Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [148]
Ledger is in his overstuffed chair on the porch of the houseboat, smoking his pipe. Annawake paces the planks silently in her moccasins.
“You never would let me tell you what to do before,” he says through pursed lips, sucking his pipe stem. “Why would you start now?”
“I always knew what I was doing before.”
“If you knew what you was doing before, you wouldn’t be stumped now.”
She sits down on the deck, then lies down, looking up at the sky.
“Did I ever tell you you looked like a plucked chicken, when you cut all your hair off?”
“I was mourning Gabriel. I thought somebody ought to.”
“If you want to do something for Gabe, talk to Gabe.”
“Gabe’s in Leavenworth.”
“What, they don’t allow phone calls?”
Annawake looks up, startled. He means it. “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess they do.”
“Well, then, call him. Or go visit. Tell him you miss him. Organize a damn bust-out and bring him on back here.”
Annawake feels something like round stones shifting inside her, settling into a new, more solid position. “I guess I could.”
“Sure you could. If you got something to work out, then work it out. Don’t take it out on the rest of the world by looking like a chicken.”
“Thanks. Everybody always said I had your looks.”
“Annawake, you’re not as respectful as you used to be.”
She sits up, but sees the light in his eye, so she can lie back down.
“Tell me a story,” she says. “About a little lost girl whose mother is prepared to give her away, rather than go through any more hassle with Annawake Fourkiller.”
“I’ll tell you.” He leans back in his chair, which once in its life was green brocade, before twenty summers of sun and rain. “Speak of lost children in low voices,” he says. Annawake pulls herself up. He has slid over into Cherokee, and she has to sit up straight to follow him. “They say long ago there was a child claimed by two clan mothers. They carried the child to the Above Ones. They came with long cries and moans, both of them saying the child belonged to their own people. The mother from the plains brought corn, and the mother from the hills brought tobacco, both of them hoping to sweeten the thoughts of the Above Ones when they made their decision.”
Ledger stops talking and merely stares at the sky for a time. His legs are splayed in front of him, forgotten, and his pipe dangles in his hand, still sending up a thread of smoke as a friendly reminder.
He goes on suddenly: “When the Above Ones spoke, they said, we will send down the snake Uk’ten.”
Annawake leans forward with her arms around her knees, narrowing her eyes to listen. She wishes she had her glasses. She understands Cherokee better with her glasses on.
“We will send the snake Uk’ten to cut the child in half, and each clan can carry home one half of the child.”
“Wait a minute,” Annawake says.
“The mother from the grassland happily agreed. But the mother from the hill clan wept and said no, that she would give her half of the child to the plains clan, to keep the baby whole. And so the Above Ones knew which mother loved the child best.”
Annawake pulls off a moccasin and throws it at Ledger, hitting him square in the chest. She pulls off the other and just misses his head, on purpose.
“What, you don’t like my story?” He sits up startled, crossing his hands over his chest.
“Some old Cherokee story you’ve got there. That’s King Solomon, from the Bible.”
“Oh. Well, I knew I got it from someplace,” he says, patting his pockets for matches to relight his pipe.
“It’s a yonega story,” she says.
“Is that true? Did a yonega write the Bible? I always wondered about that. It doesn’t say on there, ‘The Bible, by so-and-so.’ ”
“I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t a yonega. I think it was a bunch of people that lived in the desert and fished for a living.”
“If they lived in the desert and caught fish both, you better listen to them.”
“Give me my shoes back.”
He leans back to collect the one that flew over his shoulder, and tosses the pair. Annawake pulls them on over her bare feet and buttons them at the