Gray Magic

by Sarah Dreher

  "She married you because she loves you. You don't have to be grateful for that."

  He twisted his hands around his coffee mug. "She wanted a daughter, and all I gave her was boys."

  "For God's sake, Ted, that wasn't anybody's fault."

  His chest and shoulders shook with little jerking spasms. "She works so damn hard at that lodge, and I can't even give her woman-talk. Jesus, I wish I wasn't a man."

  "All right," Stoner said firmly. "Now you've passed best. Get a grip on yourself."

  He straightened his back and fumbled for a handkerchief.

  "Stell loves you the way you are. I don't know why since your mind works in mysterious ways, but she does."

  He gave her a weak, watery smile. "That sounds like something she'd say."

  "I need your help with this, Ted."

  "Let me have a minute," he said. He went to the sink, splashed water on his face, took a few deep breaths. "Damn. I haven't been right since we went on that marriage encounter weekend."

  Stoner couldn't help laughing.

  "You and Gwen ever get in trouble, stay away from them things." He shook the water from his hair. "Jesus."

  She glanced toward the bedroom, where Tom Drooley had grown sufficiently curious to stick his nose out from under the bed. "Ted, do you have any idea what's wrong with her? Did anything happen while we were away?"

  "She was fine this morning. After you gals left, I went out back and did some work for a while. When I came in for lunch she was lying on the bed. She said she was just tired. It wasn't like her, but I didn't think much of it, what with the heat and all. Then when Rose and Tomas came by about their grandma, she said she was all right."

  “Well, she'd do that."

  "I figured maybe she'd got bit by a spider or something, but she claimed not."

  "She might not have noticed," Stoner suggested.

  "I thought of that. Checked her over, didn't find anything. Besides, the poisonous insects we got out here, one bites you, you sure as hell know about it." He blew his nose. "Shit, Stoner, men are constructed all wrong for this kind of thing. Don't know what to do about trouble we can't punch in the face."

  "You're doing all right." Something occurred to her. She hesitated to ask it, but… "Rose Lomahongva mentioned Ya Ya sickness. Do you know anything about it?"

  He shook his head. "No more than you do. Think there's anything to it?"

  "I don't know..." She heard Stell stir, and went to stand in the bedroom doorway.

  "Little Bear?"

  "Right here."

  "Don't believe that marriage encounter story," Stell said, barely audible. "He's always been foolish."

  She went over to touch her face. "How are you feeling, Stell?"

  "Like sand blowing away in the wind. Think I'm in trouble, Little Bear."

  That made up her mind. She went back to the kitchen. “We're getting her out of here."

  "She's too weak to move."

  “Well, she's not getting any better. She won't get any better."

  "Moving her might—"

  "Damn it, Ted," she said angrily. "This doesn't make sense. That woman needs help, and she needs it now. And all we've done is stand around and feel pitiful. If you won't do anything, I will."

  She grabbed Stell's jacket and the truck keys from the coat hook by the back door, and slammed out.

  Gwen was running down the path. "I heard shouting. Did something happen...?"

  "Ted's frozen. Stell's fading. I'm taking her to Holbrook, and if he wants to stop me he can get a court order."

  "Right," Gwen said, and shoved open the kitchen door.

  By the time she had started the truck, emptied the front seat of trash and litter, and backed out of the barn, Ted stood on the porch with Stell in his arms. He opened the truck door and slid her inside. "You stay here," he said abruptly. "Gwen's calling the hospital so they'll be ready for us. I'll phone you as soon as I know anything."

  Tom Drooley bounded into the truck bed. Stoner dragged him out and leaned in the window. “Stell..."

  "She's unconscious," Ted said as he rammed the truck into gear.

  The rattle of the receding motor was swallowed up in the night.

  She sat at the table, afraid to look across the room to where Stell's rumpled bed lay just beyond the door.

  Not Stell. Please, God, not Stell.

  "They're waiting for her," Gwen said as she hung up the phone in the sitting room. "God only knows what they call medical care out here, but I'll bet it's better than the assembly lines we have back home."

