“We weren’t.” Calliope’s face and neck flushed, though she’d said she wasn’t embarrassed. Talking about it felt trite, lessened it somehow. But she didn’t have anyone else to confide in, so she continued. “I love him.”
Mara smiled, said playfully, “I could tell.”
“I also feel monstrous, a terrible person, like I’ve abandoned my child. My whole family. My husband …” She sighed, unleashing the burden she’d held in for all these months. She probably should have been whispering, or not saying anything at all. But she couldn’t stop herself, it felt so good to say aloud. “Maybe that was over a long time ago, and I was too scared to see it. How I relied on him to feel normal or capable. It’s not really Andres I’m upset about. Though I miss him too.” She hadn’t said his name in months, hadn’t allowed herself even to think it very often. Andres had been steadfast, had done everything for her. Maybe that was part of the problem. She relied on him too strongly. She sat down on the grass beside Amy’s grave, pulled a long blade, split it into three strips and began to braid it. “I asked Chance to come back with me.”
Mara raised her eyebrows, let out a low whistle. “Is that fair to him? We don’t belong here, but doesn’t he?”
“He says he belongs with me.”
“What do you say?”
“I told you already. I love him.”
Mara murmured something that didn’t quite resemble assent, but perhaps curiosity. She took another rolled cigarette from the clay ashtray, struck a match, and lit up. Night insects formed a shrill choir again. Finally, Mara said, “You didn’t leave by choice, honey. You were ripped away from everything you loved with that damn flash of light, just as I was ripped away from my beloved Trudy. So you fought hard to survive, and you have. And you’ve made do. You can’t fault yourself for making your happiness where you are. That’s what we do. All we can ever hope to do.”
Mara crouched down beside Calliope in the grass, so spry and nimble for such an aged woman. She was likely Wowo łashhi’s age and even perhaps Bisabuela’s when she passed on to the Spirit world, yet Mara seemed much closer to Tía’s age. They made such a sweet couple.
Though Calliope couldn’t imagine their crossing at Chaco not working for what that would mean for herself—never holding her son again, a thought so terrifying she couldn’t even fully form the possibility in her mind—she also hoped Mara would get back to Trudy.
What would it be like on the other side? If they could get through.
If universes had collided and created whatever tunnel they’d used to cross over, or branched apart creating a parallel copy they now inhabited, then what toll had it taken on her world? Over the past six months she had only thought about getting back to Phoenix. She hadn’t considered what condition he might be in when she got home to him. She presumed he’d be fine. That Arlen and Chance were correct in their speculation that the people who’d stayed would assume she and the others who’d disappeared were dead. But what had that bloodred light done to the other world?
Or if the worlds splitting hadn’t taken a physical toll on the earth, what had the people done to it and each other these past six months? How had the US government reacted to thousands if not millions of people disappearing? She assumed it was mainly the Puebloans who’d vanished, and she’d only gotten caught in the crosswinds.
But she couldn’t know for sure. She hadn’t ventured out of the Southwest and had no idea what the rest of the globe was going through. Had indigenous peoples all over the world had their lands rightfully restored? Were there others in this new world?
If she and Chance were not safe in Zuni, then perhaps there was another place, here, they could make their home?
Mara snuffed out her cigarette, sighed. “You’ve been awful quiet, sweetheart. You’re considering it, aren’t you?”
Calliope cleared her throat; she’d forgotten for a moment where she was, so lost in her disturbing thoughts. She’d braided three other blades of grass without noticing and woven them together in the shape of a ring. She slid it on her left index finger. “Considering what?”
“Staying.”
Calliope turned toward Mara, who bore a mischievous smile.
She couldn’t abandon her child. There was no way. She felt ashamed.
“No,” she said, curtly, a little too resolute. “We’re leaving before sunrise.”
Mara murmured, again, not agreement or disapproval. She raised herself up to standing, groaning quietly, then said, “We should take the rocks with us. Bury them on the other side.”
