by Susan Slater
Sal didn’t say anything. He often wondered at how Frank could rattle off these facts and sound proud of something like Spam gluttony. Personally, he hated the stuff, and it wasn’t because Hannah railed on about its salt and fat content. He just didn’t like it—not its looks, not its taste. But shelf life was a different story. The company referred to it as “unlimited.” How could a perishable not perish? But then maybe Spam was like Twinkies.
One time in grade school his best friend had left a Twinkie on a plate above his bed. The first month nothing happened. They’d poke at it and its yellow cake sides would bounce back fresh-like. Three months into the experiment, the thing suddenly hardened but didn’t lose its rounded oblong shape. Then one month later, it was back to its springy freshness. Sal accused his friend of replacing the original. But he swore he hadn’t. This time his friend’s sister said it was witched and made them take it out of the house and bury it. Sal always wanted to go back and dig it up, but he’d forgotten where they’d put it.
“Hot enough for you?” Frank walked back through the swinging door.
Sal didn’t answer. It was like the stuff Anglos said all the time; it didn’t need an answer. It used to bother him that Frank could sound so Anglo. But Sal guessed he had to. Someone had told him Frank was up for promotion, some desk job, manager of the west territory. Maybe he wouldn’t even be driving a truck much longer. Sal took the papers Frank held out to be initialed.
“Want me to add on the usual?” Sal pointed with his chin at the hot dog cooker. He’d slip ’em in the microwave to get ’em warmed through the center and heat the chili.
“Yeah, and make sure I can see the chili for a change.”
Frank laughed. Sal knew he liked to tease.
“I hear we’ve just about seen the last of you. I should be thankful. Profits should go up on hot dogs.” Hannah teased back as she came through the door and crossed the store to stand behind the counter. She took over the making of the hot dogs. It was subtle. She never out and out accused him of not minding the profits, but it was there. Sal knew she’d put on less chili than he would have.
“We’re supposed to have a busload of tourists in here before noon.” Hannah didn’t look up from making change for Frank.
“Good season this year. More write-ups in the Albuquerque Tribune get the newcomers out this way.” Frank began eating one of the dogs.
“Are we going to be ready for them?” She didn’t glance his way, but Sal knew Hannah wasn’t referring to refilling the hot dog cooker. It was time for him to get into the cage. At least that’s what he called it; the wire enclosure at the front of the trading post kept a workbench and tools from becoming too tempting—and to separate the artist from the masses.
Out on the highway—the first billboard was on the four-lane just before Gallup—a series of signs about five miles apart invited the public to view an Indian at work. A real Indian. As versus what, Sal always wondered. But it brought people in. Mostly vacationers in the summer, but they did a stiff trade in December around the time of the Shalako festivities.
It was the only way he sold his artwork anymore—the tiny animals he carved then strung into strands of birds, bears, wolverines or mountain lions in coral, turquoise, malachite ... amber. And his work sold well. Everyone wanted to buy something from an artist he knew. Tourists would crowd around his work space, faceless, pressed against the wire, sometimes asking questions.
Hannah encouraged him to be more talkative. Like she was an authority on Anglos. He preferred to keep quiet. It gave him time to think and, today, he needed silence to figure out what was going on—find the true meaning of the body, then the amber rabbit on the hood of his truck. But more importantly, he needed to know what it would take to keep these things from happening again. Should he speak to his wife? Or assume it was Atoshle and pay for a ceremony to keep him away?
The bus pulled into the shade close to the building. Sal bent over his work but watched the double-file group of tourists walk his way. Q-tips. Twenty of them, or more. One time a tour bus driver had told him he’d looked in his interior mirror and all he saw were cottony-white tops of heads bobbing behind high-backed seats and, for all the world, it looked like a busload of Q-tips. It was a good name.
A sandy-haired man appeared to be the guide, mainly because he looked forty years younger than anyone else. He hopped off last and followed the others, quickening his steps to catch up with a couple who motioned for him to join them just inside the door. Sal wondered if being a guide was a hard job, putting up with little old people and riding backward all day.
