"Mary laced your dad's kneeldown bread," I explained, burning with humiliation.
Sky grabbed my hand, pulling me into his house. The front room was filled with pumpkins, for some reason, except somebody had carved faces into them. Weirdos. Sky led me into his kitchen, the walls covered with fake spiderwebs. Catherine Looks Over stood stirring gruel atop a tiny wood-coal stove. The whole room smelled like ricegrass and rosemary.
"For heavens' sakes," Mrs. Looks Over said, turning around. She drew herself up to her full height, all four feet, nine inches. "The pair of you clomping around like elephants--"
Sky leaned over and kissed her cheek, noisy and wet. Mrs. Looks Over protested loudly, swinging her spoon at his head. Clumps of porridge got stuck in his curls. How can you waste food like that? Sky filled the wash basin with water and pointed at it. I thought he needed it more than I did, but I knelt on the floor. The moment I did he grabbed my head, dunking it underwater. Splash.
"You bastard," I said when I'd surfaced, face splitting in a grin.
Sky barely managed to look repentant. His mouth flickered in innocent laughter, his eyes squinting an apology. He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, so I snapped my head, wet braids smacking his face.
"Don't you dare make a mess," Mrs. Looks Over warned us.
It was kind of too late for that. Sky's sneakers squelched in water when he stood up and rooted around the kitchen drawers. He took out a sizable kitchen towel and tossed it on top of my head. He knelt with me, drying my hair with small, fast hands, flashing me a goofy grin. I snatched the towel from his grasp and dragged it through his curls in turn. I mourned for the loss of the porridge. I didn't mourn for long, because when Sky's grandma's back was turned he grabbed my face and kissed me soundly. I knew he'd had an ulterior motive.
"That ain't gonna make up for it," I said gruffly.
He kissed me anyway, pretending he hadn't heard me. I drew him roughly against me, determined that I should get the last word. It felt good to hold him. I could finally relax, culling the nattering worries in my head. None of them mattered half as much as the quiet boy with the doofy curls.
I guess Mary had limited herself to one murder attempt a day, because the rest of the afternoon passed without excitement. The next day Sky showed up at my house wearing really bizarre face paint, gray and white, which made him look like a freakish skeleton. It turned out it was Halloween, but I didn't know that, 'cause we didn't celebrate Halloween in Nettlebush. Sky pointed eagerly at my face with one of his makeup pencils. I shook my head.
"You're not gonna put that crap on me," I said.
He clasped his hands together, pleading. No matter how innocent his eyes I knew his heart was black as coal.
"Stop it," I protested.
He skittered around me in circles. I folded my arms and hunched my shoulders to show him how uninterested I was. I even squared my jaw. I slapped his hands away when he reached for the parts of me that were the most ticklish. Alright, so that was all of me. None of my demonstrations deterred him, though; "surrender" wasn't in Sky's vocabulary. Sky rocked on his heels and put his chin up, something he only did when he wanted a kiss. I walked right into his trap. I bent my head, and our lips touched. He jabbed me in the cheek with a red makeup pen.
"God damn it," I said fiercely.
Sky wrangled me into my bedroom and took one of the drawings off my wall, a sketch of a red wolf I'd done a couple of months ago. He pushed me on my bed and sat astride my knees, squinting at the drawing, penciling in whiskers around my mouth. That stupid ink stick tickled like hell. I liked Sky at this angle, because he filled up my vision entirely, like he was all there was. His wide mouth and his thin lips, his tall cheeks and his frail jaw, the pale spots between his freckles were all there was.
Perfect, Sky mouthed, grinning.
I rolled my eyes behind my glasses. "Now we're both gonna look dumb."
Lighten up, Sky said, tugging my mouth into a smile.
"Bah," I said, spitting out his fingers.
I pulled him toward me on my lap, our hips banging together. If he was gonna torture me the least he could do was let me kiss him. I kissed his chin and his brow and the corners of his mouth. He pretended to writhe away. I trapped his hips in my hands and kissed my way down the side of his neck, smearing red makeup all over his skin. He twisted and laughed and shoved me and twisted some more, but for all his protests, he never did manage to stray too far from my grip.
