The Blue Between the Clouds Read online

  “Ouch!” he said.

  “What is it, Judge?” asked Pa.

  “I think I just got stung by a hornet.”

  The judge was rubbin’ the back of his leg.

  “Well, let’s get some ointment on it,” Pa said.

  “No, no. I’ll be okay,” the judge said. “Y’all take care.”

  Funny thing, the judge was stung twice more before he made it to his car. Pa said he’d better get down to the hardware store and get a nest bomb, but I knew it wasn’t hornets.

  9

  THE MEDICINE MAN

  I found Two Moons out by the holdin’ pond. A few days earlier we had set up a stack of cans on the far bank. We’d try to skip rocks across the pond and hit the cans. That’s what Two Moons was doin’, skippin’ rocks. I remember what a beautiful day it was, and how out of place Two Moons seemed. He was so sorrowful, and the sky was so blue. It ain’t like you can talk to somebody when they’re like that. They don’t have any say in their life and there ain’t nobody can do anything for ’em. I threw some rocks with him, but neither one of us could hit the cans. I don’t think we tried very hard. Then we sat down.

  “We been blood brothers for a long time,” I said.

  Two Moons nodded.

  “So it seems to me,” I said, “that, well, if you’re thinkin’ of runnin’ off, I want to go with you.”

  Two Moons looked at me for a long time before sayin’ anything. “I thought about that,” he said. “I suppose it would be a lot like ‘Icarus.’ A good dream but an awful short flight.”

  We started to laugh then, but only for a moment. Neither one of us could think of anything else to say. We just sat there on the bank of the holdin’ pond watchin’ the circles grow on the still water. It was so quiet you could hear the magpies in the field. Then we heard a crash. It was the cans. Someone hit the cans with a rock. At first we thought it was Esther, but even she isn’t that good. Whoever it was must have pegged them from the barn. We couldn’t think of anyone we knew who could throw that far. While we were sittin’ there stupefied, a rock sailed from behind the barn in a long arc and landed right in the middle of the pile of cans. Then another one sailed overhead and before it hit, a rock shot like a bullet in a beeline to the cans. Both rocks hit about the same time. We couldn’t believe it. Nobody can throw like that, we thought; got to be a slingshot. Then we heard the laughin’. It was Emmett.

  He appeared from behind the barn, laughin’ and strokin’ his face like he just shaved. He stopped and covered his eyes like a baby playin’ peekaboo.

  “The sky is falling!” he shouted. “The sky is falling!”

  Then he laughed and laughed and ducked like he was runnin’ for cover.

  “What are you doin’, Emmett?” I said.

  He held his arms out like a big bird and soared around us. He flew in close, then backed away. He swooped down, splashed in the holdin’ pond, then stomped his feet on the bank. His mouth putted like an engine and his arms rattled like wings. He looked at us kinda funny, the way he would if we had on the wrong shirt for church or somethin’. His engine roared louder.

  “I think he wants us to fly with him for a while,” I said.

  Two Moons nodded and we were off, flyin’ like a squadron through the field, around the pond, and into the deep blue of the sky. We circled the apple trees and the old Ford and stopped in front of the barn. Emmett motioned us inside and we dove like bombers through the opening and out the back door, where Emmett bumped his head. We made a quick landing so Emmett could rub his lump. While we were standin’ there, Emmett noticed the plane. I knew he had seen it before, but maybe it just dawned on him what it was. He fell to his knees like he was worshiping a great idol. Then he stood up and his face became serious.

  “Fetch my tools, Matt,” he said. “We gotta get this baby back in the air before tomorrow’s raid.”

  Now, I really didn’t want Emmett messin’ with my plane. I mean, he could put it in pieces, make it into nothin’ more than a pile of junk. But then again, maybe he could get it into the air. I ran to his truck to find his tools.

  When I returned, Emmett had the baler tines from old man Hawkins’ place. He was holdin’ ’em to the plane, sizing ’em up for wings.

  “We’re gonna need some canvas, boy,” he said. “And a bucket of starch. Find me some heavy thread and some fine sand, too. A little bit of motor oil and gas wouldn’t hurt either.”

