The Rock Child (42 page)

“The truth,” she said, “is that your spirit is alive. The truth is that you are in agony. And the truth is, I can feel your pain.”

She threw the blouse on the ground.

“Su-u-u-ure you can,” he mocked. He didn’t sound quite convincing to himself. To buck up, he lifted the revolver and—SCHLAM!

She quivered, and slipped out of her shoes.

“The truth is, you didn’t save the man you loved. The truth is, it wasn’t your fault, and it didn’t kill you.”

She bent and pushed her trousers to her knees. There was nothing under them.
Look at her perky little bush,
he told himself, but it didn’t feel convincing.

“The truth is, you killed when they told you to. The truth is, every person you killed was you.”

She stepped out of her trousers and stood in the sunlight, stark naked, facing Porter Rockwell.

“The truth is, you hate yourself. And that is killing you.”

Now she started padding toward him. A step. Three beats of stillness. A step. Two beats of stillness.

“The truth is, what you shoot out of your gun barrels is your hatred of yourself.”

Three steps. Four.

“The truth is, when you shoot, the person you shoot is you. Every time.”

Seven steps. Eight.

Rockwell slipped the revolver into his belt. He raised the shotgun.

Ten steps. Halfway.

“The truth is, the Church didn’t care about you. They told you to kill. They asked you to become a murderer.”

Rockwell snugged his eye tight on his shoulder, looking down the barrel. She was still walking.

“So every day, in your anger, you despise yourself.”

Sun Moon’s bare flesh filled his vision. Sun Moon’s words filled his mind. His finger stroked the trigger up and down.

“Every day you hate me, every day you hate the people you killed, every day you hate the Church, every day you hate yourself.”

Sun Moon started up the logs, and her chest filled his eyes. His caressing finger stilled on the trigger, and tightened. “Porter Rockwell, you are drowning in hatred. You can stop. You can save yourself.
Only
you can save yourself.”

He raised the barrels until they trained on her neck.

She stepped forward, and he felt the nudge through the shotgun. The
flesh of her neck was actually touching the muzzle.
How cold does it feel, the metal of your death?

“Porter Rockwell,” she said evenly, “I feel compassion for all sentient beings. I love every creature that lives. I love myself. I love you.”

He looked up into her eyes. He wondered what those words had cost her. He imagined exactly how her head would look, flying backward off her body, spurting blood.

“In the name of your love for yourself I ask you. Save yourself.”

He straightened up. He held her eyes with his.

He pulled the trigger.

KA-BLOOM!

For an instant I saw what I feared to see, blood and gore.

Then I saw that they were still gazing at each other, the man in black, huge, and the small, naked woman.

Rockwell had shifted the barrel off to the side.

The gun was empty!

I took one running step. Sun Moon held up both hands—STOP!

I saw Sir Richard had sprinted a couple of steps, too, but he stopped.

Within reach those two, nun and killer, gazed at each other.

Porter Rockwell put the muzzle back in her face. He shaped the words clearly in his mind, saw them clear as on a sign.
You’re crazy beyond crazy with your talk of love. But all the armies of the world ain’t got as much guts as you
.

He smiled lightly, thinking he could still kill her anyway.
Courage is a rare thing
.

He dropped the shotgun. It clattered idly on the rocks.

He looked at her a little more. Without any gesture, even a nod, he stalked off. He walked down the log pile and into the trees.

I ran up to the logs to Sun Moon. We watched Porter Rockwell walk away. Somewhere in the watching she took my hand. It never struck me until later that we were perfectly naked, all of us. The last we ever saw of Porter Rockwell was the black of his duster fading into the shadows.

Porter, if you’re still out there, I wish you well.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Sun Moon walked slowly toward her clothes. Every man of us done likewise. We dressed in no hurry but silent. Before long we climbed up the log pile and looked at each other. We looked deep into Sun Moon’s eyes, and she into ours. Then, still silent, we walked toward the lodge.

We left the shotgun laying where it was. I don’t know who ever did pick it up.

Us men went inside to have coffee. Sun Moon went somewhere to meditate. In a few minutes my nerves began to unwind. A while after that I actually laughed. And a while after that I remembered tonight was when Giver was to give me the big news. I guessed my nerves were loose enough for anything now.