“I understand you have a rabbit.”
Sal almost buried the Dremel in the palm of his hand. He shut the small power tool off, set it down carefully and took a deep breath before he glanced at the speaker.
“My daughter has a collection. Over five hundred, I think. All kinds. Paper. Ceramic. Stuffed.” An elderly woman peered at him, standing so close to the wire of his cage as to touch her nose.
“No rabbits.”
“But I asked the guide. He assured me that I’d find some here. Look. In this book on your people’s fetishes by Bennett, it says ...” She thumbed through the pages, backed up, turned one more forward and stopped. “Here it is. ‘The rabbit is a trickster comparable to the coyote. He’s a representative of the world of illusion and double meanings. He’s often prone to acting impulsively, giving himself away, and thus turning his worst fears into self-fulfilling prophecies ... sometimes causing his own destruction.’ ” The woman snapped the book closed. “Is that true? I mean, in your religion do you consider the rabbit—”
“No.” The word sounded strangled, forced, and overly loud. Had it come from him? He glanced quickly at the Q-tip again, then away. Were her eyes glowing? Was she pointing at him with a bony finger, the other hand with blood-red nails holding the book, and hanging on the wire of his cage like an arachnid, its parchment legs clasping the wire? Whatever she was going to say was lost to Sal because he pushed back from the bench, abruptly opened the gate to his enclosure, and left.
He saw Hannah glance his way, pause in her explanation that they were temporarily out of hot dogs. He didn’t even smile. He didn’t care if she lost money because she wasn’t prepared. It probably didn’t matter anyway. She was setting up a dinner for all twenty-some tourists for that night. Sal walked past her.
“Oh, Salvador? I called Ahmed’s store this morning. Ahmed left for New York two days ago. He’ll be back a week from Friday. What’d I tell you?”
CHAPTER TWO
Ben Pecos had chosen to drive from Chicago. Hindsight had proved that to be foolish, but who could have known the temperatures would reach record peaks across the Midwest in June and that vapor lock would stalk him from St. Louis to Albuquerque. His belongings could have been shipped. He could have braved the separation. It wasn’t like he had bonded with the thirty-five cartons of books, box of kitchen “things,” another box of bathroom “things,” a broom, a cantankerous Hoover, two sets of bed linen and assorted clothing.
There wasn’t a lot that defined his existence—maybe the storyteller, the clay doll that sat holding the eager child with an upturned face. It was a sample of his mother’s best work done when she was sober, a few months before she died. He had turned four that summer. His grandmother had let him be adopted by Mormons. She thought it would be the best for him. And, who was to say it wasn’t? So, this trip was another homecoming. This time to pay back Indian Health Service for his education.
It could have been worse. He could have been assigned to a reservation in Montana or Oklahoma. This way he was only a hundred miles from his mother’s Pueblo, maybe another fifty miles from Albuquerque. He’d be the psychologist for the Hawikuh tribe in western New Mexico for two years, longer if he wanted.
To someone who didn’t know New Mexico, it was difficult to explain how the landscape could differ so completely within a few short miles of a neighboring state. But he knew exactly—before the Welcome
sign—that he was home. And he did consider New Mexico that. Mountains emptied into deserts, wooded areas gave way to cultivated fields, mesas loomed at the edge of canyons—and somewhere in the Tewa Pueblo, his mother had buried his umbilical cord, assuring he’d always return.
Interstate 40 from Albuquerque toward Grants and Bluewater passed in the shadow of Mt. Taylor. Black boulders of volcanic ash lined the highway for some fifteen miles, a testament to prehistoric devastation. Then the flat land gently rose, pulling the highway up and through low hills and rocky embankments. The farther west he got, mesas seemed to pop up, red sides steep but with a dusting of greenery. And the sky was a backdrop—startling blue filled with mound upon mound of cumulus clouds.