The paint on Sky's face was totally ruined, gray and white smudged with flecks of red. Mine couldn't have looked any better. We settled back against the headboard together, and I played with his hair, and he must've gotten restless, because he took his flute out of his pocket and piped disjointed tunes. I didn't recognize what he was playing, but it was cheerful, and it was relaxing, and it made me forget that my sister was a ticking time bomb. The notes floated on the air in tangible textures. I extended my fingers and touched them. That Sky could touch people without his hands didn't surprise me. He could talk without words. He could sing without a voice.
Uncle Gabriel came into my room and asked me to wrap the game he'd caught. I wasn't in the mood to talk to him right now, because I was busy with Sky, and anyway, I didn't know what to think about his having adopted Mary and me. Uncle Gabriel didn't notice. He looked at Sky. He looked at me. I guess we made for a stupid picture, wearing each other's makeup.
"Wipe your faces," Uncle Gabriel said calmly.
We cleaned our faces with my pillowcase. Not long later Sky had to go home to help his grandma cook dinner. Uncle Gabriel stood in my doorway, his thick arms folded, buffing out a scratch in the floor with the sole of his giant rubber boot.
"Rafael," Uncle Gabriel prompted.
I stood up, my lazy bones protesting. "I'll wrap the meat."
"Wait a moment, please."
I hesitated. The look on Uncle Gabriel's face was guarded and closed.
"You and Skylar?" Uncle Gabriel said tentatively.
What was he talking about? I hesitated again. "I told you last summer."
"You told me you had a boyfriend," Uncle Gabriel said. "You didn't say it was Skylar."
Yeah, but who else could it have been? I mean, seriously. Who was the solitary guy I never shut up about?
"Do you really think this is a good idea?" Uncle Gabriel asked.
His voice was strained. I realized he was trying not to be angry with me. It confused me, and it hurt me; it made me angry in turn.
"You knew I was gay," I said. "Why is it different just because Sky's gay, too?"
"How do you know that he's gay?" Uncle Gabriel asked.
Was he serious right now? "I think when he let me kiss him, I got the memo," I returned.
"Then you were the one who initiated this?" Uncle Gabriel asked.
"Uncle Gabe," I said, incredulous. "Why do you care?"
"Skylar's mute," Uncle Gabriel said.
"I know that," I said.
"Rafael, Skylar's mute," Uncle Gabriel repeated. "He can't actually tell you that he's gay. If you do something he doesn't like, he can't say 'No.' "
Uncle Gabriel was scaring me. "You think I forced him into it?" I asked quietly.
"I'm not saying that at all," Uncle Gabriel stressed.
"Then what the hell are you saying?"
Uncle Gabe rubbed his face with his hands, which was never a good sign. "I know you're young," he told me. "But when you're going to be physical with another person, it's important that you can communicate your intentions with each other. If Skylar can't communicate--"
"He can communicate," I retorted. I might have been shaking. "When he touches me. When he looks at me. He's teaching me sign language--"
"How did I not see this?" Uncle Gabriel asked. He did the rubbing thing again. "How did I not know my own kid--"
"I'm not your kid," I snapped.
Uncle Gabriel dropped his hands. Uncle Gabriel looked at me distantly.
"You're not my father," I said
, black rage, green sickness clouding my eyes. Even Uncle Gabe's aura looked sick to me, a noxious orange. "Don't tell me... Don't say those things to me."
"Wrap the meat, Rafael," Uncle Gabriel said.
I hunched my shoulders. I edged past Uncle Gabriel and into the hallway. The floorboards creaked under my feet, loud and reproachful. I'd lived in this house for the past nine years; and for a moment, I felt like a stranger in it.
5
Custer's Curse
"Look! There! Antelope tracks!"
I knelt behind Robert Has Two Enemies' house and he pointed emphatically at the hoof prints in the soft soil. They belonged to an antelope, alright, solid, elegant and tapering. I lifted my eyeglasses, rubbing my eyes. Only one month left to autumn, and this stinking animal was still driving me up the wall.
"Well?" said Robert, gesturing wildly. "Are you going to do anything about this?"
