Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (15 page)

"Don't let the big guy fool you," I said.  "Nola Red Clay calls the shots around here."

Sky looked between Cyrus and Mrs. Red Clay, an old lady with a heavy face.  Sky grinned.  His regalia was a soft powder green with darker green stitchwork.  His overcoat had a collar that draped across his neck, embroidered with iridescent, green-gray abalone beads.  He was wearing his Plains flute.

"You look," I began.

Sky waited patiently.  Nothing came to mind.  He looked what?  Native?  A latent hunger stirred in my gut.  It had nothing to do with sweets or samosas.  It stilled the music on the air, the windmills above our heads.  All I could think about was what it had felt like to mess up Sky's curls, to toss an arm across his back, the summer sun slipping between clouds.

Are you okay
? Sky asked, smile faltering.

"Never mind," I muttered.  "C'mon."

I told him I was hungry--which was true, in a way--and we made our way over to a folding table and grabbed sunflower cakes and blueberry wojapi.  I liked the honey kind better than the blueberry, but I didn't see any.  I kept my eye out for Navajo tribal members in showy, shining silks.  The Navajo had this dish called ach'ii that I liked, charred sheep intestines tied together in long, crunchy ropes.  I remembered that Sky was a vegetarian and decided against the ach'ii after all.

I like your nail polish
, Sky said, pointing at my fingers.

"Me, too," I said.  "Do you want some?"

He tilted his hand. 
We'll see
, he said, which meant no.

"Do you wanna watch the dances?" I asked.  "I'll explain 'em to you."

Sky seemed to get a kick out of this, so we sat together under the windmills with our dinner plates.  I talked with my mouth full.

"That's the Tail Dance," I began.

I pointed out Uncle Gabriel and a few other Shoshone men.  Each man held a Tail Dance stick in hand, a deer jawbone wrapped up in fox fur and pin feathers.  Whenever the men moved so much as an inch, the horse hairs on the ends of their sticks whipped around in crazy circles.  At one point the guys were all dancing on their knees, like it was nothing.  My knees ached with phantom pain.

"It's called Tail Dance because of the sticks they carry," I explained.  "The hairs on the sticks come from horses' tails.  In the old days you had to belong to the horse society, or you weren't allowed to dance that way.  Horse trainers had a pretty important place in the community; I mean, without them, we wouldn't have had transport, or a cavalry."

Sky looked impressed.  He waved when Mr. Little Hawk, one of the Tail Dancers, glanced his way.  I noticed Mr. Little Hawk didn't wave back.

"And that's Women's Traditional," I said.

I nudged Sky and nodded at Rosa Gray Rain, Dr. Long Way, and a few other staff members from the reservation's hospital.  The women kept their bodies perfectly, rigidly straight, dancing only on the balls of their feet.  Each woman held an eagle feather fan above her head, a shawl folded across her arm.  Each woman danced facing the ceremonial drum, never once turning away, even as they crossed the perimeter in a perfect circle.

"Women used to dance Tradish during wartime," I said.  "When they were saying goodbye to the soldiers and wishing them a safe return.  Traditional doesn't look so hard, but you try keeping your body that still for ten minutes at a time.  You can't even lower your arm when it gets tired."

Sky winced, sympathetic to the dancers' ordeal.

"It's serious stuff," I conceded gruffly.  "Our dances bring us more honor than war ever did.  Not that we went to war much, we only ever counted coup.  Alright, now for the other tribes.  Pay attention."

I pointed out the Hopi in their dark, multi-layered robes, everything but their right shoulders covered Puritanically.  You wouldn't think a desert tribe would dress the way the Hopi did, but whatever.  They danced their Rain Dance, legs crossed, hands raised in supplication to the sky.  I showed Sky a bunch of Navajo dancing what they called the Last Night Dance.  The showy bastards scraped planks of firewood until sparks rained down all around them, and they leapt in and out of the sparks, shouting, chanting, taunting the very elements of the earth.  I'd heard rumors that they fireproofed their regalia with alum, which made the feat less impressive than it looked.

Don't you dance at all?
Sky asked, pointing at the drum circles, then at me.

