Tears of the Shaman

by Rebecca Daniels

  He rose up, turning and reversing their positions on the bed. She stared up at him, her lips moving as she whispered his secret name over and over again. For now, while she was in his arms, while her beautiful body caressed his, love was not only enough, it was everything. He wanted to touch and explore, to study and memorize, all that there was of her. He loved her, with all of his heart, with all of his soul. And for what time they had left, for however many hours or minutes that was allotted, he would give himself to her completely.

  * * *

  “I don’t understand,” Marissa said, shaking her head. “I’m the one who spent the night in the hospital. So how come you’re the one who looks like hell?”

  Mallory shifted her eyes from the road just long enough to shoot her sister a tired smile. She didn’t doubt she looked like hell—she certainly felt like it. “Is it that bad?”

  Marissa nodded, making a face. “I’m afraid so.” She watched as Mallory turned her attention back to the highway. “Bad night?”

  “Actually, it was a wonderful night,” Mallory said with a sad smile, thinking back to the long hours of love. But then the morning had come, and she remembered how it had felt to watch Graywolf walk away. She felt the sting of tears and tried her best to blink them back. “It was the morning I had a tough time getting through.”

  “This has to do with him, doesn’t it,” Marissa said. “Benjamin Graywolf.”

  Mallory shrugged, not trusting her voice. The highway blurred as tears filled her eyes, and she batted them away with an impatient hand. “It’s...it’s over now.”

  “It doesn’t sound over for you,” Marissa observed.

  Mallory looked at her sister, the expression on her face saying so much more than her words ever could. “He’s got this thing—about him being Indian, me being white,” she said, a tear sliding unnoticed down her cheek. “He doesn’t trust me, I know that. But I know he loves me, I know it damn it, I feel it. But he won’t even listen, won’t even give us a chance.”

  Marissa reached across the seat and placed a comforting hand on her sister’s arm. “You must love him very much.”

  “I do,” Mallory whispered. “Oh, I do. But he says I just don’t understand.”

  “Maybe you should listen to him.”

  Mallory reared back, pulling her arm away. “What do you mean? How can you say that?”

  “Mallory, listen,” Marissa said earnestly. “I’ve worked on the reservation, lived there, made friends there—and it has opened my eyes to a lot. People like you and me, Mallory, we don’t know about hardship and prejudice—not really, not like people on the reservation do. My God, it’s a different world out there. Our lives are fairy tales compared to what these people face every day. I mean, can you imagine what it is to go to bed hungry each night, or not have enough clothes to keep you warm in the winter, no shoes that fit?

  “That kind of poverty is appalling to us, but it’s just par for the course to the Navajo. We can’t even begin to understand how difficult, how hopeless, that can become.” She leaned over and took her sister’s arm again. “I know you love him, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you. But he comes from a very different world, he’s led a very different kind of life. Growing up on the reservation isn’t easy, and I can only guess at what he’s had to face—bigotry, indifference, privation. You can’t blame him for being a little cynical when it comes to white society.” She hesitated for a moment, giving Mallory’s arm a squeeze. “And you can’t blame him for wanting to protect you from all of that.”

  Mallory wanted to rage at her sister, wanted to yell and scream and argue with her, tell her she had it all wrong, that none of that applied to her and Graywolf. That they were different, their love was special, and all the intolerance and difficulty didn’t apply to them. But the fact was everything Marissa had said was true—all of it.

  Her head ached, the pounding at her temples making her feel sick. She didn’t want to think about all of this now, didn’t want to think about the differences between them and the obstacles that stood in their way. She loved Graywolf. Why wasn’t that love enough?

  Just then a pickup loaded with howling teenagers barreled down on them from a freeway on-ramp, making it necessary for Mallory to swerve quickly in order to avoid a collision. Marissa grabbed for her leg, wincing painfully as the sudden motion caused the unwieldy cast on her ankle to fall heavily against the dash.

