"Let's go into the waiting room," Annie said.
We picked the waiting room at the back of the hospital, the one with the giant water cooler. Aubrey filled a plastic cup with water for Sky, but Sky wasn't interested in drinking. We sat down, and I swallowed up Sky's hand in mine; I pressed my arm against his, my leg against his, because maybe the closer we were, the better everything would turn out.
"I promise," Aubrey said. "People very rarely die from winter ticks. You're more likely to die from a freak accident. A bomb, or--"
"That's not helping," Annie said.
"Sorry," Aubrey said, sheepish.
Because I was holding Sky's hand I felt what he felt. I should have been here, and I shouldn't have left Nettlebush, and What if I could have helped him?
"It's not your fault," I growled.
Sky gave me a bleary look.
"Really, though," Aubrey said, hushed. "What do you think did that? I mean, I suppose the tick was on a deer, but deer usually yard up around this time, don't they?"
"Man," said Zeke, annoyed. "We rescued that pregnant deer on the road, and deer don't give birth until spring! Something weird's happening around Nettlebush these days!"
Something Weird had a name, I thought. Aubrey finally got Sky to drink a cup of water and I excused myself, my legs numb. I rose from my seat and trailed down the short corridor to the waiting room at the front of the hospital. Thomas Little Hawk, Cyrus At Dawn, and Mr. Red Clay were inside. More people loved Paul than I had realized.
"He'll be fine," Mr. Red Clay was saying. "He's simply allergic to ticks. Remember when we were boys--"
"Yes, all those boils!" Cyrus boomed merrily. "Very sad--funny, but sad--"
"Mary," I said.
Mary was leaning against the wall, arms folded. The hairspray in her hair made it look like a wispy black cloud. She raised her head and glanced at me; and I don't know what she saw on my face. All I could think was that there used to be a time when we spoke without words.
Maybe we spoke without words now. She followed me out of the waiting room and into the front lobby. I gazed out the double glass doors at the black pavement outside, the dead trees, the warm sun glinting off of car mirrors.
"What did you do?" I asked the parking lot.
"How could I have done anything?" Mary asked. "I was two states away."
"Mary," I said.
"I'd better head back to the house," Mary said. "Caleb's gonna need to borrow one of our bedrooms."
I grabbed her arm before she could leave. I wished I hadn't. Mary felt like a storm. I heard the rain hissing in my skull. I saw the lightning flash behind my eyelids. She was the monsoon that tore down trees and tent rocks, the same monsoon that sent me scurrying to the basement year after year.
"Hey, Mary?"
Robert poked his head around the corner. I let go of Mary, but my clothes, my hair were soaked with rainwater. I asked my imagination to cool it.
"Paul's awake," Robert said to Mary. "He wants to see you."
My head shot up on my shoulders. "What?"
"You coming?" Robert quipped, gesturing with his chin.
Mary strode past me, big black boots clomping on the shiny floor. She didn't look remotely surprised; and I knew something was very wrong with that. I saw my opportunity when Robert went into the waiting room. I stalked after Mary, and she slipped inside Paul's room; I hung back, straining my ears, careful not to hover too close to the door.
"Up and at 'em, Sleepyhead," Mary said cheerfully.
"Terrible," came Paul's voice, groggy and undead. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck."
"Hit by a truck, there's an idea. Ice chips?"
"Please."
I heard the crinkling of ice cubes. I frowned. My heart went heavy and dull in my chest, head swarming with confusion.
"I could try the blowgun again, I guess," Mary said.
"I don't think so," Paul said apologetically. "I'd know it was coming."
"Alright."
My head was pounding. My stomach convulsed.
"Want I should get your kid?" Mary asked.
"Only if he feels like it," Paul said, which was how I knew he was delusional.
Mary strode briskly out of his room. When she saw me she stuck her tongue out at me, something she usually did when she was startled, but trying to hide it. She plodded away. I blundered into Paul's room without announcing myself. He jolted.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I burst out.
His eyes were so red I almost couldn't see the whites. His skin was so wan he finally looked like he was related to Sky. "I'm," he said, but didn't seem to know how to finish.
