“That’s kind of like blues!” Zeke said.
“Not really,” Stuart said.
“Techno,” Sleeping Fox said.
“Sky likes jazz,” I said.
Sky rubbed the back of his neck. Sky smiled at me. I didn’t care how good of a front he put up; I knew it bothered him that he couldn’t talk nonsense with the rest of the guys. It bothered me the same. Sometimes it bothered me so much I lay awake at night, willing the seconds to pass faster so I’d wake up an adult already, so I could reconstruct Sky’s vocal cords. I was going to be a speech therapist. I was going to give back everything my father had taken from him.
“Here we are, Rafael,” Stuart said. “Exit’s on your right.”
The submarine crested through the surface of the ocean, clear green waves breaking around us. The stormy sky morphed into a city skyline. The submarine was a car again. Stuart pointed the way to a sad-looking eatery, windows glowing, and I parked the car in the chalky lot outside. Zeke cheered when we threw the doors open.
“We are breaking so many rules right now,” Aubrey realized, turning green.
Sky hopped out of the car. Sky slapped Aubrey heartily on the shoulder. I locked all the doors when everyone was outside.
“I’m not allowed to have sugar,” Allen remembered, one of his eyes pointed inward.
“Why not?” I asked sourly.
Allen stared mysteriously into the distance. “It’s a long story…”
We went into the eatery, Zeke skipping like a moron. The floor was shiny and yellow and everything smelled like flour. The girl behind the counter gave the eight of us a very confused look. Sarah waved at her.
“So many rules,” Aubrey moaned. “So many rules—”
“I want a chocolate donut,” Sleeping Fox told the employee.
“Glazed, please,” Sarah said.
“None for me,” Stuart said, sounding bored.
“Man, why did you even come?” Zeke demanded.
Aubrey wheezed. “So many—”
Sky swiped a paper bag off the counter and handed it to Aubrey. Aubrey breathed into it. Stuart asked, “Did any of you even bring money?”
“Uh,” Zeke said, laughing.
“I always have money in my rain boots,” Sarah said, lifting her foot.
“I’ll pay you back!” Zeke promised.
“No, you won’t, but that’s okay,” Sarah said.
Ten minutes later we went into the parking lot, each of us with a donut except for Stuart, the stick in the mud, and Sky, who didn’t like sweets. Sky drank an iced coffee instead. City kids. I gazed around at the cityscape, hypnotized by lights. Blue and green-yellow windows peered back at me from blocky office buildings. The stoplights blinked mad and red, the cars hissing like peyote rattles when they drove down the street.
Sky grinned at me. He elbowed me, raising his eyebrows.
“Don’t give me that,” I grumbled, stubbornly hunching my shoulders. “Cities aren’t natural, no matter how cool they look.”
Sky tickled my stomach.
“No! Stop,” I said, but laughed like an idiot. I almost dropped my donut. It had cream inside it, too.
Are cities really so bad? Sky asked, looking around at the buildings.
“They’re covering nature,” I grunted. “So yeah. They’re bad.”
Sky gave me a dry look.
“Stop it,” I said. “Where do you think pollution comes from? It ain’t coming from the rez. All those corporate buildings feed off of power plants. All those power plants release carbon emissions. That’s what destroys ozone and poisons the air. Come on, Sky. You can’t be an Indian if you aren’t obsessed with saving the planet. We’re practically born with picket signs in our hands.”
Sky knocked his shoulder into mine. I’m not sure how; the guy was short. I felt his peace, and his concession, which fed my hopes that we’d attend an anti-fracking protest together someday. Maybe we’d make out afterward.
“What’s your favorite movie?” Zeke asked Aubrey.
Aubrey fumbled with his eyeglasses. “I’m not sure that I’ve seen a movie before,” he said carefully.
“How can you not be sure?” Zeke complained. “Man! I like March of the Wooden Soldiers. Laurel and Hardy are cool!”
“Zeke,” I said. “I wanna talk to you for a second.”
Sky looked curiously at me. So did Zeke. I told Sky I’d be a moment. Zeke bounded my way, swinging his arms. I led him over to a big black trash can.
“You’re not gonna put me in there,” Zeke said, laughing nervously. “Are you?”
