Picture Perfect Part 29

Will shook his head clear. It would mean coming back to Pine Ridge-not just physically, but in his ton, his soul. Then again, he realized, he had fit in no better in California than he had among the Sioux; maybe it was his fate to shuttle between the two worlds for the rest of his life, until he found some hybrid oasis like the home his parents had created.

He handed Joseph his Big Twisted Flute. There was only one strain of music that Ca.s.sie would hear, because she herself had played it a thousand times. Eyes glowing, Will leaned toward the medicine man, and asked how he could take away her pain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE MARJORIE Two Fists looked up from the pair of child-size moccasins she was beading and watched Ca.s.sie make another mistake.

"Hiya' ," she said, pointing. "If you don't concentrate, you'll have to throw the whole thing out."

Ca.s.sie pushed her needle through the soft leather, knowing she was inept at something these old women could do skillfully, despite their failing eyesight and arthritis. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

Rosalynn White Star glanced over her bifocals. "She's always sorry,"

she said.

At that, Dorothea snapped her head up. "Better sorry than stupid,"

she said pointedly to Rosalynn. "She's got other things to think about."

Ca.s.sie heard Dorothea's words, but she didn't pay them much attention. It was the end of the Cherry Ripening Moon, the month she called July, and her baby was due in a matter of weeks. Her body seemed too heavy to carry, although this was nothing compared to the weight of her mind. With every kick and tumble of the stranger inside her, Ca.s.sie was reminded of Alex, of what he still did not know.

She still missed him. In her dreams, she imagined Alex forgiving her, pulling her close to his side. She saw his face in the deposit line at the bank in Rapid City; in a play of light over the Black Hills; reflected in a rain puddle. She tried to think of the things he would say when she showed him his son or daughter, but that meant seeing herself back in Los Angeles, away from these rolling plains, and this Ca.s.sie could not picture at all.

It had become more comfortable than home. She couldn't deny that she still loved Alex, always would, but neither could she forget that the five months she'd spent in Pine Ridge, she had been free. She hadn't spent her afternoons guessing Alex's moods and acting accordingly. She hadn't awakened in the middle of the night, terrified she had again done something wrong. She hadn't been beaten, bruised, punched.

Once, when she was in Pine Ridge town, she'd seen an adolescent boy kick a stray dog that had run off with a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. The dog was old and half blind, probably had mange, but Ca.s.sie had run up and thrown herself between the boy and the mongrel.

Some people on the street had pointed, laughing at the pregnant lady bent over a mutt, her belly grazing the earth, her voice screaming at the boy who'd done the damage. "Witkowan," they had called her. Crazy woman.

But for Ca.s.sie it had been instinct. She had re-created the reservation as a sort of neutral ground, a place where safety was guaranteed. She wasn't willing to let her image be threatened.

These days Will was never around-Ca.s.sie felt she saw him even less now that he'd moved back temporarily to Pine Ridge. He spent a great deal of time with Joseph Stands in Sun, and he wouldn't tell Ca.s.sie anything, except that he was finally learning the ways of the People.

Cyrus and Dorothea and everyone else were busy getting ready for the wacipi, the big powwow held at the start of August. With some of the other elders, Cyrus went out looking for the forked cottonwood tree that would be used for a pole during the Sun Dance. Dorothea spent all her free time canning blackberry preserves and gentian root tonics, which she planned to trade at the festivities for the intricate shawls and rough woven rugs that others had crafted. When she had finished packing a large carton with her wares, she told Ca.s.sie she was going to Marjorie Two Fists's lodge to do quilling and beading, and asked Ca.s.sie to come to take her mind off her troubles.

So Ca.s.sie sat for the third afternoon in a row with a group of old women, feeling less and less adequate as she ruined the beadwork on bracelets and jackets and moccasins. Dorothea laid aside the pouch she'd been embroidering and picked up the edge of Rosalynn's quilt. "This will make a good trade," she said. "That's the best part of the weekend."

"Oh, I don't know," Marjorie said. "Even if I'm too old to dance, I like seeing the young ones in their costumes. I like listening to the drums. So loud."

Dorothea laughed. "Maybe if Ca.s.sie stands close enough to the music the baby will come early."

It was the last thing Ca.s.sie wanted to happen. She didn't know anything about infants; she hadn't considered the actual facts about this one, like diapering and burping and nursing. She was thinking of the baby more as the means to an end, but there was something about that end-the finality of it-that she didn't really want to see.

The door swung open, and there, framed by the light summer rain, was Will. Without realizing what she was doing, Ca.s.sie stood up, letting the moccasin she'd been working on fall to the floor so that beads scattered and rolled into the cracks of the smooth pine boards. "Oh,"

she gasped, bending down as best she could to collect what had fallen.

"I know, I know," Marjorie murmured. "You're sorry."

