7
A Woodsorrel in Winter
The end of the monsoon brought out a new wave of high spirits on the Nettlebush Reserve. Sunny yellow Indian Mallows poked cheerfully out of the puddles on the ground. The clouds parted in the blue sky, the sun stronger and brighter than before. Neighbors rushed out of their homes to greet the friends they hadn't seen in weeks. I thought with longing of my grandmother, a stern, irascible woman who used to despise the yearly monsoons. Actually, I think it was rain in general she disliked. All it took was one raindrop to render her gloomy and withdrawn.
Nobody was gloomy and withdrawn now. On the contrary, the whole of the reservation was practically imbibed with mirth. A large part of that probably had something to do with the birth of Annie's baby girls.
Dozens of well-wishers flocked out to the farmland to greet the two newest additions to the reservation. Annie carried them in double cradleboards on her back. It was amazing how quickly she had regained her vitality. The babies sat on her back, shaded by the sun, peering astoundedly at their surroundings while she hilled the crops and milked the cows. And they didn't cry.
"How come they aren't crying?" Mickey asked.
Annie sat with them beneath an apple tree on Mrs. Siomme's ranch. They rested on the lush grass in their safe, tight swaddling.
"Shoshone babies don't cry," Annie dismissed placidly. "Only when they're hungry or soiled."
"But why? How do you get 'em to stop crying?"
"I'll tell you when you're older," I said.
Annie's stream of visitors was endless. Charity showed up to croon over the twins and Daisy At Dawn told everyone who would listen that she had delivered them herself. "They copied us," said Daisy's dismal twin, Holly. "What are their names?" asked a very excited Autumn Rose In Winter.
"Celia and Elizabeth," Annie said. "For our mothers."
Even at dinnertime, all anybody wanted to do was fawn over the babies. It reached the point where Nicholas, usually a menace and a brat, imposed himself protectively between the admirers and his new baby sisters and wouldn't let anyone come closer.
"Aren't they cute, Uncle Paul?" Jessica asked.
Dad looked up from the picnic table, distracted. "I'm sorry?"
"I think you've been living on the moon lately," Jessica said. "The babies. Aren't they cute?"
"Oh. Yes, of course," Dad said. "Excuse me..."
He wandered away from the table. Jessica and I frowned at each other.
"Maybe he needs to see a therapist," Jessica suggested.
"I don't think he'd ever go willingly," I said. "And even if we convinced him, I'm sure he'd keep his feelings to himself and sit in silence for the whole session."
"Therapy's overrated, anyway," Jessica decided.
"Is that your professional opinion?"
"You never went to therapy, did you? I mean, how could you have? You didn't talk for most of your life. And look at you! You turned out just fine."
I pretended I was watching Henry Siomme hand out sourdough bread to the old folks. He looked so much like his mother, his face personable and strong, his eyes dark green.
"I did go to a therapist," I finally said. "When I was very little."
"Really?" Jessica said. "But you couldn't talk. You didn't even know sign language back then, did you? What did you do together?"
"Have you seen DeShawn anywhere?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. DeShawn!" Jessica yelled, rising from her seat. "Get your butt over here!"
Dad's distraction lasted well into the next day, when he met with Mickey and me in the windmill field. He handed the both of us shinny sticks and showed us the tapikolo--a buckskin sack stuffed with pine nuts.
"You're supposed to have ten players," Dad said, "but we'll make do with three."
We spent an hour batting the tapikolo back and forth, each of us trying to knock it past the other. Mickey proved to be a lot stronger than her twig-thin arms had led me to believe; at one point she knocked the tapikolo so far away, it hit the base of a windmill and rolled downhill toward Luke Owns Forty's house.
"This is just like hockey," Mickey said with approval.
Dad's smile was diluted and wan. In so many ways, he was only a shadow of himself. Ways that made me want to hug him and never let go.
"Mickey," he said, "do you like baseball?"
"Baseball's awesome," Mickey said. "Hockey's the best, but baseball's the second best."
I found myself smiling. "The two of you should go to a game sometime."
Dad's face looked pained with anxiety. "I can't..."
