Ban pulled an apple out of his pocket and offered it to her. Bettina polished it on her sweater, felt the smoothness of the apple’s skin where her gaze saw only a dark round shape in her hand.
“Gracias,” she said and bit into it. The sweet juice ran from the corners of her mouth. “Mmm. Está bueno.”
Smiling, he reached back into his pocket and took out another for himself.
“I was in the spiritworld today,” he said after they’d been munching on their apples for a while. “I went to meet with my namesake, but instead I had a conversation with the spirit of a fairy duster.” He hesitated before adding, “Have you met them yet?”
Bettina nodded. Like the flower whose shape they wore, they had a delicate appearance, hair like a pink mist of curls, sweet bony features, eyes slightly too large for their features. She regarded Ban, wondering what it was that had brought him out into the desert to sit with her, what it was that he didn’t want to tell her.
“What did you speak of?” she asked.
“Su abuela. She…” He gave her a pained look. “She is not coming back.”
Bettina could feel the tears press against the back of her eyes. Two months now, but the pain was still as constant as her breathing.
“I know,” she said, her voice tight.
“This trip she undertook …”
“It was no trip. Not like you or I would take—that we, or anybody, is ever ready to take. She followed the clown dog.”
“You’re sure?”
“I saw them go.”
“But you never said anything.”
“What could I say?” Bettina asked. “Everybody except for Papa and I were under un encantamiento.”
Ban gave a slow nod. “Si. It was an enchantment. I was held fast in it as much as anyone else, until the fairy duster told me as much. When she spoke, I could feel the veil lift from my eyes. It was like that time when we were looking for I’itoi’s cave. Until you pointed it out, none of us could see the entrance, though it was there in front of us all the time.”
“What do you see now?” Bettina asked.
Ban looked away, into the darkness that lay on the far side of the arroyo.
“Sadness,” he said. “Yours, mine. My mother and father’s when they learn what I have just told you.”
“It doesn’t go away,” Bettina told him.
“How could it?” Ban said. “She filled our lives.”
Was that the reason behind the enchantment? Bettina wondered. Had the spirits meant it as a kindness so that Abuela’s departure would not leave them all feeling so bereft?
“This spirit you met… did she say why Abuela was taken?”
“It was to ransom her daughter—your mother. Long ago, before either you or Adelita were born. One of los santos came to bear the child’s spirit away, but your abuela would not allow it. She made a bargain with Death, who laid his protection upon the child and kept los santos from taking her.”
So that explained Abuela’s distrust of the church, though not Mama’s devotion.
“Because of that, her life was forfeit to him,” Ban went on. “A la Muerte. Not then. Not for many years, as it turned out. But when he called, she would have to come, willingly and alive.”
“Why alive?”
“Of what use is a dead curandera?. Dead, she is only a spirit such as the rest of us will one day be.”
“But what would Death need with a healer?”
“Who can say what illnesses they might suffer, even in Mictlan.”
Bettina nodded. She considered what she’d been told.
“It was for la brujería,” she said finally. “That is why Abuela made her bargain. That la brujería pass through Mamá to Adelita and me.” She shook her head. “It was not worth her life.”
“No?” Ban said. “Not when she knew, as we all know, that one day we must die anyway? Who would not have their death mean something?”
“But she’s not dead. She went alive into Mictlan.”
“Sí. But dead or alive when entering, no one returns from la Muerte’s realm.”
“Except for los Días de Muertos” Bettina said.
Ban nodded. “When the spirits of the dead visit, not the spirits of the living.”
Now Bettina truly understood the bargain her abuela had made. When all the other dead returned to their graves and places of death, her abuela would not be able to join them, would not see how she was honored and remembered herself. Bettina would never see her again, alive or as a spirit.
“Papa thought she had come between rival spirits,” she said after a moment.
“It seems to me that she did.”
“I suppose. I never thought of los santos in such a way. As spirits, I mean.”
“The saints and martyrs … none of them are alive anymore. What else can they be?”
“Es verdad.”
Bettina sighed and shook her head. It made no sense.
“Los santos. The desert spirits,” she said. “What would any of them want with a newborn child?”
“Its purity. This is not a new thing. Yours papá’s ancestors used to offer virgins to the gods.”
Bettina had come to realize that her papa was much older than those ancient peoples all of them had considered to be his ancestors, but she made no mention of that now.
“Was the world ever sane?” she said.
“Do not be so hard on your abuela,” Ban said. “It could not have been for la brujería alone that she made this bargain.”
“What other reason was there?”
“The love she had for her newborn daughter. Would you have denied your mama her chance at life?”
Bettina felt sick at the thought. “¡Mi dios! Of course not.”
The moon had risen while they spoke, transforming the surrounding desert into a magical landscape that Bettina only half noticed. In the moonlight, the distance between this world and la época del mito seemed nonexistent. The far-off cries of coyotes, the hooting of owls, the snuffling of javalenas down in the arroyo, mingled with the voices of the spiritworld. Saguaro aunts and uncles. The spirits of cholla and prickly pear, mesquite, and desert broom.
