The Blue Between the Clouds (2 page)

That's the problem with bein' a kid. Everybody is always doin' the thinkin' for you. Someone always knows what's best for you. Ma got awful bad like that once. It was a few years ago and she wanted me to sing in the church choir. You know, the one they have for children. She said the best thing for a boy with my inclinations is a little choir singin'. Pa chuckled about that. I didn't have much say in the whole thing, so off I went every Saturday morning with Claudine. She'd pick me up, bein' she was the choir director. I gotta say I tried hard, but my voice, well, it came out kinda scratchy and shaky like. I guess that's what started the ruckus. Everybody started laughin' and pushin' me. I couldn't stand it. It wasn't easy gettin' out of those choir seats so I was climbin' over 'em, just tryin' to get away from it all. That's when the seat back broke. I tumbled right into the podium and knocked it over. Which wouldn't have been so bad if Claudine wouldn't have been behind it. She fell over backwards with the podium in her arms, looked just like one of those professional wrestlers at the county fair. She landed on her back with the podium on top of her and her dress up by her head. Her underclothes were right there in the open for all to see. The whole choir scrambled down to get a peek as if all her sins were laid bare. I just lay back on the floor and looked up at the Lord in the stained-glass window. I thanked Him with all my heart that I now had a reason to never come back. The rest of the kids just stood there starin' at Claudine like they'd seen a vision.

Anyway, that's how me and Two Moons met up. Oh, and Two Moons did get his deer. A small two-point he shot at the base of the Book Cliffs about nine miles back of our ranch. He told me it took him two days to haul it out of there. Then he invited me out to the reservation for the celebration. Pa threw the deer in the truck and drove as fast as he could to the reservation. The whole tribe was waitin' for us, like they knew we were comin'. Two Moons dragged the deer antlers over to his grandfather and kneeled in the dirt at his feet. His grandfather was proud. He stood Two Moons up and stared into his face for a long time. Then Two Moons handed meat out to the members of his tribe. They were all gathered around Two Moons smilin' and talkin', sayin' how much Two Moons was like his father.

Then the party began. They built a big fire and started roastin' the rest of the deer. The flames jumped high into the night sky, shootin' sparks everywhere. One of the braves wore deer antlers and pranced around the fire; another wore only a small cloth and carried Two Moons' bow and arrows. He followed the deer, dancin' and stalkin' while the tribe chanted. Two Moons was smilin', sittin' next to his grandfather. They watched the braves act out the hunt. The tribe chanted louder and louder as the hunter got closer and closer to the deer. The drums beat hard. The tribe stomped their feet and beat deer antlers together in loud, clacking rhythms. The hunter pretended to draw the bow. He let the arrow fly.

I wanted to cheer. Two Moons was a star, like he just clobbered a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to win. But suddenly it was quiet. The deer didn't die like it would've in real life. It didn't even die like it would in the movies, which is what I was really expectin' since they were actin'. He stopped, looked up at the heavens, and started the death chant. Everyone else was quiet. The deer danced slowly. Finally, he stopped. Then the tribe did the death chant. See, Indians believe all life is sacred. That all life has a place on this earth. They believe that Two Moons' deer was a gift from the gods. They were thankin' the gods for sending a gift, and they were thankin' the deer for bein' willing. I didn't understand that all at once, but Pa explained it to me later.

Well, the ceremony went on after the feast. Two Moons and his grandfather stood there in the smoke of the fire after it had died down. All was quiet, and Grandfather raised his arms above his head. Then he pulled them down and to the sides like a giant bird. Then he raised them up again and began chantin'. He dropped them to his sides, then out again like he was glidin' in the air. He raised them up again, and then out, but this time there was an eagle feather in his hand. I don't know where it came from, but suddenly it was there like he plucked it right out of the sky. Two Moons told me later it was a sign from the gods that they approved.

Grandfather showed the feather to the whole tribe and they chanted while he braided it into Two Moons' hair. The chantin' got louder and the dancin' started again. This time it was the dance of joy, and it lasted all night long. That's how Two Moons became a man. And that's when I knew I had a journey of my own to make.

