Red Mesa

by Aimée

  Ella pushed her doubts aside and focused. She was a cop. She needed to concentrate on finding a trail of evidence. That was the only way she’d ever settle the matter once and for all.

  She drove back to Farmington, then continued east toward Bloomfield, easily locating the Bull’s Eye bar. With some luck she’d find Bobby Lujan there, or come across Jayne. Maybe the element of surprise would give her an advantage and help her get some useful information from her cousin or her male friend.

  Ella went inside the rowdy country western bar, which was serving an after-work crowd of local cowboys, construction workers, and oil field roughnecks. Finding a stool at one end of the bar, she ordered a draft beer. She rarely drank, and wouldn’t even be tempted to take more than a sip tonight, but it would give her a good cover as she watched people come and go.

  Time passed. Every once in a while she’d see someone who was obviously not an employee come out of a door marked “Employees Only.” It was clear that some kind of activity was going on back there.

  As Ella saw a tall cowboy heading for the doors, she tried to follow, pretending to be with him, but the bartender intercepted her.

  “No one goes back there, except employees.”

  “Aw, come on, give me a break. There’s a game going on, and I have a little extra cash burning a hole in my pocket.”

  “You don’t work here, and I don’t know you either. The only entertainment around here is at the bar. You want another beer?”

  “Come on, I’m just looking for a little action,” Ella continued, determined to gain access. “What do you say?”

  For a moment or two she thought she was about to talk herself into the game, but suddenly the door opened and a Navajo man she recognized came out. She’d arrested Herbert Nez on several occasions, mostly for illegal alcohol sales on the Rez.

  The moment he saw her, anger flashed in his eyes. “What are you doing here, cop! Who sent you, my wife?”

  The bartender glared at her. “Unless you can prove that you have jurisdiction here, I don’t have to waste my time talking to you.”

  “You want me to bring in the county sheriff?”

  “Do it. But use the phone outside. I’m sure they’ll be around in what, ten minutes? But don’t plan on catching anyone doing anything illegal, and expect a lawsuit from my boss’s lawyer. He knows how to deal with police harassment.”

  “Oh, I don’t have to leave the room. I have a cell phone, and a good eye for faces coming out this door in the meantime.”

  “Knock yourself out. But you’ll also need a search warrant or some kind of reasonable cause before I allow you or anyone else to look around. How long do you think that’ll take?”

  Ella knew that she’d never be able to get any cops here in time to stop an illegal gambling operation, but that hadn’t been her objective anyway. As the door opened and a surprised cowboy stopped in the entrance, she glanced inside. She caught a glimpse of an open back door, and a woman who looked like Jayne ducking outside.

  Intent on intercepting her, Ella turned on her heels and ran to the front entrance to the bar, colliding with a man and woman coming in at the same time. By the time she and they had untangled and apologized and Ella reached the parking lot, Jayne’s SUV was gone.

  Cursing her luck, Ella returned to her vehicle and drove back to the reservation. It was shortly after seven when Ella arrived in Shiprock. She needed to meet with Blalock and fill him in on what she’d learned. Picking up her cell phone, she punched out his number. He answered on the first ring.

  “I have some information you may find useful,” she said.

  “Stop. Don’t give it to me over the air. I still don’t trust these wireless things. Let’s meet and exchange information face-to-face,” Blalock said.

  Ella arranged to join him for a working dinner at the Totah Cafe, and twenty minutes later she sat across the table from him in a corner booth.

  Mary Lou brought them two chalupa platters, cup-shaped tortillas filled with beans, salsa, and cheese, garnished with guacamole. As they ate, Ella filled him in on what she’d learned about Jayne and her activities. “That’s all I know,” she said at last.

  “You’ve gotten further than I have, but that’s not surprising,” Blalock said, finishing the last of his dinner. “I’ve worked this area for years, but the Four Corners is still your turf.”

