The two men jumped up. In an instant, they saw an impediment to their fastest escape, and also the .45, already drawn, at Jack’s side. “What do you want?” one of them demanded.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
The other one made a dash at Jack. Jack closed the chain-link fence door, as though to keep the man in. The man ran up and stopped, in order to yank open the door. Just as he stopped, though, Jack violently swept the door open himself, and the aluminum frame of it slammed the man, hard, on the forehead. He stumbled back, blood already running freely down the side of his face and onto his shirt. Jack seized the momentum and walked in after him, the gun trained on the talker’s face just a few feet away.
“Sit down. Sit down. Sit down.” At this point, Jack was close to the stumbling, bleeding man, close enough to sweep his gun hand down and away, trying to strike again as close as possible to the forehead laceration. The strike with the butt of the gun didn’t do much additional damage, but it kept him off balance. Both men would still have to go through Jack to get to the opening. They sat on the edge of a poolside table.
“Chairs.”
The men lowered themselves onto lawn chairs.
“Talk.”
The two looked at each other and back at Jack. The one not preoccupied with his bleeding spoke again. “We din’ do it. Who are you?”
This told Jack they at least knew of the shooting. “I didn’t ask if you did it,” he said. “I asked what happened.”
“Frien’ of ours shot him. We just saw it. Are you a Diné? A Diné vigilante?”
“I’m a friend of Bonzo.”
“Apache?” the man asked hopefully.
“I’m not Diné. Look, the Road Patrol is riding around right now. I’m trying to head off trouble. You can come with me and do what I say, or I’m just going to take you right to them. Talk to me.”
The two dopers looked at each other again. The bleeding man shrugged, and the other said, “All right.”
“Come with me.” Jack took them out of the pool area, back around the little building, and then walked them out to the middle of the park. He would be able to see and hear motorcyclists from a long way off.
“How’d you get here?” Jack asked. He had it in mind to cross-examine them, rather than listen to them ramble around with a meandering drug-induced narrative.
The first of the zombies to talk continued to do so, while the other one held the sleeve of his jacket to his forehead. “We were down in Eagar, we—”
“I said, how did you get here?”
“Apache buddy come through Eagar. Name of Miles.”
“Where is he now?”
The man looked at Jack with a puzzled expression. “I don’t know. That was a week ago.”
“Okay. So do you have any transportation around here?”
“No. We need for you to give us a ride. We’re tired of this place.”
“I need for you to shut up about your needs and answer my questions. Who else is in St. Johns now besides us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who shot the Diné motorcyclist?”
“Joel Bridges.”
“You saw it?”
“We were right there, man.”
“Why?”
“Because we wanted a ride. We saw Bridges and followed him to the same store.”
“No, not why were you there. Why did Bridges shoot the Diné rider?”
“Because that scumbag shot his son.”
Jack paused, to take it in. “Little boy?”
“Yeah,” the zombie said, holding his hand up about as high as his own head, but he was kneeling in the grass.
“About ten?”
“Yeah.”
“Is the boy okay?”
“With an arrow through his chest?”
“A what? An arrow?”
“Yeah. Hunting arrow. Right through the heart. Those idiots carry bows sometimes. I seen ’em with bows back in Eagar, before the big snow.”
“Why do they carry bows?”
“I don’t know—to shoot little boys?”
“Why did they shoot this kid?”
“Probably trying to hit Bridges.”
“Why would they want to put an arrow through Bridges?”
“They got in a fight at a Quick-Stop. Bridges was looking for food. The Diné scum told him they needed to move along. Bridges told him to get lost, this was his town as much as theirs. Spunk, I’ll give ’im that. ’Course Bridges was armed. No reason to take lip from these people.”
“You saw this?”
“We both did. We were inside the Quick-Stop.”
“The Diné didn’t see you in there?”
“Naw, and we didn’t advertise it.”
“So Bridges pulled a gun?”
“One of ’em grabbed him, tried to rough him up. He fought ’em out to the parking lot and on over to his car, which was parked out on the street. He got away from the guy and took a rifle from his truck—just had enough time to turn around and shoot. The other one got his bow and shot at Bridges.”
“But hit his kid.”
“Zackly.”
“Bridges shot that guy, too. And then took off with his boy.”
“To where?”
“There’s a doctor’s office about three blocks down Cleveland.”
“And?”
“We ran down there when we saw where Bridges was going. No point in it, though. Nothing Bridges could do. His boy was gone. No mistaking.”
The other zombie looked up at this and said, “I never heard a man wail like that.”
“Give me chills,” the first one said.
“Where’s Bridges now?”
“He’s been gone for hours. Went south toward Eagar.”
“He told me once he stayed away from St. Johns.”
“Have to stay on the main roads, with the snow.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“He was in no condition. Couldn’ do nothin’ for ’im. Tore my heart out. You don’t mind if we light up?”
“I found you because I smelled your dope. You don’t think the Road Patrol can do the same thing? You can light up when I’m gone and answer to them.”
“Give us a ride down to Eagar.”
