Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series)

Why the Star Stands Still

Rose Christo

1

Sun and Moon

I stared at the computer monitor, the dull glow burning imprints into the backs of my eyes.

Oh, did I hate that computer.

Focus, I told myself.  Stop slacking.

No, the real problem is that I hate writing about as much as I hate reading--by which I mean I really, really,
really
hate reading.  Nothing bores me more than stationary text on stationary paper.  Except numbers.  Numbers and reading and writing.

I probably shouldn't have picked a career that's about 40% reading, 60% writing.

The Seven Major Crimes Act
, I started to write.  But immediately I paused, the cursor blinking back at me.  The Seven Major Crimes Act was a real pain in the neck--which was exactly why I was trying to get rid of it.  I don't know whether you're familiar with the law I'm talking about--if not, that's okay; like I said, it's pretty boring--but way back in the 1800s, Congress came up with this crazy law that says Native Americans aren't allowed to do anything if a "major" crime happens on their reservation.  Like murder, or arson...or burglary, or rape, or pretty much anything else that would compromise a human being's safety.  Instead, we're supposed to sit tight and wait for the FBI to show up.

The problem with that, unfortunately, is that the FBI usually can't be bothered.  More than half the time, they'll get a report about a serious crime out on an Indian reservation, and as long as it doesn't involve any money they can scoop up, they'll ignore it.  Why not?  Reservations tend to be pretty low-tech; it's not going to make the news if a mass murder happens out here, and it's definitely not going to make the news if the federal government tramples all over us.  So if you're living on a reservation, and you're the victim of a really bad crime, you've got a long, long road ahead of you before you get any justice.

It's an outdated law.  Getting anybody in Congress to care that it's outdated...I guess that's another story.

The computer screen was starting to give me a headache.  I slouched in my seat.  I pulled on my eyelids.

Forget law, I thought.  I should've been a ranch hand.

"Some damn kid swallowed a pencil today.  How do you swallow a pencil?"

I hadn't even heard the front door open.  I shut off the computer monitor and stood up.

Rafael was his usual unkempt self today, square wire glasses askew, hair lank and black, a single, thin braid hanging next to his temple, knotted with a soft gray dove's feather.  He'd confided in me, once, that the dove was what he considered his spirit guide.  You're not supposed to talk to anyone about your spirit guide--that's a pretty big taboo in Plains Shoshone society--but rules were made to be broken, I guess.

Rafael tugged his sea-green hospital shirt over his head.  He tossed it on the floor, slob that he was.  Not that I really minded.  It gave me a good excuse to look at his chest.  His very tattooed chest.  Seriously--anything he can get his hands on, he'll draw on it, whether it's paper and charcoal or his own skin.  He's got a gray wolf on his chest and a chain on his arm.  Don't get me started on his neck.

"And then the mother wanted to keep the pencil--like a souvenir or something--"

Rafael wandered into the sitting room at the back of the house.  When we'd first built the place, I'd wanted the sitting room in the front.  "That's ridiculous," Rafael had rallied.  "If we put the sitting room in the front of the house, then where do we put the front room?"

I followed Rafael into the sitting room.  Square and spacious, two airy windows intermittent with drawings and sketches.  A God's Eye above the hearth.  A photo of my grandmother sitting on the mantel.

"--and then the kid wouldn't sit still when I was spraying benzocaine down his throat, got it in his eyes and everything--"

Rafael tossed himself onto the low sofa with a cathartic grunt of relief.  I tried not to let him see my laugh.

No good.  "What are you laughing at?" he said, disgruntled.

"The giant pilot whale that just beached itself in my living room."

I sat next to Rafael on the sofa.  He looked at me, his face contorting into about a thousand different expressions.  I love that about him.  I love everything about him, but his facial expressions are the best.  Smoldering is his default.  Bewildered is his backup.

He broke into a grin--radiant, boyish, beautiful.  A grin that scattered light into his dark blue eyes.

"You're an ass," he said.

"I try," I remarked.  "Did you have a rough day?"

"Nah," he said.  "It wasn't so bad."

Rafael's a speech therapist.  If you can't talk, or swallow, he's the guy you want to go to.  Funny thing about that.  Most of my life, I couldn't talk. 

He changed that. 

Rafael grimaced.  "I've gotta get out of here," he said.

Another thing about Rafael:  He hates being indoors for too long.  I can only imagine how stir crazy he gets when he's cooped up in the reservation hospital for hours on end.

I stood from the sofa.  "Want to go for a walk?"

Rafael stood, too.  "Okay."

I smiled lightly.  "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He glanced down at his bare chest.  He scowled.

"Fine," he said, and trudged up the staircase.

One change of clothes later, and we headed out the door.

The cicadas on the treetops were winding down for the evening, the brook behind the house gurgling and bright.  The sky flushed pink and sparked gold over the tops of the beech trees and the alders.  Years and years ago, a pine beetle infestation had killed the ponderosa trees standing on this site.  Leaving a huge gap in the middle of the forest had seemed kind of like a waste--so Rafael and I had built on top of it instead.  It's pretty nice out here, so long as you don't cross the brook.  Head too far north and you run into a gang of ornery black bears.

We walked the eastern path to the lake, my hand swinging at my side.  Rafael took my hand in his.  I love it when he does little things like that.  It's like second nature; it's like he doesn't even think about it.

"You nervous about tomorrow?" Rafael asked.

Tomorrow was the day my father came home from prison.

Fifteen years ago, my father went to prison for what was supposed to be a life sentence.  I'm not going to lie:  Dad
did
commit the crime he was convicted for.  It's just that the conviction, to begin with, was unlawful.  You know that Major Crimes Act I was talking about earlier?  It's supposed to grant the federal government authority over crimes on Indian reservations, right?  Well, the kooky way it was worded has the government locked in a Constitutional loophole.  The only way they can make an arrest on a reservation is if the crime happened on the reservation, too.  Dad's crime happened out in Wyoming.  The arrest was illegal.

It took seven years to do it--and about a billion migraines--but eventually, I'd convinced a judge to agree.

Nervous?  I wasn't nervous.  I was ready to throw up.  Barring attorney-client visits, I hadn't really seen my dad in years.  Not the way he used to be.

Rafael looked at me sideways.  He squeezed my shoulder in a broad hand.  Rafael always knew what was going through my mind, sometimes with startling accuracy.  We'd never needed words to communicate in the past.

But I've got to admit--they're a pretty nice perk.

"You hear anything from Zeke?" I asked.

The lake drew into view--ten whole acres, glittering under the slow-setting sun.  A couple of school kids plashed lazily in the shallow waters.  It was the start of summer vacation.  I guess they were celebrating.

"No," Rafael grumbled, and we sat together on the soft and silty lakeshore.  Rafael looped his arms across his knees, dark eyes on the radio tower opposite.

Gently, I gripped his knee. 

"How long do we have to wait to get a kid?" Rafael said bitterly.  "Thousands of kids in foster care need a home.  And we've got a home.  So what's the wait?"

I regarded him softly.  "It's not a conspiracy," I said, trying to soothe him.  "We're like a product Zeke's got to sell to CPS."

"Huh..."

"He's got to sell them on the idea of us as parents.  You know--two guys.  On an Indian reservation.  With very little electricity."

"We've got electricity," Rafael said defensively.  "We just don't need it for much."

"You're very fond of your cellar," I said lightly.

"Sitting down there with the ice?  Best remedy for the heat wave," he said matter-of-factly.

"You know...Rafael...I think you might be a visionary."

"I've been saying that for years.  Why do you have to be so slow about these things?"

"I'm very sorry."

"Yeah, well," he said gruffly, "I'll forgive you, I guess."

I laid my head on his shoulder.  He wrapped his arm around my back.

Seventeen years.  That's how long I've known him.  That's how long I've loved him.  Seventeen years later and he still makes my heart feel giddy and weightless.  Seventeen years later and my favorite place in the world is still the safety of his arms.

Seventeen years later and I'm still a sappy idiot.  Go figure.

"Sky?" Rafael said.

I smiled.  "Hm?"

"You're pulling on my earring."

I lifted my head from his shoulder.  A laugh bubbled out of me before I could catch it.  He must have heard it, because he smiled, a shy smile that pulled at the corners of his lips, a smile that revealed his dimples and the light hidden far in the back of his eyes.

"I like your voice," he said.

I'll never forget what it was like, six years ago; recovering from surgery in a scratchy hospital bed, uttering my first raspy word in twenty-two years.  "Ow."  My first word was, "Ow."  A friend of ours, Zeke Owns Forty, happened to be sitting on my knees at the time.  He's pretty scatter-brained like that.

I tucked Rafael's braid behind his ear.  "Have I thanked you lately?" I asked.

I could see the gears shifting behind his eyes.  I could see the half-formed smile fighting its way onto his face, his face fighting back.  "No," he finally said.

I'm sure I would have found a witty proposition to retort with.  But as it happened, a wet, slimy bundle fell across our laps.

"What the hell?" Rafael said, a stormy scowl overtaking his face.

"Hi, Leon," I said mildly.

"I went in the lake," Leon said.  He was six years old and big-eyed, the baby fat of yesteryear still prominent on his chubby little legs.  He kicked his legs and sprayed Rafael and me with lake water.  "Mom said I couldn't but then I did and Aunt Lila said I couldn't but then I did and then Nick said I couldn't but I did and he got mad so he went home."

Rafael and I exchanged a look.

"Does your mom know you're out here?" I asked, palming the crown of Leon's very wet head.

Leon pretended not to have heard me.

"Okay," I said.  I picked him up by his ankles and stood.

"Help!" he yelped, dangling upside-down.

"Don't ask me for help," Rafael said harshly.  "I'm not siding with you.  Your mom scares me."

"Is your mom home, Leon?" I asked.

"Yes.  Help!  Help!"

I righted him and set him down.  I grabbed the back of his drenched shirt before he could run very far.  Leon's a little wild child.  I don't know how Annie and Aubrey keep up with him.

Rafael and I marched Leon down the dirt path and out to the reservation proper.  Log cabins stood clustered amid bull and pinyon pines, a communal stone firepit jutting out of the dried and briny dirt.  Butter churns and clotheslines lingered abandoned outside the houses' hardy wood doors.  Nobody wanted to work during the twilight hours.

"Leggo," Leon said, struggling against us.

"Nope," Rafael said, and gripped his hand tighter.

We walked the country lane between ranches and rolling farmland.  By now Leon had forfeited the battle; he skipped along between us, unfazed.  Rural gates creaked in the weak summer wind.  Pearl-white crabapple blossoms hung sweetly from their trees' branches, the scent of their fruit intoxicating and thick.