  She cleared Ted's cup from the table and straddled a chair. "Hey." She tugged lightly at Stoner's sleeve. "It's going to be all right."

  "Is it?"

  "I know it. Pisces are never wrong about things like this."

  Stoner forced as smile. "Sure."

  "I mean it. Nobody just ups and dies, here one minute, gone the next."

  "Ted thought it might be an insect bite, but she'd be dead by now, wouldn't she?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Go on back to bed if you want," Stoner said, her eyes drifting to the bedroom door. "It'll be a while before we hear anything."

  "I guess I'll stay up." Gwen looked around the room. "Too bad Stell's such a good housekeeper. If we were home, I'd pass the time waxing the floor and cleaning the oven."

  A chilly draft reminded her that they hadn't bothered to light the fire. She got up, crumpled the morning newspaper, and tossed on a few sticks of kindling. Matches. She spotted them on the bedroom bureau.

  She hesitated.

  "I'll get them," Gwen said.

  Stoner shook her head and forced herself to go into the bedroom. It smelled of camphor and pine, and very faintly of yeast. Stell's flannel shirt was tossed over the back of a chair. She touched it, stroked it, picked it up and buried her face in it.

  She felt sick, and frightened down to her bones.

  Gwen took the shirt from her and held it out. "Put it on," she said.

  She slipped into the sleeves and buttoned it. It made Stell seem closer. "Gwen, I'm sorry about this ... "

  "Oh, for God's sake," Gwen said. She took Stoner's hands. "I'm with you for better or worse, my love. And if that means sitting through the night with you until we find out what ails that crazy lady, well… I'm pretty fond of her myself. And I know, as surely as I've ever known anything, she's going to be all right."

  She thought of Ted, driving through the lonely night, with nothing to keep him company but fear.

  * * *

  The sun was corning up. It touched the clouds with pink and turned them to cotton candy. Birds sang their songs to Talavai. Desert mice licked the last of the dew from low-growing grasses and scurried away to their cool tunnels.

  Stoner opened her eyes.

  The fire had nearly gone out. Her joints were stiff from the cold. She pushed herself out of the armchair and untangled the blanket from around her legs.

  Gwen was talking on the phone.

  Suddenly she remembered what had happened. Her stomach tied itself in knots.

  Gwen glanced at her, nodded, and flashed a 'thumbs up'.

  She couldn't help grinning.

  "She's going to be fine," Gwen said when she hung up. "She started to pick up the minute they crossed the reservation line. She has to stay in the hospital a couple of days, but we can visit this afternoon. Ted'll bring the truck back and look after things here."

  "She's really all right?"

  "Just fine." Gwen rubbed the back of her neck. "Lord, I feel gritty. Think I'll have a shower and a nap. We don't have to open the trading post until eight." She put her arms around Stoner's waist. "You look pretty ragged, too. Why don't you join me?"

  "In a minute. I want to change Stell's bed and pick up a little in there. Ted's had a hard enough time."

  She waited until she heard water running in the shower, and went into the bedroom. She took off Stell's shirt and sat on the edge of the bed.

  Tom Drooley crawled out
and looked at her. His ears lay flat along his head. His forehead was smooth with dog-worry. The veins in his face stood out. He looked totally exhausted.

  Stoner knelt and put her arms around his neck. "She's going to be all right, boy. In a few days she'll come home and yell at us all for making such a fuss. And everything will be just the way it was."

  Tom Drooley rested his head on her shoulder and heaved a deep, moaning sigh.

  She let herself cry.

  SIX

  News travels fast in isolated places. By ten o'clock they had had a visit from Larch Begay, who had seen the truck lights go by in the night, and stopped up to find out what was wrong and what he could do to help out. The gesture should have made her feel more kindly toward him, but it didn't. And she couldn't get past the feeling—through the kopavi, Siyamtiwa would say—that he actually took some pleasure in their trouble.

  Jimmy Goodnight called from Beale, in a state bordering on panic. He'd heard about it from Larch Begay. Stoner reassured him that Stell would live.

