Boy Made of Dawn

by R. Allen Chappell

  Boy Made of

  Dawn

  R. Allen Chappell

  Author’s Note

  In the back pages you will find a small glossary of Navajo words and terms used in the story, the spelling of which may vary somewhat depending on which “expert’s” opinion is referenced.

  Copyright © 2013 R. Allen Chappell

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1492358444

  ISBN-13: 978-1492358442

  Forth edition 7-22-14

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, including electronic media, without express permission of the author or his designated agents

  Table of Contents

  The Rescue

  The Uncle

  The Horse

  The Marksman

  The Revelation

  The Ute

  The Sniper

  The Meeting

  The Gathering

  The Surprise

  Glossary

  The Rescue

  Man has always felt most vulnerable in that lonely netherworld between darkness and dawn. Often it is then death takes the sick and weak. They give up finally, unable to bear the weight of another day. A person may—not knowing why—suddenly awaken, if only for an instant, to assure himself all is well.

  Charlie Yazzie woke that morning in the darkness with just such a feeling.

  It was now late afternoon, and hunger was finally getting the best of him. In old Navajo when one was hungry he said, “Hunger is hurting me.” Hunger was hurting Charlie now.

  On his way back from Blanding—entering Bluff, Utah, he was at the very northern edge of the reservation. Legal Services had sent him to take a follow-up deposition in a domestic violence case, one originating on the Navajo reservation. It had been a wasted trip. No one at the rural address knew the plaintiff or where she might be found. Either the contact information had been wrongly transcribed, or there was a mix-up in the case files.

  The only cafe in the town was nearly deserted. The girl who brought the menu and ice water seemed out of sorts, as though doing him a favor. He thought she might be Ute, maybe from the old Ute land allotments just up the road. It was just a hunch. She might as easily have been Piute. Charlie knew, early on, the government had scattered the few Piute in this area among the Ute, thinking them the same people. They later found this was not the case, but by that time it was too late, and they actually were pretty much the same people.

  “What’s good for dinner?” he asked with a smile.

  She studied him for a moment, taking in the fresh shirt, pressed jeans, and shiny boots. She had watched him pull up in the new Chevrolet truck with the tribal emblem on the side. “Well, there’s the Navajo taco platter,” she said with a slight smirk, jabbing her finger at the number on the menu. “These people around here seem to like it.” She did not smile when she said this.

  He nodded, purposely taking his time now with the menu, examining it as a condemned man might contemplate his last meal. The girl, who was dark skinned and had a twitch in her left eye, tapped her foot, pencil poised. There was always this little thing between Navajo and the Ute. It had been going on a very long time.

  It was Ute scouts who led Kit Carson in his roundup of the Navajo, causing their long walk to eastern New Mexico and interminable incarceration at Bosque Redondo. One hundred and fifty years later, it was still a sore subject, often vilified as the most horrifying event in Navajo history.

  The Navajo taco platter actually sounded pretty good, but he would not give this rude girl the satisfaction.

  “I’ll have the chicken-fried steak,” he said pointing at it, “with fries and extra gravy…and make that white gravy!” He wanted her to know he wasn’t from around there.

  Still, the smirk played at the corner of her mouth. “Salad dressing?”

  “Honey mustard…if you’ve got it.” He refused to be played.

  “We got it,” she declared with a curt bob of her head. “We don’t get much call for it…but we got it.”

  “I’ll have that dressing on the side, please,” he added firmly.

  She grimaced, writing the notation so hard she broke the pencil lead. She glared at the pencil then shot Charlie a hard look. “It’ll be right out.” She moved to the order window where he was pleased to see two older white women, with their hair in nets, in charge of the kitchen. He watched carefully to see she didn’t do anything to his food, but she knew better.