  Me and Two Moons scampered off like squirrels. We found some old canvas in the barn and a bag of corn starch in the pantry. We couldn’t find heavy thread, so we got some fishin’ line out of Pa’s tackle box. The hardest thing to find was sand. We looked everywhere. Finally, Two Moons remembered the judge was puttin’ in a brick walkway by his garden. We ran all the way there and came back with a flour sack half full.

  By the time we got back, Emmett had Pa’s welder out and was makin’ wing frames out of the baler tines. He worked fast, and didn’t say a word, but every now and then he’d hold his thumb up to his nose and sight down his hand. I guess that’s how he kept everything straight. Then he’d pull at the skin on his forehead like he was tryin’ to get somethin’ out of his brain. Me and Two Moons could hardly keep from laughin’, the way he was flitterin’ around like a goose without its mate.

  By late afternoon the plane was a skeleton. All the old canvas had been stripped off the fuselage and the wings grew out from the body like long, graceful fingers. The whole thing looked like a tailor’s cage—you know, that mannequin made out of wire the tailor hangs dresses on. All we had left to do was to wrap the whole thing in canvas and put the engine back together. The engine lay spread out on the grass in pieces. No two movin’ parts were hooked together. It was glorious. Emmett was covered in gritty oil and was cleanin’ each piece. I was sittin’ in the cockpit testing the tension on the cables that connected to the control stick. The wing tabs worked, the tail rudder worked. I began to think it really might fly.

  Emmett stopped what he was doin’ and stood beside the plane. He pulled out a long sheet of canvas and threw it over the skeleton. He showed us how to get it wet with starch, then sew it together so it wrapped around the wire frame. We figured out that the canvas must shrink when it dries, pulling it tight. Emmett went back to the engine and started puttin’ pieces together. Me and Two Moons dragged the waterin’ trough over and started soakin’ the canvas in starch.

  It wasn’t until long after dark that we had most of the plane canvased. Emmett was workin’ on the engine. He made a paste out of oil and sand and spun the valves in their openings. I guess that made them fit a little better. He sure took his time with it. He handled every valve and piston like it was fine china. Then he cut gaskets out of heavy paper and put the head and the valve covers on. I guess it was later than we thought ’cause when we stood up to take a break, Two Moons noticed the sun was startin’ to rise above the mountains. Suddenly we were very tired. That’s when Pa came out.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Pa said. “Looks like Emmett ain’t the only crazy one around here.”

  He laughed at that. Emmett didn’t pay him any attention, and me and Two Moons were too tired to say much of anything. We laid down in the straw and were about to take a snooze.

  “What are you two doin’?” Pa said.

  “We’re kinda tired, Pa,” I said.

  “That’s your own doin’,” he said. “You still got chores to do before you get off to school.”

  We hadn’t even thought about school. I knew right away there’d be no talkin’ about it. We’d been in enough trouble at school already. No use even tryin’ to argue with Pa.

  “Get a move on,” he said.

  Me and Two Moons slowly stood up and started for the chicken coop to gather eggs.

  “Emmett,” Pa said. “You don’t think this will really fly, do you?”

  Emmett didn’t say anything. He made airplane noises and swooped his arm through the air. Pa laughed.

  “That’s what I thought,” he s
aid.

  By the time we got to school we could hardly keep our eyes open. We were two zombies roamin’ the halls in broad daylight. We both fell asleep in class, but Two Moons didn’t fall out of his chair the way I did. The whole class roared with laughter. I hadn’t been so embarrassed since I sleepwalked into the parlor one night in my underwear. Ma’s tea club was over that evenin’ and I came strollin’ down in my birthday best. I didn’t wake up until I was stand-in’ right in the middle of the party. I can still hear them laughin’.

  Anyway, at recess we both laid down under a tree at the edge of the schoolyard and slept until Miss Alexander woke us up.

  “You two have a rough night?” she asked.

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “I hear Two Moons is going to live with his sister in Bozeman,” she went on. “Is that true?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Two Moons said.

  “Well, we’re going to miss you here, Two Moons,” Miss Alexander told him. “You’re a bright boy.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Two Moons said.

  We felt a little better after that nap. It gave us the strength to suffer through the rest of the school day.

