Sadie didn’t know what to expect inside the old woman’s house. If she was lucky, maybe she could find something she could pocket and pawn if she ever made it back to town. But it didn’t look like she’d find much in here. The back door she came through led her into a large open-concept space sparsely furnished with chunky wooden furniture that looked handmade. There were patterned rugs everywhere—on the floor, hanging on the walls, draped over the back of the couch. They were like the kind you’d see in the Indian Market on Mission Street, except these ones were all old and faded. Everything here seemed old and faded. And a little weird. There was what looked like a whole field of dried plants hanging in bundles from the rafters of the kitchen area. Who did that? There weren’t any normal glasses or plates—except for finely-woven baskets, everything seemed to be made of pottery.
And then there were all the paintings hanging on the walls, perched on surfaces, or on the floor leaning against the walls. They reminded Sadie of the woman who had visited Steve at the camp last night. Like her, all the people in them had animal and plant parts. A man with a coyote’s head. A stand of prickly pear with a hundred little faces. A rabbit with human arms. An owl with a woman’s face. See-through saguaro, with people sleeping inside them.
The figures were stylized, but at the same time appeared too realistic for her comfort. There was something creepy about them. She wanted to ignore them but she couldn’t seem to look away, either. The background colours seemed all off as well. Brown skies and blue desert floor. Purple and pink mesas with yellow and blue cacti. They made the figures pop out, but that only made their own oddities harder to ignore.
After she’d walked around and looked at all the paintings on the walls, she started going through the ones on the floor. They were three to four deep in places. She didn’t know why she was doing it. She didn’t even want to look at all these strange creatures in the first place.
Finally she came across a couple of stacks of portraits of ordinary people. They were still a little creepy—just because of the way Aggie painted, she supposed—but at least they were normal. She figured they were folks who lived on the rez. She didn’t know any of them.
Then she stopped. There was Steve.
Sadie sat back on her heels and studied this one. Because she knew what he actually looked like, this was the first time she could appreciate that maybe the old lady wasn’t a complete loser. The figure in the painting didn’t only look like Steve. It felt like him, too.
And it didn’t creep her out as much as the animal people did.
After a few moments she let the other paintings in the stack fall back in front and got up to finish looking around.
The red dog that followed her inside had dropped to the floor and stretched out as they came in. Its eyes followed Sadie as she roamed around the room. The only modern convenience she could spot was a laptop computer on a table in one corner. Even the phone was an old black rotary model.
She lifted the receiver and listened to the dial tone for a moment before she laid it back in its cradle. There was no one she could call. Nobody who’d want to hear from her except for maybe Aylissa, the oldest of the foster kids her parents had taken in. But she couldn’t call her because just like Sadie herself, Aylissa didn’t have her own phone. The only people allowed to answer the house phone were Reggie and her mother, Tina.
The dog lifted its head and Sadie turned to see Aggie come in.
The old woman was interesting, but she was kind of creepy weird, too. Just like her house. How had Aggie known she was a cutter?
“Did you do these paintings?” she asked.
Aggie nodded.
“And people buy them?”
Aggie smiled. “Not to your taste?”
Sadie realized she’d better dial it back. She didn’t want to offend the old lady and get thrown out on her ass.
“I’ve just never seen anything like them before,” she said.
“You’re not alone,” Aggie told her. “They make other people uncomfortable too. But it doesn’t matter one way or the other. They’re not for sale. Each one is a little piece of the subject rendered in the portrait, and how could one sell pieces of one’s friends?”
Sadie remembered the conversation outside.
“So these are, like, people you know? And they look like this?”
“When they wish to,” Aggie said.
“And they’re not wearing costumes?”
“No. Now come sit here,” Aggie said, motioning toward a chair at the kitchen table. “I want to look at those cuts. Stretch your arms out on the table.”
Sadie hesitated, suddenly feeling embarrassed and shy.
“I don’t make judgments,” the old lady said. “I don’t agree with what you’re doing to yourself, but only you can decide whether to keep on doing it or to stop.”
Sadie put her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Her fingers closed around the handle of the little utility knife she carried everywhere.
“I can’t seem to stop,” she found herself admitting.
“Maybe it will become easier now that you’re away from the bad situation you were in. And if you concentrate on something else.”
“You mean like schoolwork?”
“Or whatever else you can find to distract you.”
“A joint would seriously help.”
“Except for that,” the old woman said.
Of course she’d think that, Sadie thought. God, old people.
“I’m not so sure about this whole ‘going back to high school’ deal,” she said. “I only agreed so Steve would shut up. The whole morning he kept going on about how things were different back in his day. How a kid didn’t have to finish high school, but they could still get a decent job and do well. But now even a degree doesn’t promise anybody anything. But without it, you’ve got nothing.”
