Owl Dreams, Page 3

CHAPTER THREE

  “Time for another anthropology lesson, Sarah.” If there was one thing Marie Ferraro wouldn’t tolerate, it was a judgmental daughter, even if that daughter was temporarily pretending to be her half-sister.

  “Well . . . .” That was Sarah’s best argument. Persuading Marie of anything had always been impossible unless she read it in a romance novel or saw it on Lifetime TV.

  “Everyone with a Y chromosome comes with a certain amount of baggage,” Marie said. “Women have to face up to it; men sell drugs the way women sell Mary Kay.” And there were lots of other things: robbing a convenience store could be thought of as a male shopping alternative, prison was a masculine version of finishing school, and warrants came standard with every pair of testicles.

  “Testicles.” Marie said that word more than most women. “Testicles are the bags, and everything else is the baggage.” The fact that Archie Chatto had killed a federal agent did not bother her at all. “It’s not for us to judge.”

  That was one point upon which Sarah and her mother could agree. People in black robes would do that as soon as Archie was in custody.

  “He’s a killer, mother.”

  “Archie’s an Apache. That’s what they do.”

  “The FBI came to the university. They questioned my department chairman.”

  “You’re an anthropology major, Sarah. You really should be more open-minded.”

  “They believe I’m hiding him.”

  “Think of Archie as Geronimo.”

  “Geronimo surrendered,” Sarah said. That ended the argument long enough for Marie to mentally reconfigure the conquest of the American west. “At Skeleton Canyon, Arizona,” Sarah told her mother, in case she

  might want to look it up. “Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson Miles.” Sarah was great with names and dates. She planned to learn a lot more of them if Professor Lindsay didn’t end her academic career before she finished her senior research paper.

  “You seem to have no trouble finding criminals,” Sarah said. “Ever thought of working for the police?”

  “Archie’s clever,” said Marie. “He’ll stay right here in Albuquerque. He won’t go anywhere near Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.” It had taken her five seconds flat to work things out to her satisfaction. In the cinema of Marie’s mind, her boyfriend had become a Native American insurgent in the most recent sequel of the Apache wars. It was the Indians’ turn to win.

  “Don’t you think Archie looks just like Cary Grant in North by Northwest?” All of Marie’s boyfriends gradually took on the features of the Roger O. Thornhill character in the Alfred Hitchcock classic.

  “And he’s just as clever too,” said Marie. “The bad guys will never catch him.”

  Sarah knew there was no way the ballad of Marie and Archie would have a happy ending. She suspected her mother also had that knowledge filed away somewhere in her currently hyper-optimistic mind. During her manic phase, Marie lived by a simple code. Sit back and enjoy the ride to the abyss; the scenery is splendid.

  “I’ve always wanted to get married at Mount Rushmore.” Marie had plenty of experience planning weddings. This time there would be no Justice of the Peace in a county court house. She would marry her renegade Apache standing before the benevolent stone heads of dead American presidents. No formal ceremony because of the groom’s criminal status, but symbolism is the most important thing.

  “Love conquers all.” Marie thought maybe that was in The New Testament, or Message in a Bottle. Either way it had to be true.

  But Sarah knew love wouldn’t stand a chance against the FBI.

  If Archie hid out on the checkerboard reservation lands, he’d blend more with the population.

  “The Rez isn’t suitable for Marie,” he said. “They’ll catch me, but I’ll get away again. I always get away.” His secret was to go peacefully, act compliant, then run like hell when the opportunity came. Archie knew exactly what to do; he’d spent a lot of time in prison.

  “The federal joint’s not bad. They make allowances.” Since Archie was a Bedonkohe Apache, they let him wear his hair long and practice his religion.

  “I’ll get reacquainted with Usen. He’s a lot like the white man’s god, but he never wrote anything down.” Archie was only religious when he was incarcerated. On the outside he was a confirmed agnostic. Usen didn’t mind; he gave his devotees little and expected little in return.

  “I won’t get your big sister killed,” Archie promised Sarah. “I’ll give up without firing a shot.”

  Marie kissed him on the cheek. Then she kissed him on the mouth. Then she whispered something in his ear that Sarah was glad she couldn’t hear.

  “Going down without a fight. That’s a big sacrifice for an Apache.” It reminded Marie of every novel Nicholas Sparks had written.

  “Tragedy and sacrifice are the foundations of all relationships, especially when it’s the man who suffers.” According to Marie, a happy ending was practically guaranteed once pain and grief were out of the way.

  “Except for Dear John.” That was the only Nicholas Sparks book that didn’t follow the rules. Marie vowed to re-read that one and to plan her way around potential romantic pitfalls.

  Archie could have stayed free longer if Marie knew how to cook, but she’d dropped out of high school to become an almost-never-stays-at-home mother and hadn’t gotten around to Home Economics.

  She had a hankering for chiles rellenos and Archie couldn’t say no.

