Captive Spirit

by Liz Fichera

  Then we both crouched low at the starting line, which was a strip of thin deerskin stretched before us. Side-by-side, we dug our heels into the hard dirt, waiting for a signal.

  Haloke crouched so close that her elbow brushed against mine.

  As we waited, a sweat bead trickled down my forehead. Swiftly, I brushed it away with the back of my hand.

  Brows furrowed, we turned our attention to the deserted path in front of us. I started to visualize myself flying across it, my body as light and supple as a quail.

  The crowd widened to give us room. Manaba stood a few strides in front of us. He raised his arms and slowly said:

  “Dalaa…”

  “Naki…”

  “Táági!”

  With a whoosh, his thick arms lowered and Haloke and I burst from the starting line. We’d have knocked him over if he hadn’t leapt out of the way.

  The crowd roared as soon as Manaba’s arms lowered. It wasn’t long before their screams got softer the further we ran from the starting line. Even Lobo’s piercing yelps faded from the sky, Diego’s hands undoubtedly holding him back.

  Almost halfway around the circle, Haloke and I matched each other step for step. Her legs were thicker but mine were just as fast. I kept my arms close to my sides and concentrated on my breathing, in through my nose, out through my mouth, as our feet pounded in unison against the hard dirt. If my injured ankle still bothered me, I didn’t notice.

  At the halfway point, the wispy grasses that filled the center of the clearing hid us from the crowd almost to our necks. It was just Haloke and me and a handful of curious hawks that circled above us. The screams from the crowd had faded to a dull roar.

  I listened for Haloke’s breathing beside me. When I turned sideways to glance at her, she looked back at me, her brow furrowed with concentration. Instead of smiling, her eyes narrowed beneath a forehead beaded with sweat. The earlier confidence in her eyes was replaced with sheer determination. And a little anxiety. Obviously she never figured that I could keep pace with an Apache girl.

  But she thought wrong.

  At the halfway point, it was time to pull ahead. Just when I began to push myself to take an extra step to claim the lead, Haloke elbowed me, hard, in the side.

  “Hey!” I yelled. I stumbled off the path, briefly. A harder shove and I would have tumbled into the forest. Even so, Haloke gained two lengths on me.

  That’s exactly what she wanted.

  But not for long.

  In less than a heartbeat, I was back on the path and running behind her, and this time I was energized by pure anger. Maybe that was the shove I needed. Haloke did me a favor.

  I got close enough to reach for her braid.

  Cheater! I screamed inside my head. The girl is a cheater.

  But I didn’t yank her braid.

  I got mad.

  Consumed with new rage, my legs ran faster across the path. My feet barely made a sound. I was practically flying around the path. Even steady breathing had become optional, if not impossible. I matched Haloke step for step but I didn’t bother to look at her again. I didn’t need to.

  Let her see my hair flying past my shoulders when I pass her, I thought. Let her remember that the Daughter of the River People didn’t have to cheat to win a race.

  As we ran past the halfway point, the crowd’s roar grew louder and less muffled.

  Lobo’s barks filled the air again.

  I looked toward the finish line and saw a river of faces and colors. It was as if the Apache cheered with one voice and watched with only one pair of eyes. They shook their fists and leapt into the air, waiting for Haloke and me to cross the finish line.

  With sweat streaming down my face, I searched the faces for the only one that mattered.

  Off to the side, behind Manaba, Honovi stood leaning against a long bow, his face uncharacteristically pale. He used the bow like a crutch. He smiled and raised his fist over the shoulders of strangers when his eyes met mine.

  Was it my imagination? Was I hallucinating? Did I really see him? Was he truly standing there, waiting? Watching? Cheering?

  “Honovi,” I whispered.

  I blinked. Then I ran faster, harder. I couldn’t lose. I wouldn’t lose Honovi.

  The crowd’s roar overpowered the pounding inside my chest, the beating at my temples. I pushed harder till my calves burned. I wanted to scream in agony and jubilation. I just needed one more step, one extra step, to beat the Apache girl.