Aggie went to the long table by the sink while Sadie sat down.
“Did you promise Steve you’d do it?” Aggie asked.
“No. I just said I’d think about it.”
“Good.”
“Good what? That I’ll think about it, or that I didn’t promise him?”
“Both, really. It’s important to be an honourable person. The oppressors can take everything else away from us. Our freedom, our hope, our dignity. But they can’t take our honour. So when you give your word, be sure you keep it. And make sure you only promise what you can deliver.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Aggie regarded her for a long moment. “Let’s say your best friend is dying of cancer. You could say to her that you promise she’ll get better, but you both know that’s not a promise you can keep. But if you say that you promise to stay with her until the very end, that has meaning. It lets them know they won’t die alone, and that means more than any empty promise.”
“Okay. I kind of see that.”
“Good.”
Aggie fussed with a few things at the long table where she stood, then finally brought back a clay bowl filled with some kind of thick green-brown paste.
“What’s that?” Sadie asked, grimacing.
“Medicine. It’ll fight the infection and itchiness, and help the cuts and bruises to heal more quickly. It’ll sting a bit when it’s first applied, but you should find some immediate relief. Try to think of something else while I put it on.”
How was she supposed to do that? Sadie wondered. All she could do was anticipate the coming pain.
She winced when the old woman began to spread the paste on her cuts.
“Talk to me,” Aggie said. “Don’t think about this.”
Okay. But crap, that really stung.
Sadie had to blink back tears. She tried to think of something to say.
“So, Steve’s girlfriend,” she finally said. “She’s not wearing a costume either?”
Aggie shook her head.
“Weird. I guess he’s got a kink or something.”
“Or maybe he doesn’t see the difference.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Steve’s one of those people who sees a person for what they are inside, not what they show to the world.”
Sadie shivered. “God, he must think I’m a total freak. No wonder he didn’t want to fu—I mean, you know. Sleep with me.”
“I think that has more to do with your age, and that you were in a vulnerable position when he found you.”
Sadie didn’t get that.
“So what’s his deal, anyway?” she asked the old woman. “Does he really just live out in the desert?”
Aggie nodded. “Has for probably thirty, forty years now.”
“What’s he running from?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“You don’t have a guess?”
“I don’t go poking into other people’s stories. It’s not polite.”
“I’m just curious,” Sadie said. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
“I know. And there we are—all done.”
Sadie realized she’d completely forgotten what the old woman was doing. And she’d been right. The itchiness was completely gone. And so was the pain.
“If you feel chilled,” Aggie said, “go out and sit in the sun. We should try to keep your hoodie from chaffing against the skin until the medicine has done its work. You can rinse it off in an hour or so.”
“Okay. Um. Thanks.”
“Now I want to go back to the piece I’m working on. Will you be okay here on your own?”
Trusting much? Sadie thought. But she just nodded. Until she figured a few things out, she had nowhere else to go.
“Are you hungry? Or thirsty? I should have asked you sooner.”
“No, Steve gave me all kinds of crap from that backpack of his. The thing must weigh a ton.”
“He’s a strong man in more ways than one.”
“I guess,” Sadie said. Then she had a thought. “Is it okay if I use your computer?”
“Go ahead. It’s on dial-up, so it’ll probably seem like it runs on molasses compared to what you had at home.”
“Reggie doesn’t let anybody use his computer except for him. I used the ones at school or the library.”
Aggie gave her a look Sadie didn’t recognize. She thought maybe Aggie felt sorry for her, but there was no way to tell. Nobody had ever felt sorry for her before. Not even her teachers. The school was so rough, they all looked exhausted most of the time.
Aggie started to reach out a hand to her, then seemed to reconsider and let it fall to her side.
“Well, you can use this one as much as you like,” was all she said. “Make yourself at home,” she added, then she stepped out the back door and Sadie was alone again in the old woman’s house.
Except for the dog. Ruby, Steve said her name was.
“So are you a real dog?” Sadie asked. “Or are you like the guys in the paintings?”
Ruby looked at her but didn’t even bother to lift her head.
Sadie walked over to the computer. She wondered how far it was to civilization. Maybe she could take off, sell the computer to somebody for a quick few bucks... Oh, who was she kidding? Even if she got back to the city, she had nowhere to go. She was stuck out here in the middle of the sticks until she could figure out more than just running away. Because the problem with running was, you needed to have somewhere to run to.
All she knew for sure was she wouldn’t be going home again. Who knew where the hell Reggie would dump her the next time.
She sat down and opened the computer. Once it woke up, she called up a browser.
Yeah, she was stuck here. But until she came up with a way out, she could at least find out who Steve really was and why he was hiding out in the mountains. She knew just where to start.
She typed a string of words into the browser’s search bar: Sadie. Texas. Death penalty.