by Theresa Weir
She looked up, and Luke saw the evidence of recent tears in her eyes. It pierced him—the smell of tobacco and the dampness of her lashes, combined with the stoic set of her lips—and without thinking, he tugged her close, pressing her face into his shoulder.
She tumbled into him, her fingers clutching his arms almost painfully. Luke bent his face to her hair, reveling in the new and yet familiar texture on his cheek. Ah, she was so vulnerable! A swelter of protectiveness and sorrow and hunger rose through him once again. If only he could keep her safe, shield her from anything else ever wounding that fragile and generous soul. He closed his eyes and held her close, his chest so full he could barely breathe.
It was too much. Too many feelings, too many new things to deal with. This was what got him in trouble before. His emotions—too big for his heart—all the sorrow for his father and the full measure of love Jessie could never completely accept had overwhelmed him. He hadn’t known what to do with such big feelings. He still didn’t know. If Jessie could accept what he offered, there would be a circle, a flow back and forth that was healthy and strong. Without the circle—
Without that give-and-take, his feelings filled him much too full, like now, with her head cradled in his shoulder and her soft hair in his hands and the child they’d made waiting behind them. It made him short of breath.
When he could let her go without sharpness, he eased away. “It’s going to be all right, Jessie. Things will work out.”
She raised her eyes, and he saw his doubt reflected there.
“We better get back on the road,” he said. “Looks like it might snow.”
Jessie nodded, not meeting his eyes. He rounded the truck to his side, restlessly rubbing at his chest with the flat of his palm. Yep, it was going to be a long three or four days.
Chapter 12
Snow was flying loosely in the gray afternoon by the time they reached Shiprock, hiding the tip of the monolithic stone the Navajos called “the rock with wings.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” Luke asked. Jessie directed him through town to a plot of land on the outskirts. It was the home of Mary Yazzie, a middle-aged weaver who had made countless trips over the immense reservation the past few months, trying to gather support for the project. The ranch-style house sat alone and vulnerable-looking in the middle of a wide, empty stretch of desert. A small hogan squatted on one side, facing east. Sheep huddled together in a large pen and a black goat bleated at them from his post atop an overturned washtub.
Parked in front of the house were three trucks and a fairly new-looking Jeep. Around to the side was a faded gold Buick without tires. Luke tapped the horn to announce their arrival as he slid in next to the Jeep, then took a breath. “Well, kid,” he said with a wry twist of his lips, “it’s showtime.”
“You’re more nervous about this than I am.”
“Nervous isn’t the right word.” He tapped his hat down on his head. “It’s been a long time.”
Three dogs, lean and rangy, raced around the house, barking and wagging their tails. Inside the cab, Tasha howled in return. Jessie cast a glance toward the window. “Will she be okay with them?”
“Tasha has never met a dog she didn’t like or couldn’t bully.”
Behind the dogs came a spill of children, mostly girls. From the back of the truck, Giselle said, “Mom, let me out!”
Jessie chuckled. “There’s her howl.”
“And I don’t have to ask if she’ll be okay.”
“Giselle is always okay.”
And she was. Within moments of her emergence from the bed of the truck with Tasha—over whom the children oohed and ahhed, then skittered from in delight—she was enveloped in the bevy of girls. The three boys ran off separately, to no doubt plan some ambush
A woman came out of the house, wearing jeans and an oversized T-shirt, her long, dark hair caught back in a beaded barrette. She waited on the concrete steps for them to approach, nodding as Jessie greeted her. “This must be Luke Bernali,” she said. “I haven’t seen him since he was a child, but I would know that face anywhere.”
“Yes.” Jessie indicated Luke with a wave of her hand. “Luke, this is Mary Yazzie, the one who made the rugs we showed in the Springs.”
Luke nodded. “It’s good work.”
“You have many relatives in this country,” Mary said. Her long eyes sparkled. “And you grew to be even more handsome than we said you would.”
To Jessie’s great astonishment, Luke lowered his head as if embarrassed. Dusky color stained his cheeks.
