Читать книгу The Jealous Son - Michele Chynoweth - Страница 14

ELIZA HAD ACTUALLY GROWN up as a girl named Anna in the Navajo clan of her mother, Wenona Hosteen, who had married her father, Paco Becenti, or rather, was married off to him by her parents when she was just seventeen.

Anna lived with her parents and two older sisters, Flo and Dena, within the borders of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. She was born with the native Navajo name of Anaba, but it was shortened to Anna by her older sisters, who couldn’t quite say her whole name as toddlers.

Anna’s father was a highly respected political Navajo leader, while her mother followed the traditions of the women of her clan, making beautiful native jewelry, sculptures, and other hand-made arts and crafts. They sold the items in the Native American Market at the scenic Oak Creek Canyon Vista Overlook off Highway 89-A. The open-air market sat atop the switchback mountains of Oak Creek Canyon at the mouth of the scenic drive that led into the valleys of Sedona.

Her family had been lucky to win the lottery that allowed them to be one of the sixteen vendors who set up daily to sell only the highest quality authentic arts and crafts as part of the project started by Native Americans for Community Action in partnership with the Coconino National Forest.

Anna was adept at beading and hand-painting wooden sculptures, and she enjoyed helping make the crafts when she was a girl. But as she blossomed into a teenager, she grew restless and bored, knowing there was more to the world, wanting only to escape the reservation to see what lay beyond.

One day a white teenage boy strolling through the market with his family caught her eye. He was tall and lanky with blonde hair that fell over his eyes when he bowed down to take a closer look at the carved stone pieces on their table.

It had been a particularly busy Saturday in their high season that late summer, and as she lugged another batch of jewelry to replenish her mother’s table, Anna looked up, and her dark brown eyes met the most beautiful set of blue eyes she had ever seen. They were the blue-green color of the Colorado River at dawn, or the turquoise rocks she collected in the mountains for cutting into gemstones.

And when he smiled, she felt her heart melt like warmed brown sugar, turning into syrup and trickling down to parts of her body she didn’t really know existed before that moment in time.

She realized she was staring too long when her mother came up and firmly pushed her aside. “Can I help you?” Wenona politely asked.

“N-n-no, I was just looking, thanks,” the boy clumsily muttered and turned to go, probably to look for his parents. But he briefly glanced over his shoulder back toward their table. Anna met his gaze as he flashed her a mischievous grin.

She tried to forget about him, but several hours later as dusk approached, when she was helping pack up their wares, her head bent as she collected all of the jewelry into a satchel, a hand lightly touched her forearm. She looked up, and there he was, his eyes piercing hers. He deftly opened her hand and put a small piece of paper in it, then smiled, winked at her, and waved goodbye, not saying a word. She watched him as he joined what looked to be his parents and his younger brother who were walking toward the parking lot. She waited for her mom to be out of eyesight before she discreetly unfolded the tiny paper. “Meet me back here at the entrance tonight after nine. I will wait for you, Jack.”

Jack. She liked his name and bit her lip to keep from saying it out loud.

SHE FOUND a way to sneak out of their house that night, past where Flo and Dena lay sleeping in the room they all shared, out through the back kitchen door, across the back yard, through the woods that adjoined their lot to the thick woods of the Coconino National Forest, and out onto the entrance of the Oak Creek Canyon Vista where hundreds of tourists pulled over each day to view the breathtaking forested canyon that lay beneath.

This is crazy, she told herself, panting, breathless from the steep climb. I should turn back, I don’t even know him, what if someone sees me, what if I die out here? Although she carried a sharp wood carving knife in her pocket and was no stranger to the wildlife in the canyon, she felt anxious. She had been told by her mother and father to never wander alone through the woods, especially at night. They had warned her that if she did, she could be attacked by stray campers breaking the laws that forbade non-members of the Navajo Nation to abide within its territory, not to mention wolves and bears she might stumble upon.

She nearly screamed when the beam of her flashlight lit up the tips of Jack’s boots. He was sitting on an old tree stump a few yards off the entrance. He stood and approached her, his heels crunching on the gravel. She stood and waited for him, her breath still caught in her throat.

“You’re trembling,” he said gently as he ran his hands down her shoulders. Even though it was an unseasonably warm evening, she had hiked for at least a mile, and she was wearing a bulky knit sweater her grandmother had made that would keep an Eskimo warm, she was still shivering.

“I guess I’m a little chilly,” she lied, feeling a drop of sweat trickle down her back.