“I wonder why the fairy duster spoke to you and not to me,” she said. “I thought I had asked them all. Surely it would have known my need.”
Ban shrugged. “I respect the spirits,” he said, “but I don’t understand them.”
“Sí. Who truly does?”
“What will you do now?” Ban asked.
“Become the person who would best make Abuela proud,” she replied without hesitation. “I will learn all I can and become a good curandera. I will gather what power the spirits will allow me and use it to benefit whoever asks for my help.”
“Power is not something you want,” Ban told her.
She gave him a puzzled look. “¿Porqué no?”
“Because whenever one person has it, someone else doesn’t. There is only so much to go around. Power is an ugly thing, like a man hitting a woman or a child. You want to ask the spirits for luck.”
He used the word in a context Bettina wasn’t sure she understood.
“What do you mean by luck?” she asked.
“Unlike power, luck is sweet. Like a kiss, or a hug.”
Bettina gave a slow nod. She remembered Abuela often speaking of luck, but she had simply assumed her grandmother was referring to la brujería. Now she understood. Luck was a gift, a loan, something one held only to pass on.
“Who taught you that?” she asked. “Your spirit namesake?”
“No. It was Rupert.”
Bettina smiled. “We are lucky to have such wise papás.”
“Sí.”
They sat a while longer, absorbing the night and the quiet companionship they were able to share with each other. After a time, Bettina turned to look at Ban, studying his features in the moonlight.
“Did you ever want to make love to me?” she said.
She couldn’t believe she was asking him that. Fr
om Ban’s astonished expression, she supposed that he couldn’t either.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You are like a little sister to me. What makes you ask such a thing?”
“I… I was just wondering. I had the biggest crush on you for the longest time.”
“This was something you wanted? That we be … lovers?”
She nodded. “But not anymore.”
She could tell the conversation was making him uncomfortable, but she could sense he was flattered as well. And curious.
“What changed?” he asked.
She had to look away.
“I have only a hole in me where once I kept the ability to love,” she said. “I feel only emptiness inside.”
He put his arm around her shoulders, but it was a brother’s arm, to comfort her, nothing more.
“And your cadejos?” he asked.
“I am not so fond of dogs anymore,” she told him.
“You sent them away?”
“I didn’t have to. They know how I feel about spirit dogs now. They must be gone for I haven’t felt them stir since the night Abuela walked into the storm.”
She searched for them as she leaned against him, but there was nothing. No stirring deep inside her chest. No distant inner voices that were part child’s cry, part coyote yip. She didn’t miss them. The loss of her abuela overshadowed everything that had to do with feelings, everything warm and kind that might lie in her heart.
6
Ice
The fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag.
—OLD ROMAN SAYING
1
TUESDAY MORNING, JANUARY 2.0
Ellie realised that she hadn’t really known what to expect when they finally drove into the rez. Not teepees, of course, or even log cabins, but she’d thought it would be more rustic, more indigenous, than what it was: basically a combination of an old suburban housing tract gone to decay, ramshackle unfinished buildings, and a trailer park. Except for a few fancier homes that stood out because of their obvious quality, it was all double-wides and bungalows and aluminum siding, where the walls weren’t simply uncovered Black Joe or Styrofoam board insulation.
“You’re getting a good view of the place,” Tommy said. “It almost looks pretty tonight.”
Really? Ellie thought. But she supposed he was right. The ice storm had lent its magical sheen to the scene, a cascade of shimmering sparkles highlighted by the pickup’s head-beams. Theirs was the only strong light. They’d passed downed power and phone lines a few miles back on the highway. With the power out, the only illumination coming from the buildings was the dim glow cast by candles, oil lamps, and fireplaces. While it looked romantic, the reality would be anything but. Especially if the temperature dropped and water pipes started to freeze and burst. When she mentioned this to her companions, Tommy told them about the young daughter of a friend of his who, during a power failure last year, said to her mother, “Mommy, let’s go home and watch TV by candlelight.”
Ellie and Hunter laughed with him—a little more than the joke was worth, but by this point, they needed all the laughs they could get. The dashboard clock read 4:35 A.M. All three of them were punchy from the tension of the long drive. The longer they were on the highway, the more treacherous the driving conditions had gotten. Ellie was surprised that they’d actually made it to the rez without running off the road.
“Looking at the houses,” Tommy added, “you can tell who had the good crops this year.”
“How so?” Hunter asked.
“Anyplace that doesn’t look like it’s about to fall in on itself, the people did well.”
“What do they grow?” Ellie asked.
Tommy laughed. “In these hills, what do you think? Kickaha Gold.”
“You mean marijuana?”
“I don’t mean corn.”
“How do they get away with it?”
