“I am not giving you the keys to the goddamn museum rugs, Mrs. Youngcloud.”
“I don’t want smelly old rugs you found on some old rancher’s porch and now you’re trying to sell as valuable antique. You might get rich on money now, but big punishment in your future. Mark my words. Where you keep them old pictorials, Benny?”
“What on God’s earth you want with those old rags? They’re fire damaged from hogan smoke. I can’t give them orphans away.”
“Maybe I’m looking for some cleaning cloths.”
He set his face slyly. “Maybe you know something I don’t yet. Like suddenly this kind of rug is getting hot with collectors.”
Verbena put her fists on her hips. “Come on, Owen. Let’s drive to Farmington. Blue Dog ain’t only place to find a rug.”
Benny stepped between them and the doorway. “Verbena, sweetie, don’t be giving me the evil eye. And for God’s sake, don’t you go showing your face in Farmington. You’re my best weaver, darlin’. Pictorials’re over there in the chest under the Airwick Solid. Take your pick.”
Owen lifted the lid and Verbena happily dug in. She spent awhile studying a Tree of Life design with different-colored birds sitting on each branch. The background was a harsh limeade green, but the weaving was handsome, detailed down to pinfeathers. “How about that one?” he said. “She likes birds well enough. I’ve seen her paint pictures of them.”
Verbena shook her head. “Puke green wool? Plus sloppy knots here, no spirit trail. Bad luck. You always got to leave exit. No wonder this rug ended up in white man’s cedar chest. Probably cause of Benny’s piles, may their tribes increase.”
Her hands went next to some gray pillow-size weavings, portraits you could just about base a timeline on. A fifties era Indian chief’s face in profile, the stereotypical headdress sporting a trail of carefully stitched feathers, each outlined in black. Beneath him there were some Mickey Mouses, with their fat white button gloves and perpetually cheery smiles. “Sometimes,” Verbena said, her voice low and slightly weary, “we just do it for money.”
He got up from his crouch and went to stand by the wall of pawn saddles. Their three-month tickets sported so many renewals they looked like kite tails. It would be hard to give up a saddle you loved. Nothing worse than riding an ill-fitting one, or having to go long distance bareback, like he had, leaving Durango. His knees creaked and he felt older than Old Man Time himself. Somewhere between the years of fifty-one and fifty-two, it seemed like the aging process had sped up in a deliberate race. The box, where every man eventually came to rest, toes up, in a cheap suit and clean underwear, had looked as misty as oasis water for years, maybe even decades. Now every sharp corner and handhold for the pallbearers to grip was clearly in view. So I grow old in this bunkhouse, he had told himself when he first settled in at Blue Dog. Say I die in this bed one night, or get myself kicked good by some bad-tempered livestock and I lie in the snow until I lose enough blood to slip away. No one’ll waste much hanky over Owen Garrett’s passing. He had believed that. But when Maggie Yearwood moved in, with her funny dog and the itch to paint everything from apple trees to prairie weeds, suddenly every ticking second of every minute seemed as precious to Owen as hard rain after a season of drought—you hustled your fanny setting out barrels, old coffee cans; moved seedlings into the stream. Finally, you stood there open-mouthed, trying to catch every drop.
“Now we’re talking,” Verbena whispered, holding up a three-by-five pictorial on a beige-and-gray background. “This here’s promising. But don’t you go offering Mr. Benny more than twenty-five dollar. He’ll try and find way to change your mind, he will, and he’s no better than horse’s backside for missing what in this here box so long.”
And then the wide Navajo woman who was a better friend to him than his own daughter turned to show him what she had discovered in Benny’s trash/treasure chest. As rugs went he knew this one was special, not because of who’d done the work, but because of the care with which she’d done it—the sawtooth border, executed in three colors, not two. Owen’s breath seemed to forsake him, yanked up out of his hardworking lungs, leaving him scratching his head in wonder.
Verbena’s face peered over the top of the rug, grinning. “Told you I find right one,” she said smugly. “Red horse and man planting seeds for future. I think things Maggie likes to look at. What you think?”
