Music also fills me. I can’t stop playing the guitar and singing. I think it’s because I’ll be leaving the trail soon and want to store up as much of you as I can. I feel you’re with me in the music. All the songs we used to sing together: Bésame Mucho. La Bamba. El Rey.
Dios and Diosa try to sing along. They let out sharp little barks and moans. I bark a little too and Dios nuzzles my arm.
Manuel and Pedro blurt out, Kiss me Kiss me. That makes me laugh too. Crazy birds.
I should be in Sweetgrass, Montana any day. I like the name Sweetgrass. I wonder if the town looks like its name. I’ll spend the winter there. It’s not far from Calgary and its grande rodeo. I hope to reach Calgary mañana—many mañanas from now. Sometime next year. In time to compete. After that I’ll put down some roots for a change and stop traveling.
I’ve had enough. So has Dios. He’s a very old dog now and can’t do much walking any more. It worries me. We’ve been together a long time. I can’t imagine what it would be like without him tagging along. My bed partner; my sidekick. He’s better than Don Quixote’s amigo Sancho Panza. Dios and I do everything together.
I’m not getting any younger either.
I’m worried, though, about leaving the trail for good. You know me, Xavier. I like my freedom. It will be hard to live somewhere permanently. I won’t be able to take off when I get tired of it. I know, I know. I’ll gain some things. But I’ll lose a lot. The total freedom I have here. The wonder I feel daily about all these creatures and how they survive so many different conditions. How I’ve learned to survive with them. Finding places no other human has ever seen. The beauty of the wilderness.
I don’t mean to make it sound like everything is perfect here. There are lots of problemas. That’s what makes life interesting. These warm days have brought us visitors. Big black flies torment the horses and me. I found a way to fool them. Sometimes we travel at night and stay covered up during the day when they’re out attacking anything that moves. The dark seems to scare them away. They don’t bother us then. Maybe they sleep, too.
The past few days have been really hot. I found a creek for all of us to use. After stripping off my clothes, I waded up to my knees. The flies don’t like water, and these mountain streams feel good when it’s this balmy. I splashed the dogs and the horses. Even Manuel and Pedro like me to spray them a little after being locked up in their cages so much. They screech and say más, más.
After, I sprawled on a hot rock like a lizard dozing, letting the sun and water lap at me. It felt delicious. The clouds chased each other across the blue, blue sky and changed shape. So many different animals appeared up there drifting into each other. I drifted with them.
I pretended I was floating down a river and Mexico was waiting for me when I woke up. But I never got there. The wind blew up a dark cloud that blocked the sun and let loose with a sudden summer shower. The parrots screeched. The dogs hid under some bushes.
I didn’t move. I liked the patter of rain on my skin. It soon ended and the sun dried me in no time. I wanted to stay there forever, letting the sun eat me alive. I hope I return as a lizard in another life so I can find a rock like this for my home and never leave it.
Those Bones
Billie drove Sabina home after the museum closed and parked his truck next to Curva’s. Dios greeted them with sharp barks, jumping up and down. Good day’s work, he said, patting Sabina’s arm. See you tomorrow.
Sabina pushed back the brim of her hat, leaned over, and gave him a smack on the cheek, causing him to blush. Thanks, she said.
Billie adjusted his eye patch, displaced by Sabina’s buss: Say hi to your mother for me.
Sabina paused before opening the vehicle’s door, her eyebrows raised: You aren’t coming in?
The farmhouse door flew open, and Curva planted herself on the stoop, legs spread and arms crossed, a mock frown on her brow.
Guess I am, he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Sabina laughed and waved at Curva, skipping away to the barn and calling out, I’m off to feed the horses and take a ride before dinner.
Billie stepped out of the truck, brushed off his khaki trousers, and strode over to where Curva was standing, Dios sniffing at his heels. He said, Thought you might come by the museum today.
Sí, I planned to. Got sidetracked.
