Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series) (14 page)

I went back to Rosa's house.  Rosa and Charity were sitting outside against the trunk of the colossal southern oak. 

"Look," Charity said to me, and held up a long, tan sheet of elkskin.

Poor elk, I thought foolishly.

The three of us crushed lemons in an empty vat, the citric stench overpowering.  Rosa and Charity soaked the elkskin in the lemon bleach while I ground up the bloodroot in a ceramic bowl.  The goldfinches hidden in the pockets of the southern oak sang in a clear, bright vibrato.  In a place like Nettlebush, you can practically feel the earth as it grows beneath you, rich with nutrients, teeming with life.  The pale turmeric whorling on the hills was the color of stardust.  The bull pines were soft canopies above the cozy log homes.  Even the sun seemed genial in its way, shimmering, white-gold as a king's brocade.

I had a thought just then.  I stole a glance at Rosa and Charity while I was hanging the elkskin up to dry from the lowest of the tree branches.  Mother and daughter looked impossibly alike: kind, sweet, round faces, eyes as warm as a welcoming hearth.  I was indebted to mother and daughter alike.  A literal part of them lived inside of me.

I touched the scars at the base of my throat.  I hid a smile.  I didn't miss wearing those stupid turtlenecks, that's for sure.

The night of the pauwau brought with it a certain air of excitement.  In a matter of hours, our sister tribes would flood into the reservation and bring with them their own customs and stories.  In a way, a pauwau is exactly like a family reunion.  I remember a pauwau I attended on the Navajo reservation some years back.  The Navajo tribal council interrupted the Enemy Way dance to alert us that they had found a missing little boy.  "If anyone lost a boy named Keith Kinyani," said the speaker, his voice magnified by his microphone, "could you please report to the council tent?"  Everybody laughed.  "He's doing just fine," the councilman went on.  "He knows he's among his people."

Mickey lay on her belly on the sitting room floor, aptly reading one of the books Rafael had bought for her.  The oil lamp glowed low, the forest outside the windows dark under an amaranth sky.

"Psst," I said.

Mickey lifted her head.

"Come with me for a second," I said.

She closed her book and followed me up the staircase.  I pushed open the door to her bedroom and she stepped inside.

She drew back in the doorway.  "What's that?"

The regalia lay across her bed, a small white elkskin dress adorned at the elbows with brilliant red fringe.  Lila had given me a pair of her old moccasins to keep.  They rested on the carpet, untied.

Mickey looked back and forth between the moccasins and regalia so rapidly, I thought her head might rocket off her shoulders.  Finally she turned on me.  She summoned herself up as tall as she could--very imposing, at least if I were a five-year-old--and addressed me with stern authority.

"Is this
really
for me, or are you pulling my leg?"

"It's really for you," I said.  "I thought you might like to wear it to the pauwau.  But don't forget to thank Charity and Rosa later."

"Does it fit?"

"Why don't you try it on and see?"

I went outside the bedroom while Mickey changed her clothes.  I couldn't keep myself from smiling.  I remembered my first regalia, years and years ago.  Your first regalia is something you never forget.  It's like your official induction into the tribe.

"Okay," Mickey called out.

I stepped back inside.

If I tell you she looked adorable, and leave it at that, I'm sure you won't believe me.  Either you'll think I'm biased--which I probably am--or you'll think it isn't heartfelt.  Where's all the gushing?

She looked adorable.  She looked like a wild little rose blossom standing alongside the dirt road.  She looked like a tiny little princess, regnant over all her dominion.  She looked proud and snub and haughty and small--smaller still when she shrank under my scrutiny, her haughtiness dissipating, her dangling earring resting on her shoulder.

"I've never worn a dress before," she said.

I walked across the room to her closet; I opened the door.  Rafael had nailed a standing mirror to the inside of the door some years ago.  He wasn't kidding when he said he'd wanted her for a very long time.

