The Ties That Bind

by Andi Marquette

  I closed it, turned around in my chair, and held it out to River. He took it gingerly and opened it, Kara looking on.

  "He kept in touch with you after the accident?" I asked Nestor.

  "All the time. He visited two-three times a month and he'd do a few things around the house if I needed help." Nestor's expression became wistful, then, and he looked like he might cry.

  "Did he mention when he started getting hassled?" I asked.

  "No. It's in the notebook, though. He didn't tell me things like that because he didn't want me to worry."

  And he probably wanted to protect you. I wrote that extra thought down. "Did you read the notebook?" I glanced up at him.

  "Some. There was a letter in the envelope with it. It's there, in the back--" he gestured with his chin at River, who took the folded pieces of paper out and searched through them. He stopped at a piece of lined looseleaf paper and opened it. After a few seconds, he handed it to me. I held it so Sage could read it, as well, not bothering to take it by the corners. It had passed through a shitload of people by now, so trying to preserve it as evidence seemed a moot point. I started reading. Bill had written it by hand in blue ink. He had dated it at the top. I did a quick calculation. Four days before the Friday that he didn't come home from work.

  Hey Nes, sorry to dump this on you, but I got a bad feeling and I don't want this layin around anywhere. If anything happens to me, I know youll figure out what to do. Sorry man, dont want to make you worry, but I'm just being extra careful. Thanks. Can you maybe do a blessing for me? Later, Bill.

  I handed the letter to Sage and looked at Nestor. "Did you do a blessing for him?"

  He nodded, studying his hands, once again in his lap. "Didn't seem to help," he said, and the sadness in his voice said more than his words.

  "I'm really sorry," I offered, thinking that such an expression sounded hollow.

  Nestor shifted his gaze to mine. "He didn't tell me he mailed the notebook. The last time I talked to him was the Tuesday that week he disappeared. He called me up around six, and asked how I was doing and how things were. Nothing strange, but something in his voice didn't sound right."

  None of us said anything. In the background, I heard a radio in the kitchen and Angie doing something with dishes.

  "I asked him what was up, and he said he was a little stressed about work. He sounded pretty depressed about it and he said that he was in too deep to leave, that they'd find him, no matter where he went."

  So he didn't even feel he could quit. "Did he say anything in that conversation you had on Tuesday that indicated any specific kinds of threats?" I'd been hanging around Chris too long, asking questions like that.

  Nestor didn't answer at first. When he did, he kept his eyes on his hands, still in his lap. "In Diné belief," he started, "bad things happen because something is out of balance. There are many different reasons for this." He looked up at Sage at that point and she moved her hand to my thigh, resting it there. "I can't talk about these things, because bad things can be called, even if your intention is not to do so."

  I stopped writing and instead stared at him, goosebumps erupting on my arms.

  "We try to restore balance, and sometimes to do that, we have to hold ceremonies. But even then, bad things don't disappear forever. So we have to be watchful. Always." He adjusted his weight in the chair and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his armrests. "Your father spent a lot of time working in this area," he said to Sage before

  directing his attention at River. "He came to know some things."

  Sage dug her fingers into my thigh.

  "People joke," Nestor continued, looking at me. "About the Rez and the backward ways of people who live here. And they laugh when we tell them not to go to certain areas alone, not to drive in certain places after dark." He raised a shoulder in a shrug. "Some don't listen. And they do the things we tell them not to." He glanced at Kara then me again. "Afterward, they stop joking." He sat back in his chair. "Right after I got hurt, five Indian guys--Diné--at the site quit. Two stayed on for another month, but they left, too. Your father told me he tried to talk to them, but all they would tell him was that they didn't trust Ridge Star. One worked a lot of night shifts and he said that there were things that weren't right, and that bad things watched, especially after dark."

  "Bad things?" Kara's voice startled me.

  Nestor shrugged again. "I worried, when I worked there. The money's good, and we need it on the Rez. I need it for my family. But the way drilling tears into the land..." he shook his head. "There is no balance. I'm not the most traditional guy on the Rez, but I've seen some things during my lifetime out here. And like you--" he looked at me again, "I don't understand them and I don't want to believe in them. But you see it enough--let's just say that I'm not so quick to ignore what people say about stuff like that."

