Animal Dreams
Page 44
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Almost immediately I could hear Loyd raising his voice. "I told you I want Apodaca's line and not any of the others. I want gaffers. I'm not interested in knife birds."
The short man said, "Loyd, I'm telling you, you got to go up to Phoenix. They're getting goddamn tourists at those knife tourneys. It's a circus. You can get two hundred birds through there in a day."
"Don't tell me what I want. Do you have gaffers out there, or did I just waste a tank of gas?"
Their voices dropped lower again. I felt uncomfortable listening in, though I was fascinated and slightly appalled by the notion of "knife birds." It was encouraging that Loyd didn't want them, whatever they were. The words the men used were as mysterious as Loyd's railroad talk. He evidently spoke a lot of languages, not even counting Apache and Pueblo and Navajo.
Across the street from the store stood a substantial-looking whitewashed church-the only white building in an adobe town. It was shaped like the Alamo with a bell tower. The ground in front was planted with petunias, phlox, and marigolds: pink, purple, orange, in that order. One thing Hallie always said she loved about Indian reservations and Mexico was that there were no rules about color. She was right. It was really a splendid combination, now that I looked at it, but in some orderly country like Germany they'd probably arrest you for planting this in front of your house; in suburban Tucson they'd just avoid you. Keep their kids inside when you went out to weed.
People trailed out of the church in twos and threes, mostly women, carrying out the same color scheme in their blouses and skirts. They all looked at me as they passed, not with hostility, but with the kind of curiosity you'd have if you noticed an odd plant had popped up in your garden: you wouldn't yank it out right away. You'd give it a few days to see what developed.
I could hear roosters cock-a-doodling somewhere, and I was curious. As I went down the steps an adobe-colored dog scooted out of my way and ran under the porch. The store, I discovered, had a deep backyard. The chain-link fence was overgrown with weedy vines, but I could still see in: it was a rooster garden in there. Roosters in small cubicles laid out in neat rows, one bird per cage. They strutted and turned in circles, eying each other as if each moment were new, as if they hadn't for all their natural lives been surrounded by these other birds. They had red faces and glossy black feathers that threw off iridescent flashes of color, like a hummingbird's throat. Beautiful. But the claustrophobic energy was tiring to watch.
I heard a door slam and I quickly went back around front. Loyd was ready to go, but not in the bad mood I expected. By the time we got to the edge of town he was smiling.
I offered him the last of my soda. "So, did you waste a tank of gas?"
He put his arm across the back of the seat, his thumb touching the nape of my neck, and shot me a sideways look. "No way."
We weren't headed back toward Grace, we drove north. There were no more towns, just reddish hills and a badly rutted road. "Was that Whiteriver?" I asked.
"No. This is what you'd call the Whiteriver metropolitan area."
"You used to live here? After you left your mother's pueblo?"
"Around here. We lived up at Ghost River. It's a little higher ground up there. It's nice, there's trees."
"You and your dad and..." I wanted to ask about his dead twin brother, but then again I didn't. Not today.
"And Jack," he said.
"Whatever happened to Jack's coyote mother?"
"After she had her litter, she left us. She went back to live in God's backyard."
I was quiet for a minute, taking in the hills. "And where are we headed now?"
He smiled. "Who wants to know?"
"A hometown girl, looking for some adventure."
"Well, then, we're headed for some adventure."
Loyd kept both hands on the wheel in the washed-out stretches, driving like a race-car driver-I don't mean fast, but skillfully, with that generous kind of concentration that seems easy as a reflex. We were gaining ground, getting higher, passing through intermittent stands of evergreens. In between were meadows, solidly carpeted in yellow flowers, punctuated by tall white poppies with silver leaves and tissue-paper petals. In the distance, the southern slopes of the mountainsides were dappled with yellow. We passed through another tiny enclave of houses and horse corrals. The people there would have been born into that life; I couldn't imagine it. For some reason I thought of Hallie's first letter-the babies playing around the cook fire, in the refugee camps. But this wasn't like that; it didn't look desperate, just lonely. It was hard to understand why a person would stay. Loyd hadn't. But then again, he wasn't born here. And yet he seemed drawn back, for reasons beyond fighting cocks.
