The manure pile.
28
Pretend You’re a Shepherd
“DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE’RE going?” Kareem asked. The trail had left the rolling landscape a good half hour before. Now it had narrowed and was rising steadily, skirting the edge of a steep hill, a cliff to their left, a drop-off to their right.
“Five more minutes,” Sky said.
The weather had turned very quickly. The wind was kicking up now, and clouds covered the sky, dark and low. So far there were only a few flakes, but that was probably just the beginning. They needed to get to shelter soon.
The trail widened again, and around the bend Sky spotted their destination—Petroglyph Cave.
It wasn’t really a cave, just a massive slab of hard rock, and below it a deep layer of softer rock that had worn away over the centuries, forming a shallow, room-sized shelter. Carved along the front edge of the overhanging slab was a single, enormous petroglyph. Time had weathered it. In places you could barely see that anything was there. But the raking light and clinging snow picked up the subtle indentations, patiently chipped out ages ago by some ancient cliff dweller: a snake, its body rising and falling in zigzag fashion, its head sprouting two tiny horns.
The horned water serpent. A god of the Pueblo people, Luke had told them. He wasn’t too sure about the details.
“It’s our special place,” Mouse said.
“Did you build that?” Kareem was pointing to a crude coyote fence—upright sticks lashed together with wire—that curved around the near side of the shelter. It looked like something two kids might have made. It leaned to the side, and it wasn’t very tidy.
“Yeah,” Sky said. “It’s kind of raggedy looking, I know. But it blocks the wind and keeps the snow from blowing in.”
They dismounted, and led the horses in under the overhang, and tied them to a makeshift hitching post: a stout stick supported by a mound of rocks. The horses shifted to stand facing the wind.
“Shepherds used to sleep up here,” Sky said. “Back in the olden days. We found the ruins of an old fence, so we built ours in the same place. Hey, Kareem, can you hand me that saddle pack? Actually, why don’t you bring them all?”
He dropped them on the floor of the cave. Sky squatted down, opened one of the packs, and started pulling things out: a leather work glove, a box of matches, and a small flashlight. “Here, Mouse, hold this.”
There was a large stack of wood in the corner. Sky put on the glove, kicked the woodpile a couple of times, then, with Mouse beside her holding the flashlight, started picking up logs.
“Why did you do that?” Kareem asked.
“Black widow spiders.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah. They like to hang out in woodpiles. It probably doesn’t do any good; I’m just kind of giving ’em fair warning. The glove’s really the important thing. That, and having enough light to see them by.”
She carried the logs over and dropped them beside the circle of stones. Then she proceeded to build her fire, starting with the kindling: a heap of broken twigs and dried pine needles. Around them she erected a tepee of logs. When she was satisfied with the arrangement, she struck a match and set the wood alight.
Carefully, methodically, she tended the flame. In a few minutes she had a roaring fire. The wood was bone-dry.
The three of them huddled together, enjoying the warmth—Mouse in the middle because she was shivering.
“We’ve got enough wood to last us for days,” Sky said. “And all that stuff in the saddle packs—water, and power bars, and trail mix, and dried fruit.”
No food for the horses, though, she thought but didn’t say.
“Is that the plan, then? To stay out here for days?”
“Well, Kareem, if you’ll remember, we don’t actually have a plan. I mean, we weren’t expecting…I guess we just wait and see what happens.”
“See if the agents come after us or not?”
“No. I don’t think they can. They’d need horses, or maybe an ATV, to get here. And anyway, they don’t know where we are, and it’s getting dark, and the trail’s not marked. With this wind and snow, they wouldn’t even be able to follow our tracks.”
“So—what exactly are we waiting for?”
“Dad’ll come out and get us when it’s safe to come home.”
“Don’t you have a phone? Can’t he just call?”
“No reception out here.”
“Oh. Does he know where we are?”
“He’ll figure it out. It’s our favorite place; and we have shelter here, and plenty of wood. He helped us gather it in August. It’s the logical place for us to go in a snowstorm.”
“And how is he going to get out here? We have all the horses.”
“I don’t know, Kareem. Borrow one from a neighbor, I guess.”
“I don’t want to spend the night here,” Mouse whimpered.
“We’ve been out in worse than this.”
“Not all night.”
“Just pretend you’re a shepherd.”
They sat for a while in silence, staring dumbly at the dancing flames. The warmth on their faces was beginning to make them languid and dreamy. Sky shut her eyes. There was something deeply primal about sitting by a fire, warm, while all about you the tempests roared. It put her in touch with her inner cavewoman. She imagined herself, hairy and ape-like, crouching before the mysterious flames, surrounded by her family of hairy, ape-like…
“What time is it?” Mouse asked.
Sky pushed up the sleeve of her parka and looked at her watch.
“Almost seven.”
“It feels later than that. I’m hungry.”
“Want some fruit?”
“Yeah.”
Sky fished a sandwich bag from one of the packs. It was filled with pale crescents: little slices of dried apple. Mouse began nibbling them, mouse-like, tiny bits at a time.
