by Sue Hardesty
"Wait," Loni interrupted. "I thought Bird threw his eyes."
"Just make sure you listening." Willie slowed the horses to a plodding walk. "Bird throw Coyote's eyes back into air but doesn't catch. He walk away! Please, Bird. Bring me my eyes! Fed up, Bird find pinion tree, pull off sap, and roll them into balls to stuff in Coyote's eyes. That why they yellow."
The singsong cadence had relaxed Loni. "Tell me why his tongue is black."
"You tell me."
"Please.
"Last one. We almost there."
They crested the last long hill, and the windmill shimmered far in the distance in a long, wide valley.
"Ever'one like to hear Snake rattle, so they keep teasing and scratching him to hear rattle. So Snake go to Elder Brother and say, 'Ever'one tease and hurt me.' Elder then take two hairs from beard and make two teeth for Snake and say, 'If they tease again, bite them.' So when Rabbit scratch Snake, Snake bite him. Rabbit die from rattlesnake bite."
Hanging on to the view of the windmill as it slowly drew closer, Loni lost herself in Willie's sing song voice.
"The village not want Coyote to eat Rabbit, but they can't figure what to do. If they put in tree, Coyote climb and get it. If they bury, Coyote dig up. If they hide, Coyote will find. So they decide to burn. They send Coyote to sun to get fire and Elder Brother rub a stick and start fire to burn Rabbit. But Coyote see fire and return, so village circle fire. Coyote jump over and grab Rabbit's heart and eats. It so hot, it burn his mouth. That why Coyote's mouth black."
When they reached the windmill, the air was deadly calm. The pump rod was pumping. Sort of. The rustlers had taken all the mother cows at this well, but Bahb left the pump rod connected for wild animals.
* * *
Blistered and tired, Loni thanked Daniel for letting Coco out. She could hear his laugher as she pulled herself up the stairs. After she stripped off her filthy clothes and took a long, cold shower, she stood in front of the cooler fan, not bothering to dry off. Sighing in relief, she smoothed aloe vera everywhere she could reach.
She had to force herself to get ready for Rene's funeral. Putting on a clean black tee out of a drawer and black Levis from the dirty clothes basket, she finished with a lightweight dark-brown and black-striped serape to hide the casual clothes beneath the stiff cloth that hung below her knees. Pulling on the serape reminded Loni of the caftan Maria insisted she buy to wear to weddings. It was one of the worst fights they had. Loni was surprised she won. She hadn't worn a dress since she was in kindergarten, and she swore then she never would again.
Loni substituted her boots with black slip on shoes and brushed her hair, leaving it to kink in braid waves that almost hid her face. After she shoved a square black scarf in her pocket, she rummaged around until she found large sunglasses. In record time she was ready to leave, hoping no one would pay any attention to her. Her pathetic limp should help keep her anonymous.
"Coco, stay." Loni handed the dog a biscuit to make up for not taking her and closed the loft door in her pitiful brown face.
* * *
Loni drove through ranches and small farms on her way to town. Most of them worked Native Americans from various Arizona tribes and occasional illegals that came in weak and exhausted from their trek across the desert from Mexico. Many of them just needed places to rest before continuing their journey, but a few found homes. Loni had been gone so long that most of them were strangers.
A few houses were spread along the highway where Old Highway 85 ran through the town and out the other side. It was a short run because the town was only 15 blocks deep around the courthouse square.
Surrounding the town on three sides, farms dotted the landscape with houses, barns, and shacks. It was land left over from years of river floods, dumping enough silt to create large soil rich flats.
On the fourth side a tall mountainous hill known as Caliente Butte sheltered large homes clinging onto overhanging cliffs. Old timers often called these cliff dwellers Butt Hillers and laughed to think anyone would build on a diamondback rattlesnake den, especially when they complained about the snakes they found on their stoops.
She crossed over the railroad tracks paralleling Old Highway 85 to enter the town square. It had been years since a train had stopped there. The empty train station and large parking lot had been turned into a seed and fertilizer store. A small Mexican community stretched out three blocks on the other side of the tracks.
Approaching the dirty tan adobe Catholic Church in Caliente, Loni watched the mourners and the curious gather and gossip as they slowly gravitated toward the church. She waited for a group of teens to cross the street and edged around the last dawdling boy who was buying a tamale from Spin's cart, giving a peace sign to the teenager. Parking her truck in the shade of a eucalyptus tree, she jaywalked across the street to find cover under the overhang of the buildings along the sidewalk. Cool air escaping through the screen doors of open businesses briefly cooled her. Not everyone was going to Rene's funeral.
She stopped at the old wrought iron fence across the front of the church lot. Rusted posts leaned in a crazy pattern, requiring help from the bailing wire, and maybe a lot of prayer, to hold each other up. Stuck on the tops of the posts were small crosses with white flecks of paint stuck in the crevices. Shadows from the fence created irregular bold patterns on the parched dirt in the hot, hot sun.
