We walked on. I led, Blue followed. The canyon narrowed and eventually opened up. Now nothing looked familiar. The sun was straight overhead and hot. A few clouds had begun to pile up along the northern rim. A slight breeze began to blow. The air moving across my face felt great.
A swoosh of wings overhead broke the silence. I looked up.
CRAAWK!
“Craawk to you! I’m looking for a waterfall. Lead us to it, if you’re so smart.”
The raven landed on a branch and stared, its head cocked first at one angle, then another. Its mouth was wide open. Shimá said that’s how these birds cooled off, but it sure gave the raven a spooky expression.
I ignored the bird. “Come on, Blue. Somehow we’ve got to find that side canyon.” I started walking, hurrying now. Blue was tossing his head, pulling back. I knew he wanted to head home. The wind had turned cold, and goose bumps covered my arms. I hadn’t thought about bringing a jacket.
A few drops of rain splattered on the sand. I shivered as the breeze turned even colder and gusty. The clouds were darker now, but moving away to the south. A distant rumble of thunder made Blue prick up his ears. More raindrops fell, slowly at first, then faster. Each drop left a wide wet splat on the sand. As quickly as the rain had started, it stopped. The clouds moved on.
Blue snorted, pulled back hard, and refused to move.
“Settle down. That’s enough!” I meant business. Blue could tell. But he didn’t budge.
One huge thundercloud rumbled overhead, blocking out the sun. A sudden pelting of rain and hail hammered down. Then nothing again. Wind rattled the leaves of the cottonwoods, swirled up a funnel of sand. Streaks of lightning flashed overhead. Cracks of thunder echoed between the canyon walls. A gray wall of rain rumbled closer and closer.
“I give up. I guess these storm clouds are for real.” I looked at Blue. “Time to head home.”
Blue pawed the ground. More lightning, nearly overhead, then a long loud rumble. Rain poured down as if the sky had split open. I was cold and soaking wet.
The fastest way to get home is on top of a galloping horse. I did want to get home, fast. So did Blue. I breathed in. I was scared. My insides were trembling, but darn it, I wasn’t going to waste the day completely. No luck finding the waterfall—not yet—but I was going to ride Blue.
“OK, soldier sister, wish me luck!”
chapter fifteen
flying
I slipped the reins over Blue’s head. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t fight the bit. I remembered how Gaby always talked to Blue when she was getting ready to ride. But I couldn’t think of anything special to say.
“OK, whoa now, steady there, Blue.” I climbed onto a boulder, wrapped the reins around one hand, and then grabbed hold of Blue’s mane. I slipped one leg over his back, pulled myself up, and sat. Cold rain pelted down, mixed with sleet and hail. Blue’s warm back felt good. I looked down, and the ground seemed very far away. My hands were shaking. I started talking to Blue, to myself, to nobody. “Anyway, what’s the worst thing that could happen? I’ll fall off?”
I stroked Blue’s neck, patted his shoulders, kept repeating, “We can do this.” He nickered softly, as if replying, Of course. What’s your worry? I clicked my tongue, squeezed both knees, and pushed him forward. “Come on, Blue. Let’s get home before we’re in big trouble again.”
Blue started walking.
I squeezed harder. “Over to the wash—we’re going to take it nice and easy and trot back. Nice and slow, understand?”
Once Blue started moving, he didn’t want to stop. I held the reins tight. He stayed at a trot, but a fast one. He tried speeding into a lope. I pulled him back. “Slow down. This is not a race.”
Blue tossed his head from side to side. He knew we were heading home. How many times had my sister come racing back to the corral, face flushed, with a big grin? Man, does he love to run, Tess—like flying.
Like flying? Like that night we rode double in the dark?
“OK, Blue, OK, a little faster.” I loosened the reins and let Blue switch to a steady lope. That felt better: a steady three-beat rhythm rather than his bone-jarring trot. Nice and relaxed, loping, maybe a gallop.
