Curva Peligrosa

by MacKenzie, Lily Iona;

  After packing up her few possessions, Curva strapped them onto the travois that another horse pulled, saddled her mount, and headed north, weighed down with a severe melancholy. She felt if she could reach the Old North Trail again and continue their aborted quest, she could keep Xavier close to her. They had started this adventure together; they would end it together as well.

  Curva on the Old North Trail

  Hola, mi estimado Xavier,

  It’s so quiet I can hear the trees inhale and the stars sing. My own breathing and heartbeat sound so loud it scares me. I feel like the only human left on earth.

  But the silence also can be bitter and piercing. It weighs on me like a heavy blanket covering everything. Even the air has pores.

  At night I can hear different animals stirring in the brush and circling the campsite—lynx, wolves. They growl. Yowl. They’re my audience. I sing to them and they hoot and howl in response.

  Sometimes I just talk for hours about anything that comes to mind. Don Quixote. Sancho. Kadeem. Ana Cristina Hernandez. Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco. You. Life on the trail. I open my heart and Manuel and Pedro talk back. It’s like being in an echo chamber. Their words comfort me. They feel like food in my mouth that I chew on. It helps to ease the loneliness and saves me from going loca at times.

  Despite coming into this world with a companion, you, I now spend long periods of time alone. You must be thinking, You, Curva, okay without someone to talk to? Yes, mi hermano, me! The longer I’m on the trail, the easier it gets.

  Your death still pierces me, so I convince myself you’re with me, sharing this adventure. Or I tell myself a story that makes me feel better. I pretend one of the rebels killed you, and I refuse to leave Berumba before I track down your killer.

  I even give the murderer a name—Mario René Berrios. Grey threads his hair and his scraggly beard. Do you remember the hombre? I find him in Suelita Flores’s arms, sucking on her nipples. In my fantasy I stride into the room, draw my .38, and aim it at the man’s head. Suelita screams, Get out Curva. This isn’t your business.

  It is my business. He killed Xavier.

  The man tumbles out of the bed. His eyes search for an exit. He dives at the open window, and as he flies through space, I take aim. The bullet enters his rear end and leaves through the top of his head so he doesn’t shed a drop of blood in Suelita’s room.

  He has sons, you know, Suelita says. They won’t rest until they avenge their father’s death. You’d better leave the country fast.

  I drop the gun into my leather shoulder bag and say, Hasta luego, mi amiga.

  As much as I believe this story sometimes, I know I was the one to kill you, not the rebels. I will never forgive myself for that.

  Still, I occasionally feel Mario René Berrios’ sons are chasing me, and I must keep moving so they don’t catch up. These stories I tell myself have lots of power. At times, they seem more real than life itself, just as Berumba became a real place after we read the novel about it. Remember? Don Quixote also seems actual to me. He lives in my mind now, and I’ll never get rid of him. Nor do I want to.

  Today the skies opened and instead of rain it snowed, even though it’s nearly the end of May. Now it has stopped and the sun has come out. Everything has awakened after a long slumber, and the snow melts almost as quickly as it fell. Dios has been chasing rabbits and his tail. Running in circles.

  And I’ve been chasing Dios through the trees. Snow falls from the boughs. Dios barks. I pretend to bark too and then laugh, feeling like a girl again. I’m relieved to see the blue sky and feel the sun’s warmth. The dog and I ended up rolling together down a slope that had a thin layer of snow. Underneath it, new growth is trying to take hold.

  Billie and Curva

  Billie felt he’d been stabbed in the gut when he saw his totems lying in ruins. It was as if he himself had been bludgeoned, and it took time to recover from Sabina and Victor’s action. Though Sabina’s guilt-filled explanations helped him to understand why they had done it, having these two children attack him so personally awakened his old feelings of inadequacy, leftovers from when he was a child. For days afterward, he spent hours picking up totem shards, often pausing over a particular one—a raven’s beak, an owl’s luminous eyes, a bear’s paw—and realized little was salvageable.

  With his totems ruined, Billie was more determined than ever to create something enduring. The museum he had envisioned would answer that need if he could ever find the money to build it. The place would preserve the tribe’s cultural treasures, and visitors would finally learn about Billie’s world, its influence continuing long after he had left this earth.

  On nights when Curva stayed at his place on the rez, Billie shared his plans with her. She got caught up in his ideas for the cultural center and encouraged him to include a replica of the Old North Trail. Maybe Sabina could get Ian to help her create a 3-D film of vegetation and animal life that was prevalent on the trail. They could show it in the museum’s theater, and visitors wearing 3-D goggles could trek the trail without leaving their seats.

  Curva entertained Billie by mimicking the various animal sounds she’d heard on her travels—growling and howling, snorting and screeching. She lunged, and he cowered on the mattress, feigning fear of the wilder animals. She also made up background music for the exhibit, singing Mexican folk songs as she played Xavier’s guitar. Billie tried to sing along with her, making up his own words in Blackfoot as he went along, the two of them giggling like kids.

  After, Curva stretched out next to him, her skirt rising and exposing her bare legs. His fingertips floated over the scar on her thigh, left by a bullet fragment that entered there when Curva fought with Berumba’s revolutionaries.

