Another Like Me

by Albert Norton, Jr.

  The little crew retraced their route to the junction, and this time drove up the main canyon, admiring its beauty. They came to a curve in the streambed and saw ancient ruins high up a cliff, pocketed inside a tall horizontal cleft in the wall face. Below them, among the sparse grasses and weeds on the canyon floor, but at a level well above the streambed, there were ruins of mud-brick habitations, hundreds of years old. A little further along, they found a wide flat area, which had evidently been rather poor pasture land for some long-ago inhabitants. To one side was a long-disused Navajo hogan, dwarfed by the surrounding walls and by its relatively small size, lending immediacy and majesty to the imposing sandstone rock of the canyon.

  Close by the hogan, Millie noticed steps carved into the rock, leading to a walkable trail ascending along the wall to the right. Higher up, they saw what appeared to be a cave, but on closer inspection they could see that it was a tunnel. It was part of the well-established trail that went all the way out of the canyon. They recognized from their map that this had to be the bottom of a trail that went up to White House Overlook, a turnout on the south rim road. The White House was a lighter-in-color ruin among those they had just passed.

  “Can we hike up?” Millie eagerly asked.

  “I don’t want to push it on time. I had wanted to look around on the rim roads up top before we head back to Chinle,” Jack said. But then, seeing her disappointment, said, “Well, why not. If you hike, and I drive, it’ll be about the same amount of time. I have to go all the way back the way we came, and then up the rim road. You can all go.”

  Peter and Jack discussed what to do if there were a road problem or Jack were to get stuck in the canyon. Essentially, that they’d rendezvous at the park service welcome center. As grand as the canyon was vertically, the distance from there to the White House ruins was easily walkable.

  It worked out that there were no cave-ins or trees across the road. Nor were there bear or sheep impediments. No wheels stuck in the streambed. Jack drove out of the canyon to the rim road, turning left to double back along the rim. He rose in elevation quickly. After the closed-in feel of the canyon, he felt like he was on the roof of the world. The Defiance Plateau was not so flat as it appeared from a distance, or in the widely-spread contour lines of his map. There were little dips and folds everywhere, and rundown former habitations that were shabby in the best of times, and well-spaced juniper and pinion dotting the landscape in the gravelly soil. To the west, when a curve of the road permitted, Jack would overlook Chinle. At one bend in the rim road, he could see to the southwest, including the long off-kilter lateral outcrop of faded purple rock that was the high point of the north-south highway just before it descended into the outlying vicinity of Chinle. Jack strained to see as best he could, and then remembered his binoculars. He eventually found the guard-railed chute from the purple-sienna rock, but there was no sign of activity. No dust trail, no glint of reflection from metal or glass. Standing outside his vehicle, the only sound Jack could discern was the breeze, in fits and starts. No wisp of sound of auto engines, playing out unevenly across the rugged landscape.

  This visit to the canyon was pleasurable—perhaps even more so given the backdrop of their real mission, soon to resume. The canyon was immense. Quiet. Eternal. Jack’s general sense of urgency about the conflict caused him to feel the need to get back quickly to the Diné, but, on the other hand, to what end? Most likely, they would return to Chinle only to find the canyon people in continued caucus, and Jack without a voice in it. They would just sit and wait. As majestic as the canyon was, Chinle was not.

  It is a difficult thing, trying to live by consensus. The Diné did not even know democracy, wherein a vote could be taken, and a decision thereby made. In any event, the Apache would not be there until the next day, no matter what. Whether the Diné fled Chinle or stayed in order to fight or to disappear up the canyon, it wouldn’t change Jack’s role. The only step forward he could see, besides of course just waiting, would be to go himself and attempt to intercept the Apache, reasoning with them as a group that there should be a principled discussion with the Diné and not immediate war. And that step, if the Diné would countenance it at all, would not occur until the next day. Might as well give rein to the enthusiasm he shared with his cohorts of seeing the canyon.