  “Any Old Town restaurant should be safe enough,” Marie reasoned. “The prices are too high for government expense accounts.”

  Things looked good in Padilla’s Mexican Kitchen. The lunch crowd was heavy and the margaritas were murky with tequila.

  “Men in suits,” Archie told Marie as the hostess took them to their table. “Lots of men in suits.”

  Marie told him not to worry. “There’s a Kirby vacuum cleaner sales convention in town. Those guys wear suits almost as much as federal agents.”

  But FB-eyes were already turning their way.

  “They take it really serious when you kill them.” Archie sat with his back to the wall and asked the hostess if they had buffalo on the menu.

  “Always wanted to die with the taste of buffalo in my mouth.”

  Marie laughed and kissed him on the cheek, but she noticed the two men at the next table. The only two men in the restaurant who were looking at Archie instead of her.

  “Probably gay vacuum cleaner salesmen.” Just to be sure, Marie gave the two men her most seductive smile. Their eyes turned toward her like two pairs of compass needles redirected by a shift in the earth’s magnetic field, but their hands slid underneath the bottom buttons of their Brooks Brothers jackets.

  “Oops.”

  That was Archie’s cue to surrender.

  “I’ll go without a fight,” he announced at the top of his voice, “If I can make a statement first.” He stood, showing them his hands, like a cruise ship magician getting ready to amaze the crowd.

  The agents knew the drill. There were too many patrons in the restaurant for a gunfight, and Marie positioned herself in front of Archie so they couldn’t get off a clean shot, and there were probably security cameras around ready to capture footage for the evening news.

  One of the agents said, “Go for it, Chatto,” while the other finished his last bite of his emolada and fished his Miranda rights card out of his pocket.

  Archie kissed Marie on the lips long enough to make the agents nervous. Then he recited the same surrender speech he always made when it was time to spend a little time with Usen.

  “I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds, and sheltered by the trees as other Indian babes,” he said.

  “I was living peaceably when people began to speak bad of me. Now I can eat well, sleep well, and be glad. I can go everywhere with a good feeling.” It was a quote attributed to Geronimo. Archie finished it appropriately—with a war cry. The customers gave him a rousing round of a
pplause and then got back to their midday meals.

  Marie sobbed quietly as the agents led her boyfriend away. She walked a fine dramatic line, demonstrating a suitable amount of anguish without stealing the show. She checked her reflection in the chrome napkin dispenser on her table, until her mascara was adequately streaked. She left a twenty-dollar bill on the table even though neither she nor Archie had been served.

  “Archie’s the love of my life.” Marie raised her right hand and crossed her fingers.

  “Crossing your fingers means you are lying,” Sarah said.

  “Whatever.,” Marie uncrossed them and repeated herself. “This time’s for real. The others were just practice.”

  Ordinarily, Marie’s romances ended as soon as her lovers were Mirandized, but after nearly a month, she was still crying over Archie Chatto. He had won her heart. He would take it with him to the federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma where he’d be held awaiting trial. Marie swore she’d join him there.

  “He gave up his freedom for me. It’s the least I can do.”

  Sarah didn’t argue. She hid her car, had her mother’s SSI check deposited in a different bank account, and waited for Marie’s passion to focus somewhere else. It had been four years since she and Mom left Oklahoma and came to Albuquerque. That move had followed another of Marie’s disastrous love affairs. Sarah had no intention of ever going back.

  Sarah was the legally responsible adult in the family, the grownup who could sign documents and write checks. What could Marie do except pout and whine and go missing days at a time?

  Even after Marie had been gone for a week, Sarah was only a little worried. Marie would assemble a new collection of devoted friends. A number of potential lovers would be drawn under her spell, and when that group reached the critical mass, she’d pair up with the least suitable candidate. Marie’s new paramour would use all his resources to satisfy her every whim until he was financially exhausted, arrested on an outstanding warrant, or finally realized she was crazy. Then Marie Ferraro would become Mom again.

  That cycle would repeat itself until Marie’s mood reached the peak of optimism and began its relentless slide into the black pit of depression.

  Sarah considered how much easier life would be if her mother looked more like a crazy person, if she had a tremor in her voice, stepped over cracks compulsively, or wore her hair in a Bedlam style. It was hard to recognize just how crazy Marie was until you got to know her. She seemed clever and exotic at first, especially to men.

  Marie attracted male admirers the way a Venus flytrap collects insects, with a combination of pheromones and sugar rich nectar. Once they were firmly tangled in her embrace, she would soak up their emotional nutrients and cast their empty husks aside without the slightest bit of malice.

  It was the way of the world according to Marie, and nothing could be done about the way of the world. She relished the taste of her victims during the manic phase of her illness and regretted their plight during her depressions, but her hunger never lost its edge.

  Marie swore Archie would be different, but from Sarah’s perspective things looked pretty familiar. Another boyfriend had been hauled away in the back of a police cruiser, and her mother was out and about, undoubtedly luring a vulnerable male to his doom.