"You're insane," I told him. I felt like I was shaking, but I wasn't. "Letting her do this--you're insane--"
"I think you should leave now, Rafael," Paul said quietly. It wasn't the first time he'd said that to me.
"Are you even thinking about Sky?" I begged. "Do you know how he would feel if something happened to you? You went to the hospital for a tick bite and he hasn't slept in days. Don't you care about your kid?"
Paul looked at me. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that I wished he wouldn't. He wasn't afraid to look at me, but he should have been afraid to look at me, because he was willing to leave his motherless son without a father and there was nothing as unforgivable as that. I knew too well what it felt like to lose both your parents, to find yourself nobody's son.
Before I could summon my next argument Rosa stepped into the room. She picked up Paul's wrist and touched it with two fingers. She listened to his chest. She met my eyes long enough to tell me I had to leave. I dragged myself out into the hallway, feeling like shit.
In the waiting room with the water cooler Sky listened attentively while Robert told him about Paul's condition. The minute Robert finished speaking Sky bolted from the room to see his father, relief written all over his face. Robert scratched his head, shrugged, and slinked away. Annie and Aubrey and Zeke sat huddled together like old crones, whispering.
"Do you think Mr. Red Clay'll hold out on returning our exams?" Zeke said, hopeful.
Annie glanced at him, nonplussed. "I don't see how the two are related."
"I failed mine!" Zeke explained.
"I still don't see the relation."
I collapsed like water in Sky's empty chair. Aubrey threw me a deeply remorseful look. I scowled before I could stop myself.
"Rafael," Annie said, remembering something. "Your sister asked to borrow my sewing awls. Do you have any idea what that's about?"
I bolted upright. I cursed.
"There are children in this hospital," Aubrey reminded me, sounding hurt.
"I gotta go," I said. "Can you tell Sky I'll see him tonight?"
"I thought you were grounded!" Zeke said. "Wow, your uncle's a softie!"
"Do you need somebody with you?" Annie asked, ready to stand.
"No," I said. I wanted to thank her, but didn't know how. "Just stay with Sky."
I stumbled on down the corridor like an idiot. Beth Bright at the front desk got ready to yap at me. I waved my hand, aggravated. I shot out the swinging doors. The lights in the sky were a dim, rolling gold between puffy red clouds, the shadows on the ground so fat I knew it was a matter of minutes before the sun sank. Part of me wanted to stand still and watch it: the watery refractions on the doors of the log cabins, the first hint of dusk, the blue hour.
My legs carried me out of the parking lot, across the crossroads and north toward the badlands. I didn't even have to pull open the door to my house. Uncle Gabriel was sitting outside with a bucket full of sheep brains, tanning a roll of wool for--I don't know; bedding, maybe, or clothes.
"Welcome home," Uncle Gabriel said, his arms stained with blood and black filth.
"Paul knows about Mary and he's in on it," I said in one breath.
In the old days, when you had a problem you couldn't fix yourself, you went to the Daigwani.
"He's--what?" Uncle Gabriel asked, visibly
disarmed.
"I heard them talking," I said. I collapsed clumsily on my knees. "He knows she wants to kill him. They were talking about--about using the blowgun, or a truck or something--"
"Could you have misheard?" Uncle Gabriel asked.
I shook my head emphatically, braids slapping my eyeglasses. "Uh-uh."
Uncle Gabriel stood up. The tanning solution sloshed in the bucket. "Wait here," he said.
He walked down the road without washing his hands. In spite of my apprehension, I couldn't help feeling impressed. I took him literally, too, and sat stock-still beneath the southern oak. I gazed up the length of its trunk. The spread, mossy branches reminded me of an offered embrace. I might have returned the gesture if it wasn't daylight. As it happened, it wasn't daylight much longer. The big red sun rowed across the sky, shadows stretching across the badlands like dark waves. The horizon tightened; and then it disappeared.
Night was my favorite time of day. Dusk was my favorite part of night. Thousands of stars came out on a cloudy purple sky, but the place where the land climbed up to meet them glowed orange with vestigial sunlight. I spent so long watching the contrast I don't know how much time passed. The crickets came out first, whispering in the pines. The owls came after them, whistling their dissent. The coyote calls came last, warbling and chattering, jesters if I'd ever known any.