“I’m not going to Eagar. Have to bury a body.”
Chapter 25
Jack spent an uncomfortable night in St. Johns. He had scouted out places to stay, before, but after his time with Peter and Robin, he felt like he had his own bed in his own house, and he wanted to be there. Especially after the distressing events of the day. On top of that, it was troublesome to find a place that had a fireplace and no bones after sundown, in a world no longer illuminated by electricity.
The burial had gone as expected. He couldn’t get much out of the Road Patrolmen. In fact, they were so uncommunicative that Jack felt that telling them what he knew might backfire. He tried to get them to talk about events in such a way as to bring home to them the lesson that they really didn’t know what happened, except on the basis of what someone else told them after they had arrived on the scene. Jack pumped them for knowledge of what Dean had said when they arrived, minutes after the shooting. They just kept repeating the story as they had heard it, which included no bows, no arrows, no confrontation with Bridges, no boy, and no death on the Apache side.
When they had finished filling in the grave, Jack tossed aside his shovel, stepped around to the foot of the grave before the Patrolmen could wander off, and said, “We need to say a few words.”
The Patrolmen, like all Diné, had no use for religious quackery, but every person experiences the gravitas of finality at a funeral. And Roland was their friend. They stood at the graveside, their manner indicating that on some level they were appreciative that the moment was acknowledged, but they were not keen on having it drawn out into worship of a bogus god.
Jack said a few words. He found himself invoking G
od as the creator—the creator of this man now returned to God. And then Jack went further, thanking God for the blessing of Roland’s life, and the blessings in Roland’s life. He hadn’t planned those words or any words. He just couldn’t leave the graveside without some remembrance. But to acknowledge God as in some way active in the world, rather than a benign but aloof creator? Not like him.
Then Jack said, “Amen,” and to the two Patrolmen, “Don’t forget your bows.”
One of them answered, “We don’t use bows. We’re peaceful.” Not with surprise. Nor with indignation. It was a flat denial, but unconvincing. It would have made sense only if they had already been discussing the use of bows. But they hadn’t been. If the Patrolmen never used bows, then wouldn’t this Patrolman have been more inquisitive about the subject being brought up, apparently apropos of nothing?
The Patrolmen roared off toward the canyon, and Jack was left there in St. Johns, wondering if it were possible somehow to find the weapons these Patrolmen picked up when they were out, at least in St. Johns and Eagar. He wondered how many Apache might have witnessed Patrolmen carrying these weapons in past outings. It was a potentially weak point for the Diné. If some of their Patrolmen carried bows at least some of the time, then denial of carrying a bow on this one occasion would ring hollow. Plus, the Apache had two eyewitnesses—three counting Bridges. And a dead boy, and a bloody arrow. On the other hand, if believed, a flat denial of using any bows at all would serve the Diné explanation for the rest of the evidence—that this was an unfortunate accident among the Apache that they were fraudulently attempting to pin on the Diné.
Ultimately, it might not matter what the evidence was anyway, Jack realized. Both sides would see this as a provocation, accepting wholly distinct sets of facts, and it was unlikely that a civilized sifting of evidence before impartial minds would ever take place. For once, Jack saw the value of his profession, and of the system of justice it had served. But perhaps it was all irrelevant now. No established machinery of justice existed to separate fact from fiction and to overcome the prejudice of group affiliation.
Jack briefly considered turning north again and making the two-hour trip back to the canyon. But why? He would go there, talk to Alma and perhaps others, and maybe even succeed in getting the ear of the community at large through a substantial number of representatives. But what then? Persuade them that there was as much reason to think it was Diné provocation of the Apache as there was Apache of Diné? They would never see it. The Patrolmen would deny using weapons at all. They—or at least the ones involved—were already in a conspiracy of silence about it. So how to convince the Diné that they were using bows and arrows, and further, that they had used them to intimidate Apache in a town 135 miles away from the canyon? The question among the skeptical Diné would be why? It would seem implausible to them on its face because then they would also have to accept that the Patrolmen were out and about for individual ends, and by individual means—that they were going well beyond merely protecting the canyon, even terrorizing when it pleased them to do so. A proposition that would be a non-starter for the rest of the Diné.
Perhaps he could convince them that a trial of some sort was in order? A trial would shift the focus from groups to individuals. From the fear of other-ness in the opposing group to the desire for justice concerning the actions of individuals. But there was little likelihood of getting both Diné and Apache to agree to what the possible outcomes of a trial might be, and if they did, to agree that there was reason enough for a trial in the first place, especially in the face of the Patrolmen’s obstinate denial.
And anyway, the point of it all would be not so much to bring the Patrolmen to some semblance of justice, but rather to defuse the group wrong that each side would inevitably feel. It seemed hopeless. The Diné and the Apache could not even conceive of the other group’s point of view about how individuals interact with their community, and about what makes a person free. Given such radical differences in understanding about what man is, and about how he lives among fellow men, how could they ever see eye to eye about justice? About the need to find the truth? About what is right and wrong, and about what makes something right or wrong? Both the Diné and the Apache would see the disputed events entirely through the prism of their group affiliation. There was no neutral ground between them on which to resolve the conflict.
