing, because the heat climbs steeply just around the monsoon.  In June, it's still--arguably--tolerable.

Children and their families all gathered by the lakeshore with their handmade rafts.  I saw Aubrey with his sons, and Isaac and Daisy with theirs, and Serafine and Charity checking the lashing on their beechwood one last time.

"Go, Charity!" I heard Gabriel shout.  "Go, Serafine!"

"You sure you don't want to join them?" I asked Michaela.

"No," she said adamantly.  "It looks stupid."

"Why are you still wearing that turtleneck?" Rafael asked me.

"It's a different turtleneck," I said.

"But why are you wearing it?"

Mr. At Dawn blew his whistle.  The kids pushed their rafts onto the water and jumped on.

The morning sun shone coolly on the dry grass.  Michaela's chin drooped on her hand.  I noticed.  I nudged Rafael and nodded her way.

Rafael coughed.  "Hey," Rafael said.  "You wanna do something else?"

Michaela looked at him suspiciously.  "Like what?"

"You haven't seen the rest of the reservation yet," I said.

Her suspicious gaze redirected at me.  "There's more?"

We slipped away while Gabriel shouted his lungs out.  Not bad for a guy hitting fifty.  We followed the path through the woods and out to the firepit.  From there we headed west.

"Are we going to the farms?" Michaela asked.

"Nope," I said.

We went first to the windmill field.  The grass is always green there; I don't know why it doesn't go brown the way the rest of the reservation does.  Michaela stood in the middle of the open plain, her eyes on the whirring windmill blades.

"What do they do?" she asked.

"That's where our electricity comes from," I explained.

She snorted.  "You guys don't even use electricity."

"Yeah we do," Rafael said testily.  "How do you think the computer works?"

"Can I go on the computer later?" Michaela asked.

"Depends on my mood."

From there we followed the country lane to a grove of red pines, so named for the color of their bark.  I pointed at a colonial-looking building paved from red bricks.

"That's where we went to school," I said.

"Will I go to school there?" Michaela asked.

I couldn't help but smile.  "If you want."

We went around the back of the school to the playground, little more than a cluster of rope swings and an outhouse.  Michaela picked up a red pinecone and tucked it in her pocket for a keepsake.  She sat on one of the rope swings and Rafael pushed her while I sat on the ground at their side.

"You like school?" I asked.

"Hate it," Michaela said.

"Me, too," Rafael and I said at once.  I shot Rafael a mischievous grin.

"I like hockey," Michaela said.  "Sucks that none of my old schools had a team."

"What's hockey?" Rafael asked.

Michaela showed him a dark look.  Rafael returned it seamlessly.  "What?" he insisted.

"You know," I said.  "The Shoshone invented hockey."

Michaela's head whipped around in my direction.  I watched her with smiling eyes as she clung to the knotted rope, swinging safely back and forth.  "No you didn't," she accused.

"We did," I said.  "Only we called it shinny.  And back in the old days, only women were allowed to play it."

A catlike smile spread across Michaela's face.  "I like that..."

"Hey," said a surly Rafael.

"What's your favorite thing to eat?" I asked.

"Tamales," Michaela said.

"Really?" I mused.  "You might like hotbread."

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's a bread made with chili peppers.  It's spicy, but sweet.  I'll make you some later."

"Cool," Michaela said.

We were walking back from the playground when Michaela pointed at the little white church nearby, a graveyard out back.

"You wanna go in?" asked a dubious Rafael.

"No," said Michaela.  "I just remembered.  I slept in a graveyard the last time I ran away."

Rafael and I exchanged a look.

"Who were you running from, Michaela?" I asked.

"Mom.  She went after me with the hot iron again."

We milled through the creaking graveyard gates without my really thinking about it; I was too busy reflecting, in considerably discomfort, over Michaela's last words.  Michaela walked idly between the headstones.

"When's the last time you saw your mom?" I asked, as gently as I knew how.

Michaela shrugged.  I didn't want to press the subject so soon, so I let it go.

"Hey," Rafael murmured.  "That's my mom's grave."

Michaela stopped and stood back.

"Susan Gives Light," the epitaph read.  "1958 - 1991.  A life of love is not a short one."

"How did she die?" Michaela asked.

"Encephalitis," Rafael said.

"What does that mean?"

"Swelling in her brain."

Michaela sat cross-legged on the ground.  I watched her.  I didn't know what else to do.

"I don't know my dad," she said.  "I don't know if he's alive or dead."

"I'm sorry for that," I said softly.

"I'm not," Michaela said.  "He ran out on me.  Why should I care about him?"  She tilted her head back and looked up at Rafael.  "What kind of name is Gives Light?"

"A Plains name," he said dully.