by Bella Knight
“Vi’s cooking is absolutely to die for,” said Wraith, taking Ana’s hand and dragging her toward the house. “What’s the pie tonight?” she asked Ajai.
“Peach, apple, and I think there’s a peanut butter pie.”
“Oh my goodness,” said Ana. “Sold.” Nantan laughed, and they strode toward the house.
It was a huge meal —grilled steak sliced thin, potatoes with dill and sour cream, biscuits, and a huge salad full of shredded veggies with homemade, ranch and honey mustard dressings available. They fell onto the food, laughing and joking. Tam and Nico proudly talked about the trail ride, and laughed at how Ajai got roped into making a “women’s thing” on the res. Wraith and Ana got more information, and promised Valkyrie help. The coffee went well with the pie.
They had a movie night, a cartoon thing about a chameleon on a quest, and they popped popcorn and drank caffeine-free sodas and laughed. Ana went home to make her report, and Wraith stayed over, after stealing Ryder from Inola and Bella to cuddle.
Nantan herded his sleepy kids home, and ended up having to carry Tam. He made it upstairs, put them in their pod, and kissed them goodnight. He left the night light on, and realized that he was a father. It made him feel like the hawk he was.
“Goodnight, Little Wolf. Goodnight, Little Fox.” He left the door open and went to find his own bed, his heart full.
Definition
Henry sat with David in front of a roaring fire. Both men had variations of coffee. David liked his doctored with hazelnut cream, and Henry took his straight.
“I’m going to climb Mount Charleston, then throw myself off it.”
David nodded slowly. “The climb may kill you first. Any reason for this suicidal thinking?”
“The amount of paperwork it takes for two apartments. All for the Owl Pack who need more help.”
“Still trying to rescue elderly people who Bella and Lily rescued from the old folks’ home? The one run by evil people stealing the money and putting it up their noses?”
“And in their veins. They were selling the money for the elderly people on the internet and using it to buy more drugs. And sampling some of the product.”
David cringed. “I don’t like to swear, but, fuck them.”
“I hear Wraith found a hole for them that is very, very deep. They have so many counts against them they aren’t going anywhere.”
“That woman —calling her a lady seems a little tame.”
“She’s a naked sword,” said Henry. “A crystal, naked sword with a metal hilt.”
David laughed. “You’ve been in the room when the students play video games.” He took a sip of coffee. “But it is an appropriate assessment.” He took another sip. “Paperwork?”
“And zoning, and fifty other things. I want two beds, home health care nurses, and non-Alzheimer’s patients. Heart conditions, that sort of thing. No more bedsores, all that horrible stuff from the other place. And, just two. Not a huge unit. But, the amount of paperwork and variances…” Henry mimed banging his head against the side of his wingback chair.
David patted his shoulder. “Do you want to stop?”
“Fuck, no,” said Henry. “Those people need to be with Paiutes. They still speak Ute. We need to get them here. We need their stories, their language, everything they know and love. It’s all going to waste in some place where they aren’t allowed out of their rooms and are drugged so much they can’t talk.”
“Might tattle on their current place if they got moved,” said David.
“You have a devious mind,” said Henry. He sighed. “Once more into the breach.” He stood, grabbed his laptop on its table, pulled it over, tilted it toward him, and started typing. David sighed, opened his tablet, and pulled up a book.
Vu came in and, nearly silently, put her tablet down on a little table. She padded past them into the kitchen, and poured herself coffee. She doctored hers with a tiny bit of cane sugar. She sat, put down her coffee, and opened her tablet.
“You are a social worker, are you not?” she asked David in a whispery voice.
“I filled out what I could,” he said.
“Do more,” she said. David sat, and thought, and then sent a text. He sent two more, then he opened up his book again. “Thank you, Vu,” he said. She smiled, patted his hand, and they read their books as Henry swore over the paperwork.
Inola woke, stretched. She heard burbling from next door. Bella kissed her and said, “I’ll bring her in here, then make breakfast.”
Inola smiled, and propped up the pillows behind her. Ryder screeched when she saw her “feeding mama” and attached herself to Inola’s breast. Inola cradled her.