“You know, I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Anna,” she replied shyly. “Anna Becenti.”

Jack shook her hand. “Nice to officially meet you, Anna Becenti. I’m Jack Foreman. And why don’t we go get warm?”

He motioned to the tree stump where he had been sitting, and Anna noticed a folded blanket and a big, brown paper bag. Jack also had a flashlight, and he shone it ahead and guided Anna by the arm to the spot.

“How did you get here?” Anna knew the Coconino National Park rangers were usually scarce at night, but still she worried. What if we get caught?

“I drove, silly, but I parked my car up ahead off the highway. I had to hike two miles to get here.” He spread the blanket in a little alcove under a large pine tree that was a few yards away, motioned for her to sit down next to him, and opened the bag, pulling out a bottle of wine and two plastic cups.

Anna felt her mouth drop open. “Alcohol isn’t allowed here,” she whispered fiercely. She had never had as much as a sip of wine or beer in her entire seventeen years on earth. Prohibition had always been the law of the Navajo Nation ever since it formed its own sovereign government, laws, and judicial system in the 1920s.

“Relax, I’ll hide it if we see any cop cars or rangers drive by,” he said with a cavalier flair, twisting the cap off the cheap white wine, then pouring it into the plastic cups until they were full.

“But…” Anna started to protest as he handed her the cup, but then stopped, taking it. He won’t believe me if I tell him I’ve never had anything alcoholic to drink before. I guess it won’t hurt to try it and when he’s not looking dump it out. After he tipped his cup to hers in a mock toast, she put the wine to her lips and sipped. Yuck. It tasted like the vinegar her mother sometimes added to tone down the gaminess of some meats like goat and rabbit. But she did like the radiating warm glow it seemed to spread to her insides, so she took a few more sips and then a gulp, realizing it wasn’t so bad after all. Besides, she was thirsty.

“Whoa, slow down a little,” Jack said, grinning. “I walked a long way to get here, so we need to make this last.” He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes as they sat next to each other on the blanket under the night sky. Suddenly his face loomed close, he closed his eyes, and his lips were touching hers, kissing her. Anna had read about kissing, heard her older sisters and friends talk about what it was like, but had never experienced the sensation before. It was her very first kiss, and initially, she hoped she was doing it right, then she just closed her own eyes and experienced the warm wonderful sensation of it.

They talked, laughed, kissed, and cuddled for almost an hour until the wine ran out and Jack said he better get back to the hotel where his family was staying before they sent someone out looking for him. He had told them he was merely making a store run.

On her way back home, Anna mulled over all of the things she had learned about Jack Foreman, smiling dreamily and almost tripping over an old tree root she had stepped over a thousand times in her travels.

She stopped and pulled a few mint and lemon balm leaves from the herb garden in their yard and chewed them quickly, trying to cover the taste and smell of the wine in her mouth. Then quietly as she could, she let herself in through the back door. She opened the refrigerator and helped herself to a glass of cold milk. That way if someone gets up, I’ll just tell them I couldn’t sleep. Milk always put her back to sleep.

But no one woke up. It was just before midnight when Anna finally fell asleep, dreaming of Jack’s kiss.

THE FOREMAN FAMILY was staying for three weeks in Arizona, where Jack’s father worked at a manufacturing plant while he, his mother, and two younger brothers toured Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, and Sedona. Then they would head back to their home in Gary, Indiana.

Jack and Anna stole away to their favorite spot a few more times, sharing bottles of wine, making out under the stars.

Anna thought she was in love, so much so that she invited Jack to sneak back with her one night into their family hogan.

The tent-shaped log structure, situated on the Becenti property by the woods about a half-acre away from their more contemporary house, was a traditional sacred space her family used for occasional sweat lodges and other ceremonies her father hosted for family and friends.

The mountain weather had grown chilly with the approach of fall, especially in the evenings. Anna figured the hogan would provide shelter from the cold wind as well as privacy, despite her misgivings that she was somehow being sacrilegious to her ancestors.

She led Jack by the hand through the blanket-covered entrance to what appeared on the outside as a large, clay-covered hut. Once inside, Jack let go of Anna’s hand and looked around him in awe. Three ten-foot cedar logs intersected from the ground up to form the foundation of the tent-like structure, with a huge wooden pole rising up in the center for support. The walls were also made of vertical cedar logs.

“This is so cool,” he whispered, staring almost reverently at the wooden structure around him as his eyes adjusted to the shadowy interior. “What do you do in here?”

