by David Crow
“Are you okay?” Sally asked. “Is the house going to blow up?”
I raised my hand to let them know I wasn’t going to die. They were quiet for a moment, and then Sam walked over and rubbed my head, pretending his hands were cut by the sharp edges of my newly frizzed hair. “Ouch,” he said, shaking his hand. All three of us started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Your hair looks like a rusted Brillo pad,” Sam said. “And your eyebrows are all gone.”
Back in the house, he made a “boom” sound and ran through the living room making loud noises that sounded like an explosion. Every time he did it, we cracked up again. Each of us made boom noises, and my brother and sister took turns rubbing my hair, pretending it cut their hands.
It was the first time the three of us had laughed together in a long time.
CHAPTER 21
AT THE END OF OUR first week of school, I walked into the house feeling relieved I didn’t have to face the bullies or the dogs again until Monday. Dad stood inside the door, home early from work. “Get in the car,” he said to me. “You and I are leaving for Gallup.”
The urgency in his voice made my stomach churn. He had promised us we’d all go with him to Gallup the next day when he shopped for groceries, so what was this about? He was agitated and angry, pushing me outside. After telling Lonnie, Sam, and Sally we would be gone for a few hours, he and I got in the Rambler and took off in silence, his eyes bugged out and the Y vein pulsing on his forehead. As his chest puffed, he began twitching and arguing with himself.
I asked repeatedly why just the two of us were headed back to Gallup, but he didn’t answer. He acted like I wasn’t in the car.
The sun hung low in the sky when he parked on South Cliff Drive across from our old house. Where was Mom now? Surely, she would have left after coming back to the empty house.
Dad pulled out a pair of binoculars and slowly scanned from one corner of our old living room window to the other. He continuously adjusted the knob, studying the house for what seemed like an hour, though it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes.
“Sneak in and see if your mother is there,” he said. “I need to know. And don’t get caught.”
Dad obviously thought she was inside, but how? Did he think she was dead? I didn’t want to find out.
“Get moving.” He shoved me against the passenger door.
Scurrying across the street, I hoped no one would see me. My friend Billy lived next door, but I never wanted to see him or his family again. Through a side window, his mother had watched us slink away like burglars in the night. I’ll never forget her angry eyes. She hated Dad, and I didn’t blame her. I hated him too.
The heavy wooden garage door was ajar, and I pulled it open. My heart sank at the sight of Mom’s broken-down brown Ford station wagon inside. She had to be there, and if she was alive, she’d be in terrible shape, trying to make do in the cold, empty house.
What would I say? Sorry for ditching you? If I found her dead, I knew I’d have killed her by breaking her heart. I wanted to run at full speed through the streets of Gallup away from all of it. Maybe Mr. Pino would let me live in his storage room.
I opened the basement door and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When I could see the familiar green-and-black checkerboard tiles on the floor, I slowly tiptoed upstairs, trying not to make the steps creak. As I crept softly into the living room, I prayed it was empty, but I knew better.
The late-afternoon light through the window gave me a clear view of Mom slumped in the corner, her clothes piled where we’d left them on the dirty mattress. Her face was contorted in pain. She raised her head but didn’t appear to see me, her vacant eyes showing no emotion. If her head hadn’t risen, I’d have thought she was dead. Until that moment, I hadn’t known the look of complete hopelessness.
My arms and legs felt too heavy to move. I fell to my knees, crying.
Her eyes came alive when she realized it was me, and she struggled to her feet. I forced myself to stand and walk toward her, stepping around the mattress and the pile of clothes.
She put her arms around me. “Don’t leave . . . me . . . this . . . way,” she said, holding my shirt and neck tight. “You’re my oldest boy . . . protect me . . . I need you!”
“I’m . . . mm . . . so . . . so . . . sorry,” I blubbered into her shoulder.
Mom’s tears soaked my shirt as we stood holding each other.
