St. Clair (Gives Light Series) (10 page)

view of the milky, mist-white clouds and the

childlike canyons was breathtaking. Rosa knelt

and laid out dishes of grilled chicken and corn

soup. Mary sat plucking the strings of an acoustic

guitar. I heard a dove cooing softly from the

mossy, gnarled limbs of the southern oak.

"Have you been thinking about baby names, dear?"

Aunt Cora asked Rosa. I helped her sit on the

ground. "These old bones don't work the way they

used to," she told me with a chuckle.

"Rafael wants the name Eurydice," Gabriel said,

and pulled a face. "I don't think that's happening."

Rafael scowled. His back was against the tree

trunk, his visage dark.

"One day your face is going to get stuck that way,

Raf," Gabriel cautioned. "So--how's everyone

doing?"

I thought the conversation was a little awkward;

because, of course, everyone was trying very hard

not to bring up Kelo v. New London and the

uncertainty of the reservation's future. I glanced

curiously at Rafael, wondering whether he'd

mentioned the pine beetle plan to either Gabriel or

Rosa. His face, smoldering, betrayed nothing.

Then again, his face was always smoldering--but

not on purpose. He just couldn't help it.

I sat next to Rafael and playfully flicked his

braids. He ducked his head away from my hand.

"I need to talk to you," he said.

Oh, great.

Mary started regaling our families with lovely

anecdotes about food poisoning. Rafael and I

walked around the side of the house for privacy.

Rafael suddenly looked furious.

I couldn't understand. Rafael was a very moody

boy, it's true; but his moods always followed a

precise pattern. For example, if he was angry

about the Bureau of Land Management, he would

have said as much when we first found out what

they planned on doing to the reserve. Belated

anger wasn't like him.

I pressed my fingertips into the grooves of his

dimples. I tried to stretch his mouth in a silly

smile. He batted my hand away.

I deflated. If I was the one he was angry with--

"I'm mad," he said, and his voice was low. "I'm

mad because somebody hurt you, and I can't do

anything about it."

I stared at him. I smiled slowly, though I wasn't

feeling very humorous.

"You can't talk; but I can learn sign language. You

can't sing; but I can make you a flute. What am I

supposed to do when somebody rapes you?"

I felt like my head was exploding. I gave his

shoulder a quick shove--maybe a little too quick. I

wasn't--that was disgusting. I wasn't a girl.

"Do you even get it? That somebody hurt you?"

It didn't hurt
, I signed.

"You know what I mean," he snarled.

I'm not some helpless
--

"You were."

My head was killing me.

"You know Joseph Little Hawk? Annie's brother?

He's, what, seven?"

Seven and a half.

"How would you feel if someone tried to have sex

with him?"

I can tell you how I felt. I felt like I was going to

throw up.

"Yeah," Rafael said bitterly. "That's how I feel.

Only multiply it by about a thousand."

I let my face fall into my hands. I slid down

against the side of the house.

Rafael sat next to me.

"You know how you always freak out when you

have to undress in front of someone? And how you

always act like your body's really ugly? You ever

think there's a reason for that?"

I didn't like this. I really didn't like this. I just

wanted him to shut up.

"You're not ugly. Sky, you're-- You know when

you first came to the reservation, and everyone

was like, 'Holy crap, it's a white boy'? My

thoughts were more like, 'Holy crap, why can't I

stop looking at him?' And it wasn't because you

were ugly."

I didn't know what to say. I wasn't too keen on

meeting his eyes. I still wanted him to shut up; but

by the same token, I could feel the warmth pooling

in my belly, the heat flooding my face.

"Look," Rafael said, sounding flustered. "I can't...I

don't know how to change the past. I wish I did.

But if you give me her name--I could take a blood

law on her, they can't arrest me if I come back to

the reservation--"

I looked at Rafael, mortified. I didn't want him to

kill anyone.

Rafael looked down at his knees. "You're too

soft," he mumbled. "I told you. I'd only known

you for a few months before I figured out what

kind of a person you were. You've never had a

bad thought about anyone. Don't act like it's not

true. It is."

I didn't think it was.

"It is," he said stubbornly.

I shrugged, too weary to argue.

"Anyway... Guess we'd better head back before

they start thinking we eloped."

I love you
, I signed.

Rafael looked at me.

I love you
, I signed. There are two ways to say it

in sign language. The easiest way is to hold your

hand up and bend your middle and ring fingers.

Metalheads like to use it when they're moshing,

although it obviously doesn't mean what they think

it means. The other method is a lot simpler; even

people who don't speak sign language will know

what you're saying. All you have to do is gesture

to yourself--then your heart--then whoever it is that

you love.

Rafael regarded me, for a moment, in soft silence.

He pressed his lips to my temple.

"Moron," he said. And I could hear it in his

voice:
I love you, too.

August was a month of remembrance. At night the

whole community went out to the badlands to

celebrate the ghost dance, a dance that reunites the

souls of the living with the souls of the dead. "We

dance this at home, too," Marilu told me. I didn't

exactly dance, but I did provide the music. I

played a couple of peyote songs on my plains flute

while our friends and relatives formed circles

around the bonfire, one circle within the other, and

hit their hands against their hand drums and shook

the turtleshell rattles tied to their legs. I really

liked those peyote songs; but I had a favorite song,

a supplication song, and it touched me, in a way, to

hear the Shoshone men and women singing along,

the words timeless.
Father, help me
, the song

went.
Father, I want to live. Father, I know you

did this to me. Father, have pity.