  When the school bell rang, we dashed out and ran all the way home like two thirsty horses. We didn’t even wait for Esther. We ran straight to the plane. Emmett wasn’t there, but it looked like he had worked all day. We figured he must be asleep. He had recanvased some of our work, and a good part of the engine was put back together. The propeller was leanin’ against the barn and had been sanded and varnished. The canvas had mostly dried, and was tight as a drum.

  We got goose bumps just lookin’ at it. We could see ourselves floatin’ off into a golden sunset. We had to find Emmett. We ran to his bedroom truck and peeked in the window. He wasn’t there. We looked everywhere—the barn, Ma’s kitchen, the henhouse. Finally we found him bent over the old Model T, workin’ on the carburetor. We stood behind him and watched. He worked fast and pulled the carburetor gently off and held it in his hands like a bird’s nest. Then he walked carefully to the plane. He held the two carburetors side by side, lookin’ carefully at their parts. Then he shook his head and dropped them both on the ground. He stared at the plane for a long time. Then he turned and walked to his bedroom truck and shut the door behind him.

  Well, me and Two Moons didn’t quite know what to do. At first we thought Emmett would be right back. We found some red barn paint and painted the plane. Then we sat there, waitin’ for Emmett. It couldn’t be that hard to make this little carburetor work, we thought. I mean, we were so close. A piece this small couldn’t stop us from flyin’. But it did. For days we waited for Emmett to come out of his truck and fix that carburetor. We moped around like Christmas was late at our house. Every minute that ticked by put Two Moons closer to Bozeman. We decided there was only one thing to do. Go see the medicine man.

  10

  HOW I GOT MY INDIAN NAME

  Early the next Saturday morning we were ridin’ with Pa to the reservation again. This time, no one greeted us at the end of the dusty road. There were naked little kids runnin’ around, teasin’ dogs. The ovens were smoking. They looked like giant beehives. The sun was already hot and we took our shirts off.

  “Gray Horse lives on the edge of the village,” Two Moons said. “He will be making the sand painting that talks about Grandfather’s death.”

  We walked slowly through the village, watchin’ the children. Some of the women came out to hug Two Moons, but most of them tended their ovens or ground corn into meal. Finally we came to the biggest hogan in the village.

  “This is where the tribal council meets,” Two Moons said. “They study the sand painting that is the history of our people. Then they decide what is best for the tribe.”

  “Is it where they decided you belong in Bozeman?” I said.

  Two Moons didn’t answer. He never disagrees with the council. “The council knows more than my life,” he has said to me many times. I guess I would tell them it was my life and stay out of it. But Two Moons, well, he has a lot of respect for his elders. Still, it doesn’t seem right that they send him away from his home.

  The hogan was dark and filled with smoke. Small pots of cedar beads smoldered in the corners of the big room. The medicine man was kneeling with a bowl of fine sand in his hand. He would take a handful and let it carefully sift through his fingers, makin’ patterns on the floor. His hair was braided with eagle feathers and a red bandana. He had a necklace of bear claws and turquoise danglin’ from his neck. It reminded me of an Indian man Pa found one winter by the mine. He was froze to death and nobody knew who he was. Pa found him one mornin’ when he was checkin’ the generator. The Indian was sittin’ upright in the snow, his elbows on his knees and his head down. His hair was also braided with eagle feathers, and he had a small bag over his shoulder, a medicine bag like Two Moons’ grandfather’s. He was very old, and his hair was gray. No one knew him at the reservation, so we figured he must’ve come a long way. Pa brought him to the house that night to get him ready for burial. That’s where he learned about the sheep. When the tribe found out about the burial, they sent the chief and the medicine man. They chanted and sang in our barn where the body was. I was real small then and don’t remember much about it. But I do remember that the medicine man insisted on burying the body where Pa found him. And I remember those eagle feathers.

  I had forgotten all about that Indian until that day in the hogan. Now, the medicine man sang softly while the sand slipped through his fingers and told the history of his people.

  The medicine man looked up and slowly nodded. It was like he knew why we were there. We turned and went outside and sat down.

