by Daniel Hecht
"Don't talk that way about her," Peter snapped.
McCarty threw himself at Peter. He was heavier, but Peter was younger and quicker and his first punch flattened the old man's nose. McCarty reared away, roared, charged again, and they reeled back against the wall, raging and pounding each other. McCarty's nose sprayed blood. Peter felt the power of his own anger, hate brewed from all the things Julieta had told him about the man. He hammered the red face with his forearm and knocked the old man reeling. McCarty staggered into the middle of the room and charged again like a wounded bull. They fell against a coatrack and went to the floor, rolling, tangling in it. Things were breaking, falling from the walls. Peter rolled on top of McCarty and punched the raging face.
Then something hard hit the side of his head, knocking him sprawling on the tiles. Stephanovic aimed another steel-toed kick at him and he barely got his arms up in time to protect his face.
Peter had just gotten to his hands and knees when the big man kicked him in the center of his chest. The force of it lifted him off the floor. He fell on his side and struggled to get his breath. Couldn't inhale. Couldn't move.
Still the rage and ardor burned in him. He wouldn't lose. He wouldn't give up. He would find Julieta.
Stephanovic was standing across the room, giving him a stay cool half smile and watching him as he got to his feet. Then McCarty appeared in the living-room doorway holding a kitchen towel against his nose with one hand and a big silver pistol in the other. Stephanovic's eyes went wide and he moved toward his boss, saying, "Whoa, hey, Garrett—" but the gun exploded, sound and flash and impact all at once. Peter felt his insides blow apart. Then another huge noise and another detonation in his gut.
Peter curled around the pain. He felt as if he'd leapt off a cliff and plunged deep underwater. The air was thick and resistant, and the sound of the men's voices was a big rounded booming, slow. One rumbled, No Navajo punk . . . screw my wife . . . talk to me like that. The other said, Didn't have to do that . . . mess to deal with . . . trouble.
Another man appeared at the inner door. Peter's eyes focused enough to recognize him: Donny McCarty, the old man's son, a pale clerkish nerd who Julieta had always felt sorry for. He swore at his father and boomed, Never think first . . . could have used it against her . . . cost yourself millions! Then both McCartys were giving orders. Stephanovic complained but gave in. Donny was already picking up the broken things.
Peter hated them with all his might. He couldn't make sense of anything. He pulled himself down to a secret cave under the water and wrapped himself into a ball. Inside, he found a place of resolve and fire and he knew it could not fail him, it was so strong he knew he could survive anything, find Julieta again.
A kind of empty space and then he noticed he wasn't in the bright lights of the house but outside, under the sky. It was dark and stars. The sharp wild lights gave him strength, too. Stephanovic and Donny McCarty had put him in the open back of Julieta's little workhorse Jeep. The Jeep started and then they were bumping. The metal bed pounded up at him and the pain came in bolts and blasts. Stephanovic was going to kill him, Peter knew, but he was going to surprise him because he had strength inside that no old white businessmen could imagine. He was smart and durable as a coyote. He was strong and young and had fire in him. He had love. Love would win. He'd wait until Stephanovic stopped and he'd kill him and then he'd kill both McCartys and he'd go to Julieta.
The jarring and bumping quit and the night was quiet. Stephanovic was opening the tailgate and lifting Peter out. It hurt. Peter stayed curled around his secret strength, husbanding it. He was barely breathing. He would explode suddenly from his stillness. His love would give him power.
Stephanovic was carrying him between walls of rock, and Peter recognized the ravine that came down near the north end of the mesa. The big man labored on the slope, working his way deeper in and higher up, stumbling and swearing. He dumped Peter onto the ground and then lit a flashlight. Peter opened his eyes into the impossible light, couldn't see Stephanovic but knew he was looking down at him.
"Aw shit!" the voice behind the light said. "We thought you were dead. Son of a bitch!"
Peter willed his body to move. But he couldn't lash out and he couldn't stand up. All the effort did was bend and straighten him. He was aware that he was writhing on the ground as the big man stood over him. Back and forth, trying to straighten his body, then feeling the unbearable pain and curling back around it.
