Loving Chloe Read online

  The mare wasn’t properly shod for winter riding. Who on the reservation could afford snow tires, let alone winter shoes? Had Sally been properly equipped, Chloe would have pulled up her collar and headed out. They couldn’t go far and not be discovered. At the trot Chloe held herself in a two-point stance, hovering safely above the mare’s spine. The seasoned muscles in her powerful thighs worked to keep a center of gravity that balanced the bulk of baby without exerting too much pressure on her lower back.

  The brisk winter air tasted like a clean bite of heaven. “What are you waiting for?” she whispered into the mare’s pricked, alert ears, asking Sally to extend the trot as fast as she was able. The eager horse transitioned into a collected canter, just a few hoofbeats short of a full gallop.

  Hank was on playground duty when Chloe returned, her cheeks high with color. All around him third graders bundled up warm in jackets were throwing balls, racing and shrieking, squeezing every last bit of fun from the recess. The smile he gave her turned guarded the closer she came. She kissed him on the mouth, and he broke away, saying, “You smell like horses.”

  “I smell like horses because they’re in my blood. Get a clue, Professor.”

  He placed his hands on her belly, as if checking to make certain the baby was still there.

  “Relax, I haven’t given him away yet. Tell me all the things your kids did today. Show me what brilliant masterpiece Short Dog painted. Then let’s knock off early, go home, and heat up that stew. I’m starving.”

  Hank gave her another appraising look. “Today’s the day I work with my slow readers. And don’t you have a clinic appointment?”

  She sighed. “You’re right. I forgot. But it’s not for awhile yet. Maybe I’ll go back and visit the horses.”

  His eyes said it all: Maybe I can’t prove anything, but I’d lay down money you’ve been astride a horse. He suspected all that, and somehow he still wanted to marry her.

  She guessed that later she’d have to give him a back rub, since she was too pregnant to offer him comfort with her body anymore. She didn’t mind taking him in her mouth or rubbing the hard, hot length of him between her breasts until he groaned and spilled across her skin. As far as she was concerned, his groan of gratitude was pleasure enough. But lately when she touched him sexually, Hank got all fussy and distracted, as if her thinking about fucking at this stage of pregnancy wasn’t ladylike or motherly behavior.

  “Or I could always go sit in the staff lounge and write a letter to Kit,” she said.

  His whole face brightened. He threw a ball that had landed near them back into the crowd of children. “Good idea. It’s warm in there. My Thermos is half full—you could have a cup of tea. Be sure and tell Kit I said hello.”

  “I hope these numbers mean I need a new sphygmomanometer.”

  “A what?”

  Lois Carrywater, M.D., unstrapped the blood-pressure cuff from Chloe’s left arm and rolled the black fabric onto her right. She squeezed and listened again with her stethoscope. “What have you been doing? Mountain biking?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary, honest.”

  “Chloe.”

  “Dr. Lois, what’s it like being an Indian woman doctor around all those townies? Besides lonely, I mean.”

  Dr. Carrywater frowned and pressed her fingers to Chloe’s wrist, counting the beats. “They don’t ask me to play golf. Don’t think you’re fooling me, by the way, trying to change the subject.” She lifted the tips of her stethoscope from her ears and plucked a chocolate brown mane hair from Chloe’s long-sleeved T-shirt and held it up for inspection.

  Chloe breathed deep and relaxed all her muscles, trying to slow her heartbeat and urge those numbers down into a safer range. If she had high blood pressure it was news to her. Maybe she felt a little lightheaded at times, got a headache now and again, but at nearly eight thousand feet and so butt-freezing cold out here, wasn’t that a way of life?

  Dr. Carrywater penciled notes in Chloe’s file chart and spoke without looking up. “We’re assuming your due date’s February second.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “You understand first babies sometimes arrive early?”

  Chloe nodded.

  “And so you’re starting to get things ready?”

  Chloe thought of the silver rattle, tucked far inside her underwear drawer. They’d go crib shopping this weekend for sure. “What do I really need besides diapers?”

