Codex- excerpt from Tzi'

Sea and sky. That’s all there was in the beginning as the Popol Vuh was told to me. Sea and sky. I can’t believe I’m here. I almost wasn’t. In so many ways, we almost weren’t. Sera and I walk Dusty’s Trail. We pick around fallen limbs shattered on the road. Bark is peeled away from what resembles broken arms and cracked ribs of a shipwreck. The corn plants dry. They will be harvested soon. I stare along a leaf of blended color. One edge is the shade of my own hair. Next to it is an ink’s brush width of green. The swaths of blood red slide along its textured ridges as if dug by nails. Sera crinkles her nose at me and removes her sunglasses so that I can see her eyes. For the first time in a long time, I enjoy my reflection.

“What doing, Solo? Hey you. Hey you. Come on. I need to find a stick.”

The long grass rolls, waves cresting the hillside. I run my teeth through the fur around the pads of my feet and pluck a twig from the nail on my dew claw that had curled around. Sera tugs it free. Bodies wind through the field ready to release its harvest. I smell them. We’re silent. I hold my head up. I brace my body with my front legs. My bones protect my heart from the wind that spins in all directions. Sea and sky. The horizon calls. I look forward. I look in.

“Solo. Do you have a secret? I want to know,” Sera asks. She drops to her knees. Sera stares even with me, a green tinted mirror of my own reflection. “You make me stop and pay attention more than I ever did before.”

Late summer leaves wilt from use. Book pages. What I know is not a secret. Many others live and speak my memories in their stories. 

“Come on, Solo. We need to get back to the house.”

Sea and sky disappear in the storm. I’m no longer afraid. It’s only a cascade of strings being woven together. But, I sense something else. I freeze. Her eyes meet mine. I stare at her, through her, behind her. Dark pools. 

Sera gasps. Picks me up. Water runs. Rushing, we run, home.

“A hawk. There’s a hawk.”

“Stunned?” the Lord asks.

“I guess. I didn’t see blood. She didn’t react to Solo.”

“Flew too low maybe, looking for food. Damn truck could have hit her.” The Lord scratches the bridge of my nose and then works both hands across my back. “As a kid, I didn’t see many hawks. Farmers shot them.”

I stare at the Lord’s gun by the door.

“You’re not much of a farmer, you know.” She’s said these words before, but her voice has changed. 

He leaves it, brushes past Sera in silence, grabbing a towel. Silent agreement about something worth saving.

Sky and sea. My breath deepens into darkness. Car lights ooze by the driveway. The colors of night slowly rise over the window ledge emboldened like a bruise. The wind sweeps the Lord into the kitchen smelling of bronzing grass and a fistful of papers.

“Conservation people met me. Looks like it’s her feet. Just have to wait and see. When I look up, I’m always going to see her mate looking for her, not knowing what happened.”

“But at least she’ll be comfortable. Out of danger.” 

“Not her home though.”

She’ll find her way home. I saw it in her eyes. 

“Why did you keep that woody area out there anyway?” Sera asks.

“Just seemed like a nice secluded spot.”

“You lost acreage.”

“I didn’t lose anything.” The Lord discards his shoes and wades into a low tide of papers. “Here’s a letter for you.”

I tap it. I ease myself forward and taste one corner.

“I’ll read Solo. You listen.”

Sera nuzzles me and I wind the scents of the paper through my nostrils, its ink, the chilé dust on Rafa’s fingers, dried cucumber juice. The earth shakes underneath me only slightly when a picop grumbles through my memory–some empty, others filled with sacks or boxes. Vaquero was right about pockets and bags and chests. 

“Please do not worry about sending the book that Lidia mentioned. I know those stories by heart. 

Qué Dios le bendiga siempre.

Atentamente, 

Rafa

A strange sensation shivers through my skin, one that’s now in my control. I cross one paw over the other to steady myself, gazing at wings that flap like pages upon pages. I loved Rafa’s life though his words were only some of mine. 

“He wants a picture. Ready?” Sera’s phone snaps. I imagine Lidia receiving my photograph and her words. 

“Tatz’u.”

Click.

“Tatz’u ri tzi’. Look. Look at the dog.” 

I do, nipping Rafa’s letter from her. I sink my teeth into the envelope softly to not pull the papers’ fibers apart. Sera dances her fingers across my nose to the beat of the Lord’s guitar. My hairs twist into the tip of a brush I sweep across the pages. I nudge each fingertip, inviting her to dig as deep as she can. 

“Gettin’ back to you darlin’ is all I know. Picking up the pieces I left so long ago.”

Sera whispers over the marked up envelope covered in her fingerprints and thousands of miles. 

“Solo, you could dip and bob your head in lapping swirls of sweet alfalfa. It would be your ocean.” Sera rubs her thumb across the pages. “Lavender. Goldenrod. Prairie Onion. Columbine. Milkweed for butterflies. Coneflower.”

I lick her cheek and tug at her pen. I slide a single hawk feather from underneath my hip and let it rest just next to my bone. It tickles my cheek the way my quetzal feather once did. It is never too late to find the knowledge you forgot to miss. Or, the knowledge that misses you. Forgiveness. A cascade of colors. Brush in one hand. Bound to stories, bound by stories. Trust. I taste my words.

“You tell them, Solo. You tell them.” Sera’s voice is calm. “They don’t know.” 

“I know enough to know I knew it from the start.”

What’s the harm in a little fiction, 

 The road that leads to happiness 

If it moves the story forward?

“Runs through your heart.”

-----

I heavily edited three of my original manuscripts this year.

One was Solo's. Goodbye my friend.

Nobody loves you like I love you.