Gives Light(Gives Light Series) (3 page)

Lila was leaping across the grass, chasing after an errant dragonfly, when Annie smiled at me inquisitively.

"How long do you think you'll be staying on the reservation?  Maybe you'll start school with us in September.  That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

I had never been able to talk and laugh freely like this.  Not with a kid my age, I mean.  I wondered if this was what it felt like to have a friend.  A part of me was giddy beyond belief at the prospect that someone on the reservation might actually want me to be here.  And yet I hoped--I sincerely hoped--that I wouldn't be here come September.  For me to be here would mean that my father hadn't been found yet.  Or worse--that he had, and he was in bad shape.

I asked,
Where are your parents?

"Daddy's gone fishing.  He took Joseph with him.  Joseph's our little brother," Annie said.  "As for Mom--deployed.  She's a soldier."

Oh
, I signed.  I couldn't imagine how nerve-wracking that had to be, not knowing whether her mom was alive from one day to the next. 
You must miss her a lot.

It had taken me a minute to remember how to say "miss" in sign language, probably because I'd never had a reason to say it before.  Poking my chin like that definitely felt foreign.

Annie was momentarily silent.  Finally, she said, "I'm sure you miss your parents, too."

So she did know about Mom.

Annie faltered.  I saw her eyes flicker briefly over the collar of my jacket and knew she was picturing the scars underneath.  But it took her no longer than a second to avert her gaze and smile quickly, brightly; she was a good actor, and she almost convinced me that I had imagined the inquiry behind her eyes.

I found out that night why Annie had cooked so much food.  Dinner on the Nettlebush Reserve is invariably a group occasion.  Just as the sun had started to set, the sky soaked bright red and dotted with dull gray clouds, families came out of their houses carrying covered pots and folding chairs.  Someone lit a bonfire in the center of a stone firepit; it jumped and flickered to life; a little toddler standing by the ring of stones whooped and clapped her hands before her mother, worried, pulled her back from its aura.  The scent of fresh fire mingled with sweet bread and smoked meat.  Truth be told, the latter made me feel kind of queasy.  An old man with grizzled gray hair rolled a drum onto the ground and struck it with his hand.  The gathering made me think of a block party, except that I could see it was a regular affair.  These people knew each other.  They were comfortable around each other.  It made me wistful, in a way.  I'd never belonged to a community the way these people belonged to each other.

I sat on Granny's porch, a few yards from the bonfire.  I didn't want to impose; already I was pretty sure that the older folks didn't like having me around.  I couldn't blame them.  I watched a man and a woman dancing cheek-to-cheek in the light of the dancing flames.  I laughed when a little boy, probably their son, got between them insistently.  I sat mystified and listened to songs carried on hollow, haunting flutes, raucous shouts rending the air when someone with clumsy hands dropped a bota bag filled with beer.

Annie snorted in my ear and sat down next to me.

"Avoiding someone?" she asked.

I grinned and signed back. 
Just trying to lure you away
, I joked.

It was getting darker.  Maybe Annie was having a hard time seeing what I was saying, because she went quickly into Granny's house and returned with an oil lamp.  She sat down again and set the lamp between us, the small glow bathing the both of our faces.

"Have you tried the cornbread?"

It's great.  I'm glad I didn't wreck it on you.

"Ah, but you did," Annie said gravely.  "Why else do you think there's a girth around us?"

I laughed, aware, in the back of my head, that a laugh was supposed to sound like something, but my laughs sounded like nothing at all.  And I think I was still in a state of shock--and total euphoria--that I had managed to make a friend.

Annie winked at me, a light smile on her lips.

That was when I saw him.