  "Did he say whether he'd seen anything there at the site?" I had stopped writing and instead remained focused on Nestor.

  "He didn't say anything specific, but over the past couple of months, he said he didn't like the feeling there and he hated working night shifts but because he was one of the old hands, they put him on three to four nights a week in May. He worked a fourteen-fourteen schedule. Two weeks on, two weeks off. Twelve-hour shifts."

  Not unusual for the industry. But Bill was in his fifties, and that kind of punishing work regimen had to take a toll. No wonder he hadn't given up drinking. I threw a sidelong glance at Sage, wondering if maybe she was thinking that, too. "Did he want to work that split?"

  "Hell, no. He hated it. But in March, three more guys got hurt, and by April, Ridge Star had him on the fourteen-fourteen, though he'd been working a seven-seven split before that."

  "Twelve-hour shifts on the seven-seven?" I asked.

  "Yeah. When he told me his shifts had changed, I figured it was because Ridge Star was trying to shut him up or make him quit digging around. Or maybe they wanted to force him out."

  Like what happened to Purcell.

  "Do you know Jamison Purcell?" Sage asked, like she was reading my mind.

  "Yeah, but not real well. He started at Ridge Star in March of last year, maybe? Back problem, I remember hearing. Is he still with them?"

  "No," Sage said, taking her hand off my thigh. "He left this past April because Ridge Star increased his workload and put him in situations that would hurt his back. Or so he suspects."

  "I wouldn't put it past them," Nestor said. "He came to see me once, after I was out of the hospital. Didn't see him again after that."

  Oh, really? So Purcell had fibbed a little. "What'd he say?"

  "He was sorry to hear what happened and if I needed anything to let him know. He has a couple of mechanic and contractor friends who could help me out around the house if I needed it. Said his wife has family in Shiprock. Turns out I know a couple of her cousins." Nestor rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. "Purcell asked if--" he glanced at Sage, "your father had said anything to me about looking into things. I figured as much, that he would. He just hadn't talked to me about it. I told Purcell that he hadn't mentioned anything."

  So Purcell had been worried about what Bill was up to. I wrote that down with the word "why" next to it and two question marks.

  Nestor shifted in his chair again, and grimaced. The guy was probably in constant pain. "Your father died because Ridge Star wasn't following safety regulations and because they were filing false reports about injuries and deaths. That's in his notebook. He got beat up a few times and threatened for it until finally..." he trailed off.

  "I'm so sorry," Sage said, and she meant it. "He was a good man to you, and I'm sorry you lost him."

  Nestor looked up at her then over at River. "I know he wasn't a father to you. And I don't know if he ever would have tried to be one. But here, in this part of the world, he tried to be a better person than he had been in the past."

  The front door opened and the teenaged boy came in, carrying the basketball. The little g
irl was right on his heels. They headed into the kitchen.

  Angie appeared, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "I hope you'll eat with us," she said.

  I glanced at Sage, wanting to follow her lead. She smiled at Angie. "We'd be honored."

  Nestor beamed.

  "Great," Angie said with warmth in her voice. "Come on into the kitchen and grab a plate."

  I stood and put my notepad and pen back into my cargo pocket, relieved at this break in the discussion. River stood as well and held Bill's notebook out to Nestor, who shook his head.

  "It belongs with you," he said.

  I looked at River, wondering if Nestor meant him specifically, or him and Sage. Or all of us. River shrugged and headed into the kitchen, holding the notebook, Sage behind him. Nestor wheeled his chair out of the living room and I turned to Kara.

  "You all right?" she asked.

  "Yes and no. This is just one major...something."

