Doing alright, kid?
I put my pencil down. I looked at the gray ceiling.
I'm on it. Don't worry.
"Do you know where he is?" I asked.
Soon.
I didn't sleep that night, but napped before school the next morning. After school I went out to the badlands, past the tent rocks, and helped set up the grounds for the Sun Dance. A couple of men picked out a guajillo tree and hung buffalo skulls from the branches. They stripped it clean of toxic leaves and burned them in offering to the planet. The purification rites would take until sunrise. I only hoped I didn't fall asleep before then.
I fell asleep twice. The shaman shook me awake both times, his eyes screwed up in crabby anger. When the sun rose the supplicants slashed their backs and chests with a knife. I'd already known the Sun Dance included some measure of blood, but I'd agreed to it anyway. I braced myself, teeth gritted, when the knife touched my back. The cut wasn't as deep as I'd expected it to be; I barely felt the sting. It made me feel good, somehow, to think that I was connected to my ancestors all the more for it.
Shoshone Sun Dancing involves dancing nonstop for a whole week. Only thing you're allowed to do in between is drink and sleep. There was this one guy in the old days, Dragon Canoe, who used to dance without sleeping, and in the end he wound up dying of exhaustion. I guess that was a lesson to the rest of us. I should've learned the lesson a little better, because at one point, when I was shuffling around the buffalo offering, sweating, I passed out. I woke up to the shaman shaking my shoulders and yelling at me.
"Go home!" he insisted. "You're tired. You're only going to endanger yourself and everybody else. Shoo!"
Uncle Gabriel gave me an apologetic look over by the barrel cactus. I didn't have it in me to feel embarrassed. Sky wasn't dancing the Sun Dance right now. Sky wasn't talking over his winter grades with his family. Sky wasn't holding my hand when I stumbled home in my moccasins, so tired I was already dreaming. I dreamt of pilot whales and sirens: the aquatic kind and the police kind. I dreamt of colors whose names I couldn't remember, and Corn Maidens, and my mother's piano.
I cleaned up at the water pump outside my house, pulling on a spare shirt from the clothesline. I sat down on the hot, caked soil. A juvenile coywolf inched over to me, curious, his nose twitching. Coywolves were a shy creature, so I thought the behavior strange. I knew this coywolf, I realized. The pelt on his back was streaked gray, his legs skinny, clumsy. I'd seen him following Sky before, no doubt happy for the endless handouts.
"You his spirit guide?" I asked.
The coywolf lifted his head when a hawk screeched above us.
"You miss Sky, too," I said, tired.
The coywolf curled up on the ground beside me. I might've stroked his head if I wasn't so leery of his feelings. I tucked my hands between my raised knees, warm wind smoothing the sweat off my cheeks. I closed my eyes. Sleep washed over me in slow, disorienting waves.
It was a few days later that the cop Mary had talked to came to the reservation. Her name was Racine Hargrove, and sure enough, she was a taipo'o. I was delivering venison to Reverend Silver Wolf's house when I saw her talking with Mrs. Looks Over on Sky's front lawn. Mrs. Looks Over reached up and hugged her. My heart leapt with hope; I left the meat on the reverend's porch. I ran over to hear what the women were talking about.
"He should be back with you guys in no time," Racine was saying.
"I feel so much better knowing he's staying with you," Mrs. Looks Over replied. "Thank you. Thank you so much--"
"You don't need to thank me! The kid and I go way back."
"Can I see him?" I asked, bounding closer. "Is he okay?"
Racine started. Mrs. Looks Over pursed her lips, amused.
"He's fine," Racine said. "But I have to get back to work right now. I'll come back when I'm free and drive you to my place, okay?"
"Okay," I said. "Do you know when that is?"
Racine laughed, like she didn't know what else to do. My cheeks felt warm. I hadn't meant to come off so pushy.
"Let me give you a glass of water before you leave," Mrs. Looks Over said.
I walked back to my house. I wanted to talk to Mary, which was how I knew that I was in a good mood. But when I went inside the house, she wasn't there. The only person home was Rosa, sweeping up dust on the sitting room floor.
