Mary shook her head. "Sorry."
It kind of stunned me that she was apologizing. She'd already gone out of her way to help me. She shouldn't have been apologizing. I should have been thanking her.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't make it sappy," Mary said.
Something incredibly lucky happened just then: Mary took her blazer off and put the AC on. The reason I say this is lucky is because a cop car pulled up beside ours, and the officer inside gestured for Mary to roll down her window. She did. My heart was beating a mile a minute, my ribs rattling in my chest.
"How's it going?" the cop said.
"Eh," Mary replied. "How's it ever going? Who can say what the future holds?"
"That's nice," the cop said. "License and registration?"
Mary rooted around in the glove compartment, then handed him an ID card and some papers. It wasn't good enough for him. He squinted at Mary. He didn't give the ID back.
"You're expecting me to believe your last name is Gives Light?" the cop said.
"Call my tribal office and find out," Mary said.
"You don't look Native American," the cop said.
"Really?" Mary countered. "What does a Native American look like? Chuck Connors with a spray tan?"
"You some kind of illegal?" the cop said.
"Totally," Mary said. "I'm running a trafficking ring."
He scanned Mary's ID with a kind of gun-looking device inside his car. He looked disappointed when it checked out.
"Heard reports about a social worker without credentials," the cop said. He gave Mary back her certificates. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"Gee," Mary said. "Wish I could help."
"I'm sure you do."
The cop caught sight of me through my window. He made a circular motion with his hand; so I rolled the window down. At about the same time Sky's coywolf leaned across my lap, snarling. It was uncanny how suddenly the cop slid his windows up and drove away.
"Weenie," Mary cackled.
She rolled our windows up, too. I climbed into the passenger seat to sit beside her. I groused, "No wonder you hate cops so much."
"Naw, that's not why I hate them," Mary said. "Hate 'em because they caught me with weed one time."
"I don't get it," I said. What was so bad about weeds?
"God, you're an innocent," Mary said.
By now Mary drove the car at a more leisurely pace. At length she told me we'd have to stop for gas soon. I asked her, "How are we gonna find Sky if we don't know what city he's in?"
"I'm thinking," Mary said.
She might've been thinking; but she didn't have any ideas.
"Do we got a road map?" I asked.
"Glove compartment," Mary said.
I popped it open. I pulled out a giant, waxy map and unfolded it in clumsy fingers, searching for Coconino County. If we didn't know where Sky was, I thought, then we were gonna have to tell him where we were, and hope he met us halfway.
"Kilgallen," I said, picking out the first city I'd spotted. "Let's go there."
Mary looked weirdly at me in the rear-view mirror. Mary shrugged.
We got gas at the city limits, picked up takeout, and drove for another two hours. I finally figured out how to dial Sky's beeper, but needed Mary to show me how to write words on the keypad. It took something like half an hour before I'd managed to type out "Kilgallen," and even at that I didn't know I'd spelled it right. Why do they make the buttons so small on those phones? Can somebody explain that to me?
"You sure you're not dyslexic?" Mary asked.
"Just stupid," I replied. I put the phone in my pocket.
"You're not stupid," Mary said.
"I got a D on my winter exam," I said.
"Doesn't mean you're stupid," Mary said. "Just not engaged."
I shrugged my shoulders. I looked out my window.
Mary stopped the car on the side of the road. "Listen," she said.
I listened.
"You can be anything you want," Mary said. "You can do anything you want. You're my brother. That already makes you better than the rest."
"Mary," I protested. My face cracked in a stupid grin, surprising even me.
"What do you want to do, anyway?" Mary asked. "Still want to be a marine biologist?"
"No," I said. "Speech therapist."
Mary glanced sideways at me. Mary pulled us onto the road again. She made a left turn down the craggy exit, gray Dreamtime Jumbos clustered alongside uneven pavement, delicate, somehow, despite their gargantuan size.
"That's weird," Mary said.
"What's weird?" I asked. I couldn't keep up.
"I'm not stupid," Mary said. "You want to fix Skylar's voice."
"Well--yeah," I said. " 'Course I do."
