“Damn, do all you old Indians hate to share, or just you?”
Gabe put one arm around Jeff and slapped his back.
“Shit,” Jeff said, “maybe if you people had left us something to share.”
Jeff lived alone a few miles onto the Isleta Pueblo. For a fee, he dosed friends, and friends of friends, with Native-grade mushrooms. All a “patient” had to do was sign a paper converting to a Native religion and hand over two hundred bucks. Legal and above board. Gabe had been indulging in this mental enema at least twice a year for almost a decade. After the diagnosis, Jeff talked him up to the full deluxe model for two-fifty: drums, heat, smoke and a mushroom tea that tasted like rotten meat but sent Gabe to the moon and back.
Jeff claimed it purged toxins so the body could fight the cancer, but Gabe never believed in miracles. Still, a dying man needed to have some fun on his way out. He had taken two treatments in less than two weeks.
Jeff reached into his backpack and handed Gabe a gallon plastic bag packed tight with dried mushrooms. “You know who this is for.”
Gabe laughed at the bag’s heft.
“Where do you find this stuff?” he asked. “And what if I pounded all this, right now? Just shoved fistfuls down my throat?”
“I grow it in cow shit under the trailer,” Jeff said. “And, if you ate that much, I’d have to shoot you before you pulled your own face off.”
Gabe turned to hide the look on his face. Since the diagnosis, gut-shaking bouts of fear and paranoia would freeze him in place. Jeff’s treatments helped bring some calm back into his life, but nothing else made much of a difference.
He unzipped his saddlebag, took out a soft plastic lunchbox filled with the money and handed it to Jeff. Gabe never thought of himself as a drug dealer, no way. He was the middleman who introduced Jeff and his mushrooms to Frederick, a friend of Gabe’s since high school who most definitely was a drug dealer.
“Our friend says the last batch was almost too strong,” Gabe said. “Some of the customers complained. You believe that? Anyway, Frederick ended up charging more, so you got some extra in there.”
Jeff took his money inside. He never talked details, never counted the cash in front of Gabe, never asked any questions. Gabe supposed the Indian was ashamed. Escorting friends through a religious experience was honorable, but blowing the minds of teenagers? Not worth a single word.
Gabe leaned against Jeff’s truck, pulled a soft pack from his leather vest and slipped a cigarette behind his ear.
After Jeff had stowed the lunchbox inside, he came back, almost limping.
“We’re breaking down like old horses,” Gabe said. “We going to end up in the same rest home for broke Indians?”
Jeff pointed to his new truck. “Who’s broke? And who’s an Indian?”
“Hey, my great-grandma had a braid of black hair down to her ass and that pissed off face you always wear. Fifty bucks says I’ve got more Native blood than you. Call me Tonto.”
“That’s about as far as this will go.”
Gabe stepped up into the cab, feeling a twinge in his bad ankle. He had always felt kinship with the Natives. New Mexico was bursting with light-skinned Latinos holding their pointy noses in the air like a bunch of matadors munching on olives and calling themselves “Spanish.” Nope, not Gabe. His skin was brown as the Rio Grande, and his brother Lou was even darker. There were Indians hiding in his family tree, Gabe felt them. Not that he could prove it or apply for benefits or anything—he had tried—but extended family was family nonetheless.
Jeff pulled the truck down the dirt road that led to the sweat lodge, Gabe took the leather bandana off his head and shook out the dust onto the floorboards. He ran his hands through his mustache, sending grit to the floor.
“What kind of focus you want?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll see what I see. Hey, that eagle from last time, you remember? Bring that guy back.”
Gabe popped the cigarette into his mouth and dug for a lighter.
“That was a vulture, not an eagle, and I’m not in charge. Except in this truck. No smoking.”
Gabe rolled his eyes but tucked the cigarette back behind his ear. “Damn things have been hurting my chest anyways. Feel like I’m back in middle school.”
“You tell your boy yet?”
“Working on it. Our schedules haven’t quite aligned.”
Jeff snorted.