Soon the hair rose on the back of my neck, the same way it did in Albuquerque when Dad found Mom with his hidden mail. I turned to see him standing inches behind me, his face swollen with fury. For once I didn’t care. Nothing he did to me could be worse than what I had just experienced.
“Shit, you couldn’t even do the one simple thing I asked,” he said, yanking me from Mom’s arms. He shoved her aside, but she didn’t fall. She grabbed my shirt to pull me from him, but he jerked me away harder, tearing my shirt.
“Thurston, let me at least have David,” Mom begged.
“Thelma Lou, get out of this house. Now. Go to the nut house or to your whore mother, but get the hell out of here. No one wants you.”
Dad dragged me to the front door. Mom tumbled to the floor, crying and shaking, her arms and legs sprawled. If grief could have killed her, she’d have been dead. I wondered if she might be better off dead and hated myself for the thought.
Still gripping my arm, Dad marched across the street and shoved me into the Rambler. He came around to the driver’s side, started the engine, and whacked the side of my head with his fist. A ringing jolt rattled my ears as my head bounced off the passenger window. But I was too numb to feel it.
“You’ll never be much of a man. I should leave you with her, you goddamn coward.”
Dad had that right: I was a coward. What else would you call a son who wouldn’t protect his completely helpless mother? I lacked the moral fiber to stand up to him—and to help her. A better son would have stayed.
My siblings didn’t ask where we’d been, and I didn’t tell them.
Something broke inside me that day.
Many nights afterward, I dreamed of Mom. She’d beg me for help, but Dad would smash her face to pieces before I could save her. In other dreams, Dad would hit Mom and she’d fall to the floor. By the time I reached her, she would be dead from the blow. Then I’d look up, and Dad would be pointing a gun at my head.
Dad didn’t believe in God, but I did. The most frightening nightmare of all was hearing God say, “You won’t be forgiven for hurting your mother. You’re a lost cause.”
Waking up, I’d always ask for a second chance.
WHEN DAD WAS AROUND, he often had whiskey on his breath and told us about the women he’d been dating. He was shopping for our new mother, he said. I couldn’t imagine who would want that job.
If Dad was happy working with his Navajo brethren in Fort Defiance, he didn’t show it. “Most of those morons couldn’t find their ass without two maps and a compass,” he said, shaking his head.
“Why don’t you get another job?”
He shot me one of his ugly looks. “Get it into that thick skull of yours—we’re staying put.”
I didn’t think he paid attention to our physical appearance, but one night when he came home for dinner, he stared at me across the table for several minutes. He had long been used to seeing my glasses reshaped by electrical tape—he refused to buy me a new pair no matter how broken they were—so I knew he was fixated on something else: the bruises and bumps under my eyes and on my lips and the scrapes on my ears. “You’re getting the crap beat out of you on a regular basis, aren’t you, boy?” he said. “Come over here.”
I kept my eyes down as Dad pulled my head up and rubbed his thumbs over my cheeks. He wasn’t trying to comfort me. He was taking measure of how many times I’d been hit.
Puffing up his chest, he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Look at me,” he said. “You better figure out how to defend yourself because we aren’t going anywhere.”<
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He didn’t have to say more. I saw it all over his face: How could the son of a full-blooded Cherokee be such a wimpy kid?
Dad had taught me to probe for weaknesses and find an advantage in any situation. So far, there was nothing. Most of the trailer and hogan kids dipped snuff, smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, and got at least one girl pregnant before dropping out of school after eighth grade. Some in my class were one or more years older than I was and as tough as Dad had been at the same age. They roamed in gangs at night, fighting rivals over territory or a girl or whiskey, sometimes killing one another.
There was no way to intimidate them or turn them into friends.
Except for Henry. At lunch on my third day at Tse’hootsooi Elementary, as I sat in the corner of the cafeteria trying to be invisible, one of the well-dressed Navajo boys in my class had come over to me.
“Hey, you’re the new guy. What’s your name?”
He was big and strong with a warm smile. I had spotted him on the playground joking around with everyone. Even the meanest hogan kids seemed to like him. Still, I was nervous. Why would he want to be my friend? I didn’t have much to offer him.
