by Win Blevins
She tilted her head and pursed her mouth, trying not to smile. She took a big bite of cobbler. I decided that waiting for her to have a mouthful of food was the perfect time to talk.
“And, yep, that’s really what they’re called, the railroad detectives—‘dicks.’ And, yes, I really want to work on the Santa Fe Super Chief.”
“The Super Chief!” Mom practically yelled. “You’ve gone degeez!” She looked sideways at Iris. “Sorry, it means ‘crazy.’”
Ride the Super Chief! Travel like a rich man. Explore L.A. Chicago!
I could see it. I could taste it. I wanted it.
I went on before Mom went completely wild. “Mom, if I got that kind of job, I could pay off Grandpa’s medical costs. Which otherwise would take forever.”
Mom waited, then drew herself as tall as a five-footer could and acted out her high-style queen of the roost. “You will stay here and run this place. Iris is sweet to help out, especially with Grandpa being like this, but it’s temporary.”
Iris said, “Why shouldn’t I stay? I love it here.”
“Yes, but you want to paint, paint, paint, and not the kind that needs doing—house painting.”
I was trying to avoid conflict, acting calm inside, but it was getting hard to carry off. What was Mom going to say when I told her I was leaving tomorrow morning? So I said to Iris, “You paint?”
She shrugged in a way that meant ‘Later.’ Cockeyed rode up and down Iris’s shoulders, one eye fixed on me, the other seeking the mysteries.
Mom came at me again. “You want to lose the horses? You want rain to ruin Grandpa’s rugs? And rain in our beds? What on earth are you thinking?”
Mom wasn’t acting a bit Navajo. But she was raised by a man who could get in your face as well as anyone. Second, she never knew her own mother. And third, she was a trader. She could talk tough to white people as easy as act nice with Navajos. This was that lightning part of her, and it was damned hard to stay clear.
“I’m waiting,” said Mom.
I gave in. “Okay, sorry, but I can’t talk about this. Not right now.”
Everybody sat in the silence that is rightly called dead.
* * *
Zopilote watched the talk, the fun, the intimacy, with acid in his throat. He mouthed one word over and again—“family.” Family was what they had cheated him out of. All those years he had never realized. When his wife and the old trader sold him out, this circle of relationship, this warmth, this hearth of affection—this is what they stole from me.
He had never understood. Not clearly.
In county jail, during the trial, and during the years in prison, every day Zopilote replayed that awful picture of her, legs spread wide, hips rising and falling, until she shrilled out her pleasure. Then his enemy flipped her over, quick and hard, and climaxed inside her.
Zopilote raged at the theft of flesh, the flesh of his woman.
The Mexican’s life was no payment for her treachery. Nor had she paid for the twenty-five years of Zopilote’s life slain, sunrise by sunrise.
In all his years behind bars, Zopilote got only one communication from the outside world. It arrived shortly after he was locked up in the state pen, a letter from the old trader. It was written in English and had to be translated for him. After he learned to read, he looked at it and mumbled the words over and over, until the paper crumbled.
Yes, your ex-wife is with child. She knows it is your child. So do you.
But you abandoned her, and she threw you away as a husband.
This child’s father will be me.
It is my great pleasure to slap your face with this knowledge. You will never see your own offspring. You have no wife. You have no child. You will spend your life in a cage and have no solace.
—Mose Goldman
Zopilote dismissed the letter as a vain attempt to squash his spirit, and he resolved to make it do the opposite.
Now he grasped the meaning of the letter in a more tortured way. I have been robbed of family. This truth burned hot.
* * *
I stroked Cockeyed. He purred on my lap, the only sound in the room. But the cozy comfort started to feel like a cold ocean. I was swamped, awash and drowning in guilt.
And so I came right out with it. “Listen up. This is a hard thing to say. Mr. John hired me today, while I was on my way home with Jake Charlie. Tomorrow I’m going all the way to Seligman and then on to Winslow. Then I drive back.”
“What are you talking about?” That was Mom.
