Less Than Human

by Raisor, Gary

  Amos was barely listening. He had heard this story at least twenty times.

  Lefty was an Apache from the San Carlos reservation whose wife had grown tired of his gambling and had kicked him out. Lefty had earned his nickname from welching on a bet; his right hand had been cut off as payment.

  Every Saturday Lefty showed up at Amos's place with two bottles of whiskey, which they drank while playing pinochle. At the last estimate, Lefty owed Amos a little over three million dollars.

  Lefty dusted off a spot on the steps and sat down by Amos.

  They watched Jesse work on the back window of the truck. A huge black eagle holding a snake had been painted on it. "That back window's new, ain't it?" Lefty asked.

  "Yeah, Jesse painted it himself."

  "Did a damned fine job. He must take after you."

  "I don't know who he takes after." Amos felt a heaviness in his heart. He had never thought he would have to raise another boy, or live long enough to see his only son dead. Amos was seventy-three now, seamed and bent by the years, and he wondered if he would be able to see the job through. He hoped so. There was no one else to look after the boy.

  "Last night I heard an owl calling," Amos said. "Sounded like it was right outside my window."

  "Is that a fact?" Lefty asked, impressed. He considered the implications for a moment. "Rudy No Horses over in San Carlos heard an owl. A week later he was dead."

  "What happened to him?"

  Lefty took a long drink from his bottle while he tried to remember. His face brightened. "Rudy was killed when he dropped about half a marijuana joint down in his car seat. Set his big red butt on fire. He was jumping around; trying to put it out, when the car door came open and he fell out. They say it was a hell of a sight, him turning cartwheels down State sixty with flames shooting out his ass."

  "Did he really hear an owl?" Amos asked, taking a drink.

  "Yeah, my ex-wife said she heard it from a woman over in Flagstaff, who claimed she heard it from her cousin, who got it from a very reliable source. She said Rudy's car went out of control and hit a Bible salesman in an S-Ten from Omaha. Killed him too."

  "You think the Bible salesman heard an owl?" Amos inquired with a snort of contempt.

  "That's beside the point. The point is that Rudy heard an owl and a week later he was dead."

  "I don't even know why I talk to you, Lefty."

  "It's because I bring good whiskey," Lefty answered, unoffended.

  They went back to watching Jesse work on the pickup. The place where Amos and Jesse lived wasn't much, ten acres of hardscrabble dirt with almost enough grass to feed his old U-necked Appaloosa mare and the three moth-eaten buffalo he kept so the tourists would have something to take pictures of. At last count there were eight nervous chickens, and that was two less than last week. This was a fact Lefty pointed out.

  "The coyotes are sneaking up here at night and eating them," Amos said. "Custer there," he pointed at the dog, a blond border collie sleeping under the truck, "is supposed to make sure that don't happen. But one of the coyotes is a female. I figure old Custer there is selling me out for sex."

  "You mean he's looking the other way while his lady love is eating your chickens?"

  "That's exactly what I mean. Old Custer is about the horniest dog I ever seen."

  The dog raised his head at the mention of his name, then lowered it back.

  "He does look like his ass is dragging," Lefty said. "I wondered why he ain't been doing any leg dancing lately. I was beginning to think he didn't like my leg no more."

  "Well, you'd better enjoy the break, cause when the chickens are all gone, your leg's going to start looking good again. And I'd watch where I passed out if I was you. I seen him eyeing some other parts of your anatomy."

  "Thanks for the warning. You do any business today?" Amos shook his head no. "Should have some tourists soon. Frontier Days is coming up."

  The trailer that Amos and Jesse shared was twenty-three miles from the interstate, most of it on pothole-riddled dirt roads, which meant they didn't get a lot of company. Still, once in a while they would get some tourists who were looking for real Navajo Indians. Amos felt obliged to show them one.

  For a price.

  A sign out front promised authentic Indian souvenirs for sale, but they were fakes. Junk. Amos made a trip to Tucson a couple of times a year, where he bought the stuff from a Jewish lady who had a son who brought it in from Taiwan. Amos didn't make much of a living; still he managed to make enough to keep himself supplied with the only thing he ever wanted from the white man's world: Jack Daniel's whiskey. He took a sip of the sour mash and savored the evening. The truck radio played a sad song about lost love.

