“Oh, sure, we thought about doing generators and stuff but decided not to. We’re all going to move to the canyon soon, to live the right way. This is temporary.”
“Plus you don’t want to get too used to it.”
“Brother,” Rafael said with a right thumb up to signify profound agreement.
Baum looked over at Rafael, positively wincing. Rafael noticed. “Okay, yes, brother,” he said to Baum.
Jack paused before continuing, wondering what that little exchange might be all about. Guessing, he said, “Oops. Not really ‘brother’, I suppose?”
Rafael waved a dismissive gesture. “Maybe you will be. You can learn the Diné way.”
Jack smiled and nodded, communicating his appreciation for an honor, but non-commitment to whether he aspired to it.
“The hotel,” Rafael continued, “took a little more time. But it’s fine for temporary. Most of us live here now until it’s time to go to the canyon.”
Jack had come up to Chinle to nose around and talk to people, but his plan as to who and how was necessarily vague. The Diné don’t acknowledge anyone overtly as a leader, so he figured he would try to move diplomatically among the Diné, trying to talk to a few who might have influence. He had it in mind to ask for Alma Lee, or perhaps Dexter Wallace, the glad-hander that Jack had taken for a small-town mayor type. But why not start right here with the affable young Road Patroller?
“The Apache out there. Do they get in the way?”
Rafael swung his leg over his bike, dismounting. “You Apache?” he asked. He stood with hands on hips once he’d dismounted, but not in a menacing way. He displayed his broad smile again, with those very white teeth.
“No, but I know some of them. There are a good many independent folk down where I live.”
Rafael didn’t ask more about Jack, no doubt because he and the other Diné were already well aware of his situation from the picnic at the canyon. He was curious about the Apache, though. “How many are there?”
“Apache? I don’t know. I’ve only met a few. They’re scattered around.”
“We’ve seen them in the towns sometimes.”
“Chinle?”
“Not this far up. Not in quite a while.”
“Chinle’s pretty isolated, and all the land around here is pretty wild. Not ideal for supporting a ranch or a farm.”
“There are nice spots.”
“Like the canyon.”
“Yes, the canyon,” Rafael answered, “but other places, too.”
“You know, if you all go to the canyon, you’d be pretty much separated from anyone who doesn’t see things the way you do. The desert is like a giant moat around your little castle.”
“I like that, I like that. You’re a man of words. Good image. I’m impressed. You should really join the Diné.”
“You honor me.” Jack made a little bow. Baum added a little grimace to his limited repertoire of facial expressions. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw a figure approaching across the parking lot. It was Alma Lee. Jack knew that out in this parking lot, he was in full view of all of the hotel rooms on this entire side of the building—two floors. He had hoped for an opportunity just like this before he engaged the affable Road Patrolman. His apprehension about how to approach the Diné dissipated with Alma Lee’s approach.
As she was yet fifty yards or more away, however, Jack continued hurriedly with Rafael. He was afraid Rafael would be more inhibited once Alma was part of the conversation. “So why do the Diné ride so far out?”
“Apache have vehicles, too.”
“So . . .” Jack said, drawing it out, inviting Rafael to fill in the gap.
“So our moat is not so big after all.”
“But if the Apache are not around here, they aren’t a threat, are they?”
“We just want to keep it that way, amigo,” Rafael said, still with that open countenance.
“And it seems like they just want to be left alone anyway,” Jack said.
“We don’t disagree about territory,” Rafael said. “There’s the whole world to live in.”
Jack wanted to ask whether the Diné desired the Apache to move away entirely—perhaps to inhabit some land in another part of the country, more than a day’s drive away. The Midwest, perhaps. Or the eastern seaboard. But at that moment, Alma arrived. She held out her hand to Jack. Back in the day, Jack always held back from shaking a lady’s hand unless she offered hers first. The hesitation he had now caused him to think of how this little ingrained and shared habit, shaking hands, had survived the big change, and moreover, was unthinkingly integral to the culture of both Diné and Apache.
