The Good Oak

Twenty-Two: Hogeibi

twenty-two I hOleibi School ended and summer began while I was in the hospital . Ms. Helm's class and the whole seventh grade sent me a get well card. Rich wrote, "Esawn owncha. Buddy" at the bottom. The day I got out of the hospital, Dad and I drove to the farm to check on the sheep. Dad bought the sheep back from the Outwest Dude Ranch, paying for all the original thirty-two, in order to avoid any legal problems. "This came for you," Dad said as housing developments dissolved into fIelds of cotton. He handed me an envelope with long, loopy writing. The postmark said Ohio. Inside, I found a note from Connie: "Thought you might like a memory from your outlaw days," along with a picture of me and Aitatxi. It was the one she took of us on the golf course. We are both wearing berets. I look young, like a little kid, and Aitatxi, well, he looks like Aitatxi. He is grinning, and I remembered how he pulled me to his side and said, "Zuretako hauda-this is for you." I also remembered how I pulled '5' away from him. But the picture doesn't show that. It was taken before then, while I'm still leaning into Aitatxi, with my hand on his coat, holding on to him. I put the picture back in the envelope and tucked it into my shirt pocket. Then, even though my jaw ached from the hairline fracture 1 had, I said, "When we get to the farm, can you show me how to playpelote?" "Pelote? Now, then, what made you think ofthat?" "The first time Aitatxi spoke to Amatxi was at a pelote match." "I didn't know that," Dad said. "But we don't have a ball." "I bet Aitatxi has one of your old balls at the farm. " "You're probably right," Dad said. "Okay, just as long as you don't overdo it, Matt." "Matt?" I said. 'Tm no bat. My name is Mathieu." Dad chuckled. "Mathieu it is." When we reached the farm, I found a ball in the hall closet under a stack ofzakuas and a jai alai basket. I gave the ball to Dad, who bounced it twice on the wooden floor, squeezed it tight in his right hand, and said, "Guazen, Mathieu." I followed him out to the barn. "Now, then." Dad stood in the dirt facing the side of the barn. "You don't have to see the ball as much as feel where it's going." The sheep watched us from their pen as Dad showed me how to use my hand to bang the ball against the barn wall. My jaw throbbed with pain every time I hit the ball with my open hand, but I kept playing. When I missed a shot, Atarrabi and Mikelats ran and got the ball, and we started again. While we played, I asked Dad to tell me about how he met my mother. And even though the words my father used 152 were different from Aitatxi's, the story was the same and ended with me. My father and I played pelote until it grew dark, and still we played. The bang of the ball against the wood fell into rhythm with the beating of my bihotza. I played with sweat in my eyes and the sound of my father's hard breathing in my ears. And when we were done, Dad and I took off our shirts and sat with our bare backs against the barn. The warm summer air was coolon our wet skin, and even though it hurt my jaw I told Dad all the things me and Aitatxi did-about stealing the sheep and the rain and the coyotes and how the Mamu saved me. When I was through with my story, Dad smiled and told me that the Mamu was make-believe. That I was the one who penned up the sheep and made the nre that kept the coyotes away until morning when Dad remembered about the other etxola and arrived with the police to nnd me asleep with the dogs curled up on either side of me. "There was no Mamu, Mathieu," Dad said. "Only you." But I know better. "Now, then, I've been thinking," Dad said. "What would you say to us moving back out to the farm?" I...