Coyote – Chapter 14

Raven and Thunder Horse were eating an early dinner when the call came.

"The Red Clouds are Navajo, like most of the people in this area," he explained as they drove to another part of the canyon. "A lot of them know me around here, since I do so much study here. They seem to trust me in times like these."

"What has happened?"

"Friend's grandson. James Red Cloud. He lives with his grandparents. I think his grandfather just died. One word of advice here – don't talk about the grandfather, Raven. In this culture, it's not polite to talk about the dead, okay? Jimmy might, he's one of the younger folks. But the elders -- " He north onto another road. "Apparently he's climbed to a cave that a lot of us older folk have trouble getting to and won't come down. They need for someone to talk him down." He studied her out of the corner of his eye. "I must let you know, cousin, that many of my friends here are distrustful of what they might see as...magic. Some of your – talents – might be viewed as witchcraft by some of the older folk. You might want to just keep who you are between us for now. I'll introduce you as Rachel, okay?"

She nodded. Enough people are distrustful of me as it is. The less she had to explain to other people, the better.

The late afternoon sun was melting into a soft evening light as they pulled up to a small knot of elders gathered by the side of the road. They were pointing to a cliff in the distance. A taste of worry and uncertainty hung in the air.

While her cousin discussed the situation with the Navajo elder, Raven studied the cliff that the young man had ascended. It was not quite the sheer vertical slope that they had been led to believe, but it was very close. It reminded her of the rocky outcroppings on the outskirts of her home in Azarath. A wry, painful smile drew across her face as she remembered her own youth, and her own desires to escape from her teachers and elders. This reminds me of my own promontory, my own spot of solace and solitude, she thought.

She closed her eyes and raised a hand towards the child, trying to sort out the turmoil flowing from that direction. So familiar, older ones who think they know better trying to make a young one something they are not.

She half-heard Charles's conversation with the grandmother.

"James was raised in the traditional ways," she cried. "He has always been with us. Now, the rest of the family wishes to send him away from me, to a school. He's only twelve. They tell me he won't be allowed to speak Navajo there, that he must forget his past."

Why must one knowledge be bought at the cost of another? She examined the cliff again. It has been many years, she thought, but I believe I can make it up there.

"Charles," she whispered. "Give me the waterskins. Perhaps I can talk to him."

He turned to her, his eyes wide. He replied in a secretive tone, "You do not want to use your...ability just now. Our people are mistrustful of such powers. They will think it is–"

"Witchcraft. I know. I am not going to do that. Or anything that might frighten him." She lifted the pack over her shoulders. "I am going to follow in his footsteps."

"Climb? But how? You cannot –"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I have many more abilities than what you have seen."

"But there is no equipment – your shoes –"

"He did not need any equipment. And as for shoes..." Her sentence drifted off as she strode towards the base of the cliff. And as for shoes, I used to do this in high heels and a dress.

She felt consternation boiling behind her as she knelt at the root of the wall. She scooped up the desert dust between her hands, rubbing it into her palms. It was an ancient ritual that her mind remembered but that her new body had never experienced before. I wonder how much muscle memory carries over in a soul. She shook off the excess dust. I cannot worry about that now. Her path was set out before her. All I have to do now is focus on moving. Nothing else. She looked at the layer of dust on her hands. So much thinner than what I remember. She pulled the small drawstring purse Karen had given her out of her jacket. Coins bounced off the rocky earth as she scooped more of the dust into the purse and tied it to her belt.

She closed her eyes as she searched for the right rhythm of breath that would carry her up the steep climb. She remembered the meditative quality that the movement had, even when she had wound her way up that ancient rocky column in a fit of utter despair time and again. They cornered me and hounded me, moment after moment, every waking thought of Trigon, Trigon, Trigon, always him. No room for my own thoughts, my own ideas. Damn them. A taste of it came back to her now, but she wasn't sure if that bitter flavor was hers or coming from the child high above her.

She pushed the memories away to focus on the task at hand; she would be useless if this did not work. Hand over hand, foot over foot, each limb searching for the next hold. She felt clumsy at first, like the first time she had tried to reach that high point, the one place she felt that the elders could not follow her to. They could fold dimensions too, but there was only room for one on that perch –

Her hand slipped as it tried to gain purchase on a sharp edge. Focus! She swore at herself for allowing her attention to drift. Sweat was starting to wash off the protective dust on her hands, making her grasp uncertain. She slipped the fingers of that hand into the purse to refresh the dust and remove the dangerous moisture from her palm.

