Forests of the Heart (70 page)

She stirred and the closest
cadejos
moved their heads from her knees. Standing up, she spread her arms wide and let her
brujería
fill her, twinning the involuntary shifting of her shape that had occurred in the struggle with the Glasduine, but this time she reached for the hawk spirit, greeted it, accepted its dominance. She gasped as the change came over her. She had time to wonder, where does the excess flesh go when woman becomes bird? Where does it come from when the bird shifts back once more? Then she was a red-tailed hawk standing in the dirt among a crowd of
cadejos,
wings outspread.

She flapped them, trying to take flight, but all it did was unbalance her.

“No, no,”;
los cadejos
told her.

“Don’t fight the hawk.”;

“She knows how to fly.”;

“You don’t.”;

No, she didn’t. But she was afraid to let go too much. Afraid of forgetting herself in the shape of a hawk and becoming as lost to those she loved as had her
papa.

She tried to convey her fears to
los cadejos,
but all that came from her beak was a loud, wheezing
kree-e-e.

“Don’t be afraid,”;
los cadejos
told her.

“We are always near.”;

So she let herself go, retreated in her mind until the hawk spirit was dominant. Under its guidance, she stepped forward to where the land dropped away into the arroyo and launched herself forward, into the air. Powerful wings beat at the air, lifting her up, up.

She cried out again, a joyful sound this time. Far below, her
cadejos
bounded in and out of the cacti, yipping and laughing as they chased the shadow of the hawk that raced across the desert floor ahead of them.

M
ANIDÒ-AKÌ,
MID
-M
ARCH

El lobo
stood among the trees on a hill above the housing development that had proved too much to bear for the spirit whose body he now wore. On the edge of the development, the bulldozers were already at work, clearing trees and leveling the land for more houses. The roar of their engines was loud, even at this distance. The sky was gray overhead, loosing the odd flurry, the temperature hovering at the zero mark. The ground was frozen. But still they were out there.

Soon it would be all gone, all of Shishòdewe’s territory, now his, consumed by houses and roads, by power lines, sewer and water pipes. Already the forest where he now stood was the playground of children and teenagers from down below. Pop cans and beer bottles lay under the snow, balled-up potato chip bags and candy wrappers, a thoughtless litter.

Sighing, he faded back into the trees and stepped across into
manidò
ak
í
the spiritworld. Here it was late summer and quiet, the loudest sound the cluttering of a pair of squirrels, high in the pines above him, the raucous caw of a crow, close, but out of sight. He rolled a cigarette and lit it, then walked deeper into the forest until he came to a clearing. The ground dropped at the far end, fifty feet down in a jumble of granite and limestone, dotted with stunted cedars.

When he was finished his cigarette, he put it out under the heel of his boot and pocketed the butt. From overhead he heard the sharp
kree-e-e
of a hawk and looked up to see a russet shape circling high above him. The sight of it depressed him, reminding him of Bettina. But then everything did.

A hundred times a day he thought of her, his fingers straying to the
milagro
she had given him, the tiny silver heart that symbolized the promise she had made. He would want to leave right then to be with her, go to her if she would not come to him, but he knew he couldn’t. Shouldn’t. He could leave his responsibility to Shishòdewe’s territory for a few days. That wasn’t the problem. It was that what Bettina needed to do, she needed to do on her own.

Still, it was hard, this waiting.

The hawk cried again, closer.

Looking up once more, he saw it dropping towards him. A spirit bird, then. Well, he could use some company.

But the relief of some diversion quickly gave way to astonishment as the hawk came in close to the ground. Just before it landed, it transformed into human form. A woman. But that it could shapeshift was not the surprise.

“Bettina,’’ he said.

She gave him a grin.
“Está bueno
—
?Sí?
I’ve been practicing.”;

“I’ve missed you,”; he told her.

“Oh,
mi lobo,
I’ve missed you, too.”;

When they embraced, he could feel a difference in her, as though the hawk’s powerful muscles were still present, under the softness of her skin.