I scowled at him. "Do you got a hand saw?"
He didn't. I had to trek back to my house and grab one, a tedious, ten minute walk. Robert waited for me; but when I made my way back to him he looked seriously pissed. What the hell? How was it my fault he didn't own any tools? He watched me while I dug a hole around the antelope prints. I cut a branch off the nearest tree, split it into blunt stakes, and wrapped the stakes tight with a cord. I planted the whole setup in the ground, covering it with leaves. I said, "Make sure you remember this is back here. Your sister, too."
"Oh, that flimsy little rope's not strong enough to hold Lorrie," Robert boasted. "Don't worry about it."
"Yeah, alright," I said.
When I was done with him I walked through the reservation, my shoulders slouched, my hands in my pockets. Farther down the dirt road I came across a group of elders in a drum circle. I stopped to listen to the song they were singing. They swiped their drum with soft horse hair brushes. I recognized the melody right away, an old lullaby we'd learned ages ago on the Plains.
"Good-hearted boy, go back to sleep. It was just a dream. Sleep the whole night through."
My forehead creased. I chewed the inside of my mouth before remembering how sharp my teeth were. I tasted blood. My mother used to sing that song when she tucked me into bed at night. The weird part was, I couldn't remember her ever having sung to Mary.
Head buzzing with memories, I spun on my heel. I stalked back through the reservation until I found my way to the squat brown hospital. I hadn't meant to; but I went indoors. Beth Bright narrowed her eyes at me from behind the front desk. I told her I was a visitor and she signed me in.
"Go on into Waiting Room One," she said.
I trudged into the waiting room, blanching at the cheery blue fish on the walls. I sat down on a plasticky visitor's chair and a little boy to my left watched Cereal Man and Toasty Boy on the tiny television set. I glowered at the TV. If I stared at it too long, the bright colors gave me a headache. Stupid technology.
"Raffy?"
Mary slinked into the waiting room in sweatpants. The clock on the wall read 11:33.
"You done for the morning?" I asked, standing.
"Yup," Mary said. She leaned down and ruffled the little boy's hair. "Hey, squirt."
"Hi," said the little boy, beaming.
Mary and I left the hospital together. I put my hands in my pockets where they belonged. She looped her skinny arm through mine.
"Do you eat at all?" I asked her.
She crossed her eyes at me. She jabbed me in the ribs with a bony elbow.
"Ow," I said, irritated.
"Sure I eat," Mary said eventually. "Keeping it down's another story."
"Oh."
"Oh?" Mary said.
"What about Mom?" I asked.
Mary snickered. "Pretty sure she doesn't eat now that she's dead."
"Not that," I said rashly.
Mary whistled.
"You and she," I said. We crossed the tarmac to the dirt path between the pines. "Did you not get along or something?"
Mary gave me a weird look. "You're just now picking up on that?"
"Shut up," I said hotly, embarrassed. So what if I was a little slow on the uptake?
"We never got along, no," Mary said. She took care to crunch the fallen brown leaves under her boots, exactly like a child. "My personality's too much like Dad's, for starters."
"But Mom loved Dad," I said. "Didn't she?"
"Hell no," Mary said. "He only made her think she did."
A pair of kids ran in front of us, chasing after a tapikolo. I stopped walking, lost in thought.
"I do that, too," Mary said. "Make you think you love me." She grinned. "Crazy, innit?"
"But I do love you," I said.
"Way to prove my point."
Way to make me wanna shove my head through a wall.
"Mom pissed me off when she got sick," Mary said. "I thought she was wishy-washy. Weak."
"What's wrong with being weak?" I demanded.
Mary laughed.
"No, I mean it," I said stubbornly. "Why do we make fun of people for having weaknesses? Isn't that what makes us human in the first place?"
"Maybe I don't want to be human," Mary said.
"What would you be, then?"
She didn't answer.
"You're too hard on Mom," I said bitterly. "She's dead, and you won't respect her memory."
Mary shrugged. "She used to think it was her fault we turned out gay."
"What?" I asked, thrown.
"You're not too bright, are ya?" Mary asked wickedly.
I shook my head.
