Living the Dream by Annie Dalton Page B

talisman round their necks. The women wore traditional bunchy skirts and blouses with velvet ribbons stitched to the seams. Over the blouses they wore elaborate necklaces of silver and turquoise. (Later I saw the same women in the local supermarket wearing trackie bottoms and realised they’d put on their traditional finery in Cody’s honour.)
    When the assembled guests saw Cody, I heard soft exclamations. Some of the women’s eyes went shiny with tears.
    “OK, you’ve seen her, now let’s eat,” joked an old man whose faded T-shirt advertised an old rodeo in Santa Fe. “You all brought enough food to feed a starving nation!”
    Women quickly stripped clingfilm from pies, puddings, breads and whatever else people had brought to celebrate Cody’s arrival. The aunts wove in and out of the guests, introducing their niece to people with average American-type surnames like Johnson and others with obviously Indian names like Manybeads and Bitterwater.
    The sweet old man who had taken the heat off Cody turned out to be Jim Yellowbird, who ran Ghost Canyon’s only garage. Like the other older men he wore his long grey hair in a ponytail under his broad-brimmed hat. He listened patiently as Cody’s aunt listed her recent problems with the truck. “I’ll get her up on the ramp as soon as I can,” he promised.
    He turned to Cody who was still looking like she wished the ground would open up and swallow her. “Ghost Canyon is kinda quiet,” he explained, smiling. “You’re the closest thing we got to a celebrity. In a week or two everything will just simmer down and folks will simply accept you.”
    He was just trying to put Cody at ease, but I wasn’t sure what he said was true. I’d heard some guests making malicious comments.
    “What happened to her hair ? Is that some white fashion?”
    “Did you see how she looked Jim Yellowbird right in the face? No Navajo child would be that rude!”
    “She can’t even speak our language!”
    “I wouldn’t allow those boots in my house!”
    “You know her mother’s sick in the head?”
    “Why are they so sure it’s this child?”
    The aunts gave no sign of hearing these spiteful muttering at first. They probably didn’t want to spoil Cody’s welcome by causing a scene. Then suddenly Aunt Bonita had had enough. Marching over to the rumour-mongers she let loose a ferocious stream of Navajo. The only sentence I understood was, “Dolores Bitterwater-you should be ashamed!” The rest of her speech was too fast and furious to follow.
    Four people, including Dolores Bitterwater, left immediately, shooting dark looks at Cody. Cody couldn’t understand what they said, but she caught the vibe and flushed up to her ears.
    Once Cody’s ill-wishers had gone, the party settled down into a normal Navajo gathering: plates of food being passed around, little kids dashing round sneaking cakes when no one was looking, women chatting about WeightWatchers, men discussing the prospects of the Arizona Cardinals, the local football team.
    One obviously pregnant teenage girl was bottle-feeding a toddler as she discussed names with her friend. “I want to call her Tara. It goes really well with Tazbah.” She patted her daughter’s chubby knee. “I found it on a website. It means ‘star’.”
    I heard Aunt Evalina give a weary sigh. “If Roxie put as much effort into choosing her babies’ fathers as she does picking out their names,” she muttered to Aunt Jeannie.
    Roxie and the other girls slid narrow-eyed looks at Cody. The boys looked at her too, but in a different way.
    To Cody’s obvious relief Aunt Bonita called her over. “Come and meet Earl. He says he knows where he can find you a pony.” I was startled to see that Earl wore a gun holster strapped to his waist, then realised his brown short-sleeved shirt was part of his uniform. Earl was a cop with the Navajo tribal police.
    “Hi, you must be the famous Cody Fortuna,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Earl