Driving distracted her, pushing away the last few hours. Far to the east she spotted some dark clouds but they appeared distant and she couldn’t be sure where they were heading. The rental car was a black Toyota Camry; it still smelled new and there were only 550 miles on the odometer. Shiprock, the town, loomed up quickly; had she been driving a little too fast? Camilla bought gas at a Shell station and then reluctantly pulled into a McDonald’s. Most of the stores she’d encounter before reaching her destination would be convenience markets, selling an even worse variety of the junk food she was going to consume.
The burger tasted like ashes and the coffee was flat. Her mind returned to the excitement of the last few weeks. She’d lost contact with Dan for two or three months while she finished her studies in Toronto and took her qualifying exams. When Wendy had sent her word of the high school reunion, she’d sensed an opportunity. Camilla had texted Dan two times before he sent back word that he’d be attending. “Can’t wait, honey” he’d keyed to her. They’d both been too busy, but she’d never doubted his steadfast caring over the last year or so. Hadn’t he sent her that expensive perfume she’d craved that a Denver store carried? There’d been the Christmas check with his strict instructions to spend it on the laptop she needed.
The black clouds looked like they had strayed further west, nearing the broad summit of the Hogback when she got back on 491 heading south. They seemed faster moving than expected. Camilla thought herself an expert on Four Corners weather, but then the weather around the country had been screwy these last few years. And hadn’t everything she expected turned out so much different from what she planned on? The last few weeks she existed in a haze of excited expectation. She was going home, getting a decent job on the reservation. Classmates had been incredulous that she was rushing to take a job offering much less money than she could get off reservation, but then they didn’t understand the tug and pull of her homeland. Besides, any excitement she’d miss would be compensated by her visits from Dan. He had a solid plan to spend a certain amount of time in major league sports, and then retire with savings to coach kids at an area school. If he picked Albuquerque, well that was worth relocating. And not so far from home.
Camilla was grateful when she put on the turn signal to exit the highway. Those clouds seemed to be positively racing now. A funnel of dark rain drenched the Waterflow area. Could she make it over the pass before they arrived? Belatedly she remembered it was monsoon season. Storms from the Pacific Gulf looped up through the region and circled clockwise down through the Colorado Plateau. Except, come to think of it, this road was much smaller than the highway. She wondered if she might get stuck behind another car or a slow moving truck.
The sunshine held as she passed the Red Rock Trading Post and looped south of Red Valley on County Road 13. All the traffic seemed to be coming the other direction passing her as she accelerated slightly, looking for the break in the dense wall of mountains that towered over her. They cast a shade of their own even as she caught a glimpse of the rain funnel heading toward the Chuskas. Somehow the threatening rain seemed grimly appropriate after today’s events.
Camilla had felt almost giddy this morning leaving her parents’ home in Aneth. She’d flown in to Albuquerque the day before and driven the rental car straight to their house. Her father had butchered a sheep; a dozen or more relatives drifted in and out, eating, chatting, and teasing her about her new college degrees. She’d taken pains to dress well, choosing a navy sheath dress and matching pumps with kitten heels. She wanted Dan’s first look at her to be a good one. She’d brushed off her Aunt Glory’s comment, when she had reported she was meeting him at the reunion. Now it came back to her in all its flat caution. “Are you sure things are the same with you and that Ute of yours?” Although Navajos and Utes lived side by side in this portion of the Four Corners, an instinctive wariness filtered through their daily interactions.
She’d arrived at the reunion reception around 11 a.m. Wendy and several friends greeted her ecstatically. Some couples were dancing already, others clustered near the door to greet new arrivals. Camilla would have liked to stand near the door, but she didn’t want to look too anxious. The turnout was good, with nearly two hundred students in her graduating class of 2010, there appeared to be at least one hundred with others arriving regularly. Food lined the tables placed against one wall, but she found she was too nervous to eat. Her first moment with Dan would take place very publicly. When a particularly loud buzz sounded near the entrance to the hall, she gazed over and saw Dan’s head. At 6 foot, three inches, he towered over many of his classmates.