Jack turned his vehicle south, heading toward home. As he drove, he thought about Bridges, and about his son, whose name Jack suddenly remembered—Junie. He pictured Junie at his father’s side, having been called away from his hiding place behind the juniper at Lyman Lake just south of St. Johns. Just a boy. How would Jack approach the Apache about these things? Even in the most literal sense of approaching them, he could hardly conceive of how they might be brought together. The only thing that thus far united this group had been mutual self-interest, as when they traded amongst each other. Dealing with the Diné would require more, and they would certainly have to deal with the Diné, either because of the Diné rage, or because of the rage of the one grief-stricken Apache, who would now be tied to all the other Apache by that same rage, and by fear, and by suspicion. They were Apache, after all, because the others were Diné, and they had called themselves Apache, in response. As much as they individually might want to be left alone, they were part of a group already, for good or ill.
If Jack were to play on the Apache prejudices and predilections rather than their sense of justice, might they splinter off, failing to see their personal stake in what had happened to another independent individual? No. How could that be? How could an arrow through the heart of a child not be a sufficient moral affront to rouse the outrage of everyone who might see himself affected? Even if the Apache had no previous connection before this event, they certainly would afterward. The Diné were a common enemy regardless of the truth, regardless whether they or the Apache were the provocateurs.
The Diné collectivism in effect dictated collective action on the part of the Apache. The reverse would never be true—it would never be true that Apache individualism might dictate individual sovereignty among members of the Diné. The very independence that the Apache staked their existence upon was threatened if either story were true. They would have to band together whether in offense or in defense. Ultimately, this was not a tragedy resulting from the perfidy of just one individual—a criminal act. Each side would see it as a tragedy resulting from baseless interference by the opposing group in the affairs of free men. Jack could not envision either group not rising up in response to provocation by the other.
Jack had been home only an hour before the world intruded again. He had spent that hour at the little kitchen table, with Peter and Robin, careful to get out all the facts as he knew them firsthand, and as had been reported to him, and by whom. He was having to exercise mental discipline to get the story out, or rather, the stories, before getting into an analysis of how they ought to respond. Peter and Robin listened, gravely attentive, until this shift to analysis. Then they began the discussion of what they should do.
The world intruded in the form of horses in the driveway. It was Millie, Rupert, Scott, and another man they didn’t recognize. They dismounted when Peter and Jack and Robin emerged and greeted them.
“Miss Robin. Peter. Jack.” Rupert said, touching the brim of his felt hat. “My friend Cabe.” Cabe reached over to Jack, who was closest, to shake his hand.
Jack quickly sized up this Apache he’d not met before. Between Jack’s age and Rupert’s, a hardscrabble, weathered westerner like Rupert. He projected competence. Independence, like all the Apache. Not unfriendly.
“What do you know?” Rupert asked.
“Everything, and a lot you don’t,” Jack answered.
Robin asked them, “Do you want to put up the horses and come in?”
“We only have time to make a quick stop,” Rupert said.
“We do need to talk,” Jack said. “Maybe just leave ’em saddled.”
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p; “All right.”
Dewey had been at Robin’s feet when they came out and had done all his sniffing of the new horses. Millie and the three men tied them up at fence posts in the mushy grass next to the driveway, and they all headed in, filling up the little living room where Jack and Robin did their studying.
“We’re going to the canyon,” Rupert began.
Jack was dismayed at this beginning, and he said so. “I was in St. Johns. You should hear what happened, and then let’s talk about it from there.”
“Did you see it?” Cabe asked.
“No, but I was there later in the day. I talked to the Diné and talked to people who were there.”
“You didn’t see it,” Cabe said. “Bridges sure did.”
They went on to talk about the differing versions of events, the motivations, the outcome. It became clearer as they did so that this little Apache posse was one among many, and that the plan had already been made. They were going to the canyon on the third day after the incident. Enough time to gather the rest of the Apache. That left the rest of this day and the next, and then they would go the following day. Jack tried to get across that his purpose wasn’t to simply talk them out of it, but rather to take more measured steps. They wouldn’t bring back Junie by acting precipitously. And though he didn’t say it this way, neither would it bring back Roland.
“I understand you don’t want to take sides,” Rupert began.
“I don’t want a war,” Jack said.
“Well, we don’t want no war, either, and that’s why we didn’t start one, but they started one for us,” Rupert said.
“What are you going to do? Just go up there and start shooting?”
“No, of course not,” Cabe said. “We’re going to go up and have it out with these idiots and give ’em a chance to stay away from us and stick to their canyon. And after this, we’ll set up our own guards, only they’re going to be up at Burnside and west toward the Hopi reservation. And Tuba City. The Diné have to stay at their canyon—it’s plenty big enough. They can go out in their godforsaken desert, if they want, but they can’t come south again. We’ll be armed and dangerous.”
Another Like Me Page 25