  "We gonna play some cards tonight?" Lefty asked. "I think I feel lucky."

  "You say that every night," Amos answered, his mind far away. "I don't feel lucky. I feel like something bad's going to happen."

  Jesse had finally got that last speck of imaginary dust off his pickup. At twenty-one, Jesse was a lot like his father, and that made Amos proud. And a little scared. Jesse's father, Thomas Black Eagle, had wanted to make his way in the white man's world and it had killed him in the end. Jesse wanted no part of his own tribe, either. He talked constantly of leaving, of going to Los Angeles. Amos knew it was hard for the boy, being half-white. More times than he could count, Amos had seen the swollen eyes and split lips that Jesse had brought home from school. But the boy was tough. He had never cried or complained.

  The old man turned his eyes to the hills in the far distance and watched as the sun began dipping behind them. A breeze sprang up, ruffling Amos's long gray hair. As Jesse slammed the truck hood shut, Amos smiled, showing perfect dentures that flashed white as snow. They were a present from Jesse. His grandson knew he loved corn on the cob, but Amos would never spend money on store-bought teeth. Jesse said getting those teeth was the biggest mistake he had ever made, because now they had corn on the cob every night.

  "The boy sure loves that old truck," Lefty observed.

  "Yeah, he's gone every night in it." Amos thought he knew where the boy went. He had a pretty good idea from the pool cue Jesse kept hidden under the truck seat and the stash of bills he had under the mattress in his room. Hustling pool was a risky business. A man could end up only broke if he was lucky. Dead if he wasn't. Dead like Jesse's father.

  Still, Amos knew a man was going to raise a little hell now and then. He'd done his share. The old man looked south toward Mexico, a good two-day drive to the border. That was where he used to go to get in trouble when he was younger. The last time he'd gone, nearly ten years ago, he'd gotten himself a scrawny young Mexican prostitute who looked like she needed the money. A small sigh came from Amos as he thought back on that night, and yet he couldn't keep a smile from crossing his face.

  The girl had been about thirty or so, with a bad complexion, bad teeth, but a good disposition. Her name was Amanda Oliveros. She had been in the business for a little over two years, she told Amos. This was only a temporary thing, she explained with a shyness that wasn't feigned, just something to help her get by for a while. She had plans. Her sister, Carlotta, was a maid in some big fancy hotel up in Phoenix, and was going to send for her any day now. The only reason Carlotta hadn't sent for her was because the hotel wasn't hiring yet.

  There, Amanda had assured him, she would meet some rich American who would take her away from all this. Despite the softness of her words, there was something defiant about the way Amanda Oliveros told her story. Something sad, too.

  Amos said nothing to her. He knew deep in his heart the sister was never going to send for her.

  They had sat on the bed in the small shack that leaked in the rain and passed a bottle of tequila back and forth until they were both gloribusly drunk. In Spanish and broken English, amid much giggling, Amanda told Amos that he reminded her of her grandfather, who used to sit her on his knee and tell her stories when she was little.

  Amos was stung by the rema
rk. She saw the hurt on his face and tried to apologize but the damage was done.

  They tried to make love.

  And Amos had been unable to do anything. He laid next to her in the humid dark and he may have cried, he didn't remember for sure. She was kind to him though. She didn't laugh as she held him tight, and her hair smelled like spring rain, fresh and clean. He fell asleep in her arms.

  When Amos had awakened in the morning with a head filled with wool and shame, he had put money under her pillow and let himself out quietly.

  The last thing he had seen on that gray, rainy morning as he drove away was the girl standing in the window waving good-bye. She had been smiling, a bright, cheerful smile that seemed out of place on such a gloomy day.

  Many times since that night, he wondered if Amanda's sister had ever sent for her. If he went back to that Mexican village, would she still be waiting there, a little older, a little harder? Her bright smile not so bright now? He had decided long ago he didn't want to know. Life was full of sadness enough without going out of your way to find it.