Giver made me wait to hear it. We drank sociable coffee first. Then we ate. Then we drank coffee again. It was all I could do to hold my water.

Will they own me as a Washo or not?

And, “
Do I want to be a Washo or not?
”

Appeared to me Sun Moon, Sir Richard, and Daniel were nervous as me. Of the supper guests, nobody was relaxed but Paiute Joe, who was sweetly unreadable.

Finally the pot ran dry. Giver shook the last grounds onto the grass
and set his cup down. I wished the coffee cup was like the Indian pipe—if you smoked it, you couldn’t tell anything but the truth.

Giver signed to Paiute Joe, and I read the signs themselves, “My friend, we do not think you are a Washo.”

A squish of feelings came over me, no way to describe them.

He regarded me with gentle eyes. “It is not just because you do not speak our language, or recognize it, when any Washo mother would have given her child her tongue from the moment of birth. It is more than that.”

He took thought for a moment. “It is more because no one remembers a woman who went to the whites. We are a small band, a few main families only. I do not know the name of every Washo, but I think I recognize them all. If a woman went to the whites, we would know. Yet my grandsons went to the head of each band, and no one remembers such a thing. No family has lost anyone to the whites, especially not a woman of the age to bear children. We would remember. Our women are precious, and our children are precious.”

Now he turned to Daniel. “My friend, I think there is a mistake here, a mistake not hard to understand. You heard our friend say his mystery words are ‘Rock Child.’ And you recognized them, true, as the Rocking Stone where Donner Creek flows into the Truckee River.

“It is a sacred place, a place where the gods of the winds speak. But you believe it to be a place especially sacred to the Washo, a place we tell a story about.

“This is not so. We know the story, but it is not ours. The stone is a well-known spot on the trail from Truckee Meadows to the other side of the mountains, where all the gold hunters are. We use it, but so do the Miwok, the Maidu, the Patwin, the Shoshone, the Paiute, and others. Maybe the story is theirs. All these peoples know the tale.

“If I guessed, though, I would guess that the story comes from the people who came before us, the ancient ones first here. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know.”

He looked back at me. “I see that you have a good heart. You are always welcome at my fire. You are always welcome in my camp. But I think you are not a Washo.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

So I set out on an odyssey across the mountains and deserts of the West, searching, seeking, dreaming about the discovery of what I never had, a home. And my imaginary oasis, a family, a people that would show me the way to live, turned out to be … a mirage.

These were my thoughts as we walked silent back to the lodge that night. Nothing needed saying. My one clue was spoiled, pointing even-like at bunches of tribes. I was fresh out of directions for odysseys, and desire.

I felt tired, tired beyond tired. And one truth is, I felt relieved. Maybe if I’d been raised with my mother’s people, I could have gone Indian and been happy. But I wasn’t. Maybe a man who’s taken to sherbets and pianos can’t go back.

Sun Moon and I sat on the front steps of the lodge, silent, and I thought about what I wanted. After a while I said, “Tomorrow I’m gonna go for a walk. I’m gonna look at the lake, and look and look. I need that.” Tomorrow she and Richard were to get the stage, and the next day they would be in San Francisco, so I was abandoning her. “I’m sorry.”

“May I go with you?”

Her words took me aback.

She took my hands lightly and looked up into my face and waited. “Sure,” I said. “Sure you can.”

We went up to bed together. That night we slept spooned, holding each other, each by each.

Indian summer was gone. The early morning was cold when we left the lodge, and the day stayed snappy cool. Felt good.

I didn’t know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. Walk. Look. Walk. See. Walk. Sit. Walk.

Funny how all those doings turned into
hear, hear, hear
.

Sun Moon and I just ambled right along the shore of the lake, heading north. I didn’t have anything to say, I was all thought out and worded out. She was more of a think-it-out person than me. I was letting myself feel it out. She seemed content with silence, and that let me do the hearing.

