The sunset was a brilliant hue of purples and oranges when Chase finally wheeled the Stutz off the main highway onto a rock-studded road that twisted through several ridges dotted with cottonwoods and junipers and littered with tin cans and beer bottles — products of the white tourist. But tonight few white men, if any, would witness this ceremony. As the car neared the enormous clearing, surrounded by walls of evergreens, the road became crowded with other Indians, most from Picuris, arriving by burro, an occasional pickup, and on foot.
Nearly a thousand Indians were standing and sitting as the first of the spectacular performances commenced. It was a fire dance, with the dancers’ bodies painted white with clay to ward off the heat as they raced around the blazing bonfire. Each clutched a burning brand and struck the dancer ahead. They circled wildly, coming closer and closer to the leaping flames.
He and Greg, with Deborah between them, shouldered their way through the Indians to find an empty place on the ground to sit. A blanket-wrapped Indian moved past them, juggling rounded stones. To their left a clown burlesqued the priests, dancing out of step, and the children laughed at his antics. The sight of the families, the close-knit clans, awakened in Chase a yearning for the family he had missed as a child.
Toward midnight, as the more sacred ceremonial dances began, small bowls of penole and piki began to circulate among the group along with the ubiquitous tiswin. The night air had turned cold, and he noticed that Greg had taken the opportunity to put his arm around Deborah possessively. Chase’s eyes, shielded by lazy lids, turned away to watch the barbaric splendor of the primitive dances. The rattle of the tortoiseshell and the thud of the cottonwood drum lured him back to a primeval time.
* * * * *
Deborah felt a same stirring in her blood, watching the rites, letting the savage sounds fill her until there existed nothing else; a stirring, she thought, that Christina Raffin and her kind could never know. She wanted to spring up, loose the fetters of Greg’s arm, and lose herself in the ever-quickening tempo of the dance. But she willed the stoic calm in herself, watched Greg as he partook of the tiswin, noting that Chase drank little.
One dance faded into another, children grew sleepy and crawled up in their mothers’ arms, the ancient wandered off to exchange a beer and tales of their youth while the younger ones took up the passionate beat of the dance.
Toward dawn Greg’s arm fell away as he slipped into a nodding doze. Now was the time, she thought, the real purpose for which she had invited Chase. She turned to him. He would not be able to hear her above the throbbing music. She touched his shoulder and rose. Chase looked up, as if disturbed from a trance. She mouthed the words, "Follow me.”
She wove her way through the sleeping mounds and huddled bodies, deeper into the encircling forest. The air was purer there, but the insistent pagan music, though muted, still followed them. The pine needles crushed beneath Deborah’s espadrilles, whispering seductively, as she followed the trail that led to the Rio Grande’s banks.
Chase caught up with her and took her arm, and she turned to face him. "What’s this all about?” he asked.
Although the darkness surrounded them, she could still see the concern that showed in his self-contained countenance. "Chase, you’re the only family I have near, and . . . and.. . “She broke off, not knowing how much to tell him.
He took her shoulders. "What is it?”
"Greg asked me to marry him yesterday.”
Chase’s hands fell away. "Oh. He seems — nice.” He looked away into the darkness. "With your common interest in art, you should make a very happy couple.”
"I — I was hoping you’d say that. I wanted your approval . . . being as you’re like a brother.”
"You have my best wishes, Deborah. When’s the wedding?”
"There’s something else I had to tell you, and tonight seemed as good a time as any. The wedding is six months away. After I return from a photographic tour of the European war front. Tonight is good-bye.”
Chase grabbed her shoulders again. "You’ve gone and joined the white man’s side?” He shook her, and her heavy hair swayed like a wind-ruffled curtain. "You dumb little shit!” He pulled her into his arms and held her. "Why’d you go off and do a cockeyed thing like that?” he asked over her head.