  Still, it was a hurtful thing he decided, when a man could no longer be with a woman. Now Amos just ate corn on the cob with his new false teeth and drank Jack Daniel's whiskey on the porch with his old friend, Lefty Thunder Coming.

  Jesse finished his ministrations to the truck and walked toward the trailer. "You'd better lay off that stuff. You know it makes you do things you shouldn't."

  Amos ignored the remark. "You going out again?"

  "Yeah, I got a little business to take care of."

  Amos studied the boy before him. Dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Jesse looked more white than Navajo, and that hurt Amos. Jesse had his father's angular features, his mother's eyes, green and piercing. And slightly angry. The boy was all grown up and Amos felt like he didn't know his grandson anymore. The thought only added to his sadness.

  "What kind of business?" Amos inquired.

  "Just business." Jesse evaded Amos's stare and stepped around him.

  "You want something to eat before you go?" Amos asked.

  "No, I gotta get going. Got people waiting on me. Besides," he smiled, "I don't think I could eat any more corn." For a second the Jesse that Amos knew was standing in front of him, then the mask slipped back over Jesse's face. Amos felt as though he were suddenly talking to a stranger.

  Maybe the whiskey made Amos bold, or maybe it was just worry that made him say, "Shooting pool for money isn't a very smart way to make a living."

  "You been spying on me?" Anger made the muscles in the boy's face clench.

  "No, but I hear things and I got two eyes. I seen that cue stick you got under the seat, the money under the mattress."

  Jesse snorted, his laughter derisive. "How should I make a living? Like you? Selling junk to tourists?"

  "You could go back to school. One more year and—"

  "Fuck school! I'm not ever going back there."

  The old man flinched beneath the anger in Jesse's eyes and had to look away.

  Jesse saw the sorrow in Amos's face and his tone softened. "I'm sorry, I meant no disrespect, Grandfather. It's just that I'm all through with that. My father went to school and what did it get him? The best he could do was end up working over at the mine."

  "It was better than dying in a bar fight," Amos said.

  "Was it?" Jesse answered. "Was it?" His face hardened. "You heard the way he coughed after breathing that dust all day?" Jesse reached out and for a second Amos thought his grandson was about to strike him. Instead the boy's arms fell to his sides. Helpless. "Getting killed in a bar was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. Nothing good ever happens to anyone around here."

  It was at that moment that Amos Black Eagle realized Jesse didn't need him anymore. He was the only thing holding the boy here.

  Jesse turned and walked away, his shoulders bunched beneath his T-shirt. He didn't look back as he climbed into his truck and drove away. Several of the chickens almost didn't get out of the way in time. Their raucous clucking was the only sound for a long while.

  Amos watched the Chevy disappear into the dusk until there was only a faint cloud of dust, and then that too disappeared. He sat on the porch of his rusted trailer in silence and sipped whiskey and stared at nothing at all. Lefty had already passed out.

  After a while the moon came up and the breeze that blew in from the mountains turned cooler.

  Amos reached over and plucked Lefty's bottle off the porch. "Lefty, you're a good man, but you never could hold your liquor." Amos tipped the bottle and took a long drink. By the time he finished, he had an idea.

  Lurching to his feet, he went into his trailer and came out with his saddle and a rope. He called out to his dog, Custer, who appeared as if by magic. The dog looked tired and hungry. He flopped at Amos's feet, his tongue lolling.

  "Guess those jackrabbits were a little too fast tonight, old son?"

  The dog laid his head on his paws.

  "And I suppose you want me to get you something to eat?" The dog looked up, hopeful.

  Amos indicated a bowl of refried beans sitting on the porch. The dog looked dubiously at them. "It's beans or nothing, Custer," Amos said, heading toward the corral. Custer took one disdainful sniff at the bowl and loped after Amos.

  Amos managed to get the corral gate open. His steps wavered and he had to lean against the corral poles until the ground stopped moving, yet his hand was steady and he managed to rope his old U-necked mare on the first toss. "Come on, Amanda," he soothed the ancient appaloosa as she skittered away, "we got us some business to take care of, too." He threw on the saddle and waited. Amanda didn't like to be ridden and had a habit of holding her breath. Amos couldn't count the number of times he had walked home after the saddle had slipped sideways, throwing him into the dirt.

