Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series) (21 page)

I felt Mickey's hand tighten around mine.  "What is that?"

"Don't worry," Rafael said.  "Coyotes won't hurt you."

"That's rich, coming from you," Mary's gleeful voice rang out among the gorges.  "Remember how scared shitless you were when you were a kid?  That a coyote was going to come and carry you away?"

"Mary," Gabriel said sternly.  I guess he still saw them as his children.

The next voice I heard belonged to Kaya--but I couldn't see her at all.  Jeez, was it dark out here.  "Carry him away?" she asked.  She tsked thoughtfully.  "So he had coyotes confused with dingoes."

I could practically hear Rafael gnashing his teeth.

"Actually, no," I said.  "That's how we scare children over here.  'If you're bad, the Coyote will carry you away on his tail!' "

"Ah, Shoshone."

"Acha Dine!" Grandma Gives Light suddenly shrieked.

"If you can't insult me in a language I speak," Kaya mused.

The badlands opened up.  A small grove of southern oak trees rested between the valleys.  The ground was smooth here, the moon bright, bathing each of us in a shining, luminous glow.  The fire built on top of brush and animal bones was almost unnecessary.

"Come on, Michaela," Charity said gently, and took Mickey's hand right out of mine.

The families all milled over to the bonfire.  I saw William and Lorna with their girls--three of them, each as burly as their mother--and Autumn Rose with her hand on DeShawn's arm.  Leon Little Hawk chased his brother Nicholas through the crowds and Nicholas screamed, because Nicholas didn't like pressure.  Serafine Takes Flight handed out turtleshell rattles to the little girls and her father stood talking with Robert Has Two Enemies; Holly looked morose, Zeke babbling obliviously in her ear; Daisy and Isaac stood with their teenage son, an angry boy named Ryan who staunchly believed that the world was out to get him; Lila and Joseph sat idly on the ground with Morgan Stout and Siobhan Stout and their mother, Aisling Stout, a loony pediatrician in her fifties; and Dad was on the other side of the fire with Racine, Racine's arm around him for support.

I caught Dad's eye and waved at him.  He smiled back at me, feeble, fleeting.

I sat on the chalky ground and tried to get comfortable, my plains flute hanging from my neck.  Rafael crouched down and sat with me.

"Aren't you going to dance?" I asked.

"Nah," he said.  "I hate dancing.  Besides, I don't like you sitting alone."

I smiled at him, endeared.  I knocked my knee against his.  He threw his arm around me, as though to suggest he had the final word in this matter.

The families formed circles around the bonfire, one within the other.  I saw Dad's water-gray eyes illuminated by the jumping, red-hot flames, his sad hawk's profile illuminated by the moonlight.  The ghost dance is probably the most sacred dance we have to our name.  It's a dance of mourning; a dance of celebration; a dance of reunion.  What was Dad thinking about on this eve?  Which of his many lost loved ones was at the forefront of his mind?  The wife who had lied to him and died before they could patch things up?  The best friend who had facilitated her death?  The little brother who fell from the willow tree?  The mother who couldn't look at him without seeing a cold little corpse?

I had a childish thought just then.  I thought:  It's not fair.  And maybe it wasn't.  It wasn't fair that Granny had passed away so soon, that she and Dad had never really talked about what happened to Uncle Julius.  In a perfect story, mother and son would have sat down for a long discussion; they would have learned to put aside their differences.  They would have reconciled; they would have loved each other more than ever. 
I'm sorry
, Dad would have said. 
I forgive you
, Granny would have said.  And then they'd talk.  They'd talk, like a real mother and father, like people who really loved each other.  They'd talk like I'd never seen them talk in my entire life.

Granny and Dad would never talk again.  They'd had their chance to repair their relationship, and instead they'd looked the other way and pretended not to notice the rift between them.  I'd noticed it.  I'd noticed it so many times, and I'd never said a word.  Of course I couldn't have, even if I'd wanted to; I didn't have a voice until now. 