"You can, Dad," I said, and smiled sadly. "You're a free man. The police can't chase you off the reservation anymore."
His face crumpled. He looked away. He was a free man. He was a haunted one.
Mickey jostled Dad's arm.
"Yes?" he said, starting.
"If we go to a game, could we buy peanuts, like the song?"
Slowly, Dad started to smile. "Of course."
I checked my wristwatch. Much as I didn't like it, I had to get a letter in to Pima County Consolidated before the weekend. "Sorry, guys," I said.
"It's okay," Mickey said. "Just as long as we play again tomorrow."
Dad walked Mickey and me home. Rafael was stuck in the hospital until late afternoon. I couldn't imagine what for. How many kids in Nettlebush actually swallow their pencils? Maybe he'd landed a pro bono case from off the reserve.
"Can I have ice cream tonight?" Mickey asked me.
"You know something? I think that's a great idea. Dad?" I said. "Why don't we try Grandpa's recipe again?"
Dad almost smiled. "It was a complete fiasco the last time we tried it..."
The door to the house was unlocked. Small wonder. We stepped inside and found Zeke Owns Forty sitting in the front room and snacking on a honey biscuit.
"Hi!" he exclaimed, spraying crumbs all over the place.
"Ugh," Mickey said, pinching her forehead. "Is this one of those surprise checkups?"
"Yeah, but it's just a technicality. I'm not gonna drill you. Just pretend I asked a bunch of questions and you answered them. This bread is awesome! Skylar, man, do you remember that time I wore my shirt inside out and I didn't know it? Hahaha, that was crazy! Why do they stick the tag on the inside where it itches?"
"I'm so sorry, Zeke," I said. "I really don't understand the way your brain works."
"That's okay," Zeke said, and trailed into the sitting room.
"Skylar," Dad said. "Could I talk to you for a second?"
I braced myself. Dad never called me "Skylar" unless something serious was on his mind.
Dad and I left Mickey and Zeke in the sitting room while we went into the kitchen. I started looking through the cabinets for cocoa powder. Cocoa powder and sour cream. Weird combination for ice cream, but it works.
"I still can't get used to it," Dad admitted to me.
I looked up. "Used to being free?"
He looked caught off guard. "No, not that," he said. "Used to you talking. For years, I've wanted to talk with you."
I could feel myself smiling. "I know, Dad. I've wanted to talk with you, too."
Dad paused. I could feel a shift in the atmosphere, and not a pleasant one. Uh-oh, I thought.
"So..." he started. "Is there anything you've wanted to tell me, but couldn't?"
That's the thing about Dad. He's known me for so long that he knows what I'm feeling, even when I don't voice it. I've never needed a voice to tell him the important things.
But this one thing I hadn't told him--maybe it was kind of important after all.
Not as important as his peace of mind. I thought about his little brother falling from the boughs of the willow tree.
I cleared my throat. "No, Dad."
"Ah...you're sure...?"
"I just rearranged an old guy's larynx," came an unexpected proclamation. "It was awesome."
I looked up sudde
nly. I bit back a smile. Rafael was home.
"Don't drag your germs into the sitting room," I called out. Rafael never bothers changing out of his scrubs after work. It's kind of gross.
"I'd better go," Dad murmured.
"What?" I tried to read his facial expression. As usual, I couldn't. "Why?"
"It's nothing. I'm just a little tired."
"Oh," I said. But I had the feeling that was just an excuse. "Okay. I'll see you at the pauwau, right?"
Dad nodded, suddenly forty years older in countenance. He said a brief goodbye and walked out the front door.
I felt oddly cold when I went into the sitting room. Mickey, Rafael, and Zeke sat around the standing radio and listened to the Nettlebush station. Rafael had exchanged his scrubs for flannel.
"Hey," Rafael said. He looked up at me; and then he looked again. It's one of the few things he has in common with my father. The both of them always know what's going through my mind.
"Zeke," Rafael said, "get out."
"Aw, come on!"
The overgrown child clamored and complained for a few solid seconds before ultimately darting out the door. Mickey didn't so much as lift her head. I guess the radio had her transfixed.