  Amanda finally exhaled and Amos yanked the cinch tight. "You're getting old, girl," he sighed, patting her on the neck. "You used to be able to hold your breath a lot longer."

  Amos Black Eagle rode off into the Arizona night, an ancient man swaying on his ancient horse, his hungry dog trotting along behind.

  With any luck at all, he would never return.

  Darkness came fast to Crowder Flats. Already the sun was dipping behind the mountains and the desert seemed to pause, to take one final breath before exhaling the night. Jesse Black Eagle gunned his primer-colored pickup around the potholes in what passed for a road in this shithole of a town, and smiled. The smile was bitter.

  Dust trailed after him, a dun-colored ribbon that wrapped itself around everything, as though the desert were quietly trying to choke Crowder Flats. Sometimes, Jesse felt that the desert resented the town being here. Having had the shit beaten out of him countless times because he was a half-breed, Jesse felt pretty confident he knew resentment when he saw it.

  The night was coming quick. He loved the night. That was the only time he felt really alive. The daytime was something to be endured, like his job at the strip mine, where he worked on one of the water trucks.

  Even though only, six months had passed since he had dropped out of college, Jesse knew deep down inside that this was as good as life was ever going to get for him. He had to get out of this town. Already he was beginning to cough from breathing dust all day, just like his old man had coughed. Jesse couldn't count the nights Mom had sat up with his dad, wiping away the blood-flecked spit that ran down his old man's chin, before they stuck what was left of Thomas Black Eagle in a box and lowered him into the hard-packed earth.

  Two years later his mom had followed.

  Every week or so Jesse went out to visit their graves. They were in the paupers' section of the white churchyard, where no one came out to leave pretty flowers and the weeds were the only things that grew. Jesse had asked the council of elders to move his parents to the sacred grounds near the reservation, but his request had been denied. Thomas Black Eagle had turned his back on the old ways when he had married a white woman. In the end,
neither the whites nor his own people had wanted him.

  Now Jesse lived with his grandfather, Amos Black Eagle, in a run-down trailer way off the interstate. The courts had been a little reluctant to hand over a twelve-year-old boy to a man with a reputation for drunkenness. The only reason they did it, Jesse figured, was the orphanage didn't need any more hungry red mouths to feed. They already had more than enough.

  Jesse wanted to leave Crowder Flats. Hell, once he'd even done it. He had gotten as far as Tucson before word that Amos was in jail again had reached him. Amos had a failing for Jack Daniel's, and whenever the old man got tanked up, he would saddle up his U-necked mare, raid Chester Roberts' ranch and run off all Chester's horses. Chester was a pretty good sport about the whole thing. He never pressed charges after Sheriff Johnson put Amos in jail to dry out, but someone had to be there to return the horses and bail Amos out. That someone was Jesse. And that meant Jesse was stuck in Crowder Flats.

  Voiceless fury clamped itself around Jesse's chest and squeezed. He pressed down harder on the gas and the souped-up V-8 responded with a moan that was almost erotic. Thinking was stupid. Thinking was for people who were doing something besides marking time.

  He checked his appearance in the rearview mirror as though looking for weaknesses. His face was all hard angles and planes and his dark green eyes were too old for his years. He was primed and ready for trouble.

  Reaching into his cooler, he popped the tab on a Coors and drained it in a single swallow, feeling the brew slide down his throat like molten ice. "Oh man, gonna have me a little fun tonight. Some real fun for a change." His voice sounded a little desperate to his ears and he stopped talking. Crushing the can, he flung it with all his might at a lonely cactus standing beside the road. A spark of satisfaction shot through Jesse as the can struck it dead center. The arm that had made him a starting pitcher at Lone Mesa High was still working just fine. And so was the temper that had gotten him booted off the team his senior year.

  Jesse drove too fast, without headlights, flipping the bird to a passing white Cadillac convertible that flashed its brights at him. His smile widened when he recognized the surprised face in the Caddy. "Shit, my old buddy, Bobby Roberts." Jesse's smile gave way to laughter. "Didn't recognize you, Bobby, or I'd have run your ass off the road."