  Dr. Carrywater sighed, looking weary beyond her years of schooling. “Do you read the pamphlets I give you? Let’s see. A baby thermometer—they’re not the same as adults.’ Diapers, yes, and pins and salve and talc and baby soap. Soft towels, sleepers, blankets, booties, bottles, because even if you’re planning to nurse you still need one or two for sterile water, backup formula, electrolytes in case the baby develops a bowel condition. Some couples like a camera—”

  Chloe held up a hand. “Okay, okay. So we’ll go shopping.”

  “This weekend.” Dr. Lois delivered one of her rare smiles. The thirty-year-old woman behind her medical persona rose to the forefront, and Chloe saw that in her own determined, quiet way, Dr. Lois could be as pushy and manipulative as Hank.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “I’m going to step out of the room a moment so you can undress and pull this sheet over your legs. It’s a month earlier than I like to do a pelvic, but I want to anyway. I have a hunch your little bandit might stage an early appearance.”

  “Early?” Chloe said. “How early are we talking? Not before Christmas?”

  “Let’s hope not.” The doctor put her hands on her hips and gave her that no-bullshit, wide-open stare. “Nothing’s for sure until you stop riding that mare.”

  In the teachers’ lounge/supply room, a beat-up plaid sofa, a Formica table, four molded plastic chairs, and a pile of magazines allowed instructors a place for time-out and Chloe a few moments out of the cold while she waited for Hank to finish up. Nobody else was there. Probably everyone was home soaking beans for supper or scraping frost from their windshields trying to see clearly where they were going. She sat down, her insides still feeling strangely invaded from the internal exam.

  December 14

  Tuba City, Eight whole degrees out

  Dear Kit,

  Think about it. You name a kid Ocean anywhere but California, people assume right off you’re a tree hugger or a space cadet. They already call us prunes, which I guess is some deep and crushing California slur. Sam’s a good name for a dog, but we already have Hannah. When I showed Hank your list he said he wanted to name her Annie, after his sister that died. I go, So what’s he going to do when all the kids beat the shit out of him for having a girl’s name? Most of the boys around here are named Clint or Buck. Sounds like grades of hay. In Garth Brooks territory, names with more than one syllable seem to be frowned on.

  About sex, Kit. Don’t go trusting that condoms rule out pregnancy one hundred percent of the time. Sex is dangerous. I’m walking proof of that particular fable. Stick to horses. That’s all the advice I feel safe in dumping on you.

  And why are they making you read depressing shit about stoning people to death in English? Hasn’t your teacher ever heard of Marguerite Henry? Anna Sewell? Even Dick Francis? My lady doctor over at the clinic told me I had an “irritable” uterus today. How about that? For once my insides match my outside. She isn’t very popular since she’s not a white guy from town, but I like her all right. We get the lectures over with fairly quick. A great ride on Sally today. Saw two elk down by the creekbed. I’m going back tomorrow.

  Chloe had flinched at the probing, drawn her knees up and said, Stop it, and had meant it. You be sure to let me know if you pass the mucus plug before your next appointment, Dr. Lois insisted. Watch for it.

  What a dreadful-sounding term. Quit poking around and there won’t be anything to look for, she’d told her. The assortment of McCall’s and Family Circles on the tabletop were well-thumbed, all the hamburger recipes torn out. Ch
loe scanned a flyer for last summer’s Indian oil-painting competition, and wondered who had won. There was a pile of entry forms on a bulletin board announcing the spring Coconino Center for the Arts mixed media show, including a children’s division. Hank would urge all his pupils to enter, and if Corrine allowed it, Dog Johnson might win a ribbon. From the pile of papers she unearthed an old catalog for several Indian jewelers.

  The heavy cover stock was decorated with their names in a fancy typeface and embossed Indian symbols—a Kokopelli playing flute, a stylized sunburst with slits for eyes, and the rounded outline of a bear with what looked like a lightning bolt inside it that Oscar Johnson told her was called the heartline. The catalog pages featured black-and-white photos of five-feather Yei pendants, China mountain earrings, and inlaid squash-blossom necklaces much simpler than those Corrine favored. The fat silver storyteller bracelets fronted an out-of-date price list. On the back of the circular there were pictures of the artists. Ray Tracey in his buckstitched leather, looking so handsome he could be a Hollywood movie actor; a chunky-faced guy whose name was obscured by a coffee spill; and in profile, lean, with craggy high cheekbones and a shock of dark hair shaggily cut, falling into his face and over his broad shoulders, Junior Whitebear. Hardly more than a boy, really, but the picture could have been old. He aimed his cocky grin toward the person holding the camera, reminding Chloe of the puffed-up bravado of the juvenile offenders from the Carlson Ranch in California, those bad boys she’d tried to teach horsemanship in an effort to deflect their more criminal urges. Handsome, but handsome was often the same as dangerous.