The short man said, "Loyd, I'm telling you, you got to go up to Phoenix. They're getting goddamn tourists at those knife tourneys. It's a circus. You can get two hundred birds through there in a day."
"Don't tell me what I want. Do you have gaffers out there, or did I just waste a tank of gas?"
Their voices dropped lower again. I felt uncomfortable listening in, though I was fascinated and slightly appalled by the notion of "knife birds." It was encouraging that Loyd didn't want them, whatever they were. The words the men used were as mysterious as Loyd's railroad talk. He evidently spoke a lot of languages, not even counting Apache and Pueblo and Navajo.
Across the street from the store stood a substantial-looking whitewashed church-the only white building in an adobe town. It was shaped like the Alamo with a bell tower. The ground in front was planted with petunias, phlox, and marigolds: pink, purple, orange, in that order. One thing Hallie always said she loved about Indian reservations and Mexico was that there were no rules about color. She was right. It was really a splendid combination, now that I looked at it, but in some orderly country like Germany they'd probably arrest you for planting this in front of your house; in suburban Tucson they'd just avoid you. Keep their kids inside when you went out to weed.
People trailed out of the church in twos and threes, mostly women, carrying out the same color scheme in their blouses and skirts. They all looked at me as they passed, not with hostility, but with the kind of curiosity you'd have if you noticed an odd plant had popped up in your garden: you wouldn't yank it out right away. You'd give it a few days to see what developed.
I could hear roosters cock-a-doodling somewhere, and I was curious. As I went down the steps an adobe-colored dog scooted out of my way and ran under the porch. The store, I discovered, had a deep backyard. The chain-link fence was overgrown with weedy vines, but I could still see in: it was a rooster garden in there. Roosters in small cubicles laid out in neat rows, one bird per cage. They strutted and turned in circles, eying each other as if each moment were new, as if they hadn't for all their natural lives been surrounded by these other birds. They had red faces and glossy black feathers that threw off iridescent flashes of color, like a hummingbird's throat. Beautiful. But the claustrophobic energy was tiring to watch.
I heard a door slam and I quickly went back around front. Loyd was ready to go, but not in the bad mood I expected. By the time we got to the edge of town he was smiling.
I offered him the last of my soda. "So, did you waste a tank of gas?"
He put his arm across the back of the seat, his thumb touching the nape of my neck, and shot me a sideways look. "No way."
We weren't headed back toward Grace, we drove north. There were no more towns, just reddish hills and a badly rutted road. "Was that Whiteriver?" I asked.
"No. This is what you'd call the Whiteriver metropolitan area."
"You used to live here? After you left your mother's pueblo?"
"Around here. We lived up at Ghost River. It's a little higher ground up there. It's nice, there's trees."
"You and your dad and..." I wanted to ask about his dead twin brother, but then again I didn't. Not today.
"And Jack," he said.
"Whatever happened to Jack's coyote mother?"
"After she had her litter, she left us. She went back to live in God's backyard."
I was quiet for a minute, taking in the hills. "And where are we headed now?"
He smiled. "Who wants to know?"
"A hometown girl, looking for some adventure."
"Well, then, we're headed for some adventure."
Loyd kept both hands on the wheel in the washed-out stretches, driving like a race-car driver-I don't mean fast, but skillfully, with that generous kind of concentration that seems easy as a reflex. We were gaining ground, getting higher, passing through intermittent stands of evergreens. In between were meadows, solidly carpeted in yellow flowers, punctuated by tall white poppies with silver leaves and tissue-paper petals. In the distance, the southern slopes of the mountainsides were dappled with yellow. We passed through another tiny enclave of houses and horse corrals. The people there would have been born into that life; I couldn't imagine it. For some reason I thought of Hallie's first letter-the babies playing around the cook fire, in the refugee camps. But this wasn't like that; it didn't look desperate, just lonely. It was hard to understand why a person would stay. Loyd hadn't. But then again, he wasn't born here. And yet he seemed drawn back, for reasons beyond fighting cocks.