  Someone named Martha Hunnicutt, who happened to be in the Rexall picking up her month's supply of insulin when Begay called, phoned and offered to run over to Holbrook with magazines.

  One of the local lawyers phoned saying he'd heard Mrs. Perkins had come down with food poisoning after eating in a restaurant in Winslow. He offered his services.

  The Ministers of both the Mormon and Episcopal Churches called with their sympathy and concern, even though Mrs. Perkins wasn't a member of their flock, but she'd certainly be welcome if she cared to drop in.

  Tomas Lomahongva came by, hung around for a while without saying anything, split two bushels of kindling, and left before anybody could thank him.

  A tourist couple—woman in skin tight pink polyester pants and black patent leather high heels, man in Bermuda shorts and sandals—stood uncertainly on the porch until Gwen assured them, yes, the rumor they'd heard at the IGA in Beale was true, Mrs. Perkins was a little under the weather, but everything was fine now and the trading post was officially open for business.

  The Social Service Department at the Navajo County Memorial Hospital in Holbrook called to see if they could find Stell's Blue Cross number.

  Ted showed up, bearing steaks and wine, and fell asleep across the bed without bothering to undress.

  A cluster of elderly Navajo women came and sat on the porch to gossip and await further developments.

  The Pepsi distributor arrived to restock the soda machine. He decided to spend his lunch break sitting on the window sill and trying to flirt with Gwen.

  A Yuppie family, with their children Melissa and Jason, couldn't believe there was no place in the area to pick up the New York Times and a croissant. Gwen suggested Begay's.

  "If we could keep up this pace for one week at Kesselbaum and McTavish," Stoner said to Gwen, "we could retire from the travel agency."

  Gwen who was trying to explain to Jason that, no, she wasn't an Indian—and, no, he could not take a picture of the ladies out front without asking them—didn't answer.

  Melissa told Stoner to "put your eyeballs on your nose, put your nose on your back," and fell to the ground laughing hysterically.

  Stoner hoped Armageddon would arrive before Melissa grew up to be President.

  Jason announced that he was going to hold his breath until they let him take pictures of the ladies out front. Gwen told him he could hold his breath until he burst, it didn't matter to her, as he was certainly not the center of her universe.

  Jason expressed his outraged Yuppiedom by shrieking at the top of his lungs.

  Stoner told him to shut up or she'd cut out his tongue, and went to the kitchen to make lunch before she did something she could get arrested for.

  As she was trying to decide between BLT's, and ham and swiss on rye, she happened to glance toward the back door and saw Siyamtiwa standing patiently in the yard holding the thermos.

  She opened the screen door. "This is a surprise."

  "Not to me," Siyamtiwa said.

  ''Would you like to come in?"

  The old woman shook her head. "I came to see how it goes with the pahana."

  "This place," Stoner said, "reminds me of my home town, the way the rumors fly."

  "I don't know rumors. My news comes from my friend Kwahu."

  ''Who's Kwahu ?"

  The old woman smiled. "Nobody you know. Is it not true? Your friend isn't sick?"

  "It's true, but she's better now."

  Siyamtiwa smiled in a puzzled way. "So soon? I heard she was very sick."

  Stoner sat on the edge of the porch. "She was. Very sick. I thought she was going to die. But Ted took her to the hospital and she's all right."

  "Pretty good," Siyamtiwa said. "Must not be a Bureau of Indian Affairs hospital." She spread her blanket on the ground and sat down.

  "It's a funny thing," Stoner said. "Ted says she started to get better as soon as they left the reservation."

  The old woman looked up sharply. "Tell me this again."

  "Ted, her husband, drove her to Holbrook last night. Says she felt better the minute they crossed the reservation boundary."

  Siyamtiwa sucked air. "Listen to me, Green-eyes," she said harshly. ''When you see your friend, you must tell her to stay away until this thing is settled."

  ''Why? What thing?"

  The old woman stood up. "I have to think on this. You do as I say."

  "I'll try, but..."

  "Make this promise," Siyamtiwa snapped. "Make this promise in the name of whatever Spirits you pray to. She must stay away."

  "I can't just tell her not to come home without..."