Grateful for Cyborg's insistence on building up her muscle tone, she continued the ascent. The safest path was a near-spiral up the wall, first leaning one way, then another. She was moving faster now; there were fewer loose stones this high up. Her knees were starting to complain, but she could shut out the pain; it was an ordinary hurt and not the ghost of wounds past. At least for now.

Hand over hand over hand. It felt good to get her hands around stone once more. There was something healing about this direct connection to the energies flowing through the earth. These rocks were not dead and lifeless. They were just very...slow. Sweat beaded on her forehead as well as on her hands. She renewed the dust every few yards. She could feel eyes watching her every twitch, both from below and from above. His name is James, she reminded herself as she turned her face up to view her final target again. One more good push would get her there. Two black pupils stared at her from the top of the outcropping. And he knows I am coming. And I have no idea how to proceed.

Not expecting a hand up over the final lip of rock, she extended her feet as long as they would go on their respective resting places and pushed off. A small enough use of flight would resemble a jump from a distance. The outcropping would obscure his view enough that he might be slightly impressed without being frightened. She landed in a crouch next to him.

He stepped back a little but did not scream.

"Hello," she began. Might as well begin at the beginning. "You must be James?"

"Jimmy Red Cloud," he replied. "You're here to make me come down, aren't you?"

She blinked, not sure what to say next. Twenty different wise sayings rolled through her mind all at once, but none seemed to fit here. The impression from him now was of he has been lectured enough. I know how he feels. This goes beyond empathy. I have walked that road many times.

She rose slowly, allowing her legs to recover from the climb. They shook a little from the effort. I am tired, she thought, but it is a good kind of tired. I earned it. Surveying the outcropping, she saw an empty waterskin on the ground. She loosened hers from her shoulders. "Are you all right? Are you thirsty?"

"No," he shrugged with the nonchalance towards adults that is part of the package of being twelve years old.

"Well, I certainly am," she quipped back, hoping to get a longer response. And I am. She squeezed a little of the tepid liquid into her mouth and resealed it. She swirled it around her dry gums before swallowing. I feel...stronger. "I am just a fellow climber. I thought I would come up here and see what I could see."

He plopped down with his elbows on his knees. He stared out into the distance and ignored her. She sat down a few feet away and stared in the same direction. She wrapped her arms around her knees. Silence floated between them like a feather on a breeze. Fortunately, silence is an old friend. It gave her a chance to catch her breath.

The vista was indeed beautiful. The floor of the canyon stretched out before them for miles. Mostly flat except for dots of scrub and loose stone, it rolled until it ended at the sheer wall of the main lines of canyons to the west.

Closer to them was a sandstone spire that blossomed into layers of salmon and tan rock at the top. The colors were starting to deepen; night was chasing the sun from the sky. Even closer were the small cluster of people hovering around Thunder Horse's jeep and the ancient truck of this child's grandmother. I must have climbed higher than I thought. They are rather small.

This situation reminded her of a movie that Garfield had picked as part of the One Hundred Movies: Roxanne. She had watched it last week, a short while after the incident with the nitrogen narcosis had loosened her up a little. Once she figured out that it was a modern retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, which she had had to read for school the previous semester, she actually found it...amusing. One scene had the Cyrano-like character talking to a young man that had scaled a roof. He had taken a different tack than most in talking to the boy. A different direction is needed here as well.

"You didn't answer my question," he said, breaking the silence. "Are you here to make me come down?"

"No," she said softly, surprised to find that she meant it. If we make him come down, this will only happen again. And again. He must decide to come down on his own.

She reached into her pack and retrieved the sketchpad and pencil that her cousin had given her.

He pointed to the group huddled in the gathering darkness below. "I watched you come in with them."

"I just wanted to see what was so exciting up here. You can come down when you want to. It is a...it is free country, is it not?"

He snorted. "You know, you're not very good at this."

She sighed. "No, I am afraid I am not. I have never been what might be termed 'social'. I am rather new to being an adult."

"You don't look much older than me," he said, eyes studying the girl next to him.

"I am older than I look," she replied without looking at him. She opened the sketchpad slowly and nodded at the growing crowd below. More cars were pulling in to watch them. She turned the pages past the notes she had made earlier that day. "Although convincing my cousin of that is going to be a bit of a feat, I think."

