Another Like Me

by Albert Norton, Jr.

  “Fella, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I never heard of Diné or Apache in my whole life until a few months ago. And I’m from New York City. Don’t know what you mean by ‘around here’, but I’m pretty sure that excludes New York. And this lady is from here, but she never heard the word ‘Apache’ until I told it to her. So drop the condescending tone.”

  Robin returned with a little yellow bucket and went outside to fill it with snow.

  “How about you drop the tone. You beat up one of the Diné, and I’m the one with the tone?”

  Jack decided on a calm voice for his next salvo, but not a softer message. “You seem like a smart guy. How does it look for a Diné to be snooping around the barn of one of these dreaded Apache? And what are you doing this far from the canyon? You want to tell me you’re just scouting to protect the hive, 200 miles from home?”

  “I don’t have to answer you.”

  “No, but you have to answer to your community why you’re belligerent to people 200 miles away. Did you go to Hashkeh’s charm school?”

  Robin returned with the bucket of snow and walked between Jack and the tall Diné. She set it on a little table next to the couch where Roy lay and refilled the bandana she’d used earlier with snow, pressing it gently against the right side of Roy’s face.

  “How do you know Hashkeh?”

  “You can ask him yourself. We met in the town of Sanders. That’s about 175 miles closer to the canyon than this spot right here. You ready, Robin?”

  “Do you have any food?” she asked the tall Diné.

  “I’m sure he’s got it all taken care of,” Jack said. “You can just feel the love for his fellow man.”

  “Do you?” the man asked. The mention of food had sparked his interest. Probably his search had been as unfruitful as Roy’s.

  “Why don’t you just answer the question?” Jack asked with the sharpest sneer he could muster.

  The tall Diné man took a swing at Jack. Jack saw it coming, but the young man had a long reach and grazed Jack along the jaw. Jack bounced to his right to take advantage of the taller man’s shift of weight behind the swing. He shoved the man, making contact just under the man’s left arm. He was surprised at how lean the taller Diné was in the body. The man’s lankiness now worked against him because the shove caused him to fall forward over the couch, across Roy, his feet popping up in the air heels first. He was stranded momentarily, awkwardly trying to get back to his feet.

  “Stop it!” Robin screamed. The tall Diné paused in his awkward scrambling to look over at her. Jack had been going for his .45, but now he paused, watching the taller man warily. Then he dropped his arm, leaving the firearm holstered.

  A moment ticked by.

  “Never heard anything like that from you before,” Jack said, wanting Robin to hear the calmness in his voice. He was impressed at how nonplussed she was. She seemed only irritated at this interruption in her ministrations.

  The lanky Diné gathered himself next to the couch opposite Jack, trying to recover from his ungainly and undignified sprawl across the couch. He didn’t move to resume hostilities with Jack.

  Robin took advantage of the moment. “Jack, could you get my saddlebags?”

  Jack complied, though he knew what it meant. He was a little embarrassed, now, because of how this had all played out in front of Robin.

  Robin unloaded the food from the bags onto the tiny kitchen table. “Now I’m ready,” she said.

  They were nearly all the way to the highway before Jack and Robin discussed the weird encounter.

  “I should have kept my cool a little better,” Jack said. “I should remember how high-strung these Road Patrol guys are, I mean when they haven’t been beaten down like Roy was.”

  “You can be peace and light to a suffering world,” Robin answered.

  “Is that out of the Bible?”

  “Not in so many words, but yes.”

  “That’s three rough encounters I’ve had with the Diné, and I’m not even an Apache.”

  “Two, if you only count the ones that weren’t your fault.”

  “Oh!” Jack clasped his chest, pretending to be wounded. “You’ve cut me to the quick.”

  “But I agree you’re not an Apache.”

  They returned to the Willises without incident, and before it was dark, but it was late in the afternoon. They stayed overnight. Peter and Jack made do in the barn, and Millie shared her room with Robin.

