Just Mary. Just Rafael.
"We can go back," I said. "I swear we can. That's what Sky taught me. The only reason you can never go home again is because it never leaves you to begin with."
The Delgeth put its heavy head on my shoulder. A fresh blast of pain shot through my neck, down my chest. I bit my tongue to keep from yelling. I laid my shredded hand on the Delgeth's head. You have to understand. It wasn't Mary's fault. When you ask an animal to override its instincts, it can only try. It's going to fail sometimes. Nobody can ignore the will of their ancestors. That will is how we got here in the first place.
"I swear I'll make it better," I said. "I promise. I swear."
You can't.
"I can. I swear. I fixed me. I can fix you, too."
It was snowing. The world repeated itself in every snowflake, a different shape every time. The only part that stayed the same was the part where we were connected. Every fractal, every ice crystal was connected in inimitable symmetry. Without those connections, the world fell apart.
The snow collected in my wounds, freezing my blood. It built on my glasses until I saw white. The weight of the Delgeth lifted off of me. The snow rustled audibly at my side. A sad, human sigh trilled through the air, buzzing in my ears. I couldn't have moved even if I'd wanted to.
"I wish I could cut open my belly," Mary said next to me. "And all the women I've devoured would come walking out."
I could've done that for her. I could've been the Hunter from Red Riding Hood.
"Maybe we should just destroy the world," Mary said. "Make a new one."
"Why?" I asked, my voice collapsing.
"So we could live in a world where our dad isn't a serial killer."
"We can live in that world right now," I said. I was thinking about Uncle Gabriel.
"Do you think--" Mary's voice cracked.
A ball of pain built in my throat. I swallowed it.
"Do you really think he killed our father?" Mary asked.
"Not a chance in hell," I said.
"Then why would he say--"
"Because if you'd killed Paul," I said, "it would've been the same as killing Uncle Gabe. That's why. He wanted you to understand that."
Mary paused. "It wouldn't have been the same at all."
"It would have," I said. "Uncle Gabe's our family. Paul's someone's family. Everything you and I would feel if Uncle Gabe died, someone else would feel that if Paul died. We're no better or worse than anybody else is."
I said, "You know we aren't. That's why you hate blood law."
There was another silence; then a shaky breath; and then I realized Mary was crying. I knew she would've denied it if I'd asked her. I was glad I couldn't see it. I was glad my pain paralyzed me, so I couldn't hug her, because comforting her was a betrayal. No one was allowed to acknowledge that Mary wasn't invincible.
"I don't want to hurt Uncle Gabriel," Mary said. "I don't want to hurt Rosa. Not ever. I don't know why I did that. I don't know why I couldn't control myself. I don't know what's wrong with me."
I didn't think we could deny it anymore. Whatever Dad had had, we probably had it, too.
"We have to try harder than everyone else," I said. "If we want to be good people. We can do it, Mary, we can. But only if we fight. Every single day we're gonna have to fight the ugly parts of us. And at the end of the day we're gonna go to sleep, and we're gonna wake up, and we're gonna fight all over again. It doesn't end. We're not like other people. Being good comes naturally to them. That's not us."
"You said everyone is born good," Mary reminded me.
"Yeah," I said. "We are. That's how I know we can still go back."
We lay in silence, side by side. I wondered if we were never going to get up. I kind of hoped we wouldn't. Maybe we could catch the falling snowflakes, the falling worlds, and claim one of them for our own. That would have been cowardice. That would have been running away.
"I have to get up," Mary said.
I felt her get up. I felt her take the glasses off my eyes, heard her wiping them clean. She put them on my face again. We were inside our house, the warm sunlight coming in through the windows. The hardwood floor was clean. My arms and legs and chest and stomach were clean. My skin tingled painlessly.
"We have to visit Rosa," I said.
"I can't," Mary said.
"You have to. You have to apologize."
I stood on weak legs. I grabbed Mary's hand. She tried to pull free from my grasp, but I wouldn't let her. I tugged her out the door. The reservation's trees were still nightmarish and black. I looked at them; and I paused.
"I think I'm sick," I said quietly, afraid.
"We both are," Mary said.
