Sleepwalk by John Saul Page B

“How come people can’t just look like themselves?”
    Brown Eagle’s brows rose slightly. “What’s wrong with looking like your mother?” he asked mildly. “She was a beautiful woman, my little girl.” Then a flicker in Jed’s eyes made the Indian frown. “Is that why you came up here? To ask me about your mother?”
    Jed felt nonplussed, as if his grandfather had looked right inside him. “I—I don’t know, really You remember Judy Sheffield?” Brown Eagle nodded. “I rode up with her this morning. We got to talking about the pueblo, and the tribe, and …” His voice trailed off as he began to flounder over his own words.
    Brown Eagle ignored Jed’s discomfort. “I remember her I remember the first day she came up here. She started playing with some of the kids, and before you knew it, she was acting as if she’d been born here. She’s the kind who will always fit herself in anywhere shehappens to be.” His voice changed slightly, taking on a wistful tone. “There’s other kinds of people too,” he said. “Just the opposite of Judy Sheffield.”
    “She likes to be called Judith now,” Jed broke in.
    Brown Eagle’s head tipped slightly in acknowledgment of the boy’s words, but his penetrating eyes fixed on Jed’s own. “It’s your mother you want to talk about, isn’t it? Not Judith Sheffield.”
    Jed’s breath caught—how had his grandfather known what was on his mind? But then his grandfather had always seemed to know things without being told. He nodded.
    “Your mother was one of those other people—people who can never be happy,” Brown Eagle said. “No matter where they go, or who they’re with. She always had the feeling that everyone else was part of something, but that she was an outsider.” He stopped, placing a hand on Jed’s shoulder. “I think that’s why she did what she did, Jed. I think she finally figured out she wasn’t ever going to be happy—whatever that means—and just gave up.”
    Jed glared angrily at the old man, shaking off his gnarled hand. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “It was a lot more than that. It was because of Dad, and everyone else down there.”
    Brown Eagle shook his head, but refused to respond to Jed’s anger. “I’m not saying it was her fault. It was just the way things were. She was never happy here, and she was never happy in Borrego. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. Not me, and not your father. It was her nature. She wasn’t of the world, so she left it.”
    Jed kicked at the dust beneath his feet, suddenly feeling frightened. His thoughts tumbled over one another as he recognized himself in his grandfather’swords about his mother. Was the same thing going to happen to him too? Was he going to wake up some morning and just decide, to hell with it?
    And then the specter of Heather Fredericks rose up in his mind once more, and with it a thought—one he voiced without even meaning to. “Maybe that’s what happened to Heather too.”
    Brown Eagle’s eyes narrowed. “The girl who died in the canyon a few days ago?”
    Jed nodded. “She killed herself.”
    “Is that what they’re saying down in Borrego?” Brown Eagle asked. He shook his head. “It isn’t true. She didn’t jump because she wanted to.”
    Jed eyed his grandfather suspiciously.
    “No,” Brown Eagle went on, speaking almost to himself now. “She didn’t want to jump at all Someone made her do it.”
    Jed’s brows drew together angrily. “That’s not what the cops said,” he challenged.
    Brown Eagle shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what they said I was in the kiva when it happened. I saw it.”
    Now Jed stared at his grandfather with open incredulity. “Come on,” he said. “If you were in the kiva, you couldn’t have seen it.”
    Brown Eagle gazed at his grandson impassively. “Is that what you think?” he asked. “Well, perhaps if you came up here more often, and found out just who you are, you might think