The rain hit just as she found the road split, with the right hand turnoff aimed at a cleft in the mountain wall. This was the Lukachukai Pass, still marked as Route 13. Camilla flicked on the Camry’s bright beams when all went dark around her. The car downshifted as the road ahead began to climb. The resultant hum raced as fast as her heart, she fancied, bent over the wheel peering ahead.
(continued next week…)
Dear Readers: It’s time to return to serial stories. I have some new ones that should take us up to the coming New Year. Some of the locations featured were visited in August.
Camilla walked out into the late afternoon sun and shadows, her head down. She scanned the crowded parking lot for her rental car. The casino was busy as usual, but this cluster of cars was for the event she’d just left. By rights, she should still be in there, laughing and dancing and singing along to Coldplay. Her happiness should have been fierce and satisfied.
The Cortez High School Class of 2010 was having its 5-year reunion. The organizing committee had hired a rental hall at the Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc. If she lifted her head, Camilla could see the huge outline of Sleeping Ute Mountain, the guardian of her youth. Now, she thought, brushing an incipient tear away, it was no wonder that the Utes and Navajos used to be enemies. Utes made poor allies, indeed, as her grandparents used to say.
Or maybe it was all her fault for imagining life as she wanted it. She’d worked hard these last five years, traveling east to the prestigious college that had given her a scholarship. She’d won acceptance and friendships there despite being one of only three students who were Native American. Her courses were tough, she’d worked hard, and there’d been little money to come home for visits.
But Dan had insisted she do this, that she had a responsibility to her family and herself. Parting from him after high school graduation had been hard. He also had schooling ahead and an athletic scholarship to UC at Boulder. They e-mailed and texted frequently over the first three years. Then Dan Ochee got his big break — linebacker for the Denver Broncos. They’d celebrated when he flew to Boston and enjoyed a long weekend in the city. But getting together had been tougher after that; it was hard for Dan to get away. They had one reunion, again in Boston, in 2014 and then their communication had lessened as he pursued his career and she had taken the one-year fellowship for clinical certification in Toronto.
When Wendy Callee, her old friend from Aneth, had contacted her about the reunion, Camilla became excited. She had an interview at Diné College for the next day; the teaching job would bring her back to her homeland, as any good Navajo would want. Back within the protective arms of the four sacred peaks. But, most of all, she’d gotten a hasty text message from Dan that he’d be attending the reunion. She hadn’t seen him in almost a year. There’d been one opportunity when it looked like he could come to Toronto but something else had intervened.
Camilla had loved Toronto for its urban flair and the friends she’d made during her program. She felt this year had made her grow up. She styled her hair differently, wore makeup and clothes that were flattering, and thought she’d gained a veneer of sophistication that suited her. Dan could only be pleased.
She pulled out of the parking lot and consulted the e-mail directions she’d received. In the distance Shiprock was a tiny plume, but the road aimed for this landmark like a trusty arrow. Staring at the map, Camilla realized that she’d be traveling through the Chuska mountains on a small pass; she’d never taken this road before. As a kid, her family hadn’t moved around the reservation much. Both of her parents had been born locally. She’d gone as far west as Bluff and usually east to Cortez, Farmington, and occasionally all the way to Albuquerque, before boarding a plane and moving temporarily to the East Coast.
(continued next week…)
Kevin remembered the mingled frustration and excitement of steering his old Schwinn bicycle over ruts and gritty gravel. He was sure he’d never make it, but there’d been something in the way that Vernon spoke that made him push and pedal with commendable force. Luckily, the man was negotiating the torturous track with care and not speed. He flew over a grassy hump and landed at the side of the Mercedes, making sure not to collide with the passenger side door.
The car had just reached the end of the dirt track and was ready to turn onto the main road. North, thunderclouds were building over the Hopi mesas, an always promising sign. The white lady rolled down her window to look at him. Kevin dug into the pocket of jeans and pulled out the earring, waving it at her. “You forgot this, ma’am!”