Stephanovic was grunting and swearing. He didn't want to do this, Peter could tell. Which meant he could be persuaded. Peter tried to find the thing that would convince him to disobey and to help him. He had to find the thing that mattered most in the world. That was Julieta. But he didn't want to say her name. Didn't want to use her to save himself. But she was pregnant, she needed Peter to be father to the baby. He had to be father to the baby. Any man would understand that.
Peter tried to tell him. "Baby," he said. "Baby." Regret tainted the pure clarity of his determination. He hadn't just been stupid, he had been cruel.
He heard Stephanovic's breathless swearing coming closer and thought he'd reached the man, but then a big rock landed next to him, bruising his shoulder.
No, Peter screamed inside. "Baby!" he said out loud. Stephanovic's face was just a white blob in the darkness above him, but he tried to catch his eye, convey his passion. Still the big man didn't understand, so Peter made a gigantic effort: "Don't kill me! I have to take care of her! I have to be with my kid." But his meaning was changing, what mattered most was still deeper. What he really meant was, Let me live so I can do it right, fix the mistakes. Don't kill me with that undone. Don't kill a man who hasn't undone his cruelties.
Another rock fell, this one landing directly on his legs. "I don't understand Navajo," Stephanovic said. Then he was gone again. His swearing got distant and then came back.
The effort to shout had tired Peter. He needed to rest, gather his energy. He found the secret place of strength again and held himself curled there. He'd outwait Stephanovic. If he had to, he could wait forever. He'd curl up and hold himself still and come exploding back. He'd be with Julieta and the kid and set all the mistakes right.
An empty time later, he opened his eyes to find he was covered with rocks. But not entirely. He could see up into the sky in the gaps between them. The rocks were all over him, but they mostly supported each other's weight and weren't that heavy. There was no sound. Stephanovic had gone, left him for dead.
But he wasn't! He was alive, and he could move. One arm was pinned beneath him, but he was able to fight the other arm free. The rocks shifted slightly, allowing him to bring his hand up. He pushed at the big rock that lay just above his chest. It lifted, pivoted, dropped back down. He did it again. He could lift it, but then it just pivoted back and his arm gave way. Again. Again. The rock made a gritting noise as it lifted and a hard, final noise when it fell back. So now he'd rest again. Stephanovic hadn't killed him and hadn't even buried him deeply. He'd get out. He'd find his cousins over near Hunters Point and they'd take him to a doctor and then he'd go to Julieta.
Garrett McCarty would never stop him. Nothing could stop him.
Something was happening up in the sky. No, near the sky. Bright light washed over the lip of the ravine sixty feet directly above him. Red boulders and slabs, the crumbling undercut edge, sharply lit against the black sky. The shadows shifted. He heard motor noise. A Jeep up there. Stephanovic had driven around to the south end of the mesa, where the slope was not so steep. The lights eclipsed and shafted bright and the motor labored. Grinding, grating noises. Then all the rocks were moving, the whole section of cliff was falling, gathering other rocks and hurtling down.
49
JULIETA RODE the Keedays' horse as hard as the animal could stand. It was a tall, bony paint gelding, already getting shaggy for winter, out of shape from too much time in the grandparents' corral. She pushed him until he wheezed. The air was a harsh, crisp cold. A hundred feet
ahead in the predawn light, Joseph sat behind Tommy's cousin on the ATV. The taillights, so bright when they'd started out, were already dimming as the landscape drew light from the sky.
She hadn't heard from Cree again, but as she'd lain there in Joseph's bed the worry had intruded on the oasis of serenity they'd made together and increasingly she'd sensed it was urgent to get to Tommy. They had left Window Rock at two in the morning and driven the empty roads and wandering wheel tracks for over two hours. They'd awakened Tommy's grandparents and cousin, saddled this horse, and set out.
Once they'd climbed out of the strange canyonlike maze and reached the higher plateau, the going was easier. The horse could sustain a lope for a couple of minutes on end. The ATV bobbed and swerved as the eastern sky turned a bland gray-blue above the dark land.
