Character Descriptions for Antelope Canyon
Toby Hunter: Lonely. Searching for the something missing in his life. Well-respected by all but himself. Carries guilt about not being around to save his parents when they were killed when he was 16. Now, 25, his right hand trembles uncontrollably at times. Unaware of his own anger that seethes just under the surface. Born in Hannibal, Missouri, but raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico since the age of two. Very light sleeper. Sheriff of Santa Fe. Very active and a practical joker with his friends. Having an affair with the wife of the mayor of Santa Fe. Thin, wiry and muscular with very curly dark brown hair. Outwardly confident and charming.
Logan White: Insecure. Superstitious about being born on All Hallow’s Eve as he believes it caused him to be born two months premature. He looks 20, although he is 31. He was the deputy under the current mayor, with no ambition to become sheriff, so he is still deputy, under Toby Hunter. While Toby exudes masculinity, there is a softer quality to Logan. Falls in love with an African-American woman. Toby’s best friend for about the last 8 years.
Rabbit Ears: A Navajo two-spirit, meaning he is spiritually respected as someone who is both male and female. 18 years old now, at 10 years old he was forced into a Christian missionary school, where he lived in a dank, windowless basement with his fellow students. His father rescued him from the school only to cast him out of the family a couple of years later for sexual indiscretions with a Navajo warrior. At 16, his father nagged him about wearing too few clothes around the home, his father feeling that a young man should dress and act like a warrior, not like a naked child. His father never believed the shaman’s notion that Rabbit Ears was sacred because he was a two-spirit. Rabbit Ears’ mother died a couple years after he was born.
Lance: Painfully shy 16 year old Anglo boy. His father is the only Baptist minister in predominantly Catholic Santa Fe. His father is ostracized from the city after an affair with an underage girl. Deeply conflicted about his religion and his budding homosexual desires. In school, he gained the nickname “Head in the Clouds” because of his height, about 6 feet 3 inches. Closer to his mother than his father. Shaved blond hair when the story begins, as his mother had to cut off all his hair due to lice.
Sample scene. POV character: Lance.
Lance watched his mother through the back of the tent: her attention was not upon Lance’s father but upon the almost naked man that he and the Navajo boy had found. The sight unnerved him yet he did not turn away. He felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned around, surprised to see the Navajo boy behind him. The boy motioned for Lance to follow.
“Where are you going?” Lance asked, following close behind.
“On the path.”
“Back home?”
“No, I cannot go back home.” Lance felt a similar conflict within himself due to his father being shut out of the church. He had overheard his mother threatening to leave.
“Why not?”
“I am forbidden.”
“Why?”
“I fell in love with a married warrior,” Rabbit Ears said, walking on, his long hair flowing behind his back, his slender body silhouetted against the soft pink glow of twilight. Lance continued to follow him, not really sure if was leaving his parents or not.
Lakai, the bear cub, chased a large bumble, trying to catch it in his mouth. The two boys laughed aloud simultaneously: the bee teased the bear cub, buzzing around his nose and flying off to safety at the last moment. Lakai jumped frantically, snapping at the air with his teeth. The bear cub ran a few paces to keep up with the bee in the air before jumping around, snapping his jaws, and pawing at the air. When the bear finally tripped into a mud puddle, the boys fell onto the ground themselves, laughing heartily.
“My belly is hurting,” Lance said. Rabbi Ears had tears running down his face from laughing so hard. For a moment, they sat on the ground, quietly trying to catch their breath.
“My own brother said I was no longer his brother. He was the one who taught me how to use the bow…how could I not be his brother? I am not allowed to return home.” Rabbit Ears stared at his feet as he spoke.
Lance did not know what to say. Because of his father’s mistakes, his friends had stopped talking to him; he was no longer the teacher’s favorite. He had no one to talk to but his mother and father. Lance felt Rabbit Ears lucky just to have a brother. He had no one.
“We can be brothers,” Lance said but immediately felt foolish for saying it aloud. Rabbit Ears smiled, reached over and rubbed his shorn head.
“Yes,” Rabbit Ears said and before Lance could react, Rabbit Ears unsheathed his knife and drew it across the inside of Lance’s forearm.
“Aihhhh! Why did you go and do that?!” Lance watched as Rabbit Ears performed a similar cut on his own arm. Rabbit Ears let the blood flow freely while Lance clutched the wound to cinch the bleeding. Rabbit Ears closed his eyes and began to sing in Navajo. The song grew to a howl when Rabbit Ears grabbed Lance’s arm, rubbed it hard against his own, mixing the blood together. Lance howled along with the Navajo boy, as a sharp pain sped from his forearm all through his body. His toes curled in pain; he gritted his teeth. Rabbit Ears still pressed their arms together, the blood smearing across their forearms like paint, the singing pounding in Lance’s ears. But then, the native melodies drifted away like smoke and white spots appeared before his eyes. Lance fell over, unconscious.
When he awoke, Rabbit Ears sat beside him, staring intently at him, as if he had been waiting patiently. Behind them, Lakai rolled around in a fresh pile of bison dung. Despite the still throbbing pain with the cut exposed to the open air, Lance smiled looking down at the fresh wound on his arm: he imagined he could feel Rabbit Ears’ blood pulsing through his own veins. It was a strange yet wonderful feeling.
“You are my brother now,” Rabbit Ears said, “my brother of blood.”
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