The Last Shepherd

10. HAMAR

| 58 »« 10 h a m a r Morning sunlight broke around the top of the barn. It moved down the wall and over the paint that the pilota ball had pockmarked with a thousand round circles. In front of the wall, the hard-packed ground was like cement, and when I scraped the toe of my shoe over it, no dust rose. Even though where I stood was still in shadow, a thin layer of sweat coated my body. I rolled the ball in the palm of my right hand. The crowing of roosters that had once accompanied my early morning games was gone. The last rooster had been sold with the chickens three years earlier. Now, the only sound was that of the cooing mourning doves huddled in the barn’s rafters. Aitatxi told me that the key to pilota was getting the eye and the hand to work together. “Sure, no, what see and what feel need be same thing.” I had to keep my eye on the ball and trust that my hand would be where it needed to be. Dad taught me that the engine that got me into position was footwork and that little steps were better than big ones. Little steps would enable me to quickly change direction. Big steps would cause me to lunge and knock me off balance. “Now, then, anticipate where the ball will go,” Dad said. “If you wait to react, it will be too late. You need to feel it in your gut.” And so I learned to ignore the sensation that a nail was being driven through the center of my palm with each strike of the ball. And to not give into the stitch that clawed at my side. The burn of dust in my eyes, the ache of my back, the shortness of my breath—there would be time for those later. While I was in the game, the ball was the world. | 59« » As I tossed the ball into the air and smacked it with my eskua, the pain that shot up my arm brought me fully awake. The sound of the ball ricocheting off the wood barn was like a hammer blow. Startled doves flew from the rafters. I pivoted to my right, keeping my eye on the unsure bounce of the ball off the dirt. I reached behind me as I stepped into position and whipped my arm forward to contact the ball out in front of my body. Even though I was only playing against myself and couldn’t win or lose, I still scrambled over the dirt as if I were two people: each trying to outmaneuver the other, determined not to be the one who missed, straining to make the final strike. On the tenth blow, the ball hit a hole in the dirt and took a sharp bounce to the left. I tried to adjust, but my swinging hand met only air as the ball sailed past me to roll across the dirt and stop at the feet of Mr. Steele. “Now that there was some animal-like movement, son,” Mr. Steele said as he reached down with a slight grunt to pick up the pilota ball between his index finger and thumb. He held the ball at arm’s length, like it was covered in blood and not dirt, and pushed back the wide-brimmed straw hat he was wearing. “Is this sheep skin?” “My aitatxi made it.” “Hmmm, he was a . . . a clever man that ahh-ta-chee of yours.” “He wouldn’t have liked to hear you say that.” I gazed up at Mr. Steele from where I leaned over with my hands on my knees catching my breath. My hair fell in front of my eyes and through it Mr. Steele appeared to float like a parade balloon. For some reason, my heart was beating as if I were still playing pilota, running to strike the ball, and I noticed that behind Mr. Steele the gates of the empty sheep pens hung open. I was sure I had shut them the day before. But now they were all unlatched. “I meant it as a compliment, son,” Mr. Steele said. “Coyotes are clever, and Aitatxi didn’t care much for coyotes.” “Then how about a . . . a industrious?” Mr. Steele grinned as he tossed me the ball. I straightened up to catch it. “Your grandfather, and his son for that matter, Fred, were both industrious. Now that...