Mary laughed, making a low sound in her throat, a teasing, “Ahh!”
Jessie nudged him. “You can dish it out, but you can’t take it, huh?”
He gave her a rueful grin, then looked back at Mary. “We brought you some things. I’ll get them.”
Mary waved Jessie in front of her, into the sparsely furnished living room. “Eeeh,” Mary said against Jessie’s ear, “he’s like morning! No wonder Giselle is so pretty.”
Jessie chuckled. “And what about me?”
“You know what I mean,” Mary said with a. laugh. “They don’t make too many like him.”
The room was filled with women and children, and Jessie nodded to another woman she knew, suddenly feeling her old awkwardness descend. Oh, why couldn’t Daniel have been here to do this himself? He was outgoing and he knew everyone. Jessie was shy and out of place no matter where she went, but especially here. She sat down in a place someone made for her, feeling all her words dry in her throat, not knowing where to put her eyes.
When Luke came in, bearing the bags of cigarettes and coffee, a little murmur went up. Two of the older women stood to greet him, talking in Navajo. Jessie only picked up a handful of words in the excited chatter, enough to know they remembered him and were exclaiming in wonder over him. The Navajo didn’t speak a dead person’s name, but it was evident his mother was well remembered and respected.
Luke caught her eye across the room and winked, tilting his head to indicate she should come to him. Gladly Jessie joined him. He put a hand on her shoulder and spoke to the women, saying something along the lines of Jessie being the mother of his daughter. The rest was lost in the rising, lilting sound of the words, the clicks and stops Jessie had tried to master and knew she never would. Even saying something as simple as ‘hello’ could be massacred by Anglo tongues into a completely different meaning. It was no surprise to her that the language had proved to be an unbreakable American code in World War II.
Detaching herself from the knot of grandmothers, Mary touched Jessie’s arm. “Let’s make coffee.”
In the kitchen, Mary nudged her. “Now I know why you’ve been working so hard.”
Jessie smiled, shaking her head. “It’s not like that. I didn’t even know he was working with the project until I got to the Springs.”
Mary gave her the coffeepot. “I’m glad to see you both here. Daniel sent word things are going good for him in Dallas. He thinks maybe he can get away by late tomorrow night, but you should go ahead with the meeting in case he can’t. Luke will talk?”
Jessie nodded, watching Luke through the open doorway to the other room. His apprehension seemed to be fading as he laughed with the grandmothers and smoked with one of the younger men. He looked exactly right in the group, and she saw, now that he was among them, how his gestures were Indian, that little lift of his chin and the circles he made in the air with his hands. It was strange to hear the Navajo pouring from his mouth instead of English, and yet oddly right, too, for his everyday talking held the same musical lilt.
Mary touched her arm. “He was one who shouldn’t have left us, I think,” she said quietly. “Not like Daniel, who can come and go. This one—” she lifted her lips toward him “—he didn’t like the world outside. He took a pony and ran to the mountains when they told him they were going to the city.”
“He never told me that.”
“It’s good he’s here. You’ll see.”
A sound of splintering glass rang into the kitchen from the yard. Mary bolted toward the back door, and Jessie ran to the window, thinking of Giselle.
The smaller children weren’t there. Mary shouted at a knot of young men, probably in their late teens, clumped around two other boys locked in combat. A shattered glass sat in shards by the bottom step.
“Stop that!” Mary cried, clapping her hands sharply. “Take your fight somewhere else!”
At the sound of Mary’s voice, three of them ran off toward town, including one of the two who had been fighting. His opponent picked up a rock and threw it after him, furiously, hurling insults about manhood after him. When the boys didn’t stop, the youth yanked his jacket into place and, with a black look toward Mary, stalked off toward the tireless Buick. He flung himself over the hood to stare at the sky.
Mary came back, shaking her head. “My son. He’s always fighting.”
