by P. H. Turner
When Chavez returned my call, he said what Louis predicted, adding a few specifics. “The tailings from the Dinetah mine discharge no acid into the groundwater because the waste is located well away from any drainage areas formed by rainstorms. State inspectors regularly test the tailings for leakage of radon gas. The mine is a good neighbor to the Navajo. We have never been cited by any state or federal organization.”
Good quote, and I planned to use the sound bite. Chavez was right. I checked state and federal records and the mine had never been fined. I’d also remind the audience that Dinetah had only been operational again for a short while. I added his quote to the story file and started to work on my voice-over.
Louis and I worked through the frames. We sent the story to the server, agreeing it was one of our best. Late in the afternoon, Marty walked up to my desk. “Good work. I’m going to lead with it tonight.” He turned on his heel and marched out the way he came in.
Louis grinned. “He’s always had the social skills of a goat.”
“I don’t—” My phone rang. Gage Notah! Finally. I snatched it up. “Hello, Gage.”
“Ms. McWhorter, I don’t have much time. I’m outside my office building. We have to meet. Not here,” he added hastily.
“Name the time and place and I’ll be there.”
“You know where the Wupatki National Monument is?”
“Off US 89?”
“Yes, but don’t go all the way to the gate into the park. There’s a dirt road off east from 89, three miles from Wupatki. Go down that road until you see a stand of cottonwood trees. I’ll be parked there.”
“I’ll be there. When?”
“Monday after five.” I heard a soft click. He didn’t wait for good-bye.
“You got a meet with Gage?” Louis asked.
“Yeah. Monday evening.”
“You want me along?”
“No, the guy sounds scared to death. I don’t want to spook him by showing up with a man he doesn’t know.”
“Text me if you need anything. See you two on Sunday evening,” he said over his shoulder as he left work.
I drove home planning to cocoon. Mac and I had dinner together. He had his usual kibbles, which he ate with gusto, while I nibbled on a wonderful hard Parmesan cheese and crackers. I washed it down with a glass of white wine. I might have dinner over my kitchen sink, but a good white wine gave the meal some class. I curled up on my sofa and watched Casablanca for the millionth time.
Chapter 21
Saturday morning’s winds whistled through the pines around my deck where I had my morning coffee. I dumped the dregs over the deck rail and went inside to get dressed.
I dressed in layers knowing the late afternoon sun would be warmer. I pivoted in front of my full-length mirror, looked over my shoulder, and was satisfied with my jeans, boots, tee, and sweater. I flung a scarf around my neck for a dash of panache.
Trace rang the bell, and when I opened the door, he handed me my favorite Starbucks coffee. Damn. He had on a long black duster, and he looked hot enough to lick. He stepped through the door and walked away from me to the kitchen. The duster billowed out behind him, opening the long pleat in the back, swirling the coat out from his long legs. I followed him and swallowed hard. A cowboy in a black duster and black boots had me ready to take him to my bed.
“You got any cream for this coffee?” He stood in front of me wiggling his cup.
“Yeah.” I walked into his space, grabbed his lapels, and stopped just short of his mouth. “Nice duster, cowboy.” I teased his mouth apart and flicked my tongue between his lips, flaming the kiss to fire. His free arm snaked around my waist and cupped my bottom.
He cocked his head to one side. “Woman, I’m not ever taking this duster off.”
“You’re busted if you even think about it.”
I stepped away from him and rummaged in the refrigerator. “Half and half ?”
He poured a dollop in his cup. “You ready?”
“Yeah. I want to talk to you about this ceremony on the way there.”
He trailed behind me to the door. “Looking good in those jeans.”
“If you looked any sexier, we’d be late.”
He held his truck door for me, rounded the car, and settled his big frame in the driver’s seat.
“Tell me what the medicine man is going to do this morning.”
He grinned. “We have no medicine man. Costs too much wampum.”
“Okay, okay. Got it.” I waved my hand airily. “A cultural faux pas. Help me out here so I don’t err at Ben’s ceremony.”
