Chapter Twenty - the Game Begins

They liked my jewelry, said Judy.  The old woman stared at it for a long time, before we went back to meet.
They called me "Sue Deal" as my name to be used when I enter the Navajo land.  They gave me a pendant to bring with me.
 She held out a pendant for Chuy to look at.  He took it slowly.
 ,

Chapter Nineteen - At Hernandez Place

The little homestead got right off called the Hernandez place.  You call things for what they are.

Not much to tell about the next day at the Hernandez place.  There was a lot of weeping, and hugging, and looking mournful; and talking about the damnfool stuff that twenty-year-old girls chat about, I suppose.  And talk.  And talk.  And sleep and eat and talk, and all that.  They didn't come out for that day.  Nobody came by.

Until near sunset, when up comes Chúy, looking like he come down from the mountains.  He stood near the stairs up to the house, slump-shouldered and looking about at the sky like a standing bear.  Whatever he was curious about, it wasn't there.  He walked up the stairs gently, creaking under his weight.  He knocked on the lintel by the red patch.

Judy opened the door, June behind her.  Judy's face lit up - "Chúy!" she called out.  He stepped in, leaned down a bit for a hug.  He smiled at June, hugged her too.  "This is Jesús," explaining to June, hardly necessary.  They settled into the front room.  Judy had hauled a big, overstuffed, oversized chair in for the front room, nearly the size of a loveseat.  Judy gestured to it - "sit down, sit down!"

Chúy looked wistful.  "You went to my home," he said.  "I miss my home.  We shall be returning in a few months, when September comes.  I miss the wildlands.  I miss my friends."

Judy spoke, looking rather regretful.  "Chúy, we are forbidden from entering the Great Valley except when we are on mission to the Navajo.  They have taken the Great Valley back as their land.  They are barring the land from Dawn Mountain to Santa Fé to Pueblo from travelers. Bilgaana who trespass their land will be killed, with no exception.  Even those from the Free Zone may not enter except under certain explicit rules."

Chúy smiled.  "The Navajo are like this, the plague has hurt them badly and they strengthen their borders and bar intruders.  So I expected.  Trust them, even if they do not trust you.  They are hurt terribly again, they have lost many kin, again.  Trust them, they are kind."

Judy warned, "They said they will kill any bilga'ana who trespass their borders.  Do not go there, stay with us.  They might kill you." 

 Chúy's expression showed mild pity for Judy.  "Oh, no, no.  That is my home.  When I go home, the Dine will not be bothered.  Trust me."

Judy said, "The trip down to Farmington was beautiful.  We passed out of the valley over to Pagosa Springs, and there mere many wild animals in the forests, deer and rabbits, even bighorns on the craggy mountains."  "No bears," she smiled and touched her tiny bear necklace.  "Even a puma, resting on a mossy boulder in the forest.   By a little mountain stream.  Spectacular."

Jesús steepled his fingers, as though recalling a long-distant memory.  He sat quietly, and the girls held their tongues while he went deep into his thoughts.    "That's pretty country, sure," he said, as though he was changing the subject entirely.

Chapter 18 - A Day of Quiet

BEN

Ben eased out, looking forward to a long walk down Broadway.  He went off towards the mountains, cut left down 14th street so as to avoid the County Public Health building - one of the last refuges, stinking with the Totenschaum flecking the high-water line of the tsunami of death.  They surged towards refuges, and there they died, dropping like little iron filings aligned with their futile refuge.  Stank.

Broadway was more or less clear - somebody's run a street sweeper up and down the curbs recently, after shooing the cadavers out of the gutters with peaveys and cant dogs, putting them in the middle of the sidewalk to scoop up with the skiploader trailing a big ol' offroad pickup.  Most of the juice had run out and dried up, so there wasn't much spatter, but some of them dried down hard like spilt coffee, and couldn't be moved into position.  Broadway was fairly clear; you could almost forget that the Captain had come calling, except for the ever-present sweet ghastly perfume on the air.

