by Jon Foyt
Ocotillo Omen
by
Lois Foyt and Jon Foyt
Copyright 2010 by Lois Foyt and Jon Foyt
All characters in this short story are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons living or dead is coincidental.
Ocotillo Omen, a short story
She stared for a long time at the Ocotillo plant in the protected courtyard garden of the Palace of the Governors, New Mexico’s flagship museum of Southwestern treasure. The multiple unbranched stems of the thorny cactus-like shrub were sprouting their tiny green leaves of spring, yet the time was midwinter in Santa Fe. The courtyard’s spreading old Cottonwood centerpiece was bare, and snow covered its tree branches. Museum Director Lee Roberts shivered at the thought of her own barrenness, having devoted her life to her career instead of mothering a child. Yes, the Ocotillo plant was reminding her of Running Deer’s special baby, born on the very day she had opened her museum’s exhibition of magnificent 10th- and 11th-century Mimbres and Anasazi pottery—the pièce de résistance of last August’s Indian Market Week, beautiful pottery with designs so precise, so imaginative, so ingenious as to rival any metropolitan museum’s artwork.
Lee thought back on her participation in the modern evolution of a museum’s role in cultural society and how, in addition to expanding permanent collections and hosting the occasional traveling exhibit, museums had to initiate super shows focusing on a single subject of artistic achievement in order to compete for super money from super donors—foundations, corporations and wealthy individual benefactors. She and her staff, in a culmination of five years of meticulous work, had inaugurated on that portentous night the super bowl of priceless prehistoric Native American artwork. And for the first time in the museum’s opening night history, they had collected one thousand dollars from each person who craved to see the splendor.
The sheltering tent outside the museum’s entrance had bubbled with caterers, benefactors, and dignitaries clinking glasses of champagne. The strolling mariachi band serenaded thousands of the wealthy-privileged from New York, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles, who were dressed in the tuxedos and evening finery of those metropolitan cities, not the bluejeans and cowboy boots of New Mexico. Even the parking valets wore formal attire this night.
Lee remembered how, in her strapless evening gown, the warm summer breeze caressed her shoulders. Was her Dallas-designer creation passé, reminiscent of the 1960s instead of a statement for the 21st century? No, for a museum director, the dress was perfect, complemented as it was with the delicate Zuni turquoise necklace. She had accepted a kiss on her cheek from the governor and returned one to the mayor, welcomed each of the benefactors, exhibiting the correct degree of sensuality to male Manhattan moneyed while smiling into the television cameras.
Yes, those moments had promised a springboard to exciting opportunities to advance her career. Oh, to re-live those moments, to stop the clock, to not have had those dreadful next moments crash down upon her. She chided herself for having turned a blind eye to the country’s recent pertinent federal legislation and thereby inviting dire consequences, but who would have anticipated how cataclysmic the night would turn out to be.
Seventeen blue vans careened from all directions into the historic plaza in front of the Palace of the Governors. Five times as many agents wearing blue jackets, each displaying those authoritative three yellow capital letters, FBI, charged through the tent and into the museum carrying packing crates and packaging materials, their weapons in plain view. Their field commander spoke into his bullhorn, bellowing for everyone to stand perfectly still, not to leave, and not to obstruct the raid. “Under the provisions of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the FBI believes this entire collection of pots has been stolen from sovereign Indian nations and, if our experts so agree, the whole lot will be returned to their rightful owners.”
Infuriated, Lee stepped up to the FBI field commander and demanded that he and his goons leave immediately. He had dismissed her with, “Stand aside, honey, we’ve got an 18-wheeler outside waiting to load up these dishes.”
Bristling, she shouted back at him, “Why are you singling us out—what about the National Gallery, the Smithsonian, the Peabody—are they next on your hit list? No? Are we a political target, then?”
“We’re just doin’ our job, lady.”
The governor and the mayor had tiptoed away into the dark night. At the edge of the plaza, she saw the Indians. They were no doubt gathering in celebration of bursting the balloons of Anglo domination. Having come from the twenty modern-day pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, they were hoisting hand-lettered placards written in their native languages of Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Nahuatl, Penutian, and Keresan. Lee translated the phrase “return our sacred art” on each sign. She realized that they had known about the raid in advance—probably had been the ones to tip off the FBI.
When word spread among them of Running Deer’s delivery of her milky-skinned albino baby, they cheered that news as being a sacred sign as momentous as the birth of a white buffalo, an event signifying great change for Native Americans everywhere. Drummers began to beat the seminal message for all to hear. Their ominous repeated thumps added to the night’s tension.
Running Deer’s husband, gallery owner Paul Zimmerman, was as angry as Lee with the raid. “Who the hell does the Federal Bureau of Investigation think they are, coming in here and ripping off these treasures? Is it for their own gain?”
Lee tried to recall the sequence of events. It was only hours later that a grief-stricken Paul told her that his baby had been kidnapped from the hospital. In his bewilderment he said he suspected that the ransom note demanding three million dollars was from his black market pothunters who hadn’t been paid. He told her he couldn’t go to the police or the FBI knowing he, too, was guilty of accepting illegally acquired loot. She panicked because he had loaned these prized pots to the museum’s exhibition, and at that very moment his “collection,” along with all the other priceless pottery, was being packed into FBI crates to be carried off to who knows where.
A clumsy FBI agent dropping the classic Mimbres bowl, the shattering crash breaking into a thousand shards the black on white scene of a rabbit, a star, and the A.D. 1054 supernova, and the cries of the aghast onlookers caused Lee to grab a gun from the first holster she could reach. To everyone’s shock, the weapon discharged toward the ceiling before she leveled the barrel directly at the field commander. “I’ll shoot this G-man if anyone as much as looks at another pot,” she screamed. “Do any of you FBI agents realize the significance of the Mimbres bowl you just demolished?” Struggling to regain her composure, Lee continued, “These prehistoric people, who had no written language, communicated this rare celestial event to us through their art. We have written proof of this extraordinary explosion in the heavens from an ancient royal Chinese astrologer who wrote about it in court journals. And now,” Lee choked up, “you...you’ve destroyed America’s only register of this 11th-century cosmic phenomenon!”
Lee remembered how the lone Indian potter from Acoma calmed her and the crowd with his carefully chosen words. “Many moons ago, our potters deftly coiled their ropes of palm-rolled clay to form these hand-crafted vessels. They painted, fired, and polished these cooking and storage utensils for use in their daily lives. What would these early potters say to us now in this summer of our disputes? They would counsel reflection on all sides.”
He was right, Lee reflected. It was time to question every museum’s mission. Beginning in the late 19th century those early archaeologists dispatched to the Southwest by the National Geographic, the Smithsonian, and the Peabody, as well as those archaeologists who came later, rationalized that only learned Anglo scholars could interpret Native American values through th
eir analysis of collected artifacts. Hundreds of academic careers and museum collections had been built around illegally acquired potteryware from one field expedition after another—the treasure hunts of their times.
But what if these professional and amateur archaeologists hadn’t excavated the ancient ruins? What if the 1990 Graves Repatriation Act had been passed along with the Antiquities Act back in 1906 and the pottery left undisturbed, would the Indians have built museums to display their “sacred” art? Would they have educated the world’s children about their heritage? No, she had told herself in justifying the actions of the archaeologists. The lore of New Mexico, the lure of tourism, the grist for the academic mill, and the inspiration for the art world would still be buried in remote sites in the high deserts of the Southwest.
Lee reflected on how a lot of her male museum colleagues had fabricated false provenances for each piece in their