"That's nice and all," Mary said, "but have you considered that you becoming a speech therapist means your whole life's going to revolve around this guy?"
"What--what do you mean?" I asked.
"You know what I mean," Mary said. "You'll be working six eight-hour days. That's forty-eight hours every week doing nothing but studying people's throats and vocal cords. I know you. I know what happens when somebody forces you to focus on a topic you don't like for longer than an hour at a time. You get bored. Your attention wanders. That's why you do so poorly in school."
I opened my mouth, but couldn't think of a retort.
"You'd better be damn sure you really want to do this," Mary said. "Because if you don't feel strongly about it--if you're only taking it on out of obligation, or whatever--you're going to be miserable. And if you're miserable, you won't be able to put your all into it."
"It's for Sky," I said. I thought I could do anything so long as it was for Sky. I really believed that.
"You matter, too," Mary said. "You matter more than anyone. More than anything. You deserve to do what you want to do. Not what you think you have to do."
I listened to a truck rushing past us. I watched my sister's profile. She didn't look a damn thing like me; or our mother; or our father. Except she had our mom's chin. Except I had her dimples. They were Mary's dimples now. They'd never been Mary's dimples before.
"What about you?" I asked. I couldn't tell her about my vision quest last summer. You weren't supposed to talk about those. "What do you want to be?"
"Could always fall back on automechanics," Mary said.
"Just because you're good at that doesn't mean that's what you wanna do. What do you want to be?" I asked again.
"Just me," Mary said. "Just Mary."
I said, "I thought you didn't like being Just Mary."
"I haven't been Just Mary in years," Mary said. "You don't know this, but you haven't been Just Rafael, either."
Maybe I did know it.
"I'd like to get back to them someday," Mary said. "Just Mary. Just Rafael. They were good little kids. They didn't do anything wrong."
The highway was as gray as the inside of the car. The sky was gray despite the absence of clouds. Even Mary's eyes were mottled with gray. The thing is, they'd always been mottled with gray. I could still see the green forests inside her irises. I could still see the patches of brown. I wondered how it was that Mary remained Mary when nothing else remained at all.
About five hours into our drive we wound up in Kilgallen, a quiet city with narrow streets. We parked in an outdoor market, striped tents hanging over vegetable tables. When I got out of the car I smelled stewed cabbage. We'd eaten already--some kind of weird chicken thing that tasted like powdered donuts--but I was hungry again. This came as news to nobody. Mary went inside the bakery to buy cupcakes. I tried to figure out whether I should follow her. Before I could make up my mind, Sky's coywolf darted past me. I must have forgotten to close my door.
"Jesus!" I shouted.
The coywolf tore off down the streets. I ran after him, stumbling. If the taipo'o cops saw him they'd probably kill him out of fear. He slipped down a grungy alley and I chased him, holding my b
reath. The longer I spent away from nature, the sicker I was starting to feel. The sickness dissipated in a burst of light. I skidded on my heels when I emerged from the alley. Colors assaulted my eyes, the gray apartment buildings lighting up red and yellow, the cloudless sky tinting blue and pink.
Sky was on the ground, the coywolf on top of him, licking his face. I breathed a giant breath of relief. Warmth spread into my fingers and trickled down my spine. Even the air tasted warmer, thicker, which was weird, because I hadn't thought I was cold. The coywolf got off of Sky and Sky sat up, beaming at me. I vaguely registered that there was a green-eyed kid standing at his side. I strode over to Sky and grabbed his hands and pulled him off the ground. I kissed him quickly, because I wanted to, and anyway, it felt right.
"I love you, too," I had to let him know. He was stupid if he didn't see that.
The kid Sky was with sat down on his knees. Poor little guy looked wan with sickness. The both of us tried to get him to stand, but we didn't have any luck. I picked him up and put him on my shoulder. He felt like he weighed the same as a pillow. Sky caught my eye, and I could tell he was concerned. I didn't know what was the matter with the kid, or where he'd even come from.
"S'alright," I said. "We can take him back to Nettlebush."