His look of surprise intensified. "You are Thunder Horse's cousin? But you're –"

"White. Anglo. Yes, I know. Actually, he is cousins with my mother. Her mother was Lakota, but her father was Anglo. So I am only part Lakota." Let him ask the questions, she warned herself. That is the way to get him to talk. And that is what he needs. What you needed back then.

He did not reply. He simply leaned back on his elbows and continued to watch the sunset.

The sun was lining up with the rock column. Streaks of graphite appeared across the paper as she began to sketch its outline. "I can see why you like this spot," she said. "I like to watch sunsets, myself. What do you call that over there?" She pointed at the column with her pencil. "I need to name the picture."

"Coyote Rock. It sounds like a nice name, but it isn't. Ask Charlie about it." He leaned forward to look at the sketch. "You can't draw, either."

Her cheeks burned a little. No, I am not an artist like Joseph. Her pencil paused in mid-air. Dear Joseph. No, I cannot think about you. Not now. "I cannot do many things."

"You can climb rocks," he said with an encouraging air. He gestured at the cars with his chin. "I think they're still waiting on the rescue squad. Where'd you learn how to climb like that?"

Now I am getting somewhere. "I grew up in a place much like this."

"Utah?"

Why in Azar's name does everyone think I am from Utah? "No, but much like it. My teachers were very demanding –"

"Always on your back?"

"Something like that." Why am I discussing this so freely? "I needed a place to be alone. To think."

"And watch sunsets, I guess," he finished for her. "Me, too. I just wanted to come here and think. They think I'm going to do something stupid."

"Stupid?"

"Like jumping. You know."

"Yes, that I know."

"Did you ever think about jumping?"

She looked away and set down the sketchpad. I have come too far to lie now. Her voice was very small. "Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because jumping was worse than not, if you can believe it."

"Worse for you?"

"Worse for everybody."

"Are you glad you didn't?"

She hugged her knees again. Am I glad I didn't? After everything I have endured? What is it about this child that makes me think about myself? She took in the view of the rim of Twilight Canyon on the horizon and remembered Garfield's joke about making an ass of himself for her anytime. A chuckle escaped her chest. "Yes, yes, I am."

He smiled at her. "You just told the truth, too."

An eyebrow arched. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you had to think about it. Most people would have just said 'yeah' because they thought I was going to jump or something and wanted to stop me. They wouldn't have known if it was true for them or not. Or cared."

She sensed that about him. "I think you would know if I were lying."

"Yeah, I can do that." He poked her elbow with his own. "Most people don't know I can do that."

"You are very thoughtful, then."

"Yeah," he replied softly. "I actually come out here all the time. That's why I climb so well. If no one else will listen to me, I can listen to me. And the rocks and the wind will listen to me. And they don't worry about being the one who's right or who's the boss of me. They just listen."

The priests always wanted to be right. My feelings were less than nothing to them. They weren't supposed to exist.

She nodded without a word.

"I don't want to jump," he said at last. "I just wanted to think. They want to send me away to school now that Grandfather has left." He smacked his lips. "Say, can I have some of that water now?"

She handed the skin to him; only her ears and eyes were open.

"I like you. You don't talk much. Especially for a girl. But I'm glad you don't talk much. Means you think more. People either think or talk. They can't do both at the same time."

I like him, too. He is wise beyond his years.

"Grandmother is afraid I'll forget I'm one of the tribe. Afraid I'll forget her."

"Is it a boarding school?"

"Yeah, three hours away from here. Ever been away from home like that? Away from your mother?"

"I was separated from her often, yes."

"Did she hate it?"

"Yes, she did. But later she took over my schooling entirely."

"You were home-schooled after that?"

"Yes." And that is true, in a manner of speaking.

"Mine's going to be the opposite. Grandfather taught me for many years, and now they want to send me away."

"What did he teach you?"

"Lots, actually. I can read like someone in high school. I can fish and whittle. I can use a bow and arrow like nobody else around here. But people tell me that those skills won't help me in the real world."

"What do they call the real world?" she asked. I would like to know what that is myself. I have always lived on its margins.

"Out there. White man's world. The Anglo world."

"What did Grandfather say about that?"

"That there are many worlds, and that you have to know how to live in all of them."

"Wise words. Sounds like he taught you a little of both."

