Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (16 page)

I wanted to run to her, but I couldn't move.  I couldn't get off the ground.  I didn't even remember sitting down.

"My great-grandmother walked without stopping.  When she could walk no longer, she crawled.  At last, she made it to Wind River.  Fifty-three other Western Shoshone had sought refuge there among the Eastern Shoshone.  They had had the same idea of crossing the frozen river to safety.  From a village of five hundred, only fifty-four had survived."

I looked sideways and saw Rafael with his eyes on the Bear River monument, stony and transfixed.

"The Eastern Shoshone considered a retaliation strike.  But we were vastly outnumbered and vastly demoralized.  'Violence begets violence,' Chief Shoots Running said.  'At what point does the violence end?'

"The Shoshone were divided by this singular event.  Many of the Eastern Shoshone decided to travel farther south to live in proximity with our friends the Paiute.  Perhaps the white men would not deign to follow us to the most arid part of the world.  Perhaps they would allow us to keep this small piece of our own land.

"My great-grandmother was not called Pretty Eyes anymore.  The Plains Shoshone gave her a new name: Taken Alive.  Taken Alive traveled with the Plains Shoshone to Arizona on horseback.  It was there that she gave birth to my grandmother, Amelia Looks Over, who was always looking over her shoulder with fear, worried that her father would come back and claim her."

My heart felt heavy and cold.  My eyes were burning.  I didn't cry; but when I looked around me at the descendants of those victims, I saw tears on many of their faces.  I spotted Ms. Siomme dabbing her eyes with her knuckles.  I looked at the hills that the Mormons had ridden down when they'd decided to ambush the peaceful settlers.  I looked at the river where Taken Alive had found her brothers' little bodies.  A wave of grief washed over me and rooted me to the ground.  Real people.  Real people had died in the most horrific ways imaginable.  It wasn't just a story.  Their scars were passed down from generation to generation; and the blood they had spilled was the blood running in our veins.

"Come," Granny said, gesturing with her hand to the stone obelisk.  "Read the monument the white men constructed in our ancestors' honor.  But whatever you feel when you read it, you must remember that feeling from this point forward.  Never forget your past."

One by one, the men and women went up to the plaque to read the inscription.  I couldn't decipher the expressions on their faces when they turned away.

Rafael, Annie, and I got off the ground.  We walked over to the monument to read what it said.

The Battle of Bear River was fought in this vicinity on January 29, 1863.  Col. P.E. Connor led 300 California volunteers from Camp Douglas, Utah against Bannock and Shoshone Indians guilty of hostile attacks on emigrants and settlers.

10

Kerouac

My face was cold to the touch.  Every nerve felt numb.  I sat at the little brown table in the cafe and listened to the clinking of spoons in teacups, and the murmuring of my friends as they read from the lunch menu.

Rafael slid into the booth at my side.  He jostled my shoulder gently.  I smiled.

"Stop that," he said.  "Don't smile if you don't mean it."

I shrugged, shoulders slouching.

"I know how crappy it feels," he said.  "My mom and dad have been bringing me here since I was a baby.  I think I was eight or nine before I really understood what it was about."

I looked at him skeptically.

"Alright, ten," he conceded gruffly.

A real smile, or the start of one, found its way to my lips.  He smiled back.

Gabriel, Rosa, and Mary sat across the table from us.  A frosty window at our side looked out on the small town streets.  Granny was elsewhere in the cafe, at a table with her friends.  I didn't want to bother her, but I wanted badly to talk to her about the story she had shared with us today.  Then I remembered:  I can't.  I can't talk to anyone.  Funny how I still forgot that sometimes.

"Sky, what do you want for lunch?"

I pointed at the eggs on the menu.

The five of us ate in silence, the events of the day still fresh on our minds.  Not a whole lot had changed since the 1800s, I thought again.  I don't mean to imply that there were massacres out on the street corners everyday.  But in a more subtle way, weren't Natives still being oppressed by their own country's government?  I thought about the outrageous plaque sitting on top of the Bear River site.  I thought about Marilu's missing friend.  I thought about how it had taken eleven years to get any justice against Mom's killer.  Dad should have been here right now.  Bear River was his history as much as mine.  Dad didn't deserve to be confined to the reservation for the rest of his life.

