The Wind in His Heart

by Charles de Lint

  Finally the laughter dies down and they start to go. “If we’re lucky,” Thomas says, “maybe we can get back without Mom ever knowing where we were.”

  His mother’s on the Women’s Council. The way gossip flies around here on the rez—especially when you add the ma’inawo into the equation—if she doesn’t know by now, she will soon.

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” I tell him.

  We watch the two of them lead Auntie up the slope where a dry wash will take them most of the way back to their place. There’s still water in the bucket I brought down from Aggie’s house earlier, so I scoop a few handfuls into my mouth until my throat starts to feel a little less parched.

  “So you did it,” Morago says, turning to me. “Gave a spirit a body and settled a dispute that I wouldn’t have wanted to try my hand at.” He smiles. “I might not have figured out your Indian name yet, but the name the ma’inawo have for you fits like a glove.”

  I shake my head. “This is ridiculous. I have enough trouble figuring out my own life.”

  “You get the job done—that’s what counts. And they’re satisfied with you.” His smile gets bigger. “You’ve done it for years even though you didn’t know you were doing it.”

  I look at Leah. “It’s a hell of a thing,” I tell her. “A few days ago, my world was a whole other place.”

  “Welcome to the club,” she says.

  “Yeah, except I’ve been interacting with ma’inawo for years and never knew it. My trailer sits right smack dab in the middle of the goddamned otherworld. I’ve been living there all along and I never knew. At least you only got here a few days ago.”

  “It’s still way beyond weird.”

  I nod in sympathy.

  “But I’m glad I know about it now,” she says. The light in her eyes as she speaks is echoed by a glow that seems to come from under her skin. “The Internet makes the planet feel like a small place, so it’s exciting to know that there’s still as much of the unknown in the world as there was for our grandparents, when they were our age.”

  “More,” Morago says. “Trust me. There’s much, much more.”

  I smile at the two of them. Since I reconnected with Morago, he’s always been a true believer, but Leah’s got all the enthusiasm of a new convert. They make a good pair.

  “I need a favour,” I tell Morago. “Auntie said you can help me track down Calico.”

  One eyebrow goes up.

  “Don’t give me that look,” I tell him. “You know how ticked off she is.”

  “But she just spoke up for you.”

  “I know. But she won’t speak to me.”

  Leah looks uncomfortable. “Listen, I should be going,” she says. “Aggie’s going to be coming home soon and I haven’t done a thing to get ready.”

  “Ohla,” Morago tells her. “I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

  “I’d like that. I’ve got at least a hundred questions.”

  Morago laughs. “Don’t save them all for me. Aggie knows as much as anybody around here.”

  “I’ll remember that.” She turns, then pauses and looks back over her shoulder. “Good luck with your girlfriend, Steve,” she adds before heading off to the house.

  I turn back to Morago. “Will you help me?”

  He scratches his chin. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s not such a good idea to get on the wrong side of the ma’inawo, and if she doesn’t want to be found, and I lead you to her…”

  Just before I start to argue, I catch the laughter in his eyes. “Yeah, like you care what anybody thinks,” I say. “There’s just as many stories about your meddling in people’s lives as there are about Jimmy Cholla.”

  He taps a stiff finger against my chest. “A little respect for your elders.”

  “You’re not my elder.”

  He laughs. “Let’s take a walk, rock star. See what we can find.”

  After I drink some more water, Morago takes me up to the ridge trail. It’s usually an easy climb from Aggie’s fire pit, but I’m feeling the aftermath of everything that’s gone down, so it’s a little tougher than normal. But as soon as we’re a couple of miles north, my tension starts to fall away. It’s as though it broke into pebbles and they’re falling off the trail, bouncing and skittering their way down the steep slopes as the land drops away on either side of us. I inhale deeply and realize it’s the first real breath I’ve taken since Consuela and the ma’inawo showed up. I feel grounded with the rock underfoot, the sky above, the world spread out around us. The sun’s fierce, but the wind takes away the worst of the heat. Turkey vultures fly in their slow circular patterns, but we’re so high up now we’re looking down on them.

  I check the position of the sun. So much has happened this morning, it’s hard to believe it’s not even noon yet.

  Morago keeps us to a slow amble instead of the steady, distance-eating pace we usually move at when we’re out hiking.

  “Do you have some particular place in mind,” I finally ask, “or are we just randomly hoping to come across her?”

  “I’m waiting to hear from the cousins.”

  I look around, but we’re still alone on the trail.

  “And you’re—what?” I ask. “Communicating with them telepathically?”

  He gives me a grin. “Well, I am a shaman.”

  Normally, I’d be ragging him at this point, but I’ve seen too much. He might be teasing, or he could really be having some sort of inner conversation with the ma’inawo.

  “So what are they saying?” I ask.

  “Nothing really useful yet. They’re happy to help you. They say that’s new for you.”

  “What is?”

  “Accepting somebody else’s help. Usually you’re the one that has to fix the problem.”

  “Considering how this week’s gone, that’s a thing of the past.”

  “It’s not a sign of weakness, you know,” Morago tells me. “Just as you like to help other people, people want to be able to return the favour.”