"You okay?" Rafael mouthed to me.
Dad's acting weird, I signed.
Dad didn't show up at dinner that night. Autumn Rose In Winter handed out plates of smoked catfish--his favorite meal--and I didn't see him anywhere. I was starting to feel anxious.
"He didn't want to be around the crowds," Racine told me.
But that didn't match up with Dad's personality at all. He was one of the most somber, awkward guys I knew--but he was also very personable. Take him away from human companionship and he wilts like a woodsorrel in winter.
"Skylar," Mickey said. "What's a pauwau?"
I was sitting by the bonfire with Lila and Joseph Little Hawk when Mickey walked over to me and tugged on my hair--a very effective means of grabbing my attention.
"Ow," I said. "It's like a party," I explained. "Why?"
Mickey shrugged. "Nicholas said there's going to be a pauwau soon, and then he made fun of me because I didn't know what it was."
"He gets that from me," Lila said matter-of-factly. She signed briefly to Joseph.
Are you proud of that? Joseph signed back.
I put my hand on Mickey's head. "A bunch of different tribes get together," I said. "And we celebrate the things that make us alike and the things that make us different. We dress up and dance, we play music and games, we tell stories..."
"We pig out," Lila said. "It's the only time of year I'm not watching my beautiful figure."
"Right, that."
Mickey tilted her head. "Dress up? Dress up how? In costumes?"
"In regalia," I said. "Our traditional clothes. The clothes we would have worn hundreds of years ago."
"Oh," Mickey said. And she fell silent, biting the head off a wild onion.
Later, when we went home for the night, I pulled Rafael aside.
"Mickey doesn't have regalia," I said.
"What are you talking about?" Rafael said. "Everybody has...oh. Yeah," he said, "I forgot she didn't grow up here."
"What should we do?" I asked.
I knew what I would have liked to done. My grandmother used to be the best seamstress on the whole reservation. If she were still with us, I would have asked for her help.
It's weird how the longing doesn't lessen with age.
"What about Aunt Rosa?" Rafael asked. "She's pretty good with a needle. Bet you she'd help."
So I paid a visit to Rosa and Gabriel's house the very next day. Rosa and Charity were butchering mutton in the kitchen. I tried not to throw up.
"She needs regalia?" Charity asked, her face lighting up. "She's such a cute little girl. I'd love to help. Wouldn't you, Mom?"
"I have a nice summer elkskin," Rosa said slowly. That's usually the way she talks; slow, enunciating, like she's uncertain of herself. "We can cut it and sew it."
Rosa sent me out to the woods to collect dyes. I followed the lake's trickling tributaries and plucked the little white lilies hiding between the weeds. We call those lilies bloodroot because--as you've probably already surmised--the roots and the stems are a rich, deep red. From there I followed the route where the forest looped back to the badlands. Here were where the skinks lived, curious little lizards with bright blue tails. I didn't have it in me to grab any live lizards. Luckily for me the drier parts of the forest floor are littered with their skeletons. I collected and pocketed a few of the skulls. Skinks bones make a pretty good match for opals, and they're nowhere near as expensive. If you've ever seen a portrait of an old Plains man covered in bone jewelry, well, that's where it comes from.
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 c
lothes. 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 re
ally 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..."
"Alright, Mother, alright," Gabriel said. I should have known.
"Hey, Grandma Gives Light," Mary said. "Why do you pretend you don't speak English? Is it your righteous fury toward the white man?"
"Taipo'o nian tama kappayummuh innuntukkahppuh! Nia punni!"
"Bet your grandma would've liked mine," Rafael told me gruffly.
"I'm not sure about that," I said. "Granny never appreciated public displays."
"Gather around the fire, guys," said Meredith Siomme, a member of the tribal council. Her smile was calming and warm, as warm as the flames.
Everyone formed a circle around the bonfire. We linked our arms together and Mickey looked up at me with confusion. I felt DeShawn wriggle his way in at my left side. "Hello, Skylar," he said pleasantly. "We're putting up ten Kiowa at my place, can you believe it?" I spotted Dad on the other side of the fire, his head bowed, his eyes distracted. I wanted to talk to him. Now wasn't the time.