I showed him the decorative fringe hanging from my sleeves.  "I used to Grass Dance."

Why did you stop?
Sky asked, his smile partway frozen.

I didn't know how to say it without sounding lame.  I told him, "I only danced because my mom liked it."

I couldn't look at Sky just then; because I felt pity pouring off of him, and I didn't want any part of it.  His kind light burned me.  Nettlebush turned into a pop-up book, the trees, the windmills, the people freezing, nothing more than colorful tabs of paper on an open spine.  I reached out and slapped the book shut and Nettlebush went black.

You don't think she'd like it still?
Sky asked.

Nettlebush went black, but it wasn't enough to snuff out Sky's light.  Sky's light shattered the darkness.  The pauwau came back to life.

"I don't want to think about it," I said.

Thinking about Mom meant remembering the last time I had ever seen her: me lying in her bed, watching her die little by little, hour by hour until the sun pierced the night and fell through her window, lighting up her glassy eyes.  Thinking about Mom meant wave upon wave of intense guilt, all of it deserved.  I tried not to think about Mom; but now that I was set off, I couldn't stop.  My skin went prickly and hot.  I sank into the grass and disappeared.  I was six inches tall, panicking, begging Mom to wake up, knowing she never would because--because I'd--

Sky put his hand on my arm.  I was big again.  He drained the bad emotions from me, zipping them up, throwing them away.  I might have laughed, because it was a relief, but a scary relief; because then and there I knew Sky had tremendous power over me.  How does a scrawny sixteen-year-old boy get power over anyone?  Did he even know he had it?  Probably not.  He watched Annie Little Hawk dancing the Shawl Dance, the eponymous shawl flying around her shoulders, her body a quick blur.  He clapped his hands for Annie, smiling brightly, a loyal friend.  Every smile from him felt like a gift.  I hoped these people realized what he was giving them.  I hoped they thanked him at the end of the day; so he realized what he was giving them, too.

When the Navajo had finished the Last Night Dance one of the girls waltzed right over to us.  Her regalia was smooth, scarlet silk with a lavender sash and lavender sleeves.  She had her hair pulled back in a tsiiyeel--a figure-eight bun with drooping white wildflowers.  She leaned down and held her hand out, reminding me of a valiant prince.

"Dance?" she asked Sky.

Dull anger pounded in my temples.  I told myself to knock it off.  But then Sky got up and grabbed the girl's hand; and the anger boiled to the top of my head, until I wondered whether steam was coming out of my ears.  Knock it off, I kept thinking.  Stop it.  I didn't want to be the jealous best friend.  I didn't own Sky.  Girls were going to notice him.  Girls would be stupid if they didn't notice him.

Sky danced with the Navajo girl.  My envy never entirely disappeared, but I started to relax.  He looked like he was having fun, his smile unwavering, light behind his eyes.  It was weird how happy I suddenly felt.  Someone was paying attention to Sky.  Someone was making Sky happy.  It was enough that I almost smiled, too, but self-consciously, because my smiles were ugly.  The Navajo girl wasn't so bad, I decided.  Maybe I should find out her address and send her flowers.

"Um," said a voice.

A Hopi boy was standing a few yards to my right.  His round face was curtained by dozens of straight braids, a kerchief around the top of his head.  His nose was set low on his face; one of his eyes wouldn't open the whole way.  Next to him was a guy I took to be Pawnee, because the Pawnee never bothered dressing up for these events, and true to form he was wearing a brown leather jacket and a cowboy hat.  His hair fringed his tapering cheeks in dusty black, pooling at the nape of his neck in a loose ponytail.  The Hopi kid twisted his hands together, while the Pawnee boy kept cocking his head to one side, then the other, reminding me of a pigeon.  Both guys looked familiar.  I realized I'd bunked with them during the Creek hoyyoy in March.

I bristled.  I waited for either guy to say something.  Neither of them did.  I'd decided to give up on them when the Pawnee guy cleared his throat.  He scratched underneath his chin, his eyes lightening in a way I didn't appreciate.

"Yeah, that's him," the Pawnee guy said.

"You punched Dylan," the Hopi guy said quietly.

