by Win Blevins
“That excited you.”
“Her too. Weird, isn’t it?”
“No. How long did it last?”
“About a month. Then one day Annie just said, ‘Sorry, it’s lost its charge.’ Her husband had gotten interested in her again, and she felt the same way. I was actually sorry to let her go.”
“The thought of screwing the hell out of another man’s wife fired you up.”
I mulled. “Yeah, that must have been part of it. When I think about it now, the whole thing really wasn’t a big deal.”
“Liar.”
Actually, I was. I’d made up the whole story.
Linda smiled and said, “How about screwing another man’s wife right now?”
The words flashed neon in the air between us.
Linda said, “I’ll do the things no one has done to you.”
And in a blink it came out. “Yes.”
She was already on her feet and walking. I hurried along behind. When Julius stood, she said, “I won’t need you for a while.” I trailed her up the winding stairs to the door of her room. There she turned straight to me, took both my hands, and said, “Midshipman, I’m glad you’re six feet six inches. But I’m mostly interested in checking out those six inches.”
When she closed the door behind us, Linda Darnell—Linda Darnell!—swept me into her storm.
She sat on the bed and undid my pants, took hold of me, and smiled. Then she said, “Sailor, it is time to go on an adventure.”
She was totally direct and over-the-top frisky. She led us both to the Long Beach Pike and took us on the Ferris wheel, the roller coaster, through the fun house and the penny arcades, and finally gave us the Diving Bell. Several times. She was the bandleader, and I loved dancing to her beat.
Neither of us gave a damn about lunch. We split the day between our play and long talks. I don’t think I ever told anyone so much about myself in such a short time. And, by God, we did become friends.
When the sun started its soft purple fadeaway, I felt like I’d made a long journey, a river crossing from innocence to experience. I would never be the same man.
When we came out of her room for dinner, there was Julius, leaning against the opposite wall, waiting. He kept his face carefully blank, but the stogie corkscrewed, and he tried to get her attention. She ignored him. Julius had one hell of a job, and I didn’t envy him.
After dinner we spent the night back in bed, blasting through the rides in the amusement park, all of the human male and female possibilities, with a couple of contortions tossed into the mix.
In the morning a paper was slipped under the door, the bill, Linda said. She flung it at Julius when we checked out, and said the front desk owed them an apology. It was not her job to be aware of the details.
Five
Driving north from Flagstaff, through the Painted Desert and then east into Navajoland, Linda was mesmerized by the mesas and buttes. I’d like to think I put that glow on her, and maybe that was partly so. But she loved the scenery of the desert Southwest so much she’d bought a little ranch in New Mexico some time before. I watched her while pretending not to.
I liked the car, a 1940 Cadillac 90 Town Car, with the driver’s compartment separated from the passenger seats by a barrier of etched glass. Linda and I sat in back, hooting and howling at our own lines. Julius had to be my chauffeur as well as hers, and that didn’t bother me one bit. Luxury tasted fine.
But the rockety-rock on a rutted road made for a long day, and after a while the glory of landscape fades.
For a minute I studied Julius’s profile through the closed glass. It struck me. “Linda, your two bodyguards are as different as day and night.” I spoke softly, even though I knew he couldn’t hear us.
“What do you mean?”
“My grandfather’s Jewish, and he’s the only father I ever had, but I grew up Navajo. I’m descended from Changing Woman, mistress of the cycles of the Earth. I was raised to be aware of sun and sky, mountain and river, plant and animal, and the human walk through all this Fourth World.” I doubted that Linda wanted to hear the old myth, and so I moved on. In the rearview mirror I looked up at Julius’s cynical eyes and the tough-guy stogie.
“But Julius wears his life like it’s a pretty rough-worn road.”
“It’s his job to be suspicious,” she said. “And don’t be too critical. He’s been on that road a long time.”
I looked at Julius again. “I hope I don’t turn into that.”
“Everyone has their own path. Sometimes it rolls in front of us and it doesn’t feel like a choice, Yazzie.”