You know how pork chops cooking smell like pork?  And lamb, well, you can't miss the scent of lamb?  Humans have a human smell, one that we're all used to - but when you scent it in droves, like a locker room or a morgue, it's unmistakably.  Then you can't shake it out of your mind when it's there.

Dead folks lying around didn't bother Ben in the slightest.  He had seen the human body in all states of terminal undress - he'd gotten used to it. "Combat Recovery," they called it. Also "Post-Combat Recovery," which meant nary a fucking thing in Vietnam. Like it was a gentleman's duel. There's no such thing as "Post-Combat." Even after you get home. Jaws and bones, brains; you never could retrieve brains, no matter what you tried.  They just spilled all over.

And that was just us guys.  The....Asians, is what he learned to call them, among nice people - the Asians, little ones, old ones, pregnant ones opened up with a shovel.  these here Captain Trips residue, they were tidy and dry, and nix on the blowflies.  No dark veil of flies to open up and show the grislies underneath.  A dead....Asian... was just like some jungle flower or leaf, kind of friendly familiar, because a dead...Asian... was a good Asian, unless they were boobytrapped, which some of the ratfuckers used to do.

Now and then, you run across one where the head come off.  Sometimes the Vietcong had hanged them, and dropped them too far.  Six feet's the magic number to break a neck, but nine feet will yank the fucker right off.

Some of the memories started to drift in around the mask.  That's why he didn't drink any more.  You drink until the memories go away - but they don't.  So better not drink.

He enjoyed his friends who did military service, after Vietnam, but it was kinda like an office job, and you got out all chipper and refreshed.  Nice guys, really are.

Boulder smelled pretty human that morning.  Ben kept up a brisk, martial walk for the two miles down to the University.  The wreckage was appalling - but in a charming way, an alive way.  Bodies, of course - the bleary and the hungover revelers, cheering on the living, and spiraling into a midsummer night's bacchanal for people.

Ben was happy, and aghast too, that people could be so senseless and vulnerable to lay around after the party, pass out out-of-doors.  Virgins.  They didn't scan the rooftops, they didn't look for traps.  The worst thing in their lives was Captain Trips.  Lucky bastards.

Chapter Seventeen

"Anyhow," said Judy, "we've gotten piggish and live in our own filth and dead people.  No wonder the Navajos are so pissed off at us.  It's gross." 

June asked - "Now why do think the Navajos are pissed off?"

"Well, we went on a little expedition down to Farmington, to see how they were doing on the South flank, and they're not too thrilled with yet another screwing from the bilga'ana.  We're staying in touch through a checkpoint down by Alamosa.  If we go west of sight of Shell Mountain, we're marked for death.  And we're on the guest list.  They've been telling us about witches and superstition and bad luck, and all the time we've been making them miserable, and now they're sick of talking with us."

Ben noticed that when the twins talked for a while together, their conversation sped up a little bit, started dropping out little its and bits.  They talked more with their hands, and interrupted and ran over each other's conversations.  Must be a twin thing, thought Ben.  I've heard of twins even having their own language.  These two didn't exactly have their own language.  More at it, they were two brilliant people with their own, sort of mathematical language.

You know like how you can spin mathematics out into a word problem, a paragraph, this train and that train, leaving this station, going here and there, but you can put it all into an equation or a set of mathematical symbols, much shorter?

"Do you notice that you two kinda start - condensing - your language when you talk?"  They both laughed.  Judy said, "Yep.  We just leave out all the extras, and only talk..." "roundaround, we call it - talk with other people, it's 'roundaround' we've called it, because it goes around....and around... and around.  Gets boring." said June.  "They thought we had ADD because we couldn't listen to roundaround for very long without going nuts from boredom." said June.  "No offense intended." said Judy.

 Ben cocked his head back a little, looking at them penetratingly.  These were some highly intelligent people, these two girls.  It was a blessing that they survived and got back together.  They were probably the best hope for rebuilding a sane world that he'd seen.