We followed the fairy tale forest to the castles. This time we went in one of them. We climbed broken, spiraling staircases to the stony donjon at the top of the tower, the windows covered in medieval tapestries. I didn't like the cold gloom of this place, the shadows cast by the torches on the walls. I wanted so badly to turn it off; but when I blinked, hard, the images remained.
"What are you doing here?" Uncle Gabriel asked.
Uncle Gabriel was standing next to a suit of armor. Rosa was sitting on a tall, crimson mattress, her hand heavily bandaged. She looked dazed.
"Mary's sorry," I muttered.
The castle flickered. For a moment--just a moment--we were in the desert.
"Rosa," I said. "Your hand--"
Rosa looked at me. "It's fine."
I didn't know how she could say that. How she could be so stoic. I hoped she wasn't doing it so I wouldn't be scared. I was going to be scared either way.
"Mary," Uncle Gabriel said. "You're going to see a psychiatrist."
Mary looked at him blearily. "I'm twenty years old."
"Would you rather I call the police on you?"
Police didn't care what happened on Indian reservations. If they'd cared, we wouldn't have had this blood law mess to begin with. But I think Uncle Gabriel was counting on Mary's acquiescence. I think he got it, too. She stared at the wall with exhaustion. She didn't respond.
"Shrinks are for taipo'o," I mumbled.
"And you're better than taipo'o, are you?" Uncle Gabriel asked, his voice like steel. "Because a non-Native invented it, it's beneath you?"
"That's not what I mean," I said bitterly. "It's just that you're thinking it, too. That therapy and Plains People don't mix. It's not our culture. If you weren't thinking it, you would'a put Mary in therapy ages ago."
Uncle Gabriel rubbed his face with his hairy hands. I understood. He was at rope's end. He'd run out of other ideas.
"You, too," Uncle Gabriel said.
"What about me?" I asked.
"You belong in therapy, too."
I bristled. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"I know you didn't," Uncle Gabriel said. "But I should have done this a long time ago. I should have done this when we first caught Eli."
Wasn't it too late, then?
"You'd better go wait in the waiting room," Uncle Gabriel said. "Robert's coming back with painkillers."
I took Mary's hand, and we left the castle donjon. By the time we left the donjon the castle was a hospital again, shiny white floors, caramel walls. We sat in the nearest waiting area, the tall radio on low volume. I felt like the room around us was fake. I even felt like I was fake. Don't you ever get that feeling when you look in the mirror and you don't understand why you're a separate person from everybody else?
Mary put her face in her hands. Mary's shoulders shook while she cried.
"I'll fix us," I said numbly. We were the only two people in the waiting room.
"I hurt her," Mary said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Sky, of all people, was the next person to come into the waiting room. He must've been as surprised to see us as I was to see him; he looked at me with his mouth open. I wanted to ask why he was here, but he told me before I could get the words out. Volunteering, he signed.
"This isn't a go
od time," I told him. "This is a really bad time."
He kept looking at Mary. Can I get her anything? he signed to me.
"Deal's off," Mary said through her hands. "Tell your dad."
"We're okay," I told Sky, when really I was trying to convince myself. "I'll see you later. We're okay."
He walked out of the waiting room in a quiet kind of confusion. Silence settled over Mary and me in a heavy blanket.
"Someone should've killed me," Mary said.
"Stop," I said.
"They missed the mark," Mary said. "Should've killed me along with Dad."
"Stop."
I toyed with the pilot whale bracelet on my right wrist, blobby blue glass tied to the end of a willow string. I faltered. I'd seen that trinket in my dreams before. What was it doing in real life?
"We're never going to get rid of blood law," Mary said. "The next time somebody commits a crime, we're going to kill them. Like we killed Dad. Like Dad killed those women. We're going to create another Mary and Rafael. Another pair of sad little kids whose friends won't talk to them anymore. Another little girl who claws her arms open because she's so lonely. Another little boy who retreats into fantasy books so he can feel like he belongs somewhere."
I remembered how lonely I used to be before I met Sky. I wouldn't have wished that loneliness on anyone. It was a punishment in its own right.
My eyebrows furrowed. "Maybe," I mumbled.