“Hey, the kid’s sixteen. Kids are busy little bastards nowadays.” Gabe looked out the window. “And his mom doesn’t always want me to see him. Hey, tonight, can we be outside? I’ve been itching to get up in those hills.”
Jeff looked over at him and raised his eyebrows.
Gabe sighed. “I’ll tell him. I know, I have to tell him. It’s not that easy.”
Jeff’s cell phone dinged, the sound digital and fragile in the truck. “I didn’t think those worked out here,” Gabe said.
“Dude, we don’t live in the nineteenth century.”
Jeff pulled his phone off his hip and glanced at the screen. The truck swayed back and forth across the divider line, but there was no other vehicle for miles.
“My phone never worked out at the construction site,” Gabe said.
“Those bones really did a number on y’all, huh? I’m still going to bed happy, thinking about millionaires with their dicks in their hands.”
“Hey, I needed that job. And my brother works for the head millionaire. You better hope they get building soon or there’s going to be broke Lunas as far as you can see.”
“Lou will just go back to the force if he needs to.”
“Kicking and screaming.”
“White men buying up Indian land to build an airport.” Jeff sneered. “Karma’s a bitch.”
“Don’t say it like it was my idea.” Gabe sat forward. “Wait, you don’t think that . . . I don’t have this shit inside me because of that skeleton, do I?”
“An Indian curse? That’s what you’re blaming this on?”
“They dropped the dude’s skull into the back of my truck. I saw the damn thing in my rearview mirror. That has got to be bad karma.”
“You’re not sick because of that skull. You’re sick because you’re blocked in here.” Jeff thumped his chest.
“Oh, that’s sweet. You should put that wisdom on a T-shirt.”
Jeff shook his head. “I can sweat your ass down to a nub, but if you don’t unlock whatever’s going on inside you, then you may as well wander into the woods and curl up under a rock.”
“Whoa, a little harsh, man.”
“You, of all people, can take it.”
Gabe wondered if that was a compliment. He hated it when Jeff got too mystical. After being stuck in Catholic school until he turned fifteen, and one-too-many religious-themed beatings courtesy of his pious father, Gabe had lost or abandoned most of his superstitions. The ceremony tonight would not heal him. All he wanted was to round off some of his edges and, maybe, buy himself a little more time.
Gabe reached into his shirt pocket and counted out the money. He was supposed to pay $250, but Gabe pocketed a twenty and slipped the rest into Jeff’s ashtray. If he called him on the missing cash, Gabe would claim a frequent flier discount.
They rode in silence for a few miles, the land rolling under the wheels and the horizon so unchanging that Gabe felt they were spinning in place. The sweat lodge was a log cabin at the end of a dirt road. If Jeff’s trailer felt like the middle of nowhere, then the lodge might have been on another planet. The hills that became the Manzano Mountains started behind the lodge, and the flat, rocky plain in front of the shack eventually turned into the Chihuahua desert that stretched thousands of miles south. At times, when Gabe was high on the mushroom tea, the lodge itself seemed to bind the continent together, fusing desert and mountains with its own split logs and packed dirt floor. That was when even in the darkness every step was illuminated, Jeff turned into a shaman and Gabe became something better than the wreck he had
grown into.
Jeff started a fire under a hole in the cabin roof. Water boiled in a pot and he muttered a Native language Gabe only heard during ceremonies. Nervous anticipation flashed through his blood. He wanted the show but the formality made his squirm. Last time, an eagle did fly into the lodge—no vulture, Gabe swore—and circled the room before landing in the corner, sitting on its tail feathers and crossing its leg like a human. “Someone who died, trying to send a message,” Jeff said. During another vision, years earlier, the dirt floor transformed into a woven expanse of tiny, perfectly formed interlocking people supporting Gabe, supporting everything. For the next week, Gabe kept his yard immaculate, did not even throw a cigarette butt on the ground. Life was always a little different afterwards. Gabe would call his brother, send Helen some child support, be nicer to strangers, visit his father’s grave. But eventually, the lesson would leak out of him, the yard would go wild and Gabe would sink a little deeper into his own life.
