Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  “Is that true?”

  “It is for Mom and Dad. I’ll miss her, even though all she ever tells me is ‘stay away from this’ and ‘stay away from that.’ ”

  His ears pricked as he struggled to keep his voice neutral. “So what does she want you to stay away from?”

  “Everything fun. The softball team, mostly.”

  “Gosh, I hope you don’t do that. I’ve got big plans for you.”

  “You do?”

  “I sure do.” Deke tested Kayla’s bottom with three quick, exploratory pats. Still nothing, he noted with disappointment. He and Kayla were simply not meant to be. “I was thinking of moving you off third base. Maybe letting you pitch.”

  “Really? Cool!”

  The two walked on, crossing the street, strolling toward Bayberry’s as if by some tacit accord. When they reached the café, they stepped inside the cool, dim dining room. Bethany stood in the far corner with her back to them, rolling setups for the dinner shift. His heart bumped just as always. Bethany Daws, Kayla’s sister, was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and of all the little girls he’d played with, she’d been the only one who’d held his interest past puberty. He had loved her as her breasts swelled; loved her as her hips widened, loved her as coarse dark hair began to hide her charms from him. He kept waiting for the gamier smells of estrus and menstruation to render her repulsive, but in six years, it hadn’t happened. He still wanted her just as much as he always had, despite the fact that Bethany regarded him as she would a tarantula. Putting a finger to his lips, he winked at Kayla, and crept up behind her sister.

  “Boo!” he cried, lightly poking her in the ribs. “Whatcha doing?”

  Bethany gave a little yelp, sending a knife and spoon clattering to the floor. She whirled around, excited, as if she hoped to find her boyfriend Ridge standing there. When she saw her old softball coach instead, her green eyes narrowed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I bought Kayla an ice cream.” He smiled. “She got a good report at the dentist’s.”

  “Strange way to celebrate no cavities,” Bethany retorted darkly, stooping to retrieve the silverware off the floor.

  Deke admired the curve of her hips in her tight waitress uniform. “We can celebrate something else if you’d like. How about I buy you an ice cream for breaking up with your boyfriend?”

  Rising, she regarded him as if he were a bug, then tossed the silverware in the dirty dish tub. “I’m done here,” she told Kayla. “Go on outside and wait for Mom while I clock out.”

  “Here.” Deke flipped out his cell phone. “Call your mother. Tell her I’ll give you a ride.”

  “In your new SUV?” squealed Kayla.

  “It’s the only car I’ve got, sugar.”

  Kayla grabbed the cell phone and punched in her mother’s number.

  “Stop, Kayla!” Bethany lunged for the phone. “Don’t call—”

  “I am, too.” Kayla danced away from her sister’s grasp. “Who wants to wait for Mom when we can ride in Coach Keener’s Lexus?”

  As the younger girl spun out the door, Deke gave Bethany a helpless smile. “Sorry. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  Bethany started to say something, but then the look he loved so much skittered briefly across her face. For an instant she looked like a trapped little animal who’d thought she’d escaped, only to realize there was no escape. Not now. Not ever.

  “Whatever,” she muttered bitterly, pulling off her apron.

  She disappeared into the kitchen to punch her time card. A moment later she returned with the little calico bag she used as a purse. Following her out into the bright afternoon, he handed Kayla his remote and they walked to his car like a line of discordant ducks—Kayla leading the way, trying to affect the casual sangfroid of girls who rode in sixty-thousand-dollar automobiles every day. Bethany followed, her back stiff, her eyes straight ahead. Deke sauntered along last, hands in his pockets, smiling at the wiggle of Bethany’s butt. As they approached his car, Kayla punched the remote and ran the Lexus through all its tricks—lowering windows, beeping alarms, automatically unlocking the doors. When the car’s taillights began to wink, Kayla broke into a run, her grown-up pretensions forgotten.

  “Shotgun!” she shrieked, then turned to Deke. “Can I ride in the front?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “No!” Bethany countermanded. “You ride in the back.”

  “But I called shotgun first. And he said I could—”

  “I said ride in the back!” Bethany grabbed her little sister roughly by the arm and opened the rear passenger door. “And don’t mess anything up back there.”