Sky and the coywolf walked back with me to Uncle Gabe's car. We loaded up the sick kid in the back of it and wrapped him in a spare blanket. Mary must have bought barrettes off a street vendor, because her hair was decorated with weird little skulls I hadn't seen before. Mary sat in the front of the car, and Sky and I sat in the middle with the coywolf. She passed a box of cupcakes back to us.
"You want one?" I asked the sick kid.
He groaned. "I'll throw up..."
I took one for myself. I tried to give one to Sky, but he shook his head. I asked him, "Who is this kid?"
Danny, Sky said with his fingers. He's Paiute.
Mary wasted no time speeding down the streets, and eventually, onto the highway. I reached behind my seat to feel Danny's forehead with the back of his hand. He practically burned me.
"Christ," I said, worried.
Sky elbowed me softly. Thank you, he said with warm brown eyes, sunshine in his yellow hair.
"You're nuts," I complained. "Whaddo you think you have to thank me for? I'll always come and find you."
Sky leaned against my arm. It felt so good, I breathed in through my mouth, my hand on my stomach.
"How ya doing, kid?" Mary asked Sky.
Sky gave her a thumbs up in the rear-view mirror.
By the time we'd made it back to Nettlebush the moon and stars were already out, the air ridiculously cold. We climbed out of the car and Danny said he thought he could walk now. Sky and I walked him to the hospital. Dr. Stout whisked him into an exam room, and before I knew what was happening the Looks Overs were swarming into the place like they owned it. I guessed they had as good a reason as any to swarm. I left the hospital, thinking that I'd pick up frybread for Danny. Mary came with me.
"Boy," Mary said. "It's nice that the Major Crimes Act keeps them from arresting us. Just wish it kept them from stealing our kids."
I stopped walking in the middle of the dirt road. I put my arms around Mary before she could stop me. She was little more than a skeleton in my embrace, but she was more familiar than anything.
"Why are you being so sappy?" she asked, her voice tight.
"Thank you," was all I could say. "Thank you."
She didn't hug me back. Something made me think she'd forgotten how. She didn't push me away, either. That was the important part.
"You're an idiot," she told me.
I didn't believe her.
8
The Delgeth
With Sky back in Nettlebush spring settled into its usual sleepy routine. I turned eighteen in March, which freaked me out because Sky wasn't seventeen until May, but then he told me I was being ridiculous and I stopped freaking out altogether. I covered Sky's bedroom walls with all the drawings I'd made while he was gone. He seemed to like them, which made me feel for the first time that imagination didn't have to be a bad thing.
"Are you here for good, though?" I asked.
We were sitting on the roof of Sky's house. The boughs of the oak trees fell around us like swaying curtains. The leaves had gone green again, fresh with sunlight, but a few were speckled erroneously orange. That Danny kid's father had come and taken him back to Pleasance in Nevada. I didn't know how long it would last, or if the cops would hunt the kid down again; or if they'd do the same to Sky.
Sky took my dilapidated sketchbook out of my hands. He wrote on one of the loose pages, but with his left hand, shaky. They got rid of my social worker. They said she was incompetent.
And she was the one who had had him removed, right? Then I guessed he was safe now. Still, nothing was gonna stop me from worrying about him. "Gonna handcuff you to me," I said gruffly.
Sky smiled briefly. Sky looked away.
I nudged him. "What's wrong?"
He wrinkled his eyebrows at me, confused. Nothing.
"Not nothing," I insisted. "You're lying."
Sky rolled his eyes. I didn't let up. So he grabbed my sketchbook and wrote again:
I'm adopted.
"No, you're not," I said. Hadn't we had this conversation before? "You're low blood quantum is all."
Sky looked me in the eye.
"Your hand," I realized.
His right hand was bandaged up tight. He'd messed it up a few days earlier, punching a wall after a fight with his dad. Now I knew what the fight was for.
"Your dad told you you're adopted?" I asked.
Sky looked away.
"No, but--you can't be," I said. My mind was racing. "I know you're an Indian. You've got a blue spot."
Sky looked at me, bemused.
My face burned. "I saw it, okay? I saw it back in Idaho."
He remembered the incident. He must have, because he wouldn't meet my eyes. But I could see that he didn't understand what I was getting at.
