Another Like Me

by Albert Norton, Jr.

  “Thank you,” Jack said, pausing to scoop up food and fill the plate he’d been provided. He was hungry for information but even hungrier for food. All about him, Jack saw people lounging in lawn chairs or in little clumps on blankets on the ground, mostly the vivid Navajo blankets he’d often seen since arriving at Luna. But the groups seemed to be shifting and regrouping, casually. Though he’d not seen anyone who stepped up to lead the crowd in some way, he did notice that there were a couple of men about his age who seemed to get around more than others. To Jack’s practiced eye, they had the earmarks of the local politician, working the room, except without quite the level of unctuous superficiality that was common in former times.

  As he ate and looked over the other groups for some sign of pattern—of families, or age similarities, or sex, or social standing—one of the politician types came up from behind him, speaking to the two girls. “Missie, Shawna, I’m happy to see you. Is that good?”

  One of the girls bounced her head up and down, making a show of tearing bread with her teeth. The other looked on, a little more reserved.

  “Alma, Billy, Mr. Ballari,” the man said, greeting the others. “And,” he said, extending his hand to Jack.

  “Jack, sorry. Full. Good.” Jack said, covering his mouth with his hand.

  “I’m glad you like it. I’m Dexter Wallace. I try to eat something new every time we do this. Don’t let me interrupt.”

  “Not at all,” Jack said, not wanting Dexter to wander off. Maybe he was some kind of leader here. Supposedly they were leaderless entirely, according to Hashkeh and Roland, but Jack frankly doubted it. It could well be that the culture just demanded that pose.

  “Just a little bit of that good bread, thank you,” Dexter said, reaching for the bread on a paper plate in the middle of the blanket.

  “Dexter, you’ve been here a while? Since Alma became a part of the group?”

  “Yes, in fact, Alma and I are both from Jerome.”

  “We knew each other before the sickness,” Alma added.

  “Jerome is where?” Jack asked, just keeping the exchange going.

  “Arizona. Between Prescott and Flagstaff. Artist colony, mostly.” Alma said.

  “Alma is a wonderful painter,” Dexter said. “I was just there for the tourist trade. Trying to help the starving artists starve a little less.”

  “Anyone else from Jerome survive, that you know of?”

  “No, we’d have known,” Alma said. “Jerome is a small place.”

  “So how’d you end up here?” Jack asked, aiming the question at Dexter.

  “Well, it was a new beginning, like it or not. When the dust settled, and we started meeting other survivors, a lot of us decided we should come together and give some thought to how we ought to live, not just stumble along, every man for himself.”

  “So what did you do? Draw up a new constitution? Make a manifesto?”

  Alma laughed.

  Dexter answered, “Well, no, not like that exactly, but we didn’t just leave it all to chance, either. We talked about what was important. We went forward with some intentionality, I guess you could say. We didn’t just form a group based just on the fact that we’re alive.”

  “I guess,” Jack said in response, “that if you come together at all, it has to be on some shared values, whether you’re explicit about it or not.”

  “We were pretty explicit,” Alma said. “Equality. Solidarity. Love. No constitution as such, though.”

  “Good to meet you. Glad you could come,” Dexter said to Jack, rising from the blanket to move on. He said it as if he’d extended an invitation to Jack, rather than Jack having bullied his way in.

  “Fairly unusual, I guess,” Jack said to Alma when Dexter had moved away. “Knowing someone before, I mean.”

  “Yes, I don’t know of anyone else here that was connected before. Even the little ones like Missie and Shawna were on their own.”

  “So Dexter, he’s what, running for mayor?”

  A cloud flitted across Alma’s face, just briefly, momentarily dampening her broad smile. “No, he’s a good man, he’s concerned about everyone. We don’t have a ‘mayor’ or anything like that.”

  “Well, that’s what I’m given to understand by your very vigilant road crew. Road warriors. Road guard.”

  “Road patrol.”