3

UNCLE EMMETT

There was a buzz in my head from then on. The buzz of airplanes. All I could think about was flyin'. Me and Two Moons drew pictures of eagles and airplanes on everything. Ma finally got mad and told Pa he better do something about all this flyin' business. Pa just laughed. He said it would eventually run itself out. Well, we had other ideas. Me and Two Moons decided we would have to make ourselves an airplane.

The snow was startin' to melt off then, and it was like the fields were full of hidden treasures. The hotter the sun got, the more we discovered. We were rummagin' along lookin' for plane parts and got close to crazy Emmett's place. Pa wants us to call him Uncle Emmett, but he's not really our uncle. Pa brought him home after the big war. Said he was the best fighter pilot in all of Europe. Then he explained to us later that the war had been hard on Emmett and that a good piece of his brain just didn't want to function anymore. Ma said sometimes that happens when a man sees too much pain and killin'. Emmett just wanted to be a kid the rest of his life, so Pa built him a cabin out of two old milk trucks and some crooked lumber. The trucks sit back to back. The front truck is the kitchen and the back truck is the bedroom. Pa built a porch so Emmett would have a place to sit out of the sun in the summertime.

Well, we found a good piece of rope under the snow that day and pulled it up like a long, stiff snake all the way to Emmett's porch. Emmett was sitting in the cab of the kitchen truck. His big hands were wrapped around the steering wheel and he was leanin' over it, lookin' up into the sky. He swayed slowly to each side, still watchin' the clouds. Then he jerked back on the wheel as if it were the stick of an airplane. His face got all twisted up and his whole body was tremblin'. He lifted his hands from the wheel, sighted down his thumbs, and fired at the Model T in the field in front of him.
Rat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat.
He closed one eye.
Rat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat.
Then he leaned way back as if he were pullin' the plane into a long loop and roll. That's when he saw us. He smiled a half smile, closed one eye, and gave us the thumbs-up. Then he disappeared into the kitchen.

We let the rope fall out of our hands. Two Moons looked at me, and I could tell he was havin' the same idea I was. Emmett could help us build the plane. We walked quickly over to the door of the kitchen truck. You don't have to knock at Emmett's; he always knows when someone is standin' at his door. So we stood, and waited.

He didn't come right away, but he knew we were there. We could tell because he would shuffle to the door, then back inside the truck somewhere, then back to the door. When he finally did open the door, he was wearin' half of his officer's uniform. He looked at us for a moment, stone-faced like. Then he saluted. We weren't sure what to do, so we saluted back. Then he shut the door.

You see, that's how crazy Emmett is. He has his own world all set up in his head, and real live people like Two Moons and me, well, we're dream people to Emmett. So if he feels like rollin' over and goin' to sleep after a dream, he does. We figured he just rolled over and we would have to come up with somethin' to wake him. That is, if we wanted to talk to him.

“I'd sure like to make that airplane today,” I said to Two Moons.

“I'd like to fly to Canada,” Two Moons said. “You suppose Emmett will help us?”

“He will,” I said.

Trouble was, Emmett had just shut the door on us. He could be in a deep sleep or he could be into another dream by now. We looked around the yard. Two Moons pulled up the rest of the rope, coiled it, and held it up to the cab window. He was offerin' it as a gift, but Emmett paid no attention. Two Moons laid it on the porch and put a shiny penny in its center. Emmett watched us through the bedroom cab. We waited.

One summer afternoon we waited for three hours. My bike was broken, and Pa was still in the mine. Emmett was the only person I knew who could fix it. We left gifts that day too: a tin windup car, Bazooka bubble gum, and seven bottle caps. Emmett finally came out. He wasn't wearin' anything but his bathrobe and cowboy boots. Half of his face was shaved, and he had his flight cap on backwards. He fixed my bike in about ten minutes. I've never seen anything like it. Even Pa was amazed when I told him about it.

“Emmett has a mechanical gift,” he said. “He just don't know it.”

I wished I had some bottle caps now. I knew he liked 'em. We sat down on the porch, preparin' to wait a long time, when we smelled it. Ma was makin' corn muffins.

“I bet crazy Emmett would open up that door for a corn muffin,” Two Moons said.

“He'd break it down,” I said.

We stood up and stared at the house, makin' mental notes of the kitchen, the parlor, the pantry window. We had to get some of those muffins. Ma would slap us with a long wooden spoon she kept hangin' by the icebox if she caught us. The slap never hurt so much, it was the thought of gettin' caught that bothered us. How could we fly to Canada if we couldn't even steal a few muffins from Ma?