Her delight was manifest. Kevin found himself tortured now with a series of questions: what was his name, how old was he, did he play sports, was he looking forward to the holidays?
He answered as best he could, got his hair rumpled, and then the window went up, the lady blew him a kiss, and the Mercedes turned right, going south to the interstate.
Kevin would recall this event in December, when Vernon got him a new six-gear racing bicycle from Flagstaff; his stepfather said the money had come from Mr. and Mrs. Reese who lived in Chicago and bought Vernon’s work. Mrs. Reece had been so pleased to get her earring back that she wanted Kevin to have a holiday treat.
A white Chevrolet with California license plates pulled into the lot next to him, disgorging two tanned, raucously laughing couples. Their radio blared at top volume, before being cut off by one of the men. Kevin watched them saunter into the store, their arrival silencing the elderly Navajo men on the bench quite effectively. This intrusion from the outside world brought Kevin back to the present. Shash curled himself into a tighter ball on the passenger seat and gave a contented whuff.
He tore the envelope open and pulled out a neatly typed letter with several photocopied sheets attached. Placing the letter on the steering wheel, Kevin scanned it quickly, then returned to the beginning, reading and rereading. His shock was so acute, he was barely aware of noisy tourists returning to the car, and when it roared off in a plume of privileged gear shifts and exhaust. The elders started up an animated spate of remarks directed at this departure.
Kevin only came to when Shirl emerged from the building, stopping on the stoop to stretch her back. Spotting Kevin still in his pickup, she crunched over the gravel to his vehicle.
“Hey, what’s up? I thought you’d be long gone by now,” she teased.
Kevin lifted the letter off the steering wheel with one hand and gestured to it with his other. “Take a look at this, will you? You don’t think it’s a hoax?”
Ever curious, she grabbed the letter up and pored over it, one lip dropping down as she read. Slowly, her face changed and she shrieked, “Omygad! You should be dancing! This has to be from one of Vern’s collectors!”
Kevin shook his head as if in a dream. “We didn’t publicize his passing. Just a note in the Gallup Independent.”
“Honey, that doesn’t matter. Vernon was a big name in his field, so word gets around. You know you had people passing through here all the time on their way to see him. Why, some of them were Middle Eastern and Japanese!”
Kevin took the letter from her grasp and looked down at it. He knew he had to get home and tell his mother. The lawyer who wrote the letter informed him that the last will and testament of Mrs. Carine Reese, of Chicago and Estes Park, had included a bequest to Kevin Oliver Nakai of Nakai Ranch, Holbrook, Navajo County, Arizona in loving memory of his stepfather. This bequest had been processed within a week of Mrs. Reece’s death last month. No details were given as to the manner of her passing, but the lawyer said she acted with sound mind and the approval of her executors.
And the money! Enough to turn the ranch around, pay off every creditor, and even make some improvements. Enough extra to take his mother down to the Mayo Clinic in Fountain Hills right away. Kevin accepted Shirl’s enthusiastic hug, and climbed back into his cab still somewhat numbly. Shirl waved him off, her eyes bright and a knowing grin on her face.
Kevin remembered that the squaw dance was set to be held next weekend. He’d buy a new sports shirt down at Dillard’s before then, since he was back in the running now.
He finished his drink, put down the empty can, and looked down at the letter still in his hand. Shash had resettled himself in the passenger seat since nothing seemed to be happening. Kevin broke open the bag with the jerky and fed the old dog a few pieces. While he slurped away, Kevin looked out over the wide vista of rolling hills, the mesas to the north an indistinct shade of orangey-red. The rush of traffic from I-40 could still be heard as a murmur; the store was only a mile away.
His mother had relied on Vernon’s business acumen to help her run the ranch. But he’d gotten real sick so fast and the months ticked on. In desperation, his mother had signed papers for a line of equity. Kevin wondered if this letter was a notification of payments due or, more likely, past due. There was about three hundred dollars left in the ranch account. Most likely, he’d have to declare bankrupt and sell up.
