"Him need to lay eggs for others that come, missy.”
"Of course,” she said. Until the war was over there would be other refugees that Filipino guerrillas would hide there. She gave Donald one last affectionate pat and rose. "I’m ready.”
Herrera’s motorboat was beached not too far from where they first came ashore nearly three months before. She looked out, seeing nothing on the sea but the telltale light of a pink dawn about the horizon. "We hurry. We hurry.” Herrera called above the slap of the waves on the beach. "If miss this trip, must wait until tomorrow night.”
The three of them pushed the motorboat out into the water until the ocean bottom began its gentle slope with the coral reefs. Chase and Herrera held the boat steady while she flip-flopped over its edge. After the other two climbed aboard, Herrera started up the noisy engine.
Slowly, slowly, as they left the island behind them, the submarine, the U.S.S. Narwahl, looking like the Loch Ness Monster, began to surface from the Mindanao Deep — the greatest depth of water known to man. Only the periscope, antenna, and air induction pipe showed above the water. Deborah caught her breath, and saw that Chase was feeling the same emotion —something akin to patriotism as they stared at the symbol of their country’s might.
The motorboat rocked violently as it came alongside the submarine. The bridge’s hatch opened, and Commander Frank R. Latta emerged. Chase and Deborah blinked their eyes like owls as they looked at the red light of the sub’s electric bulb. They had come back to civilization.
CHAPTER 53
For Chase it was like the first year he had been taken from the reservation and been forced to learn a new language and new ideas. Now he was hearing words that had not been in the English language when he had left the States— words like carhop, amphibious invasion, and gremlins. There were new songs — "Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree” — and "You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To”— and new movie idols — Lauren Bacall and a young singer, Frank Sinatra.
It would have been easier, he thought, if he and Deborah had been able to discuss this tidal wave of new information and compare their ideas, but they had been separated to different areas of the submarine.
Chase reported to Commander Latta, who, after congratulating him on his escape, ordered a complete medical examination from the sub’s doctor. "If all’s in order with you, son, the sub’s galley is open to you night and day. Order whatever you want.”
At the sub’s hospital the doctor pronounced Chase in remarkable physical condition. Except for the malaria and three different kinds of intestinal parasites, it appeared he had suffered little deterioration.
"And what of the young woman, sir?” Chase asked. "Deborah DeBaca — how is she?”
"Miss DeBaca survived the ordeal admirably. I imagine it’s been more of an emotional and mental shock, if anything.”
Chase thought about requesting to speak with her, but then what would he say? Obviously she hated him.
For twenty-two days the Narwahl zigzagged a course for Australia, crossing the equator several times in its effort to elude the enemy. And when it finally did put into port at Darwin, Chase found that American press, along with half the press representatives of the Allied countries, were there to greet them. The two of them were heroes, especially Chase, who had survived the infamous Death March and escaped to tell about it.
He was bored by the attention showered on him. Since the questions were, for the most part, repetitious, he succeeded in concealing the fact he and Deborah were together when they were rescued. What Deborah related, he did not know, for she was interviewed in a separate quarter and at another time. With only one reporter did he relate some of the true horror of the Death March — a famed fellow New Mexican, the skinny, gray-haired Ernie Pyle, who seemed to have an empathy for the common soldier.
After the Darwin stopover Chase was separated from Deborah, each of them being returned to the States by different routes. For Chase it was the same at each stop — Honolulu, San Francisco, where the starlet Linda Darnell graciously bestowed a chaste kiss on his lips for the photographers, and all the layovers along the Southern Pacific and Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroads — the crowd of reporters, the exploding flash of the photographers’ cameras, the microphones pressed to his face.
At Santa Fe’s depot Chase stood beneath the bright, white July sun and looked out over the horde of photographers and reporters, anxious for a story on one of New Mexico’s sons. Cold ripples of self-doubt began to lap around his feet. What was he doing there? He no more belonged in a civilized place than his Dine’e ancestors had. At that moment he wanted only to hightail it to the emptiness of the hills.