"Rafael?" Rosa said.
She approached me in her hospital scrubs. I stood up, the backs of my thighs stinging. I reached for her and hugged her without thinking about it. She put her arms around me like she didn't have to think about it, either.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yes." Rosa pulled back. "Why are you sitting out here?"
'Cause I preferred it to sitting indoors. I remembered. "Where's Uncle Gabriel?"
"Looking for Mary," Rosa said.
"What?" I asked quickly.
Rosa made me go inside the house with her. The lights were already on; I'd forgotten that Caleb was home. He gave us a weird look from the sitting room floor, but shrugged and went back to tinkering with a surge protector. He fashioned himself an electrician. I followed Rosa into the kitchen while she took a tray of tottsaa out of the refrigerator.
"We don't know where Mary is?" I asked, my stomach sinking.
She put the tottsaa on the stove, warming it. She turned around and took my hands. With anyone else I would have dreaded the onslaught of emotions passing through my skin. I liked Rosa's emotions. They reminded me of Sky's in that they were well-meaning. I think most people are well-meaning; but with Rosa, you actually felt it.
"Let's go to dinner," Rosa said.
I carried the tottsaa tray and we went out to the community bonfire. Caleb declined to come with us. The At Dawn twins played the water drum by firelight while the Takes Flight family joined in on tin whistles and rivercane pipes. It was so festive of a night that I heard laughter every five seconds. I couldn't discern my friends' voices from strangers'. I saw Sky's blond curls in the nook of a giant redwood tree, bent in conversation with a glossier head that probably belonged to Annie. I waited until Rosa sat down with George and Beth before I skulked over to the redwood. Aubrey and Zeke waved hello.
"Mr. Looks Over's doing quite well now," Annie reported mildly. "They've got him on fluids and antibiotics."
My stomach turned. I peeked at Sky's face, his smile tired, but pleased. He didn't know his father was out of his mind. His father was out of his mind, and it was vile of him, and inexcusable. I couldn't let Sky find out. If Sky found out, he would be devastated. Hurting Sky was not allowed.
"I know just the thing to cheer you up," Annie said brightly. "I heard they're having a Renaissance fair in Apache Junction. At the end of spring, I believe. We could go, the five of us."
"What's a Renaissance fair?" I asked.
"Oh, I love Renaissance fairs!" Aubrey jabbered, excited. "It's--well--you go there and everyone rolls back the clock to the Elizabethan Era! There's jousting, and fake executions, and--"
Zeke burst into nervous laughter.
I stared bewilderedly at Aubrey. "You don't think that's a little weird?"
He adjusted his eyeglasses, polite. "No weirder than pauwaus, why?"
"That's a false equivalency!" Zeke shouted, jumping up and pointing.
"Shh!" Annie said, startled. Sky grinned like a goblin.
Zeke sat back down. "But yeah," he said. "I get why it's weird. I mean, America didn't have jousting during the Elizabethan Era. We had the Aztecs. And Cahokia."
"And the Hohokam Empire," I said.
"And the Triple Alliance," Zeke said.
"And the Hopewell Exchange," I said.
"And, you know," Zeke said, chuckling. "Not a whole lot of white people."
"And they're doing it in a place called Apache Junction," I said. "That's like--" Whaddoyoucallit. "An OxiClean."
"Oxymoron," Annie said.
"What did you call me?" Zeke said, crushed.
Sky threw his arm around Zeke's shoulders, pretending to cry on him.
"For heavens' sakes," Annie said. "Are we going to the fair or not?"
Sky surfaced and nodded, grinning brightly. He bumped fists with Aubrey. Zeke looked at me, and I looked at Zeke. Zeke shrugged.
"Your sister never gave me back my basket," Annie said to me.
My sister. Great. "I'll remind her."
Around that time Annie's little brother flew across her lap, wailing because Jack Nabako had teased him about his hearing aids. Annie rubbed Joseph's head and took his hand and went looking for Jack's brother Andrew, no doubt to give him a piece of her mind. Sky's grandmother made him sit with her, and Aubrey and Zeke got into an arm wrestling match; and Uncle Gabriel blazed past the bonfire without stopping to chat. Rosa and I both stood up and followed him.