But they didn't seem weird or special or anything frizzy-haired Los Alamos genius Nutty Professor Jerry Lewis tweaky or such.  Underneath, they were just - girls, familiar one,s like Ben's nieces and cousins and some such.  You didn't have to put on airs or ask them about string theory or phenotypes or anything.  Just young women, caught in this blight that dried up their world and went bang all of a sudden, and they were coping, just like everyone else.

They started into it a little bit.  "Went to Farmington.  Shiprock Chapter House.  They burned our clothes." "Naturally."  "They called the Walking One a witch."  "Gave me the name Sue Dill."  "Obviously an English pronunciation of a Navajo phrase."  "Sudill."  "Wonder what the University has on languages."  "Let's check."  "I made them a deal."  They both glanced at Mr. Sandoval. "Later." "What do they think this Walking One is?" "Not like a real witch - just a whirlwind of chindi that takes form, in a sense."  "Millions of dead."  "Yup."  "They've got our border to the south sealed.  Even we're not welcome without Sudill - me - and the Talisman."  "Let's see."

Judy went over to the bedroom and came back with the turquoise pendant.  "Gold.  They don't use much."  "Wonder why gold on this piece."  "Beautiful turquoise."  June turned it over.  "Mountain lion.  Sudill?"  "No, they said we were watched by something, apparently a mountain lion, as we came down through Aztec.  Didn't sound like Sudill, can't remember."

 They looked at Mr. Sandoval, smiled.  "I feel grubby," said June.  "I've been on the road for a long time.  Do you mind if I go take a bath?"

He smiled, kindly.  "Of course.  I have things to do with the bearings on my pickup.  I've been meaning to get to it already.  I should like to take my leave."  They protested, as etiquette would demand; he insisted.  It was nice to use manners for a change.  Demeanor and etiquette seem to hold us together through bad times, and we've been blown to flinders for weeks. 

Chapter Sixteen - First Day Home.

First Day Home.

Breakfast with Mr. Sandoval turned out to be just like being home.  For the first time since the pandemic, the girls sat, eating ravenously, with no place to get to, no place they had to be.

Mr. Sandoval politely suggested he should get along, made up all sorts of lame excuses where he had to go, chores he had to do, those things that guests say when they can't tell if it's time to get along.  The girls shushed him - he was delighted.  He had been pretty lonely for company, himself.

The sunlight poured warm and bright into the little front room of the cottage and scattered through the house.  The little kitchen was bathed in golden sunshine.

There was a long side veranda on the south, put in so as to block the high summer sun from baking the windows, but allowing low winter light to slant in.  The kitchen looked off to the south.  It was a big lot; the neighbors were down a bit at least fifty yards.  Nice and open and sunny.  And springtime.

Spring and summer raise the green out west, up through the gold and blue landscape that's always there year-through.  Red's not too common - you see it in the streaks of rust where volcanoes have thrown up red iron dust and rock, here and there.  But red, living red, is the color of Spring in the West.  It's in flowers, and it fades down in the baking heat of the summer.  But the whole beauty of the Western sky and plains opened up and washed the kitchen through and through.

"You sure picked a beauty of a house," said June.  "How'd you pick this one?"

"It was FOR SALE, sign out in front," and Judy and Ben smiled a little, seeing how the real estate market was fairly slow these days.  "No, really." Judy said, a little cross.

"It was closed up, it was empty when Captain Trips came on to town, at least a few months." Judy went on, and their smiles slowly faded.  "Meaning the last inhabitants were well when they left.  Probably some college couple after graduation.  No beds, no dressers, no clothes, no crib, no baby's toys."  That put a shudder into Ben.

"It actually took a while to find this house.  I marked it when I chose it."  Ben noticed that there were a few splashes of crimson paint on the house near the front door, like paintballs.  He'd been meaning to ask if Judy wanted it painted over.

"There's been no death in this house - no unnatural death," she went on.  Captain Trips passed by this address.  "And all the furnishings, all the bedding and utensils, are clean, brand-new.  We've gotten so used to corpses, and treading over stains and marks and dried-up crud that we've just gotten used to the idea that Death owns this town.  We ought to be stopping that habit."