"Afternoon, ladies," Will said, grinning. "How's it coming?"

Dorothea shrugged. "It'll be done when it's done," she said.

Will smiled; that fairly summed up his philosophy of life. He looked at Ca.s.sie. "I thought you might want to take a walk or something."

Marjorie stood up and took the beads from Ca.s.sie's palm. "That's a great idea," she said. "Take her before she destroys anything else."

Dorothea looked from her grandson to Ca.s.sie and then back again.

"She's in a mood," Dorothea warned. "Maybe you can snap her out of it."

That was exactly what Will had planned to do. He imagined Ca.s.sie should be in high spirits these days, knowing that soon she'd be a good thirty pounds lighter, but she seemed to slip further and further away by the minute. Almost as if, Will admitted, she was already making the break.

He had one chance, and it was coming. The day of the big powwow, he would make her understand. But in the meantime, it couldn't hurt to try to make her smile. "What do you say?" he pressed.

Ca.s.sie peered over his shoulder at the open doorway. "It's raining,"

she said.

She shifted her weight to her other foot. She had wanted to see Will for days now; she was restless; she should be jumping at the chance to leave this dreary little tea party-what was her problem? "We'll get wet," she said. "We can't go for a walk."

Will's eyes began to shine. "Okay," he said. "We'll do something else." Suddenly he was standing in the circle of women, trying awkwardly to fit his arms around Ca.s.sie's bulk. He started to hum and whirled Ca.s.sie around in an offbeat two-step, crushing moccasins and knitting bags under the heels of his cowboy boots. Rosalynn, delighted, began to sing in a high sweet soprano.

Ca.s.sie's face turned bright red. With no sense of balance, she found herself clinging to Will's shoulders for support. She barely saw Marjorie stand up, grinning, to move her chair out of the way as Will steered them toward the open door.

Dorothea, Marjorie, and Rosalynn stood eagerly pressed against the streaked windows, watching the couple and clapping, remembering days long ago when they had whispered beneath a blanket with a lover; or had shaken the package of their future, trying to see inside; had maybe even danced in the rain. Ca.s.sie listened to the rich, woven sound of the old women's laughter, a different kind of music entirely, which seemed as fresh as the giggles of young, courted girls.

She stared into Will's eyes as they crossed the threshold into the storm. Splashing through puddles, she could feel herself stepping on his feet, feel the baby in her rolling slow, feel the rain cool against her cheeks. It washed everything away. For a lovely, sodden moment, Ca.s.sie truly believed that it could stay like this.

HALFWAY BETWEEN MARJORIE TWO FISTS'S HOUSE AND HER OWN home, Dorothea sat down to think about the ways that history repeated itself. It wasn't that she was tired, or that the bag that contained her beadwork had suddenly grown too heavy. It was that all of a sudden the spirit of Anne, her late daughter-in-law, had been walking beside her, and the frost of her breath on Dorothea's neck made it impossible to go any farther.

Zachary, Dorothea's only child, had fallen in love with the white schoolteacher thirty-six years earlier, and although she had never wanted to hurt her own son, Dorothea had done everything in her power to stop the attraction. She had left the appropriate roots and dried flowers under Zachary's mattress; she had prayed to the spirits; she had even consulted Joseph Stands in Sun. But this was meant to be. In fact, the day that Anne left Pine Ridge to distance herself from Zachary, the day that Zachary saddled a horse and rode miles to find her, Dorothea had been standing only yards away, watching the whole thing and shaking her head.

Dorothea would never have admitted it at the time, but Anne became her obsession. When it was clear that Zachary was going to marry her come h.e.l.l or high water, Dorothea told him not to expect her as a wedding guest. But she made a point of watching the woman who would be her daughter much more closely. She stood outside the cla.s.sroom of the school where Anne taught and familiarized herself with the lifts and valleys of her voice. She followed her into the general store and kept track of the items Anne bought: talc.u.m powder, ginger drops, blue eyeshadow. She went to the government offices and memorized her credentials, her blood type, her Social Security number.

Three days before the wedding Anne had fallen asleep beneath a cottonwood outside Dorothea's house while waiting for Zachary. Dorothea had silently knelt beside her and touched the incredibly translucent skin of her cheek. Mesmerized, she crouched for nearly ten minutes, committing to mind the map of pale veins that crossed the white line of Anne's throat.

"What are you doing here?" Anne asked in English when she woke up.

"I might ask you the same thing," Dorothea said, speaking Lakota.

Anne struggled to a sitting position, aware that 'Waiting for Zack'

was not the answer to the question Dorothea was really asking. "I love him just as much as you do," Anne said quietly.

"That," Dorothea answered, "could be the problem."

She stood, ready to make her way back into her house, but she was stopped by Anne's voice. "I'd like you to come to the wedding," Anne called out, in Lakota.

