by Aimée Thurlo
Ella made a note to check it out later, then stood. “Thank you for your cooperation.” She started toward the door, then turned with a sly smile. “Find any actual flint for that pouch of yours?”
His return gaze was laser-sharp. “With someone like you around? Of course.” Garnenez reached down to his medicine pouch again to make the point.
Ella headed out to the Quick Stop. She’d go there first, then after she finished, on to her brother’s. Maybe he’d finally turned up something on John Tso’s whereabouts.
As she drove down the highway, Ella’s thoughts drifted and she thought about Emily’s coaching and her orchids. Her own life just wasn’t structured for a hobby because her free time was best spent with her daughter. Considering Dawn’s interest in horses, Ella wondered if she could make time to take up riding again. That would allow her to share in her daughter’s favorite activity and to spend quality time with her.
Lost in thought, Ella stared across the mesas and canyons of the region known as the Colorado Plateau. The morning light was warm and bright. It was a cloudless day, and only a faint breeze stirred the branches of the hardy sagebrush and thin clumps of grass that dotted the ground all too sparsely. Yet as peaceful as it was now, by this afternoon the wind would invariably rise and gust at thirty miles an hour or more. Dust and sand would fly, tempers would get thin, and calls to the station would increase. There was always a correlation between the crime rate and the movement of the thermometer and other weather factors.
Ella arrived at the Quick Stop less than fifteen minutes later. As she stepped through the doors, she discovered an old high school friend of hers behind the counter. Juanita Franklin had played on the Shiprock High Lady Chieftains basketball team. They’d made state their senior year and memories like that were hard to forget.
Juanita had put on a good fifty pounds since high school, but her face held a youthful quality that was accentuated by her dimples. “Hey, Ella! It’s good to see you. It’s been a while, girl. What brings you here? You playing hooky from work?”
“Don’t I wish!” Ella said, laughing as Juanita and she exchanged high-fives. “I’m here working a case. I need to talk to whoever was behind the cash register last night. Did you work that shift?”
“No, on Tuesdays it’s usually my brother, Clyde. What’s he done now?” she asked, instantly worried.
“Not a thing that I know of. I just need to verify something with him. Any idea where I might find him?”
“He’s in the back,” she said, gesturing Navajo style by pursing her lips toward the rear of the store. “He’s putting away some crates. Do you want me to call him out?”
“Nah, I can go back there if it’s okay and talk to him while he works,” she said.
“That’s fine.”
Ella found Clyde transferring cases of canned goods from a wheeled cart to a pallet against the wall. Clyde had been two years ahead of Ella in school and she’d had a crush on him for months. He’d been the quarterback of the Chieftains football team.
Seeing her, he smiled. “Hey, Ella. I haven’t seen you in ages!” He gave her a friendly hug, something traditionalists would never have done.
“It’s been a long, long time,” she agreed.
“What brings you here today? Are you looking for a job?”
Ella laughed. “No, I’ve already got one,” she said, pushing back her jacket and revealing her badge and handgun.
“Hey, I know all about that,” he answered with a grin. “I’m just having fun with you. Don’t shoot!”
Ella laughed.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, still smiling.
“I needed to ask you a few questions. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” He waved her to a stack of crates about three feet off the ground. “Have a seat.”
As he leaned back against the wall, Ella studied him. She’d heard that Clyde and his wife had six kids now and another on the way. She wasn’t sure how he made ends meet just working here at the Quick Stop, or how he managed to stay so cheerful. Raising six kids was expensive, even on the Rez where people had learned to get by with just the basics. Raising one child was hard enough.
“Do you remember seeing Professor Garnenez in here lately?”
Clyde nodded. “Yeah, a real night owl, if you’ll pardon the expression. He comes by almost every night on the way home. Sometimes, when there are no customers waiting, he and I will play a quick game of chess. He teaches at the college, but I don’t think he’s got that many friends.”
Ella caught his reference to owls, which, due to their tendency to hunt at night, had a bad reputation among traditionalists. “Do you remember if he was in here last night, and if so, about what time?”
“Let me think about it. The days all seem to flow together sometimes, you know? Don’t get much rest nowadays.”
Ella nodded, realling that three of Clyde’s kids were still too young for school.
“I think he was here last night. Yeah, it must have been at right around eight. I remember because I was planning on catching the new TV series about the cop who hears people’s thoughts. It was part two, so I really wanted to see it.” He exhaled loudly. “But I felt sorry for him, so I turned the volume down and we had a game of chess instead.”
“How long was he here?”
“About an hour and a half. The show lasts an hour, and he didn’t leave until the next show had started and was about halfway through. I wouldn’t have missed my show at all if I’d tried to lose the match, but you know me, I’ve always been too competitive.”
She smiled and nodded. “What do you know about Professor Garnenez?” Ella asked.
“Just what I get from him, which is not a lot. He lives alone way over past Bloomfield, and has that romantic notion about following in the path of the Dineh.”
“I’m not sure I get what you mean,” Ella said.