  “Damn,” Mallory swore, shooting the reckless young driver a dirty look. Her head still pounding, she wiped away the moisture from her eyes and sighed heavily. “There’s a coffee shop just ahead. What do you say to some coffee, maybe some lunch?”

  “Sure,” Marissa said in as light a voice as she could muster while shifting her foot back into a more comfortable position. Her ankle throbbed, but she was grateful for the distraction. The mood between them had gotten very somber, and it didn’t take her “twin radar” to see that her sister was miserable. She swatted at the cumbersome cast. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it through six weeks with this thing. I swear it has a mind of its own.”

  The coffee shop was identical to the thousands just like it that lined the highways of the nation, with its stock design and gaudy interiors. Mallory helped her sister out of the car and into the familiar-looking foyer. A tired-looking hostess greeted them inside and led them through the restaurant to a booth near a window that offered an unrestricted view of the cars zipping past noisily along the freeway outside.

  The sisters had long ago become oblivious to the stares their appearance always attracted, and they ignored the curious glances of the other patrons as they passed. Mallory helped Marissa into the booth, gingerly guiding the clumsy cast into a comfortable position, then slid into the seat opposite her. Once settled, they perused the oversize menus.

  “He said he didn’t love me.”

  Marissa glanced up from the menu, surprised. It was obvious Mallory hadn’t appreciated her comments earlier, so she’d been prepared to drop the subject. “Is that what you think?”

  “I think he’d like to convince himself of that.”

  “But...” Marissa prompted when Mallory fell silent.

  Mallory shrugged, smiling a little. “But I don’t think when it comes to love we always have a choice in the matter.” She put down her menu and looked across the table to her sister. “I know I didn’t.”

  Marissa reached across the table and took her twin’s hand. “I hate to see you hurting.”

  Tears glittered in Mallory’s eyes. “Well, you know how the song goes—love hurts.” She shrugged carelessly. “I told him if he ever changed his mind, I’d be waiting.”

  Marissa gave her a doubtful look. “And you meant that? You’d really wait?”

  Mallory shook her head, forcing out a sad laugh. “Pretty pathetic, isn’t it.” The smile faded quickly and she grew serious. “But this isn’t the way it was with Randy. I mean, I felt bad when it ended between us, but we both moved on. With Graywolf...” She closed her eyes and dragged a hand through her long hair. Opening her eyes, she searched her sister’s face helplessly. “Oh, Marissa, I’ll never get over him.” She glanced down at the menu again, the flashy photos of the restaurant’s entrées making her feel queasy. “You think I’m a fool, don’t you.”

  Marissa coughed out an inelegant laugh. “You’re worried I’m going to think you’re a fool?” Marissa gasped, her mouth breaking into a wide smile. She tossed the menus down on to the table in front of her. “Does the name Dylan James mean anything to you?”

  Mallory remembered the father of Marissa’s child all too well. “That was a long time ago.”

  “It was a lifetime ago,” she admitted with a sigh. She turned and stared out the window. “But as pathetic as it sounds, I still think of him. I still remember.”

  Mallory followed her sister’s gaze out the window to the cars speeding past. “The Wakefield twins,” she sighed sadly. “We’re a pair, all right.”

  Marissa gave her head a
shake, scattering the memories that had haunted her for fifteen years. “You know,” she said, looking across the table to her sister. “You never did tell me about him—Graywolf, I mean, about how you met, how this whole thing got started. It all happened pretty fast. That’s not exactly like you.”

  Mallory nodded her head in agreement. It wasn’t like her. Since her marriage had ended, she’d had little interest in romantic entanglements. Her failure to make it work with Randy had left her reluctant to begin another relationship, hesitant to try again. And yet she’d hardly been hesitant with Graywolf. In fact, she’d gone out on a limb—confessing her feelings and pleading with him to stay. But there had been something different about Benjamin Graywolf from the beginning.