We followed Uncle Gabriel home, where Caleb had pulled half the wires out of the sitting room wall. I was starting to regret having asked him to move in with us. Mary was sitting in the armchair, her bass guitar on her lap. I felt like she'd materialized from thin air.
"Where were you?" Uncle Gabriel asked calmly.
"Bused out to Los Portales," Mary said. She plucked the bass strings with her pick. "Met up with an old friend. The band's doing better without me! Pricks."
"Probably 'cause ya drank all their booze and banged all their women," Caleb said.
"Well, sure," Mary said. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"It ain't professional is what I'm saying! Ya shot your own damn self in the foot!"
"Mary," Uncle Gabriel said. "I was patient with you when you first came home. That ends now. You are not to hurt Paul. You are not to go near him. Do you understand me?"
I thought about how much worse this situation would have been if Uncle Gabriel only knew about the blowgun incident, or the kneeldown bread. But I still couldn't bring myself to betray Mary.
Mary regarded Uncle Gabriel, her fingers steepled beneath her chin. Mary asked, "Are you ordering me as my uncle, or as my Daigwani?"
I wanted to ask: "What's going on? Slow down." I looked from Mary to Uncle Gabriel. He wasn't remotely surprised at the change in topic. She'd known all along, then; and he'd known that she'd known. My head spun.
"As whichever one will get you to listen to me," Uncle Gabriel said.
"Paul killed Dad with his own hands," Mary said. "Yes or no?"
"Yes," Uncle Gabriel said. "But--"
"Blood law says I have the right to kill whoever killed my family member. Yes or no?"
"Yes--"
"You're going to tell me I should ignore Shoshone law? Because this law's been around longer than you've been Daigwani, Uncle Gay. This sick, stupid law's been around for thousands of years. We need to be serious right now. Are you ending it for good? Or are you just ending it for me?"
Uncle Gabriel looked so tired. Uncle Gabriel looked so young. He was twenty years old when he became a father. He was thirty years old and the tribal council consulted him on everything from grant pla
nning to healthcare to water conservation. That had to be exhausting. The mere thought of it made me want to sleep for centuries.
"What would we use if not blood law?" Uncle Gabriel asked. "If we can't get the police to care about us, and we can't build our own prisons, how are we supposed to keep people from hurting one another?"
"Build the prisons anyway!" Mary said, pushing the bass off her lap. I felt sorry for her, because for the first time in a long time, she sounded desperate. "Build a prison we can put criminals in--they'll see the prison and they won't commit the crime--Uncle Gabriel, come on--"
"And when the feds drop in for a surprise visit," Uncle Gabriel said, "as you know they like to do, and they see the prison, what do you think the consequences will be? Do you think they'll fine us for money we don't have? Or do you think they'll rip up our treaty papers and take our reservation, because clearly we can't manage it ourselves? All of Nevada and all of Utah are supposed to belong to our tribe. Did you know that? Do you know what the Treaty of Ruby Valley is? Salt Lake City belongs to us on paper, Mary, and that didn't stop settlers from moving out there illegally, and building their houses illegally, and governing it illegally. Do you know why we can't reclaim that land, Mary? Because there are more of them than us. That's it. There are more of them, and as long as there are more of them we aren't allowed to live the way we'd like to live. We have to make compromises, Mary. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
It was Uncle Gabriel I felt sorry for.
Mary stared in silence at Uncle Gabriel. Her whole countenance was so blank that for a moment I wondered whether my brain had stopped working. They say the brain takes eighty milliseconds to process information. We all live in the past.
"So my dad was just a compromise," Mary said.
"Mary, for cripes' sakes," Caleb put in. "Your dad was a freaking mass murderer."
Mary smiled. It hurt me, because it was one of those lost, confused smiles that little kids wear when they're embarrassed, when everyone else has friends and they don't know where to sit in school. She knew her dad was a mass murderer. She didn't dispute that. She couldn't help loving him anyway.
She got up and went into her room. I didn't hear her close the door. I mumbled a quick "Excuse me" and stalked after her.