“Well, the cops send in choppers, but there’s a lot of wild land out there and they don’t find everything. This is kind of a new thing for the rez, actually. I mean people always grew a little dope, but not on the scale they do now. See, there used to be this hillbilly Mafia that lived up in Freakwater Hollow. The Morgans. They pretty much had all the major-league bootlegging and dope fields sewn up until back in the mid-eighties when the whole clan got wiped out. But before that happened, you just didn’t step on their turf.”
“What happened to them?” Hunter asked.
Tommy shrugged. “There’s different stories. Some said they got into a feud with some competitors. My aunts say they got on the wrong side of one of the manitou. The facts, at least according to the newspapers, is that this black guy got pissed off with them and cleaned them out, all on his own, if you can believe it. Went up with some army ordnance weaponry and took them all down, then just stood there waiting for the cops to show up and take him away. He got the death penalty and was executed back in ‘84 or ‘85,I guess.”
“I think I remember reading about that,” Hunter said.
“Yeah, it was a big deal at the time. The Morgans weren’t particularly well liked or anything—we’re talking serious white trash, here—but he must’ve killed around forty of them, and nobody wants that kind of guy running around.”
“Why did your aunts think he was a spirit?” Ellie asked.
“Think about it. There’s forty or so well-armed and mean-tempered Morgans up there, and he’s this one guy. Those kind of odds only work out in a Bruce Willis movie.” He gave Ellie a grin. “Or spirit tales.”
“I still don’t see why the elders let this go on,” she said. “When you think of all the problems with addiction there already are on the rez …”
“Nobody sells their crops here,” Tommy told her. “It all goes out to the big cities. Hell, nobody here could afford to buy it except for the other growers, anyway, and why would they buy it? But personally, I don’t get all turned around about smoking a little dope. Kids here’ll do anything to get high. I’m not promoting it or anything, but I’d rather see them smoking dope than sniffing glue or gasoline or becoming an alkie like yours truly.”
“I suppose. But if it starts them on the road to harder drugs—”
“Oh, that’s such bullshit,” Tommy said. “What turns people into junkies and alkies is an addictive personality. Hell, most of us have a bent towards an addiction of some sort or another, we’re just not all as extreme. But when you combine a seriously addictive personality with the hopelessness of the poverty most of these kids grow up in, smoking a little dope barely enters into the equation.”
“I guess I got lucky,” Hunter put in. “I’m just addicted to music.”
“Amen, brother.”
“It seems so simplistic,” Ellie said. “When you put it like that.”
“I guess. But it’s a funny old world, isn’t it? Who knows what’ll set any one of us off on the road better not traveled. In a perfect world the kids wouldn’t need to get high just to get through a day, but it’s not a perfect world. We all know that firsthand.”
This was about as good an opening as Ellie thought she’d get to talk to Tommy about how she didn’t have a troubled past like everybody else working with Angel, but she wasn’t comfortable bringing it up with Hunter in the cab. Then the opportunity was gone.
“Okay, we’re coming up on my Aunt Nancy’s place,” Tommy said. “A word of warning. She fits the scary wise woman profile better than any of her sisters.”
“Oh great,” Ellie said.
“Don’t worry. She won’t be mean, or get all aggressive or anything. She’s just kind of… formidable. But she’s also got the most knowledge for the sorts of things we want to ask about because she draws on more than one tradition.”
“How’s that?” Hunter asked.
“She had a different father from the other aunts. He was a descendant of one of the freed slaves who came to the hills after the Civil War.”
“I don’t understand why she has such a normal name,” Ellie said
. She turned to Hunter, adding, “All the aunts I’ve heard about so far have names like ‘Conception’ and ‘Serendipity.’“
“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “Maybe her father gave it to her.”
“What happened to him?”
“He had a fatal run-in with those Morgans I was telling you about earlier.”
He pulled into a laneway as he spoke, the pickup slewing sideways on the ice. Only the sharp incline of the land leading down to the house saved them from going into the ditch.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get back out of here,” Tommy said as they slid toward an old black Dodge Sedan.
He managed to stop the pickup before it kissed the Dodge’s bumper. For a moment they sat in their vehicle, looking at the house. It was a long bungalow that appeared to have been built in pieces, each added to the next when the inhabitants decided they needed more room. Sections had aluminum siding, others some kind of cheap wood paneling. The part of the building closest to the laneway was all Black Joe, peeling in places. Candlelight flickered dimly from one of the windows. Smoke billowed up from a stovepipe chimney that rose out of what appeared to be the oldest part of the house. Parked behind the Dodge was a Chevy pickup and a small Datsun that seemed to be held together by its rust.
“I take it her crop wasn’t that great this year,” Hunter said.
“Aunt Nancy doesn’t do much fieldwork these days.”
Ellie shot him a surprised look. “You mean she used to grow marijuana?”
Tommy laughed. “Hardly. But she did spend over half the year in the bush, running a trapline in the winter, harvesting medicines, that kind of thing. Now she just makes day trips. She’s in her sixties—still lively, but she says her bones don’t appreciate sleeping on dirt anymore.”
He opened his door and stepped cautiously out onto the icy lane.
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