At last Eric stopped the ATV and let Joseph off, pointing ahead toward a low, dark hogan. Julieta cantered past them, pulled up at the open door, leapt off. The gelding huffed as she dropped the reins and looked through the doorway. A single dull rectangle of window light. Nobody inside.
"Mrs. McCarty?"
She whirled at the voice. A middle-aged Navajo woman stood thirty feet away, looking haggard, blowing puffs of steam into the freezing air. Tommy's aunt, Ellen.
"They're over here. He only got a little way last time. It's good you came. He's starting again. Cree says if he does it again, he'll die."
Julieta's heart clenched at the words. She followed Ellen into an area of rocks and sagebrush, and then spotted the other people: two men, standing some distance apart from two blanket-wrapped forms on the ground. Cree and Tommy.
She hurried to them. Tommy lay twisted among blankets and sheepskins on the bare ground, motionless but not quite asleep. His eyes were open to staring slits in a face that was almost skeletal and greenish in the predawn light. Julieta was seized with worry for him, and with it came that sense of knowing, of resonance, of recognition that she swore she'd forbid herself but that came anyway. She knew him. It had to be her child's ghost in Tommy.
"Hey," Cree said amiably. "Good timing."
Julieta was horrified by Cree's appearance. Sitting at Tommy's side, she looked battered and drained. Even with the heavy blanket around her, Julieta could see the hard cant of her head, the tilt of her shoulders. Some of the grotesque half twist of the ghost had come into her.
"Are you all right?" she stammered.
"Fine," Cree panted. "Listen. Not much time. This is going to be hard, Julieta. Hardest thing you ever did. I can't tell you how. Tommy's just about gone. I've only lived through the dying twice. And it's just about done me in. But Tommy's done it dozens of times. And there's the breathing thing. He can't survive another time. You have to let the ghost go. One shot at it. Has to be just right."
Joseph finally joined them. He came to Julieta's side and put his arm around her waist and she put both her hands over his, pressing him against her.
"Hey, Dr. Tsosie," Cree rasped.
"Dr. Black." Joseph bobbed his head. He kept himself outwardly calm, but Julieta knew that his physician's eyes saw the crisis here for what it was.
"Is . . . is it—?" Julieta began.
Tommy moaned and stirred. Behind his slitted eyelids, his eyes were moving wildly. Julieta felt a reprise of that numbing indecision that meant the ghost was awakening.
"You have to go with it," Cree croaked faintly. "With the ghost. It's reliving a memory. Like a recurring dream? There's a place where you can intercept. When he knocks at the door. Don't do it sooner, worlds won't mesh. Don't do it later or it'll be too late."
Julieta wasn't sure whether Cree was speaking allegorically. Knocks at the door—to the real world? To consciousness? To your heart? Cree's vocabulary mixed poetry and psychology and philosophy, you couldn't always tell.
"What would you like me to do?" Joseph asked.
Cree looked up at him. She started to speak, then seemed to catch something in his face that needed further inspection. After a few more seconds, she almost seemed to smile. "Just keep back a little. With the others."
Joseph nodded, stepped back to join Tommy's family. Tommy's legs began moving in weak, rhythmic thrusts. He was walking while lying down.
Cree had closed her eyes. "Listen, Julieta. At first you won't know what's going on. It'll seem like random thoughts. Like you're making it up. Like a daydream. Just let it happen."
Julieta felt the ghost burgeoning. With its hypnotic aura came that irrational sense of knowing again. Panicking, she asked Cree, "What are you going to do?"
"I'll just go with him. Help you find the . . . story. But I'm totally screwed up, Julieta. I'm Tommy, I'm you, I'm me, I'm Peter. I can't—"
"Peter?"
"Tommy's his son." Cree's neck twisted and it seemed to hurt her. "Your best," she choked out. "The person you'd rather be. Got to stack it up right. Like you said."
Julieta wanted to grab her shoulders and shake answers out of her. But Cree's eyes were rolling behind her closed lids. Tommy was moving in his awful parody of walking. Not knowing what else to do, Julieta knelt next to him. She put her hand on his side, felt the trembling effort of his muscles. She shut her eyes.
