Tree Fever. Karen Hood-Caddy
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I let my head fall and rest on his shoulder.
Very slowly, he put his hand on the top of my head and drew his palm down my back, rhythmically stroking my hair, my neck, my shoulders and the length of my spine. “My grandmother used to do this when I was a kid. If I was scared.”
“It feels lovely,” I whispered. Reaching over, Harley undid the chain around my waist. His gesture was as intimate as if he were undoing my clothing. My insides rose towards him like a stadium of cheering fans.
Harley edged himself away and regarded me quizzically. He took the skunk from my lap and placed it in a covered basket he’d stashed behind a tree. “I’ll make a fire.” He began gathering twigs.
“Boyd better not come back,” I said, worried about the fire.
“He’d have a long way to walk.”
“What do you mean?”
Harley smiled simply as he arranged a circle of stones for a fire pit. “I left enough gas in his pickup to get him about three blocks from home.”
“You took gas out of Boyd’s truck?”
“A man like that’s safest at home.”
I grinned and watched his large, paw-like hands stroke the skins of the twigs before feeding them to the fire. The flames flickered up, illuminating his body in a warm, golden light.
His face was wide, with a broad, generous forehead and large, very round, black-brown eyes. It was a kind, benevolent face, both old and young. Again I had the feeling of knowing him.
When he turned, I saw the scar. It was a nasty looking thing, a slash of white and gristly skin on his neck, just under his ear. It made me wince to look at it. Whose knife had done that?
Harley rolled his jacket up for me to sit on and settled himself on a stone near the fire.
“What do you do out there in the world?” he asked.
“I counsel people,” I answered, sounding steadier than I felt.
“A shrink? You’re a shrink?” His tone was incredulous.
“No,” I defendeD, “I’m a psychotherapist.”
“What’s the difference?” His tone was challenging, wary.
“Shrinks, as you call them, work more with drugs. I focus on dreams.”
Harley looked into the fire. “My mother had a shrink once. Pumped her so full of drugs she couldn’t see straight. Uppers. Downers. Relaxants. Sleeping pills. He was a drug pusher worse than any I’ve seen.” He stared into the flames without speaking. “He never thought that maybe she was depressed for a reason. Knew nothing about Indians or what it was like for a native woman to marry a white man. And have nine kids. My mom would go in black and blue from a beating and he’d hand her stupid pills.”
I nodded. I knew enough to stay out of the way when someone was gearing up to tell their story.
A mud-slide of words came towards me. Sad, sad words that told of a mother gone crazy, a boy forced to go with a social worker to the mental hospital in order to see her. Then foster families. One after another. All white. Until a brief time when his mother got better. Not well, but better. How he learned to be careful. To help out. No lip. No backtalk. No talk at all for two years after he found her body swinging from the rafters.
More homes. More shrinks. All trying to make him talk about the suicide. Or talk at all. Bring my mother back, he screamed at them inside himself. Then I’ll talk.
He stopped his story and put his finger on the bark of a nearby tree, stroking where someone had cut initials into the wood.
“Too many cuts and you get weakened. The bugs get in. You die slowly. From the outside in. That’s what happened to her.” Harley was quiet, but he was breathing heavily. He closed his eyes. Slowly I felt him calm and the words he’d spoken settled like rubble around him.
“After she died, I stole. Stole everything I could lay my hands on. The cops threw me into reform school.” He touched the scar on his neck. “That’s where I got this thing. Then they threw me into jail. But as soon as I got out, I stole again. So they started beating me. Finally, I got my head straight and came back to the reserve. Learned leather. Got sane.” He paused and grinned. “Or saner.”
“You have to be a little crazy to be sane these days,” I offered softly. Harley grunted gratefully. “How did you know to go back to the reservation?”
Harley smiled. “Same way you knew to chain yourself to a tree. Your body just gets fed up. Starts giving its own orders.”
I nodded. I wanted to go over and hold him.
As if needing to get away from the debris of his words, Harley stood up and made his way down to the water. In a few minutes, I heard a splash. I followed the sound.
Standing near the shore in the dark tree shadows, I watched the moon making a long cone of shimmering silver on the lake. Out of the glittering water swam Harley, his naked body gliding through the water as sleekly as an otter. When he was near the shore, he climbed on a large rock and sat staring at the lake, his long hair making a dark line down the muscles of his back. After a time of stillness, he spoke.
“Come swimming.”
Taken aback that he knew I was watching, I stammered,
“No, I …”
“You want to.”
I smiled. He was right. Even though I knew it would be brutally cold, I wanted to. Or, at least part of me wanted to. But there were other, more restrictive parts of myself to contend with. What if someone saw you? Swimming with a half breed? The voices of my socialization never stopped, even in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.
In a moment’s determination, I took off my clothes and the incessant inner chatter seemed to drop away with the falling fabric. I’d been denied this pleasure too often as a child and had vowed never to pass by such opportunities when I was old enough to choose for myself. Unfortunately, for years I’d kept such a tight leash on my life, the choice hadn’t even been possible. Until tonight. I dove into the water.
The coldness took my breath away. The water pressed itself against my body, sliding over every part of me with erotic intimacy, entering me in my most private places. Exploding with sensations, I soared out of the water like a fish. When I could hold the lunge no more, I splashed down into the black, black water.
When I came out of the lake, my teeth were chattering. Harley held his jacket out to me. Wrapping it around me, I felt myself tip forward into his arms. His body was like a slow, strong drumbeat of heat. I waited for him to let me go, but he kept hold of me. Warm droplets of water from his skin slid into my hands.
Was he going to kiss me? He pulled his head back. With the angle of the moon, one part of his face was bathed in light, the other dark in shadow. As I looked at him, I sensed the pain and beauty of his whole life.
Our mouths found each other. His lips tasted as fresh as the lake, but warmer, sweeter.
What are you doing? Stop this at once. But my mouth was lost in his lips. The scolding voice inside my head was very far away and I could hardly hear it over the lovely feelings rising in my body.
After the kiss, Harley eased himself away and walked back to the fire.
Shivering in his jacket, I stood still. My God, what was happening to me? Who was this person standing naked in the forest kissing a man she had just met? Self-conscious and confused, I made myself get dressed and moved towards my sleeping bag. Harley, back in his clothes, came and sat beside me near the fire.
Harley rearranged some of the burning logs with his boot. “We better get this out,” he said. The logs, removed from the intensity of the flames, smoked thickly. Before putting the fire out completely, Harley reached into his pocket and tossed something on the last of the flames. The strong smell of cedar filled