“I’ve chosen hózhó, harmony in living. It’s hard to…” I turned the complicated meaning of hózhó over in my mind and left it twisting in the air like the last leaf on a tree.
She put her hand on my inner thigh. “I was raised mish-mash, a practicing pagan. Maybe it has made me what I am.”
I chuckled. “I like that.”
She stared ahead, opened her purse—more powder. No words.
When at last the time came, at the end of a long day, I said, “Behold, Monument Valley.”
My homeland opened her eyes wide.
“Wow,” said Linda, “this is something.…”
I never had words for it, either.
By shooting Stagecoach here, Mr. John had made the valley a big deal, at least in the film community.
And this sunset was a supreme moment. The sun was disappearing in the west, right over our trading post. The light of what Mr. John called the “magic hour” was transfiguring Monument Valley into … Again, no describing it, just let it float.
“Magic time,” I told her softly. “They’re using the last of the light.”
She perked right up and pressed the button that let her talk to the driver. “Julius, stop where I can see.”
He eased the town car to fifty yards away from the false-front version of Tombstone, all the buildings on one side of the new temporary road and facing us. I had no idea what was going on—I hadn’t seen a script—but there was a crowd of actors in the road in front of the saloon.
We stepped out of the car, and Linda glanced at the red-gold west. “That light is enough.” She squeezed her lips together, thinking, just thinking. “Julius,” she said, “go get Danny Borzage for me.”
Julius moseyed off. Mosey seemed to be his top speed.
Danny Borzage was one of my favorite movie people. Like a few others, he worked with Mr. John on every picture, and he had a key role. He played accordion songs between shots. While Mr. John was considering the angle he wanted, how the shot would fit into the sequence, and just what its mood should be, Danny played a tune. Mr. John would drift on that melody into a mental picture that worked for him. Danny did the same for the actors while Mr. John instructed them. He had a knack for supplementing Mr. John’s words with just the right tune-feelings.
Danny also gave each major actor a treat when he or she arrived on location for a new film. He’d play a song that was a bit from a previous film the actor had done. On a John Ford set, there was always the feeling that something special was about to happen. A big part of that was Danny.
Linda said to me, “Open the trunk.”
I did, and she pried one of her huge suitcases open. “Danny hasn’t noticed us, and I have something in mind for my arrival.”
Behind the town car, she started stripping off her traveling suit, a short jacket, frilly white blouse, and skirt with a kick pleat. Soon she was down to her bra and panties.
“Remember, formal with each other around the cast and crew,” she said. “Miss Darnell and Seaman Goldman.” Pretty funny words from a lady in her underwear.
Danny and Julius started walking in our direction. She saw them and scooted into her clothes before they could see her, a full Mexican skirt, ankle length, scarlet with bright white filigree, on top a white blouse, scoop necked. Perfect for her. She slipped into a pair of black ankle boots and stepped out from behind the car just in time to greet Danny like an old f
riend. She whispered something in his ear.
As the two chatted, the crew began to shut down. Clearly, Mr. John had called a wrap for the day. Some of the cast walked toward the food tent, where everyone ate.
“Watch this, boys,” she said. Linda turned her head. “I rehearsed it for a tavern scene I have to shoot,” she whispered to me, although it was a whisper anyone within earshot could hear.
Linda made a beeline for the food tent, Danny hustling after her. As soon as they got close, and the first diners were walking in, Danny struck up his one-man band.
I didn’t know the tune, but it was a zapateado, a Mexican dance song. Linda flashed right into the footwork zapateados are known for, toes and heels beating out the rhythm.
The whole cast and crew gathered around her, jostling to get a better view. If she’d been on a stage, they might have heard sounds like the ones you do in tap dancing, but the desert dirt didn’t allow that—Linda’s dance was purely for the eye. And that was more than enough.
It was flamboyant. Her ankle boots flew. Her skirt flared into a wide hoop. Her arms swayed gracefully above her head. Her torso arched back, and her neck was as long and beautiful as a swan’s.
