Arilla Sun Down

by Virginia Hamilton

  “Stop talking,” I tell her. “Shy Woman, Enormity, stop.”

  “Then talk!”

  Hard and talking. “Sumac. Sun Run leave a rope.”

  “All right,” changing woman, Enormity, saying.

  “The way passing by. The house, the yard.”

  “I hear you.”

  “A town Mama going take talking. Leaving Arilla, quiet.”

  “Leaving Arilla?”

  “Leaving — my name.”

  “So,” changing Enormity saying. “I hear you. What town?”

  “All along the way snowing and children.”

  “Which town?” Shaking hard and hurting swelling. “Listen! I gave you medicine and I gave you food. I’ll dry the fish so James and I. will have something anywhere we go. We’ll take you back and they surely will be so glad and offer us plenty food — it’s the way.” Hard hands hurting. “If you don’t tell me, he might die out there!”

  Me lying down on a side. Lying, feeling so bad and cry, and cry.

  “Oh, little baby.” Woman always changing. “Hurting you like that, I oughta be whipped.”

  Changing woman patting me baby to sleep. “What’s gotten into me? It’s the worry. Never having enough and no place — poor old James! He can’t sleep nights, you know? He can’t eat hardly anything. Restless, like it was an old time, you broke camp when someone died. You know, everywhere we go now, the people die. All the time now. Hunger, sickness. Dying from themselves — suicide is homicide, so James says. We move on.”

  Shy changing woman sigh. “I wasn’t always like this, baby. Never was I pretty, not like the young girls there who had families.”

  “Shy Woman just like a mama,” me saying, reach for her. “Enormity? Ugly mama.”

  Woman, taking hands of mine, laughing soft. No changing woman. She patting making baby to feel so sleeping. “I was an orphan child, but it was all right back then. Orphans belong to chiefs. I was so small and scrawny — would you believe it?

  “The first and only thing I ever remember was that heat and that land, some shacks looking like log houses. Even a few teepees sometimes for sacred ceremonies. Me always too late. See, the children would run a game. By the time I realized they were playing, why, they’d gone. So there was me, without a game in that burning place.”

  She so sighing and so listening, head in a lap. Thinking games and Sun Run.

  “It was all right,” Enormity saying. “They take you in, no matter who. Lotsa orphans. People starve, maybe go to jail. They die then, too. I don’t know, I had the same as the other children, I guess. I just couldn’t keep up with them. They were too fast for me, playing their games.”

  “You dying?” asking Enormity. I know dying. Mama saying, “This place is death. You want your Sun to end up like these kind? Cliffville is dying.”

  “Dying? Me?” Enormity saying. “Baby, don’t you worry.” She laughing. “Too much blood in me for dying, honey. The Lakoda on one side and the Shāhīyēna on the other. The Indian Bureau will tell you I am mixed Sioux and Cheyenne. Not the way we call it. But like Sitting Bull, Teton Lakoda, Hunkpapa band. I am Hunkpapa in one heart and them, the most human beings, in the other heart. Only, how can you have two hearts, huh? Sure, sometimes I don’t know who I’m talking.

  “What was it he said — Sitting Bull? James knows it all — ‘The country you gave me you run me from. But it is mine and I will stay. I will stay.’ Something like that. Sure,” Enormity so much talking, “I have a yearning for the Tongue River over in Montana, where they keep the Cheyenne. But they say the Lakoda lands at Standing Rock is my home … Someday I’d like to see The Turner of the Cheyenne hanging above the sacred teepee …” Enormity saying all slow and far away.

  “Enormity changing, Cliffville is dying.”

  “Wha —?”

  “She going talking to Cliffville, my mama.”

  “I hear you. So that’s the town. You must stay here a minute, honey.” She putting me to lie down. “I’ll get James, thank goodness. No more fasting.”

  She putting on a wrap, chilling sun going.

  “No! You going talking!”

  “Hey, you’ll be all right here. I’ll be back,” Enormity saying. “You must stay quiet.”

  “Everybody going talking leaving quiet.”