"You know, I didn't think of it as such, but me too," said June.  "All the stuff I collected was new - I passed over some really nice-looking things because I didn't know if they were...I dunno..."

"Yeah, it sounds a little superstitious.  We know that we're immune to the virus - we call it flu, but its symptomatology is a little irregular - there's a profound neck swelling associated with this infection...."

"Maldición escrófula." said Ben.   "It was an epidemic long ago.  It was treated with a brew of alcabar, altamisa  and cottonwood bark.  Altamisa por el alto abeto, y alcabar fresca, y corteza de álamo, o toque de rey, cura de la escrófula.  Wow, that's an oldie.  I'll bet you girls never even met a curandera from the old school...  That's curandera lore.  That scrofula's not been seen for two, three hundred years.  Used to have a blessing on día de San Blas to ward it off."

Ben stared off down onto the plains, a thousand yards away, musing.  "You know, I'd never thought I'd remember that stuff, but talking with you kids, the old stuff comes back easy." 

Chapter Fifteen - North Platte and the Blue Time

North Platte

She stopped off in North Platte to rest a bit, stretch out, maybe even stay for a day.  She started a campfire out in the town pan-flat Centennial Park, across the river and not too far from the interstate.  She rustled up a butane stove and tank - she kept her travel one stowed.

There were a few folks here and there, they knew how to behave.  She'd invite one or two, here and there, who stopped by at an interested but respectful distance.  They were flatland Westerners; they knew how to behave, courteous.

Had about fifteen or twenty come by; that's about a quarter of the town.  The sun set slowly, slowly over the flat horizon, giving its goodbye in a green flash, and the Blue Light time come up like gangbusters.

Some deer, and of course some steak for the weary traveler.  Company was checked out at a little outpost on Blue Sky Highway south of the river; unwanted guests were waved off.

Finishing up a truly great evening meal, and most of the folks seemed to be making it through the die-off just right.  Not too many deadizens in downtown, they were mostly cleaned up.  Made for good nitrogen for the soil, phosphate too.  Like all the Civil War battlefields - a century and a half later, and they still put up a good crop of green.

She talked about the Decision out by Big Springs - North, or South?  Almost all the folks around knew that Mother Abagail was there, they'd dreamed of her, and even a few had known their family and their spread.  Some of them come up the I-80, and folks put a little waystation there for the travelers, but no passage - they'd have to go up State Route 25 out of Oglala, by the reservoir, to get to Hemingford.

Over the last couple of days, she was having a new part to the dreams that came in, other than the screaming nightmares of corpses and zombies.  Mother Abagail sort of "broadcast" across the continent; the Walkin' Dude, too.  But after coming west up out of Iowa, there was just a blue diamond down at the foot of the Rockies, just a blue diamond, nothing else.  It wasn't good or bad, as much as it was urgent.  Mother Abagail made for a respite and retreat, but the Blue Diamond at the Root of the Mountains was - compelling.

[to be continued]

Chapter Fourteen - the Crossroads

University

She was sorta glad to leave the tiresome academic world of UC behind.  It was a thrill for the academic challenge; by there was a bad tendency for people to achieve success by climbing up each other's back, not by making actual accomplishments.

She heard the word "Hispanic" more than she cared to.  It seemed to be a word that turned certain people's minds into mush.  Mom was out of an ancient (and a little bit arrogant) line that traced back to Seville.  They learned Spanish and Ladino at home, the Spanish being the refined patois of the cultured in the Western Hemisphere - Mexico City, Buenos Aires, the cultural centers - and Ladino, the little local American dialect still living in the Rockies, which was unbearably quaint to the ear of the cultured, the Colonial Williamsburg of the New World, a relic of the days of settlement in the 1500's.