"Private Strawhand,” an aging male reporter asked, "Edward R. Murrow reports that you were involved in a project— the 'Code Talkers.’ Can you tell us anything about it?”
"Private Strawhand has nothing to say, gentlemen,” a familiar sultry voice broke in.
Chase turned to find Christina edging through the reporters toward him. There were shouts and wolf calls as the members of the press made way for the tall, chic blond dressed in a gray velveteen skirt with matching jacket thrown over the frothy apricot blouse. But Christina had eyes only for him.
"Is Private Strawhand your fiancé, Miss Raffin?” asked a woman reporter with a large-feathered hat. Her tongue practically licked her lips in anticipation of a hot story.
Without taking her gaze from his, Christina said, smiling, "Just tell your readers that information is Top Secret Classified Material. I’m sure the Pentagon will decide what information to release.”
"But, Miss Raffin, with — ”
"Come on, Chase,” she said, taking his arm. "I’ve taken the liberty of making reservations for you at the Harvey House. It’s the best Santa Fe has to offer right now.”
"You shouldn’t of,” he said, attempting to control the conflicting emotions that bombarded him. "Will telegraphed he rented my old place for me.”
The photographers continued snapping their cameras as he and Christina climbed into the 1938 Bentley Sports Roadster. "Nice,” he said, dropping his duffel bag in the rear seat.
"It’s difficult getting enough gas coupons for it.” She started the engine. A nervous tension seemed to lay beneath the surface of the coolly composed, beautiful face.
"I’m sure you’re able to manage,” he said dryly.
She flashed him a feigned look of reproach. As she whipped the car out onto the highway, she dug into her purse and handed him a package of cigarettes, her own personalized brand still. "Are you surprised to see me?”
He withdrew a cigarette, and she passed him her gold-plated lighter. "Nothing you do surprises me, Christina.”
She looked at him, then looked away, concentrating on the road ahead. After a lengthy silence, she asked, "Are you still angry at me?”
He stretched out his long legs as far as he could in the confines of the car. "Does your father know, you’re here?”
"No. He thinks I’m meeting with Phil’s Campaign Committee for Governor.”
"So Masters thinks he’s ready for the big step? Have you two set a wedding date?”
Her gaze flashed to him and skittered back to the road. "No,” she said so softly that Chase was not sure he heard her. She slowed the Bentley as the car approached the plaza. "Chase, there hasn’t been anybody to take your place.”
"I bet that didn’t keep you from looking, did it?” Christina’s eyes filled. "Don’t. I know I was wrong.”
He slouched further down in the seat. "Don’t, also. I’m too tired to play your games right now, Christina.”
She maneuvered the roadster out of the plaza, turning onto Castillos Street and halting before the old two-story Victorian home. She turned toward him. "I want you. But I don’t think you know your own mind.”
He wanted her, too. His nostrils flared with the subtle scent of her perfume. But he told himself that he wasn’t ready to be her plaything. Too easily he could get caught in the web she spun. He g
ot out, leaning his hands on the door. "So long, Christina.”
She met his gaze steadily. "I won’t wait for you to change your mind,” she said and sped off, leaving him watching her . . . and wanting her.
A mousy old lady, who roomed on the first floor and who had turned up her nose at Chase when he lived there previously, stopped him at the stairs, asking for an autograph. Chase blinked in surprise; then, repressing his old mocking smile, said, "Certainly, Miss McCauley,” and scrawled his name beneath his photo in the newspaper clipping she handed him.
Later that afternoon, as he sat reading the newspaper, trying to catch up and assimilate all the news that had occurred in his absence, Will came by. The old man took his hand affectionately. "It’s great to have you back, Chase!” He stepped away and looked at the tall young man in uniform. "It looks like that stint in the service civilized you.”
Chase grinned. "Uncle Sam succeeded where you failed.” He invited Will into the sparsely furnished room and offered him a cigarette, but the attorney shook his head. "May’s threatening to poison my coffee if I don’t give up smoking. I would have been at the depot, Chase, but I was in court with another BIA case.”
