Another Like Me

by Albert Norton, Jr.

  “We were attacked by the Apache.” Hashkeh paused for effect. Jack imagined these words being spoken by a white settler here, two hundred years before. Same words, different meaning, but similar impact.

  “Here? Chinle?” Rafael asked, rising from his chair.

  “No. Not here.” Hashkeh seemed momentarily confused. “And not me personally. I mean the Diné. Two of us were shot.”

  One of the SUVs from the hotel parking lot zoomed past the window, barely slowing as it entered the roadway, turning west onto the road out of town that led to the north-south highway. It was followed by a Road Patrolman on motorcycle.

  “Killed?” Alma asked, her eyes wide.

  Hashkeh just nodded his head. “One dead for sure. Attacked by Apache gun nuts. Those guys,” he said, pointing toward the drive where the SUV had just exited, “are going to see what they can do to help.”

  “Who? Where? When?” Alma asked anxiously.

  “Roland.”

  Jack’s eyes flitted over to the other Patrolman, who had come in with Hashkeh. This wasn’t Roland. This must be the “Rollo” mentioned by Rafael earlier, and not just a nickname for Roland. Apparently the Patrolmen rotated partners. In any event, one of Jack’s former antagonists was now dead.

  “St. John’s,” Hashkeh continued. “Thank God, I mean the stars, that we had four guys down there, not just two. Roland and Jim Dean rolled up on these Apache, and the Apache just shot ’em down cold. Brillo and Oldham heard the shots and found ’em. Oldham stayed with Jim Dean, and Brillo rode back—that was him a minute ago,” he said, pointing again to the drive. “He was going to get a couple of guys and Nurse Brandie and go back.”

  “That’s two hours each way!” Alma said.

  “We didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It sounds like it was the only thing you could do,” Jack said, wanting to reduce at least that one element of anxiety, but also eager to enhance the impression of his own neutrality, given this development.

  Hashkeh looked at Jack suspiciously, even though Jack was seconding his judgment.

  “I’m sorry to hear about Roland,” Jack said.

  Alma just looked back at him tearfully.

  “Well, I thought I might stay over, but maybe I should head back,” Jack said. “I’ll be going through St. Johns, and it still won’t be dark when I get there. Maybe I can be of help.”

  “You’re welcome to stay, of course,” Alma said. “But I don’t think your mission of peace is well-timed.” She half-smiled at the irony.

  Jack made his way over to Rafael, who shook his hand vigorously. Then Hashkeh, too, who was a little stiff but accepted the gesture in kind. Baum just sat at the bar, where he’d resumed his seat, staring at Jack with snake eyes. “Good-bye,” Jack said to Baum with a little wave which was unreciprocated.

  Jack made for the door, and Alma followed. They walked partway to Jack’s vehicle in silence. Alma said, “This is bad, Jack.”

  “I know.”

  “This won’t sit well with the community. We’re peaceful.” They arrived at Jack’s vehicle, and Alma turned toward him. She saw the expression on his face.

  “I mean it, we are. I know all about your run-in with Hashkeh and Roland. But that’s not who we are.”

  “You know one version of it, anyway.”

  “Maybe, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt about Roy, didn’t I? The other Diné did, too. We could tell there was more to it even from what Roy told us, and I don’t doubt your version. It’s not even very different from Roy’s.”

  Jack looked at her.

  “Okay, there was a little spin in favor of Roy,” she said, “but that’s what I mean, we gave you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Why would you say you’re peaceful? I don’t think at heart there’s that much difference between Diné and Apache. Both can be violent given the right circumstances. We’re all people.”

  “Well, I mean we’re becoming peaceful. We’re evolving. Our community will be what it ought to be.”

  “That’s admirable, Alma, but the Apache are not trying to do the same thing, and that creates a problem for the Diné. You can’t become peaceniks if you’re surrounded by violent gun nuts. And the Apache can’t be free if there’s a powerful, disapproving force arrayed against them. You can’t just build a wall between yourselves, and it wouldn’t solve the problem if you could.”

