Face of the Earth

by Doug Raber

  She thought about driving back to Levels, but that could be another dead end. She was sure she had pasted the Post-it into her notebook. But it was gone! I have to figure this out now. I’ll try “wallingsx” first.

  Carefully, Sarah began to type. This was no time for a clumsy keyboard mistake. Then she moved the cursor down to the password box and entered the letters for Sarah-boo and clicked on the box that said “log in.” For a few seconds nothing happened, and then the icon in the task bar began to show the growing dotted line that indicated progress in exchanging information with the server. The screen went blank, and as Sarah held her breath, a new page loaded. “Oh crap,” she muttered to herself quietly, mindful of the library’s policies on inappropriate behavior. There at the top of the page, in a bright red font, was the following message:

  Log in Error: The Username and Password combination that you have entered is not valid.

  She double-checked to make sure the Caps Lock wasn’t on and then tried the other Username, sxwalling. Again, the screen went blank—and then the same bright red error message appeared. This isn’t an auspicious start to my career as a spy.

  It could have been any of a million different possibilities, but Sarah was absolutely convinced that she was on the right track. But there were some other possibilities. It has to be the hyphen. A lot of sites don’t let you use anything other than the standard letters and numbers. I bet he would have left it out.

  For her third attempt, Sarah returned to the first username, wallingsx, but now the tried Sarahboo without a hyphen for the password. The result was the same: “Log in Error.” If they’re tracking by this computer’s IP address, I may already have used up my three tries before they shut me out. I hope it’s only by username. Trying to be meticulous—this was no time to screw up by entering the same incorrect combination twice—Sarah wrote down the combinations she had tried in her notebook. Next would be sxwalling and Sarahboo. Once again, the error message appeared.

  She tried again to visualize the name on the envelope that she had taken from her father’s safe the night before. She closed her eyes … and there it was! The name on the envelope was completely in lowercase. Typing carefully, she went back to wallingsx and then entered sarah-boo.

  Sarah clenched her teeth and hit the enter key. For a few seconds there was nothing. Then—Shit!—the error message. Sarah looked quickly over her shoulder, worrying that she might have sworn aloud, but she saw the librarian nearby with her head still down, focused on her work.

  At least I know that they don’t just shut you out after the first two tries for the username. But it was a small consolation, because Sarah knew she was running out of chances. She had used “wallingsx” three times, and her next attempt would be the third try with “sxwalling.” If she didn’t get the password right this time it was almost certain that the system would not let her try a fourth time.

  Deliberately, Sarah keyed in sxwalling and sarah-boo. But then she erased the password and typed it again, using just her two index fingers. I can’t afford any typing mistakes now.

  It seemed to take forever, and Sarah wasn’t even aware that she was holding her breath. Once more, the screen went blank, and slowly a new screen began to load. This time the red lettering was missing. Instead she saw a different word at the top of the screen. It said “Welcome.” Finally, her breath came out with an audible whoosh, as she read further and saw the options for her account.

  She saw the choice she wanted: “check your balance,” and the next screen asked her to enter the numbers on her card. She keyed in the 16-digit card number along with the month and day shown below it and hit the enter key. There it was! “Your current balance is $9,500.00.”

  Immediately moving to put her body in front of that number, Sarah clicked on the “log out” icon. She certainly didn’t want anyone else to see that she was carrying around that sort of money. She also did her best to clean up her tracks on the computer, deleting the history of sites that she, and everyone preceding her, had visited and clearing all cookies that might also indicate what she’d been doing. It wouldn’t prevent a serious forensic team from tracing her activities, but she knew it would stop a curious librarian dead in her tracks. Now she had the information she needed about the debit card. She was ready for her next task, the final item on her list.

  * * *

  Day 27: Tickets

  Sarah logged on to a travel site and clicked on “find flights.” She selected DCA, Washington’s Reagan National Airport, as her starting point and then entered Cortez, Colorado as the destination city. She didn’t know if there was an airport anywhere in the vicinity. She specified the next day for departure, and a return date for Saturday, hoping that Tuesday through Saturday would be enough. She clicked on the “find flights” button and waited for the next screen. Not again! There was a message in red letters:

  Sorry, no flights were found.

