Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (30 page)

It was amazing to be touched by him.  It was like talking without words.  How dumb I'd been to think I couldn't talk to him just because my hand was broken.  I could always talk to Rafael.  He was inside of me, a part of me; and I hoped I was a part of him.

"You know what I like about
The Little Mermaid
?"

A smile spread slowly across my lips.  I forgot to shake my head.

"She's mute.  She traded her tongue for legs.  She can't talk to anyone, even when her sisters come and visit her at the surface of the sea.  She can't talk to the guy she loves.  But she doesn't need to talk for people to see how good she is.  She dances for the prince, even though it causes her pain.  She doesn't mind when he marries someone else.  She can't bring herself to kill him, even though it's the only way she can go home to her family.  She's got the best heart.  It doesn't matter that she can't speak.  Everybody knows it."

He touched his fingertips to my cheek.  To the birthmark on the side of my face.

"Everybody knows it."

I don't know whether I remembered to breathe.  I know I couldn't look away.

Rosa sniffed.  I looked up and saw that she was crying, her stew abandoned.

Rafael jumped out of his chair.  "What's wrong?"

Rosa shook her head.  She picked up the corners of her apron and wiped the tears from her eyes.  "It was such a nice thing you said."

Rafael dropped his head into his hands.

I left Rafael's house around evening, knowing Dad and Granny would find cause for alarm if I stayed out too late.  My footsteps slowed, my hand throbbing at my side.  I didn't deserve to go back to their house.  Frankly, I wasn't sure I even wanted to.  I loved them.  I loved them more than anything, and I wasn't their child.  I wasn't Shoshone.  I wasn't me.

I stepped through the front door.  The front room was empty, the computer monitor turned on.  The sitting room, too, was empty.  I left the front door open in the event that Balto felt like coming inside.  I found Dad, Granny, and Zeke in the kitchen, pinyon nut soup boiling on the wood-coal stove.

"There you are!"  Granny waved me over.  "Don't just stand there!"

I leaned against the counter and got the cornmeal out of the cabinet.  I figured I'd make bread.

"Stop," Dad said suddenly.

His voice was unusually cold.  I froze.

"Show me your hand."

I raised my left hand and waved it around.

"Skylar."

Exasperated, I turned around.

"Whoa!" Zeke said; I saw admiration on his frantic, giddy face.  "Who did
you
punch?  He must've had a face like a brick wall."

"Skylar," Dad said.

I shrugged.  This wasn't a family that liked to talk.  Me, I would have loved to talk.  There's got to be someone who finds that funny.

Granny and I made cornbread together while Zeke listened to the Nettlebush radio station.  I couldn't believe how clumsy I was without the use of my right hand; I dropped the butter at least twice.  Granny sighed at me and ran her hand over the back of my head.  It surprised me that she wasn't more severe.

Dinner was quiet and reserved.  Most of my soup wound up on my lap.  Balto came indoors, no doubt lured by the sweet aroma of the pinyon nuts.  I fed him the bread from my bowl.  I was the first one up from the table--no accident--and the first one to leave the room.

Dad followed me when I left the house through the back door and knelt at the water pump beside the outhouse.  Lathering up soap with one hand proved to be a difficult endeavor.

"Cubby," Dad said.

I took it that he wasn't angry anymore.  I looked up at him and smiled blandly.

Dad's expression was unchanging.  He looked the way he'd always looked: melancholy and subdued, grounded and resigned, a piece of art you can mull over and contemplate, but never interact with.

He sat with me on the dry, brown grass.  I heard the cicadas in the pine trees winding down for the night.  It wouldn't be long before the owls called back.

"Has Caias ever taught you kids about a woman named Cynthia Parker?"

I shook my head.  I thought Mr. Red Clay had mentioned the name once, but only in passing.

"Let me tell you, then.  But first I have to give you a bit of context."

He shifted around, trying to get comfortable on the grass.

"In the 1500s," Dad said, "a large band of Shoshone decided to leave our hunting grounds and live in Texas.  Those Shoshone became the tribe we know today as the Comanche tribe.  Even now, the Comanche language is practically identical to ours.  But the Comanche differ from us in one very notable way.  We Shoshone were always peaceful, almost to a fault.  The Comanche--they were warriors.  In fact, the very word 'Comanche' means 'Enemy.'

"Now," Dad said.  He paused.  "You know about the pioneers?"

I couldn't keep myself from smiling. 
Of course I know about the pioneers.

"Right, sorry," Dad said sheepishly.  "Well, a big group of them built a fort in Texas around the same time that the Comanche were running around down there.  As you can imagine, the Comanche and the pioneers clashed very often."

I could imagine.

"Now, the Comanche weren't like us, Cubby.  They couldn't just sit down and swallow the way they were treated.  So they fought back--often, and vigorously.  They massacred hundreds of white settlers.  I'm not glorifying this; both sides committed some pretty terrible acts before the final, climactic battle.  But the pioneers were no match for the superior Comanche.  By the 1800s, the Comanche had completely destroyed the white camp."

I sat up to show him I was listening.

"Here's the thing about Plains People," Dad said.  "And I find that this is true no matter which Plains tribe we're talking about.  Plains People consider children to have a special wisdom all their own.  I mean that very literally.  In the Plains culture, harming a child is the most unforgivable act."

Unconsciously, I touched my throat.

"So while the Comanche and the pioneers were waging war, children, naturally, were exempt.  And when the bloodshed was over, and the Comanche were victorious, and virtually all of the white men were gone from the camp, the Comanche suddenly found themselves with a fort full of homeless, fatherless children.  The Comanche did what any Plains tribe would do:  They took them in as their own.  One of those children was a little girl named Cynthia Parker.  The Comanche called her 'Nadua'--'Keeps Us Warm.' "

Dad looked at me.  "So we have a white child growing up with Plains People, learning their ways, living as they live...  She even grew up to marry a Comanche man.  Their son became the chief of their tribe."