  Siyamtiwa stamped her foot. "Make her stay away. "

  "But..."

  "I will not argue with you, Green-eyes. If your friend comes back here now, she will die."

  “I..."

  "This is not a game, pahana." The Indian woman was very angry. "This is the life of your friend. If she stays away, she will live. If she comes here, she will die. It is up to you."

  "Okay," Stoner said placatingly. "I'll do what I can."

  "Not 'do what I can'. You will set your heart to this. You will do it. If you don't, you will never see her again. And you will never see me again. And maybe nobody will ever see you again." She turned abruptly and began to walk away.

  Stoner followed her. "I said I'd try. I can't do more than that."

  "The Anglo says he'll do something, and maybe he does it. If he

  promises to 'try', it doesn't get done, you bet."

  "I'm not like them," Stoner said impatiently.

  "So you say." She turned away again.

  Stoner ran after her, touching her arm. ''Wait a minute..."

  ''What is happening here… I have been waiting for more years than you can count. I have no more minutes to wait. If you don't convince your friend to stay away, we will have plenty of time for talking. At her Burying Ceremony. Now I have other things to do."

  "Damn it!” Stoner shouted. She pounded her fist against her leg in frustration. "You're a stubborn Indian."

  "And you're a stupid White. I will have answers for you when I have answers, not before."

  Gwen appeared on the porch. ''What's going on out here, a race riot?"

  "This woman of yours," Siyamtiwa snapped, jutting her chin toward Stoner and addressing Gwen, "has the character of a mule."

  "I know," Gwen said. "She's a Capricorn."

  "And you," Stoner fumed at Siyamtiwa, "think just because you're a hundred and fifty years old ... "

  Siyamtiwa laughed. "A hundred and fifty years! I don't even remember a hundred and fifty years. At a hundred and fifty years, I was young like you, but not so foolish."

  "Children, children," Gwen said. "Suppose you tell me what this is all about."

  "She..." Stoner gestured in the old woman's direction. " ... doesn't want Stell to come back here, but she won't tell why."

  Siyamtiwa folded her arms across her chest. "If you were of the People,
you wouldn't need all this explaining."

  ''Well, I'm not of the People."

  "You Whites have no respect for your elders. That is what is wrong with you."

  "Thank you very much," Stoner said sarcastically. Tm glad there's such a simple solution to our problems."

  Gwen gripped her shoulder hard. “Stop that this minute and apologize."

  ''Why should I apologize? All I want is a simple explanation."

  "Because we're guests on these people's land," Gwen said. “Apologize."

  She realized Gwen was right. The anger drained out of her. "I'm sorry." She held out her hands to Siyamtiwa. "Please, Grandmother. I'm really sorry."

  The old woman turned a hard face away from her. "You should be more like your woman. She has good manners."

  "She was brought up better than I was."

  Siyamtiwa contemplated the horizon.

  "Grandmother, I know I was rude. But I've had a terrible twenty-four hours. My friend nearly died, I was so worried, I've hardly slept. Look, I promise. I won't let Stell come back until you say so. I don't know how the hell I'm going to manage it..."

  "A mule like you," Siyamtiwa said. "How could you not manage?"

  "You haven't met Stell."

  The old woman grunted. "Fine pair."

  "I'll keep her away," Stoner said. "I don't break promises, do I, Gwen?"

  "Never," Gwen said.

  Siyamtiwa looked a Gwen. "I believe you tell the truth. Does Green-eyes tell the truth?"

  “Always," Gwen said. "It's gotten her in no end of trouble."

  "I can't believe it," Stoner said. "You think I'm a liar. "

  "I think you're White."

  "Gwen's White. How come you trust her?"

  "She has respect."

  "She has diplomacy."

  ''Well,'' Siyamtiwa said, "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, eh?" She looked hard at Stoner. "You're fond of this Stell?"

  "Very."

  The old woman turned to Gwen. "You don't mind this?"

  "Of course not," Gwen said. "I'm her lover. I..." She caught herself.

  Siyamtiwa nodded. "Lover. Okay."

  "You know about things like that, don't you?" Stoner asked.