"Growing up Hispanic" meant Mom and Dad making them read Cervantes, Tomás de Iriarte and the poetry of José de Espronceda; and then bulling into Cantar de Mio Cid; and of course, Maimonides, Saint Isidore and Averroes. There was a faint whiff of pitying contempt for the Anglo/Vikings, who lived in mud huts with their pigs, took forever to grow a culture and literature and a questionable sense of values.  They never quite even standardized their language until a few hundred years ago. The intellectuals survived through Latin, which, (ahem) grew in exile on the Iberian peninsula, to bring forth a rich culture and aesthetic, rooted in its Latin heritage, growing forth from the taproots of Roman values and ethics and poetry in an unbroken line, unto the adventurers who came to the uttermost West. Mom and the family always referred to Cervantes as "Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra;" they had Saavedras in the family lineage, although likely unrelated. That was the world that Judy and June grew up in - along with high country travel and hunting.

But in Chicago, she was lumped into a cluster of unconnected and unrelated folks, held together by their (or their ancestors') ability to speak Spanish.  They were Hispano Students.  June, at first, had hopes that they would form an intellectual literature group, a study group; she would love to work people through El Cid.

 It was equally baffling - to see how the Hispanic Students Group behaved on its own, or how it was dragged about like puppets for a cultural diversity show by the Administration.

Many students were Hispanic without the slightest clue as to what their identity meant.  Some of them didn't even speak Spanish, and they refused to learn it saying it was a "slave language."  She nearly slapped the girl who told her that in a superior, condescending tone.  Some of the classes on "Hispanic culture" were no different - just a mix of resentment, nonsense and bad history.

Her sense from birth was that Spain was the last healthy and vital branch of the Roman culture, leavened with Aristotelian thought through the Moors and Maimonides; and when the Enlightenment dimmed by the vicious Reconquista, that sapling branch of survivors fled to the New World to weave a rich tapestry of identity, culture and justice.  They had not arrived at the promised land, no, no more than had the suicidal European cultures.  But if the world was to grow up, and have a culture of reason, sophistication and beauty, it could not stray far from its vital lineage that left Andalusia for the West.

They would use the word "Reconquista" and bite their lips like Ché and mouth all sorts of nonsense; which is good, in a way.  Part of college, it seems, is to be exposed to new ideas, and fervently adopt the silliest of them while growing up and learning. 

The Administration was loathesomely cynical and self-centered in its use of the Hispano groups as a puppet show.  There were, of course, endless outreach efforts - universities can make themselves feel less elitist when they reach out.  And on one of the endless bus rides to the Brown Down Town to make a cheery speech about how we are all together, June felt desperately lonely and sad, even dripping a tear or two, which brought the bogus empathy of António, a phonio bullshit artist from Puerto Rico, with a few intervening generations on Yale and the Hamptons and Harvard and Wall Street.  António had more personalities than his parents had houses; but none of them was really a home.

António was hooked in with the B-school at UC.  His big act of rebellion would be whether he got his MBA in Chicago, or back East.  He already had an AMG Mercedes with ¡Viva la Raza! frames on his custom plates.

If there was any time for Captain Trips to start ringing doorbells, June figured it was as good as any.

[continued]

Chapter Thirteen - together.

After an expected amount of time for women's ablutions and scrubbing and brushing and fussing and such, the two came in to the kitchen.  They looked well-rested, but weary - I suppose everyone had that weariness of the old veteran soldier who had been in too many battles.

They did fetch up similar, considering that they were twins; you could tell the difference, as June's eyes had a little more green or hazel, and Judy's were more cornflower blue.  June was perhaps a little more squarely built, but Judy a little more lanky; you'd only know it so when they were together in the same place.

June was more forthcoming about her pilgrimage through Captain Trips' Mausoleum & Wasteland.  She had been in college at the University of Chicago.  She was studying physical chemistry.

When the New Picture started to shape up, she had two things figured out:

• A city full of scared, panicky people is noplace to be.
• Scared, panicky city folk are helpless in a crisis.

Some Rocky Mountain hubris, there, perhaps, but she got out going west and never looked back.  After the military stopped running around squalling and proceeded to lay down and die, she got ahold of a pickup, a little trailer and a little bit of canned goods, and started the run across to Moline.  She was out of the Windy City before the Big Stink hit; even just out of Moline.  The highway was littered with cars and trucks filled with deadizens - she felt a little sad, and worried quite a bit for her folks.  But since surviving this epidemic was a very rare thing, indeed, she had little hopes that any of her family was alive.