  It was midafternoon when they parked again in the road in front of Arturo’s. Still no one about. There was still smoke from the chimney flue, however. Jack was about to give up standing in the middle of the street and go into the restaurant himself when the roadside door opened, and Dexter and Alma sauntered out wearily. The door had not closed entirely before others began streaming out behind them. Jack had briefly hoped that Alma and Wallace would comprise a delegation. That would indicate some departure, however slight, from the Diné’s inefficient decide-as-an-organism approach. But the stream of people now suggested that was not to be. They gathered in the street as they had on the previous evening. Though it was still cool, it was comfortable there under the brilliant sun and with heat regenerated from the asphalt.

  This time Jack was quiet. He didn’t try to lead the discussion, and he didn’t speak up while the Diné were still approaching. He waited, leaning against his car. As did Peter and Millie and Robin. When all the Dine had assembled, Alma said, “It’s good of you to be concerned, Jack. Thank you for returning.”

  “You’re welcome. We know many of the Apache. They may listen to us, and we can meet them on the highway to Chinle.”

  “But to say what?” Wallace asked. They killed one of our people.”

  “What’s to negotiate?” Alma added.

  “Look,” Jack began. “I don’t want to argue the Apache side—or the Diné side, either, for that matter—but one of the Diné killed one of their people as well.”

  “We were attacked,” Wallace said.

  Jack paused, long, and just shook his head. “I’m disappointed. I thought this whole time you’ve been in discussion that you at least recognized that there are two sides, regardless of which side you’re on. You should figure out how to have a civil exchange with them—parameters for a settlement, something specific. You’re still arguing the case. They’ll say you attacked them. This just goes around in circles. The issue now is not who is responsible for what death down there in St. Johns, but whether you and they are going to escalate it to more deaths here.”

  “But what can we do?” Alma said. “Just pretend it didn’t happen? That isn’t right for Roland, but it also doesn’t fix things with the Apache. They’re coming here!” she added, this last bit becoming more shrill.

  Jack sought to quell an escalation of emotion over this.

  “Alma, Alma. Diné. They will say it isn’t right for Junie. And ignoring you doesn’t fix things with the Diné. Yes, they’re coming here, but these events didn’t happen in isolation. This has been building. You have an opportunity here. This is a time when you can get things right once and for all with the Apache. We should think of it that way.”

  “What would you propose to say, Jack?”

  Jack had been hoping for this opening. “We could take it piece by piece, and be very specific. Start by finding some common ground, no matter how small. Ask them if they’re in agreement with you that violence is not the best way. Let me ask for you. If they agree to that, the next step is can you agree to recognize each other’s complaints. Not agree that they’re valid, just agree that each side listens to what they are. That seems small, but it’s another little point of agreement. The goal is to emphasize what we agree about, not what we disagree about. And to agree that we want resolution, not further disagreement. This can be done. At some point, you get to the point that you both compromise. We’re not there now, but we can get there. And after that, it’s just a matter of negotiating how to make the degree of compromise more or less equally painful.”

  “There are some things we would agree on just because we’re human beings,” Alma said hopefully.

  “Right, but just rem
ember also that you have different ideas of what being a human being is. Or at least a free human being. You don’t have to adopt their way of thinking, you just have to agree that there is more than one way to think about freedom.”

  “Oh, now you’ve veered back into the philosophy,” Wallace said. “I don’t see these folks being able to sustain that discussion.”

  “Don’t say that to them. Don’t cut off the discussion before we get there. It’s too important.”

  “The problem, though,” Alma said, “is who decides? There are Apache, and there are Diné. There’s no one else. Except you. And them,” she said, pointing to Robin and Peter and Millie. “You said Millie’s brother and father are Apache, and Peter and Robin are actually Apache Indians. And you live with them. I trust you, Jack, but we can’t go along with that.”

