The Weaver

The Weaver

Trying to quiet the voices in her head, she walks around her home rearranging the little knick knacks on tables, replacing books onto shelves, doing the dishes from that night’s dinner, even taking a shot of whiskey to beckon sleep.
She stands over her loom running her finger tips along its sides. Many cones of yarn line her studio walls: indigo blues, chestnut reds, earth tone browns, lavender and seaweed green. But she has no desire to work, to create something out of nothing; her heart has grown cold. Her little scruffy dog licks at her hand. Bending down she picks him up and carries him to the chair near the window. The moon shines on them as she cradles the dog in her arms, closing her eyes, drawing sleep from the warmth of his body, comforting her from the tormented howls of the coyotes that roam the hills at night.
The dog had come to her years before. Underfed, and from the looks of his battered coat which was infested by a colony of ticks, abandoned to the hills. She took him in to her one room adobe studio that sat on the steppes of the Sandia Mountains, where she worked alone, away from the crowds of the city.
She named the dog Daniel, after a long lost love that was killed on the same hill where the dog was found. She washed and scrubbed the dog’s emaciated body, picking out the ticks from his ears and around his eyes, and along his tail that wagged every time she pulled one of the gluttonous creatures from it, squishing it between her forefinger and thumb as she moved onto the next victim.
The little dog looked up at her with his woeful brown eyes, thanking her by a lick of her hand. How long had he lived off the land eating dead jack rabbits that had been hit by passing cars? How long had he slept alone under a juniper tree, listening to the mournful howls of the coyotes? From evidence on his tattered body it appeared to be a long time. His coat was patchy in places and his paws were bloody.
He immediately made himself comfortable at the foot of her bed as she sat at her loom weaving; becoming her protector which howled back at the coyotes that made their home on the hills beside her house. It was never questioned that his place would always be at the foot of her bed.
The dog in many ways reminded her of her dead lover. She never voiced these thoughts out loud, but something about his presence, his energy which had gotten her to detach herself from her work, to let go of the invisible umbilical cord that kept her only at the foot of her door after the first Daniel’s death. She was afraid to venture too far from her loom, afraid of leaving the security of her one room studio with its white washed walls and Saltillo tiled floor; afraid of walking down that road which had taken someone she had loved so suddenly, as he walked the dark mountain road to his home that sat between the two hills which faced down on her.
After his death she only left her studio out of desperation, only to stock up on food and to buy her needed yarn. She walked to the foot of her hill looking up at the two hills that faced down at her, knowing that Daniel’s adobe stood empty. She’d cry out to it, hoping, pleading that she would see his image. She wished for a sign that his spirit was all right. And then, as if Daniel had heard her calls, the dog came to her, emerging from the juniper trees.
Regardless of how safe the dog felt at the foot of her bed, he clawed at the front door whining to be let out. Worried that he would not come back, she tagged along with him, taking long walks up and down the hills behind her adobe, hushing her anxiety by watching her dog scurry under broken tree limbs, having caught the scent of a jack rabbit. Laughing, she looked toward Daniel’s house, feeling as if he was watching, hoping he was, hoping to see him appear through the Juniper trees.
She sought refuge among the trees and the sage brushes that delicately dusted the ground around them. No two Juniper trees were the same in color; some were a darker shade of green, some lighter in tones. Why had she never recognized the subtleties of these colors before? The ground that once appeared burnt and dry now sparkled with bits of lavender from the wild flowers that grew between the rocks. Rushing home, she couldn’t wait to get to her loom and try to transform her work to what she saw outside. The ghost of his voice haunted her as she threaded her loom—“still in love with what you do”. Smiling to herself as she threaded and pulled at her loom, again she heard his voice in her head, “making pretty things for others to admire on their white-washed walls,” he would say as he stood behind her, watching her fingers play and stroke at the yarn into something that had once been nothing.
But it was in her blood, it was a family tradition to weave patterns out of yarn for blankets and shawls. Her parents had made it their life, owning sheep, shearing and tending to them to make their own yarn. They hand died it themselves out of the vegetation that grew around them. They were hand-spinners who worked the scorched earth, making it their own. She was reared on the stories that her ancestors told about the spider lady, who had taught them to weave from sheep that grew long, silky fur that produced a wool so fine that it was thought to have been stolen from a spider.
She knew from a young age that it was something she must do, to weave her creations. It was the heart of her very being.
When the dog fight occurred, she had ventured up the hill to Daniel’s house, something she never did when he was alive. But she felt the forbidden pull to his place. Her legs were not her own as she climbed up the steep narrow path to the hill that looked down on her. He always had come to her. He told her once that he did not want her at his place, his place was his own, and he needed it to stay that way. She was often hurt by his unwillingness to share his work with her, to want to work along side her. Yet she accepted his request and stayed on her hill, never venturing past the dried up creek bed that separated their two hills from each other. Even after his death, knowing his home was vacant, she honored his request and never crossed the creek that separated their two hills from each other.
But on that day, as she walked her dog along the dried creek bed, kicking at rocks, she was drawn to his hill which was littered with juniper trees that grew along the side of it. The pull grew stronger with each step she took, as she and her dog made their way through the evergreen path.
Nobody knew what to do with his house after his death. He had no relatives, no children to leave it to, so it was left to weather time on the hillside. She did not enter his house but instead walked around it, peering inside the unwashed windows, seeing his kitchen table and the many works that she had given him, over the years hanging on his white-washed walls.
Walking around his adobe her eye caught the glimpse of a wooden figure hidden behind a tree—“Daniel,” she called, her heart leaping to her throat, only to see as she moved closer to the figure that it was a wooden statue of a woman. She gazed up at it. It was indeed an image of her, holding a basket of yarn, her long slender fingers cradling the basket as if it was a new-born baby.