  I saw the finish line and I stretched my neck forward. I couldn’t stop. I leapt into the waiting crowd as if I was diving into the deep end of a river. Instead of Honovi, I ran into the waiting arms of the Apache, my heart thundering so hard against my chest that I thought it would split in two.

  The Apache arms reached for me, helped me stand, even when my chest begged for more air.

  For the first time since I’d arrived in their village, the Apache started to chant my name. “Aiyana! Aiyana!” they yelled. I felt their hands slapping my back as they chanted.

  That’s when I knew I’d won the first challenge. I’d won the race.

  I looked frantically for Honovi despite the sweat clouding my eyes but the Apache arms held me captive.

  I searched for him through their arms but Honovi was gone.

  Instead of Honovi, I found Manaba’s face in the crowd. He stared back at me with his wide, night-black eyes. His head tilted and the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.

  It was probably the closest thing to praise he ever gave.

  ***

  After helping myself to cool water from a clay bowl, I followed Manaba’s wives to their windowless house. There was no time for rest. The second challenge began immediately.

  My heart continued to pound like a drumbeat. That’s because I feared the second challenge most of all.

  Mercifully, only a small crowd followed us and they remained outside Manaba’s house. Even Olathe’s children stayed outside, although the hushed, curious voices seeped through the animal skins as easily as water over sand. I was finally thankful their home lacked windows from prying eyes.

  The second challenge would be judged by Manaba’s wives and was, I assumed, as much a test about the three of us getting along as it was about my ability to weave a basket. I wasn’t worried about Doli but Olathe petrified me. She treated me like an unwelcome pet.

  Before the second challenge began, I wanted Diego to stay as translator but he disappeared with Lobo after the race, presumably in search of more elk meat and mountain berry wine to fill his belly.

  “After tomorrow,” he told me coolly. “My business with the Apache is finished. But don’t worry, Aiyana,” he added in a gloating tone that made my nostrils flare. He patted the pouch of shiny stones in his shirt pocket. “I’ll be back. Count on it.”

  Olathe and Doli gathered all of the necessary tools needed for the basket making challenge and laid them on a mat next to their fire: a clay bowl filled with water, a stone knife, a bone awl, a stack of tree bark, moistened willow leaves, a pile of pine needles, and long thin strips of deerskin. My temples throbbed at this challenge, more than from the race against Haloke. Despite Gaho’s best efforts to teach me, I’d never woven one entire basket. I used to think that weaving them was tiresome and silly. Why sit inside making baskets when there was a river to swim or rocks to explore? Chenoa used to tease me about my lopsided, unfinished creations. I usually tossed them into the fire when it was clear they could serve no useful purpose. And I didn’t care. Not really. Now I’d have given anything to hear my mother’s patient instructions once again, instructions that were passed down from her mother and her mother’s mother before her. Instructions that I never took seriously.

  I knelt before the tools and took a deep breath to steady myself.

  Olathe and Doli sat on other side, watching my clumsy fingers warily through their long eyelashes. Studying me.

  That made it worse.

  Finally, Doli nodded and said something i
n a soothing tone. Olathe simply sighed and shook her head as if her decision on the second challenge had already been made.

  But then Doli reached for my hand to stop it from shaking just as Olathe said something sharp that made us both flinch.

  Doli returned her hands to her lap, reluctantly, as my fingers continued to tremble and fumble.

  I swallowed, hard, and then lifted my chin. I took a deep breath and then reached for the first piece of bark. At least I knew what to do with the bark. I would use it to serve as the basket’s base. I pressed it between my hands, as if to show that I knew what I was doing, but Olathe’s pinched lips told me that I was only trying her limited patience.

  Then I reached for willow leaves soaking in a shallow clay bowl. They were long and thin and bent easily in my hands. Doli and Olathe sucked back a collective breath, as if to say that I was on the right path.

  But then what?

  My anxious eyes met Doli’s. Her eyes drifted to the bone awl.

  I picked up the bone awl and flicked the sharp tip with my fingernail.

  A hint of a smile flashed across Doli’s lips, and I sat higher on my knees. Slowly, I reached for the deerskin strips. They were no wider than my pinky.