She could feel the angry beat of his heart, though his hand was gentle as it mindlessly stroked her long hair. The safety and security of his arms were the home away from home that she had known since she was five and he had befriended her at the Indian boarding school. She could still remember the way his thin shoulders, clothed only in a threadbare shirt, hunched over against the bite of the winter wind as he directed her toward her dormitory. Her arms wrapped around his waist. "Oh, Chase, I wish I didn’t have to go,” she murmured. "But I do. I do.”
At that moment she wondered why she was going. There would be other opportunities to perfect her craft. And it wasn’t just because Greg and Roger had urged her to take the job.
Unconsciously the two clung together against the intrusion of the white man’s world and his war, swaying with the distant throb of the drums that Deborah felt echoed the unidentifiable pain that pulsed somewhere inside her . . .until Greg’s call of her name pulled them apart.
CHAPTER 47
The roll had been called, followed by the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. With the reading of the journal and the introduction of legislation Christina began to breathe easier.
She had seen Will enter the Senate Gallery during the pledge, but without Chase. Maybe Chase wouldn’t show up. Of course, he would find out sooner or later that she had been opposing his project from the start, using him and his information. But she’d rather not see his face, be in his presence when he realized the extent to which she had gone.
Because her efforts had backfired on her. She had fallen for the Indian and she was ashamed that she could be so silly, so feminine —and over an Indian! The Conservancy Act should have been wrapped up long before, during last year’s session’s actions. But she had stalled, soft-pedaled the issue to the politicians, which was unlike her.
As late as two weeks ago, when she had met Chase in the corridor — when he had made love to her in the Capitol, no less, and left her shaken, her legs weak — she had felt the compunction to contact Senators Folley and Ramsey, to tell them to go ahead with their support of AID, to vote against the Conservancy Bill. But she had a job to do. She could not, she told herself, let sentiment stand in the way.
Christina knew she shouldn’t be there on the chamber floor now. It was not protocol when legislature was in session. But she had one last detail to attend to. Throwing back her padded shoulders, she nodded at the Sergeant-at-Arms as she passed and crossed to Senator Folley’s chair, laying the envelope casually on his desk as she bent over to talk, to smile — making certain everyone saw her pleasant exchange of words. She knew it helped that her toast-colored crepe dress had ridden up, exposing the long expanse of leg between the knee and suede half-boot.
"The last half will be delivered at lunch — after you’ve cast your vote,” she quietly told Folley, never letting her smile fade.
She stood up then, exchanging a few more words with the senators seated around Folley, for rather than listening to the Message from the House of Representatives they were loudly doing their own casual canvassing of the work-in-progress for the day.
As she prepared to leave, something prompted her to glance up into the gallery. Chase stood there, his face granite, his eyes like black stones. She shivered and quickly turned away. She could hear the Reading Clerk delivering the third reading of the legislation. Then would come the voting of the bills. If she hurried, she could make it to the parking lot and be gone long before they reached the voting of Bill 263.
The "aye, aye, nay” echoed down the hall along with the click of her boot heels. Absurd to be afraid. But she was. He was an Indian. An Apache — or was it Navajo? Whatever tribe, everyone knew the Indian still settled his feuds outside the
boundaries of the law. With knife or pistol, it made no difference.
Christina’s car key fumbled at the door lock. She flipped through the set, frantically searching for another. A hand clamped on her wrist. She whirled around with a small cry.
"Well, Puss n’ Boots, you won.”
Her gaze darted about the empty parking lot. Everyone seemed to be inside. "Chase, please,” she whispered, frightened. "It wasn’t what I wanted.”
Chase’s black gaze pinned her pitilessly where she stood. "What did you want? A little diversion, as long as your job wasn’t jeopardized?” He yanked the keys from her and opened the door. "Get in. We’re going for a ride — to show you a diversion or two.”
Christina clutched the armrest of her door and steadied herself with one hand against the dashboard as Chase wheeled the car out of the parking lot and drove out Cerro Gordo Road. The road passed the clay pits where the prisoners from the penitentiary were digging loads of clay to make bricks, then climbed and twisted back into the canyons; and in the daylight Christina recognized the road as the one that led to the old hogan Chase had taken her to on New Year’s Eve.
