Stone Butterfly (3 page)

“Sure.”
I wonder if Lila Mae's ever been to a Bear Dance. Probably not.

“Plop, plop, plop.”

Moon shook a wrinkle out of the newspaper. “What?”

“That was the sound it made.”

He stared at her hunched back. “The sound what made?”

“The blood.”

“What blood?”

She brought him a man-sized platter of eggs, sausage, and potatoes. “The blood dropping onto that dead man's face!”

“Oh. Right.” He reached for a paper napkin, considered tucking it over his new white linen shirt with the mother-of-pearl buttons, decided to put it in his lap.

She hurried back to the stove. “You don't have the least idea what I've been talking about.”

“Sure I do.”

“Then tell me.”

“The blood. It was going…uh…drip-drip.”

“It was going plop-plop-
plop.
” She turned down the ring of blue flame under the pot, tossed him another challenge. “And how was it that I happened to hear that blood going plop-plop-plop?”

With Aunt Daisy it was nine-to-one for a nightmare, so he played the odds. “You was having one of them weird dreams.”

“I knew you wasn't paying no attention.” She banged the wooden spoon on the stove. “What I said was—I've been having the same
bad
dream, over and over.”

Might as well get this over with.
“Tell me all about it.”

She sniffed. “Oh, you don't really want to know.”

“Yes I do. And if you keep me in suspense, I won't be able to eat a bite of breakfast.”

That'll be a day to remember.
Daisy brought the stew pot to the table. “I dreamed about a skinny little girl.”

He watched her ladle a generous helping of green chili stew onto the mound of scrambled eggs.
That looks good enough to eat.
He took a taste.
It could use some salt.

She reached out to tweak his ear. “You're supposed to ask me: ‘Who was this skinny little girl?'”

“Consider yourself asked.” He reached for the shaker.

She slapped his hand. “Don't do that—I've got it seasoned just right. I don't know who she is.”

Momentarily deprived of salt, the Ute warrior raised his fork, expertly speared a sausage. “Then why should I have asked?”

“To show proper respect to a tribal elder.”

“Right.” He opened a steaming biscuit, inserted a generous helping of butter.

“I don't know who the girl is, because in these dreams, I don't ever see her face.” She hobbled over to the stove.
Back and forth, back and forth—it's a wonder I don't wear a path ankle-deep into the floor.
“But I know she's in trouble. Serious trouble.”

Behind her back, Moon snatched the shaker, added several dashes of sodium chloride, tasted the result.
That's some better.

While preparing a plate for herself, Daisy paused to stare through the window at a diaphanous fluff of cloud floating over the big mesa. She watched it snag itself on the tallest of the Three Sisters. “In these dreams, the girl is standing over the dead man.”

He took a sip of black coffee.
I forgot to put sugar in it.
He remedied this error with six heaping spoonfuls.

Daisy was silent for a long moment, watching the cloud that had become a misty wisp of gray hair on the petrified Pueblo woman's head. “And what makes it so awful is that her little hands is soaked in blood.”

As chance would have it, he had just poured tomato ketchup onto a heap of fried potatoes.

The shaman shuddered. “And that blood just keeps dripping off the tips of her fingers—onto the dead man's face.”

Charlie Moon was not a squeamish diner, but food was meant to be savored. He eyed the bloody chunk of spud on his fork.
I wish she would wait until after I've had my breakfast to tell me about her nightmares.

Daisy Perika brought her plate to the table, thoughtfully watched her nephew frown at a slice of ketchup-painted potato. “All night I could hear it, even when I was wide-awake—all that blood dripping off her hands, onto that dead man's face.” She saw the indecision on Charlie Moon's face. “There was so much that it puddled up in his eye sockets.”

Knowing she would finally tire of the subject, he decided the fried potatoes could wait. In the meantime, he would fortify himself with eggs and sausage and buttered biscuits.

The old woman settled herself into a chair. For a while, she picked at her scrambled eggs. After a few tentative bites, she lost interest in her meal. Fixed her gaze on a Wildflower of the Month wall calendar. Began to hum her favorite Ute ballad, which she claimed had been stolen from her tribe by the British. Then, in a scratchy-creaky voice that would have set a deaf man's teeth on edge, she sang thusly:

In Sweet Grass Town, where I was born,

There was a fair lass dwellin'…

And so on. Until she got to the good part:

O grandmo-ther, make my bed!