I guessed Dylan was the Comanche guy.  I stood up; because I didn't want to be the only one sitting; I didn't want to give these two an edge over me.

"And what?" I said.

The Hopi guy inched backward.  I wondered about my face again.  The Pawnee guy said, "You don't think you owe him an apology?"

"I don't see him here," I growled.

"Then come back to Texas with me," the Pawnee guy dared, eyes glinting adventurously.  "You'll see him there, alright."

"I don't like fighting," the Hopi boy muttered miserably.  There's a reason "Hopi" means "Peaceful Ones."

I felt like putting the both of them in their place--pounding on the Pawnee guy until his brains oozed out of his head--and that scared me.  I didn't want to be my father.  Sky had shown me I didn't have to be my father.  My hands curled and uncurled in fists.  I breathed in and out through my flat nose, hot air hitting my mouth.

"Tell him I'm sorry," I got out through my teeth.

The Hopi guy's arms went slack at his sides.  The Pawnee guy did the pigeon thing again.  Humiliated, my face was on fire.  I was about to sit down and drown myself in memories when the Pawnee guy spoke up.

"Hey, don't worry too much," the Pawnee guy said.  "Dylan doesn't always know when to shut up.  I've thought about socking him myself from time to time."

"That wouldn't be right," the Hopi guy said, ducking his head.  "People can't learn any better unless you teach them."

"Yeah, well," I said.  I didn't know what to think--about either of these boys.

"Are you wearing nail polish?" the Pawnee guy asked me.

We didn't talk for long after that.  The guys said goodbye and straggled away to get frybread.  The Pawnee guy put his arm around the Hopi guy's back.  I sat down again, feeling furious; not at them, but at myself.  I knew who I wanted to be: the boy everyone liked, the boy everyone felt safe around.  I didn't know how to be that person.  Even I didn't like me.  I didn't know how to smile, or laugh, or treat people kindly.  I was still thinking about that when Sky came back from dancing with the Navajo girl.  He looked worried, but I doubted he knew who I'd been talking with a moment later.  He gestured at the Navajo girl as she walked away, trying to get my attention.  All I said was, "Yeah, nice."  I wanted to buy her flowers.  I wanted to bite her head off.  I was Waha Kopai.  I had two faces.

"Hello, the both of you," a girl's voice said.

Annie Little Hawk was the next to approach us, dragging Aubrey by his hand.  Where was Serafine?  And since when were those two so friendly with one another?  I gave Aubrey a Look, and he nodded uncertainly.  I scowled, because I didn't think much of his taste in girls.  Sky and Annie performed some whacky secret handshake--great, that made two of my friends Little Hawk had lured into her villainous snare--and signed to one another with their fingers.  Annie rounded on me, her long, burnt brown hair falling over her shoulder, her shoulders wrapped up in a reddish-pink
elk skin shawl.

"Why are you mad at Skylar?" Annie wanted to know.  "He's a nice boy."

Who the hell said I was mad at Sky?  "That's not fair," I argued.  "I don't speak the hand thing."

Annie and Aubrey sat down with us.  I glowered at Annie to show her what I thought of her.  She returned the look, completely unfazed.  Aubrey must have noticed the unfriendly air, because he tried to get us to talk to one another: first about acorn squash, of all things, and then about school.  Aubrey pointed out that I was a twelfth grader.

"Not anymore I'm not," I said.  "Got left back after the thing with Sleeping Fox."

Aubrey started squirming, which I took for a really bad sign.  And then Annie said, "You could have ignored his rants instead of hitting him."

It was the second time tonight someone had told me off for my temper.  Predictably, I snapped.  "You trying to tell me how to handle myself?"

Except Annie had a temper, too.  "Oh, now, why would I do that?  But when you very nearly blinded the boy--"

"He's fine now!" I burst out.

The dark heavens cracked open with imaginary lightning.  Annie Little Hawk stood on one side of the grassy arena, me on the other.  There was no way in hell the two of us could ever see eye to eye.  We were too similar; although I didn't want to admit as much at the time.

"Is he?" Annie asked, an edge to her mild voice.  "Did you ever ask him?"

"Since when do you give a damn about him?" I asked.  "Since you realized it makes you look like a saint?"