  Halfway through his dinner (which was surprisingly good) an older, rough-looking man came in and seated himself at the counter across the aisle from Charlie’s table. He was a big man for an Indian. The Ute girl moved quickly down the counter, speaking to him in a fashion indicating a certain familiarity. They whispered for a few minutes, the man turning on his stool a time or two, looking over at Charlie. Finally, he rose and came over to the table. “My name is Hiram Buck.” He didn’t offer his hand. “My niece over there says that’s your truck outside. Are you the law?”

  Charlie put down his fork and looked the man over, finally nodding. “In a way I suppose you could say I am. I’m with Navajo Nation Legal Services.” Charlie took a card from his shirt pocket and passed it to him. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “It’s not me that needs help.” The man looked briefly at the card. “But there’s a little boy out in the canyons who I think might. I was out there today gathering some stray stock and ran across him up in an old Anasazi ruin back in the canyons. He can’t be more than five or six years old. He ran and hid in the rocks when he saw I spotted him. My cows was getting away, and by time I had them settled he had just disappeared! He’s still up there somewhere, I expect, but dammed if I could find him. Anyway, I guess someone should go up there before something happens to him.” He raised his right hand as though swearing to the veracity of his statement. “There was no sign of anyone else around. I yelled and hollered but didn’t get no answer.” The man was becoming agitated. “It is five or six miles from the nearest road. I just can’t figure out why he might be up there all alone, that’s all. No one lives up that way that I know of.” He paused for a moment and looked Charlie directly in the eye. “There are a couple hours of daylight left. If you want me to, I can take you back up there or at least to the corrals where I left the stock. I left my horse up there too. You could use him to ride in if you wanted to. I’ll come back for the horse in the morning. I just think some kind of law should go up there and see what’s what!” The man stopped to catch his breath, watching intently to see what effect all this talk might be having on Charlie.

  Charlie, for his part, didn’t quite know what to make of it. He suspected there was a logical explanation for the boy being out there and thought it most likely someone was looking after him. There was little doubt, however, that this man was genuinely concerned.

  The man spoke again, slowly this time as though he thought Charlie might not understand what he was saying. “My Niece over there,” indicating the waitress with a nod of his head, “she says the local law had to take his wife to the hospital in Cortez a couple of hours ago, and there’s probably no one here in town can do anything. I think something ought to be done right now while there’s still enough daylight to get back up there!”

  Charlie pondered this for only a moment before putting some bills on the table. “Let’s go,” he said softly.

  As though on signal, the man’s niece took two bottles of water from the cooler and slid an apple pie into a cardboard box. She passed them to her uncle, who handed them to Charlie. “It might be a long night,” was all he said.

  ~~~~~~

  Hiram Buck knew the rutted roads like they were part of his DNA, which they probably were. Some think the Ute have been in that co
untry longer than anyone—even the Anasazi. They were a desperately poor people in the beginning, living in small isolated family bands. They had posed little threat to those who came after, at least until much later when they got a few horses away from the Spaniards. They were the first Indians to have horses. It was not long before they were a force to be reckoned with.

  Not many knew it, but Charlie had always held an interest in the pre-history of the Four Corners and its people. The University of New Mexico was a Mecca for some of the foremost scholars in the field, and he had taken classes from some of the best. More than one had tried to convince him to switch his major from law. He, however, thought he could do more good in the future than the past. He was learning of late that the two were often intertwined.

  Charlie was aware many of the indigenous peoples of an area often go back to a shared gene pool. In early days there was much raiding and taking of women and children. It is sometimes difficult for latter-day ethnologists to keep the various groups separated by genetic makeup alone.

  The Navajo adopted some of their culture from the ancient Pueblo peoples. Weaving and pottery making, along with rudimentary farming, were all thought to have been acquired from the Pueblos. After the introduction of sheep by the Spaniards, the Navajo took the craft of weaving to a new level. Their pottery, on the other hand, never seemed to advance beyond a plain cooking ware.

  A major point of differentiation among the groups was their language rootstock affiliation: Athabaskan for the Navajo/Apache, Shoshonean for the Ute, and several unrelated languages for the various Pueblo peoples. No one was really certain where some of those early Pueblo people came from, though there were plenty of theories.

  Some archaeologists believe the Ute may have descended directly from the early Paleo-Indian whose bones and spear points litter the Southwest—some as old as ten thousand years or more. The Ute had been rubbing elbows with the Navajo and their Apache cousins for nearly a thousand years. By the latter portion of that time, the three peoples shared a number of cultural traits. Charlie knew the Navajo’s genetic diversity might well be one reason they were one of the few modern tribes increasing in number.