What little I could see of him was obscured by shadow--but then the flames jumped and cast him in sudden light.  He was my age, maybe a little older.  He was standing on the opposite side of the bonfire, his hand against the trunk of a tall oak tree.  I could see that his shirt was sleeveless, but only because he had ripped the sleeves off himself, the threads around his shoulders rough and exposed.  I wondered whether anyone had told him his jeans were too big; held up by a brown leather belt, they sagged around his hips regardless of administration.  His hair was ink black and woven in intermittent braids; when the light touched it, it took on a faint sheen like midnight blue.  There was a dove's feather knotted in one of the braids; I couldn't make up my mind whether it had got there on accident or not.  And curious--because he looked like a professional disaster waiting to happen--I followed the outline of his body to the details of his face.  Toned arms--some kind of blue tattoo on the right one--a mean, square jaw, dimpled cheeks and a flat nose...

Dark eyes trained on mine.  He was staring at me with a look of hatred beyond description.  I had never seen so much hostility on one person's face.  It sent a shocking cold spell throughout my whole body and made me jump out of my seat.

"Skylar?" asked Annie, alarmed.

Who is that?
I signed.  I chanced another look at the guy.  He was still looking at me.

Annie followed my gaze.  She frowned thoughtfully, but shrugged.  "Oh, him.  Don't worry about Rafael, he hates everyone just the same."

That was the problem with Annie, I had started to realize.  She was so skilled at disguising her thoughts that I couldn't determine whether she was telling the truth.

It wasn't until the bonfire had been extinguished, the smoke rising against the stars--Annie waved goodbye for the night and I picked up Granny's loom to bring it back inside--that I realized something else:  I'd seen that guy before.   I didn't know where, but I was convinced that I had.  The dark eyes, the square jaw, the flat nose...  I think those features had left me as frozen as the hatred on their owner's face.  Where had I seen those features before?

I went upstairs to my dad's old room and set the alarm clock for the next day.  I ran my fingers over the California or Bust poster on the wall.  The window might have been dirty, but the poster was suspiciously clean.  None of the dust or filmy residue you'd expect from years of neglect.  Granny had chosen not to mention Dad more than strictly necessary, but that she was cleaning his old room, or the parts of it she could reach in her old age, told me what refused to:  She missed him.

I lay in Dad's bed that night and closed my eyes against the darkness.

When I closed my eyes, I could hear them:  My mother's screams, raw and wild, abruptly cut short.  Suddenly I was eleven years younger, running from room to room, the wooden floorboards cold under my bare feet.  And there was her door, right in front of me, my heart beating fast patterns in my chest.  The doorknob was inches above my head:  I reached up with both hands and pulled, hard, until the door swung open, until I smelled the metallic blood on the air, until I tasted it in the back of my throat.

"Mama?" I said.  The last word I'd ever say.  The last time she'd ever hear it.

The shadow next to her bedside came at me, quick and hulking.  The knife in its hands--his hands--caught a sliver of moonlight through the window.  The blade was already wet with blood.  And then I hit the floor, hard, spine bumping against the hardwood; and then the knife was upon me, sharp and burning, the hottest of fires, wind rushing into my open throat, cold and stinging and unbearably loud--

--I jumped out of bed and hit the floor, dull pain shooting through my knees, nightshirt sticking to my chest with sweat.  I couldn't have screamed even if I'd wanted to.  Breathless, I raised my eyes to the yellow poster on the wall.

I knew where I had seen those hateful features before.

It had never occurred to me that Mom's murderer had a son.

3

Spirit Gum

I sat in the kitchen with Granny and listened to the rain pattering gently on the windows.  My face felt oddly numb that morning; I kept poking it just to make sure it was still there.  Granny sipped at a mug of roasted acorn tea and sighed.

"I hate the rain."

Summoned out of my reverie, I stared at her.  She wasn't looking at me, but peering with one eye into the bottom of her cup, like she was just now figuring out its contents.