The rain was pouring so hard now I could barely see. Blue didn’t seem to notice. He kept up a steady rhythm, legs reaching, hooves clattering against the hard wet rock and thumping across wet sand. Sometimes I got jerked to one side when he stumbled or slipped, but I pulled myself back to center as fast as he regained his rhythm. And then it really did seem as if we were flying. I loosened the reins even more, hollered to the wind, laughing, and before I had time to get scared, Blue sped up even more. He loved it!
“OK, Gaby!” I yelled to the cliffs, and the words echoed back. “Watch this!”
Watch this.
I whacked Blue’s rump and hollered, “Let’s go!”
Blue leaped forward like a spring let loose. His legs reached out, curled up, reached again, still faster, heedless of the pell-mell course straight up the wash. I put my head down against his neck, grabbed a fistful of mane, and held on tight. I could hear my sister’s voice: Feel the motion. Follow his rhythm. Look forward, lead him with your eyes. I felt him reach, tuck, reach. I relaxed into this wild new rhythm, moved with it. Galloping, galloping. The world was streaking past. Blue’s ears were back, his head forward. He was a flow of motion. I didn’t care about the rain, the cold. We were flying! And I wanted to keep on flying all the way home.
Abruptly I realized we were nearly there. So fast. I wanted to keep going, but I realized that Blue was spent. His sides were heaving, his mouth foamy. I pulled back on the reins, although I didn’t really need to. Blue slowed to a trot and headed straight to his corral.
Slow down, slow down, trot, trot, trot, walk. Walking home. Safe. Home.
My hands still gripped Blue’s mane. We were both trembling. I could feel his heart pounding: boom-BOOM, boom-BOOM.
“We did it. Blue. We did it.”
Ride Blue.
I did, Gaby. I did!
Soldier sister, it’s your turn.
Stay safe. Fly home.
chapter sixteen
rain
Rain continued falling for days, steady, nonstop. Storm clouds kept piling up and moving over the canyon. Slanting rain blurred the horizon. Heavy drops thumped and pinged on the hogan’s roof.
Shimá looked at the riverbed, already a wide muddy stream. “No supply truck this week.”
She held out her hand. Raindrops splashed gently, slowly, but continuously onto her open palm. “A good rain, a female rain. Soaking the earth. Good for the corn.”
“And good for running, nice and cool.”
“Or fixing fences if we had those new rails Gramps was bringing.” Shimá frowned. “Blue’s corral fence needs repair before he figures out that with one big kick, over he goes, free to go courting.”
“But we brought Blue here for breeding.”
“For your mom’s herd, not for these two, remember? Bandit’s too young, and Chaco’s too old.” Shimá smiled. “Like us.”
“Oh, Grandma!” I shook my head, laughing. “Maybe I’ll take Blue for a short ride. Settle him down.”
“Not until the rain stops. Too dangerous.”
She gave me a stern look. “Trails down near the wash are soaked. Some places will be quicksand, not deep but dangerous for livestock or horses. The sheep will stay in their corral. The horses will too.” She pulled a chair closer to the warm stove and sat down.
The kerosene lantern hung from the ceiling and gave a flickering glow to our little world. We slurped hot coffee. Shimá worked on a Sudoku puzzle while I wrote in my journal. I got bored and starting pacing. Then I remembered the books on the back shelf.
“What’s this?” I blew off a layer of dust. “Emily Dickinson?”
“Yes. An old friend. Once I could recite many of her poems. Maybe you can read one for me?”
I looked through the book and found one Grandma had marke
d. I read it out loud.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
At the end Shimá Sání’s voice joined mine, and we finished the last stanza together.
Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
“Thank you, Tess. A good poem. When I was in school, I thought, I am Navajo, I should not read that poem. It was written by a white woman. She could speak of death. We do not. But I read and reread that poem.” Shimá reached for the book. “Do you sometimes feel like that?”
“Like what?”
“The Navajo and white fight inside you?”
I nodded. “Because I go to school in Flagstaff, the kids on the Rez call me an apple: red on the outside, white in the middle. Rotten to the core. At school, the white kids call me ‘Indian princess, heap-big squaw.’ I don’t fit in with either group.”
“But you are both.”
