Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (32 page)

"Everybody alright?" Gabriel said.

"I need to use the bathroom," Zeke said, fidgeting.

"Is there a reason you didn't use it before we left?" Annie inquired.

"I didn't need it before we left!"

"Fool boy," Granny said, and pointed out the public restroom stalls.

We waited while Zeke rushed off, Rafael sneaking cream cheese cookies out of the box in my arms.  Granny bopped the back of Rafael's head and took the boxes from my arms, eyeing us distrustfully.  Aubrey swam through the crowd to us and grabbed Annie's hand.  Once Zeke came back, laughing nervously, we left for the pauwau grounds.

I'd never seen a reservation like Three Suns.  On our way out of the RV park we passed a chain of motels, a casino, a helicopter runway, and a restaurant with a canyon view.  A plashing river cut across the dry grounds, the bank closest to us lined with bright paper luminaries.  "That's their clever little trail of breadcrumbs," Gabriel told me with a wink.

The river coursed up the side of a slanted plateau, and at the top was a cozy city, windows twinkling with light.  But the city, apparently, wasn't our destination.  Entranced by the luminaries, I followed them with my eyes--until they abruptly stopped short.  Dizzy, I looked up.

I guessed this was the pauwau site.  The grounds were covered in myriads of tribal flags: orange banners emblazoned with dancing eagles, red suns against yellow backdrops, bright flames on royal purple, even the odd turtle or two.  Ms. Siomme planted our flag in the ground and smiled at me when I caught her eye.  Old men and women sprinkled crushed sage on the soil and muttered blessings.  But as far as pauwaus went, the resemblance ended there.  The booths bordering the pauwau site, laden with spicy foods and art for sale and dart and milk bottle games, reminded me more of a carnival; and the lights strung up on wooden pikes made an artificial ceiling of artificial stars.

The Navajo tribal council, all twenty members, sat at a long wooden table at the far end of the site.  One of the councilors stood up, his blue and silver silks shining under the lights above his head, and spoke into a microphone, conducting the opening prayer.  I bowed my head.  A pauwau always starts with a prayer; whether you pray to the Wolf or the Great Mystery or Jesus--or no one at all--doesn't make much of a difference.

The councilor sat down when he had finished.  A silence traveled through the crowd.  I wondered what we were waiting for.  Then, out of nowhere, I heard the pounding of a heavy drum.  Powerful, high-pitched shrieks rang through the air.  Eight women came bounding out of the crowd and into the center of the field.  The rest of us stepped back out of respect.  The opening ceremony, I realized, had just begun.

The women--the dancers--ranged in age from teenagers to grandmothers.  I spotted Kaya among them in scarlet and lavender.  Each dancer carried a shield on her arm and a bow in her hand, a quiver full of arrows on her back.  The girls looked like warriors ready for a skirmish.  The dance, too, resembled a battle.  The dancers lunged and ran at each other; they swung their shields with prowess, with synchronicity, such that it always managed to look like the assailant had only just missed her target.  The Navajo aren't a Plains tribe; they never counted coup the way Shoshone and Lakota did.  Their history instead comprised long and bloody wars.  I guessed that this dance was meant to showcase that history.  The women ripped the arrows from their backs and swung them like batons, twirling and cutting through the air like windmill blades.  They fitted their arrows fluidly into their bows, took aim at the night sky, and released them, all at once, to the final beat of the drum.  The arrows clattered noisily to the ground at the end of a lengthy flight.  All of the spectators burst into applause.

I could see what Dad had meant when he'd said the Navajo cared greatly about presentation.  I didn't think I'd ever seen anything so impressive.  I couldn't clap, but I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled.  Kaya blew a kiss in my direction.  Then a Washoe man stepped in front of me, and the crowd converged for the rest of the festivities, and I lost sight of her.

Rafael grabbed my left hand.  "I want some ach'ii," he yelled.  He sort of had to.  It was so loud out there, my ears were ringing.

We walked among the booths until Rafael found his long-coveted sheep intestines.  I tried not to heave when he stuffed the intestinal ropes in his mouth and sucked them up like rainwater down a storm drain.  I almost lost the battle over my diaphragm when he pulled a half-eaten rope out of his mouth and offered it to me.  "Try it," he said.  "It's salty."  Vigorously, I shook my head.  Mercifully, he didn't pursue the matter. 