“You feel so strong,”; he said.

“But this is a good thing.”;

“Anything you do is a good thing.”;

She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Flatterer.”; But he could see she was pleased.

They walked then, hand in hand, while she told him of all she had managed to accomplish since they’d parted, of what still remained undone.

“I didn’t know what to think anymore after meeting Chuhwi,”; she said when she came to the end of her story. “Embracing my hawk only made me miss Papa more. So I went to see my family. I met Mama at mass, but—”; She shrugged. “This is still something I can’t share with her. Later, we ate at Adelita’s house. She, at least, I can speak to now, but when I told her what Chuhwi told me, she could see no more of a solution to it than I can.”;

She paused and looked at him.

“So I’ve come to you,”; she said.

El lobo
shook his head. “I only know of your father. We’ve never met.”;

“Sí. But you are a spirit, like him.”;

“Hardly. He is ancient and I—I don’t know what I am.”;

“But you would know. Is this the way of it? Will it cause less heartbreak if I give up my search?”;

“I can’t answer that,”; he told her. “I have no answer.”;

She hesitated, then asked the question he realized was the true reason for her coming here to him today.

“And what of you?”; she asked. “Will you vanish from my life when I grow old and you remained unchanged?”;

He shook his head.

“But I’ll be all wrinkled and feeble.”;

“Bettina,”; he said. “You are more like your father than I am. I should be asking you this question.”;

“Don’t joke …”;

“I’m not joking,”; he told her. “Many people carry the blood of the old spirits in them, but how many do you think can shift their shape as you can? Your father is one of the First People. His blood will run very pure in his children.”;

“In … in both of us? In Adelita as well?”;

He nodded.

“But then why would he leave us? Wouldn’t he have known that?”;

“I can’t speak for him,”;
el lobo
said. “But he is an old spirit, not necessarily a perfect one. I know of these things because I have reflected on them while trying to decipher the riddles of my own existence. He might never have had occasion to think of it himself. He might never have sired other children. Or they might have died by accident or hurt before he could learn of their potential. Or perhaps that heritage of the old blood doesn’t manifest the same in every child. Perhaps it has woken so strongly in you because of the
geasan
passed down to you from your grandmother.”;

“So he might not even know?”;

“If he loved you as much as you’ve told me he did, why would he leave you if he
did
know?”;

The happiness in her eyes made him leery of raising her hopes too high.

“But I can’t be certain of this,”; he said.

“No. Of course not.”;

“So what will you do?”;

“Continue to look for him,”; she said.

El lobo
nodded and looked away. The world was large, the spiritworld, larger still. Her search could take many lifetimes of an ordinary man. He could wait. He would wait, but as he already knew, the waiting would be hard.

When he turned his gaze to her, he found her smiling at him.

“But not now,”; she said. “Not this moment.”;

“I’m glad.”;

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his mouth.

“And I would rather do it with you,”; she said. “In the company of
mi lobo.”;

“But—”;

She put a finger against his lips.

“There will be times when you can get away,”; she said. “We can search for him then. Besides, I want you to meet the rest of my family and get to know them better. And then there is the desert…”;

El lobo
nodded. Year by year the territory under his guardianship was shrinking. If the spread of housing developments continued at the pace it did, one day there would be nothing left of his responsibility. Shishddewe had said as much when he lay dying. The
manitou
were bound to the wild places. When those-who-came tamed the last of them, spirits such as he could only move on or die. And
el lobo
was not ready to die. He was willing to become a wandering spirit, if Bettina was to be his company on the unending journey.

“But now I’m wondering,”; she said. “Where do you sleep?”;

“You’re tired?”;

She gave him a mischievous smile. “No. Are you?”;

“Let me show you,”; he said and led her back to his camp, deep in
manidò-aki,
under the boughs of the whispering pines.

Colorín Colorado, este cuento se ha acabado.

The story has ended.