  “Ow!” said Kayla. “You’re hurting me!” She wrenched free of Bethany’s grasp, then flounced angrily into the backseat. Bethany flashed Deke a little smirk of triumph as she climbed into the front seat beside him; Deke winked back in return.

  They roared out of town on Main Street. Bethany sat staring straight ahead, her face expressionless, while Kayla rode in the back busy as a pet raccoon, punching buttons, trying to play the DVD. Deke drove fast, just to remind Bethany who had the power in this car.

  “You okay back there, Kayla?” he asked after they’d screeched around a hairpin turn.

  “That was so cool!” exclaimed the girl. “Do it again!”

  So he did it again, and again. Finally, after a twenty-minute joyride that felt like a downhill slalom, they pulled up in the Daws’ driveway, greeted by Darby, their tail-wagging golden Lab.

  “Awesome!” Kayla gushed. “That was the best ride I’ve ever had!”

  “Glad you enjoyed it,” said Deke. “See you at practice tonight, okay?”

  “Okay.” Kayla scrambled out of the backseat and ran toward the house, opening the garage door to reveal Paula Daws’ white Subaru station wagon.

  “Uh-oh.” Deke turned to Bethany, his brows drawn with ersatz concern. “Looks like your Mom’s home. Should I go in with you? Keep her from yelling at you?”

  “Why do you think she’d yell at me?”

  “I hear that’s about all she does these days,” he replied. “When she’s not counting the minutes till you leave for college.”

  “She’s a bitch and my dad’s a coward.” Bethany’s words were laced with acid. “And you’re the biggest cocksucker of all.”

  “Bethany.” He reached over and patted her thigh. “You shouldn’t use such language.”

  “Oh, really?” She jerked open the car door. “Does it offend you?”

  “It’s unbecoming. Young ladies shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “I can think of a few other things that young ladies shouldn’t do,” she said bitterly. She climbed out of the car, then turned back to him. “Look, you son of a bitch. I know what you’re up to, and you’d just damn well better stop.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  He grinned at her. He knew it was mean to bait her, but sometimes he just couldn’t resist. He loved it when her eyes flashed that hot, angry green. “So tell me—I’m confused.”

  “Kayla,” she cried, tearing up. “You try any of your shit with her and I’ll tell everybody about what’s been going on between us! I swear I will! And this time, I won’t care if you fire my dad and throw us out of this stupid house.”

  He leaned against the headrest and started to laugh. “Bethany, don’t you know that you can’t fuck somebody for six years and then cry rape? Why don’t you just admit to yourself that you enjoyed everything we did together? I can still hear you—oh, Coach Keener!” he mocked her in a high falsetto.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I can still hear you, too!” With a fierce look of triumph, Bethany dug in her calico bag. A moment later she pulled out a tape cassette no bigger than a soda cracker. Keener felt his heart stop.

  “You know how many of these I’ve got? You want to guess whose voice is on them, big-time?”

  For the first time in his life he
couldn’t speak, couldn’t force his lips and tongue to form words.

  “You, you stupid jackass! Before I leave for college, you’d better believe that a lot more people than just me are going to hear all about what you’ve made me do!”

  Suddenly he heard someone calling his name. He turned to see Paula Daws smiling, walking toward him from the garage, her left hand shielding her eyes from the bright sun. His frozen brain thawed. Quickly he turned and gave Bethany the look that had never failed to silence all who had ever considered exposing him. “Girlie, you don’t want to mess with me. You really, really don’t.”

  For a moment that trapped animal look again flashed across her face, then she slammed the car door shut. He watched as she stormed up the driveway and into the garage, passing her mother without as much as a nod.

  “Hi, Deke!” Paula called as she neared his car, so inured to her daughter’s fury that it affected her no more than a passing cloud. “Thanks for bringing them home.”

  “Glad to do it,” he replied cheerily, though his voice was tremulous as an old man’s. His hands and legs were shaking. He knew he couldn’t stay here and chat with Paula Daws. He needed to get away; to go off somewhere by himself and think this tape thing through. “I’ve got to be going now,” he called as he shoved his car into reverse. “Got some plans to look over!”

