Outside I expect to hear Maverick’s teasing tender voice, but all there is, is silence drifting across the new fallen snow. I turn Yas out into the corral. He startles and then nuzzles his way through the depths of the drift that cover the leftovers of yesterday’s hay flake. I don’t waste much time tacking him up. He questions me some but lets go.
The road is barely conspicuous, a flat terrace weaving in and among the frosty rolling hills. We plough through the drifts, blown and shaped by the night’s storm, following an almost instinctual road to Cassie’s.
“What brings you over so early this morning, Ahzi?” Grandma A says, drawing me into the kitchen on the aroma of their morning cups of coffee.
I’m not sure what to say. Do I tell her I doubt her and am driven to find out the truth about Maverick?
So then I say, “Errands for Sicheii.” That’s general enough—nothing to raise any red flags.
“Hm,” she says. She leaves it alone, willing not to pry for now.
“I need Cassie,” I say. “Is she up?”
“Not yet, but if anyone can wake her, it would be you.”
“Cass?” I knock softly at her door and then wonder why I bother. I open it, and she’s sound asleep. “Cass?” I say, giving her butterfly kisses on the nose. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
“Hunh? What?” she says.
“Get up sleepy head. It’s warrior princess time.”
She smiles with her eyes still closed. “Why?”
“Just get up. I’ll explain later.”
I heap a bra, some undies, her good ol’ jeans, and thermal top on her bed.
“Come on. It’s time we find out the truth.”
“About what?” she says, sitting up, yawning.
“Maverick,” I say. “I think there’s something at his house that will tell us the truth.”
Cass starts moving now.
“The snow is deep, so you’ll need your snow boots.”
Cassie has Cinnamon all tacked up and ready to go, but Cinnamon needs more convincing in this snow. Even though she was born up the road a piece, she can’t release the heat and sand of the Persian desert that’s part of her DNA. There’s no telling what’s underneath the drifts, and any one of us could misread the snow-packed road and trail. Cassie sits tall in her saddle. She is confident in her guidance of Cinnamon, and that puts her at ease. At least that’s one of us. We backtrack along the path that Yas and I broke in Cassie’s driveway and head back toward my house. But instead of turning up my driveway, we break new ground along the road and search for the narrow trail to Maverick’s.
“There,” Cassie spots the entrance to the canyon. The only trail markers for us at this point are the absence of shrubs making a fairly direct line. Once in the canyon, I scan the rim for bobcat and mountain lion, unable to shake the memory of Cinnamon’s panic from my mind. But there’s no need to worry. The snow’s penetrating silence is formidable against approach. Cassie and I thread our way through the eye of the canyon and pop out of the last gauge into the expanse of Maverick’s yard, made clean under the fresh-fallen snow.
I dismount and leave Yas to wander some. He lifts his head and sniffs.
“Ready, Cass?” I say, breaking the silence. She slides down off Cinnamon, letting her join Yas.
I’m glad Cassie’s with me, because somehow I didn’t think this through.
“Do you think she’s still there?” Cassie says, reading my thoughts.
“If she is, she’s probably passed out somewhere.”
“Why are we here?” Cass says. “I mean what are you hoping to find.”
“I don’t know,” I say, feeling suddenly stupid. “I just want to believe in him the way Grandma Alice does.
“She believes in everyone,” Cassie says. “Except squirrels.”
“What?”
“Yeah, squirrels. She says they’re the devil incarnate. She says that’s what he would look like. He’s not some big red monster with a goatee and gauges in his ears. His spirit is cut up into little furry creatures that steal eggs in broad daylight.”
I laugh. Gotta love her.
The tree house in the apricot tree is blanketed in snow and held in the grip of leafless, icebound branches.
“Come on,” I say. As we near the front porch of the house, a trickle of sound breaks across the dead silence.
Blue bells, cockle shells, evy, ivy, over.
“It’s Hope,” Cassie says. And something about her words puts a squeeze on my heart. Hope startles some as she sees us approach, waking from her trance. The sight of her, oblivious in her white sundress, chills me. Then I envy her, surrounded in the safety and security of her six year-old self, playing games. No one gets hurt.
“You can see her?” I say.
“Can’t you?”
“Yeah. I can,” I say. Hope draws us in, wanting us to join in her game.
“Aren’t you cold?” Cassie calls to Hope.
She grins wide and turns back to her game, minding her own time.
Mothers in the kitchen
Doing a bit of stitchin’
Then she turns her gaze on us and says, “You can’t get hurt if you’re dead.”
Cassie and I hear someone coming. Cinnamon and Yas have wandered completely out of sight. There’s no time to worry about them. I grab Cassie’s hand and point out an opening to a crawl space under the porch. We take refuge under the planks, pushing ourselves into the dark places. I position myself on my belly and peer out through the cross-hatched lattice that skirts the front. A set of troubled forelegs followed by hind legs, flash silver against the snow. The rider urges his horse on, despite some heavy burden.