“It’s called a hogan.” Anna ran her hand along the smooth amber-colored wood of one of the support beams, feeling ambivalent now about her decision to bring Jack into her family’s sacred space. “It’s a Navajo word meaning ‘the place home.’ My people lived in hogans for many years up until the early nineteen-hundreds when the government forced the Navajos to buy HUD houses with more modern bathrooms and kitchens. But my dad was one of several Navajo leaders—elders, medicine men, business men—who decided our people needed to remember their heritage and bring the hogan back.

“In 2001, a partnership formed between the Navajo Nation, Northern Arizona University, the US Forest Service, and a Navajo-owned log home factory to start building log hogans from surplus wood out of the local forests. It’s like there’s been a hogan revival on the Navajo Nation. They’re built like this one or in hexagon or octagon shapes, and some are even used as homes if they meet government regulations. Ours is just used for ceremonial purposes.”

Jack walked over to a charred, round space toward the center. “Can we somehow build a fire?”

“No!” Anna whispered. “My family might see the smoke. But there are some blankets we can cover up with to keep us warm.” She pulled down two Native American wool blankets her mother had made from pegs where they hung in the hogan.

They sat on two of the dozen mats scattered about, huddled under the blankets.

“Too bad we drank all the wine earlier.” Jack fished in his pocket and held out a rolled joint. “Good thing I brought my emergency stash.” His pout about the cold turned into an eager grin.

“Jack!” Anna pushed his hand away.

“You people are so strict,” Jack said, frowning. “No drinking, no smoking.” He sat moping until his face brightened with a new idea. “You know, I read some history where Indians used to smoke peace pipes. I’m sure they were filled with opium or something. Plus, marijuana is legal in almost every state now.”

“That doesn’t matter because our laws govern our land.” Anna suddenly felt bad that she sounded so defensive. It might be nice to try it now that the wine has worn off, she thought, feeling amorous and adventurous. “I guess we could smoke it real fast.”

She watched Jack inhale on the end of the tiny homemade cigarette, hold his breath for a few moments, then exhale. It smelled like the sage they used for their ceremonies, which was a comforting thought. When he passed the joint to her, she tried to mimic Jack but ended up having a coughing spasm, which sent him into a fit of laughter.

They passed the marijuana cigarette back and forth a few times until it became a tiny stub too small to hold. Jack snuffed it out on the hard-packed dirt floor and crawled under Anna’s blanket. Then, wordlessly, he took his jacket off, made it into a pillow for both of them, and lay back on it, pulling her down with him. He rolled toward her, the length of his body warm and hard against hers, and started to kiss her. Then she felt his hand go up under her sweater.

“Jack, I don’t think…I don’t know if…” but she really didn’t want him to stop, passion flooding through her, ignited by the pot smoke and her teenage desires, and she let him touch her in places she had never been touched.

She sat up and was about to remove her sweater altogether when she heard the loud crunch of approaching footsteps. Anna sat frozen with fear.

“Hey, come back here,” Jack whispered loudly, grabbing her shoulder, his hearing not as attuned as hers.

“Shhh.” She put a finger to her lips and held her other hand over his mouth. “Someone’s coming.”

Jack sat up abruptly, listening. He turned to her, his face turning pale as he too heard the sound, now getting louder and closer.

Anna slunk down and pulled the blanket up over her head, motioning for Jack to do the same. The footsteps suddenly stopped.

“Phew,” Jack sighed.

“Who’s in there?” A deep man’s voice boomed as the door cover was thrown open, and a gust of cold air and the bright beam of a flashlight intruded on the hogan’s interior.

“Papa, it’s me.” Anna sat up uncovering herself and saw her father’s shape filling the entrance. The flashlight beam shone into her eyes.

“What are you doing in here? I smell marijuana! And what… who is under that blanket?”

Jack threw off the blanket and stood. “I’m sorry, sir, my name is Jack and––”

“Enough!” In one swift motion, the hulking figure in the doorway loomed over them, a giant hand swooped in like an eagle’s claw and grabbed Jack’s arm, and the teenage boy was hurled through the doorway out into the night. Paco Becenti growled as he turned and exited the hogan. “Get out of here, you filthy piece of white trash,” he snarled, and Anna could hear Jack’s racing footsteps receding.

She sat shaking with fear, hot tears of shame streaming down her face.

But her father never re-entered, silently retreating back to their home.