Vernon had been a font of sayings, some traditional in nature and others culled from a scattered education supplemented by extensive book reading. Kevin was always amazed at the Shakespeare quotes this quiet Hopi guy could produce. Now he thought about one that had no special attribution. The incident that prompted this thought had happened a while ago, when Kevin was twelve. A wealthy white couple had driven up to the ranch. Kevin had stayed out of the house, knowing that they were undoubtedly collectors come to see what Vernon had made. Or maybe they’d already ordered something and were picking it up. Collectors liked doing that.
Kevin had been admiring their white Mercedes, but had retreated to the porch to read a comic. The couple emerged, the man holding a fine carving reverently in his hands. Vernon came out to supervise their wrapping of the object in swaths of bubble wrap. Finally, all was done, goodbyes were said, and the couple took off in their car, bumping over the dirt driveway toward the road. Vernon went back into the house. Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin spotted something glittering on the ground near where the car had been parked. He went investigate and discovered the lady had dropped one of her diamond earrings.
Scooping it up, he ran into the house and told Vernon what he’d found. Jumping up and down, he said, “Boy, I bet we’d get a lot for this in one of the pawnshops.”
Vernon fixed him with a scowl, handed the gleaming gem back to him and said, “We don’t profit from other people’s losses.” He then ordered the boy onto his bike. “See if you can catch up with them before they hit the main road.”
The ramshackle building had once been a trading post, but it served as a convenience store and post office now. Tucked around a corner from the roar of Interstate 40, the road led for miles up Route 77 past small communities to end in 264 on its way to Keams Canyon and the Hopi Mesas.
Not that many tourists wanted to make the long trek on a narrow road, so the store served locals. When Kevin got out of his pickup, he saw a couple of men sitting on the bench in front. They were laughing over something in the newspaper. He nodded to them politely as he made his way into the post office. Behind the counter, Bertie Simms smiled a greeting.
“You got an official-looking letter, Kevin. Hope it’s good news!”
He didn’t know whether to grin or grimace. No point in belaboring the obvious fact that U.S. Post Office employees weren’t supposed to comment on personal mail, Simms had been handing out the mail in east Holbrook for as long as Kevin could remember. Nor was there probably any point in minding that Bertie, along with everybody else in the area, knew Kevin’s ranch was almost on the skids.
What was that song he liked to play on his iPod? A British band and they had this line… “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way…” Well, he was hanging on, alright. Even if he wasn’t English at all. Simms placed two things into his hands: a circular for the granary over in Winslow and a heavy white envelope. Kevin peered down at the return address — Millman, Oster and Scheck, with a street address in Denver. Nobody he knew.
Nodding his thanks to Simms, who waited avidly for him to tear the thing open, Kevin headed over to the store side. He bought a loaf of bread, some beef jerky for the dog who waited patiently in the truck’s cab, and a Pepsi for himself. Half-hearted banter with Shirl, they’d gone to high school together, and back out to the pickup.
Shash’s chin lay on the sill of the rolled-down driver’s side window. He whined slightly and leapt over to the passenger seat as Kevin got in. He gave the dog his treat and cracked open the pull-top on the Pepsi, took a long slug, and flattened the envelope out on the steering wheel. It was a mild day in early May and Kevin realized he had no incentive to head back home. Chores were done for now.
A letter from strangers didn’t happen every day. Life had been hard and unexciting since he’d come back from the military. Kevin had been grateful for that. His two tours of duty had been rough: first Afghanistan and then Iraq. But when the letter from his mother had come, he’d finished his time and gotten a discharge. Even then, it had been too late. His stepfather had passed away in the Flagstaff hospital. Kevin’s throat burned and he shut his eyes, reviewing the happy times he’d had with Vernon.
Some people thought it odd that a Hopi man had married a Navajo woman, but there were plenty of such unions if you really looked around. Lots of kids in his high school had dated people from different tribes. Really traditional people didn’t go in for such things, but that wasn’t as many people as there used to be.