Jeff sprinkled powders into the water, then poured the tea into a metal thermos. After Gabe sipped until it was empty, time turned rubbery and difficult to track. Jeff beat a drum, but when Gabe looked, it was gone. The smoke still pulsed with the beat. Then, Gabe was outside with Jeff still drumming. Gabe walked into the hills, knowing where to step, knowing which rocks were loose enough to turn his ankle, stepping around cactus even when clouds covered the moon. Then, a line of fire spread along the top of the hill, thin as thread. The orange thread thickened and rolled forward. Trees that were not there cracked and exploded from the heat and the pressure. The fire line grew stronger, advancing as if on wheels, smooth and unstoppable. The flames, tall, perfectly shaped into a point, stopped inches in front of his nose. Gabe skimmed the flat of his hand over the edge of the flames. Fire is natural, nothing to fear. Forests burn and grow stronger. Gabe might burn and come back stronger.
Jeff grabbed his wrist. “No further. Not yet,” he said. “Your marrow is not your own, and you’re not ready to go.”
Gabe looked back at the wall of flame. The flames turned pain black. At the center of the flames, he saw his dying father. Lou was there. Lou was the good son at the end, tying his father’s wrists to the bedrails against the animal delirium. No Gabe. Fire ants tunneled out of his father’s body and formed a line marching straight towards Gabe.
“Pop,” he sobbed, “I meant to visit. Couldn’t you have found some other way to punish me?”
The flames vanished, leaving Gabe red-faced and cold in the middle of the desert. At some point, Jeff had stopped drumming.
“You’ve got to tell your son,” Jeff said, then turned back to the cabin.
Gabe hesitated, looking back to where the flames had been, as if there could be a different answer. Then he turned and followed Jeff, stumbling on the gravel beneath his boots.
MONDAY
THREE
CHARLES FACED LONG DELAYS on each of his flights to Albuquerque. In DC, he passed the time in an airport bar, drinking sour martinis, trying not to think about his fight with Addie. In Houston, he slogged through memos covering the history of the airport and the skeleton the contractors had discovered after breaking ground. His last night in DC for weeks, months, and he and Addie had barely spoken. When he told her that Thompson would pay him a couple hundred for some consulting work—basically just a conversation over dinner—all she did was nod. He wanted Addie to tell him if he should stay and fix their marriage or stay and mercy-kill it.
His binder full of memos and background papers on the airport was too boring to distract him, but it was better than being left with his own thoughts. A county ballot initiative had set aside funds to buy the land. The tribe assured the developers and the county there were no artifacts or burial sites in the area, only boulders and dirt, so this was a very large fly in a very expensive bowl of soup.
As he boarded the final plane to Albuquerque, Charles lost track of which person was the liaison for which tribe and which agency governed what organization. Politics used to be his drug, but this gig was a corporate labyrinth.
Maybe Addie would start up an affair. Charles cracked a smile. That would be the best option. She would tearfully confess her love for a co-worker, maybe even the congressman she worked for, and Charles would walk away from the marriage a wounded victim. This was roughly the story with Olivia Reyes, his first wife.
After one more drink, Charles settled into boozy dreaming about the young, hotshot Hispanic politician he might meet out west. A charming man with a killer smile and no accent, someone Hispanic but not too Hispanic, with his sights on national office. Someone Charles could build.
By the time the plane approached Albuquerque, Charles’ throat had dried out and his head was pounding. He was sweating stains through his newest, old shirt. He had expected dunes and tall, red rocks—a John Wayne movie. But all he saw out the window was low, ambling hills and brown, dusty terrain.
A dark part of him relished how low he had sunk.
Charles muttered, “Hi, I’m a political junkie, and I’ve hit rock bottom.”
The Albuquerque airport was small and almost deserted this late. It appeared old and vaguely Spanish Colonial. The airport shops had names like “Trader’s Outpost” and “Turquoise Depot.” To him, the exposed ceiling beams and pink and blue trim running along the walls looked like something out of Epcot.
Charles spotted his driver right away. The man was a wide pit-bull in a simple black suit. His hair was a fuzz too short to tell its color, and the sign with Charles’ name on it looked small against his chest.
