by Susan Slater
He was beginning to feel better, slowly beginning to regain strength. At least his head was clear enough to think of what to do. The persistent breeze was cooling, as it sucked away the last of his feverishness and restored order. He was surrounded by the loud, insistent, but calming chirp of night creatures. This would have been a good night to collect, but he had no heart for it now. He walked back toward the truck.
He’d leave the truck, hike to the highway, and call Hannah from the One-Stop. Or maybe he’d call the police first. The police would have to come. Sooner or later, they would have to know. But what questions would they ask? How could he explain the man being found on his truck? Would they think there had been a fight? Would they discover the business arrangement? Sal shook his head. What a mess.
The headlights shone somewhat dimmer, but clearly. Hidden from their brightness, Sal paused at the edge of the thick brush, then stepped into the clearing and stopped again. He blinked, stared ... it couldn’t be. The hood of his truck was clean, bare of any trace of blood, let alone a body. He looked to the right, then left. There was no evidence of a disturbance, mashed underbrush where a body had been dragged away. A light breeze fanned the tall grasses. He was losing his mind. There had been a body and blood and ... there was something in its place.
Sitting on the scratched paint like a hood ornament was an amber fetish, maybe two inches tall. A sphinxlike rabbit, inset eyes of polished turquoise looking into nothingness, ears taller than its golden translucent body that held captive several tiny insects. Sal turned away and slumped against the truck’s side. The rabbit was made out of amber from his shed, his laboratory. Amber he had made. Insects he had caught. His lungs ached as he gulped in air, tried to get his breath. Someone knew, had found out the lie. Killed because of it. And now warned him.
He roused himself to look in the truck’s bed. The Styrofoam cases were gone—Mason jars, their inhabitants, everything. First, there was a body, then there wasn’t, now, in addition, he’d lost a night’s work. Clearly, someone didn’t want him making amber. Could it be the ancient ones? The ones who crowded his dreams? Had he sinned against nature with his lie?
He found a stick and knocked the amber rabbit off the hood and poked it under the left front tire, then pushed a flat rock against it. He’d smash this fake to powder, and then he’d talk with Hannah. He’d feel better then. Sal hoped there was enough battery left to turn the engine over.
+ + +
“Salvador. Oh, my God, what happened to you? You’re soaked.” Hannah jumped up from the big oak table in the corner of the boarding house kitchen; a pile of bills scattered across the floor. She threw her arms around him, a quick hug of relief when he’d said that he was all right. Then, he’d told her as best he could about the body but felt foolish adding that it had disappeared.
“Show me where it happened. We need to go back and look. A body just can’t disappear. And if it’s who you say ... well, we’ve got some thinking to do.”
Hannah first insisted on looking at the truck. She opened the hood and wiped a rag around the inside edge. “A bleeding body would have left a trace. There’s nothing here. I’ve never seen this old truck so clean.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s the point.” Sal was getting tired of the hocus-pocus. Maybe he shouldn’t have told Hannah. She was acting like he was crazy. He should have just gone home. But he had to tell Hannah. It was one more reason to stop making amber, stop the lying. .22 was home now. Soon the school’s bills would be paid. The money wasn’t needed anymore.
He didn’t want to go back to the river, but Hannah said she’d drive. He didn’t even change clothes, just rolled down the window on the passenger side and let the warm air dry them. He was quiet, and Hannah respected his silence.
The truck’s headlights picked up little more than the width of the two-lane highway. Yet, the night was lighted by the now-high moon in a cloudless sky. Calming, peaceful—already, he was having second thoughts about what he’d seen. Leaving the highway, Hannah maneuvered the ancient truck down the steep incline where two tracks led to the river. They bounced along in silence. Hannah chewing on her lower lip, cursing when the truck slipped sideways over slick rocks, throwing them around before the tires gained dry ground.