Viewing the weaving, he thought that women had to be God’s most mysterious creation, their ways of knowing seemed so close to infinite. Furthermore, if they were after electing a queen to foster them along in these somewhat disquieting ways, Verbena Youngcloud would wear her crown and reign with a wicked good humor. “That’s a good one,” he said. “Think Benny’ll want more than seventy for it?”
Verbena laughed, thrilled to be getting ready to deal with the dealer.
What could have cost Owen a hundred dollars or more ended up taking his wallet down only twenty, plus she got Benny to gift wrap the rug and throw in some sage smudge sticks tied in a bright red string to decorate the package for absolutely nothing.
“Going to reservation for cocoa and some visiting,” Joe Yazzi explained when the table was cleared and everyone’s belly was full. “Got our own kind of Christmas party deal Peter’s friend from school asked after him. Thought we maybe stay over at Verbena’s if the roads are bad. That would be okay by you, right, Maggie? Wouldn’t want us screeching tires over dangerous ice. You could take a hot bath in them herbs I made. Visit with the tall sister. Then take a good long Christmas nap.”
Nori, who had stood quietly by while the negotiations were ongoing, spoke up. “Actually, Joe, I’d like to tag along. I’ve been to Europe and Australia, but never to a reservation Christmas party. I can keep an eye on Peter if Maggie’s worried. Nobody better than an overprotective aunt for a chaperon.”
“Well, better ask.” Joe looked to Maggie.
Nori finished stacking the plates. “I don’t want to be in anybody’s way.”
Owen saw Maggie frown at those words and wondered, Now what? Let her go, he wanted to say, let them all go and give us two minutes alone, but it wasn’t his place to say anything, so he held his tongue.
Joe said, “I got Owen’s big old pickup. Plenty of room. One more always makes a party better. But it’s cold out there, and they don’t got much wood for heating. You might want to get different shoes or something.”
Nori stuck out one well-tooled toe. “What’s wrong with these boots?”
“Fine boots like them, you’ll spoil ’em in snow.”
“I don’t care.”
Nori continued to look at her sister, and to Owen it seemed like everyone in this kitchen, including the two dogs, anxious for scraps, was waiting for a kind of permission only Maggie could deliver.
Clearly she yet hadn’t made up her mind. Peter was the reason. Owen signed to him behind his back, “Get firewood.” Peter rushed out, then returned, carrying out an armful to add to the Youngcloud Christmas package. “I though Mrs. Youngcloud might appreciate some wood,” he said aloud to no one in particular. Then he left the room to join Nori and Joe.
Maggie stood at the sink scrubbing hard at her roasting pan. If it had been Owen’s choice, he would’ve let the dogs work on it awhile, soaked it overnight in hot water, cleaned it in the morning when the scrubbing would go easier. No task on earth was built to defeat this single-minded Yearwood woman. Her pretty hair was kinky from the steamy dishwater, her face flushed with effort.
She wrung out her sponge and set it on the counter. “Owen, why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you do. Everybody’s clearing out at just the right moment—like they spent all afternoon rehearsing.”
“I can’t speak for your boy or your sister, but I spent my afternoon playing gin and losing ten bucks to Mr. Foolex.”
“Then maybe Joe orchestrated it.”
“Well, maybe that’s his present t
o you. Is it really going to tie a knot in your Christmas if your boy goes off to see that girl he likes so much he can’t even say her name to you?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Just what? That you’re scared to let him go and find out he doesn’t need you—or don’t you want to be alone with me?”
He went to her, stood behind her at the sink, and pressed himself into her back, closing his arms around her. The front of her pretty green holiday blouse was damp with dishwater. He palmed the hair away from her neck and kissed her there, whispering, “It’s been awhile. I want to be with you.”
She sighed and nodded her head. He shot a thumbs-up sign to where Peter stood, just outside the doorway, and heard his small ebullient whoop in celebration.