Several times she thought he would hurl the car off into a gorge, that he wanted to kill them both. He said nothing the forty-some-odd minutes the trip took. Then she realized when he turned off onto another corduroy road, exactly where he was taking her.
He slammed on the brakes at the foot of the wooded trail that snaked upward. The Mercedes only missed a jackpine by inches as it slid on the pebbles to a halt. "This isn’t a pickup!” she snapped, more bravely than she felt.
Chase rounded the car and jerked her from her seat, both dragging and pushing her up the slight incline. Pine cones and needles tore at her stockings. "Chase, you’re hurting me!” She stood in the hogan against the furthermost section of wall, rubbing her wrist. She bit her bottom lip, not knowing what to expect next. Her pulse hammered at her temples.
He crossed to her, and she began edging around the wall as he stalked her. "You were hungry for my embraces not so long ago. Has something changed since then?”
"Chase — no!” she cried out as he grabbed her shoulders and yanked her to him. His mouth closed over hers in a brutal kiss that had no passion; yet Christina, after a few moments of futile struggling, of trying to resist the kiss that was as narcotic as the peyote, trembled uncontrollably then sagged against the overpowering body as desire geysered through her.
Her arms entwined about his neck. "Oh, Chase, I wasn’t thinking back there,” she murmured breathlessly, incoherently. “I wasn’t thinking with my heart. It’s only you I wanted.”
* * * * *
Chase had broken away from the cold, white mouth that crept over him like a slug. Heedless of her crying, he had left her and her car there and began walking. Where he was going, he had not know.
He had felt only a repulsive emptiness — an emptiness that could be filled only by the rawest rotgut whiskey he could find. He was disgusted with himself and with every treacherous Anglo on the face of the earth. Whatever had made him think he would be accepted in the white man’s world? Going to college, working for the government, loving a pale¬skinned woman — these were things a white man did.
It had taken four days of drinking himself into a stupor with Taos Lightning. And three more days to pull himself back from oblivion. But when he finally managed to focus his eyes for more than half an hour and force some semblance of thought into his numbed but pounding brain, he had found that he had joined the Marine Signal Corps.
Hawaii offered more green than Chase had ever seen. Even after three months at Pearl Harbor, he had not overcome his aversion to seeing only green around him and above him, hemming him in. He missed the expanse of the clear New Mexico skies, where the stars seemed so close you could reach up from your bedroll and touch them.
At divisional headquarters in Pearl Harbor he and twenty-nine other Navajo were processed and briefed in the drab government-green headquarters about their secret assignment. Though officially not at war with the Axis, the United States government was preparing for the possibility. One such project was the development of an indecipherable code — hence the idea of the Navajo Code Talkers.
The United States government had been apprised of the fact that even though an enemy should learn the exceedingly complex Navajo language, unintelligible even to other Indian tribes, it would be virtually impossible for the enemy’s tongue and throat to make the sounds correctly.
And it was this task of devising a code that fell to the Code Talkers. Placed in charge, Chase had to develop a code to stymie enemy cryptographers — words for military terms not in the Navajo language, an alphabet to spell out names not in their tongue such as Sicily, Libya, and Rumania, and words for the ranks of officers, organizations, communication systems, months, and so on.
After rigorous field exercises during the day and working on the code at night, Chase would fall exhausted into his bunk, already half asleep. But even his dreams were filled with cryptic words that he and the other Code Talkers were devising: Owl, Ne-as-jah, for observation plane; swallow, Tas-chizzie, for torpedo plane; eagle, Atsah, for transport; and beaver, Cha, for mine sweeper.
This taxing assignment accomplished what he had wanted — it occupied his mind totally so there was no room for thought of a woman with silver-gilt hair and eyes as pale green as Hawaii’s lush lagoons.
