Moonlight Water (20 page)

“Asshole,” said Zahnie.

Winsonfred creaked up to them just then. Just like he'd heard everything, he said, “Phoo. That Lyman boy is not a problem. Let's eat!”

This from the guy who never ate.

 

23

THE PAST LEAPS UP TO BITE YOU

Don't use your own name. Your ears will fall off.

—Navajo saying

 

“Leeja's not here,” said Zahnie.

Red took a moment to register the name—Zahnie's sister, the one with the hanky-panky daughters.

“A big bird told me where she is,” said Winsonfred with a wink. He took Red's arm and, with his distinctive way of leaning and leading at once, guided everyone across the racetrack, between some chiddies, toward where a canvas shade was stretched over the back end of a pickup. There was a big pot simmering on a camp stove on the tailgate. Off to the side a couple of teenage girls acted out adolescent gloom, and two younger boys played with Hot Wheels. Under the tailgate a man was passed out. At a Dutch oven full of oil a woman was making fry bread. She was thirty pounds heavier than Zahnie but with almost the same face.

She turned toward them and shrieked with joy. “Hey, Grandpa, Zahnie, Clarita. Where's Tony?”

The news sobered her. Then her eyes fixed on Red and she gave a big grin. She looked from Zahnie to Red to Zahnie to Red, her eyes getting merrier with every glance. “What kinda joke is this?” Eyes back and forth. “You've come off your everlasting mad, right, Sis?” Eyes back and forth. Her wide mouth wiggled, her lips like cartoon worms. “No, it's your revenge. Finally.”

Zahnie simply looked puzzled.

“Come on—tell me, Zahnie!”

“What are you talking about?” Zahnie said stiffly.

Even the teenage girls were paying attention now. Leeja threw her arms up in the air, bent from the waist, and slapped her thighs. “I'll be damned,” she said, “this is…” She hooted, and then hooted some more.

Clarita truly looked at Red with deep interest, a vessel that had hoisted sail in a very personal part of her universe.

Zahnie's color was rising. “What the hell are you going on about?” The straight sister calling the loose-goose sister on the carpet.

“Oh, come on. If you're gonna pull this, don't play the innocent.”

“Pull what?”

Red couldn't guess either, but he was nervous.

Leeja waggled her generous upper body, like the fun of it was busting out of her. She flabbered her lips. The teenagers were grinning at Mom's antics now.

“The first man you ever bring home, Roqui, I steal, or that's the way you see it.” Leeja waved an arm theatrically in the direction of the man under the tailgate. “This prize, this charmer, who wouldn't want him?”

She kicked Roqui in the sole of his cowboy boot, but he didn't stir. “When you shoulda thanked me for taking this loser off your hands.”

She stared at the two of them, grinning, practically quivering with hilarity. “And the second you bring home is my old heartthrob Rob Roy.”

Busted!

Leeja danced over to Red–Robbie–Rob Roy, put an arm around his waist, and leaned her head and torso way back, like the two were auditioning for the cover of a paperback romance. “Oh, heartthrob, I beg you, take me away from all this!” She stood up and waved a circle around the whole scene, kids, Roqui, the rest of her family.

“Rob Roy?” Zahnie said in Red's face. “I knew, goddamn you! Goddamn you!” Her face was a dust devil of fury.

Clarita turned and smiled at Zahnie, then at Leeja, then at Red as only a great lady can smile, and pronounced, “We will have stew and fry bread and several of you will explain all this. I'm having a very fine time.”

*   *   *

They sat around two folding tables and ate off paper plates. The teenagers, who'd been introduced as the wayward boaters Sallyfene and Wandafene, were interested now, like they were unfolding a
National Enquirer
story. Red was introduced to the boys, who were named Devin and Dino. The mutton stew was fatty, but the conversation was delectable.

“Tell us who you truly are, Mr. Red–Rob Roy,” said Clarita.

Truly? Okay.

“All of the above.”

“Insufficient,” said Clarita.

“I am a middle-aged man lost at sea after jumping off the ship of his life. That ship was a band, the Elegant Demons, and I was the lead guitarist, keyboard player, and dancing maniac, stage name Rob Roy.”