  Did it hurt? he asked.

  Curva shrugged. Not until I saw all the blood. That’s when I knew I’d been shot and hollered for Xavier to help me.

  Did he?

  Sí, sí. He came running and made a sling so he and the other men could carry me to the doctor in town. It took forever to get there. I thought I would bleed to death first.

  But you didn’t.

  Billie and Curva didn’t talk about marriage; nor did they want to live together. Not only were they both uneasy about giving up their respective freedoms, but they also thought it would cause too many complications. Billie never forgot that his mother, a ksikk4 person, had not been accepted on the rez. Though Curva wasn’t ksikk exactly, she came from another country, and the Blackfoot still resisted strangers in their midst. Afraid of losing their culture, the resistance was protective.

  The truth is, neither Billie nor Curva wanted to give up his or her way of life. Billie had his cabin and art studio; Curva her farm and greenhouse, and Sabina kept her busy, as did Victor at times. And while Billie wasn’t drawn to other women, too shy to approach them, and Curva didn’t see much of Henry anymore, she wanted the freedom to bed down with another man if she felt like it. She wasn’t seeking someone to replace Billie. He was enough man for her. But she craved enhancing what she had if the urge struck her.

  Of course, Suelita still tempted Curva to keep her hand in, so to speak, especially when a new man showed up in town, looking for work either on one of the farms or with the rebuilding following the tornado. Some were much younger than Curva. The young ones are the best, Suelita claimed. They’re always ready. The old ones? Too unpredictable. Curva listened. She didn’t need much encouragement.

  Suelita’s comments stirred Curva’s curiosity and her desire for adventure, currently limited to exploring new male bodies, always so different. And while in bed, she also quizzed these men about themselves, urging them to tell her their deepest secrets. Of course, her dandelion wine loosened their tongues, and it didn’t take much for them to open up.

  Billie looked the other way, just as Henry had done They recognized that for her sex was a lot like mothering—the fondling, the nurturing of
something into existence. And it amazed her that two people, even strangers, could join their bodies together and play them like instruments, running up and down the scales of passion until they hit all the notes.

  Meanwhile, Xavier continued to visit periodically, though she never knew when he might appear. One night, Curva awoke to find him sitting in a corner of Billie’s tower, watching them sleep. Leaning forward, elbow propped on one knee, chin resting on his hand, he brooded over the couple.

  When Curva whispered to Xavier vayase, he stood up and walked through the wall, disappearing into la noche. Some nearby coyotes gave a spine-tingling howl, waking Billie. He said, The boys are restless tonight.

  She just nodded, and he slipped into sleep again. Curva kept watch the rest of the night, half expecting Xavier to reappear. He didn’t, though the coyotes howled and barked intermittently until dawn, unsettled by something wandering in their midst.

  Usually, though, Xavier’s visits had a much different flavor. He wanted to talk and sing and—of course—eat. Always, he needed food, mucho alimentos. At least lust didn’t drive Xavier any longer as it had in life. Something else was propelling him. Many times he said, I need you close to me, mi hermana, like when we were children. It makes me feel alive!

  Curva never knew what guise Xavier might appear in. He didn’t repeat the zoot-suit outfit, though he did show up once as a sultan. During another visit, he dressed as a Russian Cossack, baggy trousers tucked into knee-high black boots. It was January then, the worst part of winter. He wore a fur hat that covered his ears and did a Russian dance for her, arms crossed, kicking his legs straight out from a squatting position.

  Laughing, she asked, Where did you learn this dance and get the outfit?

  He stood up, hat askew. Where do you think? Hades has many nationalities.

  You make it sound like a vacation spot.

  Yes, many take extended vacations there.

  She’d laughed, but she also felt a chill at his words. Such visits renewed her desire to discover the one concoction that could grant the drinker eternal life. The dandelion wine was a good tonic, but it wasn’t powerful enough. She had tried mixing it with various herbs she grew in her greenhouse and minerals she discovered inside rocks from the prairies: hematite and cinnabar. At a Calgary pharmacy, she’d bought some of the things Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco kept in his lab: baking soda, bleach, potassium, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, quinine, hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid. Some she mixed into her solution and drank. But all it did was make her sick for days. She tried combining these items in other ways, and that led to a minor explosion on her stove. It rattled all the dishes in her cupboards and gave her a good jolt.

  She realized the remedy might be in the greenhouse. The hydras and planarians’ agelessness, as well as their ability to recreate themselves, intrigued her. In her free time, she studied them intensely, as she did the other things growing under her care. She felt reassured when new flores appeared where she’d clipped off the dead blooms. The leaves visibly trembled from the energy that surged through them, the flores’ death nourishing the host. Her jardin seemed to be communicating with her during these times, showing nature’s power and how much it could teach those who watched and listened. If it could renew itself endlessly, die and be reborn, surely humans could too.

  * * *

  4 white

  Shirley

  Since Shirley’s appearance in his airplane, Curva had found herself falling into occasional reveries about him. Compared to other men she’d known, he dressed in stylish clothes and was more conscious of his image, making him stand out from the crowd. So did his metal bird, something she wanted for herself. Then she could fly wherever she wanted, covering great distances in a short time. It had taken her years to travel from Berumba to Alberta on a horse. He could do it in a few days.

