Then I burst into laughter. “Who on earth were they?”
“That looked like Santa’s sleigh,” said Laurel. “But that wasn’t Santa.”
“No, sweetie, that wasn’t Santa,” said Jessie. “Santa’s busy at the North Pole this time of year.”
I wouldn’t have contradicted her.
* * *
By the time we made it to the ranch on the valley floor, it was past noon. Morgan Begay met us as we rode up and directed some of the many children on the premises to tend to our horses as Simon unhitched the bundle.
“I’ll show you where to put that,” Begay said, gesturing for us to follow. A few curious children trailed after us.
He led us to a long stable that was nearly empty; his main herd was out to pasture. Begay nodded toward one of the stalls. “What do you think?”
As we neared, a head popped up and slung over the stall gate. It was the prettiest pinto I’d ever seen: a quarter horse with dark brown and pure white markings, brushed and curried till he glowed like polished wood.
Laurel stretched up to touch the horse’s muzzle; he dipped his head so she could reach. “He’s beautiful,” she said. The children who’d followed us inside giggled.
“Think my son will like him?” Begay asked her.
“I think so. What’s his name?”
“The horse? His name is Shilah. It means ‘Brother.’ My son’s name is Trang.”
The name of his son didn’t surprise me. Simon had already explained that Trang wasn’t Navajo, but Vietnamese—an adopted son. But he hadn’t said how he’d come into the family.
“Tell me,” Begay asked Laurel. “Have you ever seen a sheep up close before?”
When Laurel shook her head, Begay said something in Navajo to the children nearby.
“They will show you around, if you like,” he told her. “Show you the cook shed, too, where the food is.”
“Go have fun, honey,” I told her. “I’ll find you later.”
Then Laurel and the children were gone, the dogs hard at their heels.
“I could do with some mutton stew myself,” Olin said.
“Up to the house, then,” said Begay.
The main house was large and rambling and stood out from the smaller structures on both sides of the river. Some of those structures were more modest homes and trailers; the rest were work buildings, barns or sheds.
There was also a hogan on the far slope, distinct for its rough, round shape. I’d seen them before on the reservation, but had never been inside one. I knew they were traditional Navajo dwellings of wood and mud, usually with six or eight sides. By tradition, the doorway faces east. Some Navajo still lived in them, but in more modern times they were usually used only for ceremonies.
Begay led us on, past empty sheep pens and corrals, past a volleyball net strung between two bare trees where teenagers lobbed a ball back and forth.
At the main house, we were hit with a wave of warmth and noise as Begay led us into rooms packed with people. The aroma of roasting meat made my stomach growl. Olin followed Begay to the food table, while Simon disappeared with our coats.
“Jo!”
Bree was moving toward us; she gave me a quick hug, then did the same to Jessie. “You made it! Met the family yet?”
“We just got here,” I said. “I wouldn’t know who’s family and who isn’t.”
“Darlin’, they’re all family.”
“All?”
“That’s the clan system—everyone’s your brother or your sister, your auntie or uncle, grandmother or grandfather. That’s why you’re not allowed to marry someone from your own clan—too close for comfort. Lucky for Reuben, I came along, huh?”
“Wedding all set, honey?” Jessie asked.
“Every bit of it. Just show up and have fun. Less than two weeks from now—can you believe it?”
Actually, I couldn’t. Back at the quilting bee, I wouldn’t have believed we’d still be here by now. That Laurel would be thriving like this. Or me.
“Come on,” said Bree. “I want you to meet the newest member of the family.”
She led us through the crowd to a small bedroom where a handful of young people had gathered. In the center of the room was a lean, angular man whose age I couldn’t begin to guess. His wire-rim glasses made him look collegiate, but there was silver in the long black hair flowing down his back, bound loosely at the nape with a leather cord. He was cradling a newborn in the crook of one arm, rocking from side to side. Reuben was standing with him.
The baby began to fuss, and the father broke into a song that seemed half lullaby, half chant as he bounced the baby lightly in time to the music. By the end of the song, the baby was calmer, staring at his father with a frown of concentration.
Bree approached them with a smile, then motioned Jessie and me closer.
“This is Samuel, and he’s brand-new. Yes, he is. Yes, he is!” The baby gripped her forefinger in a tight fist.
Jessie patted the man’s shoulder. “Fine job, Jasper,” she said.
“Want to hold him?” he asked.
Jessie held out her arms and Jasper eased Samuel into them. She handled the baby with a midwife’s efficiency. There was warmth in her face, but I could detect an ache there, too.
This was, after all, a moment she and Olin had never been able to share. It reminded me of what she’d said when they’d first taken us in: A ready-made family.
Bree moved next to Reuben, who pulled her close. She hugged his waist, her thumb looped through the belt of his jeans.
“Jasper,” she said, “tell them about the ceremony.”
“Which one?”
“You know—the baby’s-first-smile ceremony.”
“Well,” he began, “the Diné believe that when a baby’s born he’s still of two worlds: the spirit people and the earth people. So we wait to hear the baby’s first laugh. That’s when we know he’s made the choice to leave one world and join the other.”