“I’m so very pleased to see you again, Jack. How are you?”
“I am very well. I’ve been wanting to visit again, and now weather finally permits.”
“And we’re happy to have you.” Jack noted the clear assumption that this was exclusively Diné property, and Jack was strictly a guest. He wondered if Alma would agree with that, or try to deny it.
“Coffee?” she asked, gesturing toward the restaurant.
“That would be great.”
“Rafael? Baum?” Alma asked the bikers.
“Sure,” Rafael said. “Hashkeh and Rollo have taken the south road by now. Come on, Baum.” Baum swung his spindly leg over his bike and joined the little troupe walking toward the restaurant.
Inside the restaurant, there were walls of continuous window, facing south and west, toward the road connecting the canyon to Chinle. There were kerosene lamps lined up on the bar, but they weren’t in use because the windows provided all the light they could need at this time of day. There were booths all along both sets of windows, with green Formica tabletops and vinyl-covered seats. In the southwest corner, however, booths had been removed, and there was a large wood stove set up on concrete pavers, with two flues angled up into the ceiling and surrounded by exterior flashing. Obviously an add-on, but it appeared to be waterproof. With the snow, there would have been signs of water leaking in if it weren’t. No one else was seated at any of the booths or tables, but they could hear activity in the kitchen.
“I’ll fix us up,” Rafael said. He disappeared into the kitchen. Baum sat at the counter. Alma led Jack to one of the booths on the west wall.
“This is very comfortable,” Jack said. “Why do you want to make the move to the canyon?”
“We’ll live next to our crops. Next to our sheep. We’ll build places to live for ourselves, but not like this,” she said, taking in the restaurant with her gesture.
“This spring?”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” Alma said. “Probably. We might find some big tents for ourselves, for now. Maybe it’ll take longer. We move with the sense of the community, you know. It’s not like we have a law or a dictator telling us what to do and when to do it.”
“Here you go,” Rafael said. He set a tray on the edge of the table, loaded with hot coffee and sugar, instant creamer, and little wooden sticks to stir the coffee.
“That was fast,” Alma said.
“The kitchen guys had already made some.”
“Rafael, you’re quite the host,” Jack said.
“Amigo,” Rafael said, with a little nod.
“Join us,” Alma said.
Rafael looked around, pausing at Baum, who sat with his back to them, incuriously. “Okay,” he said.
Alma made to shift over, but Rafael said, “No, no, I’m good here,” and swung a chair around from a nearby table. He scooted it up to the end of the booth.
Chapter 23
“Honestly, I was a little unsure of the reception I’d get here,” Jack began.
“We’re reasonable people,” Alma said.
Jack thought she might add to this statement, revealing her attitude about the run-in with yet another Road Patrol, but she didn’t, so Jack resumed. “I’m sure you know all about Roy and the other guy down in Alpine.”
“I admit we were pretty concerned, but apparently it a
ll started in one of the Apache’s barns. So there might be more to the story than what we got from our hot shots.”
“Hot shots?” Rafael asked, grinning. “I like that—hot shots.”
“You know what I mean, Rafael,” Alma said. “You guys have a mission. It’s not for me to second-guess how you go about it, except most important is that we’re peaceful people. We’re all about peace.”
“Oh, I totally getcha,” Rafael responded. “You want us to use diplomacy.” By ‘us’, he meant the Road Patrol.
“I don’t know if ‘diplomacy’ is the right word, but we don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea,” Alma replied.
“And by ‘anyone,’ you mean the Apache,” Jack said.
Alma smiled. “Well, who else?” she asked, reasonably enough.
“Well, me and Robin and Peter, who I live with. That’s three who aren’t Apache. Or Diné either, for that matter.”
“Really, Jack? You were in the Apache’s barn when it happened.”