At first she thought there was nothing she could find. Images popped into her head, but she didn't trust them: fantasy, memory, random subconscious collage, wishful thinking? The effort made her almost sleepy. But some things persisted. She still felt the sense of familiarity, and she let that guide her.
The side of a hill and a horizon. She recognized the land with a shock. Over near Peter's place, the hills along Black Creek. He was walking toward her house. It was chilly out, and the dry hills told her it was autumn. It would have been that fall, when everything fell apart. Yes, it was. He had just come from San Diego. His thoughts embarrassed her. Joseph would hear them. Peter was tired and sore and yet he sparkled and spangled with bright feelings. That energy: She knew that energy, the presence that was Peter. Oh, God, it was gorgeous, it was a magnet. Everything was right there, the memory of his hair on the wind as they rode, the corded lean muscle in his thighs against hers. His bronze smooth skin and the brash confidence and innocence in his eyes. Peter was a spark, a wild joyous song. He carried desire like a tightly wound spring in his belly and loins and it commanded her and she commanded it and it gave her great pleasure to know it belonged to her.
Except that it didn't. There was a girl in San Diego. He was coming back but he'd left her and then he must have left the other woman, too, and all he was really doing was following the path of least resistance. He felt and did everything with such certainty, but it was so shallow. So transient.
Julieta wanted to lash out at him. Scream at him. Blithely striding across the rolling swells toward the mesa, so certain he'd be forgiven! But Cree had said wait. Said do your best. No, be your best. But what was best?
There was her house, windows glowing in the twilight. Peter was hurrying. He was racing across the ground like a wind-lashed wildfire, heat and light and hunger. Irresistible. The land, the house just the way it was back then, it was all real again.
Peter knocked at the door.
Julieta was dimly aware that Cree had moaned and that Tommy was standing in front of her.
She answered the door with no idea how to respond. She was so hurt inside. She was so angry at him. Yet she felt him so strongly. He was there, he was alive, he had come back, he was afire with longing and contrition. He was a force that bent her.
A ghost's dream, she tried to remind herself. A woman's memories.
It didn't help. She was only partly aware that Tommy's body stood before her in the growing light. All she really saw was Peter. The sight of him struck her breathless.
"Birdman," she said softly.
"Julieta!"
He was glorious in his relief and passion. His eyes pleaded with her but he didn't speak again, just stood there, letting his body say everything. His jeans were ripped, his shirt dirty. He was breathing hard. Confused images roiled in h
is mind: fighting, pain, turmoil. They rumbled and faded away like thunder.
She stepped out to him, cupped his face in her hands. He touched her hands as if to verify they were real, then slid his own hands to her face.
"I came back," he said.
"So I see."
"I was thinking about you the whole time."
"Yes. Me, too," she said. Sadness filled her at the thought.
He hesitated. "I was afraid you'd be too mad at me. But I love you. You have to know that. I always loved you. The whole time."
"I'm not mad anymore. I know you loved me."
"The baby—?"
Another pang of sadness, almost enough to bring her out of the ghost's fragile dream. "The baby is fine. You have a beautiful son."
That confused him even as it eased him. "I was worried. I was afraid—"
"Shhh," she soothed him. "Don't be afraid."
"And I was worried about you."
You hurt me so bad, Birdman, she thought. So damn bad. But that was long past, and what she said was, "I'm fine. Everything is okay now. It's all worked out as it should have."
That made him feel much better. He was enormously relieved. A knot released inside him as if the very stuff he was made of unkinked, calmed and smoothed. He was suffused with love for her. His hands moved down her cheeks to her shoulders and down her sides to her waist. They stood together on the edge of the porch that way for a long moment, and then he grinned tentatively.
"I had an unfortunate encounter on the interstate. Now I know what it means to be rolled. I didn't want to look like this when you saw me again."
"You're even more handsome than I remembered. Much, much more."
His grin gained confidence. "So . . . you going to invite me in, or what? Freezing out here. Prodigal Indian comes back, yeah? We should celebrate."
Julieta had dimly wondered what would happen at the moment, but when it came there was no hesitation at all. "No, Peter. Things changed while you were . . . gone."