Lifting the Sky (18 page)

“Yeah, she does keep busy,” I said. “She's okay, though. She likes being her own boss. And I do have a friend. Sometimes I meet him up there.” I pointed to the hill.

“Oh, you must mean Shawn Lightfoot. I think he's the only other kid livin' out this far. He's a good kid. Quiet, serious, slips about in the hills like he's on some kind of mission. His family, some of 'em are considered to be healers. One of his grandmas was pretty well known. I always figured that one day Shawn would follow along in her footsteps.”

“Yeah,” I said. To myself I said,
If only he doesn't get too discouraged
….

“Of course, he could follow after one of his aunts, who's a tribal attorney, or an uncle who's a doctor, or—”

I cut him short. “Rose? Was she a…?” I bit my tongue. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean…”

“No, that's okay,” he said. “So Shawn must've told you something about what happened. But no, Rose…” Mr. Mac cleared his throat. “She was the artist of the family. A grand one too, least I thought she was. Evidently others thought so too.”

“I can tell from the house, the way it's painted. The kitchen, the bedrooms…”

“Well, she didn't quite get it finished. Or
we
didn't … But you probably noticed the walls. They're pretty blank, except for that mural she'd started. When she left, she took all her paintings. They covered the walls. She did leave one painting behind. I have it at the ranch. It's hard for me to look at.”

I swallowed. “All my dad left behind was his guitar.”

Mr. Mac reached over and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Your mom never said anything, so I've never asked. But I kind of figured…”

I felt myself melting, as if his hand was a sponge sucking up sadness and hurts. We stood there watching my mom, not talking, listening to the sounds of crows and cows and the creek.

“Well, enough of this. Let's go eat,” Mr. Mac finally said in a really soft voice.

“I can't,” I said without thinking. “I mean, I've got something I've got to do.”

Suddenly all I wanted was to be by myself. There was no way I could face Slim John's questioning glances, or just sit there and eat without smothering him with questions. And Mam would be close by.

No. Better to leave things as they were. I'd have to trust that Slim John would keep his mouth shut about what he'd told me.

Mr. Mac climbed into his truck. “Don't know how we'd get along up here without your mom,” he said. As the motor revved up he tipped his hat and winked. “And without you, Miss Blue.”

Soon as Mr. Mac drove off I wished I'd gone with him. I stumbled into the house feeling all prickly and raw. If anyone had even
looked
at me funny I think I'd have bawled. I grabbed a few slices of bread, opened a jar of peanut butter, and then stood staring into the jar as if it would magically jump onto my knife. One thought alone filled my head.
My dad has been seen somewhere close by.

My hands shook as I fixed my sandwich and the next thought—the terrible one—washed through me.

And if he finds out we're here, will that ruin everything?

How could I even
think
those things? All I'd wanted for
years
was for my dad to come back. What on earth was the matter with me?

No way would my sandwich go down. I slipped it under the table for Stew Pot. He followed me up to my
attic, where the two of us curled up in his beanbag. I fell asleep with him licking my ears.

It was midafternoon when I woke. From the window I noticed that the horse trailer that'd been parked by the barn was no longer there. I groaned. I should've gone down to have lunch with them. I should've asked Slim John more questions. Now I'd lost my one chance….

Below me I could see the dark hole of the cabin doorway. I couldn't put it off any longer. It was time to let the fawn go.

As Stew Pot and I rounded the corner of the house Lone One came sprinting down from the hills. Without me saying a word, Stew Pot loped back and hunkered down beside the house. Lone One ignored him. He was something she'd gotten used to and wasn't the least bit afraid of. That was how she usually acted toward me.

But not this time. Her round eyes narrowed. Her neck ruff bristled. The white patch on her rump flared. She pawed the ground, lowered her head, and charged, slamming her head into my belly.

“Hey,” I yelled as I skidded backward. “We're in this together, remember?”

Lone One tossed her head and butted again. Thank goodness the little black knobby horns on her head weren't big enough to do any harm! I knew that she could rise up and stomp me with her sharp pointed hooves. I spread my legs, trying to hold my ground as I fended her off with my hands.