The choice to leave one world and join the other . . .
For a second, Jasper’s words rattled me.
“Then there’s a party, with gifts,” Bree was saying. “And people bring plates of food so the baby can salt it—why is that again?”
It was Reuben who answered: “To show a generous spirit.”
“And how does a tiny little baby manage to put salt on food?” I asked.
Jasper held up his thumb and forefinger, barely an inch apart. “With a tiny little saltshaker.”
We laughed, and Jasper took Samuel’s walnut-sized fist and waggled it gently in a pantomime. “Actually, with a little help from his father or mother.”
Simon appeared at my elbow with two bowls of mutton stew. “He could start right now, if he likes.”
“Don’t rush him, Simon,” Jasper said with a smile.
Simon handed me one bowl and offered the other to Jessie. She waved it away as she handed the baby off to his father.
“I’m off to find that man of mine,” she said. “You two youngsters enjoy yourselves.”
* * *
Simon led me to the back of the house, where there was a screened porch warmed by a wood-burning chiminea next to a sofa. We sat to eat, spreading a wool blanket across our laps. Through the screen we could see the river snaking past, and the earthen dome of the hogan. We could hear the faint sound of drums and chants.
“They’re doing a Blessing Way,” Simon explained, nodding toward the hogan.
I’d heard of the ceremony. “They do that for expectant mothers,” I said.
“For others, too. Someone who’s sick, for instance. Or a warrior going off to battle. Sometimes they hold one because it’s been a while and it seems like a good idea.”
“Who’s this one for?”
He hesitated. “This . . . is to restore balance,”
he said vaguely. “Health. Strength.”
“Did they have one for you, when you went off to war?”
He paused again.
“Not before I left, but when I came back,” he said. “It’s a different ceremony, though, when you come back. Called the Enemy Way, and it’s more . . . intense. Lasts about a week. It restores balance, too, but first you have to drive away the ugliness, the violence, of battle. Chase off the ghosts of men you’ve killed.”
As he went quiet, I reached for his hand. “Whenever you’re ready,” I said, “you can tell me anything.”
“I know, sweetheart. But not yet.”
There was a movement in the doorway, and Reuben and Bree entered.
“How’s the fire?” Reuben asked. He hiked up the sleeves of his sweater and laid a small mesquite log inside the wide mouth of the chiminea. Then he and Bree sank into nearby chairs.
“We were just listening to the chanting,” I said. “Is it for your brother?”
“The Hozhooji ritual,” said Reuben. “It should last a while yet. It’s for him and . . . whoever might need it.”
He was gazing at me frankly, his dark eyes suddenly unreadable, and it flustered me.
“For little Samuel, then,” I said. “Who’s his mother?”
“That would be Emmi, my sister.”
“Actually,” said Bree, “Emmi would be his cousin. But in the clan system, they’re brother and sister. Or might as well be.”
“Add it all up,” I said, “and it makes for one huge family.”
Bree laughed. “A real tribe.”
“So,” said Simon, “is Trang happy about the pinto?”
“Picked him out himself,” Reuben said. “From Great-Grandmother’s herd.”
“He’s got a good eye,” Simon said.
“He’s a long way from Vietnam,” I said. “How did he come to be in your family?”
“Quite a story, actually,” said Reuben. “When he was little, he lived in a village with his parents. Straw huts, the whole deal. One day his older brother took him fishing, and while they were gone soldiers came through, shot up the place, torched it. Killed his parents. Trang was six or so.”
“God. The poor kid,” I said.
“That’s only the half of it,” Reuben said. “After a few years, they made it to the States. His brother got a job on a shrimp boat off Louisiana and they lived there awhile. Then one day his brother was out in the Gulf when a big storm blew through. Swept him overboard.”
“Did they find him?”
Reuben shook his head. “Lost at sea. Trang waited a week till the coast guard gave up the search. When the food and money ran out, he packed up one night and hit the road.”
“Where did he think he was going?” I asked.
“West. He heard once that he had an uncle in San Francisco—it was all he had to go on. He walked, slept under overpasses and bridges. Hitched rides with truckers when he could. Some of them bought him meals. Then one morning my sister Angela—”
“Cousin Angela,” Bree murmured.
“Angela,” Reuben continued, smiling, “was tanking up at the truck stop—you know, the big one outside Grants—when she saw this skinny, scrappy kid thumbing a ride. She picked him up and brought him back here. It was supposed to be for a meal and a bed, then send him on his way in the morning. But the family took to him and he took to us. So he just . . . stayed.”
“He must be resilient as anything,” I said.
“He’s having the time of his life now,” said Reuben.
* * *
It was near dusk by the time the birthday gifts were presented. As the big family crowded outside the stable, I tried to pick out Trang from among them, but couldn’t.
Teenage boys came running from the direction of the river, jostling and laughing; they were among the group we’d passed playing volleyball when we’d arrived.