"Thank you, kindest of planets," Allen Calling Owl called out. "For the generosity by which we live. For the opportunity to know our neighbors as brothers and sisters. For..."
Immaculata sneaked up behind him and clapped her hands.
"Damn you!"
"That was the best prayer ever," Jessica said solemnly, when the circle broke for the evening.
The rest of the tribes began slowly piling onto the reservation. Among them were the Hopi--in blanket-like regalia and alien hairstyles--and the Timbisha Shoshone--Shoshone who settled down in the desert while the majority of us left for the Plains. The desert Shoshone didn't wear deerhide and elkskin like the rest of us did. Instead they were clad in yucca and red ochre face paint. That's where the term "redskin" comes from, as a matter of fact. Tribes like the Beothuk and the desert Shoshone always wore red paint on their cheeks--because body paint is a sign of peace--and the clueless white settlers mistook it for their natural pigment.
The opening ceremony started with a shawl dance. Serafine and Charity and Autumn Rose In Winter led the young girls out to the windmills and they danced, whirling and fierce, their shawls flying about their arms in a colorful blur. To look at them, they were the very picture of power, of natural destruction. Even now the shawl dance makes me think of a devastating tornado: tragic, unmatched in prowess, and you can't take your eyes away.
"That looks so cool..." Mickey whispered.
"It's the shawl dance," I whispered back. Daisy At Dawn struck the double-skin drum with the flats of her hands. "You know about the north star's father. Do you know about his mother?"
Mickey shook her head.
"When she realized her child had gone missing, she went out to find him, just as his father had done. She carried a warm blanket on her arm--a shawl--which she intended to wrap around him as soon as they were reunited. But the more she walked, the more despondent she grew. She walked for years with that blanket on her arm. When she saw the north star high in the sky, and she realized what had become of her child, she danced a mourning dance. She danced, and she danced, the shawl spinning around her shoulders. She wrapped herself up in that shawl just like a cocoon. She cried herself to sleep. And she slept in there for ten days, until finally, she emerged as the world's first butterfly."
We clapped when the dance had reached its conclusion. Autumn Rose scurried over to DeShawn and kissed his cheek. The pauwau had officially begun.
"If I turned into a butterfly," Mickey said, "would you come looking for me?"
"First I'd get a net," I told her seriously. "A very big one. And then I'd have to chase you."
Each tribe began dancing simultaneously, a harmless, competitive comparison of their styles. The Hopi imitated the flight of the majestic eagle and the Navajo leapt and lunged like warriors on the prowl. The austerely dressed Pawnee sat like old-timers on the ground and shared a calumet. Mary stole rolls of piki bread and threw them at unsuspecting bystanders' heads and Reuben Takes Flight looked on with stoic disapproval. Mickey helped me spread the sunflower cakes on the lawn and a pair of Chumash toddlers raced over to try them.
Rafael was chasing after an unrepentant Mary when Dad came and sat down with Mickey and me.
"Still so hard to believe that Caias is a father now..."
I followed Dad's gaze. Boys from our tribe were performing a grass dance by the bonfire, their arms held aloft, their steps cautious and deliberate. It made me think of a spirit walking on water. Henry Siomme was among them, a carefree smile on his face.
I gave Dad a smile of my own, a smile meant to mask my thoughts. Dad had missed out on most of his friends' and family's lives. In a way, it was as though the rest of us lived in the future, while Dad could only ever observe us from the past.
I really hated that.
"Mr. Looks Over," said Mickey. Oh, what a sweetheart. I could have clapped. "Do you dance?"
Dad considered. "Badly," he stipulated. "And you can call me Paul."
I picked up my flute and smiled, eyebrows dancing. "Why don't you show her your straight dance?"
"Is there a gay dance, too?" Mickey asked.
Dad's face colored as bright as a beet. Poor Dad. In some ways you'd be hard pressed to find a shyer man.
"It's," he started. "That's not, um. That's not what he means..."