"What’s the Indian Bureau done this time?”
Will ran his hand through his thick, snowy hair. ''The same old thing. They’ve issued an order to the superintendents in the field to prosecute any 'so-called religious ceremony.’”
Chase grimaced. "What’s the reasoning behind that?”
Will rolled his eyes. "The religious ceremonies, they say, promote idleness, cause Indians to give away their property recklessly, contain danger to health, or promote indifference to family welfare. That means the destruction of a ten-thousand-year-old religion that contains the same moral code as Christianity!”
"The offense,” Chase said, "is that the Indian religion stands in the way of the meddling Christian missionaries — who you know represent a considerable political power. It’s just a modern-day Spanish Inquisition, isn’t it?”
"The Taos Pueblos have hired me to fight the order in court. They’d rather go to jail before they abandon their religion.”
Chase was reminded of a sign he had seen in the San Francisco PX drugstore — ONLY ANGLOS NEED APPLY. "Why do you do it, Will? What do you get out of all this? You’re certainly not making a name for yourself — nor a fortune.”
Will scratched his head. "I haven’t rightly figured that out yet, son,” he said with a deprecating smile. "May claims I’m getting senile in my old age.” He fixed an eye on Chase. "Your old job at AID is still open if you want to take on the BIA.”
Thoughtfully Chase ground out his cigarette stub in the chipped ashtray. "Thanks, Will, but I plan to start a bank.” He looked over at the attorney, expecting derision.
"Put me down for ten shares of stock.”
Chase looked at Will, trying to hide the surprise and the gratitude. It was another one of those times when the Indian "thank you” would not be out of line, but Chase could not even manage that. "What if I lose your money?”
Will shrugged, reminding Chase of the Indian’s fatalism. "Working for AID I’m not going to get rich anyway. Why not take the chance?”
Ten shares was one thousand dollars, and Chase estimated his back pay amounted to thirty-nine shares. With a goal of three hundred shares, that left him only two hundred and fifty-one shares to go.
Chase bought a piebald and set out to ride the reservations that encircled the Santa Fe-Taos-Albuquerque area. For the first time he was selling himself, his word, his integrity.
It was not easy.
All the rest of the summer and fall and into the new year of 1944 he rode back and forth over the mountains and up and down along the Rio Grande, pouring out a torrent of words after the initial Big Smoke in the tepees and frame houses and adobe homes. Firmly he shook hands with the more progressive Indians and even exchanged the formal abrazo with the growing number of Mexicans who were willing to invest their few hard-earned dollars in Chase’s scheme. In the barely accessible trappers’ camps even a few Anglos contributed toward the bank. A share here, two or three there — his goal was coming into sight.
He found out a lot about raising money. He found out also that he could not give up his goal for a bank if he wanted to. He did not want to, of course, but there was a yoke of responsibility that attached itself to him like a tic the minute someone had trusted him with his capital.
However, the strong protectiveness he felt toward his investors was not the first time he had experienced the feeling. He had first known that feeling as a senior at the Indian Boarding School when a little girl with frightened eyes had stood before him.
One afternoon he stopped by the AID office, ostensibly to keep Will abreast of the bank’s progress. After a few moments he asked the old man, "Do you hear anything of Deborah?”
Will hooked his thumbs under his suspenders and fixed Chase with a penetrating look. "You haven’t told me everything that happened between you two over there in Mindanao, son. And I know it’s none of my business. But the one time I ran into Deborah she asked me not to mention her name to you.”
Chase grunted and looked down at the linoleum floor. He was stupefied by the monstrous dejection that slammed him. "I guess she has a right to feel that way.” He looked back to Will. "I want her to be happy, Will. I’ll stay out of her life.”
When he turned to go, Will said, "Chase.”
Chase looked at him.
"She’s opened an art gallery over on Canyon Road — in partnership with another Navajo. Ma-Pi-We, I think his name is. You might wander by there sometime.”