The wind was coming in at a different angle now. It blew into the far corner of the cave, producing an unsettling wail. Whooo, whoooooooo. It made the horses nervous.
“That sounds like a ghost,” Mouse said, making an anxious face.
“It is,” Sky told her solemnly. “It’s the ghost of an Indian who used to live here. He’s saying whooooo is that little girl eating apples in my cave? Whooooooooooo!”
“Quit it, Sky! You’re scaring me!”
“I’m sorry, baby. Come here.” She opened her arms, and Mouse scrambled over for a hug. Then gradually Mouse slipped down till she was lying on the ground, her head in Sky’s lap. She seemed comfortable there.
The coyote fence was leaning more than it had when they first arrived. The wind was blowing hard against it, and the snow was weighing it down. Someday—maybe soon, maybe even tonight—the whole thing would collapse. They’d need Luke’s help to put it back up again.
The wailing grew louder. Even Sky found it disturbing now. It really did sound like a ghost, and the ghost seemed to be speaking to her. Warning her. Rebuking her. Asking her what the heck she thought she was doing, dragging everybody out here on a night like this.
She looked over at Kareem. He hadn’t said anything in quite some time. He just sat there, staring at the fire, his expression strangely flat. He was thinking the whole situation over, Sky knew, counting all the reasons why this wasn’t going to work, why staying out there was stupid and dangerous.
She tried to shut that thought out of her mind. What, after all, was the alternative? Going back and surrendering to the agents? No. They just needed to be creative, that was all. And a little more help from those good spirits definitely wouldn’t hurt.
Sky closed her eyes again and began:
O, spirits of the cave—whoever you are, whoever you were in life—I call on you now to help this boy. He is innocent, and he is in danger. Give him the strength and the courage he needs. Drive away the storm; bring out the stars and the moon. Keep us safe, here in your cave, for just a little while. If you are powerful, and you are still here,
I beg you to help us now.
29
Saving Sky
“SKY?”
“What?”
They spoke in low voices. Mouse had fallen asleep.
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
She winced; she’d known this was coming. “We’re waiting till it’s safe to go back home,” she said.
“What does that mean? Safe how?”
“Safe from the agents. When they leave…”
“But they’re not going to leave.”
“Of course they are. They’re not planning to move in with us.”
“Come on, Sky. They saw me. They know I’ve been staying at your house, and they know where I am. Or at least the important part: that we’re somewhere out in the Pecos Wilderness—three kids, alone at night, in a snowstorm.”
“So?” She was not giving in to this poisonous logic.
“It isn’t a real escape. It never was. They know sooner or later we’re going to come home. And if we don’t, your parents will get so freaked out worrying about us, they’ll figure out a way to bring us back themselves. The agents aren’t leaving, Sky. They’ll still be there in the morning.”
“Then we’ll just have to wait them out.”
She stirred the coals and added another log.
“We have to go back,” he said.
She turned and glared at him. “No! They’ll arrest you!”
“Of course they will. Don’t you get it? We could stay out here a week, and starve, and freeze—and they’d still arrest me. It’s over. I can’t live in your house anymore.”
“But—”
“I have to turn myself in.”
“No, Kareem—wait! I have an idea. It’s a good one. We have food, and water, and shelter, and a fire. The snow is bound to let up soon.”
“Why? What makes you say that?”
“Just listen. Tomorrow we’ll ride over to one of the pueblos. Tesuque’s the closest. They’ll take you in, Kareem; I know they will. And tribal lands are sovereign territory. I don’t think the agents can even go in there, not without permission.”
“Oh, good, let me get this straight. We’re going to ride over to the Tesuque Pueblo—like two days’ trekking in the snow, assuming we can even find it—then we’ll knock on some random stranger’s door and ask if I can live with them? That’s crazy. You just made that up on the spot.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you did.”
A huge gust of wind shook the coyote fence again; snow blew into their faces and into the fire.
“We can’t stay out here all night.”
“Shepherds did it.”
“No, Sky. Shepherds go out in the summertime, when there’s grass and stuff for the sheep to eat. Not in January. And anyway, it doesn’t matter what the shepherds did. We have to go back. This storm is just going to get worse.”
“It’ll be better in the morning. I just have this feeling.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’ll all die of hypothermia.”
“Oh, that’s stupid, Kareem. We have down parkas on, and gloves, and hats, and boots. Mountain climbers—”
“Oh, stop it! I don’t give a flip about shepherds and mountain climbers. It’s freezing out here, even with the windbreak and the fire. And it’s not safe. If you don’t care about yourself, then think about Mouse.”
“You want to go back? Is that it? You want to ride away with those agents in their silver van so they can lock you up in that deportation center for—”
“Of course not.”
“All right, then—”
“But I don’t have a choice. See, that’s the difference between you and me: I don’t walk around with this la-la fantasy that everybody’s story has a happy ending. Sometimes life just—”
“—sucks. Yeah, I got that part. And I know they probably will get you in the end, and we’ll have spent a really miserable time out here for nothing; but I just can’t stand the thought of your going back there and turning yourself in!”