The rest of the wares weren't as gross.  A stately looking woman was selling something called Navajo tea, a quaint, mustard-colored beverage with a tiny yellow flower sitting at the bottom of the cup.  I bought a cup and it was delicious.  A whole booth was dedicated to sandpaintings, incredible portraits made from nothing but differently colored grains of sand arranged methodically behind sheets of glass.  One of the sandpaintings depicted a weirdly hilarious scene, a man in the middle of turning into a cat.  I didn't question it.  I bought it instead.  Rafael helped me fit it into my duffel bag.  Dad liked cats, and I thought it would make for a funny gift.

The vendor, a tiny old woman, reached across the booth and whacked us on the heads.

"Ow!" Rafael complained.  "What the hell?"

"Beware the Skinwalker!" the woman admonished.  "For he may steal the form of a cat or a dog; but he may also steal yours.  He will cut off your skin and wear it for his own!"

"Yeah, thanks for that," Rafael said, and pulled me away by my hand.

We wove through the crowd in search of someone from our tribe.  The area was heavily saturated; we couldn't move an inch in any direction without bumping into strangers, some of them understandably ornery.  I spotted a man in a gourd-and-buckskin mask chasing after Jack Nabako and guessed he was the Yeibichai I'd heard so much about.  I didn't have time to dig the arnica out of my duffel bag; the Yeibichai tore across the site like a flash flood and never looked back in my direction.

"Did you like my bow and arrow dance?"

I don't know how Kaya had managed to find us.  Maybe it was my hair.  Blond hair really sticks out when everyone else's is brown and black.

Rafael hunched over.  I smiled and waved.  Kaya's eyes swept over my other hand.  She tsked.

"You need to stop getting into fistfights," she said.

"Huh?" Rafael said.

"It was a joke."

"Oh."

I pointed at the far end of the field.  A group of men had gathered in a circle, facing away from one another.  Women were marching up to them and dragging them around in a ritualistic dance.

Kaya smiled.  "It's the squaw dance," she said.  "The man can't stop dancing until he gives the woman a gift."

The Navajo really liked their gifts, I figured.

Rafael was gaping at Kaya.  Kaya had noticed.  "What?" she asked calmly.

"Did you seriously use that word?"

"What word?"

"You know what word."

"Squaw?"

Rafael stared with disbelief.  "Stop it."

I looked between the two of them, perplexed.

"It's a hateful word," Rafael explained to me.  "White men used to call Native women--that.  That's how they degraded them."

Kaya crossed her arms and straightened her shoulders.  "Dine aren't afraid of words," she said casually.  "We made it our own."

Rafael had started to scowl.  Oh, no, I thought.  Damage control time.  I really didn't want the two of them to start fighting.

I threw my arms around the both of them and smushed their faces against mine.

The rest of the pauwau was comparatively pleasant.  Kaya showed us how to basket dance; she didn't have a basket, so I lent her my duffel bag.  We ran and ducked for cover when Gabriel came around with his camera.  I found Annie and Aubrey by the ball toss game, Aubrey desperately trying to win Annie a stuffed doll--a lamb, Annie's favorite animal.  Granny and Reverend Silver Wolf had joined the squaw dance--I don't know if I should really use that word--and Rosa seemed to have fallen asleep beside a booth selling frybread.  How anyone could have fallen asleep with all that racket was beyond me. 

It was one in the morning when the celebrations wound down.  Granny made her way through the crowd to me and grabbed my arm.  "There's church tomorrow," she scolded, like I was the one who had kept us out late.  I tucked her hand safely in my arm and we walked along the river, Granny singing a flag dance song beneath her breath.  I smiled, endeared.  Kaya accompanied us to the RV park to see us off.  The weird part, though, was that she spent most of her time by the barbecue pit between caravans, chatting with Rafael's sister.  At one point I thought I saw Mary playing with Kaya's hair.

"Everybody ready to go?" Gabriel said.  He helped a sleepy Rosa into the passenger side of the SUV.  "Where's Raf?"

