It made Sabina look at humans differently: they were just skeletons with a little flesh covering them. It was the frame that endured, not the flesh. The bones lived on to tell their story, and something in the earth contributed to their longevity. Sabina concluded that just as she couldn’t develop film without a darkroom, so too bones couldn’t endure without going underground first. Something mysterious happened to them there.
She hoped her pictures would reveal this secret.
Then she remembered photographs she’d taken when the bones were first uncovered and Billie’s comments about them. He’d said, You’ve caught them in time; they don’t usually live in time. You’ve trapped the spirit bodies that are still clinging to the bones. Look, you’re showing here what our eyes can’t normally see.
Sabina looked again at her negatives, trying to see those spirit bodies. It was like gazing into the glass bowl Curva had described, the bones speaking to Sabina through images. No books, Ian had just said. Just bones. But he was wrong. They weren’t just bones. They formed pictures in the mind, the first language. Words weren’t the only way to tell a story. These images also created fictions—other worlds. And Sabina was a kind of author. She had given these visions life.
Whenever Sabina entered her darkroom, it was like going underground into a primitive cave. After dipping the negatives into chemicals, she marveled at what surfaced on the film. The trapped contents seemed to be speaking from some distant place, like pictographs discovered on cavern walls created by ancient people. It always gave her a thrill to watch first the outlines and then the complete image take shape, as if she were present at the beginning of creation, privy to how life came into existence.
Over the years, Sabina had helped Curva when she was called on to be a midwife. Now she was doing something similar with the pictures, assisting at the birth of these images. She hated to leave the darkroom and return to the world of light. It seemed so limited somehow, so lacking in depth, everything clearly identifiable, leaving little to the imagination.
Curva on the Old North Trail
Hola, mi estimado Xavier,
I’m back on the trail again. In the last town we visited, Dios found a friend that’s joined us. I’ve never seen him so devoted to another dog. Her fur is all white, and I can see why he likes her. She’s magnifico and elegante. I call her Diosa.
I hope she’ll have his perritos. I want something of Dios to continue after he’s gone. He’s been with me so long. Almost twenty years.
I keep hoping Kadeem and his band will show up again. I’m sure they aren’t far away. I’m always running into people from Berumba who’ve strayed.
There are also lost souls who wander into the bush and can’t handle the loneliness. They haven’t brought any supplies with them and don’t know how to forage for food or shoot a gun or find their way out. I’ve spent many a day showing them how to survive out here before sending them on their way again.
That happened recently. The sun doesn’t set till late in the summer. I already had eaten dinner and was passing time smoking and reading and singing to the animals before going to sleep. The dogs let out a low growl and then started barking. The parrots screeched and squawked. I grabbed my rifle just in case there might be trouble and cocked it.
A dark bay horse stumbled into the clearing. It had a problem walking on all the branches that littered the ground, and they made a loud cracking noise when they broke. Someone was slumped over in the saddle and looked half asleep or half dead. I thought it might be Don Quixote.
Lost, I thought.
Then an old woman raised her head, and I wondered if Don Quixote was wearing one of his disguises. A tangled mess of graying red hair hid most of her face and looked like a bird’s nest. She brushed it aside and two blue eyes the color of robin’s eggs stared at me.
I stared back.
She seemed surprised to find another woman in the wilds. I had been sitting in front of a fire, playing the guitar and singing. I guess my voice drew her to my camp—that, and the smell of food cooking. I’d caught trout in a stream earlier that day and had just finished frying them. They tasted good with miner’s lettuce and the flat bread I’d made. The bears left me some berries for dessert. Since I hadn’t fed the dogs the leftovers yet, they had to share them that night with this woman.
I set down my gun and helped her dismount. She was weak as a newborn and could barely walk, even with my help. I placed her by the fire and served the food on a tin plate. She didn’t say a word. Just grunted and ate with her fingers. I worried she might end up eating them too.
She fell asleep slumped over the plate in her lap. I took it away and she sprawled out. A little spittle dribbled from the corners of her mouth. She twitched and muttered in her sleep. Let out a shriek that scared the animals and me. She must’ve had a lot to dream about.
I unsaddled her horse and put the horse blanket over the woman. It couldn’t have stunk any more than she did and would at least keep her warm in the cool night. I curled up next to her. It was so silent I could hear her heart beating.
The next day she seemed más vivo and we talked for a long time. I liked having a woman around again. Her name was Ann, and she was looking for the Blackfoot reservation where she once lived. She wanted to see her niños again. They’d been really young when she’d left years earlier.
The stories about her children made me think she might be loca, but it was nice to yak with another person so I went along with her. I told her she didn’t look Indian to me and she said she wasn’t. Her husband was. Except they weren’t really married. Not legally.
I said I didn’t think her kids would still be hanging around waiting for their mother to return. She couldn’t get it through her head they would be grown now with kids of their own.
I realized I couldn’t change her mind. She was sure they were still bambinos and they needed their mother. I said I had to vayase and gave her directions to a nearby town and some food to take with her.