I wanted to tell him about that day in the desert, years ago. Me, Dad, Naomi, and the shovels. I didn’t know how to broach the subject.
“Man,” Zeke said. He must have noticed the expression on my face. He dug his heels against the ground, hair swinging around his head. “Can’t we just forget about…you know, all that stuff from the past?”
I hesitated. “You really want to?”
“Look,” Zeke said. “You’re friends with Sky-lark, and he’s still alive. So I’m pretty sure you’re not your dad.”
To hear that from someone who didn’t even like me was cathartic. “I’m not.”
“Yeah, I know,” Zeke said. “All that stuff…it doesn’t matter anymore, okay? I get enough of it from my old man. I don’t have to get it from you, too.”
“Your dad giving you shit?” I asked.
“No,” Zeke said quickly.
I gave him a dubious look.
Zeke sighed. “I still miss Naomi, I guess,” he said, messing up his hair. “It’s weird. When she was alive we did nothing except fight. Now that she’s gone I miss the yelling.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“I told you to forget about it,” Zeke said.
“But you haven’t forgotten about it,” I pointed out.
“Well, yeah,” Zeke said. “How do you forget about something like that?”
He realized his folly a moment later. “Shut up, man.”
We caught sight of Stuart dousing his hand in vodka and setting it on fire with a cigarette lighter. Zeke looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
“That’s the kind of guy who takes a gun to school,” Zeke remarked.
“And shaves his head and commits ritual suicide,” I added.
Sleeping Fox slinked over to us. “I want another donut,” he announced.
“You haven’t got the money,” I said harshly.
“You can have Rafael’s!” Zeke said.
“Fuck you,” I said.
The novelty of leaving the rez wore off. We got in Uncle Gabriel’s car and I locked the doors. I warned the guys that if they got sugar on the seats I’d hunt ‘em down and make ‘em pay. Sarah saluted me in the rear-view mirror. The walls of the car flaked away, the seat underneath me transforming into the tell-tale cherrywood of a pony drag. Yoked horses pulled us across the Great Plains. Stupid taipo’o and their stupid inventions. I swear we got on just fine before they came up with all this unnecessary technology.
Try this, Sky said, thrusting his coffee under my nose.
“Get that outta my face,” I said.
We traversed the moonlit prairie in search of our next great coup. The meadows were wiry and golden, shining with the reflections of watery stars. Possums and prairie chickens rustled unseen in the brush.
“Let’s get peyote!” Allen said, in fringed buckskin and coup feathers.
“Annie wanted to get some for Mary,” Aubrey said. “Come to think of it, Annie talks about Mary a lot—”
“Rafael, watch the road!” Stuart screeched.
Something big and beige jumped out at us. I leapt to attention. The prairie fell flat and churned black, the grass shrinking into asphalt. I swerved us off of the road and we wound up in the desert. It took all of two seconds before Allen screamed.
“Stop it!” I yelled. I killed the engine.
“What was that?” Aubrey asked, shaken.
“I think it was an antelope,” Sarah said calmly.
“Do you have a flashlight?” Stuart asked, leaning across the back of my seat. “It didn’t hit us, but it might be injured.”
“I bet it was a Delgeth,” Sleeping Fox said vaguely.
“Stop it. Delgeth aren’t real. Rafael?”
I fumbled in the glove compartment with jittery hands. I found a flashlight and twenty dollars. I powered the flashlight on. Sky got out of the car with me, rubbing circles against the small of my back. He pointed farther down the road.
It wasn’t a Delgeth, for starters. It wasn’t an antelope, either. It was a slender, white-tailed deer—no antlers; a doe. Sky put his hand around mine and we approached her. I crouched down. Sky winced, turning his head to give the doe some privacy. She was heavily pregnant—and dilating by the second.
“What’s going on?” Zeke asked cheerfully, jogging after us. “Oh my God!” he yelled a moment later.
“Don’t be an asshole,” I said.
“Don’t look! Don’t look!” Zeke said.
“It’s The Reckoning!” Allen added.
“Just leave her,” Stuart advised. “It’ll be over in twenty minutes and they’ll both head into the desert.”