  “What are you looking at so intently?” Hank said as he came up behind her, his arms full of newspapers.

  Chloe tapped the photograph. “He doesn’t look Navajo,” she said. “Maybe that sounds prejudiced, but his face is shaped differently, and his skin’s so much lighter.”

  Out of teacherly habit, Hank neatened the magazines after he set down the stack of papers in the recycling box. “He’s probably not full blood. I think Corrine told me that once.”

  “Why were you asking Corrine about Junior Whitebear?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe she brought him up. How was your appointment?”

  “I gained a pound. Corrine’s full of stories.”

  “Indeed she is. Did you hear the baby’s heartbeat?”

  “I forgot to ask for the stethoscope.” Chloe studied the jeweler’s face once more. Maybe half Navajo. Maybe—if she squinted and needed glasses and had never met a Mexican. He looked Mexican, plain and simple, like her buddy Francisco back in California, or any of the other horse people she knew who called themselves Mexican or Chicano or Salvadoran. She tucked the catalog under her half-finished letter to Kit. “Think anybody’d mind if I take this?”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Just to look at. That’s all.”

  Hank smiled. “Fine with me. Now let’s go. Leftovers await. Nothing but the best for my baby.”

  She laughed, wondering which baby he meant.

  December 19

  Chez Wedler’s, where today’s special is Pumpkin Soup, AKA the Golden Hurl

  Dear Chloe,

  Really sad news. Hugh Nichols had a stroke! He can’t talk or anything. Edith moved back in to take care of him. Me and Diane drove by and checked their horses. They’re fine, but that crazy Palomino broke through the fence and Francisco went off about the price of wire versus what he called the “shotgun solution,” but I think he was just trying to make a joke, everybody’s so tense. Edith said to tell you she reads Hugh your letters and he gets all choked up so to please keep on writing even if he can’t answer you back, okay?

  Now, finally for some good news. Guess who arrives December 26 with her sleeping bag and fifty bucks’ baby-sitting money? I peeked at my presents and one of them’s a plane ticket. I know, I know, like, grow up already, but California’s pretty lame when you’re almost fifteen and live five hundred miles from interesting things like actual snow and real live Indians. I can’t wait to see you (and your boobs)! Hank looks so buff in that picture you sent. My dad said maybe he was replaced by an alien life form, like that movie we watched on HBO, but I think Hank is cute. You should marry him. Anyway, ask him to pretty please make some of his chocolate chip cookies on Christmas day and don’t you go eating all of them since I’ve been dreaming about those cookies since before he left. I’ll call the minute I get there. I have a really great surprise I’m saving for you. It is so amazing!!!

  Happy Jesus’s birthday as the all the born-agains go around saying. I’m like, Does that mean forget the presents and you’ll pray all day? As expected, I got no answer. Eight more days!

  Love,

  Kit

  Chloe smiled at the childlike handwriting, the little hearts Kit drew to dot her i’s. Next to her, leaning against the post office table beneath the bulletin board, Hank’s expression was sober as he read his mother’s latest letter.

  “Your mom doing okay?” she asked.

  He rubbed his chin and sighed. “She was in the hospital for a few days. Tests.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “She didn’t really go into detail.”

  “Your dad could have called or something.”

  “Or I could have called them.”

  Chloe looked up at the flyer of the lost girl from New York. In her bones she could feel the girl’s mother’s dread at another holiday season approaching with no daughter to hold in her arms, make cookies for, no stocking to stuff. “Maybe you ought to go see her, Hank. For Christmas.”

  He looked out the glass snow doors for a few moments, then turned back to her. “It’s our first real holiday together.”