When Danny swung into the chorus for the last time, he juiced it up. Faster, wilder, giddy. Linda gave it everything Danny called for and more. The dance whirled to frenzy. She ended in a hands-high pose and a dramatic chord of punctuation.
The crowd burst into applause and laughter. Over their noise Danny cried, “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Linda Darnell!” His music and her dance were a brilliant duo that made you feel glad to be alive.
Mr. John stepped out, hands clapping in big strokes. When he reached her, he took one of her hands, lifted it high in triumph, and turned both of them to face the applauding audience.
She curtsied to Mr. John, he bowed to her, and then she curtsied to the crowd.
What a woman!
I chuckled. I would have bet anything that tomorrow Mr. John would gripe to me, Talk about star ego! But it would be good-humored.
And I say, Why not? I’m with Mom—if you got it, flaunt it.
* * *
Linda asked to be shown to her quarters to rest. Danny walked the two of us up the driveway to a stone cabin perched on the sandstone bench near Goulding’s Trading Post, Julius trailing with the car and her luggage.
“That one is Mr. Ford’s cabin,” Danny said to Linda, pointing to the end of the row, “that one for Henry Fonda, this one for you and Cathy Downs.” I’d figured out from crew talk that Miss Downs was the good girl of the movie, a schoolmarm, and Linda was the bad girl, a dance-hall temptress. Miss Downs wasn’t on the location yet, which gave me high hopes for more sport.
When Danny unlocked the door for her, we all saw one small square room, two day beds, and a closet with two ceramic chamber pots. Not exactly high style for movie stars.
We three men hefted her suitcases inside. She said, “Thank you, Danny, thank you, Julius,” in a tone that dismissed them. They took the hint and walked off.
She pulled me inside by one hand, turned her face up to mine, and said softly, “I want you to stay close.”
I felt obliged to say this, though it galled me. “I got paid to deliver you, and my job is done.”
“No,” she purred, and took a moment to think. “I guess Mr. John didn’t tell you. Julius is Twentieth Century-Fox security, responsible for a lot of people. You are my personal bodyguard. I want you at my service.” Her sultry tone hinted at more.
“I…”
“The money’s not a problem. The studio head of my next picture thinks it’s important that I arrive safely for his shoot, and they’re paying for it. It’s double Fox’s daily rate.”
I wondered how many studios took care of their stars with security before their filming started.
Regardless, what I could say?
“You’re to stay close during the shooting, too. I think it’s much ado about nothing.” She put her hands on my chest. “Until Cathy Downs arrives, I want you with me day and night.”
I could have debated with her, but why? I was in lust with a movie star who liked playing the bad girl. Mom wouldn’t like it—more time away—but she’d come around. She’d like getting out of debt, and I relied on Grandpa to get that across to her.
Linda smiled in her special way, one of them, and said, “I want some privacy now.”
I stepped outside and strode down the hill, full of juice, a bull turned out into a glorious field.
* * *
The buzzard man was confused, and he hated the feeling.
Who was the woman at the center of attention? What was Yazzie so-called Goldman doing with her?
First his son disappeared for several days. Then this pair cruised onto the location in the fanciest automobile Zopilote had ever seen, and she put on a big show for the cast and crew. So-called Goldman acted like her man. Zopilote had never seen a Navajo with a white woman, not in that way. Everything about his son made Buzzard’s head writhe like snakes.
He needed to wait. He needed to watch. He needed to use his buzzard vision and buzzard nose, which could sense truth from far away.
See. Understand. Learn how to inflict the greatest possible pain.
He crept to the cabin that backed up against the sheer cliff. Peered in through the chinks between logs. The woman sat on her bed, no makeup, not looking like such a big somebody without that paint. Looking at a letter that she had taken from her dresser drawer, smoothing it out, reading it, tapping her teeth.
Something was on the woman’s mind. He didn’t really care what. She wasn’t important. But a scavenger never knows what might be useful.
Six
Today was the vernal equinox, and I drove Linda in the town car through the purpling twilight to Oljato. I watched the light fade into shafts gleaming between gray clouds. Understanding my mood, she held my free hand and said nothing.