Yeah, that would’ve been ideal. Except just then a skinny black hoof came jutting out of the mom. I joined Sky in wincing.
“She’s breeched,” I explained.
Sky held my gaze. I could tell he didn’t know what to do. He rubbed the doe’s back with a soft hand, but I don’t think she even noticed his presence. I stripped my jacket off, muttering. I tensed.
You don’t have to, Sky said, shaking his head.
I hated touching live animals. Their feelings made no sense to me.
“Would you be okay putting your hands in her?” I asked.
“Oh man, oh man,” Zeke groaned.
“Let me help,” Aubrey offered, rushing over to Sky and me. “It’s fine, we’ve had breech births on our farm before.”
Aubrey rolled his sleeves back. Sky signed something to him I didn’t catch. Aubrey told Sky to hold the doe’s hind legs and make sure she didn’t kick. Without preamble, Aubrey put his hands inside her. She tried to kick, alright, but Sky held her hooves down. I grabbed her front legs and felt what I thought was fear. Not-bright-cold-hurt-herd-away—
“The umbilical cord’s intact,” Aubrey breathed. “Thank goodness. Let me just turn the fawn around—”
“I’m gonna puke!” Zeke yelled.
“Shut up!” I yelled.
Sky looked at me, worried.
“Have you seen a deer in labor before now?” I asked Aubrey.
He twisted his hands very slowly, but with a good deal of effort. “Ah, no—”
“Tuck the fawn’s head into its chest,” I said. “They always come out that way, I dunno why.”
Aubrey heaved. The head came through with the second front hoof. Another heave, and the whole baby came out. Sky took his jacket off and patted the damp fawn dry. Aubrey broke the umbilical cord with his bare hands, which ought to give you a good idea about how strong he really was.
“Zeke passed out,” Sleeping Fox said.
“On it,” Stuart sighed.
“What’s going on here, gentlemen?”
None of us had noticed when an unlit cop car pulled up next to the SUV. A state trooper straggled over to us with a flashlight in his hand, his uniform brown, his hat round and funny-looking.
Sky gave me a grim, resigned glance.
“She gave birth!” Aubrey said to the cop, oblivious. “Look at the both of them, aren’t they precious?”
“And not Delgeth!” Allen said.
The trooper glanced at me from underneath raised eyebrows. “Can I see some ID?”
I must’ve done something to give us away. Or maybe cops can smell the lies on you. I swallowed, scooping my jacket off the ground.
“Officer, I can explain,” Stuart said, marching toward us.
He didn’t have to. The trooper took one look at him and relented.
“Nothing doing,” the trooper said. “Just make sure your kids aren’t driving after dark, okay? Especially on this road.”
You can’t imagine the look on Stu’s face when he realized the trooper thought he was our dad. I didn’t blame the trooper, though; Stu’s face was marred with exhaustion and worry lines, and the dark circles made him look like he’d battled death and lost. His mouth dropped open and didn’t close. The trooper strode back to his squad car.
“He’s not our father,” began Allen, who was born without the lying gene. “He—”
Sarah stood on her toes, covering Allen’s mouth. The trooper got in the white car and drove away. Zeke woke up just in time to burst out laughing. He laughed so hard it echoed obnoxiously into the desert.
“Do I really look that old?” Stuart whispered.
Sky shook his head No, because Sky was kind. Stuart shuddered all the same. Aubrey wiped his hands on my jacket. The fawn stood on wobbly, newborn legs. Her coat was silver and silky, speckled with dark gray dots.
“Good girl,” I muttered, suppressing a smile.
The fawn and her tired mom picked their way into the desert. The mom looked back at us. Sky waved after them, the huge dork. He caught my eye and grinned the cheesiest grin I’d ever seen on a human face. I didn’t know what was better: him, or the deer. The deer might’ve won, but only by a margin. It’s an indescribable feeling to watch new life grace the planet. Animals in particular are just special. They don’t know how to lie, you know? Sometimes I think they’re the closest thing to God we’re ever gonna meet.
“I don’t want Rafael driving,” Sleeping Fox said. “He’s going to kill us.”
“I’m sixteen! Sixteen!” Stuart said.