  “I wish I could find all the answers before things really get ugly. My cousin is gone, my life may be irreversibly changed, and now this fight is taking all of my time. I have a little girl who I’ve barely gotten to see since this happened.”

  “There are always times like this for a cop—no matter where you work, whether you’re federal or local.”

  “I know. It’s lousy pay, even lousier hours, and yet it’s the work I love. That’s the irony of all this, you know. I’ve given my career everything, and whoever’s behind this trouble has not only taken someone I love, he’s now trying to take away my job, my reputation, and everything else that defines me, as well.”

  Hearing a familiar voice over the cafe’s radio, Ella groaned. “George Branch. He’s all I need to complete a crappy day.”

  One of the employees turned the volume up, and Ella suddenly heard a reference to law enforcement. Branch was on a tirade, accusing the tribal police of protecting their own by not kicking “a criminal cop” off the force and bringing the officer to justice. To make things worse, he was accusing the tribal government of widespread corruption, mentioning kickbacks and bribes to outsider big businesses such as power companies, mining operations, and manufacturing concerns.

  Ella listened for as long as she could, then stood up, tossing several bills on the table. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her as she headed to the door.

  Mary Lou hurried over to her. “I’m sorry about that, Ella. I was out in the back when one of the waitresses turned the radio on. Our customers like to argue about him. By the time I heard what he was talking about, it was already too late.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s just one of the many things I’ll have to deal with until my cousin’s killer is arrested. Unfortunately, the Constitution protects idiots like him.”

  Ella was halfway to her vehicle when Blalock caught up to her. “Can you have one of your people follow Branch and see who he meets and where he goes when he’s away from work? I think we better check this guy out and see what’s on his agenda. I’d just love to find out he’s got his hand in something dirty so I can come down on him like a ton of bricks.”

  “I’ll pass your request along to Big Ed,” Ella replied.

  Ella parted company with Blalock and drove directly to the station. There were no new cases waiting on her desk. With a sigh of relief, she delivered Blalock’s request to Big Ed.

  “The heat’s coming down on this department, Shorty, and I’ll have to juggle schedules to find any officers to check up on Branch. As for you, I want you to keep a low profile. Take time off if you want. But whatever you do, don’t make waves right now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “The usual—politics. When Abigail Yellowhair had all the references to you pulled from her ads, one of the tribal councilmen was overheard saying that it was because she had the inside track on the investigation and knew of evidence that would prove you were involved in our officer’s death.”

  “That’s a lie. She was just playing it safe, trying to distance herself from any scandal or controversy. She wants to be elected.”

  “I know that and you know that, but you’ve made quite a few enemies over the years. For instance, bringing down the terrorists who’d set up their base of operations here made you an international hero, but also resulted in the Tribal Council and some of their appointees looking really bad. Publicly they applauded your investigation, but privately they’ve always wanted revenge for making them look corrupt and gullible.”

  “I know, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. Even after I find the truth about my cousin, they’ll
still be lying in wait for me, and biding their time, like hawks circling above a rabbit hole.” She stood up. “I’m going home. For once, I’d like to see my daughter while she’s still awake enough to know who is giving her a good-night kiss.”

  Ella arrived just as Rose had finished bathing Dawn, and Ella helped her into her pajamas. As the freshly scrubbed little girl ran into the living room to play, Ella joined her on the floor, each making her own stack with the colored pieces of plastic. Every once in a while Dawn would take one of the blocks off of Ella’s stack and put it on top of her own.

  “Shimá, play,” Dawn said, laughing as she took another of Ella’s blocks.

  Ella handed Dawn the blocks, asking her each time what color it was. Dawn already knew her basic colors, but Ella loved to reinforce the lesson. She watched her daughter, entranced as Dawn struggled to arrange the blocks. It was easy to see a piece of herself mirrored in her daughter’s curiosity and her attention to whatever she was doing. It filled her with a sense of awe as she thought of the continuity of family and the future Dawn represented. Right now Dawn was completely absorbed in her stacking game. Her attention span was never long, natural for a child her age, but her concentration was complete. Ella was already planning on buying more blocks, this time with letters or animal images on them.