  “Road patrol. Don’t know why I can’t get that straight.” Jack could get it straight just fine, but chose not to. “As I say, they’re very vigilant. Riding all around, eyes on the neighborhood.” Jack was watching Alma’s face intently for any reaction. If it were possible to unravel the mystery of the Diné mindset, it might come from poking at this quasi-military contingent.

  “They’re young men,” she responded. “We give them an outlet. There will come a day when it won’t be necessary. Men don’t have to gang together and project fierceness, that’s the old way of thinking and we’ll get away from it in time. But we’re practical. It’s all new. They love to dress alike and ride around on those motorcycles. It’s harmless.”

  “Well, in the meantime, they do actually provide a service that’s worthwhile, don’t they? Information about what’s going on out there? The Diné aren’t alone.”

  Alma wavered. She didn’t want to admit that the Road Patrol made the Diné more secure, but she also didn’t want to deny that they felt a need for security from the Apache. Jack correctly read into Alma’s hesitation that she wanted a new way of thinking, but the existence of the old way was an impediment.

  Jack continued. “Listen, I’m not an Apache, and whether they have a beef with the Diné or not, I sure don’t. I’m not a spy.”

  “But you know Apache.”

  “Sure. At least I know a few of them. My impression is that they want more than anything else to be left alone.”

  “We’re skeptical,” Alma said. Jack noted that she spoke for all the Diné, but was probably not conscious of having done so.

  “About me, or about the Apache wanting to be left alone?”

  “No, about the Apache in general. I believe you if you say you’re not one of them, but it wouldn’t matter if you were or not. We’re not at war—with them or with anybody else, if there is anybody else. No one needs spies. You seem like a reasonable person, and I’d tell you what I think even if you were a spy. We have absolutely nothing to hide here.”

  All this was said with a smile and with an educator’s desire to impart understanding. Jack sensed she was gathering her thoughts, so he didn’t respond, though he would take issue with the spy comment. What was the Road Patrol, after all?

  Alma continued. “I know the way of thinking that those people have—I lived around it all my life. It’s awful, awful, awful what happened, but at least it’s a clean start. We have to move on from this grabby, self-centered way people were. Our very survival depends on it. We have to cooperate, and we have to be compassionate toward people who can’t make it on their own. We have to take care of each other. We’re stronger together.”

  “I don’t think the Apache would say they lack compassion.”

  “I know,” Alma said, almost resignedly. “Everyone thinks they’re compassionate and caring, but they always want to be compassionate and caring with what’s left over after they take care of themselves first. But it’s a mistake to think that way. People are stronger and better as a people, not as a collection of lonely mavericks each by himself, or herself, against the world.”

  “So do the Diné want to recruit the Apache?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘recruit,’ but we’re completely open.”

  “Well, I hear you, but of course you mean open to others joining on your terms, right?”

  Alma looked at him quizzically.

  Jack continued. “I mean, you’re open to someone joining the Diné, but not if it means as a result that the Diné are no longer distinctly Diné.”

  “Well, of course not. But we are open and accepting. Anyone can join us.”

  “I think
the Apache would say anyone can join you only if they buy into the Diné way of thinking.”

  “What could possibly be the objection? Look around you.”

  Jack did. People were well-fed, happy, easy in one another’s company. No cliques that he could discern. Everyone was having a good time.

  “I don’t pretend to speak for the Apache,” Jack began, but then correcting himself, said, “In fact, I can say for sure that no Apache would go along with me speaking for him, that’s not how they are. But what I think motivates them is being free to live as they choose, even if that means living alone, or in discomfort, or being vulnerable to the elements or to enemies.”

  “What kind of freedom is that?” Alma asked. Her placid, sunny disposition at last hinted at some irritation. “That’s not freedom, that’s animal existence. People are not solitary creatures, and freedom to be miserable and alone and unconnected to other people is not freedom at all.”

  “I think if an Apache were listening to you, he’d say, ‘we don’t want freedom in order to be happy. Or unhappy. We want freedom from having others interfere with us.’”

