None of these things think about time. But I can see the results of its passing on my skin and in my body. I’m getting older, mi hermano. When I look in a mirror, I see lines starting to appear on my face. Dios is aging, too. More than me. He’s slowing down, and I have to let him ride on the travois part of the time because he has trouble keeping up.
Dios is as important to me in some ways as a man. He licks my face with his rough, warm tongue and pokes his nose into my crotch, making me hot the way you used to. I finish the job with my fingers and one of Dios’s bones. He yelps with me when I let out my own howl. Manuel and Pedro mimic my cry.
Suelita would laugh if she knew.
I saw her yesterday hanging around the edge of our campsite and talking like mad to a tree. She would go crazy without someone to talk to. I thought I saw Don Quixote too passing through the woods on his poor old horse. I called out to him, but he and his horse ran off. I must have scared him away.
Tonight I’m smoking some weed from my stash. The world loses its hard edges. Things blur together and time stops. It gives me a floaty feeling, and even the saddest things seem hilarious. Sometimes I find myself laughing and crying at once.
When I’m smoking, I don’t feel alone anymore, and it makes me have colorful dreams. They fill up my nights. My own private theatre. Something to look forward to.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever reach my destination. Then I count the days passing so I have some idea of where I am and how long I’ve been traveling. But I lose myself for a while in each day and try not to think about where I’m going. That way I don’t get trapped in being disappointed if things don’t turn out the way I want.
In the towns or cities it’s different. I become different. I forget this rougher, simpler life close to nature and enjoy taking warm baths and feeling like a normal woman again. I talk to strangers in bars, in cafes, in stores, practicing my Inglés. They want to hear about my travels and I have many stories to tell. Sometimes I make them up. You know me, Xavier. I have always liked a good tale.
You won’t want to hear this, mi hermano, but I also enjoy a night or more with some nice men I meet in these places. Sometimes, they want to join me when I hit the road again. But I tell them you’re my only travel companion. And it’s true. You and the animals.
The Berumba Delegation
The morning when Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco turned up in Curva’s kitchen for the first time, Kadeem, the wizard, came tagging behind, heavy lidded and yawning. His broad-brimmed hat teetered on his head, and he gripped a rolled-up parchment, not looking a day older than when Curva had seen him last on the trail. Each man appeared strong as a donkey.
So involved in transforming ordinary food into something heavenly, at first Curva didn’t notice her visitors. She stood at the stove, singing and stirring, stray cats chasing each other around her legs. She dipped a spoon into the tortilla soup she was making and tasted it. Más sal, she said to the cats and generously shook the saltshaker over the pot. They meowed, ears perked up, waiting for her to drop some scraps. Manuel and Pedro meowed back.
On another burner, Curva was brewing dandelion flowers with raisins, water, sugar, lemon and orange peels in preparation for another batch of vino. Eyes closed, she sniffed each container, inhaling deeply, vapor steaming up the windows. Bueno, bueno, she said.
Bueno, bueno, a male voice chimed in.
It wasn’t Manuel or Pedro.
It wasn’t Xavier.
Startled, Curva jumped, simultaneously spinning around and reaching for her .38, tucked into the pocket of her peasant skirt where she’d put it after target practice that morning.
You don’t need your weapon, señora. It’s your old friends visiting again from Berumba. And they opened their arms in welcome.
Curva wasn’t sure how to respond. Though her former employer and his sidekick were acting as if they were old friends of hers, when she lived at Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco’s house, Curva had been outside of the men’s intimate circle. An employee as far as the master of the house was concerned, she knew her place.
Putting convention first, Curva ignored their outstretched arms, inviting them to sit at the kitchen table. Aquí, Señor Pacheco. Aquí, Señor Kadeem. Sit down. Sit down. And she pointed to the scarred wooden chairs. Remembering how Xavier always seemed famished when he turned up, she assumed these guests from far off would also be hungry and offered them some sopa. My own recipe, she said.
Sí, sí, sopa. Muy buena!
Curva filled two bowls with soup and placed them on the table before her guests. She served herself one as well, crushing some tortilla chips into the broth, topping it with grated cheese she’d made from her goats’ milk as well as the avocado she grew in the greenhouse, chopped into tiny pieces.
You have everything here, señora, Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco said. He spread his hands wide: Everything! Big sky. Big country. We like. Don’t we, Kadeem? He nudged his friend, who was dozing over the soup, the edge of his hat brim skimming its surface. He jerked awake, startled. No, no, he said. I will tell you everything.
Everything, Manuel and Pedro echoed.
Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco laughed. Everything? What do you mean, mi amigo, ev-er-y-thing? Should I get you a priest so you can confess?
Kadeem rubbed his eyes and looked around. You are not the policía, he said.
No policía here, Curva said. Just Mounties.
Ah, of course, it’s Curva, Kadeem said. The pulsations of your greenhouse led us here. Look, we have this map for you. He unrolled the frayed scroll he’d been carrying under his arm and spread it out on the table.
For me? she asked.
Sí, for you. It’s very old and very precious. The only one of its kind left in the world. During my travels to the pyramids in Egypt, I stumbled over an ancient pottery vessel in the desert. This map was inside it.