"It's a war dance," I explained. "But not like what those crazy Navajo are doing over there." Mickey followed my eyes when I pointed out the combatant Navajo in bright silks and feathered mantles. "When Shoshone went to 'war' with another tribe, no killing was involved."
"Then how the heck did they fight?"
"Show her, Dad," I said.
Dad pressed his lips together grimly. I grinned. He rose from the ground in his burnt orange regalia. He looked around.
"Does anybody have an eagle fan?" I called out. I struggled to raise my voice. One of the few things my new vocal folds don't know how to do is shout. "Or an eagle stick?"
"Here you go, honey!" said Robert Has Two Enemies. He tossed a beaded stick my way and I barely just caught it. Reuben Takes Flight nodded with approval.
"Dad?" I prompted.
Dad took the stick from me and inspected it. It was long and hollow, carved from smooth elm, decorated with clay beads and--towa
rd the very end--an eagle feather.
By now the drummers had stopped striking their drums. The dancers dwindled one by one to a stop.
I brought my flute to my lips. I began to play the Song of the Fallen Warrior.
I don't think anybody really knows why it's called a "straight dance." When our ancestors still roamed the Plains, when they hunted the buffalo and settled disputes without bloodshed, they always performed this dance just before approaching the battlefield.
Dad crouched low to the ground, his eyes downcast. We have a story about how the Plains People were one with the earth, happy and content, before the Coyote tricked us into living on the surface. If you were to see Dad dance, I'm sure you would feel the way I felt: like he was trying desperately to find his way back home beneath the soil. He danced low to the ground, two steps at a time, the dance of a man reconsidering the path he walks in life. Every now and again he straightened up and looked around, a Plains warrior scouting enemy terrain.
On occasion I abruptly interrupted the song. Whenever the music stopped, the other Plains tribes knew exactly what to do. Together they filled the silence with war whoops, warbling cries both joyful and sad; sad because war is inevitable, joyful because Plains People found a way to achieve it without hurting one another.
A few Kiowa men joined the dance in their yellow deerhide and tanned otter pelts. So did a Shawnee woman, a feather jutting out of her beaded headband, and a Pawnee pair with shaved heads.
Now came the best part.
I've said that war for the Shoshone was never about spilling blood. How we fought our battles was by counting coup--tapping an enemy warrior and running back to your tribe without getting caught.
The dancers began to count coup. Plains Shoshone chased after Pawnee and Plains Apache chased after Cheyenne. The men and the women reached for one another with their hands, or their eagle sticks, or their eagle fans, or whatever item they had on their person. Whenever a dancer was successfully tagged he held his hand up--a show of respect--and bowed out of the performance, conceding defeat. The number of dancers slowly decreased.
"One can never accuse a Native of not knowing how to party," said Kaya, when she came and sat next to me. The Kiowa banged on their gourd drum, and the Hopi shook their rattles and their bells, and somebody lost their kid in the fray, but that's alright--he was among his people.
The final few dancers were Dad, Mr. Red Clay, and a Pawnee man with a bright red mohawk. Dad and the Pawnee man were too polite to try and supplant each other--so Mr. Red Clay supplanted them both. The spectators whooped and cheered. Mr. Red Clay raised his hand. Kaya walked off to chat with the Kiowa drummers.
"How do you play the flute?" Mickey asked me. Rafael sat down with us and a group of children began to play a hoop game.
I handed her the flute. "Cover the second and third hole and blow into it," I instructed.
She did. The flute whistled, low and reedy. She drew back as though bitten.
"Cool," she said. "Teach me more!"
"Cubby," Dad said. "Could I have a quick word?"
"Try some ashbread," Rafael said to Mickey. "It's good."
I got up and followed Dad past the windmills. We walked the downhill slope past Mr. Owns Forty's house. The pauwau lights and celebratory sounds muffled behind us.
Dad had said he'd wanted a word--but now he wasn't talking. It kind of made me antsy, because for a moment, I forgot that I could do the talking instead.
"I'm sorry," he eventually said.
"What for?" I asked.