"Rosa," I said. "Can't I do that for you?"
She gave me a chimney brush and had me clean out the fireplace instead. I found a dead squirrel lying on the stones. That happens sometimes.
At the community dinner that night I sat with Annie and Aubrey and Zeke at the picnic table, Annie's sister Jingle Dancing by the bonfire. I told the three of them about Sky and the taipo'o cop, the relief tangible on Annie's face.
"Well, good, man," Zeke said, irritable. "Imagine if he makes us miss the Ren fair."
"Zeke," Aubrey said. "I hope this isn't impertinent, but what's wrong with your face?"
"Hey!" Zeke said, defensive. "Just because I'm not a model!"
"I believe he means the rather enormous bruise," Annie said.
"Oh, that," Zeke said, laughing nervously.
He didn't explain; but none of us pressed it. When the discomfort kicked in, the golden cultural rule of "Mind Your Own Business" was quick to follow.
"Hey," Zeke said, elbowing me. "What's your sister doing?"
I turned in my seat and looked behind me. Lila Little Hawk was done Jingle Dancing. Mary sat beside her, the pair of them talking like old friends.
"Corrupting the youth," I said, standing. "I'll go stop it."
I walked over to the girls and heard Lila giggling at something Mary had said. Mary flashed sharp teeth at me in a devilish smile. I feared for Lila's life.
"Lila's healing me," Mary said.
She tossed her long, skinny arm across Lila's tiny shoulders. Lila simpered at me. Her dark pigtails made her look the picture of innocence, but I was starting to realize that wasn't the case.
"Jingle Dancing," Lila explained, when I didn't get what Mary was talking about. "It's a healing dance."
"What do you want, Rafael?" Mary asked. "We're a couple of busy gals."
"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled. Secretly I was happy. If Mary was doing better on her own, maybe she could stop making trips to the hospital.
"I have to go find my brother," Lila announced, standing importantly.
The bells on her dress rattled softly when she walked away. Mary offered me a piece of raisin toast. I took it.
"Sky's gonna come back to the rez," I said, mouth full. "He's with a taipo'o cop right now."
Mary glanced at me, unreadable. "You sure about that?"
"That he's with a taipo'o cop?" I asked, obtuse.
"That he's coming back to the rez," Mary said.
"The cop said so," I told Mary. I stared at her.
Mary shrugged. "My gut says something different."
"The hell would your gut know?" I asked, confused.
"Look, why do you think I keep it so empty?" Mary said. "So it'll talk to me. If my gut says something's fishy, something's fishy. So that's that."
"You're nuts," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Chyeah."
At that moment shouts interrupted our conversation:
"Can't you do anything right? You worthless--"
It was Luke Owns Forty. He and Zeke were standing yards to our left. Zeke's face was mortified, his mouth open shapelessly.
"How dare he?" I heard Annie say. But Luke's voice drowned her out again.
"Don't come home," Luke spat. He drank from the bota bag on his hip.
"Booze it up, Luke," Mary said. I don't think anybody heard her.
"Dad," Zeke murmured. "You're--you're just mad, it's okay--"
"Can't do anything right," Luke was saying. "Shouldn't have killed Naomi--should have killed you--"
A cold spell shot through me. I wanted to hit something. Maybe Luke had wanted the same. Maybe the bruise on Zeke's face made a lot
of sense.
Deafening silence fell over the commons. Sage In Winter caught my gaze, his eyes wide and sick.
"I think that's enough," Paul said quietly.
He stood up. He put himself between Luke and Zeke as easily as if the space had been made with him in mind. Luke started saying something more; but nobody could make it out. He was far too drunk, his words slurring together.
"Zeke," Paul said. "Why don't you sleep at our house tonight?"
"I found a half masticated bull in the coal seams today," Selena Long Way said loudly, just to take the attention off of the guys.
Dinner went on as normal as it could. Paul and Mrs. Looks Over walked Zeke away from the bonfire, Luke staring after them in a stupefied rage. Uncle Gabriel pulled Luke aside and talked to him in a quiet voice. Mary touched my shoulder, and I looked at her, and she looked at me; I stared after Zeke's receding back and felt somehow to blame.