  Dawn seemed much smarter than any of the other children Ella had seen, including Julian at this age. But maybe that was just the proud mom in her. To her, her daughter seemed like a miracle in motion.

  As Dawn tired of the game, she stood and, with her bowlegged-looking gait, ran to where she’d left the rag doll Rose had made for her.

  “Shimasání make present,” she said, and showed the doll to Ella.

  “It’s very pretty! Did you say thank you?”

  Dawn shook her head. “Navajos say ahéhee’.”

  Ella laughed. “Mom, that’s cool. She’s going to know Navajo before she reaches three, at this rate!”

  “I raised you the same way. Maybe with her, it’ll stick. Sometimes I wonder how much you actually remember. You spent too many years trying to forget who you were.”

  Ella steered clear of the old argument, not wanting to remind her of the scarcity of Navajo-speaking agents to converse with those years she was part of the Bureau. Besides, her mother was right about how much of the language Ella retained. She understood Navajo a lot better than she spoke it.

  Dawn finally walked to the TV set and pointed. “Watch TV.”

  “No,” Rose said.

  “Mom, she’s got the cartoon video I bought for her. That would take her up to bedtime.”

  “I don’t like to have her watch TV at night. She’ll end up sleepy and cranky because she won’t go to bed when she gets tired. A little in the morning, but that’s all.”

  Ella bit back the curt retort that often seemed foremost in her mind. Dawn was her kid, and she should have the final say-so in how she was raised. But that kind of autonomy was impossible while they all lived here with Rose. Besides, she knew her mom was probably right. The cartoon would probably just get Dawn excited at the wrong time, and she’d get restless and cranky later on.

  Ella looked at her daughter, who was now pulling a toy horse around the room. The wooden toy had been something she’d inherited from Julian. When the toy snagged on the back of a chair, Dawn pulled on the string, fell down on her bottom when the toy remained snagged, then let out an ear-piercing shriek.

  “T’adoo. Stop that,” Rose said, adding the English translation immediately. “There’s no need for that.”

  Rose leaned over to untangle the string, but then groaned, slipping down on one knee.

  Ella stood up and rushed to her mother’s side. “Mom, are you okay?”

  Rose pushed her away. “I’m fine. It’s just age talking. My joints don’t work as well as yours do some days.”

  She made it a point to untangle the string before Ella could, gritting her teeth the entire time.

  “You could take some aspirin for the soreness and inflammation. Remember that the doctor said that you could do that whenever you needed.”

  “He gave me pills for my pain before, and all I could do was sleep. Now he gives me more pills,” Rose said, shaking her head. “With him, all the answers to all the questions come in a pill.”

  “Mom, after your accident, you needed the rest. But an aspirin is nothing, unless you take too many. I take them at work for a headache or minor ache, and I wouldn’t be able to do that if there was a problem with side effects.”

  “Give them time. They’ll find some.”

  Ella sighed. She wouldn’t change Rose’s mind on this either. She knew that, so why was she wasting her time trying? She just hated to see her mother making things even more difficult for herself.

  “I have some herbs and an ointment your brother fixed for me. I’ll use those tonight after your daughter is asleep.”

  “I’ll stay up with her, Mom. You can go ahead and go to bed now if you want.”

  “And if you get an emergency call and have to go back to work? Better I should stay awake.”

  “If that happens, then I’ll wake you up, I promise.” Ella looked at Dawn, who was now curled up on the sofa, clutching her rag doll. “She’s getting tired anyway.”

  “No!” Dawn said loudly.

  “Okay, you’re not,” Ella said. She remembered the stories of how difficult it had been to put her to bed when she was Dawn’s age.