  Again, Doli’s eyes smiled back at mine as my hand lingered over them, pretending to choose the finest one.

  I chose the thinnest one on the bottom. Carefully, I placed the deerskin strip in one hand and the bone awl in the other. The bone awl was cold in my hand. I knew that I was supposed to thread the deerskin, but how? What was the technique that Gaho had showed me? Was it a stitch? A coil? Did I simply wrap it around one end of the awl? And why couldn’t I have paid attention when she showed me all those times around our hearth? Why couldn’t I have listened, just one time?

  Awkwardly, I wrapped the deerskin around one end of the bone awl. Doli’s shoulders caved forward with the anxious breath that she held inside her chest. Olathe’s eyes rolled backwards again with obvious disgust.

  That’s when my hands dropped to my knees.

  The tools spilled across the dirt, the bone awl rolled toward the fire. Before I reached for them, tears landed on my hands.

  Who was I trying to fool? I couldn’t make a basket. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. I’d have had better luck plucking a Sky Wanderer from the sky with my bare hands.

  My hands felt thick and clumsy, my fingers, stiff as the bark.

  Doli said something to Olathe. I heard my name but I understood nothing else.

  Olathe said something back but her tone lacked its usual sharpness.

  I sniffed, wiped my nose and cheeks with the back of my hand, and then reached again for the bone awl and the deerskin.

  Don’t give up, I told myself. Try again. You must try again.

  But the second time, Doli’s small hands reached for mine. Her fingers were slender and smooth. She covered my hands with hers. Then she said something to Olathe.

  Olathe sighed heavily, shook her head, but finally placed her hands over Doli’s. Olathe’s fingers were long and slightly more wrinkled than ours. We huddled together, saying nothing, our hands joined over the tools.

  At first, I didn’t understand. What were they trying to do? Did they want me to stop? Was my clumsiness with their tools too painful to watch? Did they want me to give up?

  But then Doli’s small hands guided mine, first to the bone awl and then to the deerskin while Olathe’s hands reached for the willows. She sprinkled them with more water from the clay bowl when they had become dry.

  Carefully, Doli’s hands moved over mine as she helped my fingers to wrap the deerskin around the bone awl. With our other hands, we wrapped the deerskin around six pine needles.

  I watched the process, mesmerized. Their hands became my hands.

  And Doli’s hands were magical. Her fingers knew exactly how to tie and wrap and stitch. Silently, they guided mine as if our hands were joined as one, not two. Before we had to stoke the fire, the three of us stitched the first coil. The basket had begun to take shape.

  I smiled at Doli after the first coil, grateful. And then I looked tentatively at Olathe. I nodded at her and was rewarded with a small nod—no smile, but a nod.

  As we worked above the basket, Doli and Olathe talked softly and I listened. I didn’t understand their words but the gentle sound of their voices helped to ease the tightness in my chest. They were sisters, after all. Sisters helped each other; they stuck by each other no matter what. No matter how painful.

  As I listened to their voices, I thought about Chenoa. I couldn’t help it. I saw her face in my mind and I heard the sound of her sweet voice inside my head. She was a lot like Doli, gentle and kind, whereas I was more like Olathe, stubborn and impatient. We really weren’t so different, Olathe and I. Perhaps that’s why we didn’t get along.

  Too soon, the conversation stopped. The basket was finished.

  And I was almost sad when we were done. I liked listening to Doli and Olathe, the way their soft voices and airy laughter bounced up and down like water bubbling in shallow creek pools.

  Our basket was wide and mostly flat and no higher than my hand. The coils were a mixture of soft browns and greens from the bark and the pine needles. Willow leaves wrapped around the pine needles in a simple but straight pattern. It was quite possibly the most beautiful basket I’d ever seen, all thanks to Doli and Olathe.

  Silent, we sat back on our knees, examining our handiwork as embers glowed in the fire. Tears flowed down my cheeks again, not at the basket, but when I looked gratefully into the faces of Doli and Olathe. Their cheeks shined in the firelight.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking. “Thank you, sisters.”