Probably that was why I made the trip to the Looks Over house when everyone else had gone home. Sky's coywolf followed me, which made me feel better about the deal. I knocked on the front door and Mrs. Looks Over answered. I asked if I could talk to Zeke. Zeke shuffled outside a moment later, his bony face mortified.
"I'm totally not in the mood," Zeke mumbled.
"What got your dad so mad tonight?" I asked.
Zeke stared nervously at the spring stars. "Failed my winter test."
I wondered whether Mr. Red Clay had had a talk with Zeke, too.
"You dad shouldn't've said that shit to you," I told Zeke.
"Doesn't really matter, right?" Zeke said. "I mean, if he feels that way, he feels that way..."
"He was drunk," I said, afraid. "Drunks don't always mean what they say."
Zeke smiled grimly. "Yeah?"
"My dad used to get drunk and tell my mom he was gonna buy her a ranch in Maine."
"Sounds nice..."
Zeke and I sat on the bottom of the staircase. Sky's coywolf lay down at my feet. Zeke played percussion on the step underneath us. It kind of irritated me, but I pushed the sensation aside.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Not this again," Zeke groaned.
"Shut up," I said, even more irritated. "I just want you to know. That someone's sorry."
"Does someone really have to be sorry?"
"Dunno," I said. "It makes me feel better. When somebody's sorry."
"That's messed up."
"Could you just--" Now I wanted to hit him.
"Sometimes I think I hate my sister," Zeke said.
I didn't want to hit him anymore. I rolled my shoulders, tired.
"You know?" Zeke said. "I miss her every day, but...maybe that's why I hate her. Because I don't want to miss her. Because if she hadn't left I'd still be me. I wouldn't--wouldn't have to be the kid who wasn't killed."
"Do you talk to your mom about that?" I asked.
"Yeah," Zeke muttered. "Stay with her on the Ojibway rez sometimes."
"Maybe you should stay with her all the time," I said.
"But then I wouldn't see you guys anymore," Zeke said.
That was powerful. That took me by surprise, humbling me, hurting me.
"I mean," Zeke said, bursting into forced laughter. "Just kidding!"
"Alright," I said. He deserved the courtesy of me pretending I believed him.
"See you tomorrow, Loser," Zeke said, resigned. He turned around and went inside the Looks Over house.
Sky's spirit guide followed me back to my house. I thought about how there ought to be a world where parents didn't die. I got my blanket out from my bedroom and lay down underneath the southern oak outside, the moss on the trunk my pillow. The coywolf put his head on my knee. I was expecting to feel foreign emotions, to want to jump out of my skin; but what I felt was familiarity. I felt silence settling in my throat, freckles rising on my skin. I felt my hair tightening in curls, my heart lightening with benevolence. I felt so much love it made me want to rock shut like a seashell.
"Sky," I said.
I curved my hand against the coywolf's muzzle, warmth and fur tickling my palm. I closed my eyes. When I closed them I was sitting in the back of a squad car, watching city lights smudge outside my window. Uncertainty beat the inside of my stomach like frantic wings. I'd never thought of uncertainty as aerial before, but I could see that it was freeing in a way. When you didn't know what happened next, you didn't have to plan for it.
And about stomachs: Maybe Mary's was onto something. A week after Racine first came to the rez she returned to tell us foster care had taken Sky away again. I didn't even feel surprised; although if I told you I didn't blame myself, I'd be lying. I steeled myself; and after school the first thing I did was track down Mary outside the Takes Flights' house.
"I'm gonna bring Sky back to the rez," I told her.
"Not alone you're not," Mary answered swiftly. "Let me wheedle the car out of Uncle Gay."
"How are we gonna find him?" I asked. "I don't know where they took him. How do we find out?"
"I told you to leave it to me, didn't I? But go ask Paul if he knows anything new."
So I went to the Looks Over house. I went inside; and Paul was already in the front room, gathering up his keys, counting money. He walked around in such a whirlwind he didn't even notice me until he almost banged into me.