"I missed out on most of your life. Going to college...getting your voice back... Even when you--got married," he said awkwardly. As accepting as he was, I think he still found it jarring that I loved another man.
"That wasn't your fault, Dad," I said. "You don't really think I blamed you for that, do you?"
He bowed his head. It drives me nuts when he does that. It's the quintessential Shoshone gesture of noncommittal ambiguity. I'm serious. If you're ever locked in a room with a Shoshone, and he starts bowing his head, you know he's hiding something. In which case I suggest breaking down the door and running for it.
I reached for Dad's hand. He pulled away, probably by instinct. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable.
"I'm sure we all wish we could change the past," I said. "But we can't. Why don't we focus on the future instead?"
"The future...yes..." For a moment I was afraid I'd lost him; his eyes were out of focus. "Do you think you'll adopt Michaela?" he eventually asked.
My heart jumped. "I hope so," I said. To actually have a daughter--a daughter with Rafael...
"I just hope she doesn't go running for the bears again," Dad murmured.
"I think we've put that behind us...I hope."
"Are you sure she's been to a psychiatrist already?"
"Positive." A cold weight settled in the center of my stomach. "Dad?"
"Yes?"
I didn't know whether I really ought to tell this to him. At the same time, I didn't know what would happen if I kept it to myself.
"Remember when you had me seeing a child therapist?" I asked.
We walked underneath a patch of bull pines. Suddenly I couldn't see Dad's face anymore. I couldn't see his eyes. I couldn't see the moon.
I didn't like it.
"Yes," Dad said.
Now what? I didn't know what to say. I mean, I knew what to say--I just didn't know how.
"I already know," Dad said.
I wasn't immediately sure I had heard him correctly.
"I said I know, Skylar. I know something happened between the two of you."
That weight in my stomach felt like it was rising through my chest, through my throat. I was afraid I was going to throw up. I sat down on fallen pine brush. I really wished I could see the moon.
"Do you think I didn't know?" Dad asked. His voice--it didn't sound like his voice. It didn't sound right. "When you came out of that office shaking--when you threw up at night? Do you think I didn't know? Why do you think I stopped taking you there?"
He knew. It never occurred to me. He knew.
A part of me wanted to ask: If you knew, then why didn't you tell me?
"Because you couldn't talk back," Dad said. "If I talked to you--you couldn't talk back. And I didn't want you to. I didn't want to hear it out loud. I didn't...that made it..."
He didn't want to know. I didn't want him to know.
We're Shoshone men, he and I. If we close our eyes and cover our ears, the unpleasant truth isn't there.
I could hear it when Dad sat next to me, fallen oak leaves and pine needles shifting under his weight. I could see his shadow next to mine. He used to be a bear of a man. He never used to be so frail.
"I've failed," Dad said. "My son, my son's mother...my brother--"
"Stop," I said.
He stopped.
"You haven't failed anyone," I said. "You gave me confidence. You gave me a family and friends. Uncle Julius died because accidents happen everyday. Mom died because we live in a world where people like to hurt each other, and I don't know why. You didn't do any of that, Dad. It's not your fault."
"Letting a stranger molest my son? Was that my fault?"
"No," I said quietly. And then: "No," I said, louder still. "You got me out of there. You saved me. You seem to be forgetting that."
"The truth is that I've never saved anyone," Dad said. "I've only brought heartache to the people I love. If Racine's smart, she'll--"
"She'll what? Leave you?"
He didn't respond.
I swallowed a sigh that burned its way uncomfortably through my chest. I stood up.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," I said. "Let's go back to the pauwau. I have a husband and a child waiting for me. And you have your wife."
We walked back to the pauwau grounds together, Dad as stiff and unresponsive as stone. Loud, cheerful musi
c welcomed us back to the festivities; men and women lined up for the javelin toss and Grandma Gives Light sat between Mickey and Charity, nattering a mile a minute. I couldn't imagine what she was saying to them. I couldn't imagine much of anything right now. I felt like I'd left a part of myself in the lightless pine thicket.
There comes a moment in every boy's life when he grows up and realizes his father isn't a superhero. I just never realized his father experiences that moment, too.