O make it hard and narrow—

My sweetheart died for me today,

I'll be with him to-morrow.

After the next and semifinal verse, and following his aunt's long, melancholy sigh, Charlie Moon concluded that he had won the waiting game. He could almost taste his starchy, ketchup-tinctured victory.

From the corner of her eye, the tribal elder spotted the home fry that was newly impaled on the tines of her nephew's fork. She mumbled a hastily devised and highly discordant epilogue:

And knowin' I'll be no man's wife,

I'll slit my throat with a butcher knife…

And my blood drips down,

Down in the dust in Sweet Grass Town…

On the Lonely Side of Big Lizard Ridge

Having no Idea that he had a soul mate in an adjoining state (he would have greatly admired Daisy Perika's pepper and spunk), Ben Silver muttered under his bushy white mustache: “I hate Mr. Alexander Graham Bell. Also Ma Bell and all the little baby Bells. Plus all the Bell family's mangy dogs and flea-bitten cats.” He glared at the offending instrument. “But most of all, I hate Bell Senior's infernal invention!”

And he did. Except for the thin little Indian girl who trudged through Hatchet Gap now and then to do some light housework for him, Ben Silver assured himself that he hated virtually everyone, living and dead, including persons he had never met or heard of. This was a slight exaggeration; there were a few historical figures that he admired. Mr. Silver was, in fact, not an entirely unreasonable man—there was a particular reason that he particularly despised Mr. Bell and his family and livestock and the fruit of Mr. Bell's inventive mind.

Why? Because when the telephone rang at his elbow, Ben Silver was seated comfortably in his favorite chair by his favorite window, with his favorite book. On top of that, he was rereading his favorite short story. Mr. Silver was enjoying this yarn for what he figured was maybe the hundred and eleventh time. The volume was a 1934 edition of
Guys and Dolls,
and Ben's favorite story happened to be “A Very Honorable Guy.” His other favorite was “The Lily of St. Pierre,” but that is another story. The phone kept right on jangling. Ben turned a yellowed page.
It's probably Doc Stump's nurse checking to see if I took my new blood-pressure pills. If I don't pick up, maybe she'll figure I'm dead and go bother somebody who's still warm.
This stratagem was not effective—whoever it was did not give up—the blasted thing kept right on ringing. For what he figured was maybe the hundred and eleventh time that month, Ben began to get somewhat scorched under the collar.
Who's so damned determined to annoy me?
He placed a two-dollar bill between pages seventy-eight and seventy-nine, set the venerable volume aside, snatched up the offensive instrument. “Why don't you go drink a bucket of lye—or stick a sharp stick in your eye!”

The gravely voice on the other end of the line was an echo of his own. “Hello yourself.”

“I should've known.” Ben groaned. “Why won't you let me be?”

“Just wanted to see how you're getting along. After all, I am your younger brother.”

“You're my younger
half
brother, you two-bit ambulance-chasing twerp.” Ben shook his head. “I cannot imagine why my sainted mother ever consented to marry your father.” He paused to wonder what she could have seen in the mule-faced old crook. “But I will say this—Raymond Oates Senior—low-down, egg-sucking, cattle-stealing varmint that he was—was a lot more man than you'll ever be.”

Knowing how his daddy would have appreciated this bare-knuckled compliment, Raymond chuckled. “I'm glad I caught you in a good mood.”

“You don't fool me, Ray—I know why you're calling. Same reason you always do. So don't bother to waste my valuable time and your sour breath asking—the answer is still N-O, which spells get lost!”

“Look, Ben—neither one of us is getting any younger. I just thought—”

“You thought wrong, pudding-brain—you'll never get your grubby hands on it! Not tomorrow. Not next month.” There was a sudden shortness of breath. “Not
ever—
” Ben Silver gasped, waited until his wind returned, then smiled cruelly. “And as long as we're talking about your father, I think the old thief liked me better than you.”