“How do I know this isn’t your imagination? You’ve talked a lot lately about bad dreams, Atoshle, and all. Isn’t there a chance that you thought you saw a body, but there really wasn’t one?”
“I know what I saw.” He felt angry now, as if someone had played a joke. “There. That’s where the truck was parked. Pull straight in.”
Hannah nosed the truck to within twenty feet of the thick wall of rushes, cut the engine and sat a moment listening.
“You’re coming with me. I don’t like this any more than you do. But I won’t investigate alone.” She left the headlights on and walked to the front of the truck. Reluctantly, Sal followed.
“Tell me again what you did. What happened before you saw the body?”
Sal mimed looking in the bed of the truck, hearing a sound, walking into the high grass, then turning back and seeing the blood dripping across the headlight.
“And the body was like this?” Hannah hopped up on the hood and dangling a leg across the fender leaned back against the windshield.
“Get down.” He’d lost all patience. She was mocking him. She didn’t believe him.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. Salvador, look at me.” Hannah slipped down from her perch to take his hands in hers. “I just don’t think you saw a body. How could you? There’s no evidence that this place has been disturbed. For someone to have dragged a body—”
“It could have been carried.”
“Ahmed isn’t exactly slight. It would have taken two strong men to move him, let alone hoist him up here.” She patted the hood “You would have heard something, saw something. They would have left a trail, trampled the grass. Sal, I’ll call the trading post in the morning. You’ll see, this is all some fabrication.”
“I know what I saw. It’s a warning. I’m not supposed to be making amber.” Sal was looking on the ground for some trace of the amber rabbit that he’d smashed under the tires. But again, nothing, not even fragments of the golden ornament. Had he imagined everything? He was feeling slightly sick to his stomach.
“You know this could have been some kind of prank. Someone pretended to be dead, then got up and walked away, leaving the rabbit.”
“Maybe.” He couldn’t deny that as a possibility. He hadn’t examined the body, just took off scared out of his wits. “Should we call the police?” Probably, he’d already decided not to, but he needed to ask.
“And tell them what?”
“I don’t know.”
“We don’t even have the amber rabbit to corroborate your story. I really think this was done by someone from the village. A jealous carver, perhaps.”
“Or Atoshle—”
“You know I don’t believe the same way you do. My practical side says someone you know has set this up. Hired someone to scare you into giving up the amber.” She leaned her elbows against the fender. “I just can’t believe word has gotten out. Certainly, everyone knows you excel at carving amber. Your work is some of the best that’s ever been done. But no one knows that you make it, too.” She frowned causing her forehead to wrinkle. Sal always thought this was the only clue to Hannah’s age. Otherwise, her clear pale skin pulled smooth around her eyes with only the hint of laugh lines to belie her fifty-some years.
“Is the notebook safe?” She suddenly leaned toward him to whisper.
Sal nodded. Everything he knew—had learned about the making of amber was written down, carefully noted in a small pocket-sized spiral binder. It had been Hannah’s idea and a good one. It represented a lot of work and a lot of money—too much of both to trust to memory. If it were to fall into the wrong hands ....
“What would we do if someone were to steal it?” Hannah voiced his thoughts.
Sal shrugged. He s
tarted to tell her he was stopping anyway, but she rushed on.
“I’m talking about someone duplicating our work or worse—exposing us.” She was biting her lower lip now. “Salvador, give the notebook to me. It’s incriminating—points a finger at both of us. And I’m not willing to go to jail.” She leaned toward him waiting. He liked the way her eyes glittered. They were the most unusual deep blue. “I’ll put it in the safe at the trading post.”
“I can’t.” That sounded better than he didn’t want to.
“Why not?” He could hear the start of anger in her voice.
“I use the notebook. I make corrections. Add things all the time. Look up what I’ve done before. It needs to stay with me.”
“I’m worried. Maybe, this was a warning. What if these people won’t stop at a harmless prank? What if they are willing to kill for it?” Her hand was on his arm. “I couldn’t bear to find you dead somewhere.” Her eyes glistened with tears caught just behind lower lashes.