“Yes, really, Alma. And I’m here on a mission of peace, myself. Let me just put all my cards on the table. I am neutral in this Apache and Diné thing. And so are Peter and Robin. But we live near the old Fort Apache Reservation, outside Alpine. There are Apache scattered around, and some down that way. One of them lives pretty close to us, at least by horse trail. And I’ll tell you, too, so you can see I’m not holding anything back, that Peter is sweet on the daughter. Name of Rupert. The Apache, not the daughter. Millie is the girl’s name. I’ve been to Rupert’s all of twice, but of course Peter has been there several times. We had just gotten there a few days ago, hadn’t even left the barn when one of your hot shots knocked me down.”
“Knocked you down, man?” Rafael asked. He was still cheerful enough, but now a note of skepticism crept into his voice.
“Yeah, but look, to be completely fair, I think he was just hiding out in there. In the barn. He said he was lost. And then when I spotted him, he panicked. I wish he had just said what he was doing—it would have been all right with me—but there’s obviously a lack of trust.”
“He got beat pretty bad,” Rafael observed.
“After he knocked me down, I was trying to hang on to him, and Rupert’s son came into the barn and saw the tussle. For all he knew, Roy was trying to kill me, and anyway, here he was in Rupert’s barn.”
Alma said, “That’s not exactly the way we heard it, but not entirely inconsistent, either. And he did say you and the girl—Robin, is it?—took care of him.”
“Well, and I’ll be honest about this, too, I didn’t hit it off with Roy’s Road Patrol partner.”
Rafael smiled again. “So we heard. He don’ like you much.”
Alma cast a disapproving look at Rafael.
“But he’s cool. Don’t worry about it, amigo,” Rafael said.
“So anyway,” Jack said, “I ask you to look at it from the Apaches’ point of view. This happened all the way down past Alpine.”
“We go all over,” Rafael protested.
Alma added, “And you came from New York City, yourself, I think you said.”
“I know, I know,” Jack said. “No one is saying you can’t go wherever you want. Those guys said they were just coming back that way from Tucson. But you add that to hiding out in the barn. Add that to my reception in Sanders a few weeks ago, and I didn’t even spread around the details about that. And then add to all that, that the Diné don’t trust the Apache, and vice versa. Let’s be honest.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” Alma said. “I just don’t understand why all those people out there hole up and want nothing to do with people who would be their friends.”
“Alma, listen, I don’t have any criticism of how the Diné live. You all keep inviting me to join, but I have to say, I wonder how long that will last. I mean, at some point, you would say that about me, too, wouldn’t you? I mean, why would I refuse to be part of the community here? But the fact is, I have my own community—not the Apache, let me be quick to add—but it would take a certain kind of commitment to be here, a certain way of thinking if I were to join the Diné community. There would be a little bit of sacrifice there. Some people just don’t want that. So that’s the way it is with the Apache.”
“What sacrifice, Jack? What sacrifice? We all work together. We all have a say in what the community does. We’re free that way. We all care about each other. We’re brothers and sisters. This is how people are meant to live.”
Jack sat back in the booth. “‘Meant.’ ‘Meant to live.’ ‘Meant’ by whom?”
“I just mean this is natural. It’s human nature,” Alma said. “I don’t see how each one of the Apache aren’t at war with every other person on the planet, all the time.”
“But they’re not. In fact, they’re a community, too. They just don’t do everything in common.”
“That’s what ‘community’ means. ‘In common.’”
“The Apache have a community, too. It’s just different. They get together. They trade.”
“Trade. Trade is the opposite of being in common. That’s not community.”
“It’s about freedom,” Jack said. He was trying to show Alma the Apache perspective, not defend it, but he was becoming exasperated. “Wait. Wait. Before you respond to that, I take it back. I don’t want to tell you it’s about freedom. All I want to tell you is that that’s how the Apache see it. And they may be completely wrong, but that’s how they see it. And they don’t want to give up their way. So you’re right, there’s distrust because the Apache don’t want the Diné trying to change their view of freedom, any more than you’re willing to change yours.”
“They could go wherever they want. They can pretend we don’t even exist.”
“True. And so can you.”
