The Way We Bared Our Souls (20 page)

Ellen started to retch in the sagebrush. Thomas, Kit, and I huddled together, unable to do anything but listen.

“I’d already seen the soldiers kill my father,” Kaya went on. “He was a great warrior. But he didn’t try to fight. It didn’t matter. They shot him in the back as he rode away. Then they stole his horse.” Kaya was getting more agitated the more she abandoned herself—and us—to her story. She began to pace back and forth in the ravine, touching the bones one by one.

“Kaya,” I said, “talk to me. Where are you right now?” She closed her eyes.

“Riding through a canyon pass. Shots ring out. I think my eardrums will burst from the sound. Artillery fire echoes off the canyon walls. My father. . . .”

I thought of the reassuring sound of my dad’s cough in the night.

“What is this feeling?” Kaya shrieked. “There’s a bullet in my chest. It’s moving through my lungs. It’s sharp, it’s terrible, it makes me want to be dead. What are all these feelings that make me want to be dead?”

I thought of what it must be like for people who’d been deaf their whole lives to hear for the first time. Or for blind people who could suddenly see. But this was the opposite of one of those miracles. Kaya’s bold entry into the world of pain was catastrophic. She wasn’t prepared. In that moment, if I could have given back her analgesia, I would have, without hesitation. One person should not have to feel so much.

“History forgot us,” she howled. “History stampeded over us, over my people. The settlements and cities of America are built on bloody ground.” She hugged a small skull against her chest.

“Come on, Kaya,” Thomas said gently. “It’s getting cold. We need to make camp. We can’t fix the past tonight. But we can talk about it, together.”

“The bones,” she said. “My family, lost. We were a great nation.”

“You still are,” I said. But then, shamefully, the first image that came to my mind was an old Indian man I’d recently seen curled up behind the gas station with a bottle in a brown paper bag. I thought of everything that had been stolen from him.

“Nothing,” Kaya said, “will ever be the same.”

I thought I heard a baby crying. It was as if the sound was coming from the bones. The smell of burning wood flooded my nostrils.

Looking to Thomas for help, I saw from his collapsed shoulders and distressed eyes that he felt as impotent as I did. What could we possibly do for Kaya? I felt like one of the scientists of the Manhattan Project as I watched my bomb explode on the horizon, my black hole of all that is good. I regretted my callous experiments.

Kaya took off running through the ravine and began scrambling up the cliff face that towered over it. Thomas tried to grab her, but she was too quick. Within moments she had climbed to the top as skillfully as a wild mountain sheep. She stood dangerously on the edge of the precipice, her proud body silhouetted against the darkening sky. She pulled something from her pocket. Her bear totem? No, a razor.

“Oh my god,” I said. “Thomas.” I reached for his hand.

“She’s reliving something up there,” he said. He was spellbound by the sight of Kaya’s figure on the cliff. He gazed up at his burden-sister with what looked to me like profound understanding. He could see how bad it really was. I felt terrible for him. For Kaya.

You know those moments when time slows and you remember something so strange, so random, yet so vivid? Some memory you didn’t even know you’d latched onto? As I gazed up at Kaya on the cliff, I remembered a presentation Kit had once given in history class, about a ruthless attack on the Navajo Indians in 1805. When five hundred Spanish soldiers invaded the Diné’s sacred Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona, they discovered more than a hundred Navajo women and children seeking refuge in a lofty cave. Before all the Indians were massacred, one old woman tackled a Spanish soldier who’d climbed up the towering rock. Rather than see him violate their time-honored Chelly defenses, she wrapped herself around him and then jumped off the cliff, sending them both plunging to their deaths. The Navajo call this site “The Place Where Two Fell Off.”

I needed to get to Kaya before she did something drastic. I took off running, clambered up the steep, loose rocks that led to her aerie. I barely noticed the cacti and brambles that cut into my legs, drawing blood. They would slow down anyone who might follow, but of course I didn’t feel the pain. As I reached the peak, I narrowly avoided stepping on a rattlesnake. It hissed and then lunged at my hiking boot, but I leapt out of the way. By the time I reached the top of the mesa, I had lost a visual on Kaya. Then I heard her.

“Look at me,” she said, yanking up the legs of her pants.

THE SAME PICTOGRAPHS THAT KAYA
had drawn on her legs in black pen on Monday afternoon were now carved into her flesh. Carved, as in with a knife. Freshly bleeding. I thought I was going to faint. I could imagine how much pain she was in. And she wasn’t done. With a razor blade, she was still cutting symbols and patterns into her skin. Every time she dabbed away the blood with her shirtsleeve, her thighs glistened with pictographs we’d only seen previously in museums etched on leather and buckskin, the careful record keeping of an unknown Indian chief.

“Oh my god,” I said. “Kaya.” My wounds were nothing compared to hers. My pain was nothing.