Behind me I heard a low, rumbling growl. “No,” I said loudly without taking my eyes off the antelope—the last thing I wanted was for Stew Pot to attack her!

Lone One took a step back.

“Stop!” I held my hands up in front of my chest. “Lone One, it's time. I'm letting your baby go.”

The antelope gave a snort. She ducked her head, but this time her long slender black nose slid down my leg. She sniffed at my boots and then, with her nose going a zillion miles a minute with speedy quick huffs like a train chugging up a steep hill, she smelled her way back up my legs. Then she took a step back and studied me. I wondered what she saw: the faded, torn jeans, scuffed boots, and old T-shirt with the logo “Go Blue Jays.” My sad greenish brown eyes and my tangled dark reddish brown hair. She stopped her high-speed sniffing and crinkled her nose. Her eyes changed, softening, it seemed, and she spun, grunted loudly, and sprang into the cabin.

My breath was coming in quick huffs too as I stepped to the doorway and watched the fawn nurse. I bit my lip. If only I'd had as much luck with the fawn's leg as I'd had with the calf's. Every day I'd stood by the window and imagined light healing her leg, but it hadn't seemed to do any good. Maybe some things just
were
, and no matter how hard you tried, no matter
what
you did, you couldn't change them.

Slowly I slid the old battered door away from the entry. Lone One's eyes hooked on to each movement.

“It's up to you to keep her safe now,” I said.

I slipped over to wait beside Stew Pot. “You think of the fawn as one of your charges, don't you?” I whispered. “Like with the calves, you're Light of the Dawn's protector, her guardian angel. And mine…” Pot stiffened, and I looked up.

Lone One stood frozen in the doorway as if puzzled by the strange new hole.

One thing I was learning about antelopes—they kept track. If one tiny thing was out of place, Lone One noticed it. If I added a fresh bunch of sagebrush to the fawn's sleeping place, or if I'd left my cap or my gloves on the dirt floor, Lone One would freeze when she saw the new object. She'd stare for five or ten minutes before deciding if it was harmless. Sometimes it seemed as if she had the whole landscape memorized and stored up in her head.

So it was a while before she took a hesitant step outside and then crooked her head up as a shadow swept over the ground. A hawk circled above us. She kept her eyes glued to it until finally the hawk flew out of sight. Only then did she honk for her fawn to follow her out of the cabin.

Light of the Dawn blinked in the bright sun. She sniffed the ground and looked up at her mother as if asking a question. Suddenly she gave a stiff-legged leap into the air, but when she came down her leg wobbled and she almost fell. Her mother grunted and nudged her, the same way she had when she pushed her out of her birthing nest. Then Lone One took a few steps toward the hill. Light of the Dawn's little white rump flared as she saw her mother
leaving. She looked at the cabin, then over at Stew Pot and me, and then hobbled off after her mother.

I watched the two antelopes walk slowly away. The fawn stuck close to her mother as they twisted their way through the sagebrush and up the hill toward the fence.

“Stay safe! Watch out for the wolves! Come back and visit! I looovvvve you!” I wailed as they slipped under the fence. Like two bronze statues, they stood looking back. Then slowly they drifted toward the ledge of the canyon where the fawn had been born. I watched till the big lonely spaces swallowed them up.

Stew Pot and I headed up to my hill. “You'll see them again—don't you
dare
cry,” I kept muttering to myself as I climbed. If I'd looked up instead of down at the ground I would've seen Shawn standing at the top waiting for me. At least this time he wasn't sneaking about or hiding in the shadows of my tree.

“See you branded today,” he said when I came up to him. He waved his hand toward the meadows. Even from up here you could tell, if you knew anything about cattle, that the calves weren't exactly frisking about through the fields.

“Yeah,” I said. “Mr. Mac came out with a crew.”

“I would've helped out if I'd known.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, meaning it. “But I didn't know 'bout it till this morning. I have this thing about brandings. The smell, the hurt-looking lights—” I broke off.

“Guess that might be kinda scary. Or sad. Seein' auras around calves at a branding.”

