Navajo Autumn, page 1
part #1 of Navajo Nation Series
Navajo Autumn
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 “experts” opinion is referenced.
Copyright © 2013 R. Allen Chappell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1482393187
ISBN-13: 978-1482393187
Fourth edition 7-22-14 wd4
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
Spider Woman
The Gun
The Crow
The Tower
The Dog
Navajo Mountain
The witch
The Singer
The chase
Trail’s end
Glossary
1
Spider Woman
Just outside Farmington, New Mexico, the San Juan River swings in close to the highway to pick up a tributary at the mouth of a wide, nearly dry, streambed—La Plata, it’s called—not much more than a trickle usually, though it can be more if they get any rain up-country. The day they found Patsy Greyhorse’s body, it was just a trickle.
Nothing extraordinary in that. Navajos dead beside the highway are not uncommon in that country—drunk, some of them, wandering around in traffic at night, their eyes not reflecting the headlights like a deer or a horse.
Three things took this particular instance out of the ordinary: Patsy Greyhorse was not a Navajo, she had not been drinking, and she was very highly placed in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Thomas Begay, on the other hand—who was found sleeping under the bridge nearby—was a Navajo (drunk unfortunately) and of very unsavory character. It was only natural that the sheriff’s deputy should immediately arrest him, and by order of his superiors, cause Thomas to be taken to the county hospital for blood tests and evaluation. He arrived even before the remains of Patsy Greyhorse.
Thomas Begay, at twenty-nine years old, had never been inside a hospital even when being born. That un-noteworthy event took place in a summer hogan north of Tuba City. While his present surroundings were strange, the smell of the hospital was familiar, putting him in mind of the B.I.A dormitories and classrooms that were a sinister part of his childhood. Government school—he wouldn’t wish it on a dog. He had suffered no more than his father before him of course, but that had not made it any easier for Thomas Begay.
He couldn’t see any good coming from this county hospital, even though he had a fearsome headache, vision blurring in rhythm with each labored breath—trouble getting enough air, as though a steel band was drawn tight about his chest. Surely, he thought, a man of twenty-nine couldn’t be having a heart attack. There had been innumerable hangovers, but nothing like this. He was sober enough now to know he had been arrested but was still uncertain as to why. No matter, he had been arrested on a number of occasions, and, while never pleasant, he had come to accept it as the way in which he paid for the life he led—which is to say a very bad life indeed if you were to listen to talk on the reservation.
Thomas Begay lived with his ex-mother-in-law, a thing hard to understand if you are white. Should you be Navajo, however, it would be so horrific, so unfathomable as to generate outrage and disgust of monumental proportions. In the old times a man was not allowed even to look upon his mother-in-law, let alone speak to her. And here was Thomas Begay living with Lucy Tallwoman, whose daughter had left after one pitiful year of marriage. The girl, in shame, had left that part of the reservation and was said to be working in a back-alley bar in Gallup. She refused to discuss her mother or ex-husband, even when drinking, which she often was.
It should be mentioned that Lucy Tallwoman was an unusually good-looking woman for her age, which was probably no more than thirty-eight. A cheerful, hardworking weaver of blankets in the traditional manner—blankets bringing extremely high collector prices—making Lucy Tallwoman quite well off, relatively speaking. She did not drink.
She had borne her daughter out of wedlock when she was eighteen, the result of an unfortunate infatuation with a white music teacher at boarding school. That her daughter was part white was undeniable. It had been an unlucky mix in most people’s view as the daughter was quite plain and given to fits of depression. Thomas Begay, a fine-looking young man and one of great wit and charm when sober, attributed his young wife’s moodiness to this white blood and was prone to make excuses for her on that basis. (All this according to the local trader who was well up on the situation, having had an eye for Lucy Tallwoman and her blankets himself.)
~~~~~~
Thomas Begay sat handcuffed to the chromium arm of an emergency room lounge chair, mesmerized by a small brown spider that was lowering itself from the ceiling to the potted plant beside him. The deputy had hurried away to look for the E.R. nurse as there was no one at the check-in desk when they arrived.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” Thomas thought vaguely as he watched the spider, “That's the white way.” It was not a common spider, and Thomas Begay was trying to focus on it. Something about the way it hovered there at eye level, twirling this way and that on its silver strand, made him think of Spider Woman and the strange things his grandfather had told him as a child.
“Is that you, Spider Woman?” Thomas whispered, peering blearily at the little creature. “Have you come for me?” He leaned over the arm of the chair to better hear what the Spider Woman might have to say. As he put his full weight on the chair arm, he couldn’t help but notice that the weld holding it to the frame was not really welded at all, but had broken loose at some time in the past and was now held together only by the tension of the frame’s curvature.
Thomas Begay studied this new development, carefully adjusting his weight back and forth, watching the weld separate at the nearly indiscernible hairline crack. It finally dawned on him that indeed Spider Woman had come for him and that he had best be cooperating. Putting all his weight against the arm, he slipped off the steel ring and sat looking at his cuffed hand, now in his lap. “Thank you, Spider Woman,” he said quietly, rising unsteadily to his feet. His head felt much better while he was standing, and his breath came more easily too. Looking both ways down the hall, he put the manacled hand in his jacket pocket and moved away, opposite the direction taken by the deputy.