  At first she thought that there might be no airport in the region, but she noticed that a three-letter code had appeared in the field for the destination city. Weird. If there’s an airport, why aren’t there any flights? A Google search, for “Cortez” and “airport” produced the information she was after.

  Cortez Municipal Airport, located at 22874 CR F, Cortez, Colorado serves Cortez as well as the entire Montezuma County area. … Great Lakes Aviation serves the community's commercial aviation needs.*

  The link to Great Lakes Aviation sent her on another search, this time for “Essential Air Service,” Sarah learned about a federal program that provided a minimum level of commercial air service to small, often remote, communities. There was a link to a list of cities that included Cortez, and it said that there was service to Denver. All right! She felt like yelling out a cheer. This looks like I can do it after all. Sarah went back to the travel site and this time entered Denver as the point of origin. She hit the enter button and watched the screen go blank before reloading the results.

  When the hand fell on her shoulder Sarah almost jumped through the ceiling. She wasn’t sure if her heart had actually stopped beating for a few seconds or if it had just started beating so hard that the difference made it seem that way. She turned in her chair to see the face of the librarian. “I’m sorry to disturb you ma’am, I just wanted to let you know that usually we have a 30-minute limit on these terminals, and you’ve been here longer than that. But I guess since nobody’s waiting, you can go ahead for a little while longer.”

  Sarah choked out a “thank you,” and tabbed to another browser window in the hope of hiding the information on her screen from the librarian. She wondered how long the woman had been standing behind her before saying something. Not much I can do about that. Except to hurry up and get the hell out of here.

  She went back to the other window, and the screen had refreshed to show several alternatives for her request. She selected the one that she knew would enable her to make Denver connections from Washington. To give herself ample time, she decided that an overnight in Denver would be the best way to travel on her return trip. Then she added in the Washington flights.

  Tue, Dec 3 Frontier Airlines, depart Washington 9:00am, arrive Denver 11:10am

  Tue, Dec 3 Great Lakes Aviation, depart Denver 2:43pm, arrive Cortez 4:03pm

  Sat, Dec 7 Great Lakes Aviation, depart Cortez 4:17pm, arrive Denver 5:30pm

  Sun, Dec 8 Frontier Airlines, depart Denver 7:30am, arrive Washington 12:45pm

  Sarah realized that she hadn’t been paying any attention to costs, but if she survived this whole adventure and got the story she expected, the Post would pay for everything. In the meantime, the prepaid Visa card did the job, and the computer informed her that her e-tickets were ready to go. She could check in at an automated kiosk at the airport.

  One more thought occurred to Sarah. The last thing her dad had said in their phone conversation was that he’d send her an e-mail. Since everything in that entire conversation seemed to have been designed to tell her things in a way that nobod
y else would understand, she realized that this was one more clue in her puzzle. She had checked her regular e-mail accounts, and was no message from her dad. Suddenly, it was obvious. He’s set up a new account for me, and I’ll bet anything that he used the same username and password. There was only one question. “What service provider?”

  She was confident that that it was a free e-mail service, probably Gmail or Yahoo. She decided to try Yahoo first. But when she entered the username and password, she saw the red lettering:

  Invalid ID or password.

  She hoped one wrong guess didn’t mean much. It had taken six tries for the debit card. Still convinced that she already knew the correct username and password, she went to the Google site and selected Gmail. She entered the username and password and hit the enter button. This time, she saw the phrase, “loading sxwalling@gmail.com …” There it is!

  There was one message, and clearly it was from her dad, even though it wasn’t from his regular account. He’d used the same style as Sarah to set up his username, rxwalling, and this meant that another line of safe communication might be available if she really got into trouble.