Dorothea immediately switched to English. "I won't set foot in a white man's church," she said.

"Still," Anne said, almost casually, "I'll see you there."

Dorothea whirled around. "And how do you know this?"

Anne smiled. "Because nothing could keep you away."

The day of the wedding, Cyrus had begged Dorothea to reconsider, if only for Zack's sake, but Dorothea remained in her housecoat, sitting on the worn brown couch. The minute he left, however, she dressed and walked to the nearest road, hitchhiking her way into town. She arrived at the church, and true to her word, stayed outside, peeking through a crack in the makeshift wooden walls. The minister was offering his final blessing, after the damage had been done. Muttering to herself, Dorothea watched Zachary's dark hand gently squeeze his new wife's.

When Dorothea looked up, Anne wasn't staring, besotted, at Zack, or even paying attention to the minister. She was half turned to the back of the church, looking right through the crack in the wall at Dorothea. She winked.

Dorothea stumbled backward into the dusty street, and then she let herself laugh. It was the first of many times her daughter-in-law had exceeded her expectations. The first of many times Dorothea had admitted to herself how much she liked Anne, how much respect she had for her, and-now that she was gone-how much she missed her.

"You know that after the accident, Zack let go because of you,"

Dorothea said aloud. "He wouldn't have lived without you." She knew it would be that way with herself and Cyrus, too-once one of them joined the spirit world, the other would die quickly so they would be together again. It had taken Dorothea years to understand, but now she was a firm believer: love was that way. You could not render it in black and white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of gray.

Ca.s.sIE SAT BESIDE CYRUS ON A LOW FOLDING BEACH CHAIR IN THE shade, waiting for the beginning of the Sun Dance. The four flags at the top of the sacred pole waved in the dry wind: white, yellow, red, and black, like the four races of man. An eagle looped lazily overhead, which sent a cheer up from the observers. "Good medicine," Cyrus whispered to Ca.s.sie.

It was the final day of the powwow, and Ca.s.sie was entranced. She had walked with Dorothea among the heavily laden trading tables, picking out a wide hammered bracelet for herself and a brightly woven swaddling blanket for her unborn child. She had peeked into the canvas tipis set up by the families who lived farther away, amazed at the juxtaposition of eagle-feathered war bonnets and Levi's blue jeans, draped side by side on wire hangers.

Today was the last day of the Sun Dance, the most sacred dance of the festivities, the only one that required months of preparation and training on the part of the partic.i.p.ants. Cyrus had not told her much about it, just that it was a ceremony in praise of the sun, a ritual for growth and for renewal. For the past three days, Will had been one of the dancers, much to Ca.s.sie's surprise and delight. She liked seeing him dressed like the others, stamping and whirling around the central pole the way his ancestors had been doing for years. "I don't know what made you do it," she had told him after the first day of dancing, "but you're a wonderful Indian when you try." And Will had grinned at her, had almost looked proud to see himself through her eyes.

Ca.s.sie sat forward as the men filed out of the sacred lodge, led by Joseph Stands in Sun. Like him, they were all wearing long red kilts, their chests striped with blue paint. They wore wreaths on their heads woven of sage, and they carried eagle-bone whistles. Ca.s.sie tried to catch Will's eye as he moved past her, to wish him luck or to say break a leg, but he kept his face turned up to the sky.

Joseph Stands in Sun walked up to Will, waiting beneath the forked cottonwood pole. He murmured something in Lakota, and then lifted a bright silver skewer. For a moment he held it up, and Ca.s.sie watched the sun reflect off its polished, speared tip. Joseph leaned close to Will, whose back stiffened. It was not until Joseph brandished a second skewer that Ca.s.sie realized that the medicine man had pierced the skin of Will's chest, that blood was running down his stomach.

Like the other dancers', Will's two skewers were tied to rawhide thongs that dangled down from the top of the sacred pole. With Joseph leading them, the men began to dance, much as they had the other three days. The drums beat, but no louder than Ca.s.sie's pulse. She gripped the armrests of her chair, her face drawn and white.

"You knew," she whispered to Cyrus, although she did not take her eyes from Will. "You knew and didn't tell me."

Will whirled and sang. His entire chest was slick with blood, since every time he twisted he tore the wounds. He pretended to pull away from the skewers, and Ca.s.sie stared, horrified, as his skin stretched to its limit.

Ca.s.sie grabbed Cyrus's arm. "Please," she begged. "He's hurting himself. You have to do something."

"I can't do anything," Cyrus said. "He has to do this himself."

Ca.s.sie let the tears run down her face and wondered why she had ever encouraged Will to accept the Lakota side of himself. This was barbaric. She pictured him in his neat LAPD uniform, his cap tilted low on his forehead. She saw him standing near her in the emergency room the day he'd found her, his arms crossed with concern. She imagined him dancing with her in the summer rain, her baby kicking between them.