  ~~~~~~

  It was all Charlie could do to keep up with Hiram Buck, even with the new truck. He tried the two-way radio several times in hopes of raising someone back at dispatch. He wanted to relay his change of plans, but, as often was the case in that country, the iron-bearing cliffs deflected the signal, leaving only static and distant garbled bits and snatches of voices.

  There was only about an hour of light left when they reached the trailhead. Hiram’s dilapidated stock trailer was backed up to the loading chute. Three cows lounged in the weathered cedar corrals. He had tied his horse on the shady side of the trailer where there were scattered flakes of hay on the ground. Hiram had removed the saddle from the horse before leaving, which told Charlie he had not been sure when he would return. Hiram backed his truck up to the trailer and lowered the hitch onto the ball then dragged his saddle from the back of the old pickup. Charlie, meanwhile, pulled on a Levi’s jacket and grabbed a blanket from the back seat of his Chevy. He also retrieved his revolver from the glove box and a folding knife he thought might come in handy. Hiram watched him out of the corner of his eye as he brought the horse around and bridled it. He left the halter and lead rope under the bridle, as is usual in that country. The saddle had a set of cheap canvas bags behind the cantle, the sort of tack auctioned off at a sale-barn before they settle on the more serious business of running the stock through.

  Hiram straightened the blanket for Charlie as he hefted the saddle on and cinched it up tight, causing the gelding to groan. This horse was full of hay, and he knew the cinch would loosen quickly enough. He didn’t want to stop and tighten it again if the trail got rough, and the trails in this country always got rough. Both men smiled when Charlie put the pie box in the saddlebag—that pie was in for a ride. He put the water bottles in the opposite saddlebag, tied his blanket roll over them, and was pretty much ready to go. Hiram pointed up the left fork of the trail and moved his chin in the direction of the corralled cows. “Those girls have to be at the sale barn in Cortez early in the morning…I can’t afford not to have them there.”

  Charlie nodded and swung up on the horse with a wave of his arm to Hiram, who was already moving to load the cows.

  All Charlie had to do was follow this horse’s tracks back up the canyon. He thought he could make it before darkness covered the trail, provided it was no farther than Hiram Buck had said. Tall, black thunderheads gathered like a war party in the Northwest, and he eyed them with a grim resignation.

  He had to kick-start the horse, who had it in mind to stay with the cows and Hiram. The gelding was none too happy to be headed back up the trail this late in the day, and with a stranger to boot. It was a good, stout horse. The Ute have always kept good horses.

  The trail was steep and rocky for the first mile or so, and Charlie had to stop and let the horse blow at the first switchback. Once out of sight of the trailhead, the gelding put his head down, getting his mind right. Charlie wondered if Hiram might want to sell this gelding. He had been thinking of getting a horse for some time. Some believe the Ute are a bit rough in their horse training, but you can count on their horses to do what they are asked to do, and you don’t have to ask them twice. Charlie noticed several sets of fresh horse tracks on the trail, but only old signs of cattle. Hiram must have driven his cows down the creek bed. The trail wound on up the canyon, often clinging to the side of the cliff in a rather alarming manner.

  He was nearly running out of daylight when he finally urged the sorrel gelding up the cedar slope that hid the ruins. It was a small site, probably no more than ten or twelve rooms, including a couple of small granaries against the back wall. Charlie had helped do volunteer fieldwork on several sites just like it at the university. He could see by the dark line of moss at the rear of the declivity that there was a seep with enough water for a thirsty boy.