From somewhere there was music in my head. I’d step onto a big slab of rock and hear something brassy. I’d look from there onto the lake and the evergreens on its shores and the string instruments would slide in soft, gentle, and ethereal. I saw a grouse and tossed a few notes at it out loud, musical croaks and gobbles. To a chipmunk I sang a few off-the-beat plunks. Once I saw a blue-gray rock with stone the red of pipestone inlaid. The red was in whorls, and suggested to my mind winged horses. For them I made up a song and sang it, calling it “Song of the Spirit Horses.”

Except for singing, I was silent. Sun Moon and I communicated by look and gesture, and as the best of friends do, we understood each other perfect. I was filled with my own music, and that made me feel whole. The music wasn’t about Lake Tahoe, it was about me. But Lake Tahoe inspired it, and the walk and the day gave birth to it.

We ate Maggie’s sack lunch in lovely quiet. I thought maybe Sun Moon would get impatient with silence, with not being paid attention to, after a while. But she didn’t. And in an important way I was paying attention to her. We headed back slow.

As the sun was setting, we sat down on a boulder a quarter mile from the lodge. The snow on the summits to the west burned pink and orange. Out to the east the lake lay still as a lake of perfect dream, mirroring the violet eastern sky.

I looked at Sun Moon. “What am I gonna do?” I asked with a foolish grin. “The world is wide open. I can go anywhere.”

“Or stay anywhere,” she said.

“Home’s not out there.”

“No, it’s in here.” She touched her heart.

We looked at each other, and then at the dramatic peaks, and last at the tranquil lake. “May I tell you something about you?” she asked.

I hesitated. Finally I nodded and looked at her, curious.

“You set out to find your tribe, and you think you failed. But you succeeded. It was not Washo, or Paiute, or Shoshone, no. It was musician. Musicians do not have any one place in particular to live. They don’t have a skin color, or only one culture. You do have a language. All musicians speak it, and it was given to you so you can talk to the gods, and listen to what they say back. Sing back.”

She took my hand. “That’s who you are.”

I felt a wave lift inside me, and let my feelings ride it. I held her hand. We looked and listened and finally it was too dark to see. We stood, still holding hands, and walked toward the lodge.

“Guess I’ll go to the stage with you tomorrow.”

She nodded. Then she added, “Daniel has something to say to you tonight.”

“I want you to be my partner,” said Daniel. We were past dinner and dessert to third cups of coffee.

“You’re a musician. You’ve worked in a business. You love it here. You belong here at Lake Tahoe.”

I thought maybe I did.

“Invest your five hundred dollars in this wood ranch. We’ll go shares. You live here and manage this end. I’ll live in Virginia until the business is going strong. After we make a bundle of money, we’ll do music.”

It’s hard to think with trumpets fanfaring in your head.

“It is very good for you,” put in Sun Moon. Sir Richard just looked on with a grin.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow,” says I.

It was one of those moments, the room had a glow, the people had a glow.

I took Sun Moon outside. The night was sharp cold, and we wrapped our coats around our shoulders and our arms around each other’s waists. We walked down to the lake to get away from the lanterns of the lodge, to make our sounds the soft lapping of the waves and not the bustle of a busy enterprise.

“You think it’s good,” I said.

She squeezed me. “Wonderful,” she said.

“I’m gonna take it,” I said.

“Asie Taylor,” she said, “you threw away your old life and went looking for something new. What was it?”

“Home. Or that’s what I thought it was.”

“And what did you find out?”

“Sometimes a home isn’t given to you. Maybe it should be. Maybe we should get that just by being dropped somewhere on this Earth.”

“But?”

“I didn’t get one. What might have been, I got dislodged from. Can’t go back to being an Indian. Never was a white man.”

“So?”

“These days, everything changing all the time, you make your own home. Your own family, too.” We took a few steps before I added, “Maybe I changed bigger than I knew.”

The night was cold. We walked back toward the lodge, holding hands. I could feel her mind right in her hand, turning and turning and then settling itself.

A dozen steps from the porch she turned to face me. I wanted to hold her close, but she stepped back, clasping both my hands. “So. Now.” She leaned back against my weight. “I ask you. Asie Taylor, will you make family with me?”

Sometimes I don’t know
what’s
going on in my head. I stammered, “Y-you’re a nun.”

“I am a woman.”

“Y-you sure?”

