Manroot Read Free

set high on her long torso, unlike the soft cow-like appearance of many mature Navajo women. Her straight hair, parted in the middle, was a warm brown with hints of auburn. She wore a white cotton dress that was too high-waisted for her, and she carried worn white sandals while her flat brown feet padded on the dusty road. Instead of the suitcase that he carried, her few belongings were rolled into a black and white Indian rug tied together with a cord that rested easily on her shoulder. Her neck, in harmony with her body, was long and slender, yet two tendons protruded from the smoothness of her skin – marks of a long acquaintance with worry. In her small, perfectly-shaped ears, turquoise nugget earrings had grown long ago into the flesh.
    She was called Katherine. Although her father felt that the name did not really suit her, he could not think of another that did. ‘Kack’ was easier – it was a nickname her mother had given her, was it seven or eight years ago? He wasn’t sure, for the days, the seasons, the towns had become a blur since he had left his wife dying in a hospital ward in Santa Fe. He had abandoned her, for he did not know what else to do. It was after he had taught her to drink, and she took to it with such zeal that he became alarmed. On more than one occasion she had lost the little girl and returned home drunk, not remembering where she had left her.
    It was when work was slow for him that his wife, Mama Rose he called her, had consented to do the unthinkable; she had agreed to weave a forbidden rug. Her mother had come and wept and pleaded, trying to dissuade her, for the Navajo believe that to weave the forbidden rug is to lose your sanity and your soul.
    Mama Rose closed her ears to this talk and for her white client she began. It was a difficult chore, for while her hands had once been steady and sure, now they trembled, dreaming of liquor. She worked, frustrated and crying, and as the rug neared completion, bringing the money so close, she felt her throat quiver with craving, and her stomach churn with want for the liquor that would bring peace. Convinced that her soul was already damned, Mama Rose talked of myths and legends while she wove and told her daughter to beware.
    Rose finished the rug, and with the last stitch, she stuck her finger and it bled for three days. She believed now that the curse was real!
    With her pay, she and her husband spent many endless nights in dim bars with blaring jukeboxes and tinsel laughter. It was later in the daylight when the money was gone that she saw them, scorpions crawling everywhere. It was then that she tried to kill the child. Jesse took her screaming and cursing to the hospital ward and with no money to pay left her there, convinced as she was that she had lost her sanity and, if it existed, her soul. They had wandered, his daughter and he, was it six years or seven years since then? He couldn’t remember. They went from town to town, doing odd jobs here and there. He had taught the girl to read, and she was quick. His daughter had not been a troublesome child and she had grown into a quiet, solemn woman, given to daydreams and imaginings which he ignored as he could not be sure if she was crazy or merely different. He knew and conveyed to her that it was safer to be quiet, to speak only when spoken to, and never, never to share the magic she often spoke about. She used to tell him about the dream sleep and how it told her things. She spoke of trees and rivers that had souls, and he hushed her, and sometimes when he was sober, he wondered what would become of her.
    He cursed the old woman, the grandmother, for her crazi ness which he was certain had been borrowed by the child.
    Pausing now at The Crossroads, at the far side of the bridge, he sat on a wooden stump, removed his stained hat, and with a dirty handkerchief wiped his forehead and mopped his neck. Like a man who was always aiming but who never reached his mark, he sighed.
    “ Sign says