Michael Bishop Unicorn Mountain

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.How could a ghosttalk to you in the middle of such a quiet afternoon? When the RV began its descent of the western grade,Sam found himself staring across the forested abyss beneath him at two figures on the opposite hillside:an elk with a rack far too big for early June, and a sun-haloed rider in buckskin and beaded leggings.Ricocheting sunlight made it hard to assess the reality of this double apparition, but Sam knew that forhim it was real.He dived back into the car and squinted through its windshield to see if his dead ex-wifeand the magnificent wapiti were still there.They were.D'lo broadcast again from the car's radiospeakers: "Those two damn Anglos are all right.Go to Alma's graduation!""I will," he said."That's what I was doing.""If not just for Alma's sake," the radio speakers went on, "then because you told Gina Thrower you'd talkto DeWayne.There's important stuff to do in Ignacio.""Okay," Sam said, trying to turn the radio off but finding that its knobs had no say-so over this broadcast."For once, just once, do what's right for somebody else.""Okay!" he cried, peering across the abyss."Now get off my back! Ouray's, too! What business do youhave riding him?""This business," D'lo said, her last words to him.She turned the elk with her knees -- sunlight winking offher beaded leggings as if the beads were minute Christmas-tree bulbs -- and rode him down a pathbehind a jagged border of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir that hid them from view.Sam kept peering,but they were gone, and he was in doubt again about their reality.His last glimpse of D'lo's ini'putc' hadshown it to be -- as dictated by the grim character of her suicide -- headless.Yet again, Sam realized, he had an erection, this one bent by his jeans and by his posture behind thewheel.Yet again, he was ashamed and confused.He had loved D'lo, but in hating what she loved -- thereservation -- he had let her divorce him and had forsaken his birthplace and his family.Maybe hishumiliating physical ache was as much for his lost past as for D'lo's ruined spirit body.Sam twisted on the seat, closed his eyes, and sat waiting for the starch to go out of him.When, finally, itdid, he jammed his car in gear and ran it through the counties of Alamosa, Rio Grande, Mineral,Archuleta, and La Plata, into the proud but bitter heart of a private Indian Territory.* * *In Ignacio at last, in the brass heat of the afternoon, Sam had sufficient loyalty to register at the PinoNuche motel, a Ute-owned and Ute-run facility in the northern part of town, not too far from DeWayneSky's grandiose tepee.The desk clerk at the Pino Nuche was a young Muache unfamiliar to Sam, thank Inu'sakats.However,almost every Ute under the age of twenty would be a stranger to him, and he had already decided not togo looking for people who would remember him -- Joey Cuthair, old Herbert Barnes, the parents ofBenjamin Elk.Running into such people would only lead to questions, the questions to fussing, and thefussing to fruitless arguments.He had come to see Paisley receive her diploma (exactly as D'lo had commanded him on La Veta Pass)and to depart without causing a ripple in the sluggish stream of reservation life.At Paisley's graduation, ofcourse, he would be unable to sidestep the gaze and the questions of old acquaintances, but he plannedto do all he could to ward off talk, pleas to return, all controversy.Maybe he could sidestep such things.At the Pino Nuche, he signed the register as Samuel C.Taylor, an inversion of the truth that put a blisteron his heart.The clerk, an acne-blemished brave wearing pigtails and a Grateful Dead T-shirt, examined Sam closely."You Indian?""Not enough," Sam said."Only about an eighth, I guess." This was the tack he had decided to take, todeflect any questions about his identity that his looks might provoke.Indian, but not Indian; too few redblood cells to satisfy BIA computations."I only ask," the kid said, "because there's a nice discount if you're Ute, Jicarilla Apache, Navajo, orHopi.""I don't qualify," Sam lied."My blood's Capote Ute, but it's just not thick enough.""Tough," the kid said sympathetically.He showed Sam the rate schedule and gave him a key."Is there a phone in the room?""Sure.This is a modern place.""Yeah.It's been modern a long time.How much d'you put on my tab if I make a phone call?""Fifty cents if it's local.That plus whatever you run up with AT&T if it's long-distance."Sam nodded and found his room.After a hamburger in the motel restaurant (where all the cooks andwaitresses, like the maids at the inn, were Anglos or Anglo-Hispanics because too many Utes still thoughtthemselves above such low-level tasks), he returned to his room, checked the telephone book, anddialed the false-front tepee of DeWayne Sky.Even at fifty cents, this would be a cheaper call than theone he'd placed from T�o Pepe's back in March.LannaSue answered."Skys' residence."Sam asked for the "man of the house" -- even though he had always liked LannaSue and was brieflytempted to say hello to her just to hear her musical spunky-jolly voice rumble at him again.Sky's wife spoke again, anyway."Who is this?""Does it matter?" His attempt at a vocal disguise failed."Sam," LannaSue said."Sam Coldpony.You here to see Payz get graduated?""I'm calling long distance, LannaSue.I wish you'd put DeWayne on before this really begins to cost me.""Will you be here tomorrow? If you will, come to the football field.There's gonna be a reviewing stand,and a band, and--""LannaSue--""It begins at seven thirty.If you're in-state, you got plenty of time to make it.Start driving early.""I can't.I'm in--" Sam wanted to say Wyoming or Montana and to name a ranch on which he'd workedin the mid 1970s, but realized that asking DeWayne to grand-marshal a Pioneer Days parade in SnowyFalls, Colorado, would probably undermine his lie."Sam, your daughter's here.Want me to put her on?""God, no, LannaSue!" Sam cried."Don't even mention it's me.Just let me talk to DeWayne, I'll say mysay and get off."LannaSue's receiver banged -- not as if she had slammed it into its cradle but as if she had let go of it indisgust and it had hit the tabletop."DeWayne," he heard her say, "some sorry pecker wants to talk toyou."A minute went by.If the call had really been long distance, Sam would have fidgeted even morefrantically.At last Sky picked up the handset -- clunk, clunk -- and barked, "Okay, talk to me."Sam identified himself and outlined the grand-marshal proposal from Mrs.Thrower."Snowy Falls?" Sky said."That where you calling from?"This time Sam refused to lie; he remained mute."I'm assuming it is.And I'll do it -- be your grand marshal, Coldpony -- because I'm assuming so.We'llhave us a good long one soon as I get there.When are these Pioneer Days, anyhow?"Sam told him."That's less than a week before Sun Dance, you renegade apple, and I'm the goddamn Sun Dancecommittee chief."Which meant, Sam knew, that DeWayne would have to lay out the Thirst House and supervise the ritual,sunrise to sunup, for each of three grueling days.He would also dance.So maybe he wouldn't be able tocome.In a way, Sam hoped not -- he had no strong desire to sit down for a "good long one" with Sky inSnowy Falls."Hell, I'll squeeze it in," the Sun Dance chief finally said."Full regalia," Sam said hurriedly."I've done this before, Coldpony." A silence intervened [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki