Aggie had been here before—in dreams, in spirit, if never in the flesh. That being the case, she could only assume things were not going well for her back at the tribal police station after Sadie had knifed her.
She vaguely remembered the surprise she’d felt. The flash of pain. The sudden weakness. Drifting away while someone repeated her name over and over, asking her not to leave them.
“It’s not like I have a choice,” she wanted to say as the dark cloud washed over her, but the words never left her mouth. They died somewhere between her thinking them and her tongue, then curled up and went to sleep in a corner of her mouth.
And she found herself here.
Pragmatic as Aggie was, she didn’t waste any more time in shock at Sadie’s attack. It was what it was, and if this was how the wheel turned for her today, who was she to protest? In truth, it was almost worth it to be here so unexpectedly because she loved this place as she did nowhere else.
She stood on a ledge, high in the mountains—which mountains, she couldn’t say, but they bore some resemblance to the Maderas she knew so well. Below her, the wild benighted terrain spread out in a cluster of jagged peaks, rolling off into the distance like so many waves of a vast and stormy sea of stone. It was usually night when she came here, but she had never had trouble seeing in the darkness. Sometimes when she came in the daytime she saw eagles riding the winds. They would fly close to where she stood and dip their wings in salute before gliding on. Other times, she would simply stand and listen to the song of the winds. She would remember a time when she was young and in love, and stood in a place like this with more than a memory at her side.
She knew from previous visits that if she followed the ledge it would switch back and take her up to the top of the peak—a large flat platform with a jumble of rocks strewn about like a child’s discarded toys. She went there now, walking easily along the ledge, unconcerned with the drop below. The switchback took her up a gentle incline and then she stood with only the night sky above her and what felt like the whole of the world spread out below.
For a long time she simply drank in the beauty. She realized she wouldn’t really mind if she never returned to her body.
“Now that’s some view.”
Turning from the panorama, she found Old Man Puma lounging on a nearby rock.
Although he lived up in the mountains behind her house, Aggie didn’t see him often and even then, it was usually in his mountain lion shape. Today he was in another familiar guise, that of an old man with hair the colour of his ma’inawo fur, dressed in a white cotton shirt and jeans. His feet were bare.
The ma’inawo loved to tell stories about him. Lately, they were all amused with the rumours that he was training a small group of young ma’inawo who were driving him to distraction. It was even said that one of them wasn’t a cousin, but a five-fingered being. Aggie wasn’t sure how much stock to put in the stories since ma’inawo were just as likely to make things up if they didn’t have any actual gossip to relate, and she didn’t know him well enough to ask.
“Ohla, Diego,” she said. “I’d offer you some tobacco but I didn’t know I’d be seeing you.”
“That’s okay. I never smoke up here. We’re already so close to the thunders we don’t need to try to get their attention.”
“Just as well,” Aggie said. “They wouldn’t have any interest in an old woman like me anyway.”
“You’d be surprised what interests the thunders.” His yellow-green eyes looked past her to the view before he added, “Our mountains were like these once. Untouched, unpeopled. No jet trails in the air. No hikers or hunters.”
His full name among the ma’inawo was Diego Madera, and it was said that the mountains were named after him. She, too, remembered what it was like to see the incursion of civilization into the foothills of what had once been all wild land.
“Sometimes people make poor neighbours,” she said.
“The Kikimi have been good neighbours for a very long time now.”
“Even with the casino and the hunters Sammy brings into the mountains?”
Diego gave her a curious look. “Those ones aren’t really Kikimi anymore,” he said. “Not when they’ve turned their backs on their traditions.”
Aggie had never thought of it like that before.
They fell silent for a time. Aggie didn’t know what was on her companion’s mind, but she wasn’t thinking of anything. She let her eyes drink in some more of the mountains, let her ears listen to the music the winds made. But eventually she came back to wondering why she was here.
“Am I dead or am I dreaming?” she said.
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Diego answered, “Maybe a little bit of both.”
She turned to him again. “The one, I can understand, but how can you be a little bit dead?”
He shrugged. “It depends on how close you are to dying, I suppose. What happened anyway?”
He was looking at her midriff. When she looked down herself she saw all the blood on her blouse. Lifting the fabric revealed pads of gauze held in place with duct tape.
“Huh,” she said. “I never noticed that until now.”
Then she told him about Steve bringing Sadie to her place and everything that had followed.
Diego frowned. “She cooked with you? She ate the food you made together? She drank your tea?”
“She’s troubled.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I suppose kindness might have killed me. Still, there are worse ways to go. And what did Crazy Horse say?”
“Hóka héy,” Diego said. “It is a good day to die. But it’s also a good day to live.”
Aggie smiled. “True. I still have stories to hear. Portraits to paint.” She looked down at her bloody blouse again. “If I don’t make it back to my body will you tell the other ma’inawo not to take it out on the girl?”
“If you don’t make it back to your body, there’s nothing I can do to stop them. Still, I’ll pass along your message if the winds haven’t already done it for you.”
“Is that what they do?” Aggie asked. “Because I hear their song, but not the words.”
“The winds don’t have words the way you and I do,” Diego told her. “But most cousins know their language.” He laughed. “And it’s certainly easier than deciphering the language of the mountains. The stones can take a half a day just to say ‘ohla.’”
“It’s a wonderful world,” Aggie said. “I’m going to miss it.”
“Go back, then. See if you can’t wear your skin for a few more years.”
“I get a choice?”
“There are always choices. Maybe you’ll return to your body to find it’s failed. But maybe you’ll fit right back under its broken skin. If you survive, come see me. I know the story of a good healing medicine.”
Aggie touched her stomach. Her blouse was wet and her fingers came away red.
“I can’t feel that,” she said. “There’s no pain. Is that a good or a bad sign?”
“It’s a sign that you’re not making your choice. Close your eyes. Decide to live or let go.”
Aggie nodded and did as he said. As soon as she closed her eyes she felt as though she was floating in the starred sky that had unwound above them. She could no longer feel the rock underfoot. She couldn’t hear or feel the wind. She wasn’t sure if she was deciding to live, or letting go.
And then she was no longer aware of anything at all.