  “I’m afraid all this won’t end well,” Alma said.

  “Pray.”

  “No,” Alma said. “We need to do something.”

  “Just remember, you only have your side of this. No one here has heard from the Apache. Let me investigate. Then I’ll come back, and we can talk. Fair enough?”

  “Sounds fair, but you know I don’t speak for the Diné.”

  “And I don’t speak for the Apache, but we should do something. Do what you can, Alma. This won’t end well if there’s no more effort to resolve it. But it may end peaceably if there is.”

  She nodded her head. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “I should see you again soon.”

  “Goodbye, Jack.”

  Chapter 24

  Jack’s last ride down this stretch of highway had been as leisurely as this one was hurried. It had been at the same time of day, in similar weather, too, and only recently—all of which served to highlight the contrast in Jack’s state of mind between then and now. He drove fast. Faster by far than he’d have ever considered in ordinary circumstances. In fact, he drove faster now than he had ever dared in his life—police or no police. He was grateful now for the eerily-long sight distance on the highway south from Chinle. He looked down once at his speedometer and saw that he was going over a hundred miles an hour. He decided not to look down again.

  But then the highway took a wide bend to the left, where the colossal stepped-down plateaus off to the east ceased. Jack let off the speed a little going into it and thought he could recover against the centrifugal force. The arc was long, and the sweep of the turn was gradual, but it resulted in a turn of almost ninety degrees in total. The highway generally ran south, but not due south all the way. It angled first southwest and then corrected southeast at this spot. He was going too fast for this sustained left turn.

  The strain of holding the vehicle on the road became too much. Jack knew the vehicle would flip if he tried to hold to the road. He relented, calculating damage from a tangential shot from the highway. Fortunately, there was no shoulder to speak of immediately alongside the roadway, just hardpan sand and then those little green-grey creosote bushes and rabbit grass. Parallel to the road and maybe twenty yards from it was a continuous mound left over from the road construction. Jack thought he might be able to keep the vehicle inside that ridge, but it was not to be. He spun, and continued to spin, trying to keep his approach to the ridge head-on or rear-first, but not broadside. His rear wheels hit the mound at a little bit of an angle, violently jostling him both back to front, and side to side. His head hit the ceiling. His front wheels hit the mound. His head hit the ceiling again. Another half-turn, and then he came to a stop.

  Jack stepped out into the silent desert, rubbing his neck. He wouldn’t have been surprised had there been damage to his tires, which would certainly have delayed his progress. He always carried two spares, but the time to deal with it would more than offset any gain from going so fast. The tires seemed to be intact.

  He looked around. The road was not far away, but now that his vehicle was off of it entirely, it seemed all the more forlorn. It was surrounded by the creosote bushes and grass, stretching to the mesas raised above his level on the west horizon, and the end of the mesa he was on, with sudden drop-offs below his level, to the east. Jack felt anew the sense of vulnerability that came with being so alone in such a wide and sometimes hostile world. Time to reassess. What was his hurry? He had it in mind to get to St. Johns soon after the Diné vehicle and maybe provide a calming influence. He felt sure there was more to the story, but so what if there w
asn’t? Did there have to be retribution and reprisals? War? It’s one thing to be an advocate of peace, he realized, and quite another to overlook grievous wrong when you’re the victim of it.

  Jack was able to maneuver his vehicle past the little dirt mound and back onto the highway without getting stuck in snow-softened sand. He was headed south again on the highway, still within that long wide curve, listening for mechanical problems and inwardly chiding himself for his recklessness. Not being himself, he thought. Very slowly, he picked up speed, topping out at something more reasonable. If Diné passions became more inflamed by the delay, so be it. He could do no good stranded in the desert or worse.