Mary didn't ask what I was talking about. Mary didn't care. She slouched lifelessly in her plasticky visitor's seat. Her eyes were like glass in her head.
"Mary," Rosa said.
She came into the waiting room with dried blood on her shirt. I wanted to throw up.
"I'm sorry!" Mary cried out, powering to life. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry--I didn't mean to--!"
"You are ill," Rosa said. "That's not your fault. It's our fault that we did not realize how ill you were."
"I'm so sorry--"
"Your hand," I said blankly. "Rosa. Is it gonna be okay?"
Rosa's hand hung limp at her side. "Yes," she said.
I stood up. "Where's Uncle Gabriel?"
"The front desk," Rosa said.
I milled out of the waiting room in a stupor. I found my way to the front of the hospital. Uncle Gabriel was leaning over the receptionist's desk, murmuring darkly with Bethany Bright. Beth saw me before he did, her eyes narrowing into shrewd slits. Uncle Gabriel turned around, his face wan.
"I know how we can get rid of blood law," I said.
Beth plugged her ears with her fingers. I guess she took that "Hear No Evil" thing literally. Uncle Gabriel grabbed me by the elbow and we went through the swinging glass doors, outside the hospital, onto the wheelchair ramp.
"This isn't the time," Uncle Gabriel began.
"It has to be," I returned.
He was ready to do the face rubbing thing again. I could tell by the way his knuckles twitched.
"If somebody does something really bad," I began. "Don't kill him. Take him and put him in front of the entire tribe. Tell them what he did. And then let him go home."
Uncle Gabriel hesitated.
"The whole community'll be watching him," I said. "Every time he leaves his house he's gonna have eyes on him. He won't be able to hurt anyone else. He won't be able to leave the rez. But at the same time, nobody will ever want to talk to him again. He's going to be completely alone for the rest of his life. And that's the worst punishment you can ever imagine. It really is, Uncle Gabe. Being alone is worse than dying."
"Rafael," Uncle Gabriel said, pained.
"You've gotta promise," I begged. "Tell me you'll get rid of blood law. Tell me you'll use my idea instead. You've gotta do it for Mary. Look what blood law did to her. It's never too late to change, right? Every society can make itself better than it was. Right?"
Uncle Gabriel sagged tiredly. Uncle Gabriel nodded.
"Is Rosa really okay?' I asked. "Is her hand gonna heal normal?"
"We don't know what nerves were damaged," Uncle Gabriel said honestly. "We have to wait and see."
If she couldn't use her hand anymore--if she couldn't be a nurse anymore--
"That woman," Uncle Gabriel said, like he'd only just met her.
"Loves you," I finished. "A hell of a lot."
He stared at the clouds, lost in thought. I stared at the pilot whale around my wrist. I couldn't remember where I'd gotten it. I thought I was losing my mind.
"I want you to go inside," Uncle Gabriel said. "Get your sister and take her home. Caleb will help you keep an eye on her. Don't let her out of your sight until I'm back."
"You're not really gonna make her go to therapy, are you?"
"The both of you," Uncle Gabriel said.
Defeated, I dragged myself inside the hospital. I found Mary in the waiting room, but not Rosa. She was back to being a zombie, her empty eyes on her lap, her sockets hollow in her gaunt face.
"Mary," I said. "We're going home."
She followed me without protest. It scared me so badly that my feelings shut off; and then nothing scared me at all. We walked through the reservation, through the pine trees, and into our house. Caleb was inside, on the sofa.
"Lie down, kid," Caleb cautioned Mary. He looked so scared. "Any minute now you're gonna pass out."
I helped Mary into her bedroom. She lay down on her bed without taking off her shoes. I didn't yell at her. I sat down on the floor, my back to the wall. I thought that maybe I could fall asleep, too. Maybe I should try.
"Still taking care of me, huh?" Mary spoke to the ceiling.
"Don't know what you mean," I said.
"Yeah," Mary said.
I didn't want to move. I didn't want to think.
"You were the reason I thought we could be better, you know," Mary said to the ceiling. "You were the reason I wanted us to."
"That's lame," I said. "You should want better things for yourself. Not me."
"But I don't," Mary said.
Then I guessed that was the problem.