“Damn,” said Inola. “I’m stunned. It worked!”
“Either that,” said Bella, “or our little one is the most amazing baby on the planet.”
“She is,” said Inola.
“There you go,” said Bella. “Either way, she slept through the night.” Inola beamed, and Bella kissed Inola on the lips and her daughter on the head. She walked down the stairs and to the kitchen.
Vu was already up, and she gave Bella a tray with a carafe of orange juice, two glasses, a platter of bacon, grits with butter, biscuits with honey, and scrambled eggs. Bella kissed Vu’s cheek, and slowly walked up the stairs. Vu walked after her, stopped, then opened the door to Inola and Bella’s bedroom.
“Thanks,” said Bella.
Vu waved. “Off to help with the beading.” She zipped down the stairs.
That woman belongs in a nursing home, my ass, thought Bella. She closed the door with her foot.
“Breakfast,” she said. She put the tray on the bed, poured the orange juice, and burped the baby while her wife ate like a wolf. The baby burped, and Bella took turns feeding herself and her wife as Ryder ate her own breakfast.
“The plan for the day?” asked Bella.
“The usual,” said Inola. “The horses, training horses, making sure the kids don’t fall apart emotionally because they have to do chores.”
Bella snorted. “I need a fucking hobby, or I need to go back to work.”
“What’s your side project?” asked Inola.
“Side project?” asked Bella.
“What do you love to do? I mean, other than raise our daughter, have hot sex with me, and tend bar?”
“I love sex, but you’re right. You raise horses and train them and sell them. And the young ones help with the rabbits; feeding them and collecting their fur.”
“Making money,” said Inola. “But, I love every minute.”
“Making money the hard way. If you didn’t have a Wolfpack helping you, you would be in deep doo-doo.” Bella snorted. “Literally.”
“Now that I can sleep through the night,” said Inola. “I’m thinking about making tack. Or buying used but good tack, then cleaning it up.”
“Well,” said Bella, “looks like I need a side project.” She finished her bacon, then took Ryder to burp her.
Inola wiped out the rest of the food. She took the tray, and walked it downstairs.
“Looks like it’s just you and I, little one,” said Bella. Ryder cooed at her, and tried to grab her nose. Bella laughed.
Nantan dropped Bella (and her unnatural amount of baby things) off —with baby bag, and the stroller that attached to the bottom of the baby carrier that also snapped into a car carrier. They made it to Numa’s shop. Numa rushed to open the door.
“Bella and Ryder!” she said.
Tourists were everywhere; women in expensive jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and leather jackets in black and red. The men were also in jeans, but their jeans were nowhere near as expensive as the women’s. They wore long-sleeved, plaid flannel (or blue) shirts. Accentuated with belts with heavy metal buckles, and string ties around their necks. Some wore Stetsons, some wore ball caps. The men looked intently at the string ties, embedded with stones. Either turquoise or patterns of stones, such as Kokopelli, the piper. Jake, an Owl at the farm, had made very intricate ones
that sold well.
The tourist women made a beeline for the baby. “Cute!” said one, with crinkly, smiling-blue eyes and mouse-brown hair sprayed to an inch of its life.
“Her name’s Ryder,” said Bella, as Numa expertly took off her turquoise earrings and put them in her jeans pocket. She threw a burp cloth over her shoulder and held Ryder in her arms.
“I’m the auntie,” Numa said proudly. She hummed an ancient lullaby as she went to help a woman pick out a sweater. “Natural angora,” she said, “farmed locally from some fat, happy rabbits. We have one dyer and two weavers nearby.” The women swarmed her, picking out sweaters in shades of brown, black, and gold.
One plus-size woman in a pair of jeans and a very sad, floral blouse, found not one, but two sweaters. “Changing room’s right behind you,” said Numa. The woman came back out, wearing one and carrying the other, with a credit card in hand, her face alight.