Jessie watched as the one remaining youth crossed the yard, obviously to offer sympathy. Both wore high-top tennis shoes and black athletic jackets, their long hair loose. “He’s young,” she said, “maybe he’ll outgrow it.”
“He’s angry with everything, that one.” A worried expression crossed her face. “Already he gets drunk and arrested. I don’t know what to do with him.”
“How old is he?”
“Just now twenty. He has no work, nothing to do. He should find something.” Then, as if she had said more than she wished, she turned away, busying herself with a plate of doughnuts she gave to Jessie to take to the others.
Jessie took the plate, glad she was spared the need to comment. What was there to say?
* * *
At dusk, Luke took a walk. The air was cold and dry, and the spitting snow had begun to stick to the grass in the fields. On the horizon, the rock with wings stood against the light. He admired the graceful carving that gave it its name and wondered how rocks like this always took names of ships and castles in English. It didn’t look like a ship to him. He narrowed his eyes—maybe an old clipper ship. Yeah, there was the sail.
A wing and a sail—not so different. Flying away.
Being here made him feel split, as if he had two minds. At ten, he’d been desperate not to leave, had imagined living alone on the land to be a better choice than leaving it entirely. Now that he’d been away so long, he felt like an alien or maybe an expatriate, worn and weary from a nearly endless sojourn.
A goat trailed behind him, nuzzling his hand sometimes to see if there was any food in his palm yet, if some carrot or other juicy morsel had materialized. “I’m telling you,” Luke said, “there’s nothing here.” He paused to hold out both hands, palms up, to illustrate. The goat sniffed curiously, then gave up.
Two youths sat on the hood of a car not far from the house. Luke caught a swift, furtive movement as he approached. He nodded toward them. They stared back rudely, with flat, surly expressions. Hiding something. Luke acted as if he were going to pass them, feeling their alertness, and cut his eyes back in time to see the bottle they had hidden in a paper bag.
He turned. “Keep it away from the little ones,” he said.
“We’re not stupid,” one of them said with narrowed eyes. Mary’s son Joaquin, Luke thought. He wore a bandanna around his head and thick strands of turquoise around his neck. If it weren’t for the curl of his lip, he might have been a good-looking youth. The other was milder, looking away when Luke warned them.
For a minute, Luke paused, wondering if it would make any difference if he said something—something like, “Hey, that’s no good for you, you know.” Or even more. “I’ve been there, drinking like this, and it doesn’t help.”
It would do no good, but he said it anyway. “You oughta leave it alone yourself.”
Joaquin pointedly ignored the advice, asking instead, “Is that woman with you?”
“Yeah,” he answered. Clearly.
“Too bad,” he said and nudged his friend to mutter something vaguely lecherous under his breath. Wise, Luke thought, not to say it so loud he had to do something.
Shaking his head, Luke left them, glancing at the sky to gauge what was left of daylight. The old habit made him smile. He was no longer afraid of the night, but the boy he’d been wanted to make sure he didn’t stray too far from the safety of the house with darkness coming on.
An outcropping of sand-colored boulders sat by the road. Luke climbed to the top and rolled a cigarette. The house looked cheery, light spilling from the windows in welcome, the hogan alive now with a fire inside it. Sheep bleated into the quiet, and the children’s voices echoed faintly from some hidden spot. From the direction of town came the sound of engines and tinny music from a radio.
He smoked and gazed at it all. How could he ever have thought this place hostile to him? It felt as welcoming now as a mother’s arms, like the happiness of the grandmothers who had greeted him, touching his face and laughing and teasing him. He remembered some of them. That was really something. He liked it.
From where he sat, he could see people drifting in and out of the hogan, more staying now as the night grew thicker. Children particularly gathered there, and he saw Giselle with another little girl ducking to look inside, curious but reluctant. The other child tugged Giselle’s hand, but she hung back. Luke saw from her posture she wanted to go in, but wasn’t sure about it.