  The next day, the sun was fully out, and the snow began to melt in earnest. It had already showed signs of doing so the day previous, when the hillocks of snow at the edges of roads and ditches seemed more rounded than would be the case in a fresh snowfall. The snow had taken on more of a gray hue than blue and was beginning to look tired as if its beauty had been all used up. Because of its depth, however, the ground still did not show through. At its densest and most heavily trodden, it became a glazed, putty-colored mush.

  Jack, Peter, and Robin were tired when they arrived at their own place. It felt like they’d been away a long time, though it was scarcely thirty-two hours. It was still only mid-afternoon when they put the horses away, taking some extra care with them. They didn’t talk amongst themselves much, not even bothering to tease Peter about his visit with Millie. They were not of a mind to do more than take care of the animals that had been neglected the day before. Robin gathered eggs and fed chickens while Jack and Peter pulled down forage for the bigger animals.

  That evening, they went about getting dinner ready, still not talking much. It would be an early dinner, but then they could retire to their own rooms, to read by kerosene lamp or just go to sleep early. The dinner itself wasn’t much to look at—or to taste, for that matter—but they all dug in without complaint. Sometimes we dine. Sometimes we refuel.

  “We can go out for that deer now, I think,” Peter said.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Robin interjected.

  Jack had resolved to participate in church, but now that it was soon time to do so, he found the idea unappealing.

  “Maybe Monday instead,” Peter said. “If we’re going to walk, like we said, instead of waiting for the prey to come to us, then we ought to get out regularly. No telling how long it will take. Maybe Monday, maybe not for days.”

  “I’m game. Well, the deer is the game, I guess.”

  “Maybe you should have a night’s sleep before trying to be funny,” Peter said.

  “Sorry. You’re right,” Jack said, yawning. “Can we use tomorrow to plan out what we’re going to do in the next couple of weeks? Is that okay on Sunday?” Jack wondered if he was starting to lapse back into his pre-apocalypse mindset. He was actually concerned with making an agenda and getting everything on it done. But he might as well finish the thought. “Or I could just make a list. We need to get medical books, right?”

  Robin nodded.

  “The hunting. Need a deer, but we’ve got some time. We need to think about what order to do the garden work in.”

  “Pretty obvious once the season’s underway,” Peter commented.

  Jack continued. “Books, classes. We should revisit the curriculum you’re on, don’t you think? If we don’t know where we’re going, we’ll never get there.”

  “Or else we’re already there.”

  “Shut up, Peter. And visiting the Diné. Needs to happen sooner rather than later. That goes on my list.” Jack yawned again. “I’ll think of some more by tomorrow.”

  “It used to be so peaceful here,” Peter said.

  Jack pushed his potatoes around with his fork. “Robin, you have made some of the best, most succulent dishes known to man. Rich, delicious, fantastic meals.”

  “But this isn’t one of them,” she said.

  “Even Homer nodded. Should I go to bed instead of continuing to talk? Am I still picking fights like I did with that tall Diné?”

  “Good night, Jack,” Peter said.

  “Good night, Jack,” Robin seconded.

 
“Very well,” Jack said. “Good night to you both.”

  Chapter 22

  The next day was slushy and wet and not very inviting for getting out in. They dug into Bible studies with some vigor, and Jack stayed with them, even egging them on. He saw himself as being in a position to influence them positively with academics, especially since he could do it without compromising his relationship with them, which he had carefully constructed to be more like a peer-to-peer relationship than they might otherwise have, given the age difference. With their studies, Jack could play the kind uncle, having obviously studied longer and more broadly than either of the other members of his little family. He thought of the Bible as being a legitimate academic pursuit. He knew better than to suggest compromising the Sabbath, but Peter and Robin had no compunctions against studying the Bible all day long if they chose. That didn’t count as “work” to avoid. Jack joined in, too, and soon found that, unlike with other fields of study, the Bible was newer to him than to either of his academic protégés.