  She smiled, trying to encourage me, and pushed me after Nestor. "Let's see how it all shakes out," she said, and as I watched her, I wondered if that was what scared me about this whole situation. Maybe I wouldn't like what we found. Forcing that thought into a far corner of my mind, I joined the rest of the household in the kitchen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I STOOD IN the middle of the dirt road staring at Tse Bi dahi, the Navajo name for the formation I knew as Shiprock. "Rock with wings," Nestor had told us over the meal we'd shared not an hour ago, because in Navajo tradition, he said, a great bird flew the Diné to this place in northwestern New Mexico, landing on the earth and transforming into the massive rock silhouetted against the sky, seeming to hover above the ground in the late afternoon heat. A mile distant? Two? One of the weird things about Shiprock was that it always looked like it was floating, like its Anglo namesake, and no matter how close you thought you were, it always seemed the same distance away as when you started driving toward it.

  "A whole lotta lonely out here," River commented, standing next to me, thumbs hooked on his jeans pockets.

  "That's the damn truth," I said in response. Out here, random dirt roads linked far-flung Navajo households to each other and to main highways. The roads weren't marked and on a map, they were just lines scratched across the paper. Nestor had checked the directions Simmons had given us, clarifying a few things, and we'd come to this road, out here in an expanse of dirt and sky, east of Tse Bi dahi. Somewhere in the vicinity of where Sage had parked her car, Bill Crandall had died.

  "Kase," Kara called. I jerked my head to my right, back toward Sage's car. "Over here," she said, motioning behind her at Sage, who was looking at something on the other side of the road, maybe twenty feet from Kara.

  River and I headed over to Sage and as we drew closer, a flash of yellow drew my attention. Crime scene tape, maybe, tied to a wooden stake driven into the ground about six feet from where Sage stood.

  "This is it," she said with a certainty that eschewed argument.

  Kara looked over at me, shading her eyes with her left hand. I didn't need her expression to tell me what to do. I pulled Sage against me in a half-hug and stared at the tape. A black capital "M" and "E" were just visible on one of the torn ends. She leaned into me, saying nothing, and I tightened my hold on her. Some of the sagebrush plants near the stake were partially flattened, broken branches jutting at unnatural angles. The crime scene team had done a little excavating around Bill's body after it had been discovered,

  then filled the area in. The ground appeared disturbed and loose, like somebody had dug a hole then threw shovelfuls of dirt in. No evidence of blood, and for that I was very, very glad.

  I looked to my right--south--back toward where River and I had been standing. The road continued in that direction, past Tse Bi dahi, for another mile or so before it ended at Tom Manyhorses' spread. How far had Bill walked before he was hit? I thought about the autopsy report we'd gone over with Simmons that morning. Bill hadn't turned toward the vehicle, which hit him from the rear. If he had, his injuries would've been consistent with the front right side of his body, rather than the rear left. Why hadn't he turned?

  I jerked my gaze back to the lone stake with the crime scene tape. Because he thought whoever was in the car was coming to finish what they'd started. And whoever was in the vehicle hit him, maybe even swerved to the right to clip him, if Bill had left the harder-packed surface of the road. Through sagebrush, rocks, cactus, and maybe the darkness of a reservation night. Unless there was a moon out. I made a mental note to check a calendar on that. What had happened to him? And was it related to Ridge Star or had Bill been in trouble in other quarters?

  I glanced over at River but he was staring at the remnant of tape. Kara caught my eye just as Sage turned into me and buried her head in my neck. She clung to me as she cried, and I just held on, thinking how fucking confusing this was for her and River, how the past had a way of retaining its hold, no matter how far you moved beyond it. River came over and wrapped both of us in his arms, which made Sage cry harder and Kara moved closer so she stood on my right, her hand on my shoulder where River's arms didn't block her.

  We stood like that for a few minutes until River pulled away.

  "I don't even know why I'm crying," Sage muttered against my T-shirt when he did so.

  "Does it matter?" I asked, stifling an urge to psychoanalyze and instead staying in the moment with her.

  She didn't answer right away. "Maybe it's about a past I never had," she said after a while. "And for the father he never was."

  I hugged her closer. "Maybe."

  She kissed my neck and extricated herself, looking past me. "Someone's coming."