He fell silent. She could feel his mind working, even if she could not read his thoughts. It was getting darker. She could only see the outline of his face now. She could also taste the stew of emotions below them. Less fear now, more agitation. She knew Charlie was concerned about what was taking so long. Like the priests, they can wait.

She leaned forward and rested her chin on her knees. The cool breeze ruffled some of the loose hairs in her braid.

"It's too dark for you to climb down, now," he observed. "Sorry I kept you, talking."

She smiled. "That is all right. I have slept out of doors before."

"Really? Do you camp a lot?"

"No, but when I first left home, I had few places to stay indoors."

"You ran away?"

"Yes. I was quite the rebel in my...in my hometown."

He nodded. "I'll bet you were. Thinking person and all. Where did you sleep?"

"There are some nice bridges around Manhattan that are not too bad in the summer. If it is not raining." She gave him a conspiratorial wink. "Do not tell Thunder Horse, though. He does not know. He only discovered that I was his cousin recently." She paused. "As a matter of fact, none of my friends know about it, either." I have never told anyone this much about that time, the time between Azarath and the Titans. Not even my boyfriend. She sighed. Boyfriend. Every thought leads back to him, doesn't it? Even the word boyfriend felt strange in her mind, like a word in an alien language. Like a new jacket that didn't quite fit.

"Does your boyfriend know?" he asked in a sing-song teasing voice. "You do have a boyfriend, right?"

Sharp. "Yes, I do."

"I bet he misses you."

After a long moment: "I miss him, too."

"Then why are you out here instead of with him? Grownups?"

"Grownups."

He put a kindly hand on her shoulder. "What's your name?"

"Rachel."

"It'll be okay, Rachel. I'll bet he really likes you. And if you really like him, grownups can't get in the way for long."

"Do you think so?"

"I know so." He pulled his hand back to rest it on his knee. "Just like I know that they can't make me forget Grandfather, even if they try. Not if I really want to remember him. But I don't really think they'll try. Some things have changed since Grandmother was young, when schools were really like that. I'll just have to see. I just had to come here and think about it. I didn't want to come down until I did."

Problem solved. All on its own. He requires no heroes other than himself.

He pointed to the horizon about the ridge. "And to see the stars here. The sky is so clear near the canyon. Do you see that star?"

She followed his finger with her eyes. A bright star winked above the rim. It was a pure, bright spike of light floating in the darkening sky. It was one she had never noticed before. She wondered what Garfield would have said about it. Ribbet-ribbet, probably.

"Yes, it is beautiful."

"It's new. I've been coming here for a couple of years, and I know what stars are supposed to be up right now. That one has gotten brighter over the past couple of months. I talk to it sometimes, too, just like the wind and the rocks. I've decided that when they send me to school, I'm want to find out what the name of that star is, if they've named it yet."

"What if the star isn't named yet?"

"Maybe I can name it. Whoever sees it first gets to name it. But I bet someone with a telescope saw it before I did."

"What would you name it if you did?"

He looked at her. "Mmmmmm, I'm thinking 'Rachel'. Because you listened to me, too." He stood up and brushed the dust off of his pants. "Are you hungry? 'Cause I'm hungry." He picked up the empty waterskin and reached behind one of the rocks on the lip of the outcropping. He produced a large flashlight. "I think you've earned the easy way down."

"The easy way?"

"Yeah. If you think I'm climbing down in the dark, you're crazy."

(break)(break)

A surprisingly short hike through the cave at the back of the promontory and down a winding path later, they were back on the canyon floor just as the rescue team arrived. The grandmother ran to hug them both, singing to them in Navajo.

Charlie tapped her on the shoulder. "I am glad to see you, finally. I was getting worried you'd be out here all night."

She glanced over at James. He drew his finger and thumb across his lips in a zipping motion. She winked back as he pointed to the new star in the sky and mouthed the word "Rachel".

She drank in the light of the star through her eyes for a moment. She realized now why she had talked so freely. It's not that I trusted the child, she realized, but after climbing up there on my own two hands, I trusted myself.

She turned back to Charlie. She breathed deeply as she drew herself up to her full height. "Let us return to our camp. We have much to discuss, cousin."

(break)(break)

A/N:

I think Raven's always had a soft spot for kids and runaways.

I didn't just make up the bit about rock climbing in heels and a dress. Go read Legends of the DC Universe #18 for proof of this ability! I was floored when I saw it.

I did make up the bit about sleeping under bridges. That's just a guess on my part. Hey, she had to stay somewhere.