  The hunt on the day following went about as expected. Jack and Peter slipped and slid around a good bit, but still they deemed walking better than sitting in a deer stand. For two days, they went out for a couple of hours at a time, at daybreak and again at dusk. During the day, they worked at the fences on the expanded upper pasture where they could pen beef stock. They had decided to reclaim a small herd and train them to the open range, commencing with the lower pasture and areas beyond. In the meantime, they needed this pen, and they needed to think through how to obtain the animals’ provender whenever they would be gathered in.

  In just a few days after the outing to Alpine, Jack was convinced the roads would be sufficiently passable to safely take out his SUV. He weighed the priorities—whether to make the trip to Phoenix, to loot what they might of books, textbooks, and especially medical books and supplies; or whether to make a visit to the Diné. He envisioned doing the Phoenix trip with both Peter and Robin. A fun day out, since that’s all they would accomplish on the day they undertook it. The Diné visit he determined to make by himself. Regardless of which he did first, he decided not to do them back-to-back, so as to commit more uninterrupted time to the farm while it was still possible. Christmas would be upon them soon, and according to Peter and Robin, that would begin a season of at least two months when little would happen outside at all, and they might be under another lasting snow or two—though probably not as deep as the last one—before they could do meaningful work outside in preparation for the ground being workable again.

  Jack decided on the trip to Tséyi’ the next day. It couldn’t be helped, realistically, that Roy and his partner would spread the word of their encounter in a way that would heighten tensions felt by the Diné against the Apache. For that matter, neither would the Apache network cease to buzz, now that there was a bit of thaw before Christmas, with news of the Diné this far south—and this intrusive. Neither side would respond well to the encounter, but maybe Jack could be an emissary to ameliorate the mistrust. Maybe someone with intelligence like Alma Lee would listen and influence the Diné hive.

  Jack took care the next day to do a thorough job of gassing up and making a clean job of it, rotating his gas cans, pouring in additive to the gas to keep it from going stale from any non-petroleum additives, listening for any engine glitches, looking for leaks, changing the oil, testing his backup battery, and rotating out all of his food provisions. This took some time, but there was no need to rush it. Jack figured on taking it slow if there were still slick spots, and even at that, he expected to arrive at the canyon no later than the middle of the afternoon—late enough that his hosts might feel a duty of hospitality. Perhaps at that hour, it would be easier to cadge an invitation to stay with some of the group, thus having further opportunity to ingratiate himself.

  Once on the road, Jack made the familiar trip, not stopping for sightseeing though he was tempted at times. He was all the way to Sanders a little before noon and had seen no sign of Diné at all, nor Apache either, for that matter. He pulled into the Trading Post parking lot he now considered his usual spot, half expecting the Diné Road Patrol to descend on him and check him out. He knew several of them at this point, plus there were still others who might remember him from the picnic at the canyon.

  It was not to be, though. After a few minutes, Jack scooted over to a gas station on the other side of the road just to the south of I-40 and topped off his gas tank. Then he hit the highway and exited at Chambers, barely slowing down where the off ramp connected to the northbound lanes heading to the Navajo reservation. The snowstorm had been less severe the further north he traveled, plus he’d come down almost 3,000 feet in elevation. There was no snow on the roads here, and very little accumulated elsewhere. Jack half expected motorcycles to zoom onto the road ahead and behind so that he’d be in a little formation with them like last time. But still he drove alone. And drove. And drove. With no other company on the road, the desert around him seemed especially forbidding. It was just like before, except for the traces of snow, incongruous against the barren dryness that blended the colors of stone, sky, and vegetation. The snow had to have provided significant water for this region, but it wasn’t the right time of year for the desert to bloom in response.

  Jack recalled the slow ascensions to the crests of imperceptible hills, giving way to slow declensions that ended in sandy washes. But then there would be the last one, cutting through a jumble of red rock before de-ramping on the final approach to Chinle. He recognized the slot through the final tableland as he approached it, wondering that he’d gotten this far with no sign of the Road Patrol. But once he crested that last hill, there they were. Two of them, anyway. They had evidently seen him approaching across the ten miles or more of sight distance, and now as Jack entered the downhill ramp between the guardrails, they entered the road behind him, sporting their usual quasi-military getup. They motored on the rest of the way into Chinle.