“Look, Sky, you can’t fix this,” he said. “I know you want to—you’d like to save the whole world if you could. But this is way over your head. Please, please, just give me the…dignity…of going back there and dealing with my own problem by myself.”
She closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so hopeless in her life.
“Sky?”
“What?” She was crying now, not caring that she was making a fool of herself.
“Those terrible things I said. I didn’t mean them. Really.”
“What terrible things?”
“You know. Like you’re weird, and crazy, and live in a time warp. I hurt your feelings when you were trying to be nice. I hate that I said that. I was just crazy-angry, and scared; and I took it out on you.”
“I know that. I knew it all along.”
“But you didn’t deserve to be treated—”
“Apology accepted, Kareem. Let it go.”
“I can’t. Your family, and the way you’ve all looked after me, and risked yourselves for me—I can’t believe there are people like you in the world. And you don’t live in la-la land. You…” He was choking up now. “You made your own world out there in that beautiful place, and it’s better than the real one, and I’m so grateful you let me live in it.”
“You still can.”
“You know that’s not true. Mouse, wake up. We’re leaving.”
He got up and brushed the snow off his jacket.
Sky stayed where she was, looking up at him, feeling sick.
“Sky?” Mouse said, tugging at the sleeve of her parka.
“Don’t go.” Sky’s voice was expressionless. She just had to say it one more time.
Kareem led Blanca outside and put his left foot into the stirrup, just as Sky had taught him, and pulled himself up, right leg swinging over the saddle, and sat for a bit, looking down at them.
“I sure hope I don’t get lost on the way back,” he said. “Or fall off your stupid horse. It would really help if I had somebody with me who knew the way home.”
PART THREE
Four Months Later
30
The Winners
THE EVENING BEGAN WITH A five-minute speech by the superintendent of schools. He was followed by the mayor, who was followed by the senator. The governor would go last; she got to introduce the winners.
Sky gazed out into the dimly lit room. With its white plaster walls and high, high ceiling supported by elaborately painted wooden beams, it looked more like an old New Mexican church than any auditorium she’d ever seen. There was a wooden choir loft in the back, and along the side walls were arched nichos with some kind of religious frescoes in them—like stained-glass windows without the glass.
All the seats were filled. In the side aisles, TV cameras were rolling, while news-site photographers crept around up front, just below the stage. Every now and then, as someone new came up to the podium, a string of flashes would blast out of the darkness.
So many people! And in just a few minutes they’d all be staring at her.
There was huge applause as the governor got up to speak. She was famously short, so she reached around and slid the little step-box over, the one that was there for the children. The audience laughed as she suddenly gained six inches, and they clapped again.
She said pretty much the same thing all the others had: that these wonderful children were our state’s future—indeed, our nation’s future! They were a true inspiration, and they filled us with hope!
“I know it takes courage”—she turned to the three petrified children sitting behind her—“to stand up here and read your essays before such an enormous crowd.” She paused, got her laugh, and went on. “And if anyone should ask me tonight what I love about my country, I’ll tell them, it’s children like you!”
Sky looked for what was surely the hundredth time at her family, right up front in their special reserved seats. They were all smiling. Luke was giving her a thumbs-up.
She took a deep breath.
And then the governor introduced the third-place winner: Jacob Chu from Albuquerque. Jacob walked over to the podium, stepped up on the little platform, and announced the title of his essay: “America: A Mosaic.”
He clicked the remote presenter, and the sound of a single violin filled the room. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.
It was Jacob playing, of course. He had recorded himself.
Now a picture came up on the screen, a wilderness scene from a national park. As the music played softly in the background and snowcapped mountains were replaced by a river, then a waterfall, then a hot orange desert with dramatic cliffs, Jacob began to read his essay. The first part of the mosaic: America is beautiful.
Then the landscapes gave way to a market in Chinatown, followed by mariachis in full regalia, and a bunch of little Hasidic boys, with their side curls and yarmulkes, playing soccer in the street.
America is a land of many peoples.
Next came the Old North Church in Boston, and the Taos Pueblo, and the Alamo.
America has a rich and varied history.
And so it went. He’d built his essay from many small parts, each a facet of American life, or its landscape, or its culture, or its arts, or its history. Eventually, as with a mosaic or a puzzle, all those little parts—the words, the music, and the pictures—came together to form a whole: a rich and complex image of the country he loved.
The last slide was a computer-generated mosaic made from all the previous pictures. They were arranged according to their dark or light values to form an image of the Statue of Liberty.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!
Sky was flabbergasted. She’d never seen anything like it. And this kid won third place?
Once again the governor went to the podium, this time to introduce the second-place winner: Maria Perez from Farmington. Maria had chosen to write about courage, and her essay couldn’t have been more different from the one they’d just heard.
Saving Sky Page 11