“That’s me,” Charles said. “O’Connell.”
The driver titled his head an inch, his expression set in stone. “Mallon. I’m taking you to Santa Fe.”
The driver walked out of the terminal and towards an idling black town car in front of the airport. A thick palm on his shoulder steered Charles into the backseat, and Mallon went back inside for the luggage. The car was luxurious and clean—not just clean but spotless in a way only the very rich can maintain. The organization funding the airport had agreed to drive him from Albuquerque to Santa Fe and put him up in a house for the job’s duration. On previous gigs he would be lucky to get a ride from a teenager with a hatchback. Hey, what’s the point of selling out, Charles thought, if it doesn’t come with perks?
He cracked the window and watched for the driver’s return, already forgetting his name. Airport security waved other cars through, not letting anyone else park in front of the terminal, but they never even glanced at the town car.
Mallon returned, carrying Charles’ large, square suitcases under his arms, the garment bag, hooked to one of the suitcases, dragged on the ground.
“You could have rolled them,” Charles said.
After Mallon settled behind the wheel, he turned his head, and his wide little eyes blinked.
“The suitcases have wheels,” Charles offered again.
“Need anything else, sir?”
Charles shook his head, and the car pulled away.
At night, Albuquerque looked like any other city—highways and strip malls. It looked like Phoenix but with more potholes. At the edge of town, the highway went dark and traffic dripped to a trickle. To the left, Charles saw scattered lights. To his right, nothing but stunted, bristly trees among the dirt and rocks. He cupped his hands around his eyes and held his face to the glass. No moon. No houses, no small towns in the distance, no cars on country roads.
Nothing past the knotted three-foot tall imitations of trees on the shoulder. It was like riding in a saddlebag. Charles smiled. Twenty minutes in New Mexico and he was already thinking like a cowboy.
“Where are we?” he asked.
Mallon made no indication he had heard, so Charles asked again.
“Between Albuquerque and Santa Fe,” he mumbled. “It’ll take an hour.”
“No, but, where are we? What’s around us? There’s nothing here.”
“To the left is tribal land. To the right is a mountain.”
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Charles looked again. High above the car were a dozen evenly spaced, tiny red dots. He shifted, but the lights stayed in place. Radio or cell towers, he figured. The blackness took on a new shape, not empty desert, but a thousand feet of solid rock.
He tugged at his seatbelt. “I didn’t think the drive would be so long.”
Mallon pulled up his shoulders as if Charles were a mosquito, an annoyance. “If the drive were any shorter, Santa Fe wouldn’t need its own airport.”
Charles laughed. “Good point. You from New Mexico?”
“Ohio.”
“Ohio. Ohio. The Buckeye State. I’ve spent more time in Columbus and Toledo than any sane man ever should.”
Charles looked for a response, a smile, an acknowledgement of his existence.
“Sure is a nice state though,” Charles said. “Good people in Ohio. Real good people.”
“Look, save it for the press.”
“I’m sorry?
“You’re not trying to convince me of anything. Save the PR hand jobs for the reporters and the tribes.” Mallon continued muttering under his breath.
“What was that?” Charles said.
“We’ve all got trouble we’re trying to beat. We’ve all got jobs to do, and mine isn’t spending two hours in an airport parking lot.”
Charles rubbed his eyes. “Right. You’re right. I should have emailed my new arrival time. Hey, spending extra time in Houston wasn’t exactly paradise.”
A small building with a tin roof and siding like Tupperware appeared to the right. The words “Indian Casino” blazed in purple neon. Farm trucks and beat-up cars dotted the parking lot. Just past the casino, three weathered Christmas wreaths hung on white wooden crosses along the shoulder.
A car with darkened headlights entered the highway and swung in front of them. Mallon slammed on the brakes and swerved. As they whipped around the car, Charles saw the driver’s eyes narrowed to drunken slits
“Did we hit him?” Charles yelled.
He turned around and watched the drunk struggle to stay in a lane. He wanted to puke up all the vodka in his gut. “There that many drunks out here?”
Trust Me Page 2
