St. Clair (Gives Light Series)

St. Clair

Rose Christo

"Hello. I'm Cem Adrian."

I stared at the world-renowned singer and thought:

I know who you are, you gorgeous bastard, you.

And really, if you ask me, you'd have to be deaf

not to know who Cem Adrian is. He's the only

man on the planet who can sing in any vocal range

from soprano to bass. The guy's amazing. And

gorgeous. Did I mention gorgeous?

"What are you doing on my reservation?" I asked.

"You're not Native American. You're Turkish."

"I am Native American now," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but that doesn't make much

sense."

"I know. You're dreaming."

So I woke up.

At first I was only aware of the schoolhouse, warm

and stuffy, windows sealed shut. Small wonder I

had fallen asleep. Who can stay awake in an

atmosphere like that? The table beneath my cheek

was wooden and uncomfortable; sorely, I sat up

straight. I took a bleary look around and realized

the teacher, Mr. Red Clay, was nowhere in sight.

Huh. Maybe I was still dreaming.

"Did you have a nice nap, sleepyhead?"

I turned to my left and grinned sheepishly at Annie

Little Hawk--probably my best friend on the entire

reservation. That Annie was a real cutie, small-

statured with delicate features, ash-brown skin and

burnished brown hair. Her hair fell just past her

shoulders. It used to be a lot longer, but she had

cut it when her mom died, about a year ago. Plains

People cut their hair when they're in mourning.

Where'd Mr. Red Clay go?
I signed.

I may not be deaf, but I'm mute. My throat was cut

twelve years ago--I'd rather not think about the

specifics--and my vocal folds just never healed.

The nice thing about Annie, though, was that she

knew sign language about as well as I did. Sign

language was the "lost Indian art," as Mr. Red

Clay always said: Plains People originally

invented it as a way to communicate with other

tribes when they didn't know each other's native

languages. That aside, Annie's little brother,

Joseph, had been born deaf. His whole family had

learned sign language just so they could talk with

him.

Annie raised her eyebrow matter-of-factly. "Just

how long have you been sleeping? It's the last day

of school."

The start of summer vacation, I thought, with an

internalized cheer of delight. No more books. I

hated books.

"Mr. Red Clay's taking us outside, one at a time,"

Annie said serenely. "He always speaks with us

privately at the end of the school year."

Had I grown up on the Nettlebush Reserve, I

probably would have known that to begin with. I

had been born here, but I hadn't grown up here.

My dad had taken me to live in the city when I was

five. It was only in my teens that we'd returned.

I looked to the colonial windows, where the

majority of the student body had gathered. The

older and younger students alike were scrunched

nosily between the book cases, straining their ears

to hear whatever Mr. Red Clay was saying

outside. I wondered why they didn't just open the

windows--especially considering how warm it

was in here.

"Because they don't open," said a surly Rafael.

This time, I looked to my right. Rafael Gives Light

was Annie's opposite in every way you can think

of. I mean, there's the obvious--one was a girl, the

other a boy--but while Annie was small, quick,

friendly, and at times fiery, Rafael was a hulking,

skulking loner. I viewed it as a kind of minor

miracle that we had managed to become friends

with him at all. His appearance was pretty out

there: Long, lank hair knotted with dove feathers,

square blue glasses, a pierced ear, a mean jaw, a

chain tattoo on his right arm, and the muscle mass

of a grown man. And I suppose he was a grown

man--sort of. He was eighteen.

He was in tune with my every thought. Like how

he'd known about the windows. Sometimes I felt

like I'd known him a lot longer than I really had.

Why don't they open?
I signed. He and I had spent

the past year practicing sign language together.

Rafael was a slow learner, but dedicated.

"Because some dumbass painted them shut."

"Language," Annie said mildly.

"What's wrong with my language? If you paint a

window shut, you're a dumbass." One thing you

couldn't

accuse

Rafael

of

being

was

dispassionate. "I think I'm gonna fix it over the

summer. I've got a knife that works good with

paint. Anyway, what were you dreaming about?"

he asked me. "You had a weird look on your

face."

"Now you're going to tell him how he should look

when he's asleep?"

"I'm not talking to you, Little Hawk. I'm talking to

Sky."

Cem Adrian
, I signed.

Rafael read my fingers slowly. A stormy scowl

overtook his face. "Who the hell is that?"

I grinned impishly.
My new boyfriend.

"Who the f--"

I'm kidding. He's a singer.
I realized I hadn't

taught Rafael the word for singer. I fingerspelled

i t .
He can sing all the parts in an opera by

himself. His vocal cords--
I tapped my throat. -

-
are three times as long as a normal human's.

"Oh," Rafael said. He calmed down. "Well," he

said, and I could tell that one of his moments of

great wisdom was imminent. "I'm gonna write to

him," he said. "Ask him to chop out the parts he

doesn't need. That way you can have 'em."

