Policemen and ambulance drivers spent ten minutes trying to get our attention, gently working at pulling our bodies apart.
revelations
“Final call for American Airlines Flight 9492 to Las Vegas. Now boarding at Gate Twenty-eight. Final call.”
Brittles stood at least twenty feet away, hands crossed in front of him, head bowed so low his chin touched his chest.
“I don’t want to lose you now,” I said.
“You never really had me,” Spider said, her eyes bright with tears. “Well. Not since I was two. And I hardly remember that.”
“You’ll call me?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Email. You’ve got my email address. Fax number.”
“Don’t wait for anything,” she said
“You’ve got Nathan’s number. I’ll be living with him. You can call or email or do anything, any way you want. Just talk to me.”
“Spider.”
I waited, expecting her to rebel against my use of the name. Nothing.
“You’re my daughter. I’ve been looking for you for twenty years.”
“I forgot you twenty years ago.”
“Isn’t there any way?” I sobbed.
“For god’s sakes, don’t make this any more melodramatic than it is already.”
“You don’t know me,” I pleaded. “At least give me some time so you get to know me. So I get to know you.”
The boarding agent came over to us. I tried to turn my back on her, turn my back on the other boarding agent who was waiting to shut the door to the ramp.
“Please, ma’am. You’ll have to board now or we’ll have to close the door.”
A bright-faced young Asian girl, a broad smile with teeth as white and straight as dominos, a small bronze plaque pinned to her shirt with the name TEQUILA.
“Tequila.” I laughed, a hard thing to do while I was sobbing. “Your dad and I, we had this thing for Cuervo Gold.”
“Good-bye. Mom.”
“After twenty years, is that all I’m going to get? A single word? Mom?”
“It’s just too late, mom. Way way too late.”
She turned abruptly and went through the ramp door and the agent quickly closed it behind her. I slumped into a bank of chairs, sobbing. I felt Brittles’s hand on my shoulder. The boarding agents started to move to another counter for a flight to Los Angeles. Somebody thumped on the ramp door. The agents exchanged looks. One of them opened the door and Spider ran through to put a hand on my cheek.
“Well, maybe not,” she said. “Maybe not too late. I’ll think about it.”
She ran back down the ramp. The door closed again.
I wanted to see the plane take off, wanted to see her face at a window, but Brittles took my hands, pulled me to my feet, turned me around, held my hand as we walked away. I turned back once as the tug started pushing the plane back from the loading ramp, but Brittles cradled my head in his hands, held my hand against his shirt for a long, long time until I heard the engines roar and the plane move away.
“Come on, sweet pea,” Brittles said. “Let’s go home.”
laura’s rap
I’m alone on my own,
On a road with no map to where I’m going
But my ambition’s growing
And freed from dependence indenture
Rid of my affliction
Ritalin addiction
I center my mind on steps, not sure what I’m going to find next
As I climb this hill I’m resigned to let
Things unfold, unsure of some of the things I’ve been told
Or what the future might hold
I’ve decided to escape my fate
Can’t sit around and wait
For something I don’t know, with ten miles to go
On a cold desert road, with my mind in a mode
Dwelling on the fact that
The futures a dream you can never get back
…Once you get there
So I’m taking small steps with my eyes on
The western horizon
Even when the sun’s rising I’m trying
To envision a sunset that hasn’t come yet
And a truth that I’ve been denying
On a path that I’ve been defying
As I pass another butterfly flying
I’m thinking about a place where my heart can rest
And my mind can be resigned to consider the time
While I’m taking my time instead of racing to find
A world that I’ll never get ahead of
I’m keeping my head up
And looking to begin from all I’ve taken in
Too many mistakes to make amends
Too many enemies to be making friends easily
Too many times that I think I might have acted unreasonably
With the weather unseasonably cold and gray
I’m trying to stay warm and weather each storm that unfolds this way
Like a normal day from the comforts of home
In the garden of variety, I try to be satisfied
And abide by the ratified guidelines
That decide my immediate timeline
I find mine unstable
And though I’ve put many things under the legs of the table
I’m unable to balance, lacking the talent of contentment
At length meant harboring resentment
To maintain my strength to escape the entrenchment
From a life, that I’m not sure I like
I’m tired of rolling the dice
And about to start selecting my slice through listening to my own advice
Written by Kwame Harrison, AKA Mad Squirrel
Acknowledgments
I owe great debts to many people for helping me with this book. One of the true joys of writing a series character comes from real insights from fans and new contacts in Arizona. Their comments made for real challenges and changes.
Two people provided so much help that I’ve used their names as characters. Ian S. Friedlander helped enormously with Arizona prison details. Ian is a Special Investigator in the Criminal Investigations Unit, Arizona Department of Corrections. Rich Thompson, a mineral physicist in Tucson, helped with details about archeology, paleontology, and bones. The fictional characters bearing these names are entirely my own.
Carol Ellick, of Statistical Research, Inc. in Tucson, provided essential guidance about NAGPRA, the Arizona Burial Agreement, and many other details of recovering ancient bones and artifacts. Carol also introduced me to other people in this field, including Dave Winchester, Park Ranger at Casa Grande National Monument.
Kwame Harrison wrote original rap lyrics, after delighting and convincing me that alternative hiphop/rap and rap music offered more than gangsta/thug material.
Thanks also to Theresa May, Nancy Priest, and Rosemary Pooler, for their insights and support.
Sarah Durand, my exceptional editor at Morrow/Avon, offered continual guidance and made key suggestions about both plot and character. More thanks to my agent, Jessica Lichtenstein.
And finally, my gratitude to the EMT crew of Green Valley, Arizona, and the ER and ICU staffs at St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson. Without them, I might not even be here.
Although most place names are real, this is a work of fiction. All mistakes are mine alone.
About the Author
DAVID COLE is the author of four previous books featuring Laura Winslow—Butterfly Lost, The Killing Maze, Stalking Moon, and Scorpion Rain. He is the co-founder of NativeWeb (www.nativeweb.org), an Internet corporation for Native Americans and indigenous peoples of the world. A longtime political activist, he lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife and six cats. You can visit him on the web at www.decole.com.
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Other books by
David Cole
SCORPION RAIN
STALKING MOON
THE KILLING MAZE
BUTTERFLY LOST
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DRAGONFLY BONES. Copyright © 2003 by David Cole. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition April 2008 ISBN 9780061732645
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