A few bright yellow flowers barely hanging on a palo verde tree reminded her that the monsoons were due. Loni stepped under the tree to watch the people standing outside the church, trying to look like just another Indian woman waiting for her man.
Moving on, Loni left the tree for another wall of heat on the sidewalk and steps. She pushed open the old creaky double doors and entered the whitewashed interior. Standing in a darkened area by the confessional in the back, she noticed the small stained glass windows in the thick adobe walls.
The smell of furniture polish and burning candles took her back to her childhood. The darkened wood backs and arms of the old benches gleamed in the colorful sunlight through the windows, the only shiny spot in the tired building. Loni felt a burst of anger when she thought about what people did to each other in the name of religion. Like Bahb always said, "Christians cannot teach kindness. They have too much to lose."
The church filled up fast. Loni looked for anyone who seemed out of place or whose behavior didn't fit. Most of the people didn't seem upset, and a large pepper-haired woman passed by her, appearing particularly pleased. Not exactly a funeral expression, Loni thought, watching her sit with a couple who moved over to make room for her. The man had blond wavy hair, and the woman had long curling honey-red hair cascading down her back.
Dipping her fingers into the holy water in the bowl beside her, she wiped her eyes to stay awake. Rene's family entered, jarring Loni when she saw Larry and Dorothea on either side of a sobbing Ellen, Rene's wife, holding her like family. Tears ran down Dorothea's face as she patted Ellen's hand. What is going on, Loni wondered.
She remembered Ellen as a friendly counselor in high school who helped get her a scholarship. Blonde, plump and soft, Loni never understood why she stayed with Rene. Her pretty face was crumpled in agony as she tried to pull away from Dorothea and Larry. Reminded of her own loss, Loni bowed her head.
The murmuring ceased as the priest began the chants, and Loni heard Ellen's sobbing throughout the mass. Kneeling, standing, sitting with ringing bells and singing voices, she let the Mass ritual roll over her as she found herself at Maria's funeral. While she stood over Maria's grave, unable to leave, one of Maria's sister-in-laws's invaded their apartment and took everything that belonged to Maria, including furniture and kitchen wares. Even the toilet paper was gone. Some of the things they took belonged to Loni, like her favorite leather jacket and her boots. And things she had given Maria. They even took all her books. All that was left besides some of her clothes were a beat up toaster, a small fry pan, a few mismatched dishes, and some towels in the rag pile. E
nough to get by if she kept the dishes clean and her clothes washed.
What bothered Loni most were the pictures. All the photographs of Maria were gone, leaving Loni with an empty shell. Someone had torn Loni out of photographs and tossed the pieces of photos into the trash. Thank god she had one picture on her desk at the station with Maria and Coco.
Loni knew it wasn't Sandi or Maria's mom. Her sisters-in-law, however, were a different matter, especially Barbara. When Loni found anything missing, she would holler at Maria. "Barbara's been here!" If it was anything important to Loni, Maria would go by Barbara's house and get it back.
After Maria died, the walls closed in on Loni. She knew she had to get out of the apartment. Her head down, she didn't see the two masked men in a grocery store until it was almost too late. Then she knew that she had to get out of the city.
Jerking herself back to the present, Loni scanned the church, trying to spot anything out of place. Nothing caught her eye until the end when Ellen stumbled down the aisle, stopping to curse the woman with honey-red hair. With a firm grip, Larry and Dorothea yanked her on. Ignoring Dorothea's wink at her, Loni fell in behind the honey-redhead, hoping she could overhear something, but the woman was silent. Loni listened to the murmuring crowd on the sidewalk as they brought out the casket and loaded it into the hearse. No one mentioned the crash.
As the hearse pulled away with the casket and the crowd started to break up, Loni got a good look at the couple next to the pepper-haired woman. In her early thirties, the woman was chic in a carefully casual way. Her dark grey silk dress clung close to her slender body. With his dark-striped suit and subdued tie, the man was more like a pretty boy than a handsome man. Loni saw symptoms of a meth addict. His flattened face was pale, and his jittery eyes couldn't find a place to rest. The large woman with them wore a full length caftan with gaudy swirling patterns that reminded Loni of a runaway circus. Her proprietary manner toward the smaller woman rang Loni's gaydar.
Loni watched the procession of cars trail its slow way out of town. Kids under the trees on the courthouse lawn piled into cars and followed. By the time she reached her truck, the town was cleared of traffic.
* * *
Glad to be home, Loni changed into a tanktop and shorts and slathered her red, raw thighs again. She was in the middle of slicing cheese for a grilled cheese sandwich when Coco rushed to the door and barked. Loni opened the door to a smiling Dorothea. She didn't return the smile. "Long time," Loni said flatly.
With her shorts and skimpy, attention craving top, Dorothea's nipples were clearly visible through the red cloth stretched across her breasts, and she showed serious cleavage. This was not the same sobbing black-clad woman clinging to Rene's wife at the funeral, or the tearless purple-robed woman staring at the wrecked plane. The pretty, sexy teenager who would try anything once and sometimes twice had turned into a blousy, overweight matron. "Aren't you glad to see me?" Dorothea cast an appreciative gaze up and down Loni's buff body.