  They nodded and smiled, even Olathe, if only reluctantly.

  Suddenly Manaba’s house didn’t feel so suffocating. Instead of dreary, the fire that always burned in the center gave the house and their faces a welcoming glow.

  As Olathe was about to stand, I reached for her forearm, urgent. “Wait,” I said, pulling her back. “Please. I have something for you.”

  Olathe sat back on her knees, confused. She looked at Doli. But Doli smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  Carefully, I reached for the knot behind my neck. I untied Gaho’s necklace and laid it gently in my lap. I slipped off two of the precious white shells.

  I knew that they wouldn’t understand my words, but I said them anyway. “This necklace belongs to my mother,” I said. “It belonged to her mother and her mother’s mother before her. I’d like each of you to have a shell as my gift. It will keep us connected always.”

  In both hands, I presented the first shell to Doli.

  Doli shook her head. She tried to push hers back but I pressed it gently against her chest. “No,” I said. “Please. I insist. Please keep it.”

  Slowly, Doli opened her hand and accepted the shell.

  In both hands, I gave the second shell to Olathe.

  Olathe nodded at me and smiled as she studied my shell in the palm of her hand. She said something to me in a soft voice that I didn’t understand. But then she removed her own necklace before threading the white shell between the other shiny red and yellow stones that lined her beautiful necklace.

  And so, in a strange way, we became sisters in the firelight at the unlikeliest of times. In the unlikeliest of places.

  Then Olathe rose from the mat and walked to the flap at the door. When she lifted it, the sky, incredibly, had already turned a darker shade of blue. The sky would be black soon and I would have to leave for the forest to complete the final challenge. The cold outside air that invaded the house made me shiver. Olathe said something that I didn’t understand but I assumed she was going to find Manaba and tell him the good news about our basket.

  While I was alone with Doli, I grabbed her hand, urgently. “Please, Doli. There’s something I need for you to do for me. You’ve been so kind.” My voice cracked. “I don’t know who else to ask.”

  Doli stared back at me, wide
-eyed. Frightened.

  Quickly, I removed another white shell from my necklace. I pressed it to my heart and then I said, “Honovi. I need you to give this to Honovi. Can you do that? Do you understand?” My eyes searched hers. “No one will let me see him. You’re my only chance.”

  At first she shook her head and my throat tightened.

  But I persisted. “Please,” I said. “You must understand. You must help me. Please, Doli. Please.” I placed the white shell against my chest, over my heart. “Honovi,” I said again. “Honovi.”

  “Honovi,” Doli said. Her voice struggled to wrap around Honovi’s name. But she said it. And some of the anxiety drained from her eyes.

  “Yes,” I said, smiling through more tears. “Honovi. Please give it to him.” I nodded over her head in the direction of the healer’s house.

  Did she understand? Would she do it?

  “Give,” Doli said, although I wasn’t completely certain if she understood or if she was merely repeating my words. But then she said, “Doli give.” She held the second shell between her hands and made a show of giving it to me.

  I nodded, hopeful.

  And then I threw my arms around her, my new sister, as more of my tears sprinkled on her shoulder. I bit my lower lip to choke back desperate sobs.

  Doli stroked the back of my head, rocking me gently in her arms, as my breathing slowed.

  She might not have understood my words but I had to believe that Doli understood my meaning. That hope was all that I had left.

  Chapter Twenty

  Olathe and Doli made a proud display of showing off our basket in front of Manaba and the rest of the Apache.

  I had to admit, even I was proud. Odder, I began to feel less like a stranger. I wondered whether with more time if I could actually feel like I belonged. It was tempting.

  I smiled as I watched their faces, particularly the other Apache women, as they touched and admired the basket. They lifted it against the sunlight, judging its durability. The basket coils were wound perfectly and not a single pine needle or willow leaf was wasted in its creation. When Manaba poured a gush of water from a clay plot through the basket as the final test, not a single drop leaked through. And across the faces and shoulders of his people, I watched a tiny smile flash across Manaba’s face. He meant for me to see it. I’d done well. I’d passed the second challenge.