  “They leave you?” she saying. “Not very nice. Not like old times — take the child everywhere with you.”

  “Sun Run brother.”

  “Your brother, huh? Like to meet that brave. Leaving you alone like that.”

  “You leaving me.”

  “No, I’m not leaving you, baby. I’m just going out for a minute —”

  She standing, hearing sound. A horse-coming sound. Stopping sound. When wide the door like a wind blowing, a tall tree leaning there. James of dark glasses all shining, coming through. Leaning, sitting down. So much noise and scraping and bump at the table. Slumping down.

  Enormity woman hurry now throw a wrap on the floor. Hurrying now to a stove and bowl and mush, lots a honey and milk. Quick, down before the tall tree shake the table.

  “Hi you, tall man?” saying, glad to see him. Liking him so old. He, head down to a bowl. She, Enormity changing, filling spoon and feeding him one.

  “You just an old baby!” saying, can’t help laughing.

  Some quiet. He eating. Speaking words I don’t know. Next, talking true.

  “Life goes round and round,” he saying. “I am drawn within the circle.”

  “I hear you.” Enormity shy changing.

  “Rushing as if to meet the night — a sweep of land,” he saying.

  “All right.”

  “Sheer and high, as if the night had eaten some of it.”

  “I hear you,” Enormity.

  “That is all. I have seen it,” old James so saying. “The child dwells near the height of a cliff.”

  “Holy earth,” Shy Woman whisper, “Cliffville!”

  “I know it,” old tall tree saying.

  “Mama going … Sun swing a rope …”

  Old tall man make a sigh: “I have seen it, I know.” Dark glasses he looking at me. “You children are trying to live, but it is so hard.”

  Enormity telling, “Now. You just go take a rest, James. We’ll start out in the morning.”

  “How many do you think we will find waiting for me in Cliffville?” he saying.

  Shy Enormity him patting and patting. “You just rest now.”

  I come him patting and patting. “You just resting,” I saying.

  He laughing. “Such a child! See how she already starts on her own.”

  “James, she only run away and get herself lost,” Shy Woman.

  “But such a one!” James. “Come looking for Talking Story of old.”

  “You sleep now, and I’ll make you some cherry cornbread — James, you hear?”

  “With some chokecherry and honey?” I saying.

  “She knows!” Shy Woman saying.

  “Ai! She is,” saying James. “To be —” He leaning down, whisper in my ear.

  “You naming me a name?” I saying.

  “You never say it,” James saying. “You have a secret and you will be the secret, for all time.”

  “I hear you, James, but she is just a baby.”

  “I be a talking story, too,” I saying. Patting and patting.

  “Yes! But don’t say the name.” He holding head of mine so close and he breathing like a wind, a heat and mush. He making of signs and humming.

  “James,” woman saying. “Rest. Tomorrow is soon enough.”

  “To pass it along,” he saying. “On and on in a circle. For all time.”

  6

  I’d even embarrass Mom and anybody else who cared about me before I’d ever show fear. Seven-thirty I get home, too late for everything; and me too tired even to do my favorite subject. I always get A’s in Language Arts, but not this time.

  The awful orange porch light is on and creams our house this sickly yellow. I come ar
ound the corner, afraid any minute something really will jump out of the dark at me. Not some body but some thing — phantasms of giant beetles or huge crickets out of science fiction. Mom says I just get overcome with the phantasmagorias sometimes, and I guess she’s right.

  I almost cry out with happiness to be safe at home again. Every tree trunk and bush near the porch looks as if they are infected with some yellow jaundice, I swear. But I am so glad to see the light all of a sudden. It makes me feel better even when I do still feel so bad. I mean from tiredness, and because the roar from the skating rink is now loud enough in my head to erase my brain. I was hearing it and it was beginning to wipe out my mind before I ever knew I was hearing it. That roar never leaves off, even when it stops for real when the place closes at two-thirty in the morning. It never leaves off because after closing I begin to dream the sound of it. And when I wake up around seven in the morning, the real sound of it has started all over again.