They pushed one boy forward—smaller than most, skinny and dark, his glossy black hair shaped in a bowl cut, black brows arching over almond eyes. He grinned up at Morgan Begay, standing at the stable door.
So this was Trang.
Begay gestured for the boy to come closer, then spoke to him. I couldn’t understand the words. Then Begay turned and entered the stable. He returned leading Shilah, by then decked out in a handsome silver-tipped leather saddle and full tack, including my hackamore.
I was surprised, though, to see the pinto’s white mane and tail covered with dozens of streaming bows of colored yarn. He looked like a rainbow on the hoof. Laurel was standing nearby with Olin and Jessie, beaming.
With others calling out encouragement, Trang stepped to the pinto’s side, slipped his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself into the saddle. He kicked off and the horse vaulted forward. Off they rode—down toward the river, then along its banks—hooves throwing up hunks of snow and mud.
Laurel ran to my side. “Did you see my ribbons, Mommy?”
“Honey, I don’t think you missed a single color.”
“You know,” Simon told her, “that’s the way they deck out their horses for special ceremonies. Then they all mount up and ride across the valley. It’s a sight.”
“When’s the next one?” Laurel asked him.
“Don’t worry—you’ll see it.”
* * *
A waning moon was rising, fogbound and hugging the Mountain. The stinging smell of wood smoke intensified as fires lit up along the riverbank. Laurel took my hand, then Simon’s. We headed across the compound, taking our time, toward a white trailer where Begay had said a birthday cake was waiting for the kids.
The trailer door was wide-open, spilling yellow light and the voices of children. Trang sat at a kitchen table facing a big white cake with candles. A gold party hat was strapped to his head. Someone placed a toddler in his lap, and he slid a steadying arm around her.
“You two go on,” I said. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
Simon looked back quizzically as Laurel pulled him toward the trailer.
“Really, I’m fine,” I insisted. “I just want to enjoy the quiet.”
I found a seat on a tree stump near a stand of junipers. There was a fire crackling a few yards off, with three men hovering over it watching a skillet of meat and fry bread on a grill. Now and then the burning wood spat out a spark in a soaring arc that was hypnotic to watch.
I turned to the trailer again and the children playing inside, loud and giddy. Each of them had a story like Trang’s; I was sure of it. Only—God willing—not so tragic. Stories that were cut short. They looked happy enough, all of them. But how many would choose to stay here, and how many would take up their stories again, if only they could? And Laurel . . . on her next birthday, would she be just as happy here in Morro? Would she turn eight years old, or would she be seven forever, here in the forever place?
That first day at breakfast, Olin had told me I still had something to accomplish. Laurel, too. He’d seemed so certain . . .
“It’s the violet hour, isn’t it?”
I started at the voice—female, coming from behind me. I turned, and there was a dark shape next to a juniper tree—a shadow within a shadow—not ten feet off. It shifted, apparently to reposition itself in a better light so I could make it out.
It was Jean Toliver, cocooned in a woolen blanket from neck to ankles.
“I didn’t startle you, did I?” she asked.
“Well, no.”
“Good. I always do like the dusk—don’t you? I like to greet it alone when I can.”
“Ah,” I said, finally getting the drift of her remark. “Eliot’s violet hour—‘The evening hour that strives homeward, and brings the sailor home from the sea.’”
Jean rose from her seat and moved closer, settling on a fallen log. She drew her blanket over her head.
“Not quite,” she sai
d. “I was thinking more along the lines of DeVoto.”
I wasn’t sure if she was referring to a person or a car—the name meant nothing to me.
“Sorry?”
She turned toward me, and I could see the flames from the grill fire dancing in the round lenses of her glasses. She reminded me of an owl.
“Bernard DeVoto. Historian and author. ‘This is the violet hour,’ he wrote. ‘The hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.’”
Her voice was tremulous.
“That’s lovely,” I said. “A poem?”
“A cocktail manifesto. Would you like some?”
The blanket rustled and I looked down. She was holding a small silver flask, half buried in the folds. She put a warning finger to her lips. “Shhh.”
I choked back a laugh. If the Navajo reservation was dry, apparently Jean would make do.
The flask was etched with Celtic knots. I uncapped it and took a sip. It went down with a scouring that made me shiver.
I handed the flask back to her. “What is it?”
“Rye whiskey,” she said, stealing a quick sip before recapping it and tucking it back in the folds. “Chilled.”
She murmured the last word primly. Then together we burst into snorting giggles that drew the attention of the men around the fire.
“Too much of that and you will be seeing unicorns,” I whispered.
“Wouldn’t that be charming?”
“And yet a unicorn wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen since I came here.”
“New place, new rules,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I think the most important thing when you’re a stranger in a strange land is to try to enjoy it while you’re there. Besides, the farther back you go, there are no strangers, are there?”
I began to wonder how long she’d been tippling from that flask.
“Come, Joanna. You’ve noticed it—I know you have.” Jean was nodding meaningfully at Trang, still framed in the open doorway. She waited.
She was trying to herd me toward something. But what?
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