  “I’m not suggesting that we be judge and jury. I’m talking about you and the Apache together deciding. You can start off small. Agree on some format for exchanging your positions. Talk about the format for talks. Talk about the shape of the table you sit at. Anything. We’ll build to the facts of St. Johns. Then maybe we’ll all be surprised. Maybe there’s common ground if we understood all the facts.” Jack was conscious of losing ground as he said this.

  “Jack . . .”

  “Then let’s put aside this notion of justice for a moment. Let’s agree that both sides see the other side’s position as being unjust. Let’s figure out how we can live together in general, and then work our way backwards to how we deal with this episode. Let’s just agree on one thing—that we’re looking for an alternative to war.”

  “Tell it to the Apache,” Wallace said with a sneer. He was weary from the nearly day-long session with the Diné, and irritable. “They’ll never find us in the canyon.”

  Alma looked at Wallace with an inscrutable expression.

  Jack said, “You can’t just hide in the canyon.”

  “Why not?” Wallace said. “We’ll outlast them, they’ll go home, and then we’ll deal with them on our own terms.”

  “Or fight them in the canyon,” Rollo said. It was helpful to Jack to hear these clues to the tenor of the Diné attitude at large.

  “You’re no better prepared for a fight in the canyon than the Apache are,” Jack said. “Are you?”

  Without conceding the point, Wallace just said, “It doesn’t matter. We’ll go into the canyon and hide. Wait them out for now. Address them our own way, later.”

  Jack said again, “You can’t just hide in the canyon.”

  “Why not?” Alma said.

  “Remember Kit Carson.” Jack said it resignedly but decided not to rush in with an explanation.

  “Who?” Alma asked incredulously. She knew perfectly well who Kit Carson was.

  “It’s been tried,” Jack said. “Kit Carson went after the Navajo with soldiers in 1864. A couple of resistant Navajo bands did the same thing you’re proposing to do. It was wintertime like it is now. After a few months, the Navajo were starved out. They had to surrender. They lost the canyon and the rest of their lands, for a time, and were forced on the Long Walk. Do you think you’ll survive better than the real Navajo?”

  Chapter 28

  It was colder that night than on the previous night. Jack and his crew visited several of the campfires that began to dot the edges of the hotel parking lot well before dusk. They exchanged pleasantries, but with the Diné split up into little groups for warmth, they could make no substantive headway on how best to approach the events of the morrow. They repaired to their little stucco house in Chinle, though this time they had been offered rooms with the Diné.

  Robin said, “There must be something we can do.” She settled back on a kitchen chair that was pulled up close to the fireplace, giving Peter room to step in front of her and position a bigger log carefully on the nascent fire.

  Jack scooted his chair aside, too. He was tired of thinking about this whole thing. Maybe Peter or Robin or Millie could do better. He remained silent.

  “Cabe and Daddy are angry,” Millie said. “And they have dozens of friends who are the same way. It’s not just about the boy who got killed. They think it’s about freedom. That’s all I ever hear about.”

  Peter said, “Before all this happened—I mean, when things were normal and there weren’t just a few survivors—there were Diné and Apaches then, too, in a way, but they all got along somehow. They were all Americans.”

  “Indians? The Indians got along?”

  “No, I mean people who think like these so-called Diné. And people who think like the so-called Apache.”

  “So you mean what?” Millie said. “Republicans and Democrats? Conservatives and liberals?”

  “No, it seems like there’s more to it than that,” Peter said. “You know, there weren’t ‘Apaches’ like your Dad until they started to think of themselves that way because of the Diné. The Apaches were just guys who wanted to be on their own. They didn’t need a name.”

  “For my dad, it was personal. It was about real freedom. His friends like Cabe were like that, too,” Millie said. “They didn’t form any kind of government because they all thought that was more of a problem than a solution. They were a little resentful, I think, when there started to be this business with the Diné, but they decided they had to band together at least to deal with them. It’s a good thing for the Diné that they didn’t do more to organize before the shooting.”