  “The sand drawing is sacred,” Two Moons said. “We will wait here.”

  Me and Two Moons sat in the shade and watched an eagle glidin’ off in the distance. He moved back and forth across a butte. We could even see his shadow.

  “Must be somethin’ he wants pretty bad,” I said. “The way he keeps circlin’ like that.”

  “No,” said Two Moons. “The wind runs up the side of the butte there. He likes floatin’ in the currents the way we like driftin’ along in the San Juan River.”

  That got me thinkin’ about a time when me and Two Moons decided to float the San Juan in the spring. You know, durin’ runoff. We had this little boat that was just big enough for one man, or two boys. We could see there wasn’t gonna be no easy way to get in ’cause the waves were so big. They tumbled over each other like stampedin’ cattle.

  “Let’s get a run at her,” I said to Two Moons.

  Of course he agreed. Each of us took ahold of a gunnel, you know, where the oar goes, then started to run. We leaped into the river at a full gallop and tried to roll into the boat in midair. I suppose we really thought we could do it. Until we hit the water. The waves attacked us, threw us about like we didn’t belong there. By the time we agreed with them, it was too late. The river became a giant monster. It pounded and threw us, held us underwater until we thought we were gonna burst. I thought we were done for. But somehow, we ended up on a sandy bank a few miles downstream. We pulled ourselves to where it was dry and laid there the rest of the afternoon. That night we told Pa about our adventure.

  “What did you do a stupid thing like that for?” he said. “You both could’ve been killed. Then what would I do? Where would I get another son?”

  The last thing I wanted to be was stupid. I thought about that while we waited for the medicine man. I thought about the plane and flyin’. Were we doing somethin’ stupid again?

  “We didn’t always just drift along the San Juan,” I said to Two Moons.

  He smiled. Just then the medicine man came out. He stood in front of Two Moons. They stared at each other for a long time before Two Moons spoke. I only understood the greeting because they spoke in Navajo. Two Moons used his arms like he was tellin’ a long story. The medicine man listened. Two Moons motioned toward the eagle, and I knew he was talkin�
�� about the plane. Then the medicine man turned and walked back into the hogan.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He said it is noble to want to be like the eagle, but he cannot bless the plane with a good spirit until he gives you an Indian name the spirits of the sky will honor.”

  “That’s it?”

  “About you, yes. He also said that your father is a great spirit, and that he would not honor this request if it wasn’t for him.”

  That made me think Pa was some kind of white Indian chief or somethin’.

  “I’ll tell Pa that,” I said.

  The medicine man led us to the sweat house. We took off our clothes while he built a fire and brought us fry bread. Then he left us there.

  “How long do we stay here?” I asked.

  “Until you feel you are ready for the honor of a new name.”

  “It’s awful hot,” I said. “I think I could feel ready pretty soon.”

  Two Moons paid no attention to me. He poured a bucket of water over the hot rocks next to the fire. Steam billowed up like smoke from a forest fire. It was so thick I could hardly see Two Moons. The big drops of sweat on his brown skin looked like diamonds. He sat down and breathed deeply. I did the same and started to feel sleepy, not like I was goin’ to nod off or anything, just kind of relaxed.

  I know I should’ve been thinkin’ about my name and how I planned to honor it, but all I could think about was the plane. We had to get that plane in the air somehow. I knew I could fly it; I’d seen myself a hundred times in that cockpit. Every day since we brought the plane home I had been in the clouds, swoopin’ like an eagle, floatin’ along, divin’. I knew if we could get the engine started, Two Moons and me could head north, settle someplace where his sister would never find us. It made me sad to think of Two Moons livin’ with his sister. She had no interest in him and only wanted someone to do her chores. I could tell it was eating Two Moons up inside, like a bad sickness. But he would not disgrace his family by refusin’ the tribal council’s orders. I wished Two Moons still had his father. I was very young when he died, but I remembered him. The whole town remembered him. There was somethin’ about him that made people respect everything he said. I only saw him once. He rode into town durin’ the drought year, just when the Depression was startin’. Course I didn’t know about the Depression then; Pa told me about it later when he felt like I was old enough to understand why folks didn’t have work, and why there were people starvin’ to death.