There were the chance few imbeciles wishing to be highwaymen; you could sniff 'em out a mile away.  Flatlanders were the queerest people.  They just didn't understand courtesy.

For a courtesy extender, she picked up a big bullhorn that could tell things to company, and a nifty set of binoculars with huge lenses - must have cost a couple hundred dollars.  If someone looked to be setting up a roadside trap, she had a Dragunov she'd sighted in nicely for 600 yards, and about five canisters of 7.62×54mmR to fill it up.  She was always walking around with a Winchester Model 1892 in .44-40, or a Win 94 in .30-30; either one a Western girl's must-have fashion accessory, good out to bullhorn range.  She kept a useless toy in the truck bed - a Barrett M82, and maybe 100 rounds of .50, just in case somebody started pestering her beyond Dragunov range.

They had always had firearms around home, and yes, they were dangerous, and living out-country enough where they had deer and elk on the menu at home, they were as useful and dangerous as fire - don't have any and you freeze to death; but wildfire out in the woods could kill you quick.  June knew all this stuff - it wasn't really on her mind.   

What was foremost in her mind was - is resistance to Captain Trips genetic?  Meaning, was Judy also alive, and Mom and Dad?  It pulled at her, picked at her mind, like a crow on a fresh eyeball.  There wasn't any way of knowing, except for knowing, she thought.  They had a little bit of intuition about each other, most twins do have a little.  Not enough to answer this question, though.

Across Iowa and Nebraska, here was green corn.  It gives you the runs.

Gleaning a little of this, a little of that, across the towns; and running across the flat, lifeless fields, she began to pick up some night-time dreams, of an old Black woman on the western prairie ahead, and a malignant Shadow somehow, further own.  The shadow tempted others, to come in and be fawned over and arrogant and yield petty powers - but the Shadow seemed to be greedy for everything, and only took up what it touched, like a tornado.

Out past Omaha, she begin to luxuriate in the high dry plains and the crisp blue sky, promising mountains on ahead.   The sweet comforting call of Mother Abagail was not too far away.

Chapter Twelve - Ben Sandoval Cooks Breakfast

At a judicious hour around 9AM, Ben Sandoval let himself in, and started cooking up a little treat for breakfast for the girls.  His nurturing instinct had somehow gone to full now that they were both here in town.

Eggs and bacon, and some hot coffee, and milk with real cream.  Masa harina biscuits, and beans, fresh beans up from the Alamosa Valley.  A few moms had made some flour tortillas; they were steaming hot. Between scrounging and foraging and some pretty simple old-time farming, he pulled together a fine old breakfast.

About halfway in, he banged on the door a little, and called out - "You girls gonna sleep ALL DAY?"  Nothing happened the first time; he tried a few minutes later.  He almost went full abuelito and brought in coffee; he resisted the urge.

They were still asleep under the blanket, dropped like little ragdolls, spooned up like they were little kids.  No surprise. They looked pretty peaceable.  Becha there was some foul morning breath brewed up for these two.

Chapter Eleven - Reunion

Up from the South

The Farmington Crew rolled up from the Springs.  They'd camped up a bit, so as to miss the stink down off the flatlands.  The radio had just quit; it wasn't worth it to find another CB.  There was just nothing new to say.

The Free Zone was like a little burg, so of course when they run up the 36 to the University, they slowed down and stopped by what looked to be a Renaissance Faire without the duds, or a Sixties Flash mob, or somebody had gotten into someone's Mushroom Farm, yes THOSE mushrooms, and  had a fit of serious generosity with hallucinogens.

It didn't seem enticing, no, not in the least.  After busting a thousand miles, camping out, and dealing with the Navajo - good people, wonderful neighbors, but exhausting - the expeditioners wanted to

• Not be driving.
• Not talk.
• Sleep in a bed.
• Take a hot shower.
• Be left the hell alone.