Calliope nodded. They dug Amy’s rock out of the dirt, and for a moment Calliope feared she would reach into the ground and touch the rotting skin of her friend’s corpse, the arrow still piercing her neck.
“How will I get the rock baby from Malia’s doorway? She wouldn’t stand for it.”
“You’ll do it when she’s asleep.”
Mara lugged the rock up the stairs, Calliope following.
Mara went into the house, but Calliope lingered on the porch, her hand on the open door; she hadn’t seen Eunjoo since dinner. She should have come home already.
As if in answer to the warning that prickled Calliope’s gut, from the grazing pastures in the distance, the girl screamed.
THIRTY-THREE
PROCESSION OF GODS
Eunjoo came running from the grasses of the sheep pastures, screaming. Calliope rushed down the steps, déjà vu sweeping over her. The Coyote girl that Eunjoo had once before become—had she returned? This time Calliope was strong enough to run, and she did, across the waffle gardens, past the honeycombed buildings, following Eunjoo’s voice.
Half expecting animal-yellow eyes, she caught the girl in her arms, both of them gasping for air. “What’s wrong?”
Her bird’s voice almost inaudible for its high-pitched terror. “It’s after me.”
“What?”
“The Suuke.”
That was impossible. They’d slain both Suuke, husband and wife. She’d watched them both die. Calliope glanced into the pasture. She couldn’t see far in the dark. The spring moon was nearly full and bright but still low in the sky. She could make out the shapes of the squat shrubs she knew were juniper, rabbitbrush, saltbush, sage. All too low to hide behind. She saw no monster. Piñon trees made a small forest further back, but Eunjoo wouldn’t have gone that far. She knew better.
“Where’s Nastacio? I thought you were with him.”
Eunjoo hung her head, bit her lip. “He left.”
“Where’d he go?”
Eunjoo shrugged, obviously hiding something.
Calliope grabbed her hand. “Let’s get back to the house. You can tell me there.”
She hadn’t felt truly scared since she’d come to Zuni. She was worried about the situation with Chance and his kiva elders, but she believed him strong and smart enough to work through it. She’d been confused and angry about the rock baby and the explanation in Arlen’s basement but then somehow oddly at peace. Her family was alive, and there was a way back to them, a hypothesis, really, but still, it was a possibility, and that’s all she needed—hope, and she clung to it.
But now she felt the ominous buzzing in her ears, the same as she’d heard outside the hangar, as she’d heard when she was a girl and the dust storm atop the mesa had made her and Bisabuela abandon their picnic. This was more than night insects chorusing. This was the Ancients, warning.
She tugged on the girl’s hand, picking her pace up to a jog.
“Why are we running?” Eunjoo asked.
“It’s dark,” Calliope said, knowing that was an insufficient answer.
The lights in Malia’s house were burning brightly through the windows. The back door was closed. She tried opening it, but it was bolted shut. They’d have to knock, something she’d never needed to do in Zuni before. Or go around the front. Step over rock bab
y’s threshold.
Her heart fluttered in her chest, a caged bird flapping wildly at the wires.
Eunjoo pulled on Calliope’s hand, hers slick with sweat. She whispered, “They’re here.”
“Who’s here?”
“The ko’ko.”
Three months before, the Shalako ceremony had shown Calliope the rigors of impersonating the gods, wearing the masks, and dancing. She had not been allowed to participate, as a woman and a non-Zuni, but she could see just wandering through the village watching those chosen how difficult it was physically and mentally for the boys and men who took on the role, the challenge, and the honor of becoming a god. She’d asked Chance if they really became gods. The answer was no, but their thoughts and actions were influenced by their role. In a way, their Spirits were given over to the gods they imitated. The masks were heavy and thick, smothering with heat, difficult to breathe in, headache-inducing. Those who wore them would practice the dances for hours and hours on end, perfecting each step.
