Nastas wasn’t sure why he just didn’t bother to tell her the whole thing. What did it matter?
“Like the foxtail weed?” the girl said cleverly.
When Nastas didn’t react, she settled her palms over the back of his hands. A white girl had never touched Nastas in such an intimate way; the feeling ramped up his insecurities. “I think it’s time for some of your cake. I don’t suppose it’s chocolate on the inside? The inside is what makes all the difference.” The girl obliterated the day in birthday as she drew icing onto her index finger. It disappeared into her mouth. “Delicious.”
Nastas’ bright green eyes widened explicitly. He curled his fingers into fists, causing the girl to withdraw her remaining hand. Still staring, and still fighting back the smile so foreign to his features, Nastas stood up awkwardly. The girl stood as well. Her arms hung heavy at her sides, but her fingers twitched with the obvious desire to reach out to Nastas, to soothe him with her touch.
Nastas shifted his gaze to the cake, bowed to the girl in lieu of a handshake, then stalked off to his mother’s car.
“My name is Natalia,” she yelled after him, “I know it’s stupid, but I’m here every Sunday. You’ll find me in God’s house when you need me.” Nastas did not look back and did not hear her final words, “…which will be sooner than you think.”
Almost a week passed.
Nastas had decided not to finish high school, resolving to spend all of his time ensconced in the heaps of his father’s life instead.
When his younger brother asked Nastas to take him to the store late Saturday afternoon, Nastas thought nothing of it. He loved Hasten, who needed no encouragement from anyone. He seemed unaffected by the loss of their father, and chose to love his mother for who she was, even if she’d abandoned their traditional beliefs.
Their car sped along the dirt road, CCR playing loudly through the remaining speaker.
“Thanks for doing this. I love you for it!” said Hasten.
Nastas would never forget Hasten’s last words or the drunk driver that appeared around the bend, an unpredictable missile that could not be evaded. Nastas swerved and hit a rock-filled embankment at sixty miles an hour. As Nastas’ head slammed into the steering wheel, Hasten’s neck twisted in just the wrong way, his C4 vertebrae breaking loose and sheering his spinal cord in two. He died instantly.
At the hospital, their mother was inconsolable. In a neighbor’s car, she sang during the long ride home, her words a haphazard mixture of Catholic influence and the Navajo ways she’d grown up with.
“God our Father,
Your power brings us to birth,
Your providence guides our lives,
and by Your command we return to dust.
Lord, those who die still live in Your presence,
their lives change but do not end.
I pray in hope for my family,
relatives and friends,
and for all the dead known to You alone.
In company with Christ,
Who died and now lives,
may they rejoice in Your kingdom,
where all our tears are wiped away.
Unite us together again in one family,
to sing Your praise forever and ever.
I give you this one thought to keep -
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still - in each new dawn.”
Nastas sat with his mother at the kitchen table until she fell asleep at three o’clock in the morning. Nastas carried her to bed, her short, thin legs dangling over his arm. From the doorway of his hogan he spent the next hours smoking his father’s pipe.
When his mother emerged dressed for church, Nastas wordlessly slipped into the borrowed car beside her. He took comfort with her cheek on his shoulder and from her fussing over his bandaged head.
At the church his mother took his hand and led him to the large double doors. Almost abreast with the dark-suited greeters, Nastas pulled back. Begging her forgiveness, he stalked away. Taking a seat at the empty picnic table, he put his head down and openly wept for his brother for the first time.
A small part of him, no more than a drop, was surprised to find Natalia sitting in the same spot when he finally lifted his gaze. He wasn’t sure how long he had cried or how long she had been there. This time he didn’t inch away when she moved to touch him.
“Tell me, Nassie. What happened to you?” Gently she touched the bandage on his forehead. She could feel the large bump. It made her sadder than she’d expected.
“He looked so peaceful after the accident,” he responded, first in Navajo, then quickly, in English. Nastas recalled with perfect clarity the image of Hasten sitting next to him, his head resting unnaturally to the side. “I held his hand until it turned cold. No one came for so long.” Nastas spoke with the solemnity of a repentant man in confession.
“I am sorry for your loss. Hozo-go nay-yeltay to.” Nastas looked startled. “Am I saying it right? I didn’t mean any harm…”
“You are saying it right. Your tongue makes the words perfectly. Hozo-go nay-yeltay to. May we live in peace hereafter.” The way Natalia spoke the words in Navajo sounded like the songbirds of the lower plains so familiar in Nastas’ youth. “It is a beautiful sentiment. Made even more beautiful when you say it.”
Natalia blushed.
Nastas looked black. “Hasten’s death was not a good death. All morning I have had a chant in my mind that my father taught me just before he passed. It is one of dozens of chants and prayers he shared, but only one of hundreds when compared with what I’ve learned from his writings. My father was a great shaman. But this chant was from the Witchery Way. If spoken, its only purpose is to kill.”
It was Natalia’s turn to look shaken. She quickly brushed the emotion away. “Whom do you wish to kill?” she said, her unblinking eyes still calculating her position.
“A drunk driver killed Hasten. He is still alive. I am still alive. At least one of us shouldn’t be.” Nastas’ voice rose angrily with each word.
Natalia placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
They talked until a single bell signaled the end of the service. Nastas’ mother greeted Natalia with a warmth she’d never shown the young Navajo girls who frequented her son’s room long after sunset. So began a relationship that would bring Nastas inside a Christian church for the first time in his life. Nineteen-year-old Natalia held his hand and prayed earnestly with him for a year of Sunday morning services, alongside her missionary parents. They spent many nights together in her small Window Rock apartment.
On the one-year anniversary of Hasten’s death, Nastas found himself walking alone, deep into the desert, without so much as a bottle of water. He’d told Natalia he would only be gone for an hour to search for a rare herb she’d wanted in order to make an even rarer tea. Now, ten hours later, his throat parched beyond feeling, his legs exhausted, Nastas had to resign himself to an unprotected