“I’m Henry,” he said.
He motioned for me to sit next to him in the cafeteria. We walked to class together and told each other jokes. He said I could come over to his house in Window Rock sometime. When I was with him, the other kids left me alone.
But when he wasn’t around, I didn’t have a single protector. Though Sam had been my fearless ally in pranks we pulled in Gallup, he had no desire to do anything in Mud Flats except outrun the bullies and survive.
“At least Sam isn’t getting his ass kicked,” Dad said. “Why don’t you fight back? Beat their asses one at a time?”
“These kids roam in packs. They shoot BBs and pellets at us that sting almost as bad as the dog bites.” I winced inside—Dad wouldn’t care.
“Do something. Stop being a coward,” he said, as if the abuse was my fault. “I’ll buy you a .22-caliber rifle, and the next time they give you shit, just shoot them.”
I didn’t know how to turn the Navajo boys into friends, but trying to kill them didn’t seem like a good solution.
WHEN WE HEARD A SOFT knock late one afternoon, I thought I was hearing things. But then it happened again. Sam, Sally, and I looked at each other on the couch, our eyes wide. No one had come to our house since we moved to Mud Flats. I opened the door slowly and saw the friendly face of an elderly Navajo woman.
Nothing could have surprised me more. Heavyset, her gray hair in a tight bun, she wore a traditional red velvet full skirt and black blouse and lots of turquoise jewelry on her wrists and fingers. I recognized her as the woman I’d seen coming and going from the rusted trailer across the street.
“I been watching. Think you need help,” she said. “I Evelyn.” She smiled and leaned forward, scanning the living room behind me. “Where your mother? Why you here?”
It took a while to understand her broken English, but I felt her concern from that first instant. Her bright brown eyes exuded greater warmth than I’d ever seen.
“I help make dinner.” She walked into the house and moved from room to room like part of our family. “You do homework.”
If there was a God, he must have sent this angel of a woman to us. For the first time in forever, a blanket of calm fell over the house.
Sam, Sally, and I saw her every day after that.
“What learn in school?” she would ask.
“The bullies beat me up, and the dogs keep biting us,” I said, showing her the holes in my pants and the cuts on my face.
“I wash off blood, shoo dogs and bullies,” Evelyn would say with a smile.
One afternoon, she held me in her arms, stroking my hair as I told her things I’d kept bottled inside. “We ditched Mom, and Dad beats us with a belt buckle . . .”
I rattled off all kinds of dirty Crow secrets and then felt ashamed.
Every day at school, I’d get attacked on the playground and fight back, but I never won. It seemed like all the tough kids knew they’d found an easy mark. Afterward, as I walked to class with fresh cuts and bruises, fighting back the tears, I’d think about Evelyn and her smiling eyes and the way her tongue clicked when she pronounced English words and I’d start to feel better.
Sometimes in bed at night, I worried she might not come again. But each day, the second we got home, Evelyn appeared. She was the first adult who truly loved me—she cared for me without wanting anything back. I knew that whatever happened, she’d be on my side.
Sally and Sam loved her too. The tension drained from our shack as soon as Evelyn walked inside. I never told her I loved her because I was afraid she wouldn’t say it back, but I think she knew.
Evelyn would tell us stories about the Long Walk, known as the “fearing time,” after the Navajos lost the war against Kit Carson.
“When Grandma little girl, she live near here. Soldiers round up Navajo people, force them walk many miles. Can’t walk fast enough as soldiers on horses. They fall. Soldiers shoot them. Food full of maggots and worms. Many starve. Apaches kill many too. Navajo people prisoners for four years. Walk home to sacred place. Everything in God’s plan.”
How could she forgive what had happened to her people? And how could she be so kindhearted? I didn’t understand. She filled the house with noisy laughter. She told us to have hozhoni (harmony) and show ajooba (kindness) because those things will return to you. She even offered to walk us to school.
“I beat up bullies,” she’d say. I think she might have really done it.
