Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (8 page)

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Authors: Rose Christo

Tags: #Gay, #Fiction

BOOK: Looks Over(Gives Light Series)
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In school, too, everyone was talking about the pauwau.

 

"The Hopi eagle dance!" Zeke shouted, dancing up and down the aisle between the tenth and eleventh grade tables.  "Seriously, you've never seen anything so cool!  It's like they're flying--"  He stuck his arms out like airplane wings.

 

"And the corn dance," Stuart Stout said.  "I suppose it's appropriate that they hold their pauwau in autumn."

 

"Don't forget the butterfly dance," Annie said dreamily.

 

William Sleeping Fox prodded the tattoo on my upper left arm.

 

"That's an atlas moth, dumbass," Rafael said darkly.

 

"Find your seats, please," Mr. Red Clay said.  He rapped the chalkboard with his knuckles until everyone settled down, silent.  At once, he broke into his fluid combination of English and sign language.  "Who can tell me why we're called Indians?"

 

Almost everyone raised their hands.

 

"Impressive," said Mr. Red Clay.  "We'll see.  Miss At Dawn?"

 

"Because Columbus thought he'd landed in India, the crackhead," Daisy At Dawn said, snickering.

 

"Language, Miss At Dawn.  He certainly did.  But India was called Hindustan back then.  If Columbus thought he was in Hindustan, why didn't he call us Hindus?"

 

Nobody raised a hand this time.

 

Mr. Red Clay's mouth curled in a half smile.  "No one?  Alright, let's try a different question.  What was the name of the tribe Columbus first encountered?"

 

"The Arawak!" Jack Nabako shouted from the front row.

 

"Thank you, Mr. Nabako.  Next time, I beseech you to raise your hand.  The Arawak.  Were the Arawak a peaceful tribe, or a warring tribe?"

 

Rafael raised his hand.  I stared at him, my elbow on the table, smiling slightly.  He'd never raised his hand in class before.

 

"Yes?"

 

"Peaceful," Rafael said.  "Like, freakishly peaceful."

 

"Freakishly peaceful," Mr. Red Clay mused.  "That's one way to put it.  So they would have been welcoming toward Columbus?"

 

"I guess so," Rafael mumbled.

 

"So it makes sense that Columbus would call us 'a people of God.'  Or," said Mr. Red Clay, "in Italian--his language of preference--'una gente in dio.'  Indio.  Indian."

 

Daisy At Dawn whistled.

 

"Pencils out," Mr. Red Clay said.  "Time for a quiz."

 

The first graders filed into the playground after school.  Jack Nabako shoved Joseph and Joseph wailed loudly; but then Lila shoved Jack and all was right with the world.  Rafael and I watched Siobhan Stout pushing her brother on the rope swings.  Rafael turned to me.

 

"Uncle Gabe says you and your grandma can come with us for the ride to Black Mountain."

 

I brought my hands together and pulled them slowly apart. 
How far is it?

 

"It's just a few hours away.  It's in the mountains."

 

I shot him a quick and insolent smile.  The name of the reservation had kind of tipped me off.

 

"Shut up," Rafael said, grinning, abashed.  I wanted to kiss the grin right off of his face.  "Anyway, it's cold there.  So...there's that.  Bring food.  No, wait.  Bring samosas.  I like 'em."

 

I glanced quickly around the playground.  No one was looking at us.  I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulled him down to my height, and kissed his cheek.  He looked dazed.  I slugged him on the shoulder and started the walk home.

 

There wasn't any school on the day of the pauwau.  By afternoon, Granny had me put on my green deerhide regalia and Dad embarrassed me by telling me I wore it better than he had at my age.  We said our goodbyes, and Granny and I carried baskets full of samosas and apple pie and wojapi out of the house.  I really wished Dad were coming with us.  Actually, I considered staying behind with him.  I'd just turned around to run back home when Granny rapped me sternly on the back of my head.  Stars burst behind my eyelids.  Ow.  Granny wasn't a woman anyone in their right mind would want to cross.

 

The whole community of Nettlebush piled out into the parking lot between the hospital and the turnpike.  I'd never seen the parking lot so crowded before.  We were a mosaic of colors in traditional deerhide and elkskins, in overcoats and breechclouts and fringed sheepskin gowns.

 

I spotted Rafael's family standing by a big black SUV.  Gabriel waved us over, a merry smile on his face.  He wore tan trousers, a brown breechclout, and--not much else.  Where was his overcoat?  I guessed he was going shirtless.  Considering our destination, I thought it a brave move.