The interstate was fast. Eighteen wheelers, piggy-back transports, and campers crowded almost bumper to bumper, but no one was doing under eighty. At least, there was a break in the weather. By the time he had picked up Highway 53 out of Grants, the temperature dipped to a respectable ninety-four and continued to drop as he entered the sparsely wooded Cibola National Forest. It seemed to qualify as a ‘forest’ only in spots where pines, juniper, piñon, or desert cyprus thickly spread to block the sun. But these clumps were randomly spaced. More than one two-story pine hovered by the side of the road without a companion.
The temperature fell to an almost brisk seventy-three as he crossed the Continental Divide and continued to climb. The rocky edifice of El Morro loomed in the distance, vaulting some two hundred feet straight up from the fields. Some day he’d visit the information booth and view the signatures of Spanish explorers from the 1600s, but not today.
He was looking for a boarding house about five miles from the village and, rounding a curve, he abruptly braked. There it was. This had to be it, but the boarding house looked out of place—a big rambling Victorian with wrap-around screened porch whose bric-a-brac in salmon and yellow stood out against the sage green of its clapboard sides. The paint job was fresh. They might not be his choice of colors, but the house looked cared for. He pulled up at the end of the drive and sat a moment.
Maybe it was the surroundings that threw him. Someone had carved a niche out of the woods some two hundred feet from the highway, and to the right of the house was a trading post and convenience store. Behind that, almost hidden in the trees, was a small mobile home with attached shed. It was a miniature community about five miles from the reservation proper.
He slipped the pickup into gear and eased his way toward the house. When he had agreed to take this position with Indian Health Service, someone in Albuquerque had suggested his rooming at Hannah Rawlings’ place. He might have preferred living closer in but, for now, it would do. He’d have plenty of time to make a move later.
He parked the truck in front of a brick path which led to the front porch, but it was difficult to tell front from back because of the darkness of the screening—yards of grayness that loomed above him. A scruffy, yellow Lab lumbered to his feet from under a large cottonwood behind the trading post, took a look and sprawled out on his side again. Must have decided it’d take too much energy to make friends, Ben thought.
The place looked deserted. Yet, he had the oddest feeling that he was being watched as he stepped from the truck and started up the walk. From the porch? He couldn’t tell. Surely Hannah wasn’t going to be the type of little old person who spied on her boarders. Nonetheless, it was difficult to suppress a shiver. His grandmother would say someone had walked on his grave.
“You must be Dr. Pecos.” The screened door whined open, and the closeness of the voice startled him.
“Yes. Hannah Rawlings?”
The woman stepped through the door and stood on the top step. At first, Ben thought she was an albino, silver-blond hair, eyebrows and eyelashes almost too light to show up against pale skin; her body, neck to wrists to ankles, was covered by a cotton dress. But the eyes were blue, an icy, deep azure, and he thought of the puppy he’d wanted to keep, but his uncle had looked into those same eyes and called it a “chicken killer.”
And she didn’t seem to be embarrassed by staring at him openly, a hand shading those penetrating eyes. She loomed above him, blocking the door. He felt awkward, but he had started to take another step up, holding out his hand, when suddenly something grabbed his ankle throwing him off-balance.
Ben jerked forward, arms flailing in the air before he landed hard—the palms of both hands stung from striking the top step’s edge. His right shin bone smarted with the promise of a bruise. It had happened lightning fast. The rough hand that had thrown him still grasped his ankle—a hand that had shot out from between the slats at the back of the steps and belonged to someone hiding under the porch.
All Ben could see were creased, suntanned fingers, dark brown with nails bitten to expose a soft pink cuticle streaked with dirt. The stubby fingers and square palm connected to a thick, sturdy wrist. Still pinioned, Ben squatted to see its owner and found himself eye to eye with a troll. At least that was the first word that came to mind. Scabs dotted the hairline of his shaved head, and freckles melded in patches to give him spotty color on his cheeks and across his nose. It took very little imagination to think of a creature who lived under bridges and probably porches, a creature to scare children but who had done a pretty good job of doing just that to him.