  “I know.” I don’t really—or I didn’t. But I’m beginning to understand that you can’t completely disengage from the world, and when you do engage, there has to be give and take. I’ve just never been good at the take.

  “Have you given any thought to what you’ll ask Si’tala to do for you?” Morago asks.

  I shake my head. “I didn’t help her so that she’d owe me a favour. Giving her a body just seemed like the right thing to do.” I pause. “It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?”

  Morago has to think about that. “Probably,” he says finally. “Consuela carries an air that says anything might happen, and if something does, it might not be good. A lot of the old ma’inawo are like that, even if they’ve given their word. Don’t get me wrong—they’ll keep their word, but they’ll find a way to twist what they’ve promised, so that the end result could well be the opposite of what you wanted.”

  I think I get what he’s saying. “But because Si’tala’s so young…”

  “Except she isn’t,” Morago breaks in. “Her body is new, but her spirit is as old as Consuela’s.”

  “So she could cause a problem somewhere down the line.”

  Morago shrugs. “That could be said about anyone, including ourselves when it comes right down to it. But no, it’s not that. From what I can tell, Si’tala has a purity about her, a strength of purpose that guides her along the paths of Beauty from which her sister has strayed.”

  “You got all that by just being around her for a few minutes?”

  He points at himself. “Shaman—remember?”

  “If you say so,” I say with a wink, just to egg him on a little.

  He doesn’t take the bait. “I think you can trust her to do what you ask,” he says, “without any of Cody’s trickery.” He studies me carefully and adds, “But it sounds as though you might not ask for any favour at all.”

  “Well, now that I think of it, I’ve got a couple of ideas,” I tell him.

  A
crow comes drifting out of the sky, interrupting us. He lands on one of the long arms of a nearby ocotillo, his weight making it dip alarmingly. The crow doesn’t make a sound. He just balances there on his perch, which continues to sway up and down from his weight and the wind.

  Morago watches the crow for a moment, then turns to me. “She’s near your place, in the little canyon behind the trailer where you keep your garden.”

  I look at the crow. “What’s her mood like?” I ask. Even with all I know, I feel a little self-conscious talking to a bird. The crow seems amused, as though it knows exactly how I’m feeling.

  The crow preens his feathers with his beak for a moment, then Morago says, “Apparently she just seems sad. Word is, she’s going to pack up and go deep into the ghost lands.”

  I stare at the crow and it flaps its wings at me. The message is so clear, I don’t need a translation: You’d better run if you want to catch her before she’s gone.

  I turn to Morago.

  He nods. “Go,” he urges. “Because once that foxy antelope girl runs off, you’ll never catch up to her.”

  I take off at a fast trot. This is the first time I’ve taken the ridge trail and not paid any attention to my surroundings. All I can think of is what they said—that if I don’t get to her in time I’ll never see her again.

  The turnoff to the hollow behind my trailer feels like it comes up sooner than I expected. I scrabble and slide down the narrow path into the hollow, then stop when I see the fox with antelope horns sitting on Possum’s bench looking out through the gap that overlooks the desert valley below. The fox turns to look at me and relief floods my body.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  I don’t go into an explanation of why I did what I did. I don’t try to explain myself at all. Possum shared this lesson with me a long time ago, but I’ve let the years steal it away.

  No woman wants to hear the bullshit of why you did what you did, he told me. They just want to know that you regret what you did or said, and that you’ll do your damnedest not to do it again. Listen to this old desert rat. It took me a couple of divorces and a bunch of failed relationships to figure it out.

  The fox seems to be waiting for me to go on.

  “I screwed up,” I tell her. “I can’t swear it won’t ever happen again, but I can promise that I’ll do my best to make sure I don’t repeat it.”

  She cocks her head, still waiting, but I’ve said all I’m going to say.

  A long moment passes before the fox shimmers into the red-haired woman I know so well. She sits on her haunches, head still cocked. “Do you know why I got mad?” she asks.

  I nod. “I disrespected you.”

  “And do you know why you did that?”

  I shake my head. “Wasn’t thinking, I guess.”

  “Come here,” she says and pats the bench beside her.

  When I sit down, she scoots a little distance down the bench and turns, so that she’s facing me. I do the same.

  “I get that things have been confusing,” she says. “You’ve had to take in a lot over the past few days. How are you feeling now?”

  “Embarrassed.”

  Her eyes widen a little. “Why do you feel embarrassed?”

  “I’ve spent years living half in the otherworld and half out of it. I can’t tell you how many of the people I thought I knew are actually ma’inawo. Hell, remember when I didn’t even believe you were real? I mean, back then I was actually pretty impressed with myself, being able to dream up a hallucination as fine as you were. Are. Oh, you know what I mean.”

  She smiles and lets me continue: “So all the while the ma’inawo and everybody on the rez have been having a good laugh at my expense. I’m not particularly thin-skinned, but I can’t pretend it makes me feel all that smart.”

  She shakes her head. “They’re not laughing at you, they’re laughing with you.”

  “Except I’m not laughing.”