  She thought back to that first day, to that long, hot drive out to Graywolf’s hogan. He’d been so abrupt with her then, so curt and rude. He hadn’t wanted her there, had wanted no part of her at all. But even then, even with his hostility and his rudeness, there had been something about him, something that had gotten to her, something she had never forgotten. Was it possible she had sensed something? Had she known at that first meeting just how important he’d become to her?

  So much had happened since that first encounter, so much had changed, and so many feelings had been revealed. It seemed hard to believe so much could change in such a short period of time.

  “I first heard about him from Detective Begay,” Mallory began, thinking back to those frightening days when Marissa was missing and she could get no one to listen. All during their lunch, and for the rest of the drive back to Sedona, Mallory recounted everything to her sister, a complete chronology from her first encounter with Graywolf, through the episode at Barney’s Tavern, to the discovery of the crescent moon and stars. Relating the details of the story was almost cathartic for her, and by the time she pulled the car to a stop in the driveway of Marissa’s little house, she was exhausted and emotionally drained. Graywolf was still gone, but sharing her feelings with Marissa had helped.

  Inside, there were two messages waiting on the answering machine. For a moment Mallory allowed a glimmer of hope to rise, fantasizing they were from Graywolf, saying he’d changed his mind and he wanted her with him, but that faint hope soon died. One message was from her editor, reminding her the powwow was scheduled to begin next week and to give him a call, and the other was from Wayne Clair at the Register in Flagstaff, who’d picked up the story of her sister’s rescue and wanted to know if she had “anything” for his paper.

  She didn’t.

  Falling onto the bed beside Marissa—the bed she’d shared with Graywolf only hours before, she closed her eyes. She didn’t have the energy to answer the messages, or the interest. She knew she had to start thinking of work again, knew she had to put her feelings aside and get on with her life—but not now, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow it would be better, maybe tomorrow it wouldn’t hurt quite so much.

  She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Who was she kidding? It wasn’t going to get any better—not today, not tomorrow, and not the day after that. She’d just have to try and get used to it—learn to live with it. One way or another she was going to have to find a way to live without Graywolf, just the way Marissa had learned to live without Dylan James.

  * * *

  “For you. A gift.”

  “Oh, no,” Mallory said, shaking her head. “No, I couldn’t.” She tried to hand the delicately carved, turquoise-studded silver bracelet back to the aging Navajo woman who sat behind the makeshift counter in the small booth.

  “It’s yours,” the woman said simply, smiling broadly. She gestured to the necklace around Mallory’s neck. “Silver stars to match a golden moon.”

  Mallory’s hand went to the necklace around her neck, remembering the night Graywolf had put it there. “Well, I’ll take it,” she said, after a moment, looking with affection into the woman’s worn, weathered face. It was a kind face, a wise face, a face that spoke volumes, that told stories and relayed emotions that no words could ever tell. “But I insist on paying for it.”

  The woman shook her head stubbornly. “A gift,” she insisted. “Friend to friend.”

  Mallory almost felt like crying. In the course of the last five days, Ida Tso had become her friend. They’d met on the opening day of the powwow as Ida and her family had prepared their small, hastily constructed stall for business. There were scores of small booths lining the tribal marketplace, representing hundreds of tribes and their native handicrafts from around the country, but Mallory had been drawn to Ida’s by the brightly colored Navajo rugs that covered the crude, clapboard walls, and by the beautifully crafted silver jewelry displayed in her shiny glass cabinets.

  Something had happened on that first afternoon, something in her conversation with the Navajo woman had stuck with Mallory, causing an idea to start forming in her head. She’d begun to see the approach for her articles on the powwow, the angle she wanted to take, and what her focus would be.

  Ida Tso was a fascinating woman—an ahnii, matriarch of her clan, who was both revered for her wisdom and respected for her age and her knowledge. Mallory wanted to make Ida and her family the basis for her articles, highlighting what the powwow meant to them, what hopes it represented, what struggles they’d overcome to get there, and what sacrifices they’d had to make.