She spoke like a person who’s clear with words. “I am certain. I think long. You change big. Me too.”

“You
sure
sure?”

She looked onto the dark lake. “That girl-woman made life … I wanted it. I had it.” She touched her belly. “I want it again.” She paused. “You, our child. I want to jump into life.” She smiled up at me. “You jumped into river.”

I looked at her, I put my arms around her, then I pulled back. “The river came for me.”

She looked at me solemnly. “Life comes for me.”

I kissed her, long.

Then we looked around. The lake was gray, the trees black, the sky star-speckled, the lodge a ghost of light beyond some pines. I thought,
This is mine. It is all mine. If I take it
.

I lowered my lips to the one who was willing to be mine, and kissed her. Pretty quick I was thinking of exploring the privileges of matrimony right there on the spot. But we heard loud rolling and squeaking from within, and a window scraped open. At the same time Sir Richard came onto the porch holding up a lantern.

“What news?” he queried.

“We’re going to live here,” says I. “We’re getting married.”

In a jiffy music swooshed up, and my spirits were lifted high by Daniel’s piano. It was Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” proclaiming matrimony through the open window. I whispered in Sun Moon’s ear, “A song we use to march a marrying couple to the preacher.”

Sir Richard’s mouth was saying, “Congratulations!” but I couldn’t really hear it over the music, or over my own excitement.

“March in! March in!” cried Sir Richard even louder.

We did, and Daniel brought the Mendelssohn to a rousing finish.

Sir Richard pronounced, “Since we are without benefit of clergy here, perhaps I shall take it upon myself to administer the sacrament.” He cast his eyes about conspicuously. “I see about me, however, rather a babel of religions. A Tibetan Buddhist, a Mormon …”

“Indian,” Asie corrected.

“Indian, yet another Indian, a Catholic”—with nods at Maggie and Daniel—“and myself, who am, shall we say, no Christian?” He was in high delight now. “The spirit of the occasion seems to me to call for the form of ceremony that reaches back furthest into my own life, the
Book of Common Prayer
of my childhood. I ask the Divinity to look beyond any waywardness in the words chosen, both advertent and inadvertent, and to see the good intentions in my heart.”

He faced us and drew himself up. “Dearly Beloved … Here I must depart from the path prescribed.” He heaved in a deep breath and heaved it back out. “Perhaps the single great force on this Earth is love,” he said. “God loves life, and has manifested us, and all creatures, and the world itself as an expression of love. We stand most utterly in the spirit of the sacred when we love one another.

“Your love for each other honors God, honors existence itself. As you are true to this love, it will bring you infinite blessings.

“Now I am able to recall the proper words. Who giveth this woman to be married to the man?”

Waiting for no answer, he joined our right hands together. “Say after
me as followeth. I take thee, Sun Moon, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance.”

I said those words, and meant them.

“Sister, say after me. I, Sun Moon, take thee, Asie, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death do us part.”

Sun Moon said those solemn words with an utterly happy look on her face.

He looked squinty at us and smiled big. “Since we have no rings, we’ll pass over that part. I pronounce that you are man and wife. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

Sun Moon squeezed my hand. I lifted her chin, lifted it again when she tried to slip by me, hugged her when she squirmed, disregarded her reddening cheeks, and kissed her.

Sir Richard and Daniel applauded. Then Maggie brought out a big bowl of pink sherbet. Daniel did the honors, filling cups with a dipper.

“A toast!” cried Sir Richard. He lifted his cup, and said warmly, “To your happiness.”

The taste was strawberry. It has ever since been my favorite.

Daniel offered a second toast—“To our partnership!”

We drank. Maggie handed out pieces of cake.

“Now an important subject,” said Sir Richard, “my wedding gift to you.” He paused and looked at us munificently. “It is the five hundred dollars I promised Sun Moon. Perhaps you’ll use it to increase your investment in this lodge.”

“Good idea,” said Daniel, smiling. “Partner.”

There were more toasts, and the five of us even danced around the piano at one point, Maggie on Daniel’s arm. I don’t remember the details of the next few minutes because my mind switched to taking Sun Moon upstairs and marrying her deep and strong. That’s what I did.