  After this, the road was mostly straight but for the two doglegs where the north/south road was bisected by other highways—first at Burnside and Ganado, and then at Chambers and Sanders. Despite the slowdown in speed, the trip to St. John’s took just a little more than an hour and a half. Jack had hoped to catch up to the Diné who had preceded him, but no doubt his spinout made that impossible. Still, they had to have been moving fast, too, to get to St. Johns before he did. Jack rolled across the concrete bridge entering St. Johns. The elevation of the town was well above that of Chinle, so there was more snow. The rust-red canal was no more attractive for being framed by snow on the banks. As soon as he was past the bridge, Jack began scanning left and right for the possible scene of the “incident.”

  Commercial Street ran east and west through town. There was no sign of human activity. Then there was a gentle curve in the road to the right at Washington Street, just a readjustment before it continued on west, joining Cleveland Street. Jack slowed in the intersection. He could see some activity ahead, further west on West Cleveland, and he could just make out the Diné SUV that had roared out of Arturo’s parking lot. Jack had instinctively come to a stop in the intersection. Now that he was here, he reconsidered how best to proceed. The Diné Road Patrolman, Jim Dean, was shot, but that had been as much as four hours previous, in the early afternoon. By now he was most likely either reasonably stable or dead. There was no telling about the Apache, assuming that was, in fact, who was involved in the shooting. They could be on the scene or have fled. Up ahead, there would be several Diné Road Patrolmen and, evidently, a nurse—hopefully someone trained as such in former times. Jack couldn’t help with the medical situation, but he could possibly mediate the conflict. He eased his vehicle forward again.

  The roads in St. Johns were wide, and of course there was no traffic, so Jack was able to park so that he couldn’t possibly be in the way—twenty yards or so behind the Diné SUV. He half expected to see people moving about a wounded man lying on the ground, but of course it had been hours since the event. The SUV was parked on the street in front of a two-story brown sandstone structure, identified by tall red letters above the door as a high school. Jack ran up to the door and quickly found people inside, in an office fronting the building. It had evidently no longer been in use as a high school, but instead as a government building housing City Hall and other local government functions. It was dark inside, and no warmer than outside—if anything it was cooler. They had the young Diné man lying on a desk, and beside him was a large woman with sunken eyes and short blonde hair. The nurse, no doubt. She looked at Jack suspiciously, and then down to his holstered sidearm.

  “Nurse Brandie, I take it. I just came from Chinle,” Jack said, hoping to assuage any alarm. “You left just before I did.”

  “You’re not Diné,” she said flatly.

  “Nor Apache. I wanted to see if I could help.”

  “Picnic,” the wounded man said. “You were at the picnic.”

  Jack was relieved to see him conscious and seized on this opportunity to present himself as a non-hostile. “I was. Good to see you again.” As if he remembered this man, Jim Dean, specifically. He didn’t.

  There was a clatter in the hallway, so Jack went out to see what was going on. Two Road Patrolmen were carrying a heavy door, bumping it on the frame of a doorway in the semi-darkness. A third man, who by costume did not appear to be a Patrolman, held the door open. “Let me help,” Jack said though there was no real need. Then he went through almost the same exchange as he had with the nurse. He dropped Alma Lee’s name. They seemed guarded but accepting.

  The Patrolmen went about positioning the door next to the desk that Dean was lying on. Jack began moving adjoining office paraphernalia out of the way, inquiring of the nurse as he did so. “What’s the story on our man, here?”

  “He’s going to be fine. I’ve given him antibiotics and cleaned him up. He’s lucky, the bullet went all the way through, and so far I don’t see evidence of serious damage internally.”

  “Hurts like hell,” Dean said.

  “We just have to watch him,” the nurse continued. “I think he’s okay to move. Gentle, boys. Here, all of you on this side, and move him over to the very edge of the desk, all together. I want him jostled as little as possible. Then put the door next to him, on top of the desk.” She gestured to Jack. “You get on the other side of the door and hold it so it doesn’t tip over the edge of the desk when we put him on it.”