  Peter added, “Scott said they would rise up like the Nazis, or like Chinese Maoists, or the communists under Stalin.”

  “He got that line from Dad,” Millie said. “Who probably got it from his buddies.”

  “The Diné don’t have a strong leader like Hitler,” Peter said. “They’d be more of a threat if they did.”

  “Dad thinks it’s worse this way. He said the Diné think like one big blob. He said that’s the way people were getting—back when there were people. He said there weren’t any debates anymore, just louder and louder shouting, and that’s why.”

  “Well, leader or no leader, the Diné talk about freedom, but so do the Apache. They want completely opposite things, but they both say it’s because they want freedom.”

  “There is no freedom apart from God,” Robin said.

  None of them answered her. They sat looking into the fire, like humans have done around fires for thousands of years.

  “Good night,” Jack said eventually, and he departed wearily for his bed.

  The next day, all four of them were standing in the little gap of the red rock, where the south highway reached a peak and the ramp commenced down into the plain on which Chinle was situated. They were parked facing south, on the shoulder of the highway, watching. Across the road from them, several of the Road Patrolmen were doing the same thing. The Road Patrolmen wore their helmets so that Jack couldn’t tell who was who, except for Baum. The others he just guessed at. Calling out the names of Road Patrolmen he did know yielded no response. If Hashkeh, Rollo, Baum, Rafael, Brillo, Oldham, or Davey were among them, they ignored Jack and his friends.

  Jack and Peter had engaged in some wrangling with Robin and Millie about whether the girls should be here—or somewhere else—when the conflict came. They still had no idea what the Road Patrolmen would do when they first encountered Apache, nor what the Apache had in mind upon encountering Diné. The air was not so much tense as infused with a fatalistic sense of inevitability.

  At least this was so for the two hours they waited and watched. Once the Apache vehicles came into view, all that changed, and the tension was palpable. To Jack’s surprise, the motorcyclists did not brandish weapons, nor did they send for reinforcements. Instead, they all fired up their motorcycles and headed back in the direction of the canyon, leaving Jack, Peter, Robin, and Millie.

  The Apache vehicles slowed to a crawl as they approached. There was a long line of them, including, Jack noticed, not a few pulling horse trailers. The lead vehicle came to a stop. Jack stepped out of his vehicle, leaving
his rifles in his SUV and his .45 holstered at his side. He began walking toward the lead Apache vehicle. As he started walking, he heard other doors to his SUV open as well and decided against looking back.

  At that point, several doors opened among the first vehicles in the long Apache train. Jack spotted Rupert coming toward him, and further back, among other men, Scott, and Cabe. Every one of them was armed with a high-capacity rifle, and most had a sidearm as well.

  “You Rupert’s friend?” the first man asked.

  “I count myself as such. Jack Pence.” They shook hands.

  “Heard you’d be here. I seen them motorcycles take off. Those the ones who killed Joel Bridges’ boy, I reckon.”

  “Don’t think so. Whichever Road Patrolman that was, he’s either dead or wounded. So it wasn’t one of these fellows who took off at the sight of you.”

  “Gone to make an ambush for us?”

  “Couldn’t say. Couldn’t get a word out of ’em this morning. Nor the rest of the Diné, up in Chinle, about what they had in store for you.”

  “You brought Millie?” Rupert asked. He had caught up by this time to the first man.

  Jack turned and saw that she was standing beside the vehicle, along with Peter and Robin.

  “Might say she brought herself. She’s a smart girl. She’ll stay out of trouble.”

  Rupert grunted. She was probably safer with Jack than with him, under the circumstances.

  “Where in Chinle?” the first man asked. “And what are their plans?”

  “Well, I expect they’ll be on Indian Route 7, just before the canyon. There’s a restaurant on the left, Arturo’s, and they hang around there a lot. But I don’t know if they’re there now, or what their plans are. Not sure they know themselves. And now you know everything I know.”