A shout trilled through the crowd.  Waves of Chumash and Mojave men stepped back with alarm.  Dread welled up inside of me.  Somehow I knew what I was going to find, even before I looked.

Rafael was on the ground, gripping his face.  His glasses lay at his side, the wire bent out of shape, the left lens shattered.  Mr. Owns Forty must have delivered the blow, because he was approaching Rafael steadily, and he sounded like he was in the middle of a drunken rant.

Zeke, Gabriel, and I moved forward at the same time.  The door to the SUV rolled open with a thud and Rosa leapt out, running after us.  I knelt on the ground and put myself between Rafael and Mr. Owns Forty.  I didn't care what Mr. Owns Forty was doing.  My only concern was Rafael.

I winced.  Rafael's face looked pretty bad.  His lower lip was already beading with dark blood, and the area around his eye was scratched where his glasses lens had shattered.  He looked at me in an earnest, shameful way that made me want to throw something at Mr. Owns Forty.

Rosa knelt at my side while I picked the glass shards out of Rafael's face.  Rafael hissed through his teeth.  I opened my duffel bag and found the arnica.  I handed the seal bag to Rosa.  Rosa opened the bag for me and pressed and smoothed the leaves to Rafael's face.

"Dad--stop--
stop!
"

I chanced a look over my shoulder.  Zeke and Gabriel were holding onto Mr. Owns Forty, Mr. Owns Forty practically foaming at the mouth.  Mary suddenly leapt into the fray, screeching, both fists swinging.  At least one of them caught Mr. Owns Forty in the jaw.  In the midst of all the chaos, I heard the words "my baby brother." 

"Mary!"

Gabriel switched his efforts from restraining Mr. Owns Forty to restraining his niece.  Mr. Owns Forty saw his chance and took it; he thrust Zeke to the side and Zeke fell, winded; he threw a punch at the side of Gabriel's head.  Now that was low, I thought with a stab of anger.  Gabriel staggered, caught off guard.  Rosa leapt up and ran to him.  The arnica leaves fluttered off the side of Rafael's face.  Mary threw herself on top of Mr. Owns Forty.

For a nonconfrontational tribe, we sure were feeling confrontational tonight.

Loud sirens blared through the RV park, flashing lights bouncing off the caravans.  Someone had called the cops, I realized.  I saw Kaya with a cell phone pressed to her ear and wondered if it was her.

The reservation police pulled up in brown squad cars.  Four of them jumped out and ran to us; two of them pulled Mary and Mr. Owns Forty apart.  Ms. Siomme came running over, concerned, the rest of the tribal council at her heels.  Mary started laughing in a way that scared me, because it was low and dangerous and kind of deranged and I wasn't at all certain she was in her right mind.  Mr. Owns Forty must have been more drunk than I'd realized:  He thrashed and swung his arms until one of the cops had to tase him.  I heard Zeke gasp, saw the piteous look on his face, and wished there were something I could do.  Immaculata Quick crouched next to him, arms around her knees.

"Really considering that plastic surgery," Rafael muttered.

I smiled wistfully.  I picked up his glasses, but didn't bother putting them on his face.  They were too broken for that.

I tucked Rafael's glasses in my duffel bag with the arnica leaves.  I reached for Rafael's hand and helped him off the ground.   He leaned on me, looking out of sorts, and we walked together to the SUV.  Granny was standing against the side of the vehicle with Reverend Silver Wolf, their heads bent in conversation.

I let go of Rafael only long enough to slide open the back door.  Rafael climbed sluggishly into the SUV.  I got in after him and turned his face in my hand.  His cheek looked like it was already starting to bruise.

"Gonna add another link," he murmured.

He meant the chain tattoo on his right arm.  Every time he felt like hurting someone, he added a new chain link.

Rafael groaned.  He must have been in a lot of pain, I thought.  With horror, I wondered if Mr. Owns Forty had punched him anywhere else.  But if he had, Rafael wasn't saying.

Rafael lay sideways across the seat, his head on my lap.  I fished the rest of the arnica leaves out of my duffel bag.  I pressed the leaves tenderly against his face.

"I'm sorry my dad's a piece of dirt," Rafael mumbled.