Ma-Pi-We — Navajo for Red Bird. Slowly Chase shook his head. "I don’t think so, Will. It’s easier this way.”
By July Chase had reached his goal of three hundred shares, $30,000. The Mercantile Bank of Santa Fe became a chartered fact, and it opened its doors in a small square stucco building just behind the old Military Church off the plaza.
For a few days, weeks, the success was heady for Chase. The evening of the stockholders’ first meeting he went by the Aid office for Will. After Chase had cranked his torpedo Ford, Will said, "You’ll be able to afford a Rolls Royce Phantom when you’re elected Chairman of the Board.”
Chase tugged at the tie around his neck, unused to the wardrobe of a civilized man. "I ought to hang myself with this,” he muttered. Then, "I’m not going to accept the nomination, Will.”
Will’s mouth fell open. "But this is what you wanted. This bank was your idea. Jumping jackrabbits, Chase, it’s your bank!”
"No, it’s the stockholders’ bank — the Indians and Mexicans and even the Anglos who trusted me.” He let out on the clutch, and the car shot out into the traffic. "Besides, the bank is not what I wanted.”
"You want Christina Raffin,” Will said.
Chase looked at him. "Yes. I guess that’s it.”
The small building was packed, mostly with Indians proud of the accomplishment, but a few men from the press were there to cover the story, also. As he looked around at the assembly, Chase felt a thrill of pride that was quickly tempered as he wondered what he would do next. Maybe start a hotel, he reflected wryly. Conrad Hilton, another New Mexican, was making a success of buying hotels.
Chase and Will made their way to the board room where a highly polished new table fenced by hardback chairs dominated the surroundings. When the stockholders saw Chase, they began sitting down. Taking his seat at the head of the table, Chase looked around. He recognized almost everyone. Friends.
As he called the meeting to order and began the Order of Business, a very old woman interrupted it when she was wheeled into the room by a giant, barrel-chested Mexican. There were gasps of recognition from two or three of the people there.
Chase leaned to Will and whispered, "Who is she?”
"Rosemary Rhodes,” Will replied with something that was a mixture of respect and awe.
CHAPTER 54
Chase found it strange that a woman who
owned the Santiago Silver Mines, was a stockholder in the Santa Fe Railroad, and practically controlled the largest bank in Santa Fe, the First National Bank, would have wanted to invest in his insignificant one, but there was no accounting for people, he thought. And she did seem somewhat eccentric—an extremely rich old woman wearing only one little ornament, the cheap tourist jewelry fashioned by the Navajo. But it was, of course, beautiful work.
He scrutinized the turquoise and silver bracelet on her veined and brown-spotted wrist more closely. He realized it was the work of the bracelet that intrigued him. Each bracelet was as individual in workmanship as was a painting. By merely looking at the design or the quality of the stones and types of turquoise used, one could determine almost within a hundred-mile radius where in the state the design was fashioned.
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But that particular bracelet — Chase knew he had seen the handiwork somewhere before. It was very distinct, excellent craftsmanship. He should have remembered. He frowned, aggravated that he could not recall.
He continued with the business in hand, addressing the stockholders in Spanish, which seemed to be the language of common denominator. He wondered if the old woman understood the Spanish and glanced once or twice in her direction, always somewhat distracted to find the intense gaze of those greenish blue eyes on him even when someone else held the floor. In that seamed face the eyes were alive and ever-young. He found himself fascinated by her and had to force himself to keep to the business at hand.
When it came time to elect the Chairman of the Board and a Senor Romero put forth Chase’s name, he stood and declined. As he expected, there was a murmur of surprise among the stockholders. "Gentlemen — and lady.” He bowed slightly in deference to the old woman, and she inclined her head. "I thank you for the confidence you have shown in me. But I am not a financier. My knowledge of banking is rudimentary. The bank was my dream, so perhaps I am a dreamer. And what you need is a doer. I would like to suggest for nomination Wilbur Fairchild. As Director of AID, he has served the people of the reservations. He is someone I trust, though he is an Anglo.”
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