Clarita asked a question of Zahnie and Leeja with her eyebrow.

“The best cosmic band ever to come out of the Bay Area, next to the Grateful Dead,” said Leeja.

Sallyfene and Wandafene squealed.

“But
way
after the Dead,” said Zahnie.

“They had cuter guys, though,” added Leeja. “I had a big crush on Kell Stone.”

“Our lead singer,” Red said to Clarita, hoping to imply that it's a big step down from lead singer to keyboard player.

“My room,” Leeja said, “was papered with posters of you guys.”

“Our room,” said Zahnie.

With the other eyebrow Clarita Ping-Ponged the inquiry to Leeja.

“The band did this big tour, came to Albuquerque.”

“The Lick-Free tour.” Red remembered it well. The band went to a lot of towns he'd never seen, like Albuquerque, and at that time hoped never to see again.

“I scammed tickets,” Leeja plunged onward. “It was a g-r-e-a-t concert”—her eyes flashed just how great—“and like every other teenage girl in New Mexico, I wanted to meet Kell. Somebody knew what hotel they were staying at, I forget the name. Zahnie and I went down there—”

“Leeja dragged me—”

“Oh, poor, helpless older sister. I gave a bell guy twenty bucks to tell us what room Kell was in. Twenty dollars, you have no idea how much money that was to a fifteen-year-old Navajo, and how wide I had to waggle my ass to persuade that guy. So.” She looked at Zahnie with a grand conspirator's smile but got no smile back. “We went upstairs. To the floor, I mean. We had to hang out by the elevators for a while, thanks to Little Miss Chickenshit—”

Zahnie stuck out her tongue at Leeja.

“Finally, I got up the nerve, walked down the hall alone, and knocked.”

She looked straight at Red with both a twinkle and an accusation.

“You came to the door. Wrong guy, not Kell, but it wasn't the face I noticed first. You were naked, and what, well, caught my eye was your erection. It looked like a baseball bat, cocked and ready to swing. To a fifteen-year-old who'd never seen one before, not in the flesh, it was…” She grimaced and waved her arms defensively.

Clarita gave the universe a delighted whoop.

Yeah, Red remembered doing things like that in those days, when he was tripping, tired, drunk, and toured-out.

He looked shamefaced at Zahnie. She cast her eyes down, and then flushed when she realized she was looking at his lap. Red managed an inward smile at seeing her red skin blush.

“Without even trying to cover up, you mumbled something about expecting someone else. I shrieked and ran. Ran all the way down the hotel stairs, didn't even wait for the elevator. After that, I spent a lot of time looking at your face on those posters, not just Kell's.”

“God, Leeja,” mumbled Zahnie. Humiliation squirmed in her.

“However, as you see, I'm happily married—behold the white knight, father of my children and Zahnie's son, sleeping it off under the truck. My sister, though, is eminently available.”

Leeja giggled maliciously, and Zahnie turned a deeper red.

“That lovely act of your forever mad? Don't you think it's time to let go of it?”

Zahnie looked at her sister coldly. “What act? I was pregnant. I brought Roqui home. The next thing I knew
you
were knocked up. And the next thing was, you hauled Roqui off to the altar, or rather the county clerk. How was I supposed to feel?”

“Like it was a lifetime ago. And not really my choice. And the best break you ever got. Anyway”—Leeja cocked her head rakishly at Red and slapped his behind—“here's your big chance to waltz off with my heartthrob.”

 

24

TELL THE TRUTH

Don't look at a falling star unless you blow at it. You'll have bad luck.

—Navajo saying

 

Zahnie and Red walked out past everybody and everything to nowhere in particular. In a few minutes they climbed a red-rock outcropping and sat in the shade of a cedar tree. The sun was setting, but he wasn't paying attention to how splendid the scene was or wasn't. He felt his face was burning red. He tried starting things. “You first.”

“Okay.” She looked him straight and hard in the eyes. “I brought Roqui home from college, he seduced Leeja, I got mad and ran back to Albuquerque, and they stayed at Mythic Valley. Their first, Sallyfene, was born three months after my son, Damon. That's why I keep a little distance from them.” More challenging eyes. “Now you tell me everything.” She paused. “On the other hand, why should you?”