 

"You're looking lovelier than ever, Catherine," Gabriel said.

 

Granny preened.  She did look nice, actually, her white regalia fringed in royal blue, her painted glass necklace hanging around her throat.  Gabriel helped her into the back of the SUV with a couple of her friends, the nattering Mrs. Threefold and the absentminded Mr. Marsh.

 

Mary Gives Light stood facing me in ornate violet regalia.  A sudden and impetuous grin enveloped her face, and it was so sharklike and lupine, all at once, that it reminded me of Rafael's--especially when her dimples showed.  But it lacked his profound innocence.

 

"Hey!" she said.  "It's my buddy!"

 

She snatched me into a deceptively strong embrace.  She knocked the breath out of me and I probably would have coughed, except that I couldn't.  I can't cough or hiccough--it's weird, I know.  Your vocal folds need to close partway, and mine just don't.

 

I felt a hand on my arm, and then Rafael pulled me safely out of Mary's crushing grasp.  "Would you let him breathe?" he said.

 

Rafael and Mary and I sat in the middle row of the SUV.  Gabriel slid the doors shut when we had all boarded.  Rosa, in the passenger seat, smiled meekly at me through the rear-view mirror.  Her regalia was a soft salmon orange fringed with softer blues and greens, her leggings a pale yellow stitched from dried creosote petals.  Her glossy black hair fell over her shoulders in the double braids characteristic of the Great Plains.  Between her rich dress and her round, innocent face, she made me think of a child's cornhusk doll.

 

The car pulled out of the parking lot and onto the turnpike.  Gabriel messed with the radio dial.  "It'll be nice when we can listen to our own radio station, won't it?"

 

Rafael was wedged between Mary and me.  I really liked his regalia, muted and gray; it matched the gray dove's feather knotted in his hair and lightened the dark blue in his eyes, reminding me of a cloudless sky.

 

Rafael reached beneath his seat, pulled out a wad of unwrapped, half-melted licorice, and offered it to me.  I was very touched, but I could have puked on the spot.

 

"Who wants to play a road game?" Gabriel asked.

 

"When I was a girl," said Mrs. Threefold, fanning herself, though it wasn't particularly warm, "we played good old-fashioned shinny and made do with it."

 

"We have that now," Rosa said.  "In February."

 

"Of course," Mrs. Threefold said.  "But men weren't allowed to play back then."  She stifled a sigh.  "I miss those days."

 

I leaned against the window and watched the desert as it slipped past us, the lush brown hackberries and blossoming orange caltrops gritty but beautiful amid hills of burnt, bronze sand. 

 

"You really like that desert," Rafael said, his chin on my shoulder.

 

I pointed at a caltrop bush close to the highway.

 

"I'll get you one."

 

I turned my head and grinned teasingly.

 

"I mean it," he said stubbornly.  "After the pauwau, I'll go out to the desert.  I'm not scared.  I've been there before."

 

I might have kissed him if the car weren't crowded.  The urge was incredibly strong.

 

"So weird," I heard Mary say in a mystified voice.

 

Rafael leaned back and tossed her a sour look.  "What's weird?"

 

"That you're so buddy-buddy with each other.  Our dad offed his mom.  Right?  Then his dad offed our dad--"

 

"I didn't just hear that," Gabriel said.

 

"Oh, sorry."  But if she was sorry, it didn't last for long.  "Hey, Rosa, didn't Dad off your mom, too?"

 

Rosa's face took on several changes, one after the other; first, it was anguished; then, it was stone.

 

"Mary," Gabriel warned.  For the very first time, I thought he sounded intimidating.

 

Sideways, I glimpsed Rafael, his jaw square and taut.  Our hands were on the same seat, inches apart.  Discreetly, I draped my fingers across his.  He twined our fingers together firmly, chewing bitterly on a piece of licorice, but didn't look my way.

 

The long car ride took three or four hours.  The journey was impeded with frequent restroom breaks, each one a request from Granny's friends.  Stopping at greasy gas stations and ramshackle restaurants was a lot of fun, truth be told.  I got a kick out of it whenever families put down their forks or tourists lowered their gas nozzles and they stared at us, slack-jawed, like we were from another world.  I guess it wasn't every day that a group of Native Americans in full regalia visited their pit stops.  At one point, I heard a snapping shutter and knew someone had taken our photograph.  At another, a group of biker girls at the gas pump tried to touch Gabriel's shoulders until Rosa stomped her foot and showed them her meanest look, which wasn't very mean at all.  She was precious.