  The rink is just beyond the end of town on a piece of county land right smack up against the town. We live right near the edge of town with a state park onto our backs, just the way the rink has a piece of the park to its back, and it all suits me fine. At least, it did until I had to start coming home after dark and had to walk so far alone. And had to have that roar seem to creep out to meet me while I’m too tired and too scared to even enjoy the sound of it.

  Mom tried her best to get a town ordinance passed so the rink couldn’t get water taps and sewer lines from the town. She didn’t have a chance. Sun and me were so glad, too. We wanted that skating rink as soon as we saw what it was going to be, hardwood floors and all.

  Mom said: “It will bring in the worst element within twenty miles, you wait and see. All the hicks from Greensburg and Marion, and the toughs out of Bell Valley and Northill.”

  Sun Run said: “Don’t the best element ever want to go roller-skating? I mean your slinky daughters of orthodontists who are some slow when it comes to books. Do those kind and the good old basketball boys ever want to roll?”

  Mom said: “Not on your life, not. No sir. They stay away, and for good reason. And you’re going to stay away as well.”

  Sun said: “And for good reason.”

  Mom said: “You have to be a good example for Arilla. Sun, I have tried to give you everything you ever wanted.”

  Sun said: “And then some,” staring at me with those black, hateful eyes.

  Mom said: “Everything you ever wanted, and you are going to do this for me. You are going to keep Arilla from going over there by not going yourself.”

  Sun said: “Oh, we are good at keeping Arilla from doing what you don’t want her to do, too.”

  Sun was right. Once I’d heard that roar, not wild mustangs or phantasmagorias, either, could have kept me away.

  Now I’m too tired for anything. And if I live through this, I’ll cut out Sun’s heart for my survival medal. The trouble is he’d just go on and live without one. Should’ve known he was cold. I know it now.

  I creep on up the sidewalk, up the steps, letting the yellow jaundice-light turn me sickly pale like everything else in its reach. Trying hard not to jar my brain as I move and practically crawl inside the house. Oooh, didn’t mean to slam the door like that! Nobody comes to see who is here. Just Mom calling from the kitchen:

  “You, Arilla?”

  I don’t answer and still she won’t even come see who it is.

  “Supper’s at eight. Sun got home forty-five minutes ago.”

  Think I don’t know what time supper is? Who ever heard of people eating at practically midnight when before they always ate at five? And think I care if Sun leaves me to come on home in the dark by myself? I bet I wouldn’t be so scared if I could run. But every bone in my body is an aching coward. Every muscle is a deserter trying to jump on out of my skin.

  Brother thinks I won’t live through this. The fact that just bothers me bad enough now to keep me on my guard. Even when every day I am like peanut brittle, I can still go on concentrating with all of my might. I keep on going and make no mistakes. That’s what he can’t figure out about me. He doesn’t know that I know. Or maybe he hasn’t yet discovered about himself what I already know.

  One morning about a week ago when I woke up. There were these true-particles — days and days of me and Sun outdoors together. All through the night they had been like dust dancing on the night in my room. All through the night within the skate roar and me hurting in my sleep, the particles — days of Sun and me — begin to pull toward one another. They gather in one sickening milligram. Morning, and I wake choking up. Vomit on my fingers, even down my neck and in my hair. Sticky and smelly, like a little kid sick all in the dark. That’s just the way I felt. I mean, I woke up and I was … this kid with all this strangeness in me and the vomit all over me. This … this waking up and being somebody else, somewhere else, with some clear memory of something just out of reach of my mind. But knowing. Knowing now, forever and for sure, so that I’ll never forget, not for a minute.

  Jack Sun Run Adams wants me dead.

  I listened to what he told me from the very beginning. Sure, I was petrified, but I never thought of one other putrefied thing the whole time but what I was doing. No “Am I going to break a leg?” or anything. Didn’t see the haze in the sky Mom says is an inversion of pollution stink over this town for two weeks. Too warm out for late October.

  “We get all the crud from Dayton,” Jack Sun says one day. “Just look at all of that crud from Dayton.” Not a chance. I wouldn’t look.