Thomas and the others were trying to find a safe way up the incline that Kaya and I had mounted so easily. I heard the rocks tumbling under my friends as they shouted desperately for us to climb down.

“I never should have let her come,” said Thomas, slipping down the face of the cliff as he fought for leverage.

“Oh my god,” Ellen said. “I can’t get up there. What do we do? Lo, do something!” The ritual had taken us way too far. This was what Jay and Thomas had warned me about. Why hadn’t I listened?

“Tonight I represent my people,” Kaya said. “Even though my ancestors lie in the bone pits before us, their suffering is far from over.” Something barked behind her, and a coyote appeared through the rocks. Kaya stooped over and began petting her between her ears. The striped black ear markings told me that the coyote was Dakota, but I saw no sign of Jay. I longed for any adult presence, but it was just me, Kaya, a wild animal, and all of our sordid American history facing off on the cliff. Kaya stepped closer to the ledge and slipped slightly, sending small stones skittering into the ravine.

“Kaya,” I said. “Please.” With every step I made toward her, she made one in the opposite direction, bringing herself precariously close to the rocky abyss below. I stayed still, too afraid to move. Dakota retreated to a nearby bush and began licking her haunches.

Kaya looked at me intently, and at that moment I felt that she could see straight into my neurons. I felt that she could hear the music, both good and bad, that my thoughts made. I felt that she could see all my colors, all my wishes. I felt that she could see into my soul itself. And I didn’t know if the outcome of this scrutiny would be positive. My hair bristled like a coyote’s under her gaze. I clutched the deer totem around my neck.

“You already know what I’m going to do, Lo,” Kaya said. “And that’s okay. But you can’t stop me.” I
had
to stop her. The week couldn’t end this way. The ritual was supposed to heal us all, not destroy my oldest friend.

“Kaya,” I said. “Please. I’m begging you. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“No,” she said. “It does. What has already happened is too grim, too devastating. I cannot stop seeing the lives that were lost. I feel them, Consuelo. In my gut, in my heart, I feel the wounds. They’re everywhere. Their history is everywhere.” She bent down and dug her fingers into the earth, then rubbed dirt into her leg where the cuts formed the body of an Indian warrior being dragged behind a horse.

“But Kaya, there’s also hope. Can’t you feel that too?” I should have taken her to Canyon Road, so she could see the rosaries hanging from the branches of the tree at sunset. I should have taken her to the natural hot springs, so she could feel the warmth penetrate her bones. I should have driven her past the peach orchards that grew along the Rio Grande. I should have taken her up in one of Thomas’s hot-air balloons so she could view these mountains from the heaven above them. I’d kept these experiences to myself while she had been alone with her tragic history. I’d been stingy with my joy, just as I’d been stingy with my burden.

“No more hope,” she said. “Only pain.”

“We love you,” I said, my voice breaking. “We need you. Can’t you see that? We can’t lose you.
I
can’t. Please talk to me, Kaya. Let me help you. We are all here for you. We promised to take care of each other. Remember?”

“The tangible me—the me with a body—is lost,” she said. “All that remains now is my soul. And it’s been seized for a higher purpose. It’s not your fault, Lo. I don’t blame you. But my soul is already spoken for. It wants to return to its native community.”

Then she wrapped her arms around me. Was her fervor due to the fact that she meant it as a last embrace? Or because she wanted to hurl me off the cliff with her, like the Diné woman from the story? Over Kaya’s shoulder, I saw Dakota running toward us. She looked murderous, as if she planned to attack. I struggled to extricate myself from Kaya’s arms and position myself between her and her savage fate.

I would fight Dakota. I would protect Kaya. I would fight history. Only my animal nature could save her.

Then I felt Dakota’s jaws clamping down on my forearm. I felt the pressure of the bite, but not the teeth themselves. I snarled at Dakota. I yelped and spurred her on, even though I could see her bite penetrate almost to the bone. I wanted her to tear off my arm and then go for my jugular. I wanted her to shred my ruined nerves. I wanted to assume all the destruction, so Kaya would be safe. When Dakota lunged at me again, I flinched. A lifetime of pain had trained me well. Burdens couldn’t be undone overnight. I still dreamed of pain. My body still had its memories.

“Kaya!” Thomas shouted from behind us. “Consuelo!” We turned to face him. Dakota released her grip. Thomas had mounted the cliff. He approached cautiously. His bare legs were bleeding from the brambles on the mountain.

“Kaya,” he said, “you’re not alone. We can get through this.”

For a few seconds she seemed to entertain this hope. Then her face became resolute again. “No,” she told Thomas. “I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

AND THEN KAYA TOOK HER
position at the edge of the rock, and, before Thomas and I could reach her, she leapt.

