“We all have our own path, our own journey to manhood,” he said. “I served in the Marine Corps.”
Jeff took another drink of the mescal, still looking to the bottom of the bottle for the worm but not finding it. “No shit?”
“Two tours of Vietnam,” said the medicine man. “That sucked big-time. The ladies understand ceremony. Boys this age only want to fondle themselves and get drunk.”
Faith came to Jeff later, her face painted white, dried mud from chin to below her eyes. She spoke with tight skin and a stoic face, having to be stoic because of the whole no-smiling rule. In bare feet, Jeff had let her inside the small casino hotel room where the AC unit hummed and hummed. She wore white buckskin and feathers in her hair. Her black eyes were very large and dark. She was hopped up, excited with energy, talking so fast Jeff had trouble following. “I want to give you something.”
“Why is your face white?”
“To represent the White-Painted Woman,” she said. “In the morning, after dancing all night, I will run around the sacred basket four times and wipe the clay and mashed corn from my face. The giant teepee my brothers built will fall and burn and then I’ll be a woman.”
Jeff nodded. “Sure.”
The girl took his hand and pressed it to her chest. “Do you feel this?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “Yes, I do.”
“I am almost a woman.”
“I’m more than twice your age,” Jeff said. “I can’t accept what you want to give me. They could put me in jail. It’s wrong. Your brother would murder me.”
The girl with the white-painted face narrowed her eyes and shook her head. Beads around Faith’s neck clinked softly. She smelled like clay and cornmeal.
“Maybe in a few years,” Jeff said. “Maybe if I get my movie produced. It’s still being optioned by David Schwimmer. He was Ross on Friends. He wants to produce, direct, and star in it. I don’t think he’s ideal for the part. But I buy him as the trader. He talks smart and fast.”
“What you feel is my heart,” Faith said. “Not my boob. And my gift isn’t my womanhood. You know I’m not a woman until the morning?”
“Oh,” Jeff said. “Of course.”
“I must get back,” she said. “I am to be imbued with the spirit of Changing Woman. Changing Woman is powerful. She has the ability to heal the sick, help the weak-minded. People have come from all over the rez to be touched by the spirit of Changing Woman.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Right?”
She touched Jeff’s head and held it in both hands. “But you will accept my gift,” she said. “Won’t you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
Faith opened her right hand and showed him the Bronco keys in her palm. “You should run. The truck is parked by the great teepee. As it falls, my brother will be with it. Go.”
“And when does it fall?”
“Not long after the medicine man shows his painted hand to the rising star.”
“And when exactly is that?”
“I think about nine o’clock.”
Jeff couldn’t sleep. After a few hours of lying in the dark hotel room, he pulled on his blue jeans and V-neck T-shirt by American Apparel, gathered his things, and walked to the big fire a half mile away from the casino. He sat on a fallen tree and watched the women, young and old, painted and barefaced, dance around the giant bonfire. Faby Apache was there but no longer dressed as a warrior. Now she had on a plain blue dress, cowboy boots, and a glittery ball cap.
Sparks kicked up into the starry night. The dance was more of a shuffle with closed eyes, a movement with little direction or aim other than to keep moving, keep chanting. No one stopped. The energy was ceaseless.
Men played drums and chanted at the women: Keep moving. Keep going. Some of them wore ceremonial dress, others black cowboy hats with colorful beads. One skinny guy wore a Captain America T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The medicine man made big pronouncements in Apache that Jeff didn’t understand. More sparks flew up into the purplish sky.
When two jacked-up trucks drove off from the ceremony, Jeff spotted the parked Bronco and sighed. A white coat of dust had spread over the dented hood. The windshield wipers had cleared off a sliver from the glass, enough to see a little road. Faith continued to dance around the teepee. She did not see him or look anywhere but at the path before her. Move, move, more. Keep dancing. Keep breathing. The fire cast a wide slice of light and kicked up white smoke. The women kept up a hobbling kind of dance, moving from side to side with the rhythm of the chanting men. On the page, Jeff hoped it might actually go like this:
EXT. WHITE MOUNTAIN RANGE PUBERTY CEREMONY MORNING
A giant morning sun rising over the impoverishment of the rez. THE MAN hands FAITH SPOTTED EAGLE the keys to the vintage truck. With the keys, she could escape the rez, the poverty and drug abuse (assuming there was drug abuse), and ride away with a greater understanding of the world. The world was wide open; the future was fun. The girl was hot. The desert was hotter.