He took a pack of Players out of his breast pocket, shook out a cigarette, and lit up, inhaling deeply. Lots of visitors today, he said. Biggest crowd we’ve had so far.
Curva uncrossed her arms, slid her hands into the pockets of her culottes, and gazed at the distant Rockies. I don’t recognize the town anymore, she said, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, highlighting her prominent cheekbones. She shook her head: New shops springing up everywhere.
Billie took another drag on his cigarette: Yeah, we’re not an outpost anymore. We’re in the world!
She glanced at the sky and said, Thanks to Shirley.
He looked at her, quizzically. You still bugged at him?
I guess you could say that. He gets on my nerves.
Mine too. Billie sucked on the cigarette and blew out the smoke: He does more than get on my nerves. He makes me furious! You know he keeps telling everyone he meets that you’re a wetback.
A slow burn crept across Curva’s face, turning it the color of the sunset. She spit out, Wetback! That’s like saying I’m not human. I don’t have a right to be here. What’s he know?
Billie stared at the ground. Enough to cause trouble, it seems. He’s telling people you give the place a bad name.
He’s loca. He’s the one who gives this place a bad name. He’s a thief! He’s robbing the earth and all of us. When the oil and gas is gone, poof! Then what are people left with? A lot of messed up land.
Billie took one last puff before grinding the cigarette butt beneath his heel. I agree, he said, but most folks like the money he’s brought to the area and don’t want to cross him.
Curva spat out the words: Dinero. Is that all they think about?
Staring at the ground, he said, Seems that way. I’m sorry I had to sign up with him. I know it bothers you a lot. But we never could have preserved our culture without that money. We’re dependent on Shirley’s oil boom.
I know, I know. I just wish there were another way. She nodded at the house, Aren’t you coming inside, Bee-lee?
He chuckled. You haven’t invited me.
She swatted his arm. Since when did you need an invite? She opened the door and both Billie and Dios followed her, the dog settling on a rug by the woodstove. I made your favorite dish, she said. Hungry?
He sniffed the air: Smells great.
Curva walked over to the stove, lifted the lid on her pot of carne asada, and slammed it back down. Laughing, she said, Looks like I’ve had some visitors with beeg appetites.
Billie looked surprised: It’s gone?
She lifted her arms and dropped them. Yes, gone!
He turned towards the door. Grab a coat. I’ll take you and Sabina to town for dinner. Want to try that new Chinese café?
Frowning, she said, I don’t like going into town if I’m being called a wetback.
Billie stared at the worn linoleum floor: I don’t like it either, but they don’t pay attention to me when I protest. In their minds, I’m worse than a ‘wetback’.
Curva flopped onto a chair at the table and stared at Billie, a dark cloud descending on her face. She said, Who makes these stupid laws? Could they throw me out of the country?
He looked out the window at the gathering dusk and said, Not if you marry me.
She sat up straight. What?
He shrugged. Could be a solution.
She shook her head and said, Marriage and me don’t mix. Like oil and water. You know that.
He fingered the ribbing on the hem of his jacket and said, They cou
ldn’t touch you then. You’d be legal. He glanced briefly at her and away again. We don’t have to live together.
She stared out the window, thinking, watching a family of cumulus clouds gather on the horizon. Curva One Eye? Not likely. Curva Foot in her Mouth sounded better. She ran her fingers over the map Kadeem had left, as if it were coded with Braille, and said, Shirley says I owe taxes and the authorities will take my place away from me.
Billie ambled over to where Curva was sitting and rubbed her shoulders. Not if you pay them. Need money?
She shook her head: I still have some stashed away. I just don’t like giving it to the government—to strangers. What right do they have to control my life? If I’m not legal, why do they want my dinero? Isn’t the money illegal too?
Billie pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. He said, It’s not worth getting upset about. Save your energy for something else. He glanced at the parchment Curva was unconsciously fingering: Hey, where’d you get that old native map?