Bella sat on a wingback chair, put her foot up on the footstool, and watched Numa work. Lots of silver and beaded jewelry were carefully wrapped and put in lovely black and red boxes. Several scarves were tied on expertly as one of the rich woman held the baby. Many of the women were laughing and looking at themselves in the mirror. Numa helped with the string ties, and three more angora sweaters were worn straight out of the shop as Numa took the baby back. She smiled, stepping back and forth with the credit cards in a little retail dance. The women and men all left, laughing, with to-go cups of hot coffee in hand from a little machine in the corner near the front.
Numa smiled, brought back Ryder, and sat down on the other chair. “Whoo!” she said.
“The shop’s even more lovely than the last time I saw it,” said Bella. Ryder cooed and reached for her nose. Bella smiled at Ryder.
“It’s a good thing that the rabbits breed like… rabbits. I hear the Wolfpack checks every day for fur. They only shed four times a year.”
“Got a crop of babies,” said Bella. “The Wolfpack girls are gaga over them. Baby bunnies go way up the cuteness scale.”
“The Wolfpack girls want to work in my shop. I may let them, if we stay this busy.” She rose and said, “Coffee?”
“Please,” said Bella, adding a begging tone to her voice that made Numa laugh.
“Kenyan?”
“Why the hell not,” said Bella. She took the cup, and sipped it while Ryder held some plastic keys in her hand and waved them about.
“What’s up?” asked Numa.
“I need a side project,” said Bella. “You’re the expert.”
Numa laughed. “Beading, silverwork, all the steps for making angora sweaters, painting scarves —bet that all leaves you cold.”
“’Fraid so,” said Bella.
“We sell a lot online,” said Numa. “Got half the res working on something for here. The Alpaca Women, or something coming out of the farm. April Martinez takes Nantan’s apples and makes the best fricking apple juice and apple cider you’ve ever had. Ruger Riding Horse —his mother liked the idea, and makes frozen fry-bread pizzas using the goat cheese from the Alpaca Women and veggies from Nantan. He is selling them to Vegas specialty stores. The Owls make beadwork, and we sell their many stories —in their original voices, and transcribed and translated. Great Wolfpack history project, I hear. Vu’s reading lists are popular —I’ve actually sold them for a dollar. A printout, can you believe it! On nice paper, but still. Not what you would expect.”
“Fricking?” asked Bella.
Numa laughed again. “She may not understand me yet, but she eventually will.”
Bella sighed. “I guess if Inola has to give up caffeine for, like, another year, I guess I can give up cursing around Ryder.” She kissed her tiny head.
“What did you get out of that, except my cursing?” asked Numa. “Or not, as the case may be.”
Ryder burbled and Bella let the baby clutch her fingers. “I love slinging drinks. Get to hear the best stories. Rides, fights, wild nights, fishing trips, ride-and-hike deals. Catching some bad people doing some bad things.” She flashed a smile. “One pair caught some guy punching out a girl. They wanted to remove his ‘nads. You could hear him howling all over the little town they found him in. They took the girl, put her on their bike, and made her one of them. One of them apparently married her. Now, she’s a kickass, foulmouthed ex-wife of an Iron Knight… who lives in Reno, apparently.” She laughed.
Numa laughed at the story. “Well, side job then. What do you hate?”
“Can’t grow shit. Hate it, and it makes me itch. Love singing, but I’m not even as good as Ivy, let alone Herja. Have some illustrated books…”
“Come again?” said Numa.
“I tried comics,” said Bella. “But, so little dialogue, and scene after scene after scene, and having to be too dramatic to get the point across.”
“I can see how that would be a problem,” said Numa.
“And the idiot boys wanted robots, spaceships, or girls with big boobs,” said Bella.
Numa barked out a laugh. “So, these weren’t your comics?”
“Nope,” said Bella. “But Bobby Ng actually went on to have some success. He invented a little boy superhero with some guts. Caught on in Tokyo. Anyway, I was the girl doodling in art class, and in every other one. Couldn’t afford art school; was always just this side of starving to death no matter what the fuck I did. So, bar back. Coolest thing that ever happened to me was working with Ivy. Fun times. Now, I got Sunny as my bar back. She won’t be a bar back for long. But with Ivy and Ace both doing the baby thing, and now me, she’ll bartend a few days a week. And Nina’s graduation is way too soon. Girl zipped through her classes.”