Aside from a sinister whisper of electronic hiss, the line was deathly silent.

When he did speak, Raymond's voice had taken on a flinty edge. “You're the thief, Ben. The day Daddy died—before his body was even cold—you broke the lock on his trunk and…and you took it.”

Ben grinned. “Damn right I did—so rat-face Raymond wouldn't get his sweaty paws on it.” He felt a blunt pain in his chest, grimaced. “And if I had it to do over, I'd take it again. But it wasn't stealing—what I took was my mother's property. And she always meant for me to have it.”

Another silence.

“Ben, be reasonable. You've had it for all these years. And you're in poor health.” The attorney had assumed his highly civilized, professional tone, which generally earned him two hundred and fifty dollars an hour plus expenses. “I know you're not exactly living hand-to-mouth, but if you had a big wad of tax-free cash I'm sure you'd find something useful to do with it. I'd be willing to pay you—”

“Stuff your money, Raymond Oates!” The pain was throbbing now. Ben ground his teeth until the ache under his breastbone subsided. “Now listen to this—I'm only gonna say it once. Just for spite, I plan to outlive you. But even if I don't, after I'm dead and buried, I'll still see you don't get it. I might go to Salt Lake and give it to a museum—or to some stranger I happen to meet on the street. Or maybe I'll bury it where nobody will ever find it!” With a fine sense of drama, Ben Silver hung up on his half brother, smiled at his image of Oates the Lesser chewing on his tongue and foaming at the mouth.
It's always such a wonderful blessing to have a heart-to-heart chat with the closest kin you got left on earth.
His round face assumed a puzzled look.
Now what was I doing when my sweet little half brother called?
Remembering, he reached for the Damon Runyon volume, found the marked page, picked up again with “A Very Honorable Guy.” The feisty old man tried to read but did not comprehend the strings of words; he completely lost track of the serious business being transacted between Feet Samuels and the Brain. Finally, he laid the book aside, sighed.
I may not live another year.
He placed a hand on his chest, felt the comforting thickness of the canvas neck wallet concealed under his shirt.
If I was to drop dead right this minute, somebody would find it on my corpse and nine chances out of ten, my half brother would end up gloating over it.
That simply would not do.
Before I'm gone, I've got to do something with Momma's keepsake so Raymond won't be able to get his mitts on it.
He turned in his chair, watched a lemon-tinted sun fade to a blushing pink, fall toward Big Lizard Ridge, flush a bloody crimson before slipping into Hatchet Gap. By the time the sky over Tonapah Flats had turned dark purple, and just as the hoot-owl hooted, Ben Silver knew exactly what he'd do. He found a neat stack of business cards in a desk drawer, removed the rubber band, thumbed through the rectangles until he found the one he was looking for.

That night, for the first time in months, the old man slept peacefully.

Scarcely an hour after Ben Silver had hung up on his half brother, the curtain was about to rise on a second drama. This performance would be staged at the more densely populated end of Hatchet Gap, that narrow crevasse that had—according to a time-honored and lurid rumor—been cleaved into Big Lizard Ridge by Thunder Woman—who did it with her hatchet. According to sworn testimony, she was piqued off about something or other.

The moral here, if there is one to be discovered, is that only the most dim-witted males underestimate the inner resources of the gentler gender.

The Butterfly

Though the sun shone warmly on her back, Sarah Frank shivered in the slight breeze, pulled a faded denim jacket tightly around her gaunt frame. The fourteen-year-old was always cold, always hungry. Paying scant attention to the traffic, she crossed the busy highway. Mr. Zig-Zag—so named because of the jagged white lightning logo imprinted on his black head—was even more oblivious to the world than was his mistress. Sarah paused long enough to snatch up her cat, then trotted across the asphalt to evade a massive SUV that was bearing down on them like a charging rhino; the glistening behemoth did not slow. A backwash of whirlwind ruffled the cat's fur, whipped the cotton skirt around her skinny legs. She paused in the vehicle's wake, watched it vanish in a flurry of whirling dust.
Why did I hurry? I could have just stood there in the road, held my arms out, and said here I am. That big car would never have been able to stop. I would've been smacked onto it like a moth.