Curva frowned and said, What would I want with this map? My traveling days are over. She glanced from one man to the other.
This involves a different kind of travel, señora. Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco has told me of your interest in prolonging life. He waved his hand over the parchment. This may help you.
Curva carefully picked up the scroll and studied it. I don’t understand, she said. There is no map here. It’s blank!
Sí, señora. You must fill it in.
Curva glanced at her former employer. Is this a joke? she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders and picked up one of the cats. It settled onto his lap, and he scratched its ears. Purring filled the room, and steam rose from the dandelion mixture simmering on the stove, fogging up the windows.
Kadeem leaned closer to Curva and whispered: The ink is invisible. You must find a way to make it appear again in order to learn its secrets.
Curva threw back her head and laughed. The sound resembled a sonic boom. You bring me a map that isn’t a map. You tell me I must find a way to make the ink visible again. I’m not a magician, señor. You’re the one who knows all these tricks and spells. I just grow things and make dandelion wine. You want some?
Sí, some vino would warm the heart, Kadeem said. Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco nodded in agreement and continued to stroke the cat, lost in a dreamy haze.
Curva got up and returned with three glasses and a jug of vino. She filled the clear tumblers with the pale yellow liquid. They all picked up their drinks and Curva said salud.
Sí, salud. We need good health, Kadeem said.
Mucho, said Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco. He raised his glass to the light. Look, mis amigos, liquid gold. Curva has had the recipe for it all this time.
Kadeem held his glass to the light as well. Sí, it’s true. All those years you wasted trying to turn base metal into gold, you could have been drinking this vino instead. Maybe it is the elixir of life.
Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco drained his glass and smacked
his lips. Delicioso, he said, and asked for a refill. Curva gave him one and poured more for herself as well.
Kadeem, you’re falling behind, she said, and aimed the jug at his glass.
I want to savor this potion, señora. It should be inhaled, not guzzled. Did I give you the map?
Sí, it’s right here.
Of course, I remember now. Did I give you the seeds also?
Seeds? What seeds?
The kind you plant in the earth. Kadeem poked Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco and said, Where did I put them, mi amigo? My pockets are full of holes. He passed one closed hand over his friend’s ear and when he opened it, four seeds were there, brown and shriveled. Ah, sí, there they are. I found them in the same container as the map. Plant them in your greenhouse, señora. Then we’ll see what kind of a gardener you are. Can you give life to something so many years old?
Curva took the withered kernels and rolled them around the palm of her left hand. She thought she could feel them pulse and held them up to her ear. It sounds like a heart beating, she said. Listen! She handed them to Ernesto Valenzuela Pacheco.
I’m afraid my hearing isn’t so good anymore. I don’t hear anything. He set them on the table. They rolled and then hopped a little on the plastic cover, making a soft clicking sound.
You’ve cast a spell on them, Kadeem, she said.
No, they’re just eager for the earth. Give them a home, señora. That will settle them down. We all need a home.
Curva got up and carried the soup bowls to the sink, the cats following her. She sang La cucaracha, la cucaracha / Ya no puede caminar / Porque no tiene, porque le falta /marijuana para fumar.5 The men’s voices joined hers, as well as the parrots’, and they all burst out laughing at the end of the chorus, the sound shaking the house and bouncing off the windows, causing them to rattle. The vibrations rolled across the prairies and into the surrounding homes, making everyone in the area smile.
But when Curva returned with more vino, her guests had departed, leaving only Kadeem’s cape behind and the parchment. The seeds were still doing a sedate dance on the table, clicking together at times like castanets. Enlivened by her recent visitors, she sang La Cucaracha, threw the Trinidadian’s cape around her shoulders, furled the paper before placing it in a drawer, slipped the kernels into her pocket, and danced all the way to the greenhouse—a combination rumba and cha cha cha. She planted the seeds in four separate pots, using the richest Canadian soil she had. She even sprinkled them with a few drops of dandelion wine to add a little acidity to the earth.
* * *
5 The cockroach, the cockroach/Can’t walk anymore/Because it doesn’t have, because it’s lacking/marijuana to smoke.
Sabina
When their punishment period had ended, Victor asked Sabina if she wanted to go fishing after school.
Sabina said, I’m off to help Billie.
Victor said, You’re turning into an injun.
She slapped his face and the impact of her fingers made red marks. Sabina didn’t care. He had insulted her and her friend.
Guilt filled Sabina whenever she thought of what she and Victor had done. She would never forget the look of betrayal on Billie’s face when he arrived home to find his art destroyed. So she became his helper, hoping to atone for her part in the wreckage. She cleaned his cabin and studio, handed him tools, and watched how he worked with wood and paints.
Billie painted her into the mural he was working on, capturing her flame-colored hair and sky blue eyes. He also gave Sabina her own project to shape, a small block of wood for a totem, and said, I learned to carve them when I lived with the Squamish Nation on the coast. Most coastal tribes make them.
Sitting on a bench in his workshop, Sabina asked, Why do they make totems?