One of the really remarkable qualities that Vernon possessed was his patience. He didn’t yell, drank one beer a month, and when you wanted to talk to him he’d sit and listen. Wouldn’t even ask questions until you’d finished speaking. That was a lot more than you could say for Kevin’s mother’s people. His two uncles were always shooting their mouths off.
Then there was Vernon’s skill as a carver. He made beautiful katsinas from cottonwood, and collectors from all over sought his creations. An original Vernon Calumptewa work cost thousands of dollars. Vernon didn’t churn them out either; he had to be inspired.
By the time Kevin had gotten home things had really deteriorated on the ranch. Bad weather, sales of cows that should have been kept, fence repairs never made — they all added up. His mother, her own ailments flaring up, was exhausted from looking after Vernon. Her losing battle had demoralized her completely. Kevin took over, glad for something significant to do, but all his labors seemed to be in vain.
Sally had e-mailed her the evening of her dismissal. She begged Laura to come back and see her at her new employer’s establishment. Sally said she had a surprise for Laura. “Time for some good luck,” she’d claimed. Laura agreed and had driven back, all her possessions thrown into the Subaru. She’d had a few days to reach Window Rock, Sally informed her.
Laura had gone the scenic route, stopping off at Oak Creek Canyon, then taking the road up and over the Hopi Mesas. Last night she stayed in the commercial hotel outside the entrance to Canyon de Chelly. Today, she lingered too long at the overlooks, imagining all the “what ifs” in her life.
Boom! The front wheels of the car hit pavement. A handful of street lights illuminated the sign that told her she’d reached civilization, or rather, that she’d reached Sawmill. Laura drove the remaining ten miles in a daze, barely taking in Fort Defiance a she passed through and made the remaining handful of miles to Window Rock.
When she reached the parking lot for the Navajo Nation Inn and cut the engine off, Laura realized she had been shaking. Even now, her hands trembled as she withdrew the ignition key and threw the key chain into her purse. She remained seated in the car, watching the lit windows of the hotel, a couple walking to their car, a few rez dogs trotting away from a back kitchen door. She savored the warmth, the activity, the reminders of everyday life.
Sally flung herself on Laura as soon as she entered the foyer, running out from her hostess station. She hugged her and clucked over her, drawing her forward at the same time. “Where have you been? I expected you an hour ago!”
“I took a shortcut.”
“Not that back road?” Sally cried. “Honey, you could have gotten stuck there.” She straightened up, turned to Laura, and took her arm. “It’s a good thing your surprise agreed to stick around.”
He was seated alone in a booth inside the restaurant, coffee cup on the counter before him. When he saw them approach, he got out of the seat and stood, his dark brown eyes smiling but anxious. Laura felt like all the breath had been knocked out of her, and her legs, tensed from an hour’s fraught driving threatened to give way. How long had it been since she’d seen Carl Nez?
“Hi Laura,” said the man of her dreams, the one who had disappeared. “Looks like we have ourselves a second chance.”
Laura had been brought up on a subsistence ranch outside Gallup. She’d learned to drive in all sorts of weather, but thick mud was the absolute worst. Every time she’d gone to the Navajo Nation Fair, she’d needed a tow out of the muddy field where everyone parked.
Dark surrounded her car, and she put on her high beams, bending forward to follow the curve of the road. She’d learned one important thing: don’t stop. If she did, she’d be stuck.
She’d grown up attending school in a multicultural town, but as an Anglo she was a minority, and even more so when she went to UNM at Gallup. Her girlfriends had gone to the big campus in Albuquerque, but there had been no money for that for her. Sally Tom, a Navajo beauty, had befriended her, and made the difference she always needed. Sally, a former Miss Navajo Nation, took Laura out of her shell and taught her how to open up.
Laura had forgotten how the Navajo who lived in the area did not put their homes near the road. She saw side tracks branching off on either side, and in a few instances, the glow of lights at a distance. Don’t stop!