  “So we’ll see you at ball practice tonight?” Paula had a wide cheerleader grin that most girls left behind in college.

  “Sure will!” He smiled, then with a single wave, started to back out of the driveway. When he finally pulled into the street, he headed straight home, driving as if in a dream, tossed from his Promethean height by a simple girl with a tape recorder, the taste of fear strange and raw in the back of his throat.

  5

  “So what do you think of my girl?”

  Mary Crow watched as the horse loped by. Small by equine standards, she was otter-brown and shiny, with a mane and tail that rippled like silk as she ran. The offspring of Irene Hannah’s mare Lady Jane, Cushla McCree had been born the day before Irene died and had lived all but the first few hours of her life here, on Hugh Kavanagh’s farm.

  “She’s beautiful,” Mary told Hugh, remembering her as a wobbly, spindle-legged foal. “She’s grown up fast.”

  “Aye, that she has.” The old Irishman stood beside her, leaning against the fence. Though his brogue was still thick as oatmeal, he seemed smaller than he had two years ago, as if the loss of Irene had shrunk him. No longer was he the robust horseman whom Mary had once interrupted in a moment of passion with her mentor. “She’s come along well. I think Irene would be pleased.”

  “Irene would be thrilled,” said Mary, admiring the horse as she sped by. What Mary found almost as impressive as Cushla McCree was the young man riding her. Not only was he riding bareback, in nothing but a pair of cutoff jeans, but he wore his hair in the manner of an eighteenth-century Cherokee: his scalp was totally shaved, except for a single long ponytail that flowed from the crown of his head. Even more curious was the fact that the young man rode like a Commanche. Unlike the Plains Indians, most Eastern Cherokees had affinity only for Mustangs built by Ford. Never had she known any sober person from the Qualla Boundary to jump willingly on the back of anything with four legs. “Who’s the rider?”

  “Ridge Standingdeer,” said Hugh. “He came round looking for work last summer. I’d had a spill off my ladder, so I took him on. He’s lived here ever since.” The old man leaned closer. “He’s an Anti-Galosha,” he added in a whisper.

  Mary frowned. “An Anti-Galosha?”

  “You know, one of the Bear people. They live in the woods and talk to animals.”

  Mary puzzled a moment, then she realized what Hugh was trying to say. “You mean an Ani Zaguhi?”

  “Aye, that’s it! Ani Zaguhi!”

  Mary laughed, recalling her childhood tales about the legendary group of Cherokees who long ago abandoned village life to live deep in the mountains, by themselves. As the centuries passed, they learned how to divine the future, vanish at will, and converse with bears. Though generally regarded as powerful avengers who made certain their village-bound brothers had plenty of game to hunt, the Ani Zaguhi could also work mischief, if it suited them. “Watch out for the Bear people tonight,” Jonathan’s Aunt Little Tom used to warn them every Halloween. “They’ll come down from the mountains and change you into skunks, just for fun!”

  “The boy’s pulling your leg, Hugh,” Mary told him. “The Ani Zaguhi are a myth. Like leprechauns.”

  Hugh laughed, but wagged an admonishing finger at her. “Don’t be calling leprechauns a myth around here, Mary Crow! You’ll bring down a curse.”

  As the boy rode by again, Mary looked at him more closely. Though he was Cherokee handsome, with dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a generous mouth, what was odd about his face was that he looked so at ease on Cushla’s back that he seemed to have become part of the horse himself. “How did this boy wind up here, on your farm?”

  “Walked into town with his brother from somewhere high up in the mountains. They brought carvings to sell. Ridge ran into Bethany Daws at the hardware store and took such a fancy to her that he decided to stay. Sent his brother back alone to break the news to his family. It’s the scandal of all Hartsville. Every time I go to town, all they want to hear about is the Bear boy. The girls at the bank, the chaps at the feed store. It’s like havin’ a movie star bunking in yer barn.”

  Mary watched horse and rider glide around the paddock like a singular creation, one body flowing seamlessly into the other. “It seems to me if he were Ani Zaguhi, he’d be having conversations with Cushla McCree, instead of riding around on her back.”

