“My name is Skinner Cade, Miss Small. I want to talk you about the home.”
“You’re one of ours, aren’t you?” she asked, the suspicion in her eyes melting away. “You’re one of our babies.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come in! Come in, my dear!” She beamed, opening the door wide enough for him to enter. Skinner slipped inside, glad to be out of the heat. “Make yourself comfortable in the front parlor. I’ll fetch you some lemonade.”
“That’s alright, ma’am. You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”
“Nonsense! I rarely get a chance to see our children all grown up.”
Skinner sat on an overstuffed sofa in a parlor dominated by a huge oil portrait of a matronly woman dressed in a high-collared blouse with a pince-nez balanced on her nose.
Miss Small returned with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses on a tray. “I see you’ve noticed mother,” she said with a little laugh. “She was an amazing woman, rest her soul. She passed away sixteen years ago this August, at the age of ninety-seven. She ran the foundling home until the very end. Although, what with the advances in contraception, business wasn’t what it once was, of course …”
“Miss Small, I was wondering if you might help me locate my natural parents?”
The old woman frowned. “Mother was very much against our babies doing such things. What about your adopted parents, Mr. Cade? How do they feel about what you’re doing?”
“They’re both dead.”
“Ah. I see,” she sighed. “And now that they’ve passed on, you’d like to find out more about yourself, is that it?”
“That’s right. Do you still have records from when the home was in business?”
“Gracious, yes! Mother was quite particular when it came to keeping records.”
Skinner handed the Xerox to her. “According to this document, I was born almost twenty years ago and adopted at the age of six weeks.”
Miss Small frowned at the paperwork and tapped her chin with her index finger. “Cade … The name does sound familiar. But I won’t be able to tell you much until I look at your file.”
“And where do you keep your records?”
“Mother ran the home for fifty years, and I keep most of the old paperwork in the attic. You’re welcome to go upstairs and look through the boxes if you like.”
The thought of sitting in a closed attic in the middle of the Sonoran desert, sifting through a half-century of documentation was enough to make Skinner’s butt pucker.
“Which way to the stairs, ma’am?”
It took him three hours and four pitchers of lemonade to finally locate the box containing the documentation for the year of his adoption.
Skinner was grinning as he entered Miss Small’s kitchen, his T-shirt plastered to his back and his hair full of dust and cobwebs. “I found it!” he proclaimed, hoisting the cardboard file-box in triumph.
Miss Small opened the container’s folding wings, running her arthritic fingers over the yellowed file folders. “Let’s see now … Abbott, Bishop, Cade … Ah, here we are!” She plucked a sheaf of papers free, flipping through the documents with the efficiency of an executive secretary. “Adopting parents: William Henry and Edna Marie Cade of Seven Devils, Arkansas. Oh yes, I remember now! Delightful couple. They had been disqualified as too old by the other agencies. That’s how they found their way to us. Mother could tell they were good folk. She had an eye for character.” Miss Small nodded her head slowly as she read. “Yes, it’s coming back to me now. I remember Mr. Cade most distinctly. He was a fine figure of a man; very much the Southern gentleman. You have some of his way about you.”
“Is there anything in there about my birth mother? Where she was from? What her name was?”
Miss Small handed him the folder. “See for yourself, dear.”
The papers felt as brittle as papyrus under his trembling fingertips. It was barely twenty years ago, so why did he feel like he was handling the Magna Charter? There were some medical charts documenting the time he spent in the home as an infant—records of his weight, length, blood type and other such information stapled to a piece of paper that bore two tiny purplish smudges that, on closer inspection, turned out to be footprints. There was also what appeared to be a birth certificate. Skinner’s frown deepened as he read the document.
“I don’t understand. The birth date is the same as mine … December 28th. But in the boxes marked ‘father and mother’s names,’ it says ‘unknown’. And this looks to be the actual birth certificate, not a copy. Aren’t these things supposed to be registered with the state?”
Miss Small looked embarrassed. “Normally, that would be the procedure. But Mother—well, a lot of the women who came to Mother were from the reservations who worked as ladies of the evening in Tucson and Nogales. They’d come back home to have their babies. The law is that orphaned Native American children must be handed over to the tribal council. But many of the mothers—well; they wanted their children to have a chance at something better. Mother never filed the birth certificates for those of Native American descent. That must have been what happened in your case.”
“Where it says ‘Physician or midwife in attendance’ someone typed in ‘Root Woman.’ What does that mean?”
“Oh! That’s a midwife who used to bring Mother babies from the reservations. Most of them didn’t come into town, for fear it would get back to the elders, so they trusted Root Woman to deliver the children to Mother. Since Root Woman doesn’t technically live on the reservation, everyone involved turned a blind eye to what she was doing. Probably still do.”
“You mean she’s alive?”
“Oh my, yes! Root Woman probably delivers half the babies on the reservation, not to mention the Mexicans and other poor folk who live out in the mountains. I haven’t seen her since Mother’s funeral, but from what I hear she’s still in business.”
“Do you think she might know who my birth mother is?”