“And leave the canyon?” Alma asked incredulously.
“Do you want to set down boundaries? Call yourself a different country? Create a government? Maybe that would solve it.”
“No way, man,” Rafael said.
“No, no, no,” Alma exclaimed. “That’s exactly backward. That’s exactly what we don’t want. That’s why the Apache ought to come in out of the cold and just be people, for heaven’s sake!”
“For heaven’s sake?”
“You know what I mean.
We are the ones who have freedom,” Alma continued, “and if our community wants to be able to go to Tucson or anywhere else, we should have that freedom.”
“And what if the Apache want the freedom to come to the canyon?”
“Of all the places on Earth,” Alma shot back, “why the canyon? It would just be a provocation.”
“I’m only saying the Apache might see it the same way when you guys,” gesturing to Rafael, “ride all around.”
“It’s just one place, the canyon is. And we can’t use the roads?” Rafael asked. His tone was even, not exasperated as Alma was becoming.
“I get your point. I don’t want to argue about it,” Alma said to Jack. “But it’s like we’re a different species. Anyway, what about you, Jack?”
On the one hand, Jack didn’t want to make the conversation about him or make himself yet more distant from the Diné. He was able to have this conversation in large part just because he wasn’t from around here. On the other hand, he didn’t want to be pressured into declaring himself a combatant in this silliness.
“Why can’t I live among the Apache or live among the Diné or just live with my little family group—or live all by myself? Can’t I choose any of those?”
“You can’t choose to be a dog or a cat or an antelope. You’re a human being. That’s what the word ‘Diné’ means.”
Behind him, Jack heard the sound of motorcycles decelerating from the main road and turning into the drive for the restaurant and hotel. “That looks like Hashkeh,” Rafael said. Jack turned to look as the motorcycles passed the window and stopped next to the door closest to the hotel, where Rafael, Baum, Alma, and Jack had entered. They all stopped
talking to watch. Baum made his way to the same door and went outside to greet the cyclists. Jack saw him point inside to where they were.
One of the cyclists ran toward the hotel. Two others took off their helmets and strode purposefully to the door of the restaurant. The first one Jack recognized as Hashkeh. He entered, spotted Alma, and said “There’s been an incident.”
Jack expected Alma to jump up and start giving directions, but it didn’t happen that way. What did happen proved instructive. Alma scooted out of the seat to the booth and walked over to Hashkeh and the other cyclist. Instead of giving an order or even making a suggestion, she said, “What do you think we should do?”
Jack wondered if Hashkeh would then take over, or convene a meeting of elders, or take some other action to place this before the Diné. Instead, he just said, “This is new. We should all talk about it. But I don’t think we should wait.” This comment made a light go on for Jack. Wait for what? If they had no leaders and not even a protocol for how to proceed if the Road Patrol actually encountered a problem, that meant the entire Diné would have to come to a decision. And not only that, but even the act of convening all of the Diné for discussion would be an act of leadership that none of them wanted to undertake. It was looking like Hashkeh would have to go about repeating his story to individuals until there was enough momentum to it that the group would act together as a group. Hard to imagine a less effective procedure, if time was of the essence. Jack was witnessing what he could only think of as a serious weakness in the Diné mindset if it came to conflict. Important, he realized, given that his whole point in being here in the first place was to avoid conflict.
Alma might have realized that this was apparent to Jack because, at that moment, she turned and looked over her shoulder at him, a worried look in her eyes. It might have been just because there was news of “an incident”, but it could also be that she alone recognized that this exchange amounted to intelligence that might be useful to the Apache and might be conveyed back to them by Jack.
But if so, the cat was out of the bag. “Tell me what happened,” she said. She backed up so the Road Patrollers could all fully enter and sit at one of the tables close to the door. Hashkeh and the other Patroller did so, and at this moment, Hashkeh recognized Jack, sitting next to Rafael. He hesitated. But then he said, directly to Jack, “You should hear this, too.”
Another Like Me Page 23