“And I had no idea why he was leaving dead rattlesnakes on the doorstep.” Selena sighed. “If I could have just explained ...”
“Wouldn’t have helped.” Yellow Dog bounded to his feet and shook himself. “Birds don’t generally have room for more than one thought at a time, and Snake-Eater’s not the sharpest spine on the cactus. This would have happened to anybody who moved into that house, I expect.” He began trotting away into the dark.
“Wait!” Selena said. “I have so many more questions for you!”
“Too bad, because you’re waking up. Remember to change the house’s name,” he called over his shoulder, and then Selena sat up in bed, feeling the heavy weight of Copper across her feet, and wondering why her sheets were covered in little fawn-colored hairs.
Three days later, she had a gathering at the house. Grandma Billy, using a cane and insisting that she was fine, goddammit, arrived on Father Aguirre’s arm. Mayor Jenny and Lupé and Rosa and Gordon all came in Connor’s truck. Lupé had insisted on bringing food, of course, and Gordon had a plate of deviled eggs that he said were his secret recipe. (“The secret is bacon,” he informed Selena, in a loud whisper.) Selena wasn’t going to argue with free food, though she’d spent all afternoon icing a chocolate cake that she’d made from a box of cake mix.
Copper was ecstatic, both from all the people and the fact that her cone had come off that morning. When they were done eating, Selena took down the sign that readJackrabbit Hole Houseand put up a new one that Connor’s son had carved for her. She took a bottle of wine that she had bought from Connor’s store and (after several tries) broke it over the front door as if she was christening a ship. “This house,” she said, feeling a little silly but saying it anyway, “this house is called Copper Dog House.”
“Witnessed!” said Father Aguirre in a carrying voice, and “Witnessed!” cried the rest of Selena’s friends.
“I’ll update it in the records,” Mayor Jenny promised.
Selena poured out glasses of wine from a second bottle and they toasted the new name and had slices of cake. It was, all in all, a gloriously successful evening.
Father Aguirre was the last to leave, since Rosa had insisted on giving Grandma Billy a ride so that the old woman didn’t walk home. “Is that all I need to do?” Selena asked him. “Does it count now?”
“It counts,” Father Aguirre said. “It takes a little while for a new name to stick, but people will get used to it. And you’re out here far enough that most people in town didn’t know what it was called anyway.” He smiled. “If I tried to rename Our Lady of the Palo Verdes, it would be a lot harder.”
She told him what Yellow Dog had said about the names. And then, over the last of the wine, about Snake-Eater and her aunt.
The priest listened as solemnly as if he was hearing her confession, nodding. “I can hardly speak against unions between spirits and mortals,” he said wryly. “And while I have no great love for Snake-Eater, I can tell you at least that I think your aunt was happy.”
“It killed her,” said Selena. “Eventually. Didn’t it?”
Father Aguirre nodded. “It seems likely. He may have been draining her strength to travel back and forth between the house and Jackrabbit Hole. Probably she didn’t know it was happening.” He paused, possibly debating what to say next, then finally added, “She was very lonely, I think. And some people respond well to being loved so absolutely, above all other things.”
Selena dropped her hand to where Copper was lurking under the table, still sulking that she hadn’t been allowed chocolate cake. “Well,” Selena said, “then she should have gotten a dog.”
Chapter 21
Life in Quartz Creek was so divorced from the usual cycles of work and the desert so changeless that autumn crept up on Selena before she even noticed. She spent most of a week at the Rivendell commune helping ready the guest cabins for habitation, and acquired both a decent wage and a reputation for escorting scorpions gently outside. When the tourists arrived, Lupé opened up the café as an actual restaurant instead of an outlet for her relentless need to feed people, and Selena’s skills at food service were suddenly useful. She spent the rest of the season making sandwiches for catered lunches as the rich sustainability tourists toured the historic zone, visiting sheep ranches and admiring the way that people lived “so close to the land.” Selena felt like a cross between a zoo animal and a total fraud.
“You get used to it,” Galadriel told her, during a tour of the commune, while a number of middle-aged ladies in expensively flowy linen admired the gardens and the hoop houses. “And honestly, most of them do mean well. I told one once that my well probably needed to be deepened—just a random comment, you understand—and she left a check for a thousand dollars on the nightstand with a note.”
“Wow.”
“Right?” Galadriel grinned. “Though for every one of those, you get a half dozen trying to find spiritual wisdom. Lady, my family’s from Wichita. I’m good at dry farming vegetables, that’s all.”
Selena, who had seen a flash of green stripes in the garden early that morning, laughed dutifully.
“Anyway, the bird-watchers will be out next week, and they’re a lot easier. Give them a bathroom and a bench and check in every few hours to make sure nobody’s got heatstroke and they’re happy. And they’re much less picky about the sandwiches.”
Galadriel was correct on all counts. Selena sliced meat and cheese and made up vast quantities of sandwiches, which were ferried out to various birding spots. Gordon, who made most of his income from leading bird tours, was happier than Selena had ever seen him. “Got an elegant trogon today!” he announced, coming into the café to pick up a cooler full of sandwiches. “This far north! Can you believe it?”
“That’s good?” Selena asked, and then there was nothing for it but for Gordon to get out his bird book and show her a picture of a dramatic red-and-green bird that looked like something that belonged in the jungle, not a few miles out of Quartz Creek. She duly admired it, and Gordon went away beaming, while she and Lupé exchanged smiles.
Father Aguirre preached to much larger crowds for the next two months, but otherwise made himself scarce. Selena worried at first that something was wrong, but Grandma Billy laughed. “It ain’t that. He’s still trying to get the dents outta his granddaddy’s truck. That thing needs last rites, if you ask me.”
Grandma Billy also enjoyed tourist season, although for entirely different reasons. She would sit in the corner of the café and flirt outrageously with men who came in. Selena teased her about it until one day she came in extremely early, wearing the same clothes she’d had on the night before, radiating smugness on a kilowatt scale.
“Oh my god,” said Selena, nearly dropping a plate of tuna on wheat. “You—was it the bald guy with the khaki vest and the funny binoculars?”
“They were Swarovskis,” said Grandma Billy, snagging a sandwich off the plate. “Very high-end. You can always tell how much money they’ve got by the quality of the binoculars.” She grinned like a shark. “And his name was Darren. He’s a retired actuary, and the sweetest thing.”
“Don’t go breaking my customers’ hearts,” Lupé called. “I need the business.”