“Mr. John hired me as a bodyguard, from the train all the way to Monument Valley, for an actor who’s coming in for his new movie. I’ll be gone about four days, maybe less.” Although, I was hoping maybe more.
Mom marched around the coffee table and plopped on the couch next to me. She almost sat right on my hot cobbler, but I fast slid it away.
“You’ll be back as soon as possible, you say, and all of this”—she motioned with her chin to take in our entire property, inside and out—“has to wait for a few more days. I hope,” she said, “he’s paying you enough to make up for the time you’ll lose here.”
“Mom, we need the money.”
Her face went white. “You’ve been gone so long that you think money answers every problem.”
I was ashamed for being a bad son. What had I been thinking of? Myself. Gone six years, and I turn around and leave. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I felt her tears, wet against my skin.
She pulled herself together quick and made a little distance between us. She spoke low and flat. How long would I be gone this time? Exactly? Who else was going? Why did I need to do this thing? Exactly? Why now?
Grandpa’s look was impossible to read. He was waiting for the whole story before he got out the scales and weighed the worth of my actions. The cat got up, stretched, and padded onto Iris’s lap. She stroked it, but its tail curled and uncurled, over and over.
I put an arm around Mom, and she brushed it off. She let me rest my hand on her shoulder, and I answered her questions. I told her the truth, most of it.
“Mom, I’m trying to do what’s best. I’ll make a lot of money working for Mr. John. This place needs fixing, the money will pay for that. The medical bills, money will take care of that, too.”
Mom’s voice sizzled. “I need you here. I’m counting on you. What if you decide not to come back? What if you head straight from Mr. John to a train job?”
“Mom, you need to listen.”
“No, you need to listen. I have shared you with the government of the United States. You wanted to go, and it was also a duty. Mr. John is not a duty. The war is over.”
“I have a present for you,” I said.
“And here is something else you may not have thought about, while—”
Grandpa uttered something garbled. He raised his good left arm and flailed it. His garbled talk was hyped-up. I didn’t understand it. Mom either. More flailing. He pulled out his chalkboard.
He pointed to his daughter, and then to me. GIFT + LISTEN.
She pulled back a little. Nizhoni Goldman studied her father’s face. He urged her with his eyes.
“You have a gift for us,” she said. “I will listen to you.”
I plunged in with enthusiasm. “I hired Katso and Oltai Neez to do the fix-up work for you. Ten days of labor. I promised them five dollars a day each.”
“Five dollars!”
“If you need them longer, just say so. Here’s enough to pay them.” I fished out the five twenty-dollar bills Mr. John had advanced me and tucked them into her hand.
She crumpled them up and tossed the wad onto the coffee table. She leaned her head on my chest, and I felt her body go inward. Her words came out and echoed inside me. “Yazzie, are you remembering that you and Grandpa are my home? Home is not a place, it’s my family. It’s your family.”
“I know, Mom.”
No more words, her head still rested on my chest, and she started patting me.
Grandpa, Iris, and I said nothing.
Finally, she lifted her head, dignity renewed. Mom wiped her cheeks with her palms. At length she forced words out. “We’re all tired. Let’s go to bed. We’ll eat a big breakfast.”
“Mom, I’ll be leaving at sunup.”
“Then your breakfast will be ready before first light,” she said.
I stood and walked slowly toward the room where I had slept for nearly two decades, turning once to look back at the three of them. Such a display of emotion, of loss, and of hopes gone crooked. My family looked stunned. I felt the same way.
I closed my bedroom door. I thought about my situation. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t said that I got to escort a super-glamorous woman. That part could wait for later. Much later.
Soon it would be dawn, and I would be headed into a bright unknown. And all of this other? It would have to wait, just for a little while.
* * *
Home is not a place, it’s family.
As the home lights went out, Zopilote stumbled into the darkness, his chest heaving.
Four
Linda Darnell waltzed down the aisle of the dining car, a waiter trailing behind her holding high a bucket of ice with a bottle in it. She smiled, and that smile of hers was a cut-crystal vase, lights bouncing off into rainbows. “Seaman Goldman,” she said, holding out a hand like she expected me to kiss it.