“Come on, yaw!” The hooves circle around back of the house and stop. This is our chance. I wave to Cassie to squeeze out from under the planks. We emerge from the side of the house and work our way around front.
Bluebells, Cockle shells, evy, ivy, over.
The silver horse trail is slashed with the sharp, metallic scent of blood rising from the crimson path. I reach for Cassie. She takes my hand and falls in close behind me. Hearts pounding, backs pressed up against the peeling clapboards, I take a chance and lean forward enough to peer around the corner. I can hardly believe my eyes. Chad hauls the fresh carcass of a mountain lion from Beau’s quivering back. She is unmistakable to me, a familiar dark diamond marks the fur between her shuttered eyes. I am sick.
“Let’s get out of here,” I whisper, turning back. I can’t bear to look at this destruction any longer.
“Why?” Cassie asks. “What did you see?”
Everything in me wants to protect her from the truth, but I know there’s nothing I can do.
“Look for yourself,” I say, switching places with her.
One look and she is crushed.
The purity and sanctity of last night’s snowfall is shattered by hoof prints and an irrevocable red stain. Her blue eyes, bright crystals in most of my dark times, shadow with the truth. Cassie breaks into a run, and I follow. We push up the hill rise. I turn and whistle across the white, calling Yas and Cinnamon. The sound startles Chad below. He looks up enough to see us fleeing to higher ground.
You think you know someone, and you just don’t.
Yas and Cinnamon heed the call. We mount and rush for the safety of home.
Ama, where do you go
when the stars go out?
Is there a red dirt road,
painted cliff faces,
And air swept clean with sage?
Is it home?
When the stars go out,
I’m here.
Just in case you are looking for me.
I’m here, but…
I don’t know for how long.
On the mesa top
I imagine we fly together
Wingtip to wingtip
Shadows pressed
against the wide open blue
But then I come back down
‘cause Yas can’t fly with me
&
nbsp; And what’s life without him?
(found on the hill rise near Maverick’s house)
Chapter 17
“Sicheii?” I say, coming into the living room. The strength and safety of the earthen adobe walls and the softened stillness of my Grandpa soothe me. He’s fallen asleep in the warmth of the mid-morning sun that shines through the windows. I hate to disturb him, but I have no choice. I slip out of my snowboots, hang my jacket on the back of the door, and cross the saltillo tile into the warm circle radiating from the stove. Sicheii has pinto beans, salt, and green chile from the summer’s harvest simmering in a pot on the fire.
“I know, Ahzi,” he says, his eyes still closed against this world. “I know. I heard the cry.”
How does he know?
“You knew it was Chad?”
“Chad?” he says, sitting up some. “What are you talking about?”
His eyes flutter some but remain closed.
“He took her, Grandpa, for money.”
“Náshdóítsoh?”
“Yes, Grandpa, mountain lion.”
“No,” he says, casting doubt on everything I saw. “No.”
“I saw him with my own eyes,” I argue, and then I pull back, showing respect.
“The eyes don’t always see the truth,” he says. “Listen to your heart.”
Tears form in my eyes, thinking of how I trusted Chad, laughed with him. Then I see the blood-stained fur flashing golden in the sunlight, emerging from the clouds. She was the one who watched us in the canyon that day. Her dark diamond gives her away.
“It doesn’t get any more real than that, Grandpa,” I say, sinking down to the floor at the footrest of his chair. Feeling suddenly small and powerless, I lean against his leg. He reaches out to stroke my hair.
“I’m sorry, girl,” is all he can say. “I’m sorry.”
I bury my face in the leg of his jeans and soak the knee with the tears that won’t stop.
“Quiet now, girl,” he says. “Remember that everything will be as it should. Sometimes we don’t understand the Creator’s plan, and that’s why we are humbled by being part of the Great Mystery.”
His words reach past the present, through morning snow, iron blood, and my own skin. His hands, big and warm, smooth my tangled hair, inviting peace in a torrent of grief. Tears fall, freshets of salt and elemental agony—heartbreak rises, released in animal tones. Sicheii steadies me and waits.
Exhausted, eyes swollen shut, body wrung out, I crawl into bed. Sinking down beneath the goose feathers of my comforter and the fine weave of my mother’s woolen story blanket, I retreat from the world that refuses to make sense. In the restless moments before sleep, flashes of the blood on Chad’s hands, the unforgiving concrete that surrounds Maverick, and the dark shadow over Cassie’s truth-filled eyes saturate my thoughts. Then I must have let it all go.
Will you tell me a story, Ama?
About what, my love?