  “Right. With people like that it always starts out with ‘freedom from.’ Freedom from this, freedom from that. It’s always negative freedom they want. The Diné want positive freedom. ‘Freedom to.’ Freedom to achieve what we can achieve—and we can be more and be better together.”

  “But who decides?”

  “What do you mean?” Alma asked.

  “Should the first question be ‘who decides’ whether to associate with others, or not to associate, or to be able to offer the terms on which a person becomes connected to another? Are the Diné as free as the Apache?”

  “More. Every Diné participates in everything. Nothing happens among us that we don’t all approve.”

  Jack wondered how this could be, how there could ever be a decision to act—or not to act—with no dissension at all. He tried to ask in such a way as not to offend his host, but never got an answer.

  They continued to talk, about other things, until the party wound down and all returned to vehicles and trailed out of the canyon—the Diné all together back to Chinle, and Jack on his own, traversing the vast, stepped-down plateaus south from Navajoland.

  Chapter 17

  The next morning when Jack awoke, he noticed that it seemed darker outside than usual upon his waking. He had not taken up watching the clock again, so it was possible, he thought, that he’d just awakened earlier. Or that he hadn’t really noticed the seasonal shortening of the days until this day. He went into the kitchen and took down the makings for coffee. The wood stove they used for heat and for cooking was cool. He opened it and threw in a few pieces of wood, thinking he’d check back in a few minutes to see if the fuel was taking off on its own from the heat remaining from the night before. In the meantime, he wanted coffee because it was Sunday and there was no hurry to work. There would only be the handful of chores to take care of the animals. He took the little butane stove they sometimes used onto the back porch to light for heating the coffeepot, letting Dewey out at the same time.

  The sky was a leaden gray. The direction of the sunrise was barely discernible. It wasn’t earlier than his usual waking time, Jack realized, but rather unusually overcast. It smelled like snow. This would only be the second snow of the year, well into November, but according to Peter this wasn’t unusual. Snow was infrequent here because precipitation of any kind was, not because it wasn’t cold enough. The snow at this time of year would linger, unlike the snow that Jack had first experienced in Luna.

  A good day to hole up and read, he thought. He heard stirring in the kitchen, so he left the coffeepot on the butane stove and went back inside. Robin was wrapped tight in a crimson Navajo blanket and the same thick russet scarf he’d first seen her in was over her head and tucked under the blanket. She was peering into the woodstove.

  “I just put that in there,” Jack said.

  At this, Robin went down on one knee, blowing into the woodstove opening. Then she stood. “It’s catching.”

  “I just put on coffee, outside. You want me to take that off so we can cook eggs out there?”

  “I’m in no hurry.” Robin slumped into the kitchen chair, yawning and pulling the blanket even tighter around herself. She was wearing pale yellow sweatpants and thick wool socks, and now she sat cross-legged on the kitchen chair. Indian-style, Jack thought, amused at the irony. This lithe young creature was a full-blooded Apache Indian.

  “Where’s Romeo?” he asked.

  “We got in late,” she said, by way of explaining why Peter was still in bed. “I couldn’t drag him away yesterday.”

  “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “What did you learn about the canyon people?”

  “Well, first let me tell you about the canyon itself. Have you ever been there?”

  “No, we went all over Apache land south and east of here when I was little, but not much up north. I just thought of Tséyi’ as a Navajo tourist place.”

  “Well it might have been that, but it’s also very impressive. Pictures don’t do it justice.”

  “Like the Grand Canyon? I’ve been there.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen the Grand Canyon except in pictures, but this place was fantastic. Hard to take in the scale of it. The walls are as high as some of the tallest skyscrapers in New York. In fact, now that I think of it, the closest thing I’ve seen to compare it to is New York, as far as having those deep canyon walls. But at the same time it’s the opposite of New York in the sense of being wild and natural rather than tamed and manmade.”