  Charlie knew instinctively it would do no good to try to call the boy out in the dark. If the child had run from Hiram in the light of day, he would certainly do the same with him in the darkness. He also did not relish the thought of a precarious ride back down the canyon in the black of night. He quietly tied the gelding in the scrub oak near the ruin, rolling out his blanket in the soft duff under a juniper at the edge of the rocky walls. The boy would be watching now. Charlie hoped he would take some comfort from another human nearby. The clouds rolled in about midnight, and there was quite a display of lightning and thunder, but only a few drops of rain. There would be fear in the boy now, leaving him worn out by morning. Maybe then he would be ready to come out of hiding.

  Charlie Yazzie rolled over in his blanket, turning on one side to peer at the ruins through the shadowy darkness of pre-dawn. Death was never far away for these ancient people, and now after a thousand years it again seemed to hover in the shadows.

  The boy was there. Charlie could sense it. He knew time was not on his side. Another Navajo might not have lingered through a long, cold night at the edge of the ruined dwellings. Charlie Yazzie’s years at government boarding school and then university had stripped away superstitious fear of the dead—or nearly so.

  There was only a fine line of gray on the eastern mesas when Charlie shook off his blanket in the chill night air. He silently worked his way closer to the hollow walls, settling himself on the crumbling edge of the kiva to await the dawn.

  As first light touched the ruins, a small, quavering voice wafted up from the depths of the overhang. The almost indiscernible words were in Navajo—it was the Dinè blessing song sung to greet the day. Charlie’s grandmother had taught him this same song as a child. This boy had been brought up by someone who still believed in the Beauty Way. It was obvious now he was Navajo. Charlie stood and raised his voice above the breeze, singing along with the boy who faltered momentarily then picked up the thread of the last verse:

  Beau
ty above me

  Beauty below me

  Beauty all around me

  I walk in beauty

  The song is sometimes sung with slightly different words in the beginning, but always, the last verse is the same, and the little voice became stronger at the end. The boy cautiously emerged from the blackness at the back of the ruins and stood in the jumble of rocks and broken walls. Charlie averted his eyes as one would when dealing with a wild animal. Not looking directly at the boy, he retrieved the pie box and water bottles from the saddlebags. As he turned, he saw the child had come closer, standing in the warm halo of a breaking dawn. There was a glow about him as though he were made of dawn. He was a small boy for his age, which appeared to be about what Hiram Buck had reported. He was dirty, with the dust of the ruins in his hair, thin and hollow eyed. Dinè boys are born tough, capable of enduring physical hardship at a very young age, in olden times this endurance had been a prerequisite for survival.

  “Da dichin’ ninizen?” Charlie asked, holding out the pie box with its jumbled contents. The boy gave a slight nod of his head and inched forward to take a handful of the wrecked apple pie. Still, he said nothing, and Charlie did not push him to talk. They ate silently, not looking at one another, and drank the water. Charlie re-saddled the horse as he watched the boy finish the crumbs. “Are your people nearby?” he asked in Navajo. The boy shook his head indicating they were not. Charlie mounted the horse and offered the boy a hand up; he did not hesitate but swung up behind in silence.

  As they rode down the shadowed canyon trail in the cool of early morning, Charlie was glad the boy was at least wearing a heavy sweatshirt. The offer of his jacket had been refused. The Ute horse cautiously picked his way down a particularly rough stretch. As is often the case, the trail was more treacherous going down than coming up. Again, it occurred to Charlie what a fine horse this was. Not so much for looks, but it had good sense and was broke for anyone who could sit up straight and ride. They eased their way down toward a trickle of water meandering through a thin band of young cottonwoods. The horse had not drunk that morning, and Charlie let him leave the main trail and follow a well-beaten path to the stream. He could see by the tracks that this horse had watered there the previous day.