For my people the solstices and equinoxes are times the world turns. Spring is birth, and for sure my whatever-it-was with Linda was a birthing. Of what? I didn’t know. Summer is growing to maturity, autumn aging, and winter dying. I hated the short days turning to the winter solstice, when dark would come earlier and then earlier and earlier.
Now I glanced sideways into Linda’s green eyes and reminded myself, This is the first day of spring.
When the Dineh made their emergence from the Third World to this Fourth World, where we live now, they rose into a climate rough as a cob. This land between the Four Sacred Mountains flips from frying your skin in the summer to freezing your ass in the winter. Such is our life.
Here’s another “such is life”: Tomorrow Cathy Downs would arrive. That meant this would be my last night with Linda. Mom was creating a kind of farewell, and a peace token to me, by inviting Miss Darnell to dinner.
Mose Goldman heard tires on gravel and pivoted his wheelchair to look out the window. The town car stopped in front of the hitching rails. Yazzie got out and looked around. He must have been relieved at what he saw. His clansmen Katso and Oltai had gotten a lot accomplished—corrals tightened, roofs repaired, and plenty more. That would raise his hopes that Mom was happy, and he was doing well by his family.
Yazzie handed Linda Darnell out and escorted her toward the front door of the family part of the rambling building. Mose couldn’t see the lady clearly in the deep shadows of the cottonwoods. A movie star didn’t make his heart go bumpety-bump. Except for taking Yazzie to Hopalong Cassidy shows in Flagstaff twice, he’d never seen a motion picture, nor laid eyes on a movie magazine.
He turned the chair again, and with his good left arm propelled himself to the heavy wooden door. As Yazzie pushed it open, Mose caught the last of what the lady was saying to his grandson, “… in your home we will be informal with each other, just plain Yazzie and Linda.”
Hmmm. Mose smiled to himself.
He raised his good arm to offer his boy an embrace and made it a hearty one. He was getting stronger ever
y day, right leg and arm improving. Unfortunately, his speech was still garbled.
Yazzie was saying, “Linda Darnell, this is my grandfather, Mose Goldman. Whatever that is good in me is a gift from him.”
Nizhoni sailed out of the kitchen, crossing to the front door in her stately way. His daughter was a woman even more beautiful in her forties than her twenties, so her father thought.
“And this is my other great teacher, my mother, Nizhoni Goldman. Grandpa, Mother, this is Linda Darnell.”
Nizhoni said, “Miss Darnell, welcome to our home. We’ve heard so much about you.”
Mose lifted a hand in affirmation.
“Gracias,” Linda said in a demure tone. “I’m so glad—”
Just then Iris burst in the back door. Bursting was the way Iris did things, plus always being late and carrying the cat on her shoulder. Striding across the room, she inspected her hands, which meant she’d just been painting, had cleaned her hands with turpentine, and was making sure of not getting paint on anyone else.
“Miss Darnell,” Yazzie said, “Iris Goldman, my aunt. Iris, Linda Darnell.”
Iris stuck out a hand and Linda shook it. She looked at Iris peculiarly, then at Cockeyed, and at Iris again.
They both said, “Glad to meet you” at the same time.
“Yes, I know,” Iris said, “I hate it when he calls me his aunt. I’m not old enough. Life is crazy like that sometimes.”
In fact, thought Mose, Yazzie was twenty-four, Iris twenty-six, and the famous movie star looked younger than either of them.
“Nuestra casa es su casa,” said Nizhoni.
“In that case,” said Miss Darnell, “will you call me Linda? Then I’ll truly feel at home.”
“We will all be on a first-name basis,” said Nizhoni.
Mose nodded his assent. Damn, but he hated not being part of the conversation.
Over the first glass of wine at the coffee table, Linda was gracious. She turned herself from a star into the respectful guest of honored elders. Mose could see his grandson relaxing. They were lovers, of course, and Yazzie’s lover wasn’t going to usurp Nizhoni’s role by playing the grand lady here.