“Maybe. Was it like that when you went to school?”
Shimá Sání poked a couple more logs into the stove’s fire. “School?” She shook her head. “Boarding school? I hated it. They cut our hair, burned our clothes, beat us if we got caught speaking Navajo. I swore to myself: ‘I will escape this place and never speak English again.’ I walked all the way home, over a hundred miles, proud but angry, and without a diploma. I didn’t care. But my parents did. They cared about all that anger inside me and arranged a Blessing Way ceremony.” Shimá looked at me. “The medicine man greeted me in English.”
“English?”
“I said, ‘I speak Navajo.’ ” Shimá shook her head. “Oh, I was so angry!” She wore a funny kind of smile. “He said, ‘Your Navajo and English fight. This ceremony is to bring them together, in harmony. Both can walk with you in beauty. Hózh.’ ”
Shimá paused. For a moment she sat slowly nodding. “At the end of that all-night ceremony, we went outside to greet the sunrise. The medicine man stood next to me. He shook my hand and repeated the closing prayer, first in Navajo and then in English. ‘In beauty I walk. With beauty before me I walk. Hózh náhásd’. It has become beauty again.’ ” Shimá paused again. “I thought about what that medicine man said and realized I could learn from both languages, from both the speaking and the listening.”
“I don’t know which parts are really me.”
“We all have many parts, Tess. We walk many paths, wear different shoes. Sometimes moccasins, sometimes sneakers. Some paths cross, some come together.”
“But if I follow one path and leave the other behind, will I lose one? Will I get lost? Being at school in Flagstaff is taking one path. How do I make it cross with my Rez path? The two are so different.”
“That is your outside path.” Then Shimá tapped her chest. “But inside what are we? Red, white, blue, green? Apples, oranges? Ask Lady Dickinson. She wrote about many things. About being nobody. Or did she mean everybody? You are nobody too. All of us. Navajo and white. And everybody. Each time I re-read this poem, I see something new. Like having a new pair of glasses. But it doesn’t mean I stop seeing through my own eyes. Those I keep.”
Shimá tapped on the book of poems. “That little girl from Boston—what was her name?”
“Becca, Megan’s cousin.” I frowned.
“She did not see me, Tess. She saw a real Indian grandma with real Indian jewelry. She did not see this woman who loves her sheep, her stubborn goats, and a strong hot latte, who reads Emily Dickinson and sends letters to Iraq on the internet. Becca’s eyes did not see these things.”
“Just like the kids at my school.”
“And maybe just like you.”
“What do you mean, Shimá?”
“When you were little and you looked at my goats, they all looked the same. Now you see each one. You learned. We can all learn.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“None of us does at first. And then we meet a goat from the herd that butts our old ideas. Makes us put on new glasses.”
“Oh, Shimá, you are the best old goat.”
“You are learning, Tess, you are learning.”
—
Rain kept on, off, and on again for nearly a week. I loved thinking about that flying ride on Blue. I wanted to try it again soon, before I lost my courage. But the rain was relentless. Each dip up along the canyon’s rim became a plunging waterfall. The colors of the desert changed. Oranges deepened to reds. The bark of trees and bushes blackened. Everything green brightened. Every smell grew stronger—spicy sage, blooming cliff rose, even the needles of the pine and cedar. The biggest surprise of all was the toads. Every evening choruses of chirping spadefoot toads echoed. Grandma explained that they stayed buried in the sand, sometimes for years, until their homes became drenched. Quickly they then dug to the surface, sang, mated, laid eggs, and were done. A cycle of life completed in just a few days. A whole cycle of life, just like that. I wondered if Gaby had ever heard them singing.
Our days fell into a pleasant routine. Sometimes I became impatient to get out—just me and Blue—to look for the waterfall. But each day was full of chores, cooking, eating, and cleaning up, and the setting sun.
Each new day we woke up surrounded by dark, walked outside, watched the sky lighten with dawn, and greeted the Holy Ones. Thin layers of color and light appeared, sometimes gold, rusty red, and eventually a pale silver blue. Mornings were clear, but rain returned every afternoon.