She simply disappeared over the precipice. Silently, like sand. Like a wisp of ash. Dakota unlatched her jaw from my arm, as if to let me know her work there was done. By the time I made it to the edge of the cliff, Kaya’s body was already sprawled at unnatural angles in the ravine below.

Ellen and Kit had never made it up the steep embankment, so they were the closest to her. Ellen scrambled to Kaya’s side while Kit stood frozen, stunned. From above I stared in shock as blood pooled under Kaya’s beautiful head. I crumpled to the ground. Meanwhile Thomas sprang into action. He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around my arm. It took me a second to recognize what he was doing. Then I saw his white V-neck turn red around my wound.

“No. Go to her. Please, Thomas. Save her.”

“Stay here,” he said, and then began half sliding and half falling down the less steep part of the cliff where he’d ascended. I stared into the ravine.

“No,” I said, as I waited for Kaya to get up. “No,” I said, as I watched Ellen and Kit try to move the boulders that encircled her broken body. “No,” I said, as I heard Ellen screaming, “She’s not breathing! Kit, she’s not breathing!” Kit pulled Ellen to him, hiding her eyes from Kaya’s traumatized figure. The blood on her bare legs formed an intricate network of streams, obscuring the carvings.

Then Thomas reached Kaya’s side. He took her pulse. He tried to breathe life back into her lungs. And then he just sat next to her, lowered her eyelids, crossed her scarred arms like a shield across her chest as she had so often held them in life. Kit pulled a blanket from his backpack and gently laid it over her body.

I smelled rich, pungent wood smoke, though I still couldn’t see any sign of fire above the trees. They weren’t burning. We were burning. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and stared at the numbers I needed to press. It seemed like it took me an eternity to dial 911.

AS WE WAITED FOR THE
rescue crew to arrive, Thomas mounted the cliff once more to clean and bandage my arm with the first aid kit he’d packed. The white bandage went around and around while my eyes stayed fixed on Kaya’s shape under the blanket far below. I couldn’t feel anything. Not the coyote’s wound on my arm. Not my grief. Not the chill that had begun to set in with the sunset. Thomas had put on his hoodie over his bare torso and brought me my sweater. But I refused it. The fabric felt foreign and repulsive. Too soft and warm for me, for this life.

It was a long time before Thomas decided I was ready to descend. I went straight to Kaya’s side. I touched her face. I told her to get up, that everything would be okay now. That we’d all switch back and life would return to normal.

But I couldn’t stop crying. This wasn’t right at all. I should be strong now, free of pain. I shouldn’t be able to cry, and I’d cried more this week than I ever had before. Maybe Jay should have just let me stay sick. Sometimes being well was more confusing.

Circle home, Lo.

Where is home?

Kit made a campfire in the ravine, not far from Kaya, to keep us warm while we waited. The flames bounced shadows of boulders across her body as though trying to nudge her awake. A tendril of smoke snaked into the sky above the mountain as if it was signaling something. What was it trying to tell me? I needed answers. I needed Jay.

The EMTs worked for an hour to retrieve Kaya from the rubble of rock and bone that surrounded her. They insisted on treating my arm, though the bites weren’t that deep after all, as if the coyote hadn’t really meant to do lasting damage. I declined a rabies shot. I knew it was my disease, not hers, that had driven Dakota to attack.

Thomas told the rescue crew that Kaya had accidentally fallen off the cliff while we explored the ravine together. It was just a tragic hiking accident that happened while we were playing hooky. Had nothing to do with souls or spirits of the dead or American history or our dumb problems that we’d been so desperate to unload that we’d put our friend in mortal danger.

Now that the worst had happened, Thomas didn’t seem so afraid anymore. Even hiking down the mountain by flashlight behind Kaya’s body, he didn’t falter once, and he made sure that we didn’t either. Then I had a thought that temporarily woke me from my daze. I wondered if his burden was gone forever. If it had died with Kaya. And I wondered if I would eternally carry her analgesia now that she had breathed her last. I looked down at the bandage on my arm and regretted everything I’d done. Messing with nature, messing with my particular lot of suffering.

But if I were to carry Kaya’s burden, I would honor it. I would not complain. It would be her legacy.

We followed the rescue crew and Kaya’s stretcher back to solid, level earth. Then we said goodbye to our beloved friend. Before she was put in the flashing but dreadfully silent ambulance for the long drive back to Santa Fe, Thomas tucked their shared bear totem into his pocket, and I placed our deer in her hand, closing her ragged fingertips around it before they went cold. Then the four of us who remained tore down the road back to Pecos Park. It was the only place that seemed right. The only place that held any hope.

Kit searched for quiet music on the radio, but all we heard were emergency broadcasts about the flames just north of us. We switched off the warnings and drove in silence. I took a detour to avoid the roadblock I heard was installed on the road to Los Alamos. We accelerated into the smoke.

Which brings us back to the beginning.