I’ve often wondered what happened to that woman with the sky in her eyes. Maybe she ran into Kadeem’s group and joined them. I think I hear their drums in the distance now or maybe it’s thunder. It doesn’t matter. I just tell myself it’s Kadeem and I believe it.
Something I can’t believe. I’ve been tracking how far I’ve traveled every time I stop at a town. If my estimates are right, I’m almost at the end of this long trail. I should be in Calgary in time for the big rodeo there. Another month. I’m ready to win some cash and settle down. I’m getting too old to continue this wandering life.
In thinking back, I realize I’ve done the safe thing. I’ve taken a ruta others could have found if they wanted to. Not many wanted to. Still the trail’s not new. I had some idea I’d feel closer to you since we both started out on it. I owed it to you to stay with it and finish what we began together.
What awaits me in Canada? I’ve been asking this question of the medicine bundle the old Indian gave me in Indian Springs. I wear it around my neck and keep it close to my skin. The fur reminds me I’m an animal too and makes me not want to be tamed. Sometimes it talks to me. Many voices come from inside it. The wind. The sun. The moon. The earth. They speak all at once, so I have trouble making out what they’re saying, but just the sound is comforting. The meaning will become clear in time.
Five
Bone Song
Under a full moon
the snow’s glare
reflects a ghostly
landscape.
Light transforms
everything
in its wake.
Queen Bee
At times, Curva didn’t know what to make of Sabina. The girl baffled her. In some ways she lived in another world. Unlike Curva, Sabina was orderly, super-organized, and knew from birth what she wanted.
Every morning Sabina packed a lunch for herself to take to school, as wel
l as snacks for later, leaving for the Center right from classes. Most days she arrived home sometime in the evening and zipped through her chores, hardly needing a parent.
Unlike Sabina, Curva felt she needed a madre at times. She could lose herself for hours in listening to her fountain’s fluctuating rhythms, watching the butterflies mate, observing the bees in their hive, studying the hydras and planarians for clues to immortality, or fussing over her plants— unaware of time passing. A glass of dandelion wine or inhaling some weed compelled her to linger and enjoy, to immerse herself in the moment. Cleaning the house, washing dishes, or doing laundry—things she hated—didn’t intrude on her much. She didn’t feel impelled to be a great housekeeper when so much else called for her attention.
She also could practice shooting for hours, sharpening her skills, living on the bullet’s edge, feeling the power of its propellant. When shooting a gun, she became one with the ammunition, seeking to penetrate beyond what normally is visible—into the heart of things. She didn’t know why firing a weapon affected her in this way. But it had become an intimate part of her being, satisfying her desire to pierce life in as many ways as possible. When she was shooting, she seemed capable of blasting through time and into some timeless space.
On the trail, time had seemed circular, not linear. Curva had lived by the sun’s rising and setting, not a clock or a calendar, and animals had no conscious sense of time passing. She’d learned from them. But living among other people interfered with Curva fully feeling that eternal present. Having Sabina around also made it harder. The girl seemed to rush headlong into the future, eager to discover what it held.
These differences between mother and daughter caused Curva to wonder at times just what she’d produced and to puzzle over the girl’s padre. Who was he? Something had happened in her outhouse during the tornado that had made her pregnant. The bone she had found there still visited in dreams, causing many a delight-filled night. It had such a profound impact that even now, years later, she could get aroused just thinking about it.
As a result, here she was with an hija whose origins were mysterious. Curva had provided the womb, but Sabina didn’t seem to need much else from her madre. Nor did the girl resemble her mother physically. Red hair? Where did that come from? Blue eyes? And her infatuation with cameras and taking pictures? Loca! Curva thought, at the same time feeling maternal pride in this unusual child.
At times, Curva wondered if she had given birth to a human mole. She didn’t understand how Sabina could remain underground for hours in that darkroom at the Center. But Sabina’s interest in human and prehistoric animal remains did make sense. Curva had a bizarre relationship with bones as well, including the ones at the burial ground. Both mother and daughter had an interest in death’s many manifestations. Something might appear lifeless on the surface, like the prairie plants that died each winter, or the butterflies in their cocoons, but they miraculously blossomed later. Death was a tricky fellow, changing constantly, at one moment resembling Xavier in his multiple wardrobes, and at another being totally opaque.
It hadn’t occurred to Curva that Sabina also had a passion for transformations. Her time developing photographs allowed the girl to pursue such investigations. Yet Sabina’s pictures left Curva puzzled. She understood her interest in bones. But the photos? And so many? It seemed unhealthy for a teenage girl to spend hours in the darkroom, studying them. Shouldn’t she be outside more, riding her horse or even fishing with Victor?
Curva fully supported Billie’s project. But at times she disliked the way it absorbed Sabina, who seemed more attached to Billie than to Curva. Sabina had never called Curva madre, and Curva had never encouraged it. Though she may have resisted being called madre, she still took great pride in her captivating daughter. A curiosity, Sabina never failed to surprise Curva. She dressed as she pleased, not following any particular style or wearing what the other kids did. Clearly, something of Curva had rubbed off on the child as she passed though her. Curva wasn’t exactly your typical female, and Sabina had picked up Curva’s unwillingness to follow the herd.