"You told me something," I said. "When you first came back to the reservation. About how you're used to always being picked last."
I was afraid Mary had fallen asleep on me. She shifted to show me she was listening. I wondered if she was thinking about our mother, who had felt she was a sinner. I wondered if she was thinking about our father, who had used her differences as a weapon.
"I will never pick anyone over you," I said. "Not ever."
"Don't lie," Mary said. "It's not cute."
"Not anyone, Mary. I mean it."
I heard her silence and thought of the days when we were four and six. I remembered hiding under her blankets, waiting for her to find me. I remembered the first time we dreamed together.
"Not anyone?" Mary repeated dumbly.
"Not even Uncle Gabriel," I said. "Not even--"
I didn't want to say it out loud. It wasn't fair to him. But if I had to choose between Sky and Mary, there was no way I was picking Mary last. Even if I wanted to. Even if she asked for the flesh off my bones, and devoured it like candy.
Before I was anybody, I was a little brother.
"I didn't know," Mary said distantly.
Her voice sounded like it used to when we were small. I don't know how to explain what I mean. I guess I mean that she was Just Mary. She liked to pull the heads off her plastic dolls and dress me up in dresses. Secretly I didn't mind. She'd never had a bad thought about anyone. Nobody that little thinks bad thoughts.
That's how you fix somebody. That's step one.
9
What it Means to be Native American
Hi I am Rafael Gives Light from the Nettlebush Indian Reservation in Arizona. I am three quarters Shoshone (Tukudeka band) and one quarter Mandan (Three Affiliated Tribes). That means I am 100% Plains Indian. My ceremonial name is Kahni Tuichi which means Lively Boy. My clan is Makan Imaa. I belong to Hunters' Society and Grass Dance Society but have not danced in a long time.
"Nat
ive American" is a weird name because we are not Native to America. We existed before America. Also America is an illegal country (I will explain in a moment). My uncle told me there are corn fossils that say we have been here for eighty thousand years and there are tool fossils in the Calico Hills that some people think are two hundred thousand years old. That's really old. I mean that would mean we were here when everyone else was still in Africa. We don't really call ourselves Native American when we are around other Native Americans. Mostly we just say Shoshone, which means Grass or Valley People, or if we're talking about all of the Plains tribes we say Plains People. I don't like the name Native American all that much but I don't like the name Indian either. This isn't India. This is Turtle Island (Ainna Pankoi). Creator gave it to us the way Creator gave Europe to the Europeans and Asia to the Asians. Now there are Europeans and Asians and all other kinds of people here, but sharing isn't so bad, but you have to be nice about it. What I mean by the United States of America being illegal is that the United States signed five hundred treaties with our tribes, but broke all five hundred of them. Basically the treaties divided up the land evenly between taipo'o and Natives, but then the taipo'o ignored their own treaties and moved onto the land that was supposed to belong to us, which is how you have the fifty states today. That makes the United States illegal. I'm sorry but if you're going to make the rules you have to play by them.
Anyway being Native American means a bunch of stuff. It means you probably know how to butcher and you can dance at least one really ancient type of dance, which I guess is sort of weird but whatever. It means you have to eat frybread (don't call it bannock only dumbasses call it bannock) and also you have definitely said these words at some point in your life: "Not even," "Hoka," "No ha," "They don't make 'em like Quanah Parker anymore." Also, it means when you go to a family reunion you will have fifty people saying they are your cousins except none of them are related to you. I wish they would stop doing that because that shit is annoying as shit. I mean crap, sorry sir.
When you say "Native American" to a taipo'o (non-Native) I think they think you have long hair and you wear buckskin. I have long hair but I wear jeans. Some of us have short hair. Mostly we are just like everyone else. I like power metal and fantasy books and my dad taught me how to draw. My dad was a bad person, which just goes to show you that people are people no matter where they come from. Anyway in some ways Native Americans are different from taipo'o. Most reservations don't have running water or cooling/heating systems. A lot don't have electric. I don't like electric. I think it depends on what you are raised with. Also people will say we're poor but that's a matter of perspective. I mean yeah I don't have money but why do I need money? I hunt my own food and my uncle's girlfriend makes my clothes.