Mickey's eyes landed on the mirror.  I followed them as they drank in the cozy details of the regalia, the red willow drawstrings and the embroidered hem.

"I look pretty," she whispered, incredulous.

"That's because you're beautiful," I replied.

She spun around to face me.  Her eyes were like saucers.  I wanted to pinch her freckled cheeks and kiss the crown of her head.

When did I start wanting a child as much as Rafael did?  Sure, I'd always looked forward to it--but only because I'd thought it would make Rafael happy.  I like kids well enough, but I've never fantasized about having one of my own.

I wanted this little girl.  I wanted her to stay with us until she was all grown up, until Rafael and I were old and feeble and hard of hearing.   I can't quite place when these feelings first started.  I suppose they must have crept up on me out of nowhere.

Mickey shifted on her heels.  All of a sudden, she beamed at me.

"Red's my favorite color," she said.

I smiled back.  "I'm not surprised in the least," I said.  "Let's make sure Rafael hasn't eaten all the sunflower cakes."

She waited for me on the landing while I dressed in green deerhide regalia: matching trousers and overcoat, a dark breechclout and moccasins.  Together we went down into the kitchen, where--to no one's surprise--Rafael was bent over the pine table, dressed in gray regalia and working his way through the four dozen sunflower cakes Annie and I had spent the better half of a day preparing.

"Those are for the pauwau," Mickey scolded.

Rafael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  "So?" he defended.  "I'm going to the pauwau, aren't I?"

We packed the remainder of the cakes into boxes.  Together we carried them out the door.  We hiked down the forest path, crickets noisy in their treetop homes.

"So many stars," Mickey said, her head tilted back.

"Can you spot the north star?" I asked.

"No.  Which one is that?"

"First you've gotta find the bears," Rafael said.  "There's a big bear and a little bear in the sky.  Can you see 'em?"

Mickey walked with her head tipped back.  I was afraid she was going to collide with a tree.  I shifted my boxes to one arm and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.  The three of us stood still while she mapped the sky with her eyes.

"They all look like stars," she answered, baffled.  "I don't see any bears."

"You're not using your imagination," Rafael accused.

"Look for groups of really bright stars," I suggested.

"Well," Mickey said after a long moment, "that one
kind
of looks like a bear...sort of..."

"Can you find the one that looks like its baby?"

"Stupid bears," Mickey grumbled.  I wondered with wry humor whether she had developed something of an aversion to them.  "Yeah, I guess the one that's up a little further..."

"Okay," Rafael said, "now look between those bears, and pick out the brightest star."

"That's easy."

"Good.  That's the north star."

"Why is it called the north star?" Mickey asked.

" 'Cause it's only visible from the northern hemisphere, or some junk like that."

"Rafael," I said, "why don't you tell her the story?"

"What story?" he said.  But as soon as he'd asked, he seemed to remember.  "Hey, Mickey," he said.

"What?"  Her eyes were still on the stars.

"You know the stars are always moving in the sky?"

"They are?"

"Yeah.  But not the north star.  The north star stands still."

"How come?"

I smiled to myself.

"Long ago," Rafael said--and he lapsed into his storyteller's voice, the voice that lies dormant within every Shoshone heart.  "Before there were Plains People, there were Sky People."

Mickey looked sharply at me, probably searching for a correlation.  I shrugged and grinned.

"The Sky People were the first humans," Rafael said.  "And they lived in a world that exists only in the sky.  And that world was just like ours.  There were plains, and mountains, and valleys, and pretty much everything else you can think of."

"Computers?" Mickey asked.

"What the hell?" Rafael said.  "Am I telling this story or not?"

Mickey rolled her eyes.  "You
said
'pretty much everything'..."

"Alright, alright.  So there were computers."

"Good."

"
Anyway
," Rafael said, exasperated.  "At that time, there was a little boy, a Sky boy, who loved to climb mountains.  His name was--"

"Skylar," Mickey supplied.