  Curva imagined them flying off together, exploring new places. They could even go to Mexico. Of course, she didn’t have any major reason to return to her homeland. But she did miss hearing others chatter in Spanish as well as her country’s folk music. Memories of fiestas and promenading in town squares after dinner also filled her with longing.

  But Shirley’s plane wasn’t the only thing that intrigued her. She hated to admit it, but thinking of him sent shivers of excitement through her, similar to how she felt the first time she held a gun. Like a gun, he fascinated her, just as snakes did: slick, elegant, but potentially deadly. D-A-N-G-E-R flashed in front of her eyes. She could lose herself and everything she stood for if she got swept up in his way of life. He didn’t give a damn about any of the things she loved, and the intense attraction made her feel like the type of woman she never wanted to be: incomplete without a man to cling to.

  So the buzz she felt over Shirley wasn’t necessarily pleasant. Yet she couldn’t understand this reaction when she really didn’t care for the man. His intentions were clear—land and oil. Shirley had told her he’d worked on a few oil rigs himself in Montana and knew something about oil fields, having been a roughneck long enough to learn the ropes. Now he had hired Texas oil company executives who were also lured by black gold. Shirley hoped to purchase oil rights for the Texas company and also buy up some land in Alberta for himself, expecting to get in on the ground floor of a boom.

  Curva’s stomach churned when she thought of the development an oil boom would bring to the area. Buying up land was one thing, but drilling a bunch of oil wells would change the area completely with an influx of giant insectos taking over the prairies, as well as scores of workers. She felt protective of the town, wanting to keep it as was, having witnessed the changes Berumba went through when capitalism and greed took over the residents, who no longer were in control of their lives. It wasn’t that she disapproved of growth and change. Watching her plants and animals thrive and evolve taught her how positive it could be. But when expansion and money grubbing were embraced, something dark and sinister seemed to dominate.

  Shirley, of course, knew nothing of Curva’s concerns. Nor would he have cared, though Curva had knowledge that he wanted. Some Weedites had mentioned in passing her mysterious abilities—so she might be useful to him in more ways than one. Besides land and oil, he wanted to find out more about the Old North Trail; a few old-timers who lived near Sweetgrass had told him she was one of a handful of people in recent years that had actually traversed it.

  Shirley had development ideas that would bring visitors to the trail—and their money.

  He wanted to open up the ancient route and turn it into a gold mine. He pictured hotels at various points and sporting goods stores. Sightseers would be intrigued to know the trail had been an Indian thoroughfare at one time, making them more eager to explore it. He might even give Curva a job on the ranch he planned to buy in Alberta. She could care for his horses and take sightseers on trail rides. The greenhouse, too, could be a big draw. Something new: That’s what people wanted. Shirley was eager to fulfill their desires.

  There was one flaw in Shirley’s plans. He hadn’t been fully honest with himself about Curva. She intrigued him. Her reputation as someone not to tangle with attracted Shirley as much as her mysterious greenhouse. The more she refused to let him see inside the structure, the more certain Shirley felt she was hiding something from him. While he wanted to tame Curva, he also wanted to monitor what happened to the oil and gas rights. The more land he could buy, the better chance he had of making a killing.

  Curva on the Old North Trail

  Hola, mi estimado Xavier,

  I watch wildflowers open in the morning. Dew hangs like jewels from their leaves and petals. They close at night and sleep. They nod their heads and shut their eyes and blink at me. I say to them, Buenas tardes, and Manuel and Pedro mimic me. I say, Shush, but that only makes them talk more. Shush, they say. Buenas tardes.

  Sometimes I don’t know if it’s the flowers answering me or the parrots talking. They ke
ep it up until I cover their cage. That quiets them.

  Everything out here speaks in some way. The wind nudges the trees. They sway from the movement and creak and groan. I laugh when I hear this sound. Old women, I think. Some of the pine trees look like women wearing skirts.

  The woods are noisy with animals scurrying around under the dry brush and busy, busy insects flitting back and forth. Bees buzz. Flies hum. Grasshoppers and crickets chirp. Dragonflies whirr. Mosquitoes whine. Birds twitter and trill. And those great golden eagles swish, swish through the air when they pass over.

  I have my own mariachi band.

  It’s spring again and I watch things grow. In the fall I watch them die and send their seeds into the ground for a long hibernation. It’s something I can depend on. This death and rebirth. Everything else is unpredictable. I don’t know from day to day where I’ll be or even who I am. I too change like the seasons. Every new experience I have on or off the trail alters me.

  But I know the grass will poke through the soil in the spring and retreat in the winter. I know the sun will rise in the morning and its rays will make everything grow, filling me with warmth. I know it will set at night and the moon will take over. I know the moon will go through many stages in a month and so will the stars. I know how tree leaves glow when the sun slants off them and the musky smell the earth gives off at dawn. And I know the sound that songbirds make when calling to each other. I notice all of this on the trail. When I’m here, it’s hard to think of myself as separate from my surroundings.