Billie planted himself in front of the post he was working on, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. Wood chips flew into the air as he cut into it. He paused and went on, The totem poles show our belief in being spiritually connected to animals. The images tell our story as individuals and a people. Now I’m teaching my tribe about them. They’ll become part of our heritage, too.
Sabina stared at him, paying full attention.
Billie puffed on the cigarette and watched the smoke drift away, lost in thought. Then he tossed the stub into a nearby can of water where it sputtered. He said, We believe each person has a totem animal that guides us in our life, and handed Sabina a pencil and carving knife. He chuckled: You can get started finding yours.
Fingering the tool Billie had given her, Sabina didn’t know where to begin—what to carve or draw. Billie told her not to think too much about it. Let the tools do the work, he said. You’ll be surprised.
And she was. After working on it for a few weeks, the piece began to transform itself into something she hadn’t expected. The image was crude, but there was no mistaking the animal she had called forth: an owl.
Billie nodded when he saw the results. That’s your totem now, he said, patting her shoulder, your animal spirit. It’ll bring you good medicine. Maybe even some wisdom.
Sabina liked the idea of having a totem animal that would bring her good luck—Billie’s explanation of good medicine. She didn’t know about the wisdom, though. She hadn’t shown much when she encouraged Victor to destroy Billie’s totems.
Whenever Sabina walked onto the reserve, it was like stepping into another universe. Time moved differently, sideways almost. Even in circles. People didn’t rush to get places. They sat together, smoking and talking. The pace was much slower, as if there was an endless amount of time for everything. Even the speech seemed unhurried. It reminded her of Curva’s stories about Berumba in its early days.
Though Curva didn’t pay much attention to clocks and schedules, the rest of the town did, and that shaped Sabina’s sense of things. Late for her first day of school, Sabina soon learned to be on time. Otherwise, she received a detention.
During one of her visits to the reserve, she learned the Blackfoot believed humans don’t have dominion over all in sight. Yet Ian had told her the Bible claimed they ruled the animal kingdom. Billie held that a person wasn’t any more important than a rock or a tree; everything in creation was equal. Nor were the Blackfoot interested in upward mobility, a term she had learned in Social Studies. From what she could see, they didn’t seem very competitive. Most appeared content to just hang out with one another, avoiding the outside world, though some were spending more time in town since the bones were discovered there, assisting Billie.
She asked Billie why they kept to themselves so much. When she asked the question, he was working on his mural and sucking on an unlit pipe. He kept on painting and didn’t say anything for a while. Then he set down the pipe and wiped his face with a red-checkered bandanna.
The rez feels safer, he said. Most people in town don’t really see us or get us. You know what I mean?
Sabina nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure she understood.
He went on, They only see what we aren’t: we aren’t white. We don’t share the same culture or history. So we’re invisible to them. On the rez, we feel seen and valued. That’s why it’s easier to keep to ourselves.
Billie picked up his pipe, stuck it in his mouth again, and resumed painting. Sabina grabbed some used brushes and washed them in a bucket of clean water, puzzling over Billie’s comments and things she’d heard the tribe’s elders talking about. They believed the Industrial Age had done more damage than good, and that’s why they resisted getting caught up in modern life any more than they had to. They clung to a past that had defined them and gave them some stature.
These insights helped Sabina understand Billie’s desire to build a museum that would preserve his people’s history and give witness to a cultural past almost lost to them. He wanted to restore pride and dignity to the Blackfoot and offer the youth a renewed sense of belonging.
&
nbsp; And what did Sabina want? She longed to be recognized as one of the Ni-tsi-ta-pi-ksi—the real people. Billie assured Sabina she was an honorary Siksika, a Blackfoot. But Sabina wanted to be more than honorary. She wanted to actually be one. She begged Billie to tell her stories about the tribe’s origins and his own youth. He always got such a serious, faraway look on his face when he talked about the old times.
Billie said, Remember when I told you about my vision quest and the run-in I had with an angry beaver.
Sabina nodded and laughed.
Well, it reminds me of the Beaver Medicine Legend I heard about as a child. I identified with the younger orphan boy, Akaiyan, whose older brother had abandoned him on an island. But after my vision quest, the tale seemed part of my story too.
Billie dabbed some paint on the mural and continued: A little beaver had found Akaiyan, who was weeping, and invited him into the beaver lodge. The beaver family invited Akaiyan to spend the winter with them, and he learned many things about herbs and roots and tobacco, as well as their songs and prayers and mysteries. In the spring, he returned to his tribal camp, teaching his people the wisdom and power of the beaver. He also invited all of the prairie and mountain animals to add their power to the Beaver Medicine, which is why it is considered the most potent of the bundles.
Billie sighed and said, I hope some of the beaver wisdom has rubbed off on me and I can pass it on.
Sabina still visited Ian and Edna whenever she had a chance. On her twelfth birthday, Ian gave her a gift. When she opened the box, wrapped in newsprint and tied with twine, she whooped. My own gun!
Not quite, Ian said. It’s a camera that looks like a gun, lass. My own invention. You just point, pull the trigger, and bam, you have a picture. What do you think?
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