Curva stared at him, her raised eyebrows resembling crows in flight. Native?
Yeah. The writing is Algonquin. He studied it for a few minutes and blurted out, Amazing! It’s a map of this area.
You’re kidding, Bee-lee! I thought it was Greek…maybe Egyptian.
He laughed. Nope. Where’d you get it?
Curva told him about Kadeem’s visit. He said he found it in an Egyptian desert. It held the key to immortality.
Your friend’s a good storyteller. He must’ve gotten lost and found the map here—on the prairies. You said he traveled the Old North Trail, too.
Sí. But this area, how can it be connected to immortality?
Billie shrugged. You’ve got me. He lit another cigarette, dragging the chipped glass ashtray across the tabletop. There are worse places, he said. Maybe immortality isn’t something you go out and find. We’re born immortal. So what’s the big deal about immortality? We have a soul. It outlives us. Period.
Curva looked at Billie with renewed interest. They’d never had this conversation before. He usually didn’t talk about his views on life and death. She assumed he honored a spirit world like lots of Blackfoot did and saw the earth itself as sacred—even the precious oil that was providing income for the tribe.
The map may not have originated in Egypt, but Curva’s time in Weed showed the surrounding area held mysteries, too, keys to the past and the present, relics that contained secrets within secrets.
All those bones!
To Billie, a single bone held the history of a species, and he had become keeper of the bones.
Eager to learn more about her lover, she took Billie’s hand in hers and turned it over so she could see the palm and what it contained. A worker’s hand, the skin cracked in places, dirt etched into the crevices, fingernails jagged. The lines crisscrossed and meandered across the plain of his palm, resembling shallow river and streambeds, leading into a forest of hair on his arms.
His whole body was a map—his posture, the lines and other marks on his skin’s surface. His head jutted forward, leading the rest of him, suggesting impatience and a desire to dive head first into life. But he also had a certain wariness about him, his one eye always alert to the surroundings, watching, noticing. Balanced on the balls of his feet, he appeared ready to move in any direction in a fraction of a second.
Curva realized if she looked carefully enough at one person, she not only would discover his/her story but also—at some level—a chronicle of the race. Humans differed, certainly, at least on the surface, but were they really that different at their core? They all had the urge to procreate, to socialize. They all had similar fears and anxieties. They all needed to eat and work together to survive. They all sought love in some form. Once cultural disparities were stripped away, these basics didn’t vary much.
Maybe that’s what Kadeem was trying to communicate to her: the Canadian prairies, the Egyptian desert, and even Berumba weren’t all that different. They all held treasures that illuminated the past, the human soul. They all had gone through many different ages. But the message seemed to be that life and death would keep their mysteries more or less intact, ensuring that seekers like Curva would continue to probe their boundaries. That’s why the parchment Kadeem delivered was only invisible until she was ready to see what it revealed. Her forays into finding an elixir that would extend life indefinitely were childlike in their innocence.
Billie coughed and shifted in the chair. Then he crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. He asked, You find what you’re looking for?
I was looking for your soul, Bee-lee, she said, her fingernails skating across his palm. Where do you keep it, señor?
Out of sight, he said. In my bones.
Sí, makes sense. Hidden but esencial.
He fingered some crumbs on the tabletop and looked thoughtful: Our old burial ground has taught me a lot. About bones. About death. About life. I swear those bones still speak.
What do they say, señor? Do you want this dance? I’m thirsty?
Don’t make fun of me, Curva. I’m serious.
Sí, I know you are. I am too. Muy serio!
Billie took Curva’s hand: Those petrified dinosaur bones will live forever. Some of my ancestors’ bones will also. They’re like fingers pointing to the past and the future.
Curva looked puzzled. What do you mean ‘the future’?
