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.
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…”
When he left the post office, the radio in his car was crackling. Pete switched it on to hear Don Olander’s dry voice “. . . pilfered goods at Bluewater Bed and Breakfast. . .” When he finished the call, he headed east another mile to a trim house painted white with blue shutters. Officer Wilson privately believed the building looked wildly out of place, with the Zuni Mountains nestled behind it. Such a dwelling belonged in a nice prosperous resort town, like Park City or Durango.
Mrs. Johnson met him on the porch. Pete thought she’d probably just vacuumed the front parlor and didn’t want his scruffy shoes undoing her labor. She was a refugee from a Santa Fe museum who’d retired early and put all her money into a hospitality business in an area not know for providing tourist lodging.
“When are you catching this varmint?” the woman asked, tapping her teeth in a nervous gesture.
Pete pulled out his notebook. “What and when did he hit, ma’am?”
“Got into my trash late last night.” She heaved a sigh. “I’d been careful to bag up all the food I threw out, but it punctured through the plastic and dragged most of it toward the driveway.”
Pete fell into step with her as she guided him off the porch and around the back of the house. Three large metal trash cans were side by side, only one of them had been knocked onto the ground. A ripped black plastic garbage bag flapped tattered ends in the breeze. A trail of foodstuffs lay scattered in a tight line. Pete could see and smell cracked egg shells, apple and orange rinds, coffee grounds, and other detritus, including part of a cabbage that looked to be particularly savaged.
He took notes diligently and then helped Mrs. Johnson pick up the offending remains. He didn’t have to, but politeness to older ladies was just how he’d been raised. Mrs. Johnson appeared relieved when they finished, and had something to say.
“While it looks like an animal did this, I think you ought to consider a little kid might be the culprit. You should check and see if any of the middle school boys have been out sick or something like that.”
Pete thanked her for her speculation, inwardly amused that Mrs. Johnson could only imagine a boy as the offender. In his experience, little girls could get up to the same mischief easily enough.
Nevertheless, he turned the car west and drove over to the elementary school. Mrs. Jamon in the principal’s office showed him the roster. A couple of Zuni boys were out this morning, but they lived too far away from Ramah to be worthy of suspicion. The other missing student was Elsbeth Natachu, but Pete knew the little girl was up in Gallup at the Indian Services hospital.
Even the landscape has a way of getting into a tale. This is the time to acknowledge a number of literary influences, including as always the stories of the Southwestern Native peoples. Tony Hillerman, James Doss, Aimee Thurlo, but we can also reach back to Charles Lummis, the original off-comer. People and place, as in this first tale . . .
The Mad Rabbit of Ramah
Pete Wilson swung the cruiser into his driveway. Today marked his first full week of duty in Ramah. His eyes swung up to the craggy crests of the Zuni Mountains. He’s never dreamed he could return to his childhood home, but circumstances had brought him back at last. At the same moment, he frowned. One week and he had a puzzle on his hands already. Who was the mystery marauder that was putting everyone on edge?
He’d stopped in to see Susie Barton, who ran one of the local bed and breakfasts, along with Ramah’s small post office. She had the usual band of small animals tagging around her as she put the mail into the post box slots. They were both Diné, and had known each other since grade school, despite the long years since then.
“It hit my garden last night, knocked over two chicken coops at the Natachu farm, and pulled broken wire out further so Hosteen Othole’s two goats got loose.” She was grinning, her good natured round face beaming as usual.
“I know about the goats, because Hosteen Othole called me in. One of those devils nearly got run over before he could be caught.” Pete’s lips downturned as he remembered the nice gash the bucking goat had made in his car’s fender.
Susie tapped her mouth, eyes scrunched up in momentary contemplation. “But it never eats anything, or even bloodies any creatures. Down, Sugar!” She swatted ineffectually at a small wire haired mutt who’d jumped up to paw at her knee.
“Well, there is that,” Pete agreed.
“This must be a switch for you, after all that urban crime,” Susie said.
Pete brushed away the thoughts of Albuquerque, its grit, gangs, and swift sharp confrontations, now mercifully receding in memory. Or the continuous pang of the lofty hospital building, beeping and buzzing with lights and machinery. The thin face on the stark white pillow, a plea radiating from eyes that had lost hope. “A nice switch,” he said curtly.