My poor Dad, I thought, weighted with sorrow.  I couldn't imagine what it must have felt like when he realized that the man who had murdered his wife was his closest friend.  It struck me as poignant that Dad had gone to such lengths to avenge Mom even though he and she had been on the brink of divorce.  Why had they separated?  Dad had loved her dearly.  I knew that.  Hadn't Mom loved him back?  What made people fall out of love?  What made people fall into love?

"Try these," Rafael said, and pushed his plate of hash browns at me.

We all gathered outside the cafe after lunch.  We met up with Aubrey's family on the sidewalk, Mr. Takes Flight swinging Serafine by her arms.  I think the pedestrians were staring at us.  Rosa and Gabriel went around the block where they had parked the car.  Mary stood chatting with Aubrey's brother, Isaac.

I felt oddly heavy, like the full force of gravity had conspired to pull me between the cracks in the asphalt.  We needed a voice.  And maybe, if I were a little braver, I would have provided that voice.  Except I didn't have a voice to begin with.

"Are you still upset?"

Rafael came and leaned against the brick wall at my side.  I smiled wryly at him.

"You're too soft," he said, disgruntled.  "That's the problem with you.  You'll let it eat away at you and you'll lose sleep.  Then you'll get a fever and you'll have to go to the hospital.  Again.  Do you even know how much that freaks me out?"

I looked sideways at him, affectionate. 
I'm sorry
, I signed. 

"Yeah, well, don't be.  Just take better care of yourself."

Serafine broke free from her grandfather's arms and ran in and out of the crowds of Plains People.  Rafael chased after her.  I laughed when he caught her around the waist and she tried to climb up his side.  He carried her back to her family and said something to her that sounded like a rebuke.  She sure didn't look scared of him.  And who would be?  Once you learned that his dark and hulking exterior belied a gentle heart, it was impossible to fear him.  It was impossible not to love that heart.  I loved his heart.  I loved him.

I loved him.

A dam inside my own heart opened up, and the feelings of heaviness and unease lifted like wind against the winter sky.  I loved him.  I loved his slow wit and his gruff demeanor and his tender disposition.  I loved his endless empathy and his world-weary cynicism and his innocence.  I loved that he was a walking, breathing paradox.  I loved his lank hair and his iron earring and the tooth missing at the back of his mouth.  I loved the way he laughed, music incomparable to any song, and the way he smiled, like you could see the child in him and the animal in him and the man in him all at once.  I loved that he listened to crappy music, the kind that made me want to put my head through a wall, and I loved the charcoal stains on his knuckles and the pencils he tucked behind his ears.  I loved that he told me to shut up as though I could actually say anything.  I loved that he made me feel as though I could.  I loved his short fingers and his rough palms and his long legs and his flat belly.  I loved that he liked to read Kerouac but didn't know how to pronounce Kerouac.  I loved his brown skin and his blue tattoos and his tempestuous blue eyes.  I loved that he loved the land.  I loved him.  I loved him.  Oh, God.  I loved him.

Something soft and lace-white fluttered on my eyelashes.  I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky.

It was snowing.

11

And That's No Tall Tale

Dad and I sat on the front porch together.  Dad's rocking chair creaked as he slit open a thick brown envelope and read my report card.  I watched Balto burrowing for winter mushrooms under the pinyon pines and laughed fondly.

"You got a few A's," Dad said, sounding astounded.

I was just as confused.  In the past, my grades had only ever averaged between mediocre and lousy.  Maybe Mr. Red Clay was just a really good teacher.

"I think that deserves an ice cream trip," Dad said.  He rose from his seat.  He stopped, remembering himself; he bit his lip.  He sat back down.

I frowned at him.

"Well, we'll make our own.  I'm sure Dad's recipe is still around here somewhere.  Come on, Cubby."

With interest, I followed Dad into the house.  I left the door open in case Balto got tired of excavating.  Usually Dad never talked about his father.  The most I'd heard about Grandpa was from Granny, who only ever described him as "to be respected" and "Apache."