“
Uh-huh.
Sometimes I wish I didn't see so much….”

Shawn grinned. “Here I'm wishin' I saw more. Wanna trade?”

I laughed. “Why don't we share, half and half. Here,” I said. I held my hands out as if offering him an invisible platter.

Bursts of bright yellows flashed around Shawn's head while a burst of rosy pink showed up near his chest. But he didn't move, and after a few seconds I dropped my hands. I turned my head so he wouldn't see my eyes. The only sound was Stew Pot gnawing away at something that'd gotten stuck in his paw. I made a move toward Stew Pot, but Shawn beat me to it, kneeling and examining Pot's paw and then pulling out a prickly cactus spine. It wasn't till then that he spoke.

“I'd take it,” he said, “if I could. I'm about to give up. I've looked everywhere for that place my great-grandma told me about.” He gave me a crooked, sad smile. “It was just a story, anyway. When I was little, I thought all stories were true. This one, that whoever found the rainbow etched in the cliffs would be able to see rainbows, I believed. I still do, sort of. But maybe it's time I grew up and stopped believing that those stories were more than just something told to teach lessons.”

“If I could help …,” I said lamely. “I mean, not that I know anything about any Indian places, or even what a place of the spirit might be.”

I looked around at the huge space around us. I wouldn't have any idea where to start if it was my search. Maybe I'd just follow the strange lines of light, the ones that'd seemed to meet up in a star. The ley lines.

“Except,” I said, my mind racing now. “I did see some pretty weird lines…”

Shawn broke in. “It's my own thing, you know? I don't ask for help, not even from my family or my uncle who's a medicine man.”

“Then I'll just tell you what I saw. Take it or leave it. They were lines of light. They stretched from down there”—I pointed toward the badlands—“to up there, under that cliff, where they met in a big star.” I gestured toward the pink sandstone cliff in the mountains behind us. “And other lines went over the hills and it looked like all those met up in a valley because even though I couldn't see where they joined, that star was incredibly bright.”

Shawn sucked in his breath. “You're kiddin',” he said.

I shook my head.

“You're right on, then. Both those are places of power. The one over there”—he pointed to the cliff—“we'd usually stay away from—there's a big cave there. The other, I know what's there, but it's not a place you go unless you're asking for a vision or preparing for the Sun Dance. I've been there with my uncle. It's a place of very big medicine.”

“Yeah, I could tell it was something really special,” I said.

Shawn took a step back and looked at me. For some
reason I thought of Lone One, the way she'd sniffed me all up and down and then stepped back and studied me. Like with her, I didn't move.

“The petroglyph I'm looking for,” he finally said, his voice so low I had to bend forward to hear, “maybe it's so old it's crumbled. Or maybe the weather wiped the rainbow away. Maybe it got chipped off by some artifact thieves. Whatever, I haven't been able to find it.”

“Yet,” I said.

“Right. Yet. Though it seems as if I've been searching for it all my life. Like it's all I ever wanted…”

I just bobbed my head up and down. I mean, what could I say? I knew a little bit about searching and that feeling of wanting something you can't quite put your finger on. That feeling you get in the middle of the night almost like when you're really hungry, only a hundred times bigger than that, and there's nothing, not a peanut butter sandwich or a hot fudge sundae or the biggest chocolate bar in the world that'll fill up that big, empty feeling.

As we stood on the hill the clouds seemed to blow through and around us. I shaded my eyes with my hand. Shawn's eyes followed mine.

“Your friend?” he asked.

I nodded. “I just let her fawn go. It's still lame. I hope the wolves don't—” I couldn't finish. Hoping was about all I could do now. Sometimes it seemed as if my life was just one big crossing of fingers.

“Wolves haven't bothered my grandma's cows again. The fawn'll be okay.”

“Hope you're right.”

“Yeah,” Shawn said, “me too.” He bent down and scratched Stew Pot's ears. I knew he'd stand and nod goodbye to me, and he did. Sometimes it seemed like we didn't need words. When he got to the ledge he stopped and looked back.