  “New York is manmade, but now it’s wild, too.”

  “True. Anyway, we had a picnic, of all things, at a junction place in the canyons, where two huge canyons converge. Canyon del Muerto.”

  “Canyon of Death.”

  “Yeah, we saw ruins of long-time-ago Indians. Pre-Navajo Indians. I’d like to visit again sometime. Probably will anyway because I want to stay in touch with these Diné. They’re not the monsters Rupert and Bridges and those think they are.”

  “Why did they rough you up then?”

  “They’re as suspicious of the Apache as the Apache are of them. I’m sorry, you’d still like to use a different name, wouldn’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter, really. I’ll just think of myself as Indé instead.”

  “No, don’t do that. I still think of that name as meaning ‘death,’ and that doesn’t suit you. Just like ‘muerto’ doesn’t suit the canyon.”

  “Why are they suspicious?”

  “Well they have a different way of thinking, that’s for sure. I had the sense that the people of the canyon have one way of thinking about things, and they all subscribe to it. They say they’re wide open and accepting and so on, but I had the feeling that there’s a party line there, and you pretty much have to toe it to be part of their group.”

  “What’s the party line? Hate anyone not Diné?”

  “No. More like the group comes first, the individuals second. So if you’re not Diné, you obviously don’t put Diné first. But the Ruperts and Bridges out there, they don’t put the Apache as a group first, either, so it’s not like it’s just a matter of what group you belong to. It’s about how you think of yourself in relation to the group you’re in. So Apaches are not just ‘non-Diné.’ They’re non-group-oriented. They wouldn’t fit in with Diné at all.”

  Peter shuffled into the kitchen. “You’re already philosophizing? The sun’s barely up.”

  “Never too early to philosophize.”

  “It’s snowing,” Peter said.

  Jack and Robin followed his eyes to the window.

  “Maybe the coffee’s ready,” Jack said. He took an empty cup and scooted out the door, quickly so as to keep the little bit of accumulated heat in.

  A few moments later Peter joined him. He had a cup in hand, too, but the coffee had just started percolating.

  “Well, lover boy, how i
s Miss Millie?”

  Peter smiled. “I thought she was ‘elk cow,’ or ‘elkette.’ And she’s fine.”

  “Now you’re not just glomming on to her because there’s nobody else are you?”

  “No, I like her a lot.”

  “But doesn’t she have to be a Christian? Isn’t that a big thing with you, that you don’t go with people who aren’t?”

  “Yes and yes and yes.”

  “Let me see, what did I ask? She has to be a Christian, check. It’s a big thing with you, check. You gave me one check too many.”

  “And she is a Christian.”

  “Okay, check, check, check. And Rupert and Scott and Mama Willis?”

  “I don’t think so. But what about you, Jack? Why are you concerned with my religious ideas? I thought you were neutral.”

  “I can look after your club membership even if I’m not in the club, can’t I?

  “You could join the club, and then you’d have more reason to. Come to church with us, instead of walking through the woods plinking at things with your rifle. It’s snowing anyway.”

  “Church? You mean when you get with Robin and tell Bible stories to each other?”

  “Well, there’s a little more to it than that.”

  “Maybe. Here,” Jack said, holding up the coffee pot to pour for Peter. “Don’t you want to know about the canyon people?”

  “Thanks. Yes. Are they a threat to all the rest of us?”

  “Yes and no. I’d like to think we can all live and let live, but I don’t know. Actually, I’m formulating this idea right now from what I observed up there. The thing that concerns me about them is the one thing they have in common with the Apache—both groups are trying to take advantage of the new world we find ourselves in. Millie’s family and the other people around care about preserving the liberty they feel like they’ve reclaimed. So do the zombies. The canyon people realize that the end of everything gave them a new beginning, too. Only for them, it’s not a renewal of their individual liberty, but instead an opportunity to live socially. So both the canyon people and the Apache are trying to build a new society from the rubble of the old. ”