Sky climbed into in the driver’s seat, taking me by surprise. I sat beside him, and the rest of the guys piled in the back, Sarah singing He Wasn’t Man Enough. I wondered which one of us she had in mind. The reserve wasn’t so far away, but Sky was lousy with directions. Aubrey talked him down the turnpike and north into Nettlebush. I saw the dim lights from the hospital and the log cabins and I breathed with relief. It felt good to be home.
“This car smells,” Sleeping Fox said.
“Did you drop food in here?” I demanded.
We got out of the SUV, the lights turned off in the parking lot. Zeke let out an irritating war whoop and Sarah talked to Aubrey about Saturday morning cartoons. Sky lined his fingers up with mine, capturing my hand. The SUV’s rear lights flashed on my glasses, momentarily blinding me.
“Who the hell taught you to drive?” I asked.
Sky pointed at himself.
“Does your dad know?” I asked, awed.
Sky grinned like the cat that got the canary.
“You’re insane,” I said, reverent. “Don’t let him find out. Ask him to teach you or something. Hell, teach me while you’re at it.”
Sky balled his hands in fists. I could see the happiness in his smile, the sheer love. I rolled my eyes, but I might have been smiling, too. I said, “You act like you’ve never delivered a deer before.”
“Sounds like you had a busy night,” Uncle Gabriel said.
I all but jumped out of my boots. A prickly chill trailed down my spine. Sky cringed.
“The keys, Rafael,” Uncle Gabriel said, hand extended.
The look on his face terrified me. He was angrier than I’d ever seen him, all the kindness gone from his eyes. His jaw was clenched so tightly I thought the bone would come jutting out of his chin. I put the car keys in his hand, my hand shaking. He swallowed them up with thick fingers, thrusting them into his pocket.
“Say good night to your friends,” Uncle Gabriel said.
“G’night,” I barely mumbled.
“I don’t think they heard you,” Uncle Gabriel said.
“Good night,” I said more loudly.
Sky and Zeke and Aubrey looked after me with worry. I shut off their faces in my head. I fo
llowed Uncle Gabriel down the path between the pines, my heart thudding audibly in my ears. I imagined that the trees were falling down around me, snapping and groaning and slamming into the earth, clouds of leaves rising in their wake. Growing up means facing the day you betray your parents for the first time.
Uncle Gabriel said nothing to me until we were actually in the house. He flipped the overhead lights on, Isaac and Mary snoring together on the couch. He went into the kitchen and I followed him, thinking he wanted to chew me out.
Bingo. He slammed his hands on the counter. He spun around to face me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry.” It was true.
“How dare you?” Uncle Gabriel asked.
The kitchen walls curled up like wet paper. The light Sky had given me shrank behind my back, shadows spreading on the floor. My imagination was my worst enemy.
“Do you realize you could have gotten every last one of your friends killed?” Uncle Gabriel demanded.
“I’m sorry,” I could only say. I was so stupid.
“You’ll be lucky if I let you go to the Warm Dance after this,” Uncle Gabriel said, livid. “You’re grounded. Don’t ask me how long. Assume indefinitely. And I want you to apologize to Rosa. You took advantage of her trust in you. You of all people should know she doesn’t deserve that.”
It hurt like hell to realize what a jerk I’d been. Grounding was the least of what I deserved. I wanted to apologize again; but Uncle Gabriel didn’t let me. He left the kitchen so abruptly I felt that a whirlwind had taken him away. I sat on my knees, quelling the tightness in my chest with my fists. The papery walls flaked down on me like snow. All the breath left me in a single gulp.
Maybe Zeke was right about Custer’s Curse.
6
Sweet-Talker
December wasn’t all that different from November, except that a lukewarm wind washed away the autumn leaves, stripping the skinny trees naked. In the mornings I put my hands on the big gray trunk of my southern oak, mourning the loss of its splendid clothing. I thought of the end of pauwaus, those unbearable evening hours when we took off our intricate regalia and went back to sneakers and t-shirts, suits and ties, taipo’o garments that hung as foreign on our skin as the English spoken on our soil. We only got to dress traditional four times a year, but when we did, we were more ourselves than we were the other three hundred and sixty-one days.
Overlooked (Gives Light Series Book 6) Page 12