  She’d talked her idea over with Ida and, with the older woman’s consent, had begun spending much of her time with the Tso family—both at their booth in the marketplace and in the small camper and tent in the temporary campsite outside the festival grounds. In the five days since, Mallory had met many of Ida’s clan as they’d stopped to help out at the booth. She’d interviewed Ida’s daughter Esther and son-in-law Charlie on concerns they had for their children at the reservation schools, and had played with their new baby daughter. They were warm, loving people, and Mallory had come to have enormous respect for both Ida and her whole clan.

  Mallory looked down at the bracelet Ida had thrust into her hand. It was narrow and elegant, and the craftsmanship was exquisite. A row of delicate stars had been painstakingly etched into the silver, each star with a turquoise center. The jewelry that lined Ida’s display case had made Mallory think of Graywolf, and of the beautiful pieces that had filled his studio.

  Graywolf. Just thinking of him had a rush of longing traveling through her. It had been twelve days since she’d last seen him, since she’d held him in her arms and told him how she felt. Twelve days—not even two weeks, and yet already it felt like a lifetime.

  Five days ago, Mallory had arrived at the Navajo National Fairgrounds with mixed emotions. While she was anxious to get back to work, anxious to absorb herself in a story and a cause, she was painfully aware that this was Graywolf’s country, these were his people, his world. Everyone she saw, everything she did, reminded her of him.

  He would be attending the powwow, she knew that for a fact. But with hundreds of tribes represented at the conference, and thousands of tourists attending from across the nation, the chances of her running into him did seem remote. But she had managed to run into Hosteen Johnny, who had greeted her with a smile, calling her Hair of Sunshine again. So, remote or not, the possibility of meeting up with Graywolf was there, and she couldn’t help but be edgy. What would she do if she saw him? How would she act? What would she say?

  She slipped the bracelet over her hand and onto her wrist. The shiny silver glinted brightly in the sunlight. While the thought of seeing Graywolf again terrified her, the chance that she might not frightened her even more.

  “Perfect,” Ida said, assessing the bracelet as it dangled from Mallory’s wrist. “As though it was made for your hand alone.” She chuckled, obviously pleased, and made a sweeping gesture with her hands. “Like the People had written it in the stars.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mallory conceded, slipping an arm around Ida’s broad, squat shoulders. She’d come to appreciate Ida’s dry wit and sense of humor over the last few days. “But enough w
ith the mysticism. You’ve convinced me. I’ll take it, I’ll take it.” She tightened her hold, giving Ida a gentle squeeze. “I’ll treasure it always. Thank you.”

  “Hosteen Johnny named you Hair of Sunshine,” Ida said thoughtfully. “But I will call you Pretty Friend.”

  Mallory blinked, surprised. “You know Hosteen Johnny?”

  Ida nodded. “He is a wise man, a great healer, yataalii. He says you have a generous heart.” Ida smiled up at her. “And I think he is right.”

  Mallory felt emotion thick in her throat, and looked down at the bracelet on her wrist. “You’re the generous one.”

  “You are a kind lady,” Ida said, beaming up at Mallory and patting her hand affectionately. “Biligaana aren’t always kind to Navajo.”

  Mallory felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes had been opened in the last several days to the poverty and the hardships of reservation life, and her heart went out to the people and their suffering. Looking down into Ida’s wise, weathered face, she was suddenly aware and resentful of the history of suffering and abuses visited upon the native nations at the hands of the White Eyes.

  “Let’s hope someday all that will change,” Mallory said quietly with a sad smile. She remembered Graywolf’s harsh words about her assignment to report on the powwow, how he’d ridiculed and belittled her desire to inform and educate her readership on Native American cultures. He’d been wrong to prejudge her motives and scorn her efforts, yet she could understand his anger and mistrust.

  Trust. It was the one thing she knew she could never have from him. He could spend the night in her bed—maybe even love her just a little—but trust? It was out of the question. She was white, she was biligaana, she was part of the world of the White Eyes, and she wasn’t to be trusted.