The Last Shepherd

31. HOGEITA HAMAIKA

| 184 »« Whenever I went shopping with Aitatxi, I always walked several paces in front of him, hopeful that strangers would think we weren’t together. Aitatxi always had on his beret and oversized black coat and smelled of sheep and sour milk. Being seen with him was like being dunked in a pool of embarrassment . No matter how I tried not to, I always got soaked. For his part, Aitatxi never asked me to slow down. He just went about his shopping, paid, and then met me back at the truck for the drive home. The night before he died, Aitatxi embarrassed me one last time. A storm had exploded and scattered the sheep. Rain fell in sheets of white. Aitatxi leaned on me for support. We were lost. And then I found the cave, and thought we had just gotten lucky. That is, until I saw the drawings on the walls. Drawings of Oxea and Aitatxi and a young version of Dad. I made a fire, and Aitatxi told me how my father had used charcoal to scratch the drawings onto the stone. “What are we going to do once we get to the etxola?” I asked Aitatxi, because he was shivering and kept mistaking me for my father and calling me “Ferdinand.” I wanted him to talk about the future, like it was a promise that once said had to be kept. “Go home,” Aitatxi said. “That’s it? We’ve done all this just to go home?” “Home place always going.” “Home’s boring.” “Then maybe you make no boring—make new.” “And how do I do that?” “You are exteberri,” Aitatxi said. 31 h o g e i ta h a m a i k a | 185« » It wasn’t until years later that I realized that was exactly why Aitatxi had taken me on the sheep drive—so I could go home. To an old house and find a way to make it new. That night in the light of the campfire with the rain falling over the mouth of the cave, sealing us off from the rest of the world, Aitatxi told me about how when Dad was ten he broke his arm jumping out of the hayloft, and how Mom only rode horses bareback, and how he had to teach Oxea how to say “I do” in English on his wedding day. The last thing Aitatxi said was, “I no forget your birthday, Gaixua. I know just what I going a give you.” And I was embarrassed and told Aitatxi I didn’t want anything. But I had. I wanted the chance to walk beside and not in front of him. To make right the past. It was a chance I never got. Now I had another chance to make right the past. And I was determined not to waste it. I didn’t knock when I reached Marcelino’s house. I just pushed open the door. The room was dark. All the windows closed. Light spilled in around me and onto the fireplace. There, Marcelino kicked a smoldering log. Flames leaped up. Smoke curled to the ceiling and gathered in a dark cloud over the only other person in the room—Isabelle. She stood opposite Marcelino at the hearth, their eyes locked on each other, fire burning between them. “Etxea enea da eta nahi dut,” Marcelino said to Isabelle. The house is mine and I want it. “Zertako egin duzu?” Isabelle said to Marcelino. Why you do this? “He speaks English,” I said. And only then did the two of them glance in my direction. “Writes it too. He’s been sending letters in your name to Mr. Steele back in the United States.” Isabelle stepped in front of the fire so that flames danced around her. “What kind of man you?” “I you husband,” Marcelino said as he spit into the fire. “You take what mine,” Isabelle said. “What you have mine.” “Ez,” Isabelle said—no—and she pulled her wedding ring from her finger , and threw it into the fire. Marcelino moved as if to retrieve the ring from the flames, but Isabelle stopped him by pressing her hand flat against his chest. | 186« » “For now until always, what I have mine,” Isabelle said. “You give back everything you take.” “I never do that thing.” “Then when you die,” Isabelle said, “it not be well.” Marcelino took a...