That was especially true of Judy, or Sue Dill or whatever they called her, made up a Navajo ID card, stamped right there "NOT TRIBAL MEMBER," and named Sue Dill.  A few Navajo words in the ID, laminated, there ya go.  She hardly ever drank liquor, but she had a sudden craving for a shot of whiskey, a warm glass of milk, and a nap.

They pulled over to see what this fresh nonsense was.  They all walked over to the lawn, where people were cavorting and having a real merry old time.  There were a few barrels of tapped ale at a little stand, which entirely went along with the crowd's merriness.  A bundle of cavorters rushed up to the Farmington Crew and started hooting "It's June!  June is here!!" 

They were bemused.  Okay, some sort of festival, but it was the END of June, past Midsummer, and to tell you the truth, there have been a lot of Summer Junes that have passed on the calendar; this is the one that owned Captain Trips, so if there was ever a month to shut up and slink away, it was this one.  Let's get to the Fourth of July.

The shiny button eyes and the intensity of the glee in the little crowd suggested chemical stimulants of some sort.  "June!  June is here!  She's here!!"   Judy yelled out - "June who?"  and a few cries came back "Your sister!  It's June!"

Judy

 promptly dropped into a pile, looking like abandoned laundry, immobile, for a second as though she had been raptured and left only her duds behind.  Head, between her knees, sobbing.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

"At your house.  Back at your house.  Your house," came the chorus.

That was the party.  That was why all these goofs were dancing around, they got the point, with life and everything, after all this death.  Her twin sister was alive.

Home 

Mr. Sandoval drove her home like he was an uncle taking care of an injured niece.  Judy sat there, looked mostly stunned, kept putting her hands over her face, said nothing.

It was only a mile or so away from the University to Judy's house.  A beat-up muddy trailer and nondescript pickup were pulled up on the road in front.  The Welcome Wagon fandango had departed, wisely so, just leaving June alone to sleep.

Mr. Sandoval and Judy walked in.  The place was quiet, the shades were drawn.  It looked like somebody was trying to sleep.  They walked in the bedroom, and a person or body or something was face-down, fully-dressed, on the pillow.  Judy said "June?" but no answer.  She began to poke at her butt with her finger - "June? June? June?"  A cross and muffled "What?" came through the pillow.  "It's Judy!  You're alive!"

From the pillow, "Hey, Judy.  Sleeping."  Judy felt all the exhaustion from all of the days of pilgrimage catch up to her at once, flooding her body.  She lay down next to June.  Mr. Sandoval put a blanket over them, left them there together.  A long trip, a lot of work, to get together, there.

Downtown

The party rolled on through the dusk, unabated, not damped in the least by the fact that the maids of honor were out like little lights, working up a good case of morning breath.  The party was about the reunion - the participants could be lights-out, let everyone do their own thing.  It wound down when the coyotes howled up in the hills.

Chapter Ten When Shit Gets Weird

North Boulder

Just to remind you, this time was back before Mother Abagail had gotten her little flock trickling into in Hemingford Home, Nebraska in dribs and drabs, from all over.  All the refugees had dreamed about Mother Abagail; and they dreamed some of Mother Abagail in the Free Zone, too.  And there were folks trickling into the Free Zone, coming from the East and up from the South too, and a few even came in from the West, over the mountains on the Seventy, down into the charnelhouses that were the Springs and Denver, and up through to Boulder.  A trickle.

They'd set out informal watches for the folks coming in town, who were usually beat and ragged.

The Free Zone folks still hadn't put together the common sense to start up the Harvesting of Denver.  Later on, they'd be going around Denver and getting supplies.  What once held about three million people, and now held about three hundred million pieces of crow fodder, hither and yon.

Somebody had jury-rigged up a construction water-spray truck and put it half-full of rubbing alcohol from a big chemical plant, some formaldehyde, too.  You could drive through downtown Denver where the bodies were piled up, and spray 'em down with on-the-run embalming fluid.  Drive-Thru Embalming Company!  somebody painted on the side.  Had to wear a gas mask so's not to get sick from the fumes.  Couldn't stop the truck when you were spraying, else the fumes would get you.  But that was Denver, that was a little later.