“I don’t think you have to worry.”
Sal had thought about his death. But he wondered if tonight’s warning came from the Elders—those in the village who could call upon the kachina to show him his errors—not to kill him but to give him a vision of what could be. Maybe if he appeased the priests, showed them that what he did was really not so harmful. He could tell them he would stop by the end of the summer. Yes, that was it. If they knew he was quitting soon ....
“You know, we’re in such a good position.” Hannah was staring into space, tears blinked back—any further search for the body apparently forgotten. “I’ve spread rumors about a new vein of Baltic amber, one just discovered. No one ever questions me. People are clamoring for the good stuff. And ours is perfect.” Suddenly she grabbed both his arms and faced him, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t want anything to happen to that notebook. Or to you. Do you understand me? I don’t want you taking risks.”
“It’ll be okay. I’m going to stop.”
“What?” Her arms fell away.
“By the end of the summer. I’ll be finished when the last of the school bills are paid.”
“But I’ve just started repairs on the house. We talked, don’t you remember? The house is Harold’s inheritance. I can’t just let it go. The plumbing is terrible. I’ve just had the place painted—I still owe for that. I’m talking thousands. Salvador, are you listening to me? I’ve committed myself, signed contracts.”
“You’ll have enough.”
She stared up at him. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, only that she was angry. Then she stepped away and leaned back against the truck.
“I want to help. I want to keep you safe. Don’t throw that back in my face. All our years together—they have to mean something. We had a deal—a business contract. I expect you to honor that.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” she finally asked.
He shrugged. How could a man answer that?
“All the more reason to give me the notebook. Don’t give someone the chance to kill for it.”
Sal didn’t answer. The notebook would stay with him. There was no argument. He reached out and pulled her to him. “I’m glad you care.” He said it brusquely and felt her relax.
“It’s like the old days. You and me by the river. I hate it when you fight me about the notebook. Sometimes I just might know best.” She leaned back to look at him, chin defiantly thrust forward. But her eyes were smiling. “You know, as long as we’re out here we could walk to the river. The night is beautiful.” Hannah slipped a hand in his and pulled him to follow.
Some sixth sense perked up and sent a message to his brain. Maybe he was about to get lucky. Sal thought fleetingly of the kids who had been out there earlier. They’d had the right idea. He drew her back and put an arm around her waist.
+ + +
The sunlight ricocheted off the trailer’s silver siding and sought entry through the kitchen window. It was too early. Sal wadded the pillow and buried his face. He wasn’t anxious to start the day or remember the night before—well, maybe the sex, but not the other. In the morning light, it was difficult to believe he’d thought there had been a body on the hood of his truck, let alone an amber rabbit. He pressed his hands to his forehead. Hannah was right; things like that didn’t really happen outside your imagination. He needed to forget about it, get on with his life.
Today, he was minding the store and there were deliveries—early ones—gas tanker from Shiprock, bread truck, Sysco Foods. He threw the pillow on the floor and swung his feet over the high plywood side of his bed, then stood and stretched.
He had never paid rent; he helped out. And that made it all right. This trailer in back of the trading post wasn’t charity. He pulled on the pair of jeans he’d thrown onto the top bunk and rummaged around in the cupboard above his head for a clean T-shirt, then started out the door.
His bathroom and shower were in back of the deli-mart, the one room grocery attached to the Trading Post and piled floor to ceiling with racks of canned goods, paper products, and toiletries. An upright cooler of cold sodas took up a part of the south wall. Fresh food was frozen mostly, unless you counted Hannah’s vegetables that she sold during the summer.
He should probably mist the bins of vegetables before he went to the bathroom but more likely than not, the leaves of lettuce would slowly wilt anyway even under the fine spray of water that he applied twice a day. Cabbages became shriveled and hard in less than a week and reminded him of shrunken heads he’d seen on display once in a museum. Now there was a unique approach to preserving the enemy. The year Hannah had raised brussels sprouts had been singularly bad, until kids discovered they made good ammunition for sling shots.