"Rafael," he said. "Now's not the time, please."
"What are you doing?" I asked, alarmed. "You're not--leaving the rez, are you?"
Paul grabbed a jacket off the coat hook. Yeah, he was definitely leaving the rez.
"You can't do that!" I yelped, stepping in his way. "They'll arrest you!"
"Do you really think I care about that right now?" Paul asked roughly, voice rising. "I have to find my kid."
"You find your kid, and he won't have a dad to come back to," I growled. "It'd kill him. If anything happened to you--"
I remembered his plan with Mary. I burned with anger.
Paul looked at me. For a moment I imagined he knew what was on my mind. What he said next didn't help any:
"I've never been the best parent he could have. I never should have taken him when his mother passed away."
"Don't say that," I warned, and felt cold. Was that how Paul could throw his life away? Why was he so damn eager to hurt himself?
"Please step out of my way," Paul said.
"Are you gonna hit me if I don't?" I asked.
"No," Paul said. "I'd never hurt a child."
Instead of reassured, I felt annoyed. I was eighteen next month. I wasn't a kid anymore.
"Alright," I said. "Okay. But you gotta calm down first. If you lose your head, you'll put Sky in danger. You gotta sit down, sir, and you gotta think."
Paul dragged his hand through his hair. It looked weird, because his keys were still clutched between his knuckles. He sank down in the chair by the side window overlooking the lumber box. I knelt on the floor in front of him, waiting to see what happened.
Paul drew a deep breath. "Eli was my best friend."
I stared at my knees. That way he didn't have to look at Eli's face.
"I don't expect you to understand," Paul said. "What I'm doing with Mary."
How could he have known that I'd overheard them? Had Mary told him?
"You want to die," I said, my voice like sandpaper. "I don't need to know anything else."
"I don't want to die, Rafael," Paul said. "Nobody ever really wants to die. Even people who take their own lives only do so because they've run out of resources."
I tried not to think of Mom.
"What I had hoped for," Paul said, "was that people would notice what we were doing, and people would realize we need new laws. Perhaps I never thought it would go as far as it has. Perhaps I imagined myself ready to die for my society, but the truth is that dying a martyr is much less shameful than dying a murderer."
"You're not a murderer," I said.
"Your father and I," Paul said, "are both murderers."
I didn't
like this conversation anymore.
"Do you know where Sky is?" I asked.
"A contact of mine saw him last in Angel Falls," Paul said. "He could be anywhere by now. But they won't take him out of Arizona unless he's been put up for adoption."
Adoption? "He's almost seventeen," I said, jolting.
Paul gave me a surprisingly soft look. "Adoption isn't always about finding parents for a child," Paul said. "I'm glad you don't know that. I hope you never do."
For a minute, maybe two, neither one of us spoke. I could feel Paul calming down in the space surrounding him, the air cooling around his hot shoulders, his hot head. I wished that I could see his aura. Like every other color on the reservation, it had left when Sky had.
"I'll go," I told Paul. "I'll go in your place."
Paul looked at me, like he'd forgotten I was in the room. "Do you know how to drive?" he asked, puzzled.
"Yeah," I hedged. "I can take my uncle's car."
"Gabriel agreed to that?"
"Yeah," I said, without looking at Paul. It wasn't exactly a lie. Uncle Gabriel had lent Mary his car before.
Paul hesitated. "Do you know how to page a beeper?" he asked.
"A what?" I asked.
"Hang on," Paul said.
He went into the sitting room. He came back with a handheld phone, like the kind I'd sometimes seen Caleb use. It was black and blocky, and it fit in my palm. I found out firsthand because Paul offered it to me. Dumbfounded, I took it.
"I'm going to give you a piece of paper with a number on it," Paul said. "If you dial that number, you can send messages to Skylar. He can't respond to you, but at least he'll know someone's looking for him."
"Thank you," I said. My palm tingled.
"I know you love him," Paul said. Embarrassed, he turned his head away. "I'm counting on that. You have to understand. People with disabilities are the most vulnerable out of any of us. And those who would harm others are always on the lookout for the vulnerable."