  “The ma’inawo wouldn’t mock you. They think of you as their arbitrator.”

  “And how weird is that?” I say, picking at a splinter on the bench.

  “They wouldn’t come to you for advice if they thought of you as a joke. The cousins and Kikimi are as bad as each other when it comes to teasing. That’s all that’s happening.”

  I look at her, knowing she’s trying to make me feel better. “Okay,” I finally say, but I’m not really buying it.

  She shakes her head. “You’ll have to trust me on this.”

  I pick at the bench some more. “I trust you.”

  “But you’re still going to feel self-conscious.”

  I shrug. Sometimes I think she knows me better than I know myself.

  “So…embarrassment,” she says. “That’s all you’re feeling?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was wondering if you might be feeling a little resentment, as well.”

  “Resentment? Directed at what?”

  “Me.”

  I look at her. “Why would you ever think that?”

  “Well, you just said that back in the day, when you thought I was a part of a flashback or whatever, you were proud of yourself for dreaming me up. Maybe you wish you’d been right, so you could make me agree with you.”

  I smile and shake my head. “Oh, darlin’. Even when I thought you were a dream you were strong-willed, and I wouldn’t want you any other way. I may be a lot of things, but I’ll never be the guy who thinks that everybody around him should just do as he says. That’s why this whole arbitrator business has me so freaked out.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being an arbitrator. That’s the person who listens to both sides, then gives the advice that will give the most benefit to everybody.”

  I don’t say what I think next aloud, but she reads something on my face.

  “What?” she says.

  “Well…that’s kind of what I was doing with Sammy. Trying to find a nonviolent way that would benefit everybody.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she sighs.

  “You know what?” she says. “You’re right. I let my anger get the better of me.” She looks down and adds, “And I was a bit jealous of Miss Ravenhair.”

  I reach out and lift her chin so that she’s looking at me. “I should have listened to what you had to say.”

  She smiles and moves a little closer. “Yeah, you should have.”

  “I’ve missed you.”

  Her smile turns coy, sexy. “You should. You never had it so good.”

  “I think that was where you were supposed to say you missed me, too.”

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the bench. She moves closer until she’s in my lap, her face inches from my own.

  “Maybe we should start over,” she murmurs.

  Her gaze is locked on my own. I can feel her breath on my skin. She smells wild and beautiful.

  “I’d love to rediscover you,” I say, slipping my hands around her hips.

  “Yeah.” She puts her arms around my neck. “I’m game if you are.”

  She pulls me into a kiss before I can answer.

  After

  76

  Leah

  Leah fell into a comfortable routine so readily, it surprised her. There was no need to adjust to the unfamiliar landscape, to the wide expanse of the desert sky with its crisp air, or to her new life, which was so dramatically different from her old one. Not that she was living la vida loca. If anything, her life was more contained than it had ever been. But the routines immediately felt familiar rather than new.

  Mornings, she got up before light and sat at the little table on the front porch, watching the sunrise while she did her daily journaling as recommended in The Artist’s Way. She hadn’t followed this exercise in ages, but she took it up again on her first morning. She wrote down whatever came to mind without trying to censor herself or edit, and without reading it back immediately.

  She covered a lot of ground in those entries, from her guilt—and
yes, anger—about Aimee, to the convoluted feelings she had about the Diesel Rats, especially now that she knew that it really was Jackson Cole living the life of a hermit out here in the Hierro Maderas.

  Aimee still mattered. She tried to write past the guilt and resentment, to before her friend had died. Before Aimee’s mother had given her that damned journal to read. It still didn’t make sense. Not how Aimee could put on a cheerful and fearless face to the outside world while hiding so much pain inside. Not how she’d never come to Leah to share that pain. And especially not how Leah herself had remained oblivious to it while Aimee fell into an ever-darker spiral of depression.

  She wanted to remember the best of her friend, but she didn’t know where to start, because the truth was, she’d never known the real Aimee.

  If all of that wasn’t enough, she also had to struggle with the reality of magic. The otherworld. Animal people. It all seemed so preposterous, but as day followed day, this whole supernatural view of the world seemed more real than her old life back in Newford. Where—sidebar—according to Marisa, there were just as many magical goings on, but she’d been oblivious to those as well.

  By the time she finished writing in her journal, she would hear Aggie stirring. She’d put the kettle on and have fresh tea and breakfast ready by the time the older woman came into the kitchen.

  The rest of the morning she’d spend with Aggie, soaking up the old woman’s knowledge of the area, her tribe, and the neighbouring ma’inawo. Sometimes Aggie would have Leah flip through her paintings until they found the one that illustrated some point or other.

  After lunch, Aggie would rest and Leah would work on research, on one of her blogs, or simply catch up with her friends back in Newford. She talked to Marisa on the phone at least every day and they texted regularly. It was hard explaining her sudden absence to her other friends, but most were supportive. Jilly was positively giddy with excitement and extracted the promise of an invitation to visit as soon as Leah had her own place.

  “I won’t be in the way,” she’d assured Leah on the phone one day. “I’ll just be off painting.” Short pause. “And hanging out with animal people!”