ON OUR WAY TO SCHOOL one morning near the end of March, an older, muscular Navajo boy strode alongside me as I was being bumped and shoved. Everyone moved away immediately.
“I’m Tommy,” he said with a smile, towering over me. “What grade are you in?”
“Fifth.”
I figured I was about to get the crap stomped out of me. I braced myself, keeping my body between him and Sam so my little brother could make a quick getaway.
But Tommy continued talking all the way to school as though we were old friends. Other hogan and trailer kids deferred to him, and no one bothered Sam or me.
“Come by my trailer anytime,” Tommy said. “I live on Seventh Street.” He took a couple of steps toward his classroom and then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“David Crow.”
“Gáagii.” He nodded. “That’s a good name. See you, Gáagii.”
“What’s gáagii?” Sam asked before we had to go in opposite directions in the hallway.
“I don’t know. Henry will tell me.” By that time, he and I had become good buddies.
Mr. Aday was at his desk, the roll book open and ready. He reminded me of Ward Cleaver, always calm and patient.
Henry came into the room right behind me. “What does gáagii mean?” I asked him.
“It means ‘crow’ in Navajo. Why?”
I told him about Tommy walking to school with Sam and me.
Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “Tommy? He runs the toughest gang in Fort Defiance. He can beat up anybody, and no one messes with him.” Henry slapped me on the back. “Cool. I’ll call you Gáagii too.”
“It sounds better than Bilagáana.” I sat at my desk next to Henry’s. “What does that mean?”
Grinning, he said, “Bilagáana is a bad word for white man.”
“Yeah. Gáagii is way better.” We both laughed.
With Evelyn, Henry, and Tommy on my side, life seemed a little brighter.
CHAPTER 22
“GET IN THE CAR, BOYS.”
Somehow Dad had figured out where to find us. Without a word to anyone, Sam and I had grabbed our jackets and taken off that Saturday morning, running up the dirt road that zigzagged to the big silver water tower overlooking Canyon Bonito. My brother liked to throw rocks against “Fort Defiance” stenciled in black letters near the top, making a dull thud that echoed aro
und us.
Sam spotted Dad’s brown sedan in the distance, the exhaust billowing white in the cold air, and I groaned. We were in trouble or Dad needed something. Either way, our fun was about to end.
“David and I are going on a special trip,” Dad said as we got in the back seat and he turned the car around.
“Can I go too?” Sam asked.
“No. Not this time.”
“Why not? It isn’t fair. I never get to go.” He crossed his arms and thumped back against the seat.
“When you’re older.”
That was a lie. Dad was up to something, and he knew Sam would blab about it, even if he threatened him with a beating. I would have gladly let him take my place.
After we dropped Sam off at home, I moved to the front seat next to Dad. At Kit Carson Drive, he took a right and headed north.
“I need your help,” he said. “And no one can know what we’re doing, especially your brother and sisters.”
He didn’t elaborate, switching to a lecture about avocados and how they could cure any disease. “Only the Cherokees are aware of this,” he said, slicing the air with his large hand. “And sugar and salt are the deadliest killers. The sons of bitches doctors know all about it, but they make so much money off idiots that they keep their mouths shut.”
Dad ranted on, lowering his voice while his head shook and lips twitched. I could make out only a few words. His arms bulged and his forehead vein popped out, but he seemed more excited than angry.
What was he going to make me do?
In an hour or so, Dad turned onto a long dirt road that ended at a Quonset hut. A fat padlock hung from the door next to a small sign: “US Department of the Interior, BIA.” No one was around, and an endless landscape of rock and cactus stretched in all directions.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
Dad looked at me with a smile. “Because this is where the loot is stored.” He backed the car up to the door.
“The loot?”
“Tools—expensive tools—that we’re going to sell for some folding green. Since the white man stole this land from the Indians and gave them a little bit of money and the worthless BIA, we’re going to steal some of the power tools and sell them to greedy Mexicans who can find buyers. It’s quite simple really, and no one will ever know.”