Those days at college had been wonderful. Sally had introduced her to the shy Navajo man who Laura had fallen in love with at once. They’d begun seeing each other until the bottom fell out of her world. First Laura’s aunt, and then her uncle, had sickened and required hospitalization.
At one point as the vehicle lurched upward on the winding road, her wheels began to spin. Laura floored the car, jerking it forward. Don’t stop! How long had she been on this road? It felt like forever, or maybe time had stopped.
Her relatives, the couple who had raised her after her parents had been killed in an auto accident, had been airlifted to Phoenix. She followed them there, leaving school and courses unfinished. After they died within days of each other, she’d sold the ranch and gone back to school. Sally was there but the young man she’d fancied was gone. Rumor had it he’d been called back home for a family emergency.
At one point, a light rain began falling in the darkness. Laura cracked open the window and smelled the clean scent of pine. She crested some hill and the road wound downwards. Lights flickered to her right, but she couldn’t see the turning. Don’t stop!
Graduation and the two jobs in Phoenix had come next. Laura kept in touch with Sally, even fitfully, by e-mail and the odd phone call. Eleven months ago, she’d received an offer to interview at the famous resort spa in California near Death Valley. What a disaster. Laura had woven a fantasy about this job; it would be the breakthrough, the push she needed to succeed.
The only success had led to her embarrassing termination. Sitting woodenly while the Human Resources woman, all the time wearing a phony smile, berated her for not being what she claimed she was on her resume. “We expected someone who could fit in with all personalities, you know.” Laura could have asked her about a few other wrong things, like the drunken manager who pawed her when no one was looking or the head hostess who seemed threatened by her, but what was the point.
Now she was slip-sliding down the barely visible track, waiting with almost fatal calm for the moment when the car’s wheels locked and she was forced to stop. Don’t! Laura could imagine the headlines in the Gallup Independent: “Local Woman Dies on Back Road.”
She knew she’d made a bad decision when she turned left out of the overlook.
Dusk was starting, spreading wide shadows down into the southeastern section of Canyon de Chelly. Spider Woman Rock had grown dark. One last slice of the sun lay over the distant mesas to the far west.
Laura had spent much more time in contemplation of the Canyon than she should have planned. She’d promised Sally Tom she’d get back to Window Rock by six. Sally had said she’d got some sort of surprise for Laura. She hoped it was a good one.
Anything would be welcome after the events of the last six months. She’d tried hard to fit in at the resort, but there’d been no one to accept her. Laura still didn’t understand the dynamics. She’d worked hard these last five years, trying to use her college degree to carve out a good position in the hospitality industry. Her two jobs in Phoenix had gone well.
Slowly she eased her Subaru onto the unpaved road that wove past Three Turkey Ruins. She’d been planning to stop in thee, but the light was fading too fast. By rights, she should have turned around and taken the long, paved route—Highway 161 from Chinle and then left and east to Window Rock on 264. But that was a bit more than seventy miles of driving. If she took the unpaved County Road 7 she could be in Fort Defiance and paved road in under twenty-five miles.
When she hit the mud, her stomach clenched. She’d never been good in mud, even as she’d grown up with it. It had rained overnight, a good hard male rain. That wouldn’t have made conditions difficult now, except that a wayward thunderstorm with drenching rain had raced through the area about four hours ago. She’d sat it out in the Thunderbird Café. How, however, the storm seemed to have reanimated the slippery goo that clung to her tires.
(to be continued)
Pete seated himself in the recliner and placed his hands in his lap. “Son, I know it has been hard adjusting to life here after the city. I took you away from your friends and all.” He trailed off, suddenly aware of just how lonely the boy appeared. He felt a stab of guilt, aware he’d been so absorbed in his own grief that he’d failed to see the signs in his child. “But pranks are not the way to go on…”
A strange look spread over the boy’s face. “Dad! You think I’m the marauder!” Pete opened his mouth to make a soothing remark but stopped short when Danny began giggling.