We walked toward the house. I motioned for Two Moons to move to the pantry window. I crept along the side of the house until I was under the kitchen window. Slowly I pulled myself over the sill. The window was open enough to squeeze through. Ma was standin' with her back to me; she was so wide I couldn't see past her to the pantry window. Pa always called her his big ol' gal, and slapped her on the backside. I guess he liked her that way; I sure did. When I was younger and the Kranz brothers would knock me around until I cried, Ma would comfort me. I could snuggle up on her lap and the whole world would practically disappear.

Ma moved away from the stove. I lifted the window slowly. Two Moons lifted his window and waited. Ma was in the parlor, where her Sears catalog was spread out on the table. She'd check the muffins, read the catalog, empty a tin, read the catalog, and so on. She pulled a fresh batch out and carefully dumped them onto the kitchen table. She filled the tin with fresh dough, put it in the oven, and turned back to her catalog. I climbed through the window like a cat and scooped up two fresh muffins and pitched them to Two Moons, then jumped back out the window.

Two Moons was already to Emmett's porch. He set the muffins down beside the penny in the center of the rope.

We sat down on the steps and waited.

“What do you think is in Canada?” I said to Two Moons.

“Grizz,” said Two Moons. “Lots of grizz. Grandfather told me there's more bears in Canada than people. He said they got a tribe up there called the Ojibway. Believe everybody got two spirits. One good. One evil. The body got to choose which side he's on.”

“Grizz have two spirits?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Two Moons.

“What about crazy Emmett?” I said. “You think he got more than two—that's why he's so confused?”

“Grandfather says Emmett is growin' younger. That he reached his death day and lived, now he's gonna grow until he's a baby again and crawl back to the gods. Maybe come back as a wolf or something.”

I turned around and looked through the window of the bedroom truck. Emmett's feet were up on the steering wheel.

“Look,” I said to Two Moons. “Emmett must be asleep.”

Just then I felt a hornet sting on my shoulder. I yelped and jumped to my feet. As Two Moons was lookin' at me, tryin' to figure out what caused the pain, he yelped and jumped clean out of his shoes. We stood there, rubbin' our wounds and wonderin' what stung us. Then we heard it, a muffled giggle.

“It's Esther!” I shouted. My sister can shoot the wings off a bumblebee with a slingshot.

“Over by the shed!” shouted Two Moons. We were off, runnin' through the slippery field. Esther poked her head around the corner of the shed just long enough to get off another shot. I got hit in the stomach and fell to my knees. Esther ducked around the shed to reload. When she jumped out and sighted again, Two Moons dove behind the Model T. She let go and the small stone glanced off a fender. I rolled through the snow and mud until I was on the other side of the shed.

Two Moons could see that I could get to Esther if he could keep her busy.

“Esther!” he shouted. “You couldn't hit the side of a barn if you were standin' inside!”

“I hit you, didn't I?” Esther shouted back.

“Luck!” shouted Two Moons. “Pure luck!”

I was around the back of the shed now. I could see my sister reloadin'. I knew she could hit anything with that slingshot. Last fall she came home with a pheasant. Shot it right through the head. Ma was furious. Pa said it was the best dinner he ever had.

“Just see if you can hit my hand from there, squirrel bait!” Two Moons shouted. He let his open hand slowly rise up from behind the car. Esther took aim. I got ready to pounce on her. Esther shot. Two Moons screamed. I ran headlong into her backside and knocked her right into a mud hole.

“Two Moons!” I screamed. “I got her!”

Two Moons came runnin' and dove on top of us. Esther got ahold of Two Moons' long braid of hair, but Two Moons wrenched the slingshot free and threw it just out of our reach. When I tried to wrestle free and go after it, Esther scooped up a handful of mud and rubbed it in my face. I had mud in my eyes and couldn't see to get away. Two Moons put his fingers in her mouth and stretched it back by her ear until she bit him. I wriggled free and went after the slingshot. I scooped it up and was about to heave it into the holdin' pond when Esther got ahold of my feet. I pulled out of my boots and ran all blurry-eyed through the snow and mud in my socks. I threw the slingshot as far as I could, maybe too far. It landed on the other side of the pond.