“He’s like the majority of new traditionalists. They want the old ways back—with plenty of modern ideas thrown in. But Garnenez seems a little more dedicated to the goal than most,” he added with a shrug.
“Okay, thanks for your help.”
“Take care, Ella.”
Ella drove away from the Quick Stop disappointed that Garnenez actually seemed to have a good alibi. The truth was that she’d wanted it to be Garnenez. The man gave her the serious creeps and to haul him in for assault on a police officer would have been very satisfying. But her cases never seemed to be that straightforward and easy. Maybe Benally or Lewis Hunt would turn out to be the ones behind the attack.
Ella glanced at her watch, wishing she’d stopped to buy some of those crispies before she’d left campus. It was nearly lunchtime now and she just realized she was hungry. Thinking about returning to the Quick Stop, she quickly rejected the idea of a snow cone or gooey nachos and a soft drink.
Instead, Ella stopped at a fast food place just past the old bridge on the west side and picked up a hamburger and cola. She’d intended to eat it as she drove to her brother’s place, but after taking one bite she tossed it back inside the paper sack. It was completely tasteless and she’d forgotten to have them add green chile. Maybe Two would enjoy it. He wasn’t quite as picky about his food. At least she had the cola.
As Ella headed south in the general direction of her brother’s home she thought about how different Clifford and she were from each other. Clifford was a respected hataalii and the old ways came as naturally to him as breathing. He’d spent years learning the proper Sings. Those had to be perfectly memorized, not an easy task considering Sings often lasted eight to ten days. Any mistake, however slight, meant incurring the disfavor or wrath of the gods.
Ella parked outside Clifford’s medicine hogan and waited. There was a gray mare tethered outside the blanketed entrance so she knew Clifford was with a patient. About ten minutes later a young woman about Boots’s age came out, jumped up onto the horse’s back in one leisurely motion, then rode off.
Seeing Ella, Clifford
waved, inviting her to approach. Ella joined him just as he was picking up the bags of herbs and the jars that were on the ground near the sheepskins. “What’s on your mind, Sister?”
“I was hoping you’d received some news about the Singer I need,” she said. Here, no proper names would be used out of respect for her brother’s traditionalist views.
“A few people have sent word to me that they’d seen him driving by their home, or campsite, but that’s about it. He’s clearly on the move. I’ve now left word everywhere I can think of asking people to tell him that I’m looking for him. I’m sure he’ll be in touch.”
“He’s a hard man to catch. I’ve discovered that there are a lot of people trying to help me find him,” Ella said with a rueful smile, then told him what Professor Garnenez had apparently asked his students.
“His students may get somewhere with the search, but I wouldn’t count on the professor himself being able to help you. A man like the Singer you’re searching for would probably go out of his way to give the professor a wide berth. The professor is like many of our generation—caught between the old and the new. They aren’t comfortable in either world, so they try to walk a path between both. But, in my opinion, that’s an even harder road to travel. You understand that quite well, I’m sure.”
“All any of us can do is follow where our hearts lead us. What other choice do we have?” Ella asked rhetorically.
Clifford considered it for a moment. “You’re right, but it reminds me of something our Christian father used to say about ‘a house divided.’ Remember that?”
Ella nodded. She’d loved her father deeply but she’d never understood him. Then after his murder all she’d felt was guilt—for not having taken the time to get to know him, and for never having understood that he had the right to follow his own path, even if it created division in their household. “I still miss him, you know?”
“I do, too.” Clifford sat across from her on the sheepskin rug. “I loved him though he and I never agreed on anything from the time I hit my teens. I think deep down he always knew that I’d never worship the Christian God, no more than Mom would. But he never gave up trying to convert us—which bugged me to no end. Mom was far more gracious about it than I ever was,” he said.
Ella nodded slowly, remembering. “I have a question I’d like to ask you, but this is something that must remain between you and me.”
“Go on.”
“I know from my biology classes that a practical definition of dead is when all the body processes stop and cannot be restarted. That obviously didn’t happen to me, but there’s more than one definition of death. What do you think happened to me that day in the mine? Is it possible that I died—on one level or another—then came back?”
“As a hataalii I have to believe that your wind spirit was just lost for a while. Our ways don’t include a belief in a heavenly afterlife, like Dad’s did. To us death is stagnation—a failure to grow and thrive—not an inviting place.”
Ella nodded slowly. She knew that she’d made a conscious decision to return and that was why she was here now, talking to her brother. But she just wasn’t sure whether that pointed to a greater power, or if it was evidence that her own stubbornness and force of will had reversed a biological process.
“You saw or experienced something when you were down in that mine shaft that you haven’t been able to understand, didn’t you?” he asked softly, his gaze on her.
Clifford’s beliefs were set and rooted in the Navajo ways. She’d been wrong to try to discuss something like this with him. It would only add confusion to his life. “I have no idea what happened to me in that mine. I’ll probably never know for sure. But I’m here now and that’s the important thing.”
TWELVE
Ella was walking to the blanket-covered doorway when her stomach growled loudly.