"Why this dance?" she whispered brokenly, thinking of the other ceremonies she had seen, ones that hadn't involved self-mutilation. She turned her head, shocked to see the milling crowd with smiles spread across their faces, enjoying the taste of someone else's agony.

"He's not suffering," Cyrus murmured. "Not for himself." He pointed to the dancer beside Will. "Louis dances the Sun Dance so that his daughter will live, even though her kidneys are dying. Arthur Peel, over to the right, has a brother still missing in action in Vietnam." He turned to face Ca.s.sie. "The dancers take pain upon themselves," he said, "so someone close to them won't have to feel it."

As the dance drew to a close, Joseph Stands in Sun stepped from the circle. The men began to twist and pull in earnest, straining to free themselves. Ca.s.sie stood up, helpless, and felt Dorothea's hand on her calf. "Don't," Dorothea said.

Suffering so someone else didn't have to suffer. Sacrificing your body for someone else's well-being. Ca.s.sie saw the skewer split another inch of Will's skin, watched the blood run down his chest.

He was looking at her. Ca.s.sie dragged her eyes to meet Will's, locked her gaze with his. His image flickered, and she pictured her own body, bleeding and broken at Alex's feet, a venting ground for anger that had no connection to her. Will was only doing for Ca.s.sie what she had spent years doing for Alex.

When the skin of Will's chest ripped ragged from the skewers, Ca.s.sie cried out. She ran forward and knelt beside him, pressing the wounds on his chest with sage from his wreath and then with the hem of her shirt. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was fast and shallow. "It still hurts," she whispered. "Even when you're doing it for someone else, that doesn't stop your ribs from getting cracked, or your wrist from swelling, or your cuts from bleeding."

Will opened his eyes. He reached up his hand to wipe the tears from Ca.s.sie's cheeks. "You did this for me," Ca.s.sie said. "So it would hurt less when I did it for him." Will nodded.

Through her tears, Ca.s.sie laughed. "If I didn't know you better, Will Flying Horse, I'd say you're acting like some Big Indian."

Will grinned at her weakly. "Go figure," he said.

Ca.s.sie brushed his hair away from his face. She rubbed her fingers lightly over the gaping edges of Will's wounds. Even Alex, who had offered her the world, had never given her so much.

TWO WEEKS AFTER THE SUN DANCE, Ca.s.sIE WENT INTO LABOR. SHE would have had plenty of time to make the drive into the clinic in town, but she wanted to have the baby somewhere familiar. And so, ten hours later, propped up in the bed where Cyrus, Zachary, and Will had all been born, she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Dorothea stood at the foot of the bed, measuring Ca.s.sie's progress.

Will was next to Ca.s.sie, suffering her death grip on his hand. "Less than an hour now," Dorothea said proudly. "Baby's crowned."

"I'm going to go," Will said, trying to tug free, but Ca.s.sie wouldn't let him leave. He had been uncomfortable in the first place, but Ca.s.sie had begged. He might still have found the fort.i.tude to refuse if Ca.s.sie hadn't been seized by a contraction just then that had nearly doubled her over in his arms.

"Please," Ca.s.sie panted. "Don't leave me to do this all by myself."

She grabbed handfuls of Will's shirt.

But then she couldn't talk because her belly was knotted up and this unbelievable pressure was forcing itself down through her lower half.

Ridiculous, wasn't it, that she'd run away to save this baby's life, only to die in the end? She took a deep breath and fell back against the pillows again. I understand you, she silently told the baby. I know how hard it is to go from one world into another.

"Here it comes," said Dorothea. Ca.s.sie could feel the cool pressure of Dorothea's fingertips breaking the seal of flesh around her baby's head. She struggled up, dug her fingernails into Will's hand, and bore down.

Ten minutes later, Ca.s.sie felt something long and wet slip between her chafed thighs. Dorothea held up a squalling, stunning bundle.

"Hoks'la luha'! A boy!" she crowed. "Big and healthy, even if he is a little pale for my tastes."

Ca.s.sie laughed, reaching out her hands, first noticing the tears in the corners of her own eyes. She jiggled the baby in her arms, trying to get comfortable, not really knowing exactly how that should feel. The baby opened up his mouth and howled.

"It even sounds like you," Will murmured, and Ca.s.sie remembered he was there. His hand stroked the back of her head, lightly, as if he were awestruck and not sure he should be allowed the contact.

"How do you feel?" Will asked.

Ca.s.sie glanced up at him, struggling for the right word. "Full."

"Well, you look a lot more empty."

Ca.s.sie shook her head. How could she explain it? After all the longing she'd done for Alex, she wasn't alone anymore. This tiny wriggling thing completed her too, in a different sort of way.