Dance of the Bones

For years, Gabe’s mother’s failed attempts at making popovers had been the topic of running jokes on the reservation. Delia Cachora Ortiz had been raised off the reservation and had the benefit of an East Coast education. When Gabe’s grandfather, Fat Crack, had sought Delia out and brought her back to the reservation to serve as tribal attorney, she may have been considered a capable lawyer in Washington, D.C., but back home on the reservation, she spent years being regarded as an outsider.

Fat Crack’s approval and unstinting support had contributed to her gradual acceptance and to her eventually being elevated to the office of tribal chairman, but no amount of feather--shaking by a medicine man could improve her pitiful cooking skills. Some -people said that Chairman Ortiz suffered from Popover Sickness, and that was why her attempts at making the Tohono O’odham’s traditional dish were always such miserable failures. The basis of the dish is supposed to be a plate--sized crisply cooked disk of dough. Delia’s versions were anything but crisp, and the soggy hunks usually weren’t round, either.

For Gabe, Mrs. Francisco’s popovers were a revelation, and it was during those many shared mealtimes, sitting in the José family’s large warm kitchen, that Gabe’s friendship with Tim’s older brothers—-Paul, Carlos, and Max—-was cemented.

Over a period of several years, the José family had endured a run of bad luck. First their grandmother died. Then, the previous year, their father had been killed and their mother badly injured in a terrible car wreck. It had been one of those horrific multicar pileups that happens during dust storms when visibility rapidly drops to zero. With their mother still in a convalescent facility, the oldest son, Max, had ended up in some kind of trouble with the law and been sent to prison up in Florence. Now the second oldest, Carlos, had taken on the responsibility of holding the family together and keeping Tim from being placed in foster care.

So yes, Gabe thought, the José family might be having some troubles just now, but wasn’t that the time when friends were supposed to step up and lend support rather than walk away? That was what Gabe believed, and no matter what Gabe’s parents or Lani said, Gabe wasn’t going to give up on the José boys, because they were his friends.

Bright stars scattered across the black sky, and a rising moon made it possible for Gabe to see, but he was grateful when he stumbled off the narrow footpath and back onto the rutted road. Away from the warmth of the fire, the air was frigid. His breath came out in visible puffs. Shivering, he pulled the heavy blanket around his shoulders. Doing that helped keep out the biting cold, but it made it far more difficult for him to maintain his balance and negotiate the rugged path.

Across the valley, Gabe could see occasional headlights and taillights coming and going on the highway, but to his way of thinking, the road was still very far away.

Something small and invisible brushed through his hair and then was gone, sending Gabe into a momentary panic. A bat, he realized a moment later, once his heart stopped pounding. It wasn’t fair. Why was it that Lani could sit there in the dark by herself and not be afraid, when everything about the nighttime desert made him feel lost and scared.