"Would you stop interrupting me?"

Mickey giggled incessantly.  I joined her.  I high-fived her, too.  Rafael threw me a scandalized look, like her mischievous streak was my fault.  I returned it angelically.

"His name was Mutsachi," Rafael went on.  "Which means Little Mountain Sheep.  Because, you know, his father was a shepherd.  But also because he loved to climb mountains.

"One day Little Mountain Sheep found the biggest mountain in the sky.  It was so awesome, so huge, he just knew he had to climb it.  So he started to climb.

"He climbed for days.  He was so wrapped up in his journey that he forgot about eating, or drinking, or any of those boring things the rest of us are supposed to do so we don't kick the bucket.  He was exhausted when he reached the top, but he finally made it.  He was so happy.  But then he realized he was hungry, and thirsty, and there was nothing to eat or drink."

"So go back down the mountain," Mickey urged.

"Would you let me finish?" Rafael said.  "He couldn't go back down the mountain, because he'd unearthed too many rocks while he was climbing it, and now the mountainside was steep as hell.  Little Mountain Sheep searched the peak for birds' eggs, falcons, anything he might eat--but there was nothing.  It was like nothing ever climbed that mountain before he did.  He wanted to go back home.  But he couldn't figure out a safe way down, and his body was too tired to move.  So he lay down on the mountain peak, and he closed his eyes to go to sleep.  And he died."

"He
died
?" Mickey blurted out.

"Hold on, I'm not finished.  Little Mountain Sheep's father was called Tsinnahi, or Makes Them Laugh.  Anyway, Makes Them Laugh realized his son was missing.  So he went looking everywhere for him, all throughout the hunting grounds, but he couldn't find him.  Makes Them Laugh started praying to the Wolf--"

"Why was he praying to a
Wolf
?" Mickey cut in.  By now we had resumed our walk.

"Because the Wolf is a conduit for the Great Spirit," Rafael said.  "He's one half of God.  The good half.  And the Coyote is the bad half."

"God has a good half and a bad half?"

"Nothing in this world is strictly good or strictly bad, there's good and bad everywhere.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah, so the shepherd started praying to the Wolf.  'Please, show me where my son is.'  That's when he had a vision that Little Mountain Sheep had died."

"That really sucks..." Mickey mumbled.

"The shepherd was in so much pain, he couldn't stop crying.  He cried so much that even Coyote felt badly for him.  So Wolf and Coyote decided they would bring his son back the only way they knew how.  They turned him into a star."

"Oh!"

"And now he's the brightest star in the sky--but he's still stuck at the top of that mountain.  So that's why he doesn't move."

We walked past the firepit on our way to the windmill field, dozens of families joining us in their handmade regalia.  I spared a glance at the rich night sky, midnight blue-into-black; I spotted the north star, prominent above all others.  A father's love for his child must be the most potent power on earth.

"If I turned into a star," Mickey prompted, "would you come visit me?"

"We'd turn into stars, too," I promised.  "That way you'd never be alone."

A large, towering bonfire crackled in the center of the field.  The windmills spun, stopped, then spun again, prompted by the changing night winds.  Immaculata Quick sprinkled crushed sage all over the grass, occasionally tossing glowering looks at Reverend Allen Calling Owl, who returned them with twitchy reproach.  I guess the shaman and the reverend will always be doomed to disagreements, no matter who takes up their mantles.

I slid my plains flute out from underneath my overcoat, the brittle bird bones around my neck on a thin leather cord.  I spotted Leon and Nicholas Little Hawk hanging out with their uncles.  Annie and Aubrey must have stayed home with the babies.  I was about to approach the kids when a discordial shout disrupted my train of thought.

"Nihatta!  Nian tua nia yaakkin tukuna pauwau, haka tsao suwa pauwau ma'i?  Kuttaan nu hupichi, nu kee tunaakasuwanna ma uku tammattsimmuh..."