She raised her gaze to Big Lizard Ridge and Hatchet Gap—and recalled the legend of Thunder Woman.
When I die, I'll fly away. But I'm not going to be a smudgy-brown moth—I'll be a beautiful butterfly.
But what she had in mind was not a fragile little rainbow thing with silken wings. Sarah's eyes narrowed.
I'll be a
stone
butterfly—and when I pass by there'll be earthquakes and thunder and lightning and whirlwinds and big trees will break and fall down!
She squeezed the cat a little too tightly.
And if somebody treats me bad, I'll make him SO sorry.
It was, if a somewhat extravagant stretch of adolescent imagination, still a rather grand vision. But in the meantime and prior to any such majestic metamorphosis, the wingless visionary was obliged to occupy her time with more mundane tasks than wreaking global havoc—such as running an errand for Marilee Attatochee, the elder cousin who provided her with food and shelter. Sarah's Papago relative served as a sort of substitute mother. Sort of.

As the girl marched robotically across the graveled parking lot toward Oates's Supermarket, her huge brown eyes gazed blankly at the flint-hard world. She had once overheard Miss Simmons (her English teacher) say that she thought the orphan's face resembled those starved, haunted visages one saw in old black-and-white photographs of Holocaust victims. Sarah liked Miss Simmons. She had mixed feelings about the children at school. The boys were mostly stupid as bugs and hardly worth a thought. Worst of all were the pretty girls in their pretty dresses and always-new shoes. Initially humiliated by their smirks and giggles at her tattered old clothes, she had burned with shame. But if the burning had charred her soul, it had also ignited embers of hatred. For months, this had been enough. Hating them. Hating them to death! After a while, the little fire had gone out—the enmity crumbling into cinders. But there was a small something left among the ashes. Something hard, like a diamond. No one could make a scratch on her. The silly, cruel children could no longer hurt her. Sarah had almost ceased to care—at least during the harshness of day, when one was forced to see things as they really were.

There were other times though, during the long, lonely nights, when spring rains pelted the steel roof over her cot, or when west winds hummed sinister hymns in the chokeweed vines. This was when she drifted away, dreamed her dreams. Often, Sarah's parents would come to embrace her, praise her, whisper encouraging words in her ear. Mommy and Daddy were young and strong and full of love and consolation. Sometimes, she would see bright visions of
Cañón del Espíritu
and Three Sisters Mesa. Daisy Perika was always there near the canyon's mouth. Sometimes the wrinkled old Ute woman was standing in the door of her little house trailer saying “Come right in, Sarah—my goodness how you've grown up!” Or Daisy would be at her gas stove, stirring a pot of steaming posole. In these dream-fantasies, the Ute elder was always smiling, always eager to welcome the child she had sheltered before. And then there were the most special of all the dreams, even better than the ones with her parents. Charlie Moon would appear out of nowhere. Charlie tall as a tree, Charlie with his big cheerful smile, scooping little Sarah up in his arms, hugging her, teasing her, telling her silly stories about how “mink trout” in the cold Piedra grew their winter fur during the Month of Dead Leaves Falling and shed it during the Month of Tender Grass.

In these honey-sweet dreams, the aged teenager was as she had been in those olden, golden times—sometimes a mere toddler, or perhaps she would be six or seven years old. Whatever her age, she was always happy. Always perfectly safe and secure. As the amber-tinted dreams would fade to black, Sarah would drift up toward consciousness and think blissful thoughts.
Someday, I'm going to have a closet full of pretty new dresses. Strings of silver and turquoise to wear around my neck and yellow ribbons in my hair. Seven pairs of shoes, a different color for every day of the week. And plenty of good food to eat. But not enough to make me fat.
She would smile at that.
I might even grow up to be pretty. Pretty enough that Charlie would want to marry me.
Then she would awaken, stare at the dirty little window above her bed, promise herself that as soon as her cousin had gone off to work and Marilee's boyfriend had wandered off to some bar, she would call the Southern Ute Police on the telephone and ask them to find Charlie Moon wherever he was, tell him to come and get her at Tonapah Flats, Utah. She had no doubt he would. In all of Sarah's gray, uncertain world, Charlie was the one bright constant that she could depend on.