About the night animals
And the day animals
At one time bear, skunk, owl
And the day animals
Did not understand the balance of the universe
Butterfly, hummingbird, and turkey
Wanted the sun to shine all the time
And the others wanted starlight
So they played a game,
The first shoe game,
And the winner would have their way.
Who won?
No one, Ama laughed.
The sun rose
Before a winner was declared
And the animals realized they were powerless.
The sun will always shine
The stars will always come out,
Even if there are clouds in the sky.
(found along the Pyramid Peak trail)
Chapter 18
The sound of my phone, razor sharp, cuts me loose from dreaming. The warmth of Ama’s chest, cradling me, the motion of the rocking chair and her hands, powerful, copper gold, shot through with veins made vibrant green from hard work, recede from my mind, my body. The juniper wood fire, smell of beans and roasted chile blur time, but the setting sun anchors me to the confusion of the present.
I pick up the phone, vibrating, ignited in a storm of green, fuschia, and gold. Chad’s texts are insistent and incessant.
It’s not what u think.
U have 2 trust me.
Please believe me.
Will u let me explain?
Why won’t u answer me?
I would never hurt u.
Is Cassie okay?
Please give me a chance.
His texts and their urgency are a distraction from the truth. I hold the power button, letting the light fade from the screen. Some final rays of daylight shoot through the clouds and the eyelet lace curtains, tracing a path straight to the quartz crystals on the bedside table. The piece I’ve been building for Cassie must be finished. Like Sicheii says, it’s supposed to all turn out right. We have no way to know what right is or when it will come. It’s supposed to turn out—all right.
I heat the hot glue gun and set to work setting quartz crystals where snow would be, as unblemished and fresh as the morning it fell—forever.
“Dinner,” Sicheii calls in through the door.
“Coming,” I say.
Sicheii has the table dressed with burrito makings: a warm flour tortilla with cheese, long-simmered beans flavored with chile, jasmine rice because, as he says, he’s a sucker for flowers, chopped lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and Grandma Alice’s garden salsa kept fresh with fall canning.
Still working on loosening the knot in my gut, I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not hungry.
“You need to keep up your strength,” he says. But he doesn’t say for what.
As he wedges himself into his chair at the table, I joke, “Looks like you have plenty.”
The lines shift on his face some, betraying a smile. It’s true. He is strong. He is my rock.
Sicheii’s phone rings. “It’s Cassie,” he says, handing it to me.
I step out the door into the pool of the front porch light and watch the clouds take turns blotting out the emerging stars. I stand next to the leafless cherry tree bedded down in snow. For some reason this is the best place to get a signal.
“Why won’t you answer your phone, Ahzi?”
“I turned it off.” I don’t tell her why. How am I supposed to tell her that I have the unshakeable feeling that the darkness is closing in? Sicheii says everything will turn out as it is supposed to, but what if the way it is supposed to turn out is—tragic.
“Oh… well you have to come over,” she says, offering no explanation. I guess I deserve it. “Just come.” She doesn’t talk long enough for me to catch her tone.
“Okay. I‘ll be there.”
I rejoin Sicheii at the table. We finish eating in silence. Suddenly I envy his cool clear vision, his fisherman eyes that see the eddies and flows, waiting for rainbows to rise.
Do you sit on the edge of the canyon
And dangle your legs over the ledge
Like we used to?
Do you call in the wind
To gather snow crystals
And scatter them across
The hardened drifts
White on white
Tangled up in rainbows
That glint and glance
Off red walls and
Cascade down dry falls?
Someday, I’ll walk
Where rivers flow
When the watershed bursts
And my heart hurts
Too much from missing you.
Someday, the pain
Will need a body
to cast footfalls on the sandy banks
beside me
and then you’ll lead me home.
Won’t you, Ama?
(found tangled in the chamisa along the road)
Chapter 19
“Yas,” I say, burrowing my face in the cool of his f
ur. I run my hand along the side of his neck and swing a leg up. “Come on, boy. Let’s go to Cassie’s.”
The air is heavy cold velvet. Yas follows the path cut by one of Sicheii’s tires through the snow. At the end of the driveway, I don’t know why, I turn away from the glow of Cassie’s porch light and plunge into the darkness. I draw the collar on my field coat closer to fend off a rising chill. Yas is reluctant at first, but then he obeys. We turn up on the hill rise, following a deer trail in the almost pitch dark.
The headlights of a police cruiser trace the frozen contours of low-lying hills and spill across the arroyos and flat places in the distance. Yas and I rise higher and higher into the dome of stars softened by lacy cloud veil. Atop the narrow canyon rim that leads to Maverick’s, the glare of a single naked bulb blares through uneven panes of glass in the front room and saturates the yard, holding off the shadows, the dark.
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