“We’re going to lose her,” said Numa. “I’m proud beyond belief that she’s doing so well, but she’ll be a tremendous loss for the res.”
“We’re keeping half the crop of the Wolfpack,” said Numa.
“So, you’ll need another barn.” Bella laughed.
“Gimme back my niece.” Bella handed her over.
Numa stood, then walked over to the counter. She pulled something out from under her register, and took a piece of paper from a display. She fished out a folder. She brought the things over and dropped them one-handed unceremoniously on Bella’s lap.
“Show me,” she said. “Make me a rockin’ border for Vu’s list.”
Bella looked in her lap. Colored pencils —a nice set, with both silver and gold, a folder, and Vu’s list in a soft font that wasn’t too fussy. Bella sketched as Numa pulled out more sweaters, both angora and alpaca. Numa expertly fished out the packing tissue, and hung them up one-handed, all while the baby was trying to chew on her own fingers in the crook of her other elbow. Numa hummed ancient songs, and helped two separate pairs of customers, more Texans in Stetson hats and designer jeans. She laughed with them, and helped them find sweaters and jewelry. One woman bought a lovely carved statue of Kokopelli for her office. Several of the men bought string ties.
Bella came over with a gorgeous paper. A sketch of Vu was in the bottom, right-hand corner. In the other corners were tiny pictures of books, e-readers, and computers. The screens seemed to glow. The paper now looked like soft violet parchment; Numa had no idea how Bella had done that.
“Creator, woman,” said Numa. “You have a real talent.”
“Dunno how to make money this way,” she said. She stroked the sleeping Ryder’s head and gave her a feather kiss.
“Don’t you go waking her,” Numa said. “Neither one of you are getting enough sleep.”
She pulled out her cell phone, and opened one of her e-reader programs. She pulled up the cover of her favorite book, one with a kick-ass female vampire.
“See this?” she said.
“Cool,” said Bella.
“The cover is the key to buying the book.” She went back to the e-reader and pulled up some more. “See this book? Might be an excellent book. Would you buy it based on the cover?”
“No,” said Bella. “Snoozeville.”
>
Numa laughed, and pulled out her tablet. “Pull up the program and poke around. Genre doesn’t matter. Just poke around, see which covers make you want to buy, and what you hate.”
“Can’t read the fonts on half of them,” said Bella.
Numa made a soft pinging sound. “Woman gets it in one. Yes, the fonts have to be readable.”
Bella poked around some more. “Most of this art is just… sad. And fiddly. Can’t see the fiddly bits on a tiny e-reader.”
Numa made the pinging sound again. “Two more points.”
“And the colors don’t draw the eye.”
More pinging. “Sweep the category.”
“Gotta kind of punch you in the face, and give you a hint of the story. To tell you the writer and the title. Gotta be clear in teeny, tiny print.”
Numa pinged again. “So, do you think you can do this?”
Bella nodded. “Don’t know how to make money.”
Numa snorted. “Online work. Be making peanuts at first, and you’ll have to advertise yourself online. Several sites for that, like Fiverr and more. Top people make a hundred bucks; some double that, per design. Some designers are so busy, people are on waiting lists.”
“How do you know this?”
Numa laughed. “Paid a pretty penny for my last one. I write books, Bella. I have a degree in history, and I specifically write Paiute history. Got orders from other tribes, too, mainly Hopi. The Dine have plenty of scholars. I don’t make expensive or pretty books to make you feel smart. No, I write in English, Paiute, and Spanish. My eBooks make money. There’s more than a few Paiute around.”
Bella stared at her friend, her jaw on the floor. “Da-amn, woman.”
“Side business,” said Numa. “Now, despite my joy, my arm is falling asleep, and when this one wakes up, she’ll be screaming for mama.” They did a very careful handoff that didn’t wake the baby. “Nantan’ll be back soon.”
Numa took out a twenty and a five from her register and handed it to Bella. “What’s this?” asked Bella.
“You did a service for me. I’ll sell these like hotcakes, raise the price too. That’s more money for both me and Vu. We will sing your praises when the money starts rolling in. Now, stay here a minute while I scan this.”