  We all turned. Sure enough, a cloud of dust approached us from the south. "Maybe it's Tom Manyhorses," I offered. "The road ends at his place." I hoped it was. If he stopped, we could talk to him a little bit. The cloud drew closer, pulled by what looked like a white pickup truck. It was, and it slowed when the driver realized there was another vehicle out here and people standing around. A big truck, with dualie back tires and an extended cab. The kind of truck that inhabited rural areas like this.

  The driver pulled over to the right-hand side across from Sage's car, passenger wheels off the graded part of the road, and turned off the engine. I saw him through the windshield, a man in sunglasses and a white cowboy hat. He took his sunglasses off and placed them on the dashboard before he opened the door and got out, pushing the brim of his hat back a bit as he approached. Dust from the road coated the toes of his cowboy boots and the hems of his jeans. He was built like a barrel with legs, and his arms seemed too long for his torso. He wore a faded denim shirt tucked into his jeans, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  "Nestor called me," he said in a slow baritone. "Thought you might be out here soon. I'm Tom Manyhorses." He didn't offer his hand but he smiled, maybe a little sad. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, looking first at Sage then at River.

  Damn. How does anybody get away with anything out here? I nodded at him. "K.C. Fontero. That's my sister Kara." I motioned toward her.

  He braced his hands on his hips and addressed Sage and River again. "Nestor thought you might want to know what I saw," he said, voice rumbling up from his chest like distant thunder.

  Sage crossed her arms over her chest and River put a hand on her shoulder. "I would," she said, and Manyhorses pursed his lips for a couple seconds then nodded again.

  "It was Wednesday, almost two weeks ago. I had to go to town that day and I hadn't been since the Thursday before." He brushed at his face, as if trying to dissuade a fly. "I don't drive too fast on this road, since it's got some bad spots. He was wearing a red shirt, so I saw him--" Manyhorses motioned in the direction of the stake with his chin, and looked at Sage, checking to make sure she wanted him to continue. She didn't stop him, so he did. "He was...facedown. Looked like he'd been out here a while."

  I didn't ask him what made him conclude that. I'd seen the autopsy report. Nor did I ask him if he'd
gone over to Bill's body. Chances were, he hadn't, because of Navajo beliefs.

  "I had my cell phone with me," Manyhorses said after a brief silence. "I called my nephew, who's with the tribal police, and waited for him to get here." He stood, quiet for a moment, looked at his feet, then back at Sage. "I went to Shiprock with the tribal police and gave another statement to the Farmington police. And the agent." He shrugged then and gazed out at the rock formation. "This road doesn't see many people," he continued, still staring toward Tse Bi dahi. "It's isolated." He turned back to Sage. "And not a place to be after dark."

  Something in the way he said it brought the creepy feeling back that I'd gotten talking about witches with Chris. He rubbed his jaw, an almost pensive gesture. Kara glanced at me, expression unreadable.

  "Is this a place you'd bring someone if you wanted to scare him?" Sage asked the question that was on my mind.

  Tom studied Sage for a long moment. "This is a place where bad things can happen. Not a place to be after dark," he repeated.

  "Mr. Manyhorses--" I started, then stopped, trying to decide how to ask my next question. "Did you--did you notice anything that you thought was strange when you saw him?" I avoided using Bill's name.

  "I didn't get very close," Manyhorses said, and he sounded like he regretted not being able to help us more. "But from what I saw, he had all his clothes. And the way he was lying on the ground, I did see one of his arms. It had a rope tied on it." He shook his head. "Somebody brought him out here."

  "You don't think he was already dead when somebody brought him out here?" I asked, pushing a little. Kara shot another inscrutable look at me.

  He was silent, considering. "No. Because if this somebody wanted to make sure he was never found, he would've driven past my turn-off. This road ends there, but there's an old road that goes on past that--a two-rut path, anymore, that goes south for a bit then a couple tenths of a mile east. You can't drive it unless you have high clearance. And at the end of that, there's a wash." He pointed. "I find dead cattle there every now and again. And once, two coyote skins." His eyes were almost black, and he and Sage locked gazes and I knew what his meaning was. The wash was witch country, or at least the locals believed it to be so. "Not a place to be, after dark." He repeated his mantra and a little chill crawled up my back.