He gave me a quick kiss before he turned the key. “Traditional Navajo healers are either herbalists, shamans, or singers.” He checked the traffic and pulled onto the road. “Most of the herbalists are women, and a few of the shamans are, but all the Singers are men. The Singer for Ben’s Enemy Way knows about war—he fought in Vietnam.” He paused, seeming to grope for the explanation. “Anglos would call it a ceremony to exorcise PTSD.” He turned his head toward me. “No one is coming home from over there without some posttraumatic stress problems, nightmares, irritability, or angry as hell. It’s a guerilla war fought by civilian insurgents—the roads are seeded with explosives and the bad guys aren’t all in uniform.”
“Did your ceremony exorcise your demons?”
“It helped. A Singer uses the mind’s capacity for healing itself. It worked for me, as well as the cognitive behavior therapy the army psych was pushing on us.”
I took his hand, squeezing it gently. “I’m glad that’s behind you.”
He held my hand up to his mouth, nibbling and teasing the palm with his tongue. It was so damned sensuous, I threw my head back on the headrest and groaned.
He covered my hand on his thigh with his. “I see I need to do that again when I’m not driving, but still wearing the duster,” he drawled.
He pulled off the county road onto a rutted dirt road. A couple of jolting miles later, we rounded a curve. Worn pickups and sedans parked haphazardly on the dirt-packed canyon floor. “Rez cars.” Trace parked by a small frame house with an adjacent sweat lodge. We got out and he took my hand. “The Singer’s name is Al Gorman. I’ll introduce you after the Sing,” Trace whispered softly.
A crowd of Navajos circled around Ben and the Singer. Ben still had the look of a soldier, buzzed hair and eyes that missed nothing. He sat ramrod straight staring at the crowd. “What’s happening?” I whispered.
“Ben is dressed as Monster Slayer and he’ll symbolically kill his monster today. Then we feast,” Trace said, as the circle of chanters parted for us to squeeze in.
Trace grinned and shook hands with friends as we wove our way through the crowd to where Yanaha stood. She grasped my forearm and smiled as she pulled me beside her. The crowd shifted a step up and back keeping time with the drum. The women’s dusty suede ankle boots stomped in rhythm to the beat. Their gleaming, heavy black hair thumped up and down on their backs to the drumbeat. Little poufs of sand filled the air as the crowd moved in unison. Red dust rimmed their long velvet skirts. The song was a few high notes followed by a low rumble. Trace threw back his head and the sun gleamed on his face as he chanted. His deep voice reverberated up and down my spine, flushing me with heat. I tentatively moved forward when he did, trying to match the length of his stride. He grabbed my hand pulling me into step with him.
On the edge of the crowd, I spied Tomas Reyes and Susan Etisitty. They weren’t chanting. He was feeling up her butt, and she was sliding her body up and down his thigh like a pole dancer, giggling at something he whispered in her ear. She caught my eye and abruptly turned her head away. The crowd closed, and I lost sight of them.
The drumbeat ended and we stood respectfully around Ben who sat on a colorful tribal rug, snugged up to a sand painting on the desert floor. Wearing a velveteen shirt and dark pants, the Singer shuffled around him, chanting and touching him on the shoulders with yucca branches.
“What’s on Ben’s face?” I whispered in
Trace’s ear.
“Charcoal from burned herbs. His wristlets are bands from the yucca plant and he’s wearing one eagle feather. He’s dressed as Monster Slayer from Changing Woman. He and his twin, Born for Water, have supernatural powers from their father, the Sun.”
The crowd shifted expectantly. The Singer stooped to sift coral-colored sand around the perimeter of his painting of two angular figures of yellow ochre and red sandstone. “Yeis,” Trace whispered softly, “figures of the Holy Ones. He’s praying for harmony between the earth people and the gods.”
The Singer quickly dragged yucca branches through the sand painting, obliterating the intricate design like a child willfully destroying a work of art. He raised the yucca to the sky and uttered one final word, followed by a long, reverberating bass-drum thump. Men surged forward to help Ben to his feet. Trace clamped his arms around Ben. “Welcome home, brother.” Trace beamed and slapped Ben’s back. The drum began a thunderous beat and the mood turned festive.
“Taylor, Ben Kedah.” Trace introduced me over the roar.
“She looks like you described her, brother.” Ben clasped my hand. “Thanks for coming.”