  The subject line of the message was a nine-digit number with hyphens in all the right places. It’s the social security number. She quickly copied that down in her notebook as she clicked on the message to open it.

  The message was short: “You’re doing great, and I’m proud of you. When you get that new phone, try 447-245-4477. love.” There was no signature, but the word “love” spoke volumes to Sarah. She wrote down the phone number, closed out the Gmail screen, and signed out from the Gmail site.

  Worried that the librarian would interrupt her again, Sarah did another quick cleanup of the temporary Internet files and browser history. Then she logged off the computer, made certain she had her notebook and wallet, and walked toward the door, nodding politely to the librarian as she left.

  Sarah made one stop on the way home from West Virginia. At the top of the long hill on the outskirts of Romney, she pulled into a shopping center, where there was a retail outlet for a cell phone company. Having another prepaid cell phone might be an absolute necessity as she moved forward with her plans. And now that she had identification as Sarah Wallingford, she could buy another phone without having to make up stories about having lost her wallet and ID.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  Redhouse

  The first monster the Twins destroyed was Yeetso (‘Big Monster’), who roamed the sacred mountain Tsoodzil (Mount Taylor) in New Mexico. One of the best ways to overcome or weaken a monster is to name it. The Navajo name for uranium is Leetso, meaning ‘yellow brown’ or ‘yellow dirt,’ after the color of the uranium-bearing ore. Tsoodzil is where the world’s largest underground uranium mine would be built. Leetso, the yellow monster, was let loose in Dinè’tah, in Navajoland.

  —‘Leetso,’ the Yellow Monster: Uranium Mining on the Colorado Plateau‡

  Day 1: Woodrow Sorrelhorse

  “I’m back, Dad. Thanks for … for watching Jackson. It’s really a big help when you do things like that, when Jack isn’t here.”

  “I’m always glad to help, Evelyn. Whatever I’m able to do.”

  Evelyn put the groceries away and brought the laundry into the living room so she could watch television while she was folding. The house was small. There was the kitchen and the living room, then a small hallway that led to the bathroom and two bedrooms.

  Evelyn’s father could no longer live on his own. His lungs were in bad shape. He shared a room with his grandson, Jackson.

  Her father had stayed there another time, years earlier, before his illness was so severe. It was back in 2004, when Jack’s reserve unit was called up to go to Iraq. Back then, long before the baby was born, the father was taking care of the daughter.

  Her dad was still a big help at times. Little Jackson adored his grandfather, and if Evelyn needed to run a quick errand, he could keep an eye on Jackson for a few minutes.

  A lot of the older Navajo men suffered lung disease from working in the uranium mines. Woodrow Sorrelhorse had been a vigorous man in his youth, and handsome too. Evie had photographs. But his health had gone downhill the past several years. He needed extra oxygen to breathe, and even with that he was at high risk of getting lung cancer.* He had taken care of her when she was a child. Now it was her turn.

  Evelyn smiled, and for a moment, she was lost in her own thoughts. “Dad, do you remember when Jack and I first met?”

  “Course, I do. Your cousin Annie introduced you. And you were both so worried that he was older than you and I wouldn’t approve. That man was scared half to death when he came over to our house to talk to me. To get my permission to ask you out on a date.”

  “Well, he was a lot older, and he’d even served in the Marines—in the first Gulf War.”

  “That just made him a little smarter than some of the kids your own age. Jack is a good man, Evelyn. Always has been. I knew that from the beginning.”

  Evelyn leaned over and gave her father a hug.

  “Are you ever sorry that you didn’t get to follow your dream, Evie? To go to college and everything? Your high school teacher convinced your mother and me that you could do that.”

  Her eyes misted slightly. “No way, Dad. How could I ever regret what I have now with my family? You, Jack, and now Jackson? There’s nothing to be sorry about. And I’ll still go to college. I’m just not getting there as quick as I first planned.”

  He nodded sadly. “I guess you’re right. Jack is a good husband and a good Marine. I was worried when he first came back from Iraq, though. He was pretty messed up then.”