I hadn't slept much the previous night, probably because I imagined a pair of hateful eyes boring into mine every time I closed my own.  I couldn't stay on the reservation.  I had known it from the moment Officer Hargrove told me that I'd have to.  My mom had lived on this reservation, and someone had killed her for it--someone who was gone now, but had left a son behind.  Rafael, Annie had called him.  It wasn't that I thought Rafael would try to kill me.  Most people aren't murderers; I know that.  So why did my chest ache like this?  I thought about the wary, uncertain gazes that had followed Annie and me all day yesterday.  I thought about the pure loathing on Rafael's face.  I thought about Mom, and my chest ached.  I thought it would burst.  I forgot to breathe.

"Skylar," Granny said sternly.

I started.  I guess I'd fallen into a reverie again.

"Don't stare into space with that glazed look in your eye.  You're a gentleman, for heavens' sakes."

There was a lot that I wanted to ask Granny.  Did she have an idea about where Dad might have gone?  Did she know anything about Rafael?  I'd almost started signing to her when I remembered she couldn't read it.  Anyway, it didn't matter.  I had to get out of here.  This entire reservation was an embodied reminder that my mom had lain dying in the room next door to mine, and I had been unable to help her.

A knock sounded at the front door.

"Answer that," Granny said.

I got up, my legs stiff, jacket zipped up to the neck, and made my way through the front room.

The weedy boy with the glasses, the one who lived on the farm, was on the other side of the door, his hair soaked with rain.  I immediately stepped back to let him inside; he mumbled a quick "Thank you" and hurried past me.  He was followed by two men carrying wrapped packages.  I was beginning to wonder whether letting them inside was such a good idea, but then the two men went into the kitchen without asking--they knew this house better than I did--and I heard Granny say, "Put it in the cellar--no, not the trout, I'll have that for lunch."

The weedy boy swung his arms awkwardly at his sides, his hands clapping behind his back.  He kept casting furtive looks my way.  When he realized that I'd caught him in the act, he smiled quickly, embarrassedly.

"So..." he started.  He drew out the syllable into more words than it really needed to be.  "How goes it?"

I gave him a thumbs up.

"I didn't see you at dinner at all yesterday.  I'm Aubrey, by the way."

I couldn't exactly tell him my name, so I settled for a smile and hoped it looked kind.

"So--um--Annie, has she mentioned...I mean..."

I couldn't keep myself from grinning knowingly.  It might have been a more impish grin than I'd intended; Aubrey looked flustered.

"Ah--anyway.  Skylar, isn't it?  Why don't we sit for a second...?"

I didn't like the sound of that, formal and apprehensive, but I nodded.  I led Aubrey to the sitting room.  The hearth was lit; it hadn't been lit a few minutes ago.  One of the men must have done it while I wasn't paying attention.

I signaled to Aubrey to wait a moment and made my way to Granny's linen closet.  I came back with a towel and handed it to him.  He looked puzzled; until he beamed, pleased, and tousled the towel through his hair.  He had the shortest hair out of anyone I'd seen on the reservation.  I figured maybe he had worn it longer until it got in the way of his farm work. 

Aubrey sat on one of two rocking chairs, the damp towel on his lap.  I remained standing.  Aubrey rocked back and forth, nervously, and cleared his throat.

"You, ah...  You may have noticed that not a lot of white people live around here."

I smiled.  That was a bit of an understatement.  I was the only one.

Aubrey leaned forward, business-like; he lifted his finger, about to make a point, but stopped himself, deliberating.  He sat back in his seat, hard at thought; he sat up straight again, this time with certainty.

"Well, it doesn't matter, I mean," Aubrey said.  "Some of the older folks might get a bit...get a bit
rude
, I guess, but you shouldn't let that bother you."

I knew what he wasn't saying.  It was the older folks who were more likely to remember what had happened eleven years ago.

"Anyway, your dad's Shoshone, so you are, too.  Even if you don't look it."

Dad had told me otherwise, though.  Children from Nettlebush belonged to their mothers' clans.  It was why I had my mom's surname and not my dad's.

"Aubrey!"  The two men who had accompanied him came out of the kitchen.  "Time to go."

Aubrey jumped up.  "Thank you for the towel," he said.