“Dad, would you please come outside?” He jumped up from the worn sofa and ran over to tug at Pete’s arm. Bewildered, Officer Wilson let himself be guided out into the waning afternoon sunshine. Danny led his father to the small shed next to the garage. Pete had filled the garage with tools and bicycles, letting the spillover go to the shed. In the smaller building a rickety pen had been constructed with plywood and baling wire. Danny headed straight to the pen.
The animal inside was enormous. Maybe fifteen or twenty pounds, Pete realized, as it stood up on its hind legs to sniff at Danny’s outstretched hand. He had no idea that rabbits could be so huge. The monster regarded him with sharp black eyes; his coat was white with large splotches of black fur. Black circles framed its eyes and made a band across its wriggling nose.
“I checked the Library today,” Danny said proudly. “They had a book on raising rabbits. Petunia is a Checkered Giant!”
“She’s a giant, all right,” Pete whistled, while his cop’s eye took in the broken latch on the pen, and the places where gnawing teeth had loosened the door. When his eyes returned to his son, he got the full force of the boy’s silent plea. “Okay, does that book say they can be house trained?” he asked, receiving a vehement nod. Danny launched himself at his father, throwing his thin arms around Pete’s knees. “Oh yes, Dad. Thanks! I bought a litter pan when we were in Gallup last week. She can stay in my bedroom.”
Pete doubted Petunia would confine herself to the bedroom for long, but the mystery was solved. He resigned himself to being the butt of jokes for weeks to come. “Okay, but she can’t leave the house, and your next three allowances go to making restitution,” he warned his son. Danny had released the enormous rabbit from the pen, and she lip-lopped contentedly at his side right up to the door of the house.
It had taken a wise older man to see what he had missed right in front of his eyes, Pete thought. Watching Danny race Petunia down the short hallway to his room, his father’s lips curved into a rueful grin. Then he had a thought.
Maybe he’d go tell Susie Barton what had transpired and how he now had a big bunny under house arrest… It was a beginning.
When he reached the small substation that served the local police, his partner Don Olander had just finished brewing some coffee. He was a lanky descendant of Anglo farmers known for his in frequent speech. Gallup colleagues called him “Silent Cal” behind his back, a tribute to Yankee President Calvin Coolidge.
“Got company,” Don said, gesturing with his chin. An elderly Navajo man, his black and silver hair tied back with white yarn, sat on the uncomfortable leather sofa meant for visitors. Pete walked over, switching at once to Navajo. He greeted Hosteen Elgar Nakabito politely, enquired into his health and, after formalities were exchanged, asked him, “What brings you here, my uncle?”
“Not this bad coffee,” Hosteen Nakabito replied, hoisting his half-drunk mug. He was a respected man known for his hand trembling divination. “I had a dream last night.”
Pete waited as the man drew out a checked pocket handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Everybody’s talking about this marauder who steals food, leaves gates unlocked, and eludes all the town’s dogs.” Pete nodded, knowing more was coming. “Then I saw your house in my dream and there was a cloud over it. I could hear the song of sorrow, an old chant.” He took another sip from the mug and put it down decisively. “Now you know where to look, my nephew.”
Pete showed the old man out, standing by to assure himself the elder’s bow legs folded up into his old Chevy flatbed truck. He thanked Hosteen Nakabito politely, trying hard to keep any emotion from showing on his face. He spent the next couple of hours in a silent fog before leaving the station. He drove home locked in internal debate. The front door of the house swung open as he parked in the driveway.
The boy’s narrow face was so familiar. He had Chris’s looks all right and now his wide hazel eyes were open with apprehension. “Dad, everybody’s talking about the mystery bandit!”
Pete pulled off his cap, feeling it suddenly too tight. “And you know who it is?” He placed a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder. “Okay, we should go inside.” The boy wiggled under his hold, protesting. “Let’s go out back, please?” Pete tightened his grip and steered him into the living room. What was he going to say?
Danny squirmed in obvious discomfort. “Dad, out back…”