  In short order, Dean was resting on the door, and the door was used as a stretcher to get him out to the SUV. A seat had been removed from the SUV, and other seats folded down, so it worked well as an ambulance. They debated putting him in with the door, but found that the door was too long, and anyway, they needed to put him on blankets laid out for that purpose on the floor of the rear of the SUV.

  “All the way to one side,” Nurse Brandie said.

  “It’ll be a little tight if you’re riding back there with him,” Jack said.

  “I’m a nurse.”

  And then they were gone. Dean, the nurse, and the other Diné man.

  Jack looked at the remaining two. Young Patrolmen. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Now we bury Roland,” one said.

  “Now we find his murderers,” the other one said. “Let’s get the body inside the door of the building. It’s too late to finish the job before it gets dark. We can do it in the morning. It’s cold enough.”

  Roland’s body was under a sheet at the corner of the yard, under what would be a spreading cottonwood tree in summer, next to a low stone wall. They just rolled the body in the sheet and then carried it to the hallway just inside the door of the government building.

  “So what happened?” Jack asked as soon as they had set the body down.

  “Apache killed a Diné. All you need to know.”

  “I’m going to help you look for them.”

  “No, you’re not. Stay out of our business.”

  Jack started to protest but caught himself. If they were suspicious of Jack, their best move would have been to insist that Jack accompany them. They hadn’t, but probably only because it hadn’t occurred to them that Jack might search for the Apache on his own and maybe warn them off. Best to scoot and not stick around asking questions of the taciturn young men.

  “Fine. But I’ll be back to help bury him in the morning.” Jack turned on his heel and strode to his car, jumping in and driving off without further delay. The light was fading fast. He had but an hour or so more of sunlight, at best. If nothing else, he might be able to confirm for himself that the Apache were long gone, and if they were, he’d help with the burial and then go see Rupert and find out what he could. But maybe he’d get a clue in St. Johns.

  Jack slowed down almost as soon as he’d gotten underway, looking in his rearview mirror to see what the Road Patrolmen did. At first, they set off east, but Jack could just make out that they turned north, rather than curving with the road further east. So Jack would start in the south, which seemed a better bet to him anyway.

  St. Johns was not a large town, but it was spread out pretty well, and it was flat. The trees were of the scrubby, desert-friendly kind, but they were nonetheless plentiful enough to keep Jack from seeing far. He drove up and down the streets, not really knowing what to look out fo
r. He began to think he was wasting his time. His story, if he ran into the Diné again, would be that he was just looking for a place to spend the night.

  This went on for about twenty minutes. Enough time to cover a lot of ground in St. Johns, but, of course, there were plenty of places to inconspicuously park a functioning vehicle or to hide out inside a building. Jack rolled down the window despite the cold, in case he might hear something, remembering that this tactic had served him well the first time he had heard the Diné Road Patrol, right here in St. Johns.

  What it did for him, though, was open another of his senses—that of smell. Jack was driving beside a park lined with tall cottonwood trees surrounding an overgrown greensward, with a sidewalk around the outer edge. He caught the pungent aroma of burnt marijuana, and immediately remembered that day in Eagar when he first encountered zombies. He parked and jumped out of the car. The smell was strong enough that he could just follow it, but he considered that for once the druggies using it might scatter if they’d had anything to do with the shooting. So Jack moved along quietly, now far from his vehicle, until he came to a fenced-in tennis court next to a little building. The smell was more than a whiff now. Jack removed his .45 and racked the slide so that a round was positioned in the chamber and all he had to do was pull the trigger. He did this as quietly as he could and moved alongside the wall of the little building and peeked around the far corner of it. He was now looking along a long brick wall, adjacent to the street, but he could see a chain-link door between the building and the fence. He moved over to it and saw two men inside, sitting on lounge chairs that surrounded a dry pool.

  Jack stood at the edge of the pool fence, his left hand on the chain-link door. He couldn’t hope to detain them long in there, but it was something. “Buenas dias,” he said.