When Nori was off finding her coat and Peter was loading the truck with the last of the wood, Joe returned to the kitchen. “Ain’t so bad,” he said, “you two being alone on Christmas. You could think about that poor dead Jesus, pray for his spirit. Fix him plate of turkey, throw him some tobacco.”
Maggie gave him a look. “All right, Joe! Go. Take Peter, take Nori, take the tree and the lights. But I’d better see all of you tomorrow before lunch, right?”
He nodded. “Oh yeah, sure. No problem.”
“Take Mrs. Youngcloud this package of leftovers, too. Otherwise we’ll be eating turkey until March. And wish her happy holidays for me.”
“Anything else?”
She wiped her hands on a towel and flicked her thumbnail at a stubborn spot on the roasting pan. “Look after my boy, Joe. For all his tough looks and the earrings…he’s still pretty raw.”
“Maggie, anybody mess with Pete, they answer to Joe.”
“Thanks.”
Joe took her hand and one of Owen’s, squeezed them gently. “Dead white man’s birthday or not, it was some great feast.”
When he was gone, Maggie untied the dish towel from her waist and folded it, tucking it over the handle of the oven door. She let out a big sigh and stretched her arms, then hugged herself, fingering away the curtain from the kitchen window. Owen watched her looking hard out that window, as if instead of steamy glass reflecting her uncertain face, and his behind hers, she would see clear over to Shiprock, follow her boy, that sister who drove her so crazy, and Joe at the wheel, traveling the icy road safely.
“I got you a present,” Owen said, trying to take her mind off Peter. “It’s nothing much, and I don’t want you to feel like you got to give me anything in return. This dinner and sharing your family has been present enough.”
She turned to him. “You shouldn’t have.”
He pulled the package from his jacket. The plain brown wrap and smudge sticks made it look like ordinary mail. Not festive, like a proper Christmas present. Ghosts of past Christmases came rearing up in his consciousness like rank horses: all the bright, patterned paper and shiny bows, store-bought toys for Sara Kay, things that broke before she got tired of them, wore out costly batteries. Everything you wanted in life generally disappointed. Had that many of those days ended in tears? He remembered the year he got Sara her first saddle, cheap suede, but she didn’t know the difference. The smell of new leather permeating everything. Bayberry candles. Candy canes and Sheila’s unfortunate yearly attempt at rum cake he pretended to eat but later fed to the dog.
Maggie was holding on to the package, smoothing the red twine in her fingers. Tears ran down her cheeks as quiet as the beginning of spring snowmelt. Was Nori really the taller of these two? “What’s the problem? Joe thinks the world of you. If he gave his promise, you can bet he won’t let the boy out of his sight.”
She sat down at the kitchen table. “Oh, Owen, there’s no problem. No problem at all. Peter’ll do whatever he’s going to do.” She cleared her throat. “When I was a girl, I read too many books. I kept waiting for some boy to come along and treat me with concern, as if I was worth that. What I got was this great-looking man who just couldn’t seem to keep his zipper zipped up whenever a pretty woman walked by. Will you tell me why it takes until you’re over forty to find your way past the bedsheets? To see what it’s really about? How come you have to be old and scarred up before you get wise?”
“You’re a long way from old, and I’m friendly with your scars.” He shifted his weight from his left boot to the right. “I don’t know. I guess for human beings we’re pretty slow on the uptake.”
“But we don’t learn anything from generation to generation! Here I am treating Peter the same way my mother did Nori and me, all hard rules and suspicion when he isn’t like he was before—he hasn’t even done anything wrong except swear a couple of times. I can’t let go. It’s a little late for rules, wouldn’t you say?”
“So, loosen up a little, but not too much. Kids all ages like to know where the fences are.”
“Why? So they can rip the seat out of their jeans jumping over them?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s about right.”
Despite her tears, she found a smile. “If I still had the working parts, which we both know for a fact I don’t, I’d swear I was pregnant. This has to be hormones. I hear a MasterCard commercial on the radio, it chokes me up.” She gestured to her face, where the tears still ran. “I’m wrecking your Christmas.”