One spring afternoon, wearing a protective hood, leather gloves, and outer garments, Curva was tending her beehive, watching the female worker bees gathering honey and laying eggs, reminding Curva of herself in some ways. The male drones walked on the combs, begging for food and grooming themselves when they weren’t just roosting and waiting to impregnate the queen. The activity inside the hive never seemed to stop. Bees swarmed over the womb-like honeycomb and huddled together as if in communal prayer. She liked the idea that female honeybees ran everything. The male drones were only useful for mating with the queen, who killed any contenders for the throne. One stab of her stinger and it was all over.
Carrying the honey she’d collected, Curva retreated to the house and changed into black gauchos and a white shirt with billowing sleeves. Before slipping on her riding boots, she thrust out her stomach and swiveled her hips, practicing some belly dancing moves. Then, off to Billie’s cultural center, she threw a wool poncho over her shoulders and strode out to the barn, Dios following. Her horse Pavel stood waiting in its stall for her to ride him and nuzzled her hand, looking for a carrot. She pulled one out of a pocket, and it grasped the whole thing between its teeth, throwing back its head and shaking its mane. Dios followed her around, barking and darting back and forth. Once Curva had saddled Pavel, she led it into the yard, mounted, and took off. The dog pursued horse and mistress as they sped over the road, heading to town.
The land hadn’t fully returned to life yet. Another snow had fallen just the previous week. While much of it had melted, some still clung to hollows and ditches as if unwilling to give up its relationship with the earth, pressed up against it like a lover. Curva wondered if the snow didn’t want to dissolve and lose itself altogether by melting into the soil. She could understand that impulse.
She also could understand the snow’s desire to hang on. Her search for an elixir of life grew out of a similar need to suck at the teat of existence and not let go. Her bees seemed to have a parallel attachment to their queen. They were totally dependent on this female, just as the Pacheco household had been dependent on Ana Cristina Hernandez. Curva didn’t think of herself as a queen bee exactly, but she did feel territorial and would run off anyone who threatened her status at home. She was queen of her greenhouse, of her farm.
And while Sabina may have been queen of Billie’s ancestral bones, Curva was queen of his bone. She exerted a power over Billie that no other woman had, except maybe his mother, and Curva knew it. Nor did his attraction to Curva diminish over the years. Billie never failed to respond to her, the stiffening between his legs like a hypersensitive antenna whenever she came within shouting distance, though Curva’s scent always preceded her. The odor reminded Billie of the musky quality some animals give off. Whenever he got a whiff of it, as he did now, his heart beat faster, the hair on his body bristling, signaling she was in the vicinity. He lifted his head and sniffed the air, dropping the chisel he’d been using; it clattered onto the cement floor. Victor, who had started helping out at the museum at Sabina’s urging, and was learning how to carve wood, picked it up and handed it to Billie. He thanked the boy.
At that moment, Curva was approaching a major intersection near the town. She reined in the horse to let the cars go by before she crossed, and Dios heeled as well. While she was studying the distant Rockies, their jagged edges jutting into the blue expanse as if wanting to join with the sky, Shirley’s small plane swooped down, spooking Pavel. The horse flew across the road.
Curva clung to the saddle horn as the horse leaped over a moving car, clipping his hooves on the roof, but Curva kept her seat. As they flew, she stood in the stirrups and hovered over his neck, crooning Bésame Mucho into his ear. The words calmed him down, and he stopped pulling at the reins, landing in one of Henry’s fields, Dios nearby.
Shirley circled the pasture, buzzing dog
, horse, and rider. Curva shook her fist at him and cursed loudly in Spanish, but her anger didn’t deter Shirley. Nor did the horse’s discomfort. If anything, both egged him on even more.
The horse drooled, its mouth working at the bit, its eyes rolling wildly. Dios raced back and forth across the field, growling at the plane. Curva patted Pavel’s neck and mane, trying to calm it down, periodically shaking her fist at the sky. She said, It’s okay, boy. Pavel’s sides heaved, and her mount looked on the verge of flight.
Curva felt less confident than she sounded, and Pavel seemed to sense it, flinching at the slightest movement on the road or in the field, as jittery as Curva. Relieved to see Shirley finally fly away, Curva dismounted, hoping to calm the horse and herself. She attached a rope to its bridle and led him back to her place, the visit to the Center temporarily suspended. Dios ran ahead, mouth open and tongue hanging out, feet kicking up dirt. Then Dios raced back, yapping, trying to match Curva and Pavel’s pace. She leaned over and patted his head. Good boy, she said, and Dios jumped up and licked her face. Pavel rubbed its nose against her arm. Sí, sí, mis amigos. You want food. We’ll be home pronto.
Around that time, Billie’s physical responses to Curva’s odor sputtered and died out, his erection softening. False alarm. Billie returned to the work at hand, chipping away at a replica of an outdoor fire for one of the exhibits, Curva hovering on the edges of his consciousness.
Curva Peligrosa Page 23