"Dude," Mary said. "Our mom was a hardcore Catholic. I'm named after the Virgin Mary. You're named after a freaking archangel."
"So what?" I asked.
"So," Mary said. "Christians aren't exactly cool with the gay thing. That's all."
"But we're Plains People," I said. Plains People had always been cool with the gay thing.
"And that's why she loved us anyway, but she still thought we were weird. Look, don't you get it?" Mary asked. "We were colonized by Christians. They rounded us up and did that whole 'convert-or-die' thing. Some of us really dig Stockholm Syndrome. Love your abuser and all that crap."
"Y'mean like you love Dad," I said.
"You love Dad, too."
Maybe she was right about Stockholm Syndrome.
After a short walk through the rez we went home, Mary turning the computer on in the sitting room. I sat on the stool at Mom's piano, lost in thought. I can't tell you how it jarred me to realize that Mom wasn't perfect, but human. I think her absence alone had made me put her on a pedestal. When you haven't seen someone in nine years, all you remember about them is what you miss.
"Hey," Mary said, peering at the computer. "What's this?"
I got up and trudged over to her, leaning over her shoulder. A tiny yellow folder on the blue background read, "Cool Uncle."
"Uh," I said, uncertain.
Mary moved the computer-controller-thing and clicked on the folder. A picture of Uncle Gabriel popped up on the screen. He was wearing his Plains regalia. A second picture popped up after the first. He was building a kid's raft for the June races.
"He keeps a folder called 'Cool Uncle'?" Mary choked.
I buried my face in my hands, mortified. Mary laughed so hard I thought she was going to break her ribs. It's not every day Creator gives you providential proof that the man who raised you is a total dweeb.
"What're you doing on the computer, anyway?" I asked.
"Checking my motorcycle payments," Mary said. She closed the compromising folder.
"You can't bring a motorcycle to the rez," I said, annoyed. "You can't even afford one."
"Can too," Mary said, clicking around some more. "I worked in an auto shop all last year. Boy, the stories you hear!"
"What kind of stories?" I asked carefully.
Mary gave me a long-suffering look. "I knew a guy who got his dick stuck in his bike's rotary valve."
I hacked furiously. I think my face turned blue. r />
"Can't imagine why he thought that was a good idea," Mary remarked. "Wound up paying something like two hundred bucks just to dismantle and replace the part. A hooker would've been cheaper."
"You mean he was--" I broke off, horrified.
"Oh, my God," Mary said, grinning. "You're such a baby."
"Stop it!" I said.
"Baby brother!" Mary sang.
"Stop!"
She cackled, striding out of the room. I took her seat at the computer, fuming. I didn't want to, but I had to write a letter to Sage In Winter. Only problem was I couldn't remember how to open the e-mail thing.
In the end I figured it out with minimal cursing and multiple key smashes. The result was that Sage was waiting for me at the community dinner that night. He sat at a picnic table west of the bonfire, and I sat with him, him shivering because he'd forgotten his jacket. Dummy.
"Okay," Sage said. "Uh." He lowered his voice. He put his elbows on the table. "How do I know that I'm Napaka?"
I leaned across the table, lowering my voice, too. The kid deserved his privacy. "Did you ever do the Basket and Bow Ceremony?"
Sage stared stupidly.
"Alright," I said gruffly. I took the pencil out from behind my ear. I didn't have my sketchbook with me, but I pulled a wadded up test paper out from my jacket pocket. I flattened it on the table. "When you're little, one of your parents asks you to pretend you're going to get married."
Sage blanched. "I don't want to get married."
"Shut up, brat."
I sketched a hunting bow on the clean side of the test paper. I drew a burden basket next to it. When I was finished I shoved the paper at Sage. He frowned at me.
"Pick one," I said.
"Wha?" Sage said rudely.
"Pick one," I growled.
"Ack! Okay, okay! Pick the one I like?"
"No," I said. "Pick the one you think you think makes a better gift for your spouse."
Sage peeked warily at me from beneath his fringe. Sage pointed uncertainly at the hunting bow.
"Okay," I said. "You're probably Napaka."
"What--that's it?" Sage asked, incredulous.