He unlocked the storeroom and the front doors. Today he would mop the plank flooring, worn brown and smooth after years of traffic. He’d opened early for deliveries, but Frank Yazzie was late. Usually, the big white Sysco Foods truck was waiting for him. Of course, sometimes Frank saved them for last, on his way home to Window Rock for the weekend. The company let him keep the big truck overnight, as long as he wasn’t carrying anything that would spoil.
Sal wiped out the hot dog cooker, the clear plastic cylinder with rotating spokes that sat on the edge of the counter. He could count on Frank buying two—smothered in Texas chili. He’d have to remember to scrape the dry crust from around the edge of the brown mass in the crockpot, maybe add another can of Wolf Brand and set out the Tabasco.
He sighed as he got four wieners out of the walk-in cold storage to fill the cooker. Fill was a misnomer. Hannah instructed him to put in four dogs and space them so that it looked like they’d sold the other eight. Sal threaded the wieners onto different rungs of the cooker each morning. Almost always, they sold all four. But when he asked Hannah to let him cook a couple more, she’d given him an emphatic, “No.” Eight dollars in the pocket was better than the possibility of two wasted.
He waved to the driver of the Navajo Gas and Oil truck and walked outside to watch him pump fuel into the underground holding tanks. A splash of gas was evaporating on the driveway. Sal pulled a hose from the side of the building, turned the spigot and aimed a spray of water at the spill then filled the mop bucket. The tanker from Shiprock would top up the reservoir of eighty-seven percent octane fuel. There were two pumps in the drive but nobody paid the extra fifteen cents a gallon for ninety per cent except Hannah, but then she didn’t pay exactly. She filled her aging Buick once a week with the expensive stuff.
Sal couldn’t keep his mind from dwelling on last night. Hannah had said later she thought it might be his wife paying someone to scare him into sending more money. He’d given it some thought as he lay beside her, afterward, on the soft sand of the river’s bank—after the two of them were exhausted by what they had done so well for so many years.
And, could be it was his wife and not the ancient ones. She had ways of finding out what he was up to. He needed to give that some though
t. When he’d moved out all those years ago, the unspoken agreement was that he’d give her money as regularly as he could. There were no children. Over the years, he’d kept his part of the bargain. Among his tribe, adultery wasn’t a crime. Infidelity might lead to divorce, but, unlike Anglos, no one considered his rights violated. Not that there weren’t some things expected. More because of the Catholic religion and the intrusion of Anglo laws—like property rights, restitution due, an eye for an eye.
Just last month, his wife had asked him for money. And when he’d said, “Maybe,” she’d hinted that a man who had all that amber must be rich and could afford to meet his obligations. How did she know what he had? He’d just shrugged but gave her the Indian courtesy of listening. And she could talk. He wasn’t sure he could remember a list of faults that long unless he recited them everyday. But, maybe that’s what she did. They had certainly been committed to memory in a perfect, unchanging order. Sometimes he’d try to pay attention, just to make certain nothing new had been added.
“Hey, you need this ‘bilagaana nik’os’ or not?” Frank Yazzie leaned in the door.
Sal stood the rag mop in the bucket and pushed it into a corner beside the freezer. Frank must have the ten cases of Spam Hannah had ordered. Navajos referred to the pink luncheon meat in the blue can as “white man’s neck.” Probably wasn’t a bad name as names go.
“Over here.”
Frank maneuvered the loaded dolly down the last row of shelves and headed toward the storeroom.
“You know Shiprock City Market sells 1,400 cases every three months of this stuff and there’s twenty-four cans in a case. They got an entire aisle that’s just Spam. They won a prize last year as the Southwest territory’s top consumer. Spam people gave ’em a banner.” Frank disappeared through a swinging door.