The dog barked startling the weaver. He wanted to be let into the house, but she yelled for him to come. They would not venture into the house of the dead, no matter how much she wanted to touch the belongings which he had once touched, no matter how she wanted to walk his steps to his front door, and knock at his door, hoping that he would greet her with his half smile which he reserved only for her. She ran down the hill knowing now why he held her hands so closely, examining them and often sketching them. He’d smile up at her as he caressed her hands, gently whispering she was his spider woman.
She had seen the lone Golden Retriever several times. She knew he belonged to, the old English lady three hills down from her and as he came bouncing up to them she did not fear an attack. But it happened so suddenly she instinctively grabbed for Daniel’s collar just as the retriever was going for his throat. Her hands were her livelihood, but at that second in time she did not think of the repercussions; she only thought of Daniel.
There was no pain at first. She thought the blood dripping down her arm was coming from Daniel, only to realize it was her blood he was licking off her hand, revealing the stub that was once her index finger. She lay there searching frantically around trying to see if she could find her severed finger. She clawed at the ground, clutching her injured hand in the bottom of her shirt which was now soaked in her blood. She called for Daniel to come to her. As if he too knew, he started to sniff the ground as well. But intuitively she knew that the other dog had swallowed her finger, and before she passed out from the pain she felt the pull again. She felt the energy only her Daniel could give. Her last image before passing out was that of a golden flash bouncing across the burnt green hills, and she thought she saw a shadow of a man walking in the distance. Her dog Daniel began to lick at her face, nudging her to wake up, whining for her to get up. And when she opened her eyes the dog barked, beckoning her to walk.
Only she understood why she had grabbed for Daniel, no one else could understand why she had risked being injured to save her dog’s life. How stupid her friends had said. But, she could not let Daniel be killed! No, she would have gladly lost only a finger to save the first Daniel. She would have sacrificed her whole hand if it would have saved him.
That Daniel she also had rescued, but he had not repaid her with the intense loyalty that the dog Daniel had for the last ten years. No, the first Daniel came and went like a stray tom-cat. Days, sometimes weeks, would go by before he showed up at the foot of her stairs smiling, asking how her work was going, always wanting to warm his body against hers.
Now as she works, fumbling with her sticks as she tries to situate them between her middle and third fingers, no longer able to pitch her yarn in place for her right index finger is only a stub. She allows traces of her blood to mingle with her work as the golden thread passes along her stub, a constant reminder of how quickly things can be lost, how in an instant everything you love can be gone forever, only leaving a lingering emptiness. She knows no real comfort, only the longing to be given one more day to make things right.
She knew very little of his past, let alone what he did with his days when he was not with her. When questioned, he tersely responded that he made things out of wood. She never asked to see anything he made; his reserve was ingrained—hardened over the years like the land they both called home, unyielding and habitual. But still he took her works as gifts. She knew he hung them upon his walls. She knew that he loved her but could not give over to her completely. It did not matter because when he embraced her, his embrace quelled the voices in her head. And now, after all these years of being left behind, she wraps her arms around her aging dog. His warmth reminds her of that feeling when breathing in the scent of his coat, of the world around her, of musty juniper trees and dust.
After all these years she still feels lost among the hills. She knows she needs to move on and begin again. But she is still haunted by the image of Daniel’s body alone among the weeds along the mountain road. The pain grabs at her heart awaking her at night. She cries out in her sleep, gasping for air, choking on her own tears. And when she walks around her house like a ghost, lost between two worlds, peering out her bedroom window to the hill that looks down at hers, she cries out to it only to have the sound of her own voice flung back at her. How long had his body been there? Had the coyotes and crows eaten at him? Why must she still be haunted by the image of his dead forgotten body?
The last visit had been a quiet one. He came for dinner, remarking on her new piece of work, about how it had a regal air to it and how it was meant to hang in a museum. He stayed the night but before she awoke he was already gone, leaving only traces of himself through the lingering odor of cigarette smoke. She dumped the remains of the astray in the garbage and resumed her work at her loom wondering what it would be like to see him everyday, to touch and feel him everyday.
They never did find the car that struck him from behind. Some speculate it was an angry ex-lover who knew his habits of walking that road alone at night after coming from the only tavern in the village. Some say it was a tourist who did not know the curves of the mountainous road. And others say it was an act of God.
Nothing made sense in the days after learning of his death. She walked those hills, walked them until the wind chapped her lips and made her eyes water. And when the lady with the shockingly bleached hair at the post-office had said to her that he would be gone for long periods of time to the city, she could only stare at her. And when a friend of Daniel’s had stopped her as she walked up her road, informing her that Daniel had often spoken of his weaver on the hill who made such intricate patterns from what she saw outside her window, again she could only stare back at this aging man. He too stared past her when he spoke, as if he knew something but was not quite sure how to say it. His worn-out skin resembled that of a hard black walnut and she felt sorry for him as she watched his hunched back scuffle up to his own hill, muttering to his feet as if they knew the answer, as if the dust on the ground could tell Daniel’s story.
**
Some years after the dog fight when she had learned to weave without her index finger, she went back up to Daniel’s adobe. Cured by time stood the statue of herself that he had made out of the surrounding trees which decorated his hill; so delicate, so eerie to see ones face chiseled out of wood, smoothed over by the caresses of the wind.
Looking at the wooden fingers and then to her own right hand with the missing index finger, she went to his shed and found a hammer: “to make things right,” she thought as she gently knocked off the index finger on the now aged statue. Tucking it in her pocket, she walked down the hill. Her dog followed, running between the juniper trees trying to catch the scent of a jack rabbit as his old worn legs scurried among the fallen limbs, only to be out -smarted once again.
**