And when I think about it...I suppose Granny had never had a voice, either.  Or Dad.  They were Shoshone.  They weren't supposed to talk when they were in pain.

That's an awfully long time to live in silence.

Stuart Stout started talking.  Every year the tribal council reminds us of the significance of the ghost dance, the bloodshed and sorrow soaked across its history: how the Plains People danced for their lost loved ones, for the promise of a better future with the European settlers; how the whites didn't like the ghost dance and slaughtered whomever they caught performing it.  I've always thought of the relationship between America and her immigrants as that of a mother and a child.  The mother is generous; she gives and she gives, until she's given all she has; and still the child demands more.  One day he grows up, and he turns away from her, and when she's old and alone, he leaves her to die without sparing her a second thought.  But she gave him everything she could, you see.  She never said no.  What kind of mother says no to her son?

I lifted my flute to my lips.  I started to play.

The night wind rushed between the valleys and the gorges.  The turtleshells clattered in time with Offerings for an Empty Sky, a slow and mournful piece.  The dancers moved slowly, solemnly, in their circles.  Rafael's arm around me was solid and warm and I pressed against him, indelible comfort washing over me.  Was he thinking about his father?  About his mother?  The ghost dance was a way of reuniting the living with the dead.  What words would his mother have whispered to him, were she still alive?

I closed my eyes, my fingers skittering across the plains flute.  I thought about my own mother.

I thought about my grandmother.  I thought about my uncle, the man he never grew up to be, the little boy I never met.  I don't know whether there's such a thing as an afterlife; but it sure is a comforting thought.  Maybe my mother and Rafael's became friends.  Maybe Granny can finally take her smallest son into her arms again.

Do you know how death first came into the world?  That's right; there once was a time when nobody knew what it meant to die.

Long ago, we Plains People lived in harmony with the Wolf.  We loved him, and he loved us.  We were a part of his pack.  Coyote saw the love between Wolf and the Plains People, and he grew jealous.  His heart filled up with hatred.

So Coyote decided to trick his brother.  One day he said to Wolf, "Well?  It's very good that death is not permanent, and the people do not suffer for long.  But what will you do when the planet has run out of food, water, and space to keep everyone alive?"

"What are you saying?" Wolf asked.

"I'm saying that you ought to consider making death a one-way road.  That way there will be enough resources for everyone."

"Why couldn't I just make more resources?" Wolf said.  "Another world?"

Coyote grew afraid.  He could see his brother had read right into the heart of his intentions.

"Yes," Wolf said.  "I know exactly what you're trying to do.  But alright.  We'll do as you say.  The dead will stay dead."

And the very next day, what should happen but the deadly Rattlesnake biting Coyote's son, and Coyote learning loss for the first time.

The dead don't know what it means to die.  Only the living can know it.  Only the living live with loss, heartache, and grief.

I couldn't tell you what time it was when the ghost dance finally wound down.  The sky had forfeited the last of its ocean slate; now it was empty and black, interspersed only half-heartedly with stars.  The fire burned down to its embers, the animal bones left intact.

"C'mon," Rafael said.  He unfolded his legs and stood up.

I grabbed his arm and pointed at Mickey and Charity.

Or it was supposed to be Mickey and Charity.  Charity was off gabbing with Serafine instead.  For a moment I was upset, and I wondered whether Charity was ignoring Mickey on purpose.  Soon I realized it was probably the other way around.

Mickey had her turtleshell rattle in her hands.  She stood by the dying bonfire with a big smile on her face.  I couldn't hear what she was saying; but I saw that she was talking to Henry Siomme.

"That kid's too old for her," Rafael declared, flaring up with parental fury.

"Rafael, he's twelve."

"So what?  You think twelve-year-olds aren't sneaky bastards?  My sister was twelve when she stuffed Stu's cat down a water well."

"I doubt very much that Henry's killed any cats lately," I said, trying my best not to laugh.