I smiled lightly, amused.
I'm sure he'll sign right

up and do that.

"Well, yeah," Rafael said. He grinned bashfully.

"It's for a good cause. The best cause."

"Miss Little Hawk, you're up."

Everyone turned around in their seats--the nosy

onlookers scampered back to their chairs--to see

Mr. Red Clay standing in the double doors. There

was something poetic about him, about his strong,

angular face and his loose ponytail, that reminded

me of the Plains warriors of old. He was middle-

aged, sure, but put even the smallest paring knife in

his hands and he looked like he was off to fight the

good fight. The ironic part, of course, is that the

Plains Shoshone were never a warring tribe. We

fought in exactly one war--the Pony Express War,

when we sought revenge against the Expressmen

who had brutalized two of our girls. That was

almost two hundred years ago.

"Well," Annie said, and rose from her seat, "wish

me luck."

"Sure," Rafael said. They bickered like cats and

dogs, those two, but in their hearts they were the

best of friends. I loved that about them. "Wanna

go to the grotto after? I think that's where Aubrey

went."

"I would love to," Annie said sweetly, and

traipsed outside after Mr. Red Clay.

The doors slapped shut with finality. I smothered

a sigh--one of the few sounds you can actually

make when your vocal cords don't work. I wished

Mr. Red Clay would prop those doors open. It

was stifling in here.

Rafael nudged me. I indulged him with a smile.

"Uncle Gabe joined the reservation police."

Nettlebush had started its first police force this

spring. We'd never really needed one in the past.

There were only three hundred of us, and with the

exception of one isolated incident twelve years

ago, there had never been any violence on the

reservation.

Why did the council start the police force?
I

asked.
Do you know?

"Why'd he join the police force?"

The council
, I repeated, slowly, patiently.

"Oh. Uncle Gabe says it's about all the crap that

happened last year. First the FBI bugging us, then

the social workers--the tribal council thinks it'll be

easier if we have our own cops who can just shut

that stuff down before it happens. I mean," Rafael

said hastily, "he's not going to patrol the

reservation, if that's what you're thinking. The old

ways work well enough for that."

The doors opened again, Mr. Red Clay glancing

inside. "Mr. Stout?" he said. "Stuart," he

clarified, when both Stuart and Morgan Stout rose

from their seats. I watched Stuart walk out the

door, back and shoulders straight, auburn hair

hanging around his waist.

"Quick," whispered Prairie Rose In Winter, a

seventh grader, inching back over to the window.

"Maybe I can read lips!"

"No, but maybe Skylar can," Sarah Two Eagles

said.

"I'm finally bustin' outta here!" yelled Jack

Nabako, a chubby first grader.

"Relax, Spartacus," said the dour Holly At Dawn.

"You'll be back in three months."

"Mr. St. Clair?" I heard Mr. Red Clay say.

I shot Rafael a smile as I rose from my seat, my

bookbag over my shoulder, and went out the doors.

Nettlebush was beautiful no matter the time of

year, but with summer so close at hand, everything

just looked so vivid; so verdant. I could hear the

goldfinches chirping from the oak trees, the leaves

full and glossy, and the cicadas chirping back from

the pines, afternoon their favorite time of day. The

sky was so blue, you could just fall into it; and if

you tilted your head back and gazed at its depths

long enough, it was like swimming in the stillest

waters.

Mr. Red Clay was waiting for me just beneath the

school steps. I smiled and waved, joining him

shortly.

"Your grandmother should have your report card

by now," he said. "And I'm happy to tell you how

well you've done this year."

I knew what he really meant. "Well" for me was a

B average. I've never been a very good student.

I smiled gratefully.

"Your junior year of high school is the most

important school year," Mr. Red Clay said. "If

you're thinking about going to college, it's this year

they'll be looking at. Are you thinking about it?"

I paused. No, I hadn't considered it. But there was

a good reason for that.

I can't talk, sir.

Mr. Red Clay raised his eyebrows. "I'm aware of

that, but I don't see how it's relevant."

I mean
, I began,
I'd have to talk if I were to be a--

He picked up on my hesitation. "What is it that

you'd like to be?"

I thought about last spring, how foster care had

taken me away from my grandmother for something

as stupid as us taking a trip to see our family in

Nevada. I thought about how I'd had to run away;

and I thought about the little boy who had run with

me, Danny Patreya, a Paiute boy. I thought about

how some family in Central Arizona had adopted

him without his father's knowledge, and gotten

away with it, just because he was Native

American.

I thought about how happy he had been to finally

go home, and how that white couple had come

back for him and ripped him right out of his

father's arms.

A lawyer, I think
, I admitted.

Mr. Red Clay appraised me. "That's a respectable

choice," he said. "We could definitely use more