Ben accepted prayers and blessings from the crowd. We worked our way over to the tables set up under a brushy arbor. “The women of Ben’s family have worked for days to prepare the meal, and they’re all great cooks,” Trace said, handing me a plate. A whole lamb was splayed on an iron rack over an open pit of coals. A huge caldron of oil bubbled beside the lamb. One woman was mixing flour, milk, and baking powder into a soft ball. She passed it off to another woman who rolled it, cut it into little triangles, and dropped them into the sizzling oil. My stomach growled at the scent of fry bread mingling with grilled lamb. She put two of the sizzling pieces of puffy bread on my plate and motioned to the pitcher of honey on the table.
“Tear the end open and pour the honey inside the hot bread,” Trace suggested.
Two men were carving slabs of meat from a second lamb that was roasted a golden amber and lay on a platter surrounded with rosemary. The carver speared a slice on the meat fork and plopped it on my plate. My mouth watered at the scent of the fragrant herb wafting off the lamb. Blackened Anaheim peppers and a mush from juniper ash and blue corn flour were heaped on my plate. I bit into the hot, oily fry bread.
“I’ll join you in a minute. I’m going to talk to those guys.” Trace pointed at Ben who was laughing with a cluster of young Navajo men.
I took my plate over to Yanaha who was eating in the shade of the arbor. When I joined her, she was speaking in Navajo with a middle-aged woman. She changed to English and introduced us. “Atsa, this is Taylor McWhorter, and this is Atsa Begay.”
“I’ve seen your TV stories about the mine. My husband worked there as a bulldozer driver until he was fired,” Atsa said.
“I’m sorry.” A memory nudged to the surface of my brain. “You’ve lost your husband recently haven’t you?”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “He died in a car wreck. He was a good driver. He would have never been speeding around that curve, and he never drove when he’d been drinking,” she wailed. “He knew there was a ravine there.” She buried her head in Yanaha’s shoulder.
Yanaha slipped her arm around her.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I murmured, feeling helpless.
Mrs. Begay straightened and pulled away from Yanaha. “I want you to read this.” She reached into a huge pocket in her voluminous skirt and thrust a creased and stained piece of lined paper at me. “Put this on TV. You tell them.”
I looked at Yanaha. She nodded behind Atsa’s head. I plucked the creased note from Atsa’s hand. “You’ve read it?” I didn’t want to unveil any surprises to the grieving widow.
“Of course!” She was adamant, bobbing her head up and down. “You look into it for me.”
I unfolded the note, written in pencil in childish handwriting. I was fired because I saw Dinetah looting graves. I gave this to my wife Atsa Begay to open if something happened to me. Sani Begay had signed and dated it. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a picture of the note.
“Mrs. Begay, did you take this to the police?”
“No, you take it. You know they’re robbing our graves. You talked about it on TV.”
I picked her hand up and gently held it in mine. “I’ll look into it.” I squeezed her hand. “I think we have to share this with Captain Yazzie. He can help you.”
Atsa looked at Yanaha who nodded at her.
She dipped her chin in a halfhearted assent. “But you look into it,” she repeated. “I saw your story. You know what they’re doing out there.”
I wasn’t sure when Trace had joined us. I saw a pair of familiar boots in my peripheral vision. When I glanced up, he was looking quizzically at the three of us. I cocked my head in askance at Atsa.
“Go ahead, tell him,” Atsa urged.
“Ms. Begay’s husband gave her this note to read if something happened to him.” I passed it to Trace.
He squatted, balancing his plate with one hand on his knee, and read the note. He looked up at Atsa. “Was your husband afraid?”
“Yeah. They knew he saw them carrying out those pots. He was scared.”
“Why didn’t the two of you leave?” Trace asked.
“Like Niyol? Leaving didn’t save Niyol,” she said bitterly.
Trace cocked his head. “Are you staying with family, Mrs. Begay?”
“I’m staying at my brother’s sheep camp.”
“Are you safe there?”
“My brother has many grown sons. I’ll be fine. The camp is a long way from the mine.”
Trace’s hand hovered over his pocket. “Do you mind if I keep the note?”