Shalako meant messenger of the gods. And Calliope had seen the procession down the mountain and into the village square. She’d heard the steady beat of drums and wailing call of the flute signaling their arrival. In one of the Shalako houses built specifically for the occasion by all the Zuni, she’d watched the beaked and feathered, horned and striped, fierce-eyed and spotted gods dancing, rhythmically, forcefully, beside a row of altars, bristling with plumed prayer sticks. Her eyes had blurred with tobacco smoke and incense, her stomach knotted with apprehension. She hadn’t been scared, not really, but she’d felt the power stirring from the dirt floors, the haze of dirt clouds scurrying through the stale air, the crowds of people knit closely together on chairs and benches, watching, praying. For moments at a time, she couldn’t tell the difference between the masked dancers and the gods themselves—they were as real as the Suuke she and Chance had killed. The heat and a foreboding sense that she would be punished too had made her dizzy.
She’d left the Shalako house with the corn girl in her cradleboard strapped to her back and stood in the front doorway of Malia’s empty house; everyone else was still attending Shalako. She hadn’t realized Chance had followed her until he was beside her on the porch.
“Why rocks?” she had asked, staring at the threshold floor. “I don’t understand.”
He was quiet at first, took a deep breath, leaned against the doorway. The question lingered in the air before he finally said, “You’re an anthropologist, mujer. You do understand.”
She didn’t bristle at his tone, which she might have deemed condescending at one time. She understood his mannerisms, his ways of drawing truth from truth. Her own question seemed to swirl above them in the Shalako night air. Why rocks. Beneath the dust and sandy loam—they were alive with the past. They were a connection to other times, other worlds. That’s what she loved about uncovering meaning in the layers of earth, finding road maps back. He was right. She did understand.
Still it did not make it any less painful; still she could not step over the rock baby. She nodded in response, saying nothing aloud, turned, and walked around to the back door instead.
Now, fear prickling the hairs on her neck and arms, she led Eunjoo around the side of the tall, honeycombed building and up the front steps, the lights all burning on this side of the house as well. She put her hand to the latch, hesitated. Voices from inside, low and insistent, a kind of humming. She opened the door.
In the corner of the main room, feet from where Calliope had given birth, loomed several tall figures, some multicolored, others black and white, some with slits for eyes, others protruding and disfigured, beaked, horned, or feathered. All of them huddled together. Again, Calliope had the overwhelming sense of being unable to differentiate the masks from the real things. Impostors or not, why were they gathered here?
Across the room at the large wooden table, Chance stood unmoving, his arms outstretched slightly in a stance of negotiation. In the kitchen, Malia, Wowo łashhi, Nala, and Mara likewise stood motionless. As Calliope hovered in the doorway holding Eunjoo’s hand, trying to figure out what scene she had walked in upon, one of the masked men grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close to him, still clutching Eunjoo, and the other masked figures circled around them. She yelped at the rope-burn pain of his grip on her arm, and Chance yelled, “No! Let her go. Leave them out of this.”
She should have let Eunjoo go, but she clutched her tighter, the girl burrowing her face into Calliope’s sweater. Where was the corn girl? Was she safe upstairs? Or were the masked men up there? Someone shoved a callused hand over Calliope’s mouth, so close to her nostrils she had to gasp for air. Another masked figure or the same? She couldn’t tell who held her. She wouldn’t have thought any of them capable of creating this mob. She’d lived here six months without so much as a disgruntled look or whiff of violence. She’d thought Chance and Malia were overreacting to the punishment ahead for breaking taboo. She never imagined this. What would they do to her, to Chance? Her heart raced frantically. The hand on her mouth smelled of damp earth and she pictured them burying her like the rocks.
Again, Chance shouted, “Let them go. The women have nothing to do with it.”
Calliope had shot the Suuke. She had everything to do with it.
One of the masked figures, in a low, menacing growl, “Then come with us.”
Chance said flatly, “I can’t. We agreed I’d come after the equinox, at the end of the full Worm Moon.” The moon was nearly full now, the Worm Moon that marked the equinox, when the earth began to thaw and the earthworms reappeared from the mud. Chance had saved his punishment for after the bridge at Chaco had opened and they’d gone home—after he’d gone home with Calliope. Like Coyote, Chance was tricking the masked men.