Only once did he let himself think of the mainland — of New Mexico. It was the last day in May when Mail Call handed him the letter with the Santa Fe, New Mexico, postmark. He jammed it into his pocket, not wanting to read it but knowing he would.
Later that evening he was alone at his desk in the make¬shift Quonset hut. Before him were the briefings he was compiling for the Code Talkers on the care of their signal equipment — illustrations and explanations of the semaphores, field telephones, and hand-cranked generators. But his mind was not on the stack of papers but on the envelope in his pocket that burned like a hot coal.
At last he took it out. He was slightly disappointed — it was a letter from Will, reprimanding Chase for not letting him know where he had gone and the trouble Chase had caused him in tracking the marine down. The old lawyer sketched briefly the Santa Fe happenings that had occurred since Chase had left in late February. He mentioned nothing about the failure to stop the passage of the Conservancy Act, nor Christina Raffin, though Chase was certain the discerning old man knew everything.
Will did enclose a photo of Deborah. Dressed in trousers with a camera slung over her shoulder, she was posed before a B-17, the Flying Fortress, at Nichols Field in the Philippines. She had been assigned, so Will wrote, to cover the Japanese assault on French Indochina. She was smiling, and, though her face was slightly indistinct, he knew those brown eyes were laughing.
Chase tucked the photo in his wallet, wondering if Deborah was faring any better in the white man’s world than he. Because of his Indian heritage he was precluded from holding rank in the service, which made him just that more bitter. However, his year and a half of college did qualify him as coordinator for the Marine Signal Corps’ special project. Yet he remained aloof from the Anglo companions — the bilan-gaali, as the Code Talkers called the white man. And he rarely fraternized with the Navajo Code Talkers. He was caught between two worlds, contemptuous of both.
The first of September he received his orders. To his irritation he found that, because of the standby alert in the Far East Theater, instead of being attached to a marine unit he would be reporting immediately, along with four other Code Talkers, to an army command.
He shipped out on the President Pierce, a luxury liner converted to an army troop transport that had sailed from San Francisco a week earlier. For Chase it seemed that the Ye’ii had arranged his orders. Not only was the 200th Anti-Aircraft National Guard, part of which was the New Mexico National Guard, aboard the Pierce, but the Pierce’s destination was the Philippines and Nichols Field, Manila.
It would be one of life
’s implausible ironies, he thought, that he should travel halfway around the world to escape his past, only to meet with Deborah. However, his intention to find her once he reached the Philippines was temporarily shelved when he discovered himself assigned to the Decoding Room on the tiny rock island of Corregidor in Manila Bay.
After an indoctrination class on the area’s operations, complete with a detailed map chock full of red tacks representing Japanese locations, he and the other new recruits, including the four Navajo Code Talkers, were directed to the company supply clerk and were issued jungle combat gear — everything a camouflage green again.
The first night in the barracks, he lay on his mildewed cot and tried to sleep, but the soldier next to him, a Brooklyn sergeant, wanted to talk. Chase had trouble following Spec’s Yankee accent, which sounded like a gravel mixer. "Man, I got ninety-seven more days left in this jungle,” Spec was saying. "The number’s tattooed on my eyeballs.”
Somewhere down the row of cots a soldier piped, "Try cleaning your glasses, Spec.”
"Go screw yourself, Omaha,” Spec told the black soldier.
"Speaking of screw,” another soldier said, and the darkness was filled with laughter, "did ya’ll see that Red Cross nurse that came through the base last week?”
"You’re the guy that’s been here too long,” Spec shot back. "The dame was old enough to be your grandmother.”
"Forget the nurse,” Omaha said. "Did ya see the camp’s new laundress that came on base today? Jeeesus Christ! She’s built like the China Wall!”
A Navajo Code Talker, Blue Tail, who was two cots over from Chase, let out a low catcall that could have resembled a war whoop. "My laundry gets dirty just thinking about her!”
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