Atsa shook her head
Trace tucked the note in his jeans pocket. He was about to say something to me when a short, rotund man joined us. “Hostiin, good to see you.” Trace stood and extended his hand.
The newcomer didn’t offer his hand, and Trace dropped his to his side. “Taylor, this is Hostiin Tohe.” He gestured toward me. “Hostiin, Taylor is my guest today.”
“Good evening,” he said formally. “Good to meet you.” He angled his body away from me, cutting me out of his line of vision and belying his greeting. “Trace, I have something to discuss.”
Trace crossed his arms over his chest. “What is it?”
“I represent the Council. We are concerned about the reopening of the mine. The sulfuric acid drifts on the wind and the stink is god-awful. The uranium dust will bring Leetso back to our people.”
“I understand, Hostiin. But the Council contracted with Mr. Chavez, giving him the rights to mine on the reservation, and the Navajo tribe gets a portion of the profits.”
“Yes, but Chavez never said the stench would steal over the land, or the chemicals poison our wells.”
“Your attorneys should be able to check if Mr. Chavez is operating the mine within the stipulations of the agreement.”
“Digging up our dead and stealing their funeral goods is not ‘within the stipulations of our agreement,’ ” he barked. “The Council agonizes with our people about the desecration of our ancestor’s burials. You must stop them.”
“Hostiin, I take the accusation very seriously. If I went to the district attorney with what I have now, he would tell me I didn’t have enough for him to take it to a grand jury.”
“I can’t guarantee that the elders will be patient while you gather evidence to satisfy a Bilagaana DA in the white courts.”
Anger mottled Hostiin’s face. I knew that Bilagaana meant “white man” to traditional Navajos, and not in a good way. Hostiin was warm with the righteousness of his position, punctuating the air with his gestures. Two more elderly men joined him. They flanked Hostiin like two sentinels as Hostiin excoriated men who would disturb the dead for money.
Trace ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m sworn to uphold the law. I’m also Navajo and I abhor what’s happening. If we try
to force this to a court without enough evidence, how will our people feel when the looters walk away free?”
The three Navajo turned and silently strode away. Atsa joined them.
For once, I had no appetite. Yanaha broke the silence. “You’ll make the right decision.”
He groaned. “As a Navajo or a cop?”
Yanaha said quietly to Trace, “You’re both. Find the virtuous way. Seek with your heart and your head for the way that satisfies your need for justice.”
Trace nodded at his grandmother and gave her a halfhearted smile.
A few clumps of people were still eating, but the crowd had thinned out. Families were trudging through the loose sand to their vehicles, loading up kids and aluminum-wrapped dishes of leftovers. Ben’s family was cleaning up the tables and trash.
I was ready to go when Yanaha clutched my hand. “The Singer is ready for our blessing.” She pointed to Gorman who moved quickly through the crowd toward us.
Al Gorman joined the three of us. The weight of the medicine pouch Yanaha had given me hung heavy between my breasts. Yanaha stood. I scrambled to my feet, hoping I didn’t appear like a clueless Bilagaana to the Singer.
Gorman had a beatific smile that creased his whole face into a roadmap of lines. “Yanaha, Trace, I am so pleased to see you. He shook their hands. And this must be Ms. McWhorter.” He furrowed his brow and scrutinized me as he took my hand. A finger of unease tiptoed up my back.
He nodded his approval to Trace and gave me an endearing smile. I was relieved. There were several other Anglos at Ben’s sing, but to my knowledge, I was the only one receiving his blessing.
He sat down, crossing one leg over the other. The three of us sat beside him making a small circle. He spoke to Yanaha in Navajo. She gestured to me and answered him. Gorman pointed to me. “You have seen a shapeshifter?”
“Y-y-yes,” I stammered, uncertain of what was expected of me. Trace put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
The Singer pulled a buckskin medicine bag from under his shirt. He took out a pinch of yellow corn pollen and raised it to the sky, then sprang to his feet, standing before Yanaha. He sprinkled the golden pollen on her bowed head. As he approached me, I lowered my own. Soft yellow dust filtered down on my jeans. Trace and Yanaha murmured responses to him in their language. Gorman finished with a blessing in English that I had heard Trace say, “Now I walk in beauty, beauty is before me, beauty is behind me, above and below me.”