"Skylar," said a new voice.

Until now I had forgotten DeShawn's plan to bus the Paiute down to Nettlebush for the ghost dance.  I had assumed the tribe just didn't take him up on the offer.  Now I realized at least some of them had.

The young woman standing in front of me was my cousin, Marilu; a Paiute girl.  Her hair was squared off just below her chin, her eyes made smaller by her glasses.  Her nose was about the size and shape of a button, something I used to tease her over when we were children.

As it was, I smiled wanly.  "Hi, Marilu."

"Hey," Rafael said.  He always tries to act nice toward Marilu.  "Where you staying tonight?"

She looked tired.  The trip from the Pleasance Reserve to Nettlebush is a long one.  "I don't know," she said, after a long moment of deliberation.  "I guess with Uncle Paul."

"Don't be silly," I said.  "There's plenty of room for you in our house."

"You sure?  Don't want to be a bother..."

"Hi," Mickey said, traipsing over to us.  "Henry said he's going to teach me to ride a horse."  She eyed Marilu suddenly.  "Who's this?"

"Mickey," I said, before Rafael started issuing death threats against a twelve-year-old boy.  "This is my cousin, Marilu."

Marilu looked at Mickey the way you would have expected her to look at an alien lifeform.  "You have a kid...?  Since when?"

"Foster kid," Rafael said.

Mickey opened her mouth, then closed it.  Her forehead wrinkled.

"She's spending the summer with us," I said.  "We'll tell you the rest later.  Why don't we hurry on home?  I'm sure you'll want something to drink after the long ride here."

"Alright," Marilu said.  "Fell asleep on the Amtrak..."

The walk back home was an unusual one.  Mickey had nothing to say--disconcerting, when she was ordinarily full of questions and off-color comments--and Marilu made me think of a sleepwalker, in that she didn't strike me as entirely conscious of her surroundings.  She's had it rough, Marilu.  The Paiute reservation's built on some really junky land and the government slaps so many restrictions on it, the residents can't even make simple house repairs when they need them.  Normally the Paiute don't let their poverty keep them from having a good time, but I'd imagine all those adverse conditions wear down your resolve after a while.

Marilu was asleep the very instant she sat down in our sitting room.  Rafael darted upstairs to find blankets for her.

"Bedtime," I said to Mickey.

She caught me unawares when she tossed her turtleshell rattle to the floor--hard--the rattle slamming and skidding across the hardwood.  She spun on her heel and stormed up the staircase.

Rafael came walking down the stairs, confusion on his face, a blanket thrown over his shoulder.

"What'd you do to piss her off?" he asked.

I shook my head, at a loss.

11

Cry Havoc

My cousin Marilu stayed with us for a few days out of August.  She was as much of a zombie as she had been during the ghost dance; inert, unresponsive, lost in another world.  To make matters worse, Mickey's foul mood crested and climbed with no end in sight.

"Do you know what I think it might be?" Dad commented, when he came to visit one day.

"What?" I asked.

He looked around quickly to make sure neither Mickey nor Marilu was haunting the premises.  Finally, he whispered:  "That time of the month."

I stared at him.

Dad started to color.  "I mean," he went on, stammering.  "Your mother told me about this ages ago; apparently women in the same household...they...well, they synch up.  You see..."

"Dad," I said.  "Mickey's ten."

He didn't understand.

"Never mind," I said, and patted the back of his hand.

Marilu didn't stay with us for long.  On Sunday, I saw her out to the bus stop outside the turnpike.  She sat on the windy little bench, the picture of unhappiness.

"Hey," I said, and sat next to her.

"It's so empty," Marilu said.  "At home.  Ever since he left..."

She was talking about her best friend.

I pressed a hand lightly against her back.  "Why don't you stay here?" I asked.  "In Nettlebush.  At least you'd be with family."

"Thanks," she said with a sigh, "but I can't keep running away forever.  I'll see you in winter, Sky."