  Hugh shrugged. “Well, Bear man or no, he’s a good lad and doesn’t mind putting his shoulder to the wheel. I couldn’t have made it through last winter without him.”

  “Hugh!” The young man’s voice rang out from the middle of the paddock. “Want to see my Indian trick?”

  “Let’s have it, boyo!” called Hugh.

  Grinning, the boy turned the little mare in a tight circle, then began galloping clockwise around the ring. At first he rode normally, on top of the horse, but when he reached a point directly opposite Hugh and Mary, he slid down and clung to Cushla’s side. Mary winced, expecting him to tumble painfully to the ground, but there he remained, clinging effortlessly to Cushla as she loped around the paddock. When the pair flew by, she saw the boy grinning at them from beneath the horse’s neck.

  “Bang!” he called, pointing his finger like a gun. “You’re dead!”

  Hugh roared with laughter. “Ridge, you’re every bit the cowboy John Wayne was. Now cool her down and come join us for dinner.”

  The boy waved in acknowledgment, then righted himself on Cushla’s back and jumped her over a low part of the paddock fence, lifting both arms to the sky as they flew through the air.

  “Good grief!” cried Mary. “Where did he learn to ride?”

  Hugh shook his head. “He’d never seen a horse before he came here, but he does well at everything he tries. Look at what he made me.” He held up his cane. A horse’s head had been carved into the handle—its nose forming the end of the cane, backswept ears and flying mane blending into the shaft.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mary said, remembering that the Ani Zaguhi were reputedly great weavers and carvers. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Ridge Standingdeer. The Bear boy.”

  A little while later, Mary met the Bear boy in person. She was standing in Hugh’s dark-paneled dining room, fishing out three dinner plates from a sideboard filled with horse show silver, when Hugh appeared in the doorway.

  “Mary, meet your kinsman, Ridge Standingdeer.”

  Ridge stepped into the room. Though he’d put on jeans and a white dress shirt for dinner, his clothes could not hide the muscularity of his shoulders, or the old Cherokee symbols tattooed on his forearms. A beaded belt laced through his jeans while a gold nugget stu
dded his left earlobe. In spite of his trendy attire, there was an air of antiquity about the young man’s demeanor, and Mary felt as if some time machine had scooped up an ancient Tsalagi warrior and plopped him down in Hugh Kavanagh’s dining room.

  Remembering all of Aunt Little Tom’s fervent admonitions about the Ani Zaguhi, Mary greeted the boy formally, in Cherokee. “Sheoh. Ahyole deza?”

  “Osta giyalo zadanzo.” He gave a deep nod of his head, regarding her with an intensity that bordered on rudeness. His dark eyes drank in her heart, body, and soul in one long draught.

  “Hadluh hinel?” Mary stood a bit straighter and asked him where he lived, curious to hear his reply.

  At that, he unloosed a torrent of words, as if hungry to converse with someone in his own language. Though most of them spilled out too fast for her to translate, she did manage to pick out “Ziyahi,” the old Cherokee name for the little mountain town of Cheowa. Hell, she thought as the boy gushed on, maybe he is Ani Zaguhi. Usually only the most elderly Cherokees could speak the old language with such fluency.

  When he stopped talking to draw breath, Mary held up both hands. “Whoa, Ridge. We’re going to have to switch to English. You’ve come to the very end of my Cherokee.”

  “I have?” His dark brows lifted in surprise.

  She nodded. “I haven’t lived up here in a long time.”

  “Okay.” He gave the slightest shrug.

  “Where did you learn to ride like that?” she asked, certain he would say Tryon or maybe Aiken, South Carolina, nearby towns famous for horse shows and steeplechases.

  “I saw it on TV.”

  “TV?”

  “They showed a Western movie festival last New Year’s,” Hugh chimed in from the kitchen. “Ridge watched the Apaches circle some wagon train. He wanted to give it a try.”

  “You learn fast,” Mary told the boy, impressed in spite of herself. “So what else do you do?”

  “I help Hugh,” he replied simply. “And I carve things.”

  “Hugh showed me his cane.” Mary noticed that the boy spoke English with a halting rhythm, as if it were a language he knew but seldom used. “It’s beautiful.”