  Ella looked back at her mother, noting that her face looked drawn. Taking care of Dawn could sap anyone’s energy some days. She had to find a way to get Rose to accept help. But she would pick the time, and this wasn’t it.

  Ella led her mother down the hall. “Mom, I don’t get a lot of time alone with her when things are busy at work, so let me enjoy her tonight. You’ll be doing this for me, not just yourself.”

  “Normally I would disagree, but it’s true that you need time alone with your daughter. She misses you when you’re away.”

  Ella shook her head. “No, she sees you as her other shimá.”

  “I’m her shimasání, and she knows the difference. I can fill in for you, but I can’t be her mother.”

  “Navajo kids know many mothers, not just one. I’m glad she has you.”

  “Even when we don’t agree?” Rose asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and slipping off her shoes.

  “You’re teaching her Navajo, and about The Way already. She knows who and what she is, even at her young age. If I’d lived alone with her anywhere else, she would have been a lot poorer for it.”

  Rose nodded thoughtfully. “I see that you’ve given the idea of living away from the Rez some consideration.”

  Ella knew enough not to lie. “With pressure on government agencies to hire minorities, I thought of applying for some other job in law enforcement. Maybe a desk job somewhere, which would mean regular hours. But even if I could talk you into coming with me, my daughter would grow up outside the sacred mountains—feeling different from others but not really understanding why that’s a good thing and not a bad one. It’s not an acceptable trade-off.”

  “I wouldn’t leave my home.”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d put up a fight, but sometimes I win.”

  “Not on that,” Rose said flatly.

  Ella walked to the door. “If you need me, just call.”

  By the time she reached the living room, Dawn was sitting up, looking at her through sleepy eyes.

  “Shimá, pick up,” she said, holding out her tiny arms.

  Ella held her daughter, wishing she could be around to do this more often.

  “Shimasání sick?”

  “She just needs to rest,” Ella answered, rocking her. As her little girl settled quietly against her, Ella felt a sense of peace, then a twinge of sadness thinking about all the special times she’d missed with her child already. She hadn’t been able to nurse her own daughter for more than a few weeks. Her job had made it practically impossible. Dawn had been br
ought up with formulas and modern diapers, yet the copper-skinned baby who gazed up at her was all Navajo, and very much a part of a world that always seemed to hover between the old and the new.

  “Shimá tired, too?”

  “A bit,” Ella said, holding her daughter close.

  “Shimá go to bed.”

  “Will Dawn go to bed, too?”

  She nodded slowly.

  Ella took Dawn to her room and tucked her beneath the covers, then began telling her a favorite bedtime story, about the Hero twins and Coyote. Noticing that Dawn couldn’t keep her eyes open, Ella cut the story short tonight and gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek.

  “Ayóó ninshné,” Dawn said sleepily.

  “I love you, too,” Ella said, and gave her daughter another kiss on the forehead.

  By the time she reached the door, Dawn’s breathing was even. She’d fallen fast asleep. Ella put the gate up so her daughter wouldn’t wander out into the hall in the middle of the night. Dawn’s door would remain open.

  Ella returned to her own room and switched on her computer to check E-mail. She then waited on-line for a possible instant message, but none came. After a while she switched the computer off and got ready for bed. As she kicked off her shoes, her cell phone rang. Ella picked it up on the first ring.

  “This is Blalock,” he said, as if she might have trouble recognizing his voice. “You’ll want to be in on this. Officer Tache just made an officer-in-trouble call. He’s come under fire north of the river just west of the reservation border.”

  “I’m on my way.” As Ella pulled on her boots, Rose came to the door.

  “You have to go out?”

  She nodded, and looked at her mother, wondering if she’d somehow known there would be trouble tonight. Her mother sometimes knew things before they happened.

  “I had a feeling.” Rose shrugged, answering Ella’s unspoken question.

  Ella reached for her badger fetish and placed it inside her shirt but outside the now ever-present vest.