Coming out the back entrance of the hospital into the morning light, Thomas Begay’s eyes fell upon the patrol car. Surely the keys wouldn’t—but they were, and as he pulled out of the parking lot, he shook a finger in the rearview mirror and said, “You see how it is when you hurry up, hurry up all the time!”
The hospital stands at the edge of town on a hill above the river, and across the river, over the bridge, lie more than twenty-five thousand square miles of the Navajo reservation—possibly the largest Indian reservation in the world. The tribal council now refers to it as the “Navajo Nation.” Older Indians still refer to it as Dine’ Bikeyah “Navajo Country” but young people just call it “the Res.” Even today a person can become lost in its vastness, disappear, so to speak, should they be of a mind.
Thomas Begay drove very slowly in that overly cautious manner drunk people assume when trying to appear sober. As he crossed the bridge, he noticed the water was low, exposing large piles of driftwood which had collected against the buttresses, including a few cottonwood trees of considerable size.
~~~~~~
Navajos as a rule are not good swimmers, and Thomas hated the very thought of it. The cold water caused him to suck in his breath, though it was quite shallow—four feet at the most. Easing along underneath the bridge until he reached the driftwood, he selected the broken-off top of a cottonwood tree that still had some upper branches and even leaves attached. Pushing it out into the river, he floated alongside, his body submerged, his head hidden in the leaves, the toes of his tennis shoes bouncing softly along the rocky bottom. Far away in the distance, he could hear the faint wail of sirens. He smiled to himself through chattering teeth. They will search every arroyo from the river to the bluffs before they think of the water. And of course he was right.
~~~~~~
Charlie Yazzie was investigating the disappearance of four sheep and an Angora goat over in Hunter’s Wash when the call came from headquarters, touching off the horn alarm on his vehicle. He would not ordinarily have been called out for missing sheep except that the complaint had come from his grandmother Mary Plenty Goats, who had specifically requested her grandson. Sue Hanagarni, who was on the switchboard at the time, had gone to high school with Charlie and thought it would be a fine joke to put the report through on the air. “...Yes, Charlie, your grandmother says Samuel Shorthair already came out but that he can’t find his ass with both hands. She wants those animals back. The goat is due to kid-out any time, and it’s that good one you bought her at the fair last fall.” Sue Hanagarni was laughing so hard now she had to turn off the microphone but not before Charlie heard Pete Fish in the background, “This is the big one Charlie! Show them what you can do.” Charlie would hear about this for a while.
Charlie often talked about the “Big One”—the case that would someday come along and make legal services sit up and take notice, the one that would be his ticket into the law offices where he rightly belonged. Graduating law school at the University Of New Mexico the previous fall, Charlie had found the only thing available on the reservation was this special investigator position—just another fancy name for a legal department gofer as far as Charlie was concerned. “Legal staffs full up,” said the interviewer, a heavy-set Bitter Water clan woman with thick glasses. “We’ll give you a call as soon as something turns up. Just hang in there.”
It had been nearly a year now and Charlie was still hanging. What made the situation even more depressing was that he had virtually no options. Interviewing with several private firms in Farmington had shown there was little chance of an Indian being hired outside the reservation. White clients would be leery of an Indian attorney, and the Indians, of course, would avail themselves of the legal services offered by the tribe. This was the dilemma facing many graduating Navajo professionals. That was just the way it was. But Charlie didn’t have to like it.
Sue Hanagarni had been much more serious the second time she called. She had given him everything they had on Patsy Greyhorse and told him about Thomas Begay escaping in the deputy sheriff’s patrol unit. Charlie could tell she was excited. “There’s an inter-agency meeting in Farmington in one hour, and you’re the only one close enough to get there in time. The boss says go for it! …And Charlie,” she added with a touch of awe in her voice, “this really might be the big one.”
“Inter-agency meeting” meant the Feds would be there, along with the state patrol, the sheriff’s office of course, and probably the local police too. Charlie wondered if the sheriff would have the nerve to show up himself or send a deputy, maybe even the one that let Thomas Begay escape.
Thomas Begay—again? It had been only last week that he had given him a friendly warning about driving without a license. It had been on a back road on the reservation between Lucy Tallwoman’s camp and the trading post. Charlie hadn’t wanted to make a big deal of it. Technically, Thomas really hadn’t been driving at all, just passed out in the truck which was nosed over in the ditch beside the road.
He had known Thomas a long time, had, in fact, always liked him. Like Sue Hanagarni and himself, Thomas had gone to school at the same government boarding facilities. He had been one of the brightest boys in their class and an all-state quarterback. It just seemed that nothing ever turned out right for Thomas. He had knocked around the reservation for the last few years working as a mechanic, then construction on several government projects. After marrying a girl no one knew from over around Shiprock, he took to doing some serious drinking. A year later he was separated and living with his mother-in-law.