“It’s possible. She’s a very old lady now, but she still has her wits about her. She was much like Mother in that regard. Funny, by my estimation she should be a hundred and thirty by now! Mother insisted Root Woman was a good twenty years older than she was, but I’m sure she was simply confusing Root Woman with her mother. There have been Root Women serving as midwives in this territory since before there were white folk. You see, it’s not just a name—it’s a job description. Root Woman—well, I’m a god-fearing Christian lady, but I’ll admit that she’s done a sight more with herbs and folk remedies than most doctors have with needles and pills.”
“Where can I find her?”
“She lives off Highway Eighty-Six, about three miles from the Papago reservation. Her shack’s a good half-mile or so down a dirt road. There’s a post with a bleached cow skull that has ribbons tied to it, so folks will know where to turn. You’re not honestly thinking of going out there, are you?”
“Yes, I am. Even if she doesn’t know who my mother is, maybe she can tell me whether I’m part Indian, Mexican or whatever. But in any case, I at least know where my parents got my name from.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I always thought ‘Skinner’ was an odd name for them to pick, y’know? All the other kids I grew up with had names like Carlton, Horace, and Jimbo—that kind of stuff. I remember asking Mama why they named me ‘Skinner’ and she said it was a family name. But there weren’t any Skinners on either side that I knew of. But now I realize they weren’t talking about their family, they were talking about mine,” he said, holding up the birth certificate. Typed in the space reserved for the child’s name was the word: Skinwalker.
Chapter Five
It was mid-afternoon by the time Skinner hitched a ride to Root Woman’s home, perched on the tailgate of a rancher’s truck alongside a bale of hay and a wire cage containing a piglet. The driver, an old man dressed in filthy dungarees and a battered Stetson, had been unwilling to take on a passenger until Skinner mentioned the old midwi
fe’s name and handed him a couple of dollars.
By the time they reached the turn-off marked by the beribboned cow’s skull, Skinner’s butt was aching, he reeked of baby pig, and he was grateful for the cheap sunglasses he’d bought before leaving Tucson. As the truck came to something resembling a halt, the driver stuck his head out of the window and yelled that it was time for him to get out. Skinner hopped off, waving goodbye as the old man left him behind in a cloud of heat and dust.
He hoisted his travel bag and trudged down the dirt road in the direction of Root Woman’s shack. He wasn’t sure how he was going to go about asking her about what she knew—and if she was as old as Miss Small suggested, it was possible she might not be able to remember anything anyway. She must have delivered hundreds of babies during her career. Why should she remember one particular birth out of the scores she had overseen?
You’re thinking negative thoughts again, his inner voice chided. It was funny, but what he always considered his conscience sounded just like his dead father.
He shouldn’t be so quick to assume the worst. Miss Small had remembered his parents once she had the proper memory cues. Besides, if he didn’t believe there might be a chance of anything coming out of all this, he wouldn’t be sweating his butt off and risking sunstroke.
He spotted the midwife’s shack from atop a small rise; it was little more than a two-room shanty with tarpaper sides and a corrugated tin roof covered with loose gravel. There didn’t seem to be any electricity, and an old-fashioned hand-operated well pump was located a few steps from the rickety front door. No doubt there was an equally vintage outhouse in the backyard as well.
But what caught his attention was the fact that the outlying area surrounding the shanty was littered with leaning posts, sticks and other pieces of salvaged wood, each holding up what looked like a circular shield. As Skinner drew closer, he could tell they were made of animal skins stretched over carefully bent sticks, the outer rims decorated with bits of metal, crystals, feathers and bits of bone. Skinner was reminded of the aluminum pie-plate mobiles his mother used to hang in her garden to keep away the crows.
As he winded his way through the field of spirit shields, a sudden movement caught the corner of his eye. Skinner turned to see what, at first, he mistook for a large dog watching him from behind a small cottonwood tree. Then he saw the cautious, yellow eyes and the sharply pointed snout. The coyote moved fast, running close and tight to the ground like a cat. It zipped past him and headed around the far corner of the shack. Skinner watched it go, his heart beating faster than it had a minute ago. It was the same sense of exhilaration he always experienced whenever he had a chance encounter with something wild.
“You looking for something, stranger?”
Skinner jumped at the sound of the old woman’s voice. He turned and found himself staring down at what looked like a walking, talking apple doll. Standing before him was the oldest living human Skinner had ever seen before in his life. She barely stood five feet tall, with skin the color and texture of a well-used catcher’s mitt. Her eyes shone like volcanic glass set within a spider’s web of wrinkles. She had snow white hair, which was parted down the middle and pulled into a pair of wrapped braids that hung down to her waist. She wore a loose-fitting print housecoat, a pair of broken-in cowboy boots and a Diamondbacks baseball cap.
“Are you Root Woman?”
“I reckon I am. Who wants to know?”
“My name is Skinner Cade.”
“That right? Well, come sit in the shade, Skinner Cade, before you boil away what little sense you got.”
Root Woman may have looked like a stick figure wrapped in leather, but she moved with the speed and agility of a young girl. She led Skinner around the back of her shack to a shade porch, the exposed rafters decorated with bundles of dried herbs and peppers.