Dad led me into the kitchen and opened the cabinets above the wood-coal stove.  "He was a very, very strict man," Dad said.  "He and Mother were...well-suited for each other, to say the least.  He taught us quite a lot about scouting.  The Apache take pride in that, you know, topography skills."  Dad pried a fat recipe book out of the cabinet.  "He taught us to play the Apache fiddle, too; Julius loved..."

I smiled ruefully and cupped Dad's shoulder.  Expertly, reticently, Dad dropped the subject.  He flipped through the thick, musty pages of the old book and stopped on a page catalogued with a strip of blue paper.

"Here we are."  Dad smiled very briefly.  Most of his smiles were brief.  "Let's see...  What's a whisk?"

We read Grandpa's recipe together and I climbed down into the cellar to get the sour cream.  Dad went nuts trying to find the sugar and the cocoa powder.  He really
didn't
know how to whisk.  I probably shouldn't make fun of him, considering how clueless I was when I first came to Nettlebush, but he got chocolate goop all over the place; the walls, the counter, my clothes.  He managed to look politely dumbfounded while casually destroying the kitchen.  I tried to correct his grip twice but gave up when he got the whisk jammed in the wood-coal burners, don't ask me how.  I knocked my elbow playfully into his and shook my head.  We covered the glass bowl and put it in the cellar to cool.

We sat together on the kitchen floor and waited for the ice cream to harden.  Dad surprised me with another smile.  "It was rare," he said, "but your grandfather could be very funny.  He had this one joke...  I don't think I should tell you, it's really not proper..."

Now I had to hear it.  I elbowed him again.

"Well, alright.  Three old men are sitting in a train station.  One is Apache and the other two are white.  'Earl,' says one of the white men, 'where are you going for vacation this summer?'  'Well, Bob, I think I'll go to Arizona,' Earl says.  'What do you want to go to Arizona for?' says Bob.  'There's nothing but a bunch of Indians down there.'  'Where are you going this summer?' Earl says.  'I'm going fishing in Montana,' Bob says.  'You moron,' Earl says, 'there's nothing but a bunch of Indians in Montana.'  Finally the Apache man speaks up.  'Why don't you both just go to hell?' he says.  'There aren't any Indians down there.' "

I crammed my hand against my mouth and laughed.   I heard Dad's understated chuckle and knew, despite appearances, that he was laughing with me.

"Racine liked that one, too," Dad said.

I shot him a quick look.

Dad looked uncomfortable.  "She visited...  While you were at the pauwau.  It was nice to have some company."

I didn't doubt that.  I just hadn't realized that Dad and Officer Hargrove were on a first name basis. 

My thoughts carried me away.  If Dad and Officer Hargrove started dating...  I wasn't one of those proprietary types who can't handle it when his single dad brings home a woman.  If he was happy, I was happy. 

I'd always thought Dad and Mom were happy together.

"I'm a difficult person to love, Cubby," Dad said grimly.  "I'm sure you find it easy, but you have to, you poor kid.  You have no choice.  I think it was hard for Christine.  I think it's hard for anyone raised outside our culture to adjust to a people who prefer to keep their hearts private.  Please don't blame your mother for that."

It was one of the few things Dad and Rafael had in common:  They always knew what I wanted to say.  Each one only had to take a look at me to know what I was feeling.  In Dad's case, it was probably that he had known me all my life and grown accustomed to my personality.  In Rafael's case...  I couldn't explain what it was, because it was instantaneous.  I liked that I couldn't explain it.

My stomach churned pleasantly.  Rafael had worn his hair in a ponytail at school today.  He'd sucked on the lead tip of his pencil while muddling his way through logarithms.  Were we really going to need logarithms in real life?  I'd thought the pencil thing was kind of gross, and apparently he had, too, because he'd started coughing.  I'd rubbed his back and he'd shown me a grateful, unwitting look.  One of those "Oops, I don't understand basic safety procedures without trial and error" looks.  I liked the feel of his back beneath my hand.  I liked that innocent look.  I loved that innocent look.  I loved him.