He stared, and the crouched owner of a slack jaw and bland expression didn’t flinch. Just returned his stare, then said, “My toad gone. He there. No there now.” The voice, stilted and sing-songy, had the whisper of a lisp.
Ben looked at the step. What was he talking about? What toad? It must be “gone” because he didn’t see anything. Ben had expected to see a child under the porch, but the pair of watery blue eyes that stared back at him from the darkness belonged to a much bigger individual. This boy is almost grown, he thought. He’s big enough for serious harm, if he decided to do more than trip people on the steps.
Suddenly, the boy stuck his other hand through the slats, and opened his fist to show a perfectly carved toad fetish in amber.
“That’s a handsome fellow. You better be careful or he might try to escape again,” Ben said.
This time there were giggles, and Ben felt the pressure on his ankle release.
“Harold, this is Dr. Pecos. Can you come out and say hello?” She waited a moment then added, “My son is shy.”
Son? This hunched figure under the porch belongs to the landlady? The only thing they seemed to have in common were those arresting blue eyes. How odd that there were no excuses, no apologies for Ben’s fall—just a simple he’s “shy.” Ben waited, but thought any further exchanges with Harold probably wouldn’t occur any time soon.
“Harold is a special child. He won’t bother you. He’s just curious.” Hannah turned abruptly and motioned for Ben to follow.
The hallway was cool. That was one thing the porch did—besides provide Harold with a hiding place—keep the house comfortable in the summer. Ben didn’t even hear the sound of a swamp cooler.
“Your rooms are on the first floor at the back behind the kitchen.”
Ben wasn’t certain a reply was necessary; he just followed her. But strangely, Hannah had suddenly become talkative and went on without his offering any encouragement.
“I don’t know what you were expecting. I suppose you’re used to reservations and all. This one’s no different. My husband’s family came out here in 1912 and kept a trading post going through wars and a depression. Well, here’s your place. Those double doors open onto the porch. Kinda gives you extra living space. Private bath ...” She’d stopped to twist an antique brass doorknob that reluctantly turned. “There’s politics in the village and at the clinic. It’s never easy for a newcomer. But, then, that shouldn’t be a surprise.” She stepped aside so he could see the bathroom but not before she had given him another of those thoughtful, sizing-up kind of stares. “You don’t look like someone who’s going to have a problem getting along.” And she smiled, then looked away. The smile almost made
her pretty, Ben noticed. Softened the point to her chin, kept her face from seeming so gaunt.
“Oh, I almost forgot. You’ve been getting mail here for the past week. I’ll be right back.”
The quiet allowed him to look around. The first room was a sitting room. A couple bookcases and it would become a study. The room beyond was dominated by a four poster bed with thigh-thick posts in dark walnut. The matching dresser was equally imposing.
“What do you think?”
He hadn’t heard Hannah return. “It’ll do fine.” He was absently rubbing his shin.
“Mornings you want to join us for breakfast, just give a holler the night before.”
Ben had no idea who “us” might be—Harold and a pocket full of toads, maybe?
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” She handed him a packet of mail neatly trussed with a rubber band and pulled the door shut behind her.
He started to toss the mail on a table, but the letter on top stopped him. He extracted it, looked at the return address but made no move to open it. A breeze pushed through the porch screen, bringing the scent of honeysuckle, and he walked out to view his “extra living space,” the letter still in his hand.
The truth was, he didn’t want to know what was inside. Or maybe he was afraid what he found himself hoping the letter would say wouldn’t be what he’d find. It had been four years since he’d heard from Julie. That was a lot of time—growing up and apart. This was silly, stupid even. Abruptly, he tore away the flap. The note was brief. She was spending some time in Santa Fe on assignment, a series for Good Morning America on Native American symbols. She’d tried to reach him at school to get names of Pueblo people she could interview and found out he’d graduated and was moving back, that he’d be in New Mexico by the time she got there. Did he believe in coincidence? Could he call her? She was staying at the La Fonda on the plaza. Maybe they could get together.