I stood smartly, took the hand, which was surprisingly warm, and helped her into the window seat opposite me. “Miss Darnell.” A bare-boned Southwest landscape whirled past the windows.
I looked quickly behind us and then sat. Since no one else was in the car, my performance was just that.
She nodded gaily to the waiter. The white-coated Negro set a champagne glass in front of her, popped the cork on the bottle, and poured. Bubbles floated up from the glass stem. Then he poured a glass for me. She held her glass up and sang aloud, “To you and all the men who won the war.” Holding the elegant shape high above her head, she opened up and waterfalled champagne into her lovely mouth. Every drop.
I laughed. She’s going to be fun.
I stood and came back with, “To the spirit that won the war.” I sipped the bubbling wine and took my seat again. Theatrics were new to me.
The waiter poured Miss Darnell a second glass. I covered mine with one hand. She raised hers, drained it, and said, “Seaman Goldman, please step back, so I can see you.”
I did.
“Well, aren’t you the strapping specimen? How tall are you?”
“Six feet six inches.”
She lifted the glass, held it out toward me, and said, “To handsome men in uniform.” This time she let the champagne linger on her tongue before draining the glass.
I sat down, grinning. I was glad I’d worn my dress whites. Foolishly, I murmured my full name. “Yazzie Jacob Goldman. Please call me Yazzie. Seaman Goldman is in the past.”
“To the present,” she said. “Drink up! Champagne is to be consumed greedily, like life.” She tossed down a third glass.
I offered another toast. “To the most stunning woman I have ever seen.”
Her laugh was a glissando.
I wasn’t kidding. Her beauty was dazzling—raven hair, flawless olive skin, and brilliant green eyes—plus I was entranced by her playfulness. Okay, yeah, maybe other movie stars were heavenly. But this one was a merry demon. When she turned her face to me fully, my skin flushed hot.
The waiter still stood at attention. “Miss Darnell, would you care for something to eat?”
“Yes,” she said, “a margarita.” A flash of that demonic smile. Then she gave exact specifications, tequila of a brand I’d never heard of, añejo y commemorativo, with fresh-squeezed lime juice, a brand of some liqueur I’d never heard of, and the glass rimmed with sea salt.
“You speak Spanish,” I said. Hers sounded almost fluent.
She nodded. “In high school I got assigned to help a Mexican student with his English, and he taught me Spanish at the same time. We turned into chatter birds.”
I waited. There was more to the story.
“Because of my complexion, people assume I’m Latino. In this movie I’m playing a Mexican dance-hall girl. Actually, I’m not one drop Mexican. My grandfather was Cherokee. My brothers and sisters are light-skinned.”
She gave a Who cares? smile.
“So we’re both Indians,” I said.
She chuckled. I felt like she was opening a door, maybe to friendship. “It seems so.” Down went some of that margarita. “You’re an all-American Navajo, Seaman? With a last name like Goldman?”
“My grandfather, Mose Goldman, is a Spanish Jew from Santa Fe. We spoke Spanish, English, and Navajo at the dining table from the time I could walk.”
That really got her laughing. She stopped, apologized, and said she’d just been surprised. “What a combination of ingredients!” And adios went more of her margarita.
I wanted to ask her questions. Where are you from? What’s your family like? Did you grow up rich? How does it feel to be ticketed for superstardom? But I judged I’d better wait for her to volunteer.
When we ordered food, I asked for oysters Rockefeller. At home last night I’d used Grandpa’s encyclopedia to find out the proper name and make sure what they were—oysters baked in a sauce of butter and a secret blend of green vegetables. I’d even memorized the name of the recommended white wine. I wanted to make the right impression.
I soon learned that the Rockefellers were good at making money but not appetizers, at least not to my tongue. Not to hers either. She actually spit the first bite out, right into her linen napkin. She waved the waiter over, and he took the plate away, apologizing as if he’d invented the dish himself.