Again he saw Jessie in his daughter, in that edge of wariness. It plucked at him and he jumped down from the rock, crushing his cigarette beneath his boot heel. With Jessie it was too late—he couldn’t protect her and keep her safe and teach her to trust. The damage done to her by her mother was too great to overcome.
But it wasn’t too late for Giselle. He strode across the brush to her side and took her hand, speaking in Navajo. “Let’s go in. There will be stories tonight.”
Still she hung back. “What about my mother?”
He inclined his head and glanced toward the house. “We can see if she wants to come, if you like.”
“Okay.”
Together they went inside the house. Some of the grandmothers sat at the kitchen table, not talking, sharing a plate of brownies as they watched TV on a small black-and-white set on the counter.
Jessie was curled up in a corner of the living room couch, her stockinged feet tucked beneath her. She was reading the paperback novel from his glove box. For an instant, he was struck with a strong sense of her beauty, as impossible to catch as the elusive mist in the mountains.
“Hey,” he said. “We’re going out to the hogan. Do you want to come with us?”
She took a long breath and let it out on a yawn. “I don’t think so. I’m tired tonight—maybe I’ll just stay here and read.”
He nodded and cleared his throat, aware of the women on the other side of the room. “We’ll be sleeping in the truck. In a little while, I’ll get that together.”
Giselle frowned. “I want to sleep with the kids, in there.” She lifted her chin toward a bedroom at the back of the house. “Nikki said I could if it was okay with you.”
“Sure.” He spoke without thinking, then looked to Jessie for confirmation. Her gaze was lowered, showing nothing.
Suddenly she looked up and her topaz eyes were ablaze with emotion she didn’t try to hide. “Maybe I’ll just camp in here on the floor with everyone else.”
Luke lifted his chin, thinking of the youth who had made comments about her. Nothing could happen in a roomful of people, and the youth was obviously full of a swaggering bluster of the kind that was more noise than action, but he didn’t want even a ripple of discomfort while they were here. “It would be better for us to be in the truck. We’ll talk about it later.”
Without waiting for her answer, he turned on his heel and took Giselle outside.
Together, he and his daughter entered the hogan and took a place at the edge of the gathered number. Mary Yazzie made room for him, smiling at Giselle as they sat down together, Giselle in front of him, leaning against his chest.
The man talking told a story of the Holy People to his grandchildren, who sat nearby his feet, their faces washed orange by the fire. Luke felt everything flow away from him as he sat there. This, too, he knew, someplace deep inside of him. The smell of the fire and the earthen walls of the hogan and the flickering light, all enhanced with the sound of a voice telling an ancient story.
Giselle listened, rapt. Against his chin, her thick hair was cool and smelled of the outdoors. Her long, slim hands rested on his knees and a single strand of beads circled the brown wrist. He touched it; she looked up and gave him a smile, then went back to listening.
At the sudden deep wonder of her presence, Luke wanted to hug her very tightly. He resisted, smiling a little to himself. She was everything he had dreamed a child would be. Everything he’d hoped, and just as precious as he had imagined. Without children, a man was rootless.
Awash with gratitude, he whispered to Giselle that he would be back and went to find Jessie. Just once he had to tell her how he felt, how glad he was. All the rest—well, all the rest could be worked through or not. This thing, though, this gift of his child, was powerful beyond expression. Luke wanted her to know that.
* * *
Jessie was bone weary. The long night coupled with the day’s driving had left her almost breathlessly tired. All she wanted was to find a corner to sleep in.
Instead, she held the book stubbornly in her hands, trying to read. Once she dozed off and drifted for a time on the quiet sounds around her, the television in the other room with canned laughter, the snorting comment of one of the grandmothers over the behavior of the characters and the murmuring agreement of the others.
In this room rolled a soft conversation in Navajo about horses and, she thought, rodeo. It was hard to be sure. Sometimes she understood more when she was not trying too hard. Sometimes even a whole sentence would be clear in a strange way, not as if she were taking the time to translate each word into English, but as if she heard it in context in the original. Something silly usually, like, “the horse with gray spots ran fast.”