“Last year I played solitaire on my bed and put an extra spoonful of sugar in my coffee.” He went to her, urged her up from the chair into his arms, held her to him, and pressed one hand to her belly. “Wish I’d been the one years ago, filling you up with children.”
She looked away. “I couldn’t keep a baby. I lost every single one of them but Peter.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Oh, honey.” He tightened his grip. “You would’ve kept mine. I would’ve carried you from the john to the bed all nine months, scaring those kids into staying parked until their rightful birthdays. We wouldn’t have had your easy life in California, but I’d have tried my hardest to make you happy.”
“I know.”
They were quiet a moment, and Owen felt himself tugged from this imaginary past back into the present as rudely as some schoolteacher yanking him out of a daydream. “Open your present.” His voice was husky. “Now.”
Her strong hands peeled away the paper. A few petals dropped from the sage bundle. For a second a brief, dusty summer perfume scented the kitchen. She unrolled the rug on the tabletop. It was a turn-of-the-century pictorial, late eighteen-hundreds; Verbena insisted you could date it by the use of early commercial wools. One edge was frayed, the wool crisp where it had gotten too close to the fire. And worthless or not to Benny Mota, the weaver must have poured her all into the piece, taking that risky step from known patterns to shuttling real life across her loom. Look here at this false pathway, Verbena had said, running a hardened thumbnail across the border. See the wiggle? She did her sawtooth regular, like I do, then left these two S-shaped exits. Whoever she was, she was scared of this wool, scared of how true it become in her hands. But it wasn’t the border that made the rug a perfect gift for Maggie, it was what happened inside the border. Under a blue sky with rounded cartoonish clouds, the weaver had invoked a small farm on the long expanses of Blue Dog prairie. There was enough green to conjure up late spring, the time when winter was reduced to nothing more than the occasional chill you shivered through before you made yourself go inside for a jacket, and some afternoons you swore you could smell summer coming, hiking up the state, yellow flowers clutched tight in its fists. A red horse galloped in the distance, none of his four hooves touching the ground. In the foreground, just the back of a bent figure caught in the act of planting was visible, but you could tell it wasn’t a woman, it was a man, tucking something into the earth that would blossom and bear the fruit of a single season’s worth of hope.
Maggie ran her hand over the weaving. Owen circled her waist with his hands. He could feel her trembling.
“You don’t like it,” he found enough nerve to whisper.
“You�
�re going leave me one day,” she said flatly. “Then all I’ll have left of you will be this rug.”
He waited a moment before answering. “We all got to go someday. Sooner or later you get called, you go on back. This whole deal here is temporary.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
He held her close and spoke into her neck. “I’m here now.”
“Don’t hate me for saying this, Owen.”
“Saying what?”
“That I love you.”
Her words echoed in the kitchen, over every inch of the town of Blue Dog, its chilly Christmas silence, the rented house, everywhere, and deeper still, lodging in all four chambers of Owen Garrett’s heart.
16
DAMMIT, JOE,” NORI SAID, RUBBING HER ARMS AND LEGS. “DON’T you have any heat in this truck?”
“Well, sure. Why didn’t you ask before we gone so many miles?” He switched on the heater, slammed the dashboard to convince it he meant business, and a feeble tepid wheezing began at Nori’s legging-clad knees. “If you’re cold, maybe you should of worn underwear.”
“You have to be looking awful darn close to be that certain I’m not.”
In the glow of the few dashboard lights that worked, she could see Joe’s face crinkle in amusement. “The thing is, see, I’m kind of like an underwear detective. By looking at a girl, I can tell what’s under her clothes. Lots of men can. It’s a gift, passed down from my grandpa Joe I got my name after.”
“Scientists all over the world would kill for a peek at your DNA, Joe.”
“Yeah, I know. But them damn doctors over at the clinic got too much Yazzi blood already.”
Peter sagged against her arm, and Nori nudged him awake. “Move over, Mr. Lively. Some Romeo you’re going to make if you can’t stay awake past seven o’clock. Who’s this babe you came all the way to your mom’s to see?”
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