I could barely keep a straight face as she ordered green chile salsa and tortilla chips instead.
Miss Darnell gave me a look that said, Well, I’m glad you’re not going to slow down my fun.
No chance of that. Full steam ahead with this woman, whistle blasting.
Zipping the eighty miles toward Flagstaff, we laughed and cut up like old friends and told silly stories. She asked what my service in the war had been.
“A cop,” I said. “Shore patrol. Navy.”
I was afraid she’d think less of me, probably hoping I’d been at Guadalcanal or something. Instead she seemed excited. “Did you carry a gun!?”
I felt acutely conscious of the service .45 auto holstered on the left side under my blouse, which she hadn’t spotted.
I answered, “Also a baton.”
“Did you ever shoot anyone?”
“Not yet.”
She hooted at that one. No shyness in this woman. If it was rowdy, she’d go for it.
Eventually, she tired. “I’m sorry, Seaman Goldman”—apparently she couldn’t get to “Yazzie” yet—“but I must go to my compartment. I need to freshen up for our arrival at La Posada. You needn’t cover my door. Let’s be cautious, but not paranoid.”
* * *
I stood in the vestibule while the diesel engines bulled the train up the long climb to Flagstaff. I looked down at the wheels as they powered up the tracks and the steep grade, whipping gravity. I felt the diesel engines lift the cars and passengers, all of us spray on a sea-monster’s back. The energy clacked and rattled through my feet, my legs, my ass, and my spirit with a thousand volts. The whole experience was an amplified drum and bugle corps rising and roaring through my body.
I loved it.
And then I saw the magic. Raising my eyes northward and high, so very high, we climbed the foothills of the San Francisco Peaks. These are the westernmost of the Four Sacred Mountains of Dinetah, which means Navajoland, and they stirred my heart. My spirit and blood were teased by the sacred stories of these mountains.
My mind, though, was dizzy with the vivid experience of my one hour spent with Linda Darnell. The awesome power of the train and the whirlwind experience of the woman blended together into a tidal wave of feelings. Sh
e had me transfixed. I was about to leap off a precipice into infatuation. Or lust. Something that was either trouble, ecstasy, or both.
With her crowding even the Super Chief out of my fantasy life, I barely noticed Flagstaff as we zipped through. Looking back at the San Francisco Peaks, I regretted how little attention I’d given them this time. Was I the man Grandpa had raised or someone horse-powered only by hormones?
* * *
At Winslow, I helped Miss Darnell down the steps onto the platform. There Julius met us and made sure two porters toted her luggage. I followed her through the formal garden to the famous La Posada Hotel. My privilege, ma’am.
I thought I’d better own up. “I’ve never stayed in a hotel.”
“Well, I know all about them.”
I smiled to myself. Innuendos there?
We paraded along a brick wall toward a handsome fountain. “This must be one of the grand ones.”
“For Arizona,” she allowed.
La Posada was a castle-sized Spanish Colonial, with lots of Southwestern Indian touches. The gardens stunned me, like something you’d see surrounding an Italian palace in a movie. Painted pottery, bright with every color, splashed water into lower pots, down and down, until the water came together and formed a pool filled with large golden fish. Jacaranda and a showy kind of blooming cactus circled the garden, lush with banana plants and some sort of water system that kept everything moist. Rock roses, like the ones at home, were reflected in the pond. I was thinking how much Mom would love to have a garden like this. She fought every spring just to raise up her tomatoes and gourds.
Miss Darnell looked like she was somewhere else, and I decided to bring her back. “Mary Colter designed this hotel,” I said, showing off my knowledge. “Nearly the only woman in a man’s profession.”
Linda nodded, with a hint of, Another woman, who cares?
“I’ve seen one other building she designed in this area. Grandpa took me there, the Watchtower, in the Grand Canyon. It’s done in the Pueblo style and perched right on the edge of a cliff that juts out over the gorge. You feel as if that tower is a red-tailed hawk, about to launch into five thousand feet of bubbling air.