  The town proper, that is. Jack didn’t make it all the way to the canyon before seeing signs of Diné activity, and it was the Diné that he had come to see, not the canyon. Jack pulled into a parking lot of a restaurant called Arturo’s, a big “A” hanging askew on its sign. Behind it was a hotel. Jack had seen the familiar SUVs parked in its parking lot just before getting past the commercial zone before the canyon, so he turned around to go to it. The motorcyclists seemed content to just follow him wherever he went.

  Once in the main parking lot of the hotel, around the corner from the check-in office, Jack could see laundry hanging out to dry on the upper story of the hotel. This was one of those travel motels that had doors opening to the outside and rooms on two floors. Over to Jack’s left, he saw a figure in an apron exit the restaurant. Jack turned off his engine. The figure—it was a middle-aged man—threw some boxes into a dumpster. Jack wondered how they would ever empty the dumpster. The motorcyclists parked in a space directly behind Jack’s vehicle, and now just sat astride their motorcycles.

  Jack sat for a moment in his vehicle, not in a big hurry. Why should he be? He was in the heart of Diné country, but that didn’t mean he was behind enemy lines, did it? It was a nice day, cold as one would expect in December, especially at an elevation of over a mile, but not bitterly cold, and there was no indication of precipitation coming. Nice moment to sit in the warm car with the driver’s side window open just a little. That lasted less than five minutes, and then Jack jumped out. Might as well start with his escort, he thought.

  “Boys,” he said, trying to adopt an affable tone.

  “Sir.”

  “Sir? You’re sir-ring me?” Jack looked at the young men, who had removed their helmets. They had the same kind of spacesuit helmets as the other Road Patrol Jack had seen. Jack half-expected that Hashkeh or Roland or Roy or Roy’s tall partner would be revealed under the helmets, but this was a fresh set of young men.

  One of them smiled. He was a handsome young man, with thick dark hair and a ready smile. His teeth were
exceptionally white. He was the kind of young man who was quite used to being immediately accepted. “You’re here to visit,” he said, ending his sentence with an uplift in that beaming smile, which seemed genuine.

  “If I may.”

  “Of course. You don’t mind the escort, I hope?”

  Jack paused before answering. He was somewhat disarmed by the young man’s savoir faire. Not within his range of experience, so far, either with the Road Patrol or with the Diné in general.

  “No, I don’t mind at all. Am I in the right place?”

  “Depends on where you want to be, I suppose.”

  Jack chuckled. He stepped forward to shake the young man’s hand. The young man shook off his riding glove to respond in kind, standing and stretching his right hand far over to his left to meet Jack’s. “Rafael Cruz Fuentes.”

  “Jack Pence.”

  Jack stepped over toward the other rider because it would seem awkward to greet just one of them this way. The other rider was Rafael’s opposite. Sullen. Sallow-skinned. Lizard-like lips and slits for eyes. “Baum,” he said, giving Jack a dead-fish handshake, without first removing his glove.

  “Bomb?”

  “No, Baum. B-a-u-m.” He said it like it was distasteful to have to go through this exercise. Jack considered that it was probably not the first time he’d had to do so. Why not use another of his names for these situations?

  “Pleased to meet you,” Jack remembered to say.

  “Welcome to our little community,” Rafael said cheerfully. “How do you like our setup?” He commenced in tour-guide mode. “We were scattered around, so we took over this restaurant for all our meals.”

  Jack looked at him inquiringly.

  “It was locked up. No one inside. Took some heavy cleaning in the back, from old food, but we took care of that. And now we use the ovens and stoves, all gas, but we don’t try to keep the refrigeration going.”

  “Could you if you wanted to?” Jack was curious whether they would bother to figure out how to generate electricity.