They say, Hey, humans were here before you. So were animals. Lots of different grasses and shrubs and plants—all fossilized now. You too will pass and something new will take your place. You know, it’s incredible! He smacked the table for emphasis. They lived on this earth and now they live inside it. We walk on their former homes every day. Those bones pulse. Throb. That’s how they speak now. Through vibrations they give off.
Ah, Curva said. Music only dogs can hear.
Dios raised his head and howled.
Curva laughed, So only dogs understand them?
Billie looked at her: Or humans that hear like dogs.
An airplane buzzed overhead.
Curva shook her fist at the sound and howled herself.
Shirley
Shirley would not have admitted it to anyone, not even to himself, but Curva drove him mad. Mad. Mad. Mad.
She made him angry.
She made him feel foolish.
She made him lose control of all his previously held beliefs. And what were they?
1. No woman would ever set him on his heels.
2. Women definitely were the second sex.
3. No female could best him at his own game.
He took off that morning from his Montana home, determined to discover once and for all just what Curva was hiding at her place. Of course, he was hiding a few things too: he had a nice little woman watching over the home front as well as their two kids, a boy and a girl in their teens whom he saw now and then. He didn’t mind being a father, but he also liked his freedom. His wife knew that, and she accepted his comings and goings—mostly the latter. She knew he was a restless type who needed a long rein.
She gave it to him. Otherwise, she knew he wouldn’t stick around for long.
So what did he want from Curva? It wasn’t just the oil he was after, though he felt she had the richest pool in that area. That woman was sitting on a lake of black gold. He was sure of it from the geological assessments he’d had done of the area.
But she also had something she was hoarding for herself, her loopy daughter, and the Indian. When he’d first arrived in the area, the locals had told him numerous stories about Curva and the greenhouse. They described giant tomatoes and avocados and other fruits and vegetables that flourished in her care, summer or winter. They claimed she could see the future in their cards and tealeaves and palms. They raved about the fountain that appeared mysteriously, surging night and day, certain the former inland sea was seeking th
e surface through the many layers of her land, drawn somehow to Curva herself. They also described phantom streams that occasionally appeared in her presence and vanished when she left. And many people still believed she caused the tornado that upended their lives years earlier. There also were the guns and her highly unusual skill with them.
Shirley hadn’t seen many of these things for himself and pooh-poohed them, though he frequently could hear her fountain from as far away as Sweetgrass. He also had seen the greenhouse expanding and contracting, depending on the season or time of day. It never appeared the same. That puzzled him.
No question: She knew something he wanted in on. Shirley believed she might have certain knowledge that could increase his wealth and power.
He now flew low over her land, barely missing the building tops, hoping to get a glimpse inside the greenhouse. But an impenetrable, invisible wall prevented him from getting closer to it. Rather than discouraging Shirley, it made him more determined to find out what the hoopla was about.
No woman could do all the things attributed to Curva.
It wasn’t possible.
After all, she was human. He’d discovered just how human when he told her she was in Canada illegally and that she owed a lot of taxes. The government could take over her land. Her body had stiffened and panic flooded her dark eyes. He’d seen that look many times in animals he’d cornered while hunting. It felt good to have her trapped. He’d heard the Canadian authorities were lax at collecting overdue taxes. If he had to report her, he would. He also would let them know she was an unlawful foreigner. When some administration toady took back the property, Shirley would pay cash for it himself. Then he’d find out her secrets and own the most fertile land in the area. But he also wanted to bed that woman and was determined to do so. Then he could have everything.
After landing on one of his own fields, Shirley tried approaching Curva’s place on foot, but her damn dog ran him off. He realized he might have underestimated the woman’s resourcefulness. She wasn’t going to be easy to tame and she had accomplices. Some wetback that said he was Curva’s brother and looked like a ghoul had visited Shirley in a dream recently. His stringy hair swung over rotting features, and he warned Shirley to leave his sister alone or he would be attacked by the shades of hell. Then he rattled some chains and passed through a wall like a knife through cake.
Curva Peligrosa Page 25