Root Woman seated herself on a bentwood rocker, motioning for Skinner to follow suit on a knock-kneed kitchen stool. She produced a briar pipe from the pocket of her dress. “What do you want, Mr. Cade?” she asked, eyeing him as she stuffed the bowl with a mixture from a pouch on a small table. “No one comes out this way unless they need something from me.”
“I was told by Miss Small that you might know who my mother is.”
Root Woman stopped rocking but continued puffing on her pipe. The smoke that issued from its bowl smelled distinctly of marijuana. “Is that so?”
“I was adopted almost twenty years ago from the foundling home in Butter Junction. Miss Small claims you were the one who placed me there. None of the documents I found in their records said anything about who my birth parents might be, but it’s assumed one, if not both, were Native Americans. I came all the way out here to see if you remembered anything about my natural mother …”
“Mr. Cade, I am a very old woman. I have delivered more babies than hairs on your head.”
“I was born December 28th. Is that any help?”
“You’re wasting your time, son. I keep no records, except for the ones in here,” she said, tapping her temple with a boney finger. “And I’m afraid I’ve become forgetful in my old age.”
“The name given to me on my birth certificate was ‘Skinwalker’. That’s an Indian name, isn’t it?”
Root Woman became silent as a stone. The only proof she was still breathing was the increase in pipe smoke. “Take off your sunglasses,” she said in a clipped voice. Skinner obeyed, and the rocking chair came to an abrupt stop. “Now show me your hands—both of them.” As he did as she asked, the midwife muttered something under her breath in her native tongue.
“You do know who my mother is, don’t you!” Skinner exclaimed.
“You best leave now.” The old woman’s voice was as sharp as flint.
“Please—you know who she is. Why won’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” she replied tartly. “I don’t know anything about you. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“But …”
“Is this man bothering you, Grandmother?”
Skinner turned to find himself staring at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was about his own age, with dark brown skin, her long black hair pulled into two tightly bound braids. She was lean but well-rounded in the right places and dressed in a faded denim work-shirt and matching jeans, with a battered straw cowboy hat pushed back from her forehead. She also had a shotgun tucked under one arm, the breach broken open to reveal a pair unfired cartridges.
“There’s no need to get riled-up, Rosie,” Root Woman said. “Mr. Cade was just leaving.”
The younger woman fixed Skinner with a suspicious glare as she pecked her grandmother on the cheek. “I just got back from looking in on the Ortega twins. They’re both fine, now that their mother’s taking your remedy before nursing them.”
Root Woman nodded to herself. “I knew it was milk fever. I could have called that one in my sleep.”
“Please, won’t you reconsider?” Skinner pleaded. “I’ve come all the way from Arkansas …”
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve come so far for nothing, Mr. Cade, but I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know anything about your parents.”
“But …!”
The sound of Rosie’s shotgun snapping shut cut him short. “You heard my grandmother, mister,” she said. “Time for you to leave.”
Skinner got to his feet, working hard to keep the anger knotted inside him from exploding. He’d come so far, only to be frustrated by a wizened crone and her gun-toting grandchild.
“Root Woman, please …”
The shotgun swung up in one smooth, menacing motion. “I said git!”
“Okay! Okay! I’m leaving!” Skinner raised his hands and backed away. Only after her was safely out of range did he turn his back of her and stalk off in the direction of the road.
Root Woman’s granddaughter lowered her weapon and frowned. “What was all that about?”
“He wanted me to tell him who h
is mother is.”
“Did you deliver him?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied evenly.
“Granny, I know you. You know the names of all the women you’ve ever tended. Why’d you lie to that man?”
“Because I didn’t get to be this old, Rosie, without realizing that sometimes you’re better off remembering to forget.”
Skinner hadn’t exactly been in the best of moods when he left Root Woman’s place, and trudging along the road back into town in ninety-degree heat wasn’t doing anything to sweeten his disposition.
To get so close to the truth only to run smack into a brick wall—a hundred-year-old wall wearing cowboy boots and a baseball cap, at that—was incredibly frustrating. But what was he supposed to do? Force the old lady to tell him what she knew?
As he wiped at the sweat rolling down his brow, Skinner spotted an adobe building up the road. There were a couple of dusty pickups and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked outside. He grinned and picked up his pace. Maybe he could get a ride into town from one of the locals.
As he drew closer, he saw a neon beer sign flickering in the solitary single plate-glass window and heard muffled music coming from inside. The bar didn’t seem to have a name, but there was a hand-lettered notice tacked to the front door: NO DOGS OR INDIANS ALLOWED.
Skinner stepped inside, cautiously scanning his surroundings. There was a full bar at the back and a couple of well-worn pool tables near the front door. Hank Williams Jr. was playing from the jukebox. A couple of locals were shooting pool, while what looked like the owner of the Harley drank at the bar. It was hardly the kind of place Skinner usually picked to hang out, but it felt good to get out of the heat and, come to think of it, he could use a beer.
The bartender looked at him funny as he pulled up a stool and sat down.
“Gimme a cold ’un.”
The bartender hesitated for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to card him then grunted, producing a bottle of beer from behind the counter. Skinner handed over a couple of crumpled dollars and sat back to enjoy his drink.
Wild Blood Page 4