I didn't think I could meet Dad's eyes.

"Do you think the Comanche saw her as anything other than Indian?  Do you think she saw them as anything other than her family?"

I hated this.  I met Dad's eyes.  I wanted to ask him: 
How can you stand to look at me?
  I wasn't Cynthia Parker.  I wasn't just a white kid living with Plains People.  I was an embodiment of betrayal and secrecy.  Mom had cheated on Dad and I was the result.

"You're my son," Dad said.  "I don't need a piece of paper to tell me that.  You were my son the moment Christine handed you to me.  When you pulled on my hair and stuck your fingers in my mouth, you were mine.  When you said your first word at fifteen months, and it was 'Dad'--you were definitely mine."

I looked at Dad carefully.  The truth was that I couldn't imagine anyone else as my father.  And the best parts of me--I liked to think they had come from him.

"Your grandmother knows," Dad said.  His voice was so quiet, I almost didn't hear him.  "She's known it as long as I have.  But I don't see a reason to bring this up ever again.  Do you?"

I guessed I didn't.

22

Skinwalker

Mr. Red Clay was not very pleased when I walked into school on Monday with a broken hand.  I grimaced apologetically and took my seat between Annie and Rafael.  Annie turned on me at once.

"I'll take notes for you until your hand heals," she offered.  "But you owe me."

I knew she was joking; but I felt like I did owe her.  After school I went out into the woods and found a skink skull; and I took it home and made it into a necklace.  Skink bones look about the same as opals, creamy and white, which is probably why you see them in Native jewelry all the time.  I don't mean to imply that I walked around killing lizards for the heck of it.  It's just that certain parts of the forest were already littered with their skeletons.

"For me?" said Annie the next day.  She took the necklace and tugged it on over her head.  "Why, thank you!  It's lovely.  I don't know how you managed with only one hand."

I pointed at my teeth.

"Is that so?  Then I think you should write your notes with your teeth, too."

I pressed my mouth to her cheek and blew raspberries.

We went to the grotto after class, Balto following vigilantly.  We sat by the creek, studying for an upcoming test, when Zeke suddenly spoke up.

"Do you guys ever, like, turn your underwear inside-out so you can wear it a second day?"

I stared.

"Well, if I did," Aubrey said gravely, "I wouldn't admit to it."

"You on coke?" Rafael asked.

"I
really
need some girl friends," Annie said.

That sort of discussion was par for the course with Zeke, whose train of thought was both unfathomable and impenetrable.  It was rare that we got in any meaningful conversation, though not for lack of trying on Aubrey's part.

"I've seen your father around the reservation, but never your mother," Aubrey said politely, peering at Zeke.

"Yeah, they had a big ol' messy divorce after Naomi--"

Zeke didn't finish.  He threw a wary look Rafael's way.

"S'alright," Rafael said.  "You can say it.  After my dad killed your sister."

"Well, yeah, that," Zeke said, laughing nervously.

"My mother was a hero," Annie said, a fond glow to her eyes.  "She was a major in the army.  She served in Yemen, after the portside bombing.  She threw herself on top of a IED and saved two families."

Aubrey put his arm around Annie's shoulders and Annie smiled at him, fleetingly.  But reminiscing didn't last very long, because like many things, it fell under the Shoshone Reticence Rule.  Zeke got up to see if he could scale the tallest beech tree and Rafael said he thought he'd left some candy in the cave.  That was the end of that.

When I went home that day, I found a pile of letters waiting for me on the computer desk.  I sat down and tore them open with my teeth.  

The first was from my cousin, Marilu.

Dear Sky
,

It's so cool that you met Danny!  Thank you for bringing him back here.  Everyone's happy, especially his dad, but also me.  We talk every night on the phone and Mom yells at me to go to bed. 

Mom thinks we'll have the new house by next year so when you come back for the next pauwau I'll show it to you.  I want to see your house, too.  Please invite me over for the summer!  We are learning PEMDAS in math and I'm also learning the violin.

Love,

Marilu

I wondered whether I could type up a response on the computer and print it out.  I was a pretty slow typist with two hands, never mind one, but there was no way I could let her letter go without an answer.

My second letter was from Danny.

Greetings to a fellow secret agent of Wovoka from the coniferous one.

I thank you and also your kissing friend and the big-haired sister for rescuing me from the snapping jaws of the secret army (that's what's happening because the white people are actually building a secret army and the bullets are made from Indian brains which have a fourth dimension).

I dreamed about a dinosaur that had sharks for legs.  I drew it to show you what I'm talking about (flip over the paper).  Keep it a secret we do not want the CIA to know about this.

Danny Patreya

It's pretty sad when the only thought that comes to mind is:  Oh my God.  I flipped the paper over and my thoughts pretty much remained the same.

The final letter was written in a loopy, childlike scrawl, and I knew at once who had written it.

Hi Skylar,

This is Jessica Hargrove and I miss you.  Mommy says she will take me to see you if I make good grades.  My doll's name is Jenny and she is my favorite.  I will give you a doll too when I see you.  From Jessica

It was the shortest of the letters, and no doubt the sweetest.  I read it a second time.  I couldn't keep the smile off my face.  I could see what it was that Plains People respected in children.

I turned on the computer monitor to check the reservation calendar.  The mouse didn't want to cooperate with my left hand, and it took ten agitated minutes for me to pull up the tribal website.  I scanned the updates slowly.  A very interesting one read:  "Come burn your computer at the bonfire on Saturday, 7:30 PM."  I wondered whether anyone saw the irony in that.