“Whew!” Charlie thought, rubbing his forehead. “You just never know.” Thomas Begay didn’t seem the type. He glanced at his watch, reaching down to hit the flashers, kicking it up to seventy, which he thought he could get away with, at least on the reservation.
Charlie was late despite all and ran up the steps of the federal building and into the conference room in time to hear sheriff’s deputy Dudd Schott telling the assemblage how Thomas Begay had wrenched the arm off a lounge chair in order to make his escape, using car keys he had obviously lifted from Dudd’s belt on the way into the hospital. Dudd’s face was livid, and his little pig-eyes darted from person to person during the telling as if daring anyone to question any part of it. One of the FBI agents, a small but distinguished-looking man in a three-piece, pinstripe, held up a hand and asked if the keys to the handcuffs had been on the car ring. Dudd beamed triumphantly and said, “You bet your ass they weren’t,” digging in his uniform pocket and producing the keys in question. “That navvy will be wearing those bracelets for a while, I expect.”
The federal agent, nodding thoughtfully, stood up, and, noticing Charlie, motioned him to a chair at the end of the table. “So, Gentlemen, let me reiterate briefly what we have here so far...and I must say it isn’t much.” The agent went over the sheriff’s report, calling to their attention that Patsy Greyhorse was a Sioux woman recently appointed by the BIA to look into certain dealings within the Navajo tribe. She was an expert on water rights and acquisition and was to have delivered a report to a tribal conference the previous night in Window Rock. She had last been seen at her motel where she was to freshen up before meeting acquaintances for lunch. Her body had been spotted by a passing tourist from Ohio, who had stopped at 6:15 that morning to relieve himself beside the La Plata Bridge. How she had wound up over a hundred miles to the north was just one of the unanswered questions. There would be an information package for each of them at the end of the conference, including a preliminary coroner’s report, pictures (including file photos of Thomas Begay), and more background on Patsy Greyhorse. The agent asked if there were any further questions, looking slightly irritated when Charlie Yazzie held up his hand. “Yes?”
“Excuse me ...I arrived late. Could you tell me how close Thomas Begay was to the body when apprehended?” The federal agent pointed a finger at Dudd Schott, who frowned as he looked over at Charlie whom he knew slightly and considered much too uppity for an Indian.
“He was passed out under the bridge when I found him maybe ten-fifteen feet from the body, but he had blood on his shirt and his face was scratched. The deputy hesitated, “It’s all in the report.” The thought of an Indian being a special investigator with a law degree annoyed Dudd, who had barely made it through the New Mexico Police Academy, even with the help of his wife’s cousin, who was on the examining board. He and Charlie had bumped heads several times in the past when Dudd had been harassing Indians around town. The Indians referred to him as “Deputy Dog” and laughed behind his back. Dudd knew Charlie had no jurisdiction outside the reservation, just as Dudd had very little inside. The federal agent in charge dismissed the meeting with a final notation that Washington was “quite concerned and expected no stone to be left unturned.”
Dudd Schott caught up with Charlie in the parking lot. “Where you reckon that little bastard Begay will head for?” He was wheezing from the short run across the lawn. Dudd didn’t care for Indians in general, and it irritated him to have to call on one for help. That back-to-the-blanket sonofabitch Thomas Begay would pay for making him out to be a fool.
Charlie stopped and looked Dudd square in his fat face, causing Dudd to turn even redder. “The reservation,” he said quietly, turning his back on him.
As Charlie drove off, Dudd was still standing in the parking lot, red-faced and glaring. “No-talkin’ sons-a-bitches,” he wheezed.
Charlie really didn’t know exactly where Thomas Begay might go for sure, but it would be somewhere on the reservation all right—that’s where all Navajos head when they are in trouble. He didn’t mind Dudd knowing. Dudd had little jurisdiction there. Only federal and tribal officers held any real authority on the reservation.
~~~~~~
Lucy Tallwoman patted her old father’s knee as they drove away from the supermarket. “Well, we got everything you like,” she said hopefully in Navajo. “Strawberry cream soda, canned tomatoes, and Oreo cookies,” enumerating these last items in English as that was easier. The old man gave no sign that he heard or approved of the purchases. He was nearly seventy-five years old and of that contrary frame of mind old people sometimes fall into. She had been late this morning picking him up for their regular Sunday outing, and he was not in the mood to overlook it.
“Look there!” she gestured. “Someone has brought a horse and wagon to town. You certainly don’t see that much anymore.” The old man lifted his head in momentary interest. He looked at the old couple driving the spring-wagon in mild surprise.
“I know those people,” he said, slowly turning in his seat. “Those are the people who used to live down by Nageezi trading post in the sand wash. I went to help out at a Sing there a long time ago, a Night Chant for their son who was very sick…even helped with the sand painting ...that was when I was still studying to be Hataalii.” He shook his head sadly, looking down at his hands. “The Night Chant is a long sing…on the last day the boy died.”
Lucy looked over at her father, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Well, they must live around here now. They didn’t drive that wagon very far I bet. Do you wanna stop and say hello? We got plenty of time.”