  “I remember. He was so moody and withdrawn. It was bad. But you helped him, Dad.”

  “Wasn’t really me. He helped himself. But it sure took him a while to get ready for it.”

  “Yeah, almost a year, I think. He didn’t trust anybody. To tell them what he was feeling.”

  Evelyn remembered trying to get him to go to the VA center in Farmington. “I knew they had a counselor over at the VA, but he wouldn’t go. Said he couldn’t talk about his problems with the other men he’d served with. That it wasn’t the way a Marine handled himself. It was only after you talked to him, Dad. When you took him to the medicine man.”

  Woodrow Sorrelhorse reached out and took his daughter’s hand. “Has he ever told you about that, Evie? About what I said to him? And what the medicine man told him?”

  “No, Dad. He’s always kept it to himself.”

  “Maybe it’s time for you to know. Not the details. That would be for him to tell you. But I told him that I understood better than he thought. Jack didn’t know that I’d been in Vietnam. That when I came back home, I was a lot like him. I told Jack how old Charley Goodluck had brought me to visit an old friend, a Diné medicine man, and he was able to help me. I said, ‘Jack, I think it’s time I did that for you.’”

  “What did he say to you? The medicine man?”

  “He spoke in a way that meant something to me as a Navajo. I think I still remember the exact words. ‘When we leave the land and ways we know to take up a rifle and kill, we are cursed. We use tradition to remove that curse.’* He said those were the words of another medicine man he knew.”

  “And that’s what he said to Jack, too?”

  “Can’t say for sure what he told Jack, but I bet it was about the same. That was when Jack started learning how to talk with his fellow veterans.”

  “And to me, too. It was when everything started to get better. Sometimes I think we forget how important it is to rely on our traditions. I’m so glad you were there to help Jack back then. To help both of us. If I never said it before, thank you for that.”

  Her father simply squeezed her hand tightly. But there was a look of contentedness on his face as his eyes closed.

  “You’re tired, Dad. Why don’t you sleep for a few minutes?

  Evelyn listened to the rhythmic sounds from the oxygen machine.
She found it comforting. Click click click … sigh. Click click click … sigh. It reminded her of the sound of the aerator in the fish tank that they had at school.

  Her father said the sound made him sad. Like a roller coaster that never made it to the top of the first hill. Always a sigh of defeat.

  Evelyn worked full time as a teacher’s aide, and the teacher she worked with was wonderful. Jillian Sommerset. Jillian came to Farmington as part of a program called Teach for America. She was a mentor to Evelyn, and she had been encouraging when Evelyn confided that she wanted to continue her education.

  Jack was supportive, too. More than once, he told Evelyn that she was a born teacher. As soon as he could make enough money, she could stop working and go to college. Now he was the foreman on the construction worksite, and his paycheck had grown. And they had the house, just across the river from Farmington, just inside the reservation. It wasn’t large, but it was theirs.

  Evelyn looked over at the computer on the small table, near her father’s chair. It had been a surprise gift from Jack on her last birthday. She thought back to her high school biology lab, where she learned to use a microscope. She remembered the magic of looking at what she had called “the little bugs that you couldn’t see at all just with your eyes.” As soon as she could save up enough money, she was going to buy a microscope. She had been looking on eBay, and she knew she would be able to find a real bargain if she just kept trying.

  She already had things to look at. Several months earlier, she found a posting for “microscope slides” on eBay. A collection prepared by physician way back in the 1940s. She was excited when she told Jillian about it the next day. “I put in a bid, and I got it. For only two dollars. And free shipping.”

  Click click click … sigh. Click click click … sigh. Evelyn looked up from the laundry and glanced at her father, who had awakened from his nap. She smiled at him, and he nodded back, still sleepy. Her father was one of Dr. Parker’s patients now. Evelyn wasn’t the only member of the family who was indebted to the physician. “Do you remember when I worked for Dr. Parker, Daddy? He was really good to me that summer. He’ll help me when it comes time to go on to college.”