Clifford laughed. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“I had bits of a crispie a while ago . . .”
“The ones they sell at the college?” Clifford asked.
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Oh, yeah. If you ever see her with some of those crispies for sale, pick some up for me.”
“Okay, Brother. I’ll bring them over and you and I can pig out like we did with fry bread when we were kids.”
“Suits me,” he said, chuckling. “But in the meantime, why don’t you come into the house and I’ll fix us both something to eat.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, worried about how Loretta would react since she hadn’t had a Sing done yet.
“My wife and son aren’t here today. So come on, I made some of my Texas chili last night and there’s still some left. We’ll add some potatoes to it and use it as stuffing for burritos.”
“Sounds great.”
Ella followed him in. Clifford’s house was simply furnished and the wooden furniture well worn. There were no luxuries here, unless one could count a thirteen-inch TV set as a luxury.
The kitchen was slightly more modern, but there was no microwave oven. Loretta felt the same way Rose did—it would be a waste of money to buy what their stove could already do. At least the refrigerator was large, and although purchased from an appliance renewal place, it hummed along nicely.
“Sit down. I’ll cook,” he said.
“Don’t you want me to fix the potatoes while you get the other ingredients ready?”
“No, I still remember the time you made hash browns for Mom. They tasted like wood shavings by the time you finished with them.”
She remembered the incident well. It was Thanksgiving and she was helping Rose with breakfast. She’d started to cook, gotten stuck on the phone, then remembered the potatoes only when the smoke alarm went off. It had happened over three years ago, but it had become the family’s favorite joke. Every time Ella offered to help in the kitchen someone brought up the story.
Ella sat down and watched Clifford work. “How’s my nephew doing?”
“He realizes he could have been seriously hurt, if not worse, and that really frightened him—for about a day. He was really quiet when we came home and didn’t even want to go outside to play. But now he seems to have forgotten all about the incident and is completely back to normal. Kids are amazing little beings. They live in the present so their recovery time is zero flat.” He switched on the radio to the Navajo station, realized George Branch’s program was on now, and switched it back off. “I know that man must have some redeeming qualities, but I’ve never been able to discover what they are.”
“He’s a pain, but even so he sure didn’t deserve what happened to him. His house is nothing more than rubble now.”
“Don’t waste time feeling sorry for the radio man. I listen to the news on that station and apparently he’s managed to turn his tragedy into a publicity bonanza. Supposedly his ratings have tripled, if you believe the hype. I’m told that he’s asked his listening audience to cooperate with the Tribal Police and help them find the man suspected of setting the fire at his home. He told his listeners that anyone who hides and protects the suspect is mistaking vigilante justice for the real thing.”
“I think the people shielding the man I’m trying to locate believe in our tribe’s traditional methods of justice, not the law as we know it,” Ella said. “It’ll take more than words, particularly those coming from a reactionary like the radio man, to change thinking like that.”
“Word has spread that the one who ended up killing the councilman’s wife, then himself, was at the radio host’s home several times.”
“What? I hadn’t heard that.”
“My sources are good,” Clifford said and shrugged.
Ella didn’t doubt that for a minute. Her brother traveled everywhere on the reservation and spoke to a multitude of people. “I’ll have to look into that.”
Ella accepted the finished burrito her brother handed her. It was excellent—filled with cheese, spicy ground beef, pinto beans, and salsa. “Good job. Do you have a paper plat
e?”
“Why? You won’t have to do the dishes,” he said, frowning.
She laughed. “I wasn’t worried, but I can’t stay and I’d like to take the food with me. I’ve got a radio personality I’d like to speak to as soon as possible.”
He looked in the cupboard and found a paper plate with a cartoon Great Dane on it. “Here. It’s leftover from my son’s birthday party. Are you sure you can’t eat like a normal person—at the table?”
“I really want to follow this up. But, listen, this burrito is quite a treat. I’m used to generic fast food for lunch. You should experience the hamburger I bought before I arrived. I took one bite and threw it back into the paper sack.”
“Did you get it from that new place near the bridge?”
“Yeah.”
He made a face. “You don’t want to know what I’ve heard about the way they cook their food. Just don’t go there again.”
“I was going to save the burger for Two, but I just changed my mind.”
Ella drove back through Shiprock, eating her lunch on the way, then directly to Branch’s radio station in Farmington. The first person she met when she walked into the lobby was Hoskie Ben.
“What brings you here?” he greeted with a warm smile. “Are you looking for George?”
“Yes, I am. Will you tell him I’m here?”
“Can you wait a few minutes? Right now he’s with a nervous sponsor. Despite the jump in ratings there’s a lot of negative publicity going around. This businessman is afraid it’ll hurt his company’s image if he continues to run his ads on George’s show.”
“I bet the station isn’t too happy about that.”
He shrugged. “One sponsor might pull his ads, but another two will come along soon to bid for those open slots. Controversy is good for the show.”
“And how are things for you? Busy?” Ella asked.
“Yeah,” he said, adding, “I just keep reminding people that it’s my program notes and research that helps Branch get those ratings.”