 

We got into the car for the umpteenth time, Mary listening to her headphones, Rafael and me practicing sign language together, and finally, by early evening, we reached the mountain range.

 

I could see why it was called the Black Mountain Reservation.  The mountain peaks, rounded and craggy, had a faint black undertone to them, foreboding in some way I couldn't define.  A low wooden fence surrounded the settlement.  From the fenceposts stood an aged wooden sign:  In English, "Welcome to the Black Mountain Reservation!" and in Hopi, "Um Pitu?"

 

Gabriel parked his SUV with dozens of other cars on the dry brown soil south of the gate.  Granny handed me baskets to carry as we climbed out of the car.  I saw thin white pillars of diluted chimney smoke still rising from the cottage roofs on the other side of the fence.  Small wonder:  It was chilly outside, and the stars had begun to appear above the twilight skyline of saffron and gray.  Rosa gave Gabriel her pink shawl to wear around his shoulders for warmth.  He laughed loudly, pulled her into a bear hug, and kissed her all over her face.  He actually wore the shawl, too.

 

The area outside the reservation was filled with different tribes.  I recognized the Pawnee, plain and understated, and the Navajo, flashy and bright in shining silks and weighted, feathery mantles tumbling down their backs.  I spotted a tribe I didn't recognize by sight, dressed in shell jewelry and leather headbands, the men in beaded cotton shirts and the women in calico skirts.  "Those are the Apache," Granny informed me.  "Remember, your grandfather was White Mountain Apache."

 

"Okay!" shouted Cyrus At Dawn.  He was a member of our tribal council, a huge guy with bushy hair and a booming, gravelly voice.  He was carrying our tribal flag, a yellow banner emblazoned with an eagle and a pair of roses.  "Everybody follow me!"

 

We went through the gates, the small city as empty as a ghost town.  Mr. At Dawn led us past a police station and a small library and out to an enclosure wrapped in stone ledges, where fallen autumn leaves already decorated the ground, where tiny little huts decorated the base of the looming black mountain, and the Hopi--well, they didn't cheer and greet us, if that's what you were expecting.  I know I was.

 

If reticence is the Shoshone ideal, then solemnity must be the Hopi ideal.  The Hopi were all dressed in dark, heavy layers fastened at the shoulder.  Their cumbersome regalia reminded me much more of restrictive Elizabethan dress than the carefree clothing of the Plains.  The women wore their hair in whorls shaped like butterflies and squash blossoms; the men wore kerchiefs.  Altogether they were very solemn, very grave, as they welcomed their guests onto their homeland.  I had expected the pomp and fanfare of the summer pauwau, when we had raucously greeted our sister tribes amid shouting and games.  I guessed that this occasion was going to be a little more serious.

 

The visiting tribes planted their standards in the ground and the councils all went forward to shake hands.  This part of the pauwau took way longer than it should have, because the Navajo had a council of twenty.  The other tribes only had five or six.  Ours had four.  Mr. At Dawn and Mrs. Red Clay went forward and shook hands with the Hopi council, and after them went Ms. Siomme and Mr. Knows the Woods, a squat, shifty-eyed man who looked as though he spent most of his life suspecting his own shadow of treason.  Ms. Siomme, who was half Hopi, spent longer talking to the council than the others did.  It occurred to me that she might have had family still living on this reservation.

 

The Hopi opened the ceremony with their eagle dance.  They performed a lot more gracefully than Zeke Owns Forty had done, but I still don't know how they managed to move around in all those layers.  When their arms were outstretched, when they danced lightly in the direction of the wind, dancing against the hollow beat of empty drums, I could really believe they were soaring eagles, majestic and grave, searching for the skies they used to roam when once they were unfettered.

 

The eagle dance ended, and the mood of the pauwau relaxed.  Suddenly the reservation was filled with the subtle air of competition.  The Pawnee men showed us their pipe dance, which long ago had been danced to determine the princess of their tribe.  Men and women laid blankets on the leaf-strewn ground and lit small fires to warm their food.  Granny and I set out the wojapi and the pie.  Rafael was content to eat his samosas cold.  That kind of grossed me out.  What grossed me out way more, though, was when the Navajo came walking among us with their delicacy--long ropes of twisted sheep intestines.  This time, I almost did throw up.

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