Red thought before he spoke. “You're becoming a real friend, maybe more. I'm getting attached to you. So I tell you, or I lose you.”

*   *   *

Red let his mind slide back to the dream. He saw himself plunge into the bay as one man and come out another. When he felt it to his toes, he told her about it.

“A couple of months ago, I was half-famous and half-rich, and dead, dead inside.”

He couldn't go on. He let his eyes roam across Mythic Valley, to a horizon far from Zahnie. His story turned paranormal now. He told her of the many nights of the same dream. He spoke of the baptism of his old self and the emergence of the new. “Weird. I climbed out naked and invisible. And wondered,
Am I alive or dead?

“When they hauled the car up, the driver's seat was empty. The new man was sitting right on the bank, exposed and unseen.

“So. I saw a way out. An invisible man could walk away and start over. But, and this was real strong, if I walked away, I'd have to go naked. No band, no money, no nothing.”

He started to reach for her hand and pulled back.

He thought maybe she'd say it, but she just looked into him.

He stumbled onward. “I guess it's every man's fantasy, in a way. Death and resurrection. Burn the old life on a pyre, catch the energy as it rises up, become a new man.”

He looked at her, wondering. She was unreadable.

“Anyway, I knew when I was ready. Cut my hair short and grew this beard, so that my hair is in the wrong place.” He pulled at his whiskers. Then I blew up my beautiful sailboat, which I called the
Elegant Demon,
got a new ID, new everything, headed into the nowhere-everywhere. I was happy and scared, more scared than I've ever been.” He spread his arms. “The Demon is dead, full fathom five. Here's the new guy, Red Stuart.”

He looked at her and waited.

“I'm glad you told me.”

Red sat back and put his knees up to his chest. “For me, in this moment, in this incredible place, you are part of the magic.”

Her arm slipped around his shoulders. It felt like the way you comfort a friend, or even a stranger, when comforting is called for. He thought,
I've blown it with her.

“Red,” Zahnie said, “I forgive you for being Rob Roy, and for fooling me. I know why Leeja recognized you. More than your face was engraved on her brain.”

They laughed together.

“Can I say I'm sorry for being an asshole and have you believe it?”

“You can give it a try.”

“I'm sorry for acting like an asshole.”

A nod, no words.

*   *   *

“What are you looking at?”

“You.” She hunted within herself. “I expected a
poor-me
rich-guy wail, and found a real person.”

“That's who you're looking at?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Zahnie Kee, you are indeed a magical creature.”

“That's one of the nicest things a man has ever said to me.”

“And I thank you. As I entered Moonlight Water, Charlie Lyman tried to take me to the dungeons, and you saved my soul.”

She smiled at him. “More like your ass.”

She watched him search her eyes. If he was looking for love, she let him see something else. She squeezed his hand and turned to look around at the desertscape. The last of a melting twilight in a country beautiful and forbidding, vibrant with life and an invitation to death.

“What do you want to do?”

“Go see the dances,” she answered.

“Okay. I'm with you.”

*   *   *

They walked halfway to the crowd with fingers locked, and then she slipped her hand away. After the spell of the world Red drew her into, the Navajo Fair felt to Zahnie like an assault, bright costumes, laughs, shouting, and lots of music. Over a couple of hours they watched a jingle dance, a women's traditional dance, a dazzlingly athletic men's fancy dance, and a torch run.

Tonight, for the first time in years, she compared her dress-up outfit with other young women's and thought she looked good.
Not that anybody looks as good as Navajo women when they are decked out.
Glossy black hair, beautiful skin tones, vivid colors, everything bold, nothing pallid. And even if she wasn't a flashy, silvery, jingle-jangle person, she thought,
I look good here.

From time to time Red touched her hand, but she pulled it away—not a Navajo way, public displays of affection. She never looked at him, but she wanted to.

They saw Charlie Lyman in the audience twice, once caught him looking hard at the two of them. Red looked back just as hard, and deliberately put his hand on Zahnie's shoulder. For effect, Zahnie let him.

After midnight, when they were walking back to camp, she asked, “What did you like best?”