The Darkness Rolling
by Win Blevins
Upon his return from World War II, Seaman Yazzie Goldman realizes that not much has changed at his family's trading post in Monument Valley—and yet everything is different. His grandfather, Moses Goldman, has suffered a debilitating stroke, and while Yazzie's mother Nizhoni is doing her best, the post is slowly falling apart. Nizhoni is thrilled that Yazzie has returned to help bring the trading post back to prosperity. Excitement comes from the nearby filming of a John Ford movie starring Henry Fonda. Director Ford enlists the tall, strong, half-Navajo and half-Jewish Yazzie to serve as a translator, and as a bodyguard for the beautiful actress Linda Darnell. Someone is sending Linda threatening letters, and as Yazzie investigates, he finds himself falling for her. Yazzie isn't the only one to have recently returned home. A man who calls himself Zopilote, the Buzzard, has spent the last twenty-five years in jail steeping himself in the ancient Navajo chant...