But always, the sun would rise over Frenchman's Butte. And when it did, the pitiless white rays would evaporate the wispy remnants of her girlish hopes and dreams. Sarah's mother and father had been dead for years and years. Dead as the whitened cattle bones in the Little Sandy Wash, dead as her hopes for a little happiness. The sunlight would also remind Sarah that Daisy Perika was a gruff, penny-pinching old woman who didn't like anybody. Especially not children. Come to think of it, the old woman was a lot like Ben Silver—who was
so
grouchy. Anyway, Daisy might be dead and gone after all this time. And Charlie Moon would probably be married by now, to a smart, pretty wife who wouldn't want a stupid, gawky girl in the house. Especially not one who was madly, madly in love with her husband. That would make things tense.

Unnoticed by Sarah Frank, a sleek, black Lincoln Town Car pulled into the parking lot behind her. The driver eased along the graveled surface, just keeping pace with the girl.

Before she did the grocery shopping, Sarah was compelled to follow the dual ritual.

Her first stop was in front of the Cactus Rose Pawn Shop. Showing no interest in hunting rifles, bone-handled sheath knives, or the various musical instruments on display behind the shatterproof window, she fixed her gaze on the single object capable of catching a young lady's eye. The stunning pendant on the coin-silver chain was the most lovely thing she had ever seen. The oval of Australian opal was as large as a hen's egg, and from deep inside, a thousand iridescent stars glittered with fire of every radiant hue. In the child's fantasy, these were the fragments of a rainbow that had frozen over a snowcapped granite peak, fallen to earth, shattered at a Ute wizard's feet—to be assembled into the present jewel by a flick of a red-willow wand, a muttering of magical commands. But never, not even in the wildest flights of her imagination, did the girl dare to imagine that she might wear such a piece of heavenly glory.

Her eyes filled to overflowing with opalescent radiance, she hurried away, pushed through the door at Canyon Country Newsstand and Magazines. Feigning a slightly bored expression, she went up and down the aisles, idly glancing at enticing titles on paperback books, occasionally removing a volume to admire a lurid picture on the cover. Most of these featured an astonishingly beautiful woman and a ruggedly handsome man. Sarah finally approached the children's section, ran the tips of her brown fingers along the colorful volumes, finally stopped at the one she loved the most. On the cover, there was a cunningly painted picture of a tiny little bug-woman with eight legs. Well, only two legs really; Grandmother Spider used six of her appendages for arms. When Sarah was certain the clerk at the counter wasn't looking—the fourteen-year-old was embarrassed to be reading a book meant for small children—she thumbed through the few pages, became a companion of those archetypal animals from long, long ago, when the world was young and the little spider-woman stole the source of warmth and light from the monstrous Sun-Guards. As on all of her previous visits, she whispered the words, imagined herself to be Grandmother Spider, standing in the center of the circle with all the happy animals dancing around their heroine. Lost in the dream world, the young reader felt secure in her privacy. But of course, she was never alone in the store.

Today, the clerk was busy with a meek-looking man who was purchasing this month's copy of
Guns & Ammo.
A chubby, freckle-faced little boy was sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading
The Skateboard Life.
A forty-six-year-old woman with stringy hair, stone-hard eyes, and a lout of a husband had selected a steamy romance
(Young and Passionate Nurses)
plus a pair of instructional volumes:
How to Assume a New Identity
and
Common Poisons and Antidotes.
She had no interest whatever in antidotes.

In addition to these few customers, someone was watching Sarah Frank. And with considerable interest.

Having finished with the charming little book, Sarah placed it back on the shelf, promised Grandmother Spider she would be back as soon as she could.
And when I've saved up some money, I'll buy you and take you home.
Noting the clock on the wall, she left Canyon Country Newsstand and Magazines with Mr. Zig-Zag tucked under her arm, trotted along to the supermarket.

The heavyset man approached the clerk, placed the book on the counter. “Thelma, would you gift wrap this for me?”

The young woman smiled at the familiar face. “Certainly, sir. Won't take a moment.”