I helped Shimá Sání feed the sheep, saying good morning to each one. We worked side by side.
I fed the horses: old Chaco, little Bandit, and Blue last. Corrals were raked clean. Wood for the stove was carried. Each day I changed into my running clothes.
I ran along a path high above the streambed, but I had to run slowly. The path was rough and the rock was slippery. In the afternoons between downpours, I lunged Blue around and around outside his corral. We were both antsy for a long run. But first the rain had to stop.
Each afternoon after Blue was rubbed down and given another flick of hay, I helped Shimá Sání build up the fire and start supper. We ate early and we ate simply: corn or mutton stew, sometimes Navajo tacos with fry bread and beans.
Shimá Sání looked through the supplies. “Getting low. Soon we’ll need fresh meat.” She looked at me. I didn’t say anything.
After supper was quiet time. Boil water for dishes. Clear the table. Clean up. Check the sheep and horses. Sometimes I read a little poetry out loud. Sometimes there was time to write. I had begun a new journal about this canyon, Blue, and all the questions I wanted to ask my sister. And I wrote about the new ways I was trying to see. Shimá had spoken about Becca. I thought about Megan. I always saw her as a rich white kid. I never really saw her for who she was. Never really saw any of the white kids at school.
Nighttime was best. If the sky had cleared, we sheep-camp ladies sat outside on a big old fallen cottonwood. We seldom spoke. Sometimes we saw a shooting star. If so, we’d glance at each other and smile. Then nod. Each of us making a wish.
Sometimes the only sounds were the murmuring of the stream and the intermittent chorus of toads. Other times the night air was busy, alive with sheep bleating, horses nickering, rocks tumbling down, rattling against one another. Every once in a while, the wind whistled through the cottonwoods, and branches scraped against one another, making soft sighs or spooky moans. When a coyote howled, I listened for yip-yip-yipping replies from somewhere in the distant dark.
One night when the sky was especially clear, I stayed up later than usual. I sat alone and watched the darkness creep closer. Watched it deepen. I thought about Mom working at the hospital and Dad in Phoenix, and about kids at school. No one there really knew me. But I didn’t know them either. They saw Indian, but when I looked at them, what did I see? I never really look
ed. Maybe it didn’t need to be that way.
Maybe what the medicine man at Grandma’s ceremony had said was true: the parts didn’t have to keep fighting. I knew about sheep camp, about being in the belly of the canyon. About reading poems with my grandma. Comics with my sister. And I knew about racing with my team at school. Racing across the mesa. Running in sneakers, bare feet, or moccasins.
Right now, this moment, this night, here felt good. I was me—not part white, part Navajo—just me, sitting quietly in the night. The Milky Way was a river of stars—millions of universes.
Who’s out there looking at us? Maybe they don’t see red or white. What about Gaby and her desert nights? Are they quiet and dark? Or are her nights shattered with explosions and blasts that might mean who knows what? I shuddered.
Gaby, you were right. Blue is beautiful to ride. And something about him is wonderfully wild, scary and wild. But it’s beautiful to feel, to know.
I wished on a star. Be safe, Gaby. Please be safe.
chapter seventeen
waterfall
The rains finally stopped.
The morning started out looking like trouble. The sky was a dull blue, and the air smelled strange. A thin line of milky clouds sat low and thick above the canyon rim. Not clouds, really, more like a dirty haze. Smoke? Maybe a fire near Flagstaff or the Grand Canyon, probably a controlled burn. Nothing to worry about down here. Rain—too little or too much—was the big worry here.
Blue pranced back and forth in his corral, kicking up dirt. Every few minutes he stopped, lifted his nose, and trumpeted. His whole neck vibrated, and his loud squeal swirled around camp like an invisible dust devil. Something wasn’t right. Maybe he just needed to get out and run. The sheep were bleating and baaing as they milled around in their pen. Shimá Sání stood outside, watched Blue pace, and looked at me. “Go. Take Blue out. Run him hard.”
“Now? Before I help feed the sheep?”
Soldier Sister, Fly Home Page 8