What does my birthmark have to do with being adopted?
"It's--" Oh, God, I was gonna die from the heat. "It's a Native thing. Blue birthmarks. White people don't have 'em."
A blank look took residence on Sky's face. He didn't try to fight me on it, though.
You really saw my birthmark? Sky asked, glancing at me weakly.
He didn't like me seeing him unclothed. I didn't know why that was. It didn't matter. "I'm sorry."
It's alright, Sky said, touching the back of my hand.
"I don't know why your dad told you you're adopted," I said. "I mean--maybe you are, but what does that matter? Your clan's what makes you family. Not your blood."
Sky smiled bashfully.
"You're definitely Indian, though," I said. "So that part you don't gotta question."
He wavered, unconvinced.
"What?" I groaned. "Are we gonna have the stupid 'I'm so pale' conversation again? Most Indians are mixed. Have you freaking seen the guy who runs the Cherokee Nation these days?"
Sky shook his head, obtuse.
"So there," I grunted.
Sky frowned.
"Now what?"
Sky rubbed his elbow so hard I thought he'd wear a hole in it. He flashed his eyes my way. For a moment I thought he was still hung up on my having seen his birthmark; but something told me that was only a part of it.
"I mean," I said, thinking. "It'd be okay if you weren't Indian. It's not--it doesn't matter what race you are. You still belong to us."
He trained his eyes on me so tentatively that I thought I knew what he was really getting at.
You'd still love me if I weren't?
"How could you--what's the matter with you?" I asked, flummoxed.
Sky smiled. I was ready to throttle him, and the freaking guy was as placid as could be. Where the hell did they manufacture him, in a pillow factory? Least that would've explained why I constantly wanted to lay on him. I dropped my head o
n his lap, fuming. He carded my hair with his good hand. The nerve of him, right? Whatever.
"Sky," I said, after a moment's thought.
He bent and kissed my ear. It tickled.
"If I were sick," I began. I already felt a little sick. "In my head, I mean. Would you still..."
You aren't sick, Sky told me, his fingers soft on my braids.
I remembered the talk I'd had with Mr. Red Clay, about the psychiatrist.
"But if I was," I said quietly.
Sky pressed his mouth to the dimple on my right cheek. The kiss lingered. I thought he'd pull away and go back to playing with my hair; but he didn't. And I knew. I knew he would love me if I was sick. I knew he would love me if I wasn't. I shouldn't have doubted it to begin with. Sky loved everyone. I wanted to love everyone, too.
Mid-spring was the pauwau on the Navajo reservation, which Sky almost didn't go to until I threatened to dunk his head in the river. We drove out to New Mexico, and it was a nice night, although the Navajo were a bit too showy for my liking. The only interesting part was that I ran into that Hopi Zander kid from the hoyyoy a year back. Then came the really bad part, which was when all of us were in the parking lot, getting ready to drive home after all the cooking and dancing and hand games. Luke Owns Forty came and confronted me outside of Uncle Gabriel's car. I could tell just by looking in his eyes he'd been drinking again.
"You don't wanna do this," I muttered.
The sounds of the afterparty shut off around us. In my head there was a radius that surrounded us, blocking out everybody else. It was like a magnet; and it sucked Luke in.
Maybe that was why he punched me. Maybe that was why my head snapped back on my neck and I hit the ground like a sack of flour. He couldn't help himself. It was in his veins: the alcohol, the anger, the blood his daughter lost. It was in the cracks spreading across my eyeglasses, my eyes blurring, my heart racing so fast I worried I'd pass out. Luke's fist had felt like raw pain when it touched me. I don't mean the physical kind. I mean the kind that there's no turning back from, that you'd rather lay down and die to avoid. I mean that when I lay on my back, breathing hard, staring at the night sky, I thought that I was sorry for this man. I'd already known that bad people were only good people doing bad things. I'd known it; but this time I felt it. I wanted to bring Luke's daughter back to him. I wanted to remind him that he used to be able to tell right from wrong. I wanted to strangle him, too. But I didn't. I'd promised Sky I wouldn't hurt people anymore. It mattered more that Sky knew I'd kept my word.