The one holding her spoke again in his growling voice. “Your nephew told us you were planning to flee tonight, trying to escape your fate.”
Calliope’s eyes darted toward the little girl hiding in Calliope’s sweater, stretching it out. Eunjoo looked up, as if she sensed the piercing questions Calliope was asking. How did you know? And why did you tell Nastacio? Calliope hadn’t mentioned anything to Eunjoo. She hadn’t seen her since dinner. Had she been listening at the door? Or was this another mystery of Coyote girl’s strange knowledge? Either way, the harm was done. The men knew Chance’s scheme. They were here for vengeance.
Chance said again, “Let the women go …” He sighed deeply, pushed his hair back from his face. “Let them go, and I’ll go with you tonight.”
“Now,” the masked man growled. “You’ll come with us now.”
His voice flat, defeated, Chance said, “Fine. Let her go.”
Calliope searched Chance’s face for a hint of a plan. He wouldn’t really go with the mob, would he? He wouldn’t break his promise to her.
His expression was unreadable, his eyes, stoic. No glimmer of light showing he knew what he was doing, and she should play along. He’d given up. He was accepting his punishment. She would have to go to Chaco without him.
She looked at the ground, at their feet, these masked men dressed as gods. Some wore moccasins and others, strapped and feathered sandals that revealed nearly bare feet. The growling man holding her was wearing sandals. She caught Eunjoo’s attention, motioned with her eyes to follow her lead, raised her eyebrows to indicate one, two, three …
She stomped her heavy hiker’s boot on the arch of his foot with the force of her whole body and bit his hand hard enough she tasted the salt and iron of his blood, and as she attacked him with everything inside of her, as he growled again, this time in pain, falling backward and letting his grasp on Calliope loosen, she yanked Eunjoo’s hand to follow her. She barreled into the backs of the masked figures encircling them and charged directly for Chance, the girl following.
She plunged herself and the girl under the wooden table, willing Chance to understand what she was asking h
im to do.
He did.
As she ducked, before the masked men fully realized what was happening, Chance had smashed into the glass case on the wall with his elbow and pulled out his rifle, which he aimed at the mob, comprised of his own brotherhood. She couldn’t even imagine what taboo he was now breaking, threatening the members of his own kiva, in god costume, at gunpoint. What level of sacrilege.
He released the safety, put his finger on the trigger, steadied his breath.
“Get out of my mother’s house.”
The growling man came forward from the huddle, his voice no longer a growl. Was it Calliope’s imagination, or did he sound like Arlen? “Put the gun down, brother. You’re already in enough trouble as it is.”
His gun aimed directly at the man’s chest, Chance said, “Calliope, go get Miwe e’le and my bag upstairs. Mara, pull around back. No one else move. You said it yourself, I’m already in trouble.”
Calliope ran upstairs to their room, grabbed Chance’s bag from the bed, and lugged it over her shoulder, stumbling backward from its heft. The corn girl sound asleep, Calliope picked her up, wrapped her in a long wool blanket she tied around her waist and chest, so she was weighed down with packs on both her front and back, like military rucksacks. At the doorway she hesitated. Turned back to the locked dresser, pulled a key from a clay pot, unlocked the first drawer. Susana’s gun. She cocked it, then shuffled downstairs to Chance and Eunjoo behind the dinner table, keeping her back to the wall, pointing Susana’s gun toward the men. She wouldn’t let them grab her again. And she wouldn’t let them hurt her family.
“You’d betray your own brethren, your oath, your gods, for that woman? She’s not half the woman my sister was.” Arlen’s voice was unmistakable; it sliced through Calliope.
Chance said nothing in reply. He spoke in Zuni in a low voice to his mother, sister, and grandmother. Calliope could make out a few of the words and understood he was telling them he had to stay with his wife and make sure she got home safely.
Trinity Sight Page 27