"Should I be?" Loni snapped.
"You forgot already?"
"Forgot what?" Loni tried to hold her ground, but Dorothea pushed by her into the room. "What are we? Still in high school?" Loni complained to her back.
Dorothea sat at the table and waited, still smiling.
Exhausted but unwilling to sit down, Loni leaned on a chair back.
Dorothea spoke into the silence. "I know you remember what good times we had on those summer parties."
Loni replied grimly, "That wasn't me."
"Of course it was," Dorothea said insistently.
"It wasn't me," Loni repeated. "I was never ever at one of those parties."
Dorothea hesitated. "You and I used to make out somewhere," she insisted.
"So I wasn't the only girl you shoved into a corner. I always figured you did it on a dare."
"I wouldn't have done that."
"Listen, Dot, don't look to me for some side action. I don't do married women. Or closets."
Loni watched Dorothea's face tighten. Avoiding Loni's eyes, she ducked her head and reached back, coiling her dark brown hair into a knot on the top of her head. She stared at Loni and blurted, "You're hard. I thought we were friends."
"If you want a friend, buy a dog."
"When did you start hating Mexicans?"
"When did you start hating Indians?"
"I don't!" Dorothea snapped. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about bullshit," Loni said firmly. "That's what we're both saying. We're playing word games, and it's bullshit. Why don't you try the truth? You're not interested in me. Why did you come?"
Loni saw the pain cross Dorothea's face. "I need to get away from my husband. Will you help me?"
Loni's head jerked up in surprise. "What can I do?"
"I think he's into drugs." She paused, nervously tugging at her top. "He's flying them in from Mexico."
"Can you prove that?" Loni waited.
"A month ago he brought home a little suitcase that I hadn't seen before. Inside were packages of white powder. Looked like drugs to me so I called where he worked. They said he quit a week ago." Dorothea finally looked up at Loni. "When I asked him, he said he forgot to tell me he got a better job, but he wouldn't tell me what. He's always gone, flying out at night or hanging out with Rene. He's spending money like a Rockefeller. Even got one of those fancy red sports cars. A Lamborghini." She gave a choking laugh. "I checked the price. It's over two hundred thousand dollars! For a car!" A rueful look crossed Dorothea's face. "We didn't pay that for our house. Sometimes when he's gone, his kid takes it for a spin. Hope he wrecks it."
"What'd he say about the suitcase?"
Dorothea inspected her chipped fingernail polish. "By then I was afraid to ask him."
"Was Larry working with Rene?"
Dorothea's head jerked up in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"We found drug residue in his plane."
Shaking her head, Dorothea said, "I don't believe Rene was into drugs. He's a real asshole but never a druggie."
"You're close to the family."
"Well yeah, Rene was my half brother. You knew that, right?"
Surprised, Loni didn't answer. How had she forgotten that? Better question: What unforgivable thing did Rene do to Dot? "Do you know who Larry called or who called him? Anyone who traveled with him? Or where he went?"
Dorothea shook her head. "Nothing on our home phone bills. Or cell, that I can tell. I've been watching. He hung out with Rene a lot, but he never talked about anything they did. Sometimes he phoned the O'Neal nursery. I really don't know anything, but I'll keep a lookout if you promise to help me."
"Can you give me copies of your phone bills, credit card receipts, bank statements, anything else that would tell us where he goes?"
Dorothea barely nodded.
"Do you know where he is now?"
"Not really. I don't care."
Loni straightened up, arching her sore back. "Life's a bitch, ain't it." She relented. "Let me do some checking, Dot. See what I can find."
Dorothea reluctantly got up and followed Loni to the door. "Promise?"
"Yes, of course." Loni held the door open.
Dorothea brushed against her before she disappeared down the stairs. Shaking her head, Loni shut the door on her disappearing glance.
Frying her sandwich, Loni debated her next move. She was positive Dorothea knew much more than she said. Walk in shit, you'll get it on you, Bahb always said. Mentally moving the problem onto a back burner, Loni finished frying her sandwich while she watched Coco eat. She ate like she drank, making a mess all around her. She took mouthfuls of dry kibbles and scattered it, making a game of hide-and-seek.
Loni carried her plate to the table as she searched for something to read. She missed her books. Until Maria moved in with her, she read while she ate, and she read herself to sleep. After work, Loni decided, she would go to the library. She hoped Mrs. Hunt was still there. As she climbed carefully into bed wit
h her computer, Loni was grateful that the dog cleaned up her dog food. The hard bits could be tough on bare feet, and her back when she tried to exercise. Oh, yeah. Exercise. She'd get back to it tomorrow, she decided.
FROM: Loni Wagner
TO: [email protected]
DATE: July 6
SUBJECT: Still not looking
Reason #4: I don't ranch because of the long, long hours of hard, hot labor with no money.
Have I mentioned how much I hurt, how sunburned and rubbed raw I am? I'm already dreading tomorrow. I'm having so much difficulty walking now that I sure hope I won't be chasing anyone on foot.