  Airplanes, dogs running at our heels — packs of them living wild in the woods — were as good as invisible and silent. I didn’t hear one thing. Yet, I can recall every second of every three hours we are out there: my heels pressed down in the stirrups; keep a light “feel” of the mouth; shorten the reins; knee pressure, firm; seeing right between the horse’s ears.

  “Keep your head up straight,” Jack Sun Run told me the first time, like I’m a baby and dumb. “Girl, that ain’t a passenger train you got under you. You got to ride this Running Moon.”

  And I did! Rode right the very first time. I’m not saying it didn’t get harder to do, because it did. I sure had to work at it, but I kept on riding right. That’s what he couldn’t understand. And still Run hopes I won’t live through it, I know he does. Hoping for some accident. The awful part is, I’ve known him all my life. I can’t even imagine what a life could be without him. He can imagine one without me. You’d think I’d get the creeps around him every time, but I seldom do. Because I think: He’s my big brother. It’s my brother wants me dead.

  Not that that makes it all right. But it makes it all somehow less of a horrible surprise. And I never go on and think the next step. I mean, in words, in my head. Never. I just know it’s there, like one of those phantasmagorias waiting to jump out at me.

  You enter this house into a vestibule. The floor is this travertine stone slab about nine by twelve feet, which was inlaid there when Mom and Dad bought the place. Mom says it’s the best and richest feature of the house. I don’t think so, since at the far end of it is the staircase. The stairs have this oak banister that Dad put together and worked from his own sweat just after we moved in. He took that old banister off and he went out and cut him down an oak tree somewhere in the woods. And got two lengths of wood out of the tree, and put them together so they look like one length of wood. Then he carved the whole thing with some odd-looking designs which Jack-Run says are from his tribal memory, whatever that is supposed to mean.

  I say to Sun, “Which tribal is it coming from?”

  And Sun says right back, “Little Moon, it won’t matter so long as he’s got one and he makes it work for him.”

  So now I creep on upstairs, leaning hard on the carvings of the banister. Not touching them with any pleasure at all like I used to. Seems a long time since I’ve enjoyed anything in this house; only it hasn’t been so long. I take the putrefied smell of horses upstairs with me. I just want
to get into my room as quickly and as quietly as I can.

  Going away from the stairs down the hall to get to my room. Mom and Dad’s is in the middle of the hall on the other side. Directly ahead of me is a big window that in the daytime lights up the whole hall. Sun’s room is right there to the left of the window.

  The hall light is on. I’m not even off the stairtop when he hears me.

  You, Sun!

  Standing right outside the door. Not looking at me, but with his face turned ever so little toward the window. Standing there like something carved but truly lifelike.

  Just the coldest wave of sickness slides over me. That smell of stalls mixed with hay and making me weave right there at the top of the stairs. Seeing him like that all of a sudden has me back, feet planted in the manure again.

  Not looking at me, not moving. Not even a quick reason, like he just happens to think about it weeks too late, why he shouldn’t wait for me. He says,

  “Did you sort the leathers? Did you use the brush and the combs? Did you cool her out? Did you pick her feet good and clean?”

  “Did you sew your mouth shut yet, too?”

  “Moon, it ought to be fun by now.”

  “Shut up calling me Moon!”

  I’m about to burst into crying, like it’s rising on top of the sickness. But instead I laugh, short and sweet. “Call me whatever you like, ugly brother, but guess what? I’ve got her running to me when I clap my hands!”

  “My, my,” he says. “Just like that, you turned her into a puppy dog.”

  I just smirk and look tough and strong as I turn the corner. “I’m taking me a shower.” Know he is watching as I slam into my room.

  Letting slide an armful of homework onto my bed. I love my bed. But if I lie on it now, I’ll never get up again. So I just stand a minute, looking. I love my room, the only place where Sun can’t get to me. I’ve seen other girls’ rooms with all that white frenchy furniture. Mine has a big old bed. A desk made from a door, and books, and two chairs. A window. Looking at the light blue curtains.