I wished I believed in a God. Sometimes I did and

sometimes I didn't. If I'd believed just then, I

would have asked him to take pity on us. This

reservation was all the Southern Plains Shoshone

had left of their ancestral lands. It didn't seem

right to me that someone else had the power to take

it away.

Dad took Marilu and me out on the lake one day in

Mr. At Dawn's boat. He showed Marilu the

jumping bass and she clapped her hands together to

try to catch them between her palms. I scooped a

handful of floating cress out of the water and

handed it to Marilu, and she nibbled on it while the

sun warmed our heads and stroked our backs. I

breathed in the fresh air; I drank it in through my

pores. The boat plashing through the water was a

melody all its own. I whistled the first couple

verses of Sai Paa Hupia. I thought it was

appropriate.

"How's your mother doing these days, Marilu?"

Dad asked.

"Oh, she's good," Marilu said, with a mouth full of

watercress. "She's working real hard to build our

new house. Otherwise she would have come to

Nettlebush with Grandma and me. She says you

should e-mail her, she doesn't have the new phone

set up."

We took the boat off the lake around one o'clock.

"Let's head home for some lunch," Dad suggested.

I helped him pick up the boat, and we carried it

together to the forest path.

"Sky-loser! Wait!"

I looked over my shoulder, puzzled. Zeke came

charging toward us, his long hair flying.

Dad and I set the boat down.
What's wrong?
I

signed.

"The contractors are here! Hurry!"

I looked at Dad for confirmation; but he was

already running to the woods. Marilu scooped up

my hand and we followed Zeke.

"Shh!" Zeke said loudly. He stopped at a grove of

beech trees. He threw his arms around a trunk and

shimmied his way up to its strong limbs--where he

sat, perched, peeking through the leaves.

Marilu and I did the same on the next tree over.

Dad didn't. I think he was afraid the branches

would snap.

The view from the top of the beech tree was

impressive. I could see the entirety of the forest

from here, the blue star glade and the black bears'

den, the brooks and the creek and Annie's willow

tree. I could even see a hint of the Sonoran Desert

past the tops of the ponderosa pines. I trained my

eyes on the ponderosas. The pines on the

easternmost boundary of the forest looked really

ill, the bark red and chalky and splotched with

blue. I zeroed in on the ground. I saw a man in a

neat black suit, and a couple of men wearing tool

belts. One of the contractors gestured

emphatically at the dead pine tree nearest him. I

wished I could hear what they were saying. The

contractors abruptly stormed off, the man in the

black suit chasing after them.

"Hurray!" Marilu said, and slid down the beech

tree. I followed her quickly to the ground.

"What is it?" Dad asked. "What happened?"

"Pine beetles, that's what!" Zeke yelled. He broke

into a very interesting dance.

Dad looked at me. "What aren't you telling me...?"

"Uncle Paul," Marilu said, "could we have some

lunch now?"

Dad nodded slowly, awkwardly. He scratched the

back of his head with a pawlike hand. He started

back to the forest path and we trailed after him,

Zeke dancing after us. We picked up the boat on

our way back to the neighborhood and dropped it

off at Mr. At Dawn's house. From there we

headed home.

"Odd," Dad murmured. I opened the front door

and Zeke and Marilu piled into the house. Dad

perused me silently. I smiled noncommittally and

went into the kitchen to pour us some iced juniper

tea.

"We are the bomb-diggity!" Zeke yelled.

I gave him a weird look.

Marilu took the honey biscuits out of the icebox.

Dad turned on the radio to catch up on baseball

scores. Zeke invited himself to use our computer.

"I'm gonna e-mail Steeeew," he announced. I gave

him another weird look. Marilu kicked her legs

under the kitchen table and sipped her juniper tea.

"Are you sure you don't have anything to tell me?"

Dad asked.

I smiled innocently and bit into a honey biscuit.

Lunch was a really weird affair that day. Between

Zeke yelling at the computer and Dad yelling at the

radio, Marilu and I didn't get much talking done. I

guess I should say Marilu didn't get much talking

down. I had a hard time swallowing, for whatever

reason, and had to keep hitting my gut to spit the

bread back out. It sucks when you don't have a

coughing reflex.

"I was thinking," Dad said, when the radio turned

to a commercial break. "Maybe I should build a

new house."

I looked at him, surprised.

"Not for us," he said. "For..."

I grinned mischievously.

"Please don't make fun of me," Dad said feebly.

"Will you come see our house in January, Uncle

Paul?" Marilu asked.

"I can't, honey. I'm sorry."

"Aw... That's okay. I'll send you pictures."

"Thank you. That's very nice of you." Dad poured

me more tea when he saw that I was choking.

"Drink this," he said. I shot him a grateful look.

September came much too soon for my liking. Dad

and Granny and I saw Aunt Cora and Marilu to the

bus stop off the turnpike. I looked left and right,

paranoid, to make sure the cops weren't hanging

around. The laws of the reservation didn't protect