  She touched his arm. “I know. But if you think about it, really it’s just another day. People get all excited over it because of advertising hype. Go to California if you need to. We can celebrate Christmas when you get back.”

  Hank rubbed her back.

  “Oh, that feels good. Don’t stop, whatever you do.”

  He rubbed in wide circles. “Look, it means a lot to me that you’d sacrifice it. But the truth is, we can’t afford the plane fare. I’ve got a line on a part-time job during vacation.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Helping unload trucks at Purina in Flagstaff.”

  The baby executed one of his trout spins in her belly, and Chloe laid a hand there to quiet him, feeling once again, in this partnership, just how much she wasn’t pulling her weight.

  “No elk today,” Chloe said to the mare as they trotted through the woods toward the main road. “Guess we just got lucky that one time. Well, I don’t know about you, Sally, but I’m glad. If we saw elk, we’d likely hear hunters, and then I’d probably have to dismount and perform some elk CPR.” She patted the horse’s neck. A part of her heart was falling in love with this mare. She felt a momentary pang of guilt that maybe she was forgetting Absalom. Before them sun had melted a stretch of maybe fifty yards of snow. Red earth shone through, and Chloe couldn’t resist the invitation. She sat back, asked the mare for a canter. Beneath her, Sally changed gaits with a bolt. God, how free running felt, as if she were once again a single unit, responsible only for her own life. Cottonwood branches rushed by her. Winter air took sharp nips at her face. The bare patch began to diminish quickly, and Chloe sat back, cuing the mare for a transition to a posting trot. Instead of a fluid rhythm rising up to meet her, she felt a distinct pull, something hot inside, the feeling of flesh tearing loose. She halted the horse immediately, dismounted, and stood there a half mile from anywhere, breathing in short panicked gasps, afraid to look down, the reins shaking in her gloved hand.

  December 21—Winter Solstice

  Second Mesa

  Dear Kit,

  We’re in the village of Shungopovi on the Hopi reservation. We came to see the dances, but they haven’t started yet. This place is like walking through a history book, all sandstone and mud huts. Everything’s leaning and threate
ning to fall and here sit all these Indians on top of the roof. Hank’s all excited. He loves watching the kachinas, even though he wouldn’t dance himself if you held a gun to his head.

  Kit, all day I’m thinking how on earth could Willie leave you? You’re pretty and funny, real good with animals. Generous and smart, too, so smart I’d be damned lucky to get one like you, I’d be thanking stars the rest of my life. I’m thinking Dr. Lois and her pamphlets are a load of manure. She keeps trying to scare me with graphs and crap, like a spooked mother would be better than a calm one. There’s a lot I’d like to say to Willie, wherever the hell she is. Probably just as well I can’t, since now I supposedly have high blood pressure and I’m supposed to “make an effort to stay calm.”

  Compared with the Navajo reservation, this place looks pretty much like a desert. No trees whatsoever. Hank says they get only about twelve inches’ rain a year, but they still manage to grow corn and beans, and raise sheep. They must collect the dew in their hats. We had to park about a quarter mile down the road and hike the rest of the way in along with thirty or so other people. Hank said this dance was not to be missed, which must mean high culture or something I won’t know how to appreciate. At least there’s a bunch of other white people standing around looking as out of place as I feel. We have to wait here, away from the kiva, on the main road which curls around their village. After this, we’re invited to the Johnsons’ for dinner. You’ll like Oscar and Dog. Corrine takes some getting used to. Jesus, Kit, my back is just killing me. I wonder if I’ve slept on it wrong or—

  In her head Chloe frantically composed her letter to Kit as she wove between bystanders facing the narrow sandstone-and-mud houses. The rich smells of simmering stews and bread frying in hot grease laid their paws on her, coiling around her perpetually hungry stomach. Cries of excited children frayed her edges. Skinny yellow stray dogs threaded their way through the crowd, looking for handouts, and she wanted to feed them before she fed herself. She walked purposefully, mentally composing that letter, trying the only way she knew to shake off the ache periodically clenching its fist into the small of her back. She retraced every moment of the previous day’s ride, reliving the moment when the error of assuming her prepregnancy muscles were a match for thirty extra pounds and a nearly full-term baby had proved otherwise.