Fortunately, the Good Stuff was mostly out in the industrial warehouses - it was just finding out which ones had what.  That operation picked up later on.  It sure helped when they had the trucks running down to Denver - but that's after Mother Abagail got in town, that's later.

The prairiebillies off the High Plains had more or less come in, and a lot of them went directly through Denver to get to the Promised Land of Las Vegas, and God help them that went through Alamosa, which was closed, as we know, Dine' land. Hardlife bastards, many of them, like Richard Hickock and that sick little shrimp Perry Smith. Most were good honest High Plains Westerners, who could shoe a horse, make a jacket, cobble and make do without being spoilt and hand-fed, like many Easterners that come in with empty hands and hungry bellies.  Couldn't even make Hobo Chicken, that lot.

By the Brewery

It was a little strange for Judy to be scrounging around up north of Boulder, alone - I mean, there's Longmont and Greeley and Cheyenne, not real big cities like Denver.  Thought she was still down in New Mexico.  And she towed along a different trailer.  And it wasn't the Dooley she was driving this time, but a regular pickup, a decent one, but pretty laden-down. And she come in strange, wary.

The truck was beat - it wasn't clear what she wanted with that thing, and the tires were going thin.  The trailer was beat too, and muddy, and there hasn't been rain in the last week.  Bart Smith was taking the watch up past the brewery on the 119.  Didn't have a barricade on the road, but they usually posted a watcher or two, like I said.  You see, that road comes down out of Fort Collins, and the I-25 runs down to Trinidad just east of the mountains.  Good for greeting folks that come off of Highway I-80, some from... well, that's enough.  Bart Smith was up there.

He waved, and she pulled off WAY far up the road, a hundred yards or so, just stopped and watched.  She had binoculars, he could see the flash.  Finally, she comes out of the truck wearing a sidearm, and a carbine slung back across her shoulder.  She wasn't looking too happy.

She came up to about twenty yards, hailing distance, and stopped.  Bart was just standing around relaxed.

"What are you doing here?  What do you want?" she asked, none too friendly.

"It's just me, Bart Smith.  I pulled the daytime watch on the 119."

They eyeballed each other.  Must not have gone too well down in Farmington.  And what's she coming down from the North for?  Hadn't heard they were back from Farmington.

She looked beat.  She looked thin, and a lot less healthy.  And dirty.  And her hair was shorter, it was cut up above the shoulders - but streaky, greasy.

"Girl, you look awful.  You drive up to Fort Collins for a haircut, something?"  Bart laughed a little, this is some humor, let's break up this storm that seems to be gathering between them.

She stared worse, a gunslinger's stare.  Bart was pretty sure something had happened that made her go crazy.

"Dammit, Judy, what's wrong?  What happened to you?"  Now that got greeted with an openmouth stare, and after a second or two, she said "What did you call me?"

Bart got the queasy feeling he was about to speak his last breath.  "Judy."

"You know Judy?  Where is she? Is she alive?"  An earnest expression swept over her face, as she walked in on him.  As she came in, he began to notice that she wasn't quite Judy, exactly.  That helped him from bolting and running from this crazy woman.

"I thought you was Judy.  You ain't Judy?  Because you're a spitting image of her, then."

"My name is June Hernandez.  I come out of Chicago, running from the big plague like everyone else.  I come across from Iowa and Nebraska.  I had dreams of a sanctuary someplace out here. And of  - (she paused) - other things."

Bart smiled at his boots.  "Well, I expect you'll be wanting to meet Judy Hernandez.  Her looking like you and all."  Had he not been looking at his boots, he might have braced himself for the exploding hug that crashed into him, full-on June.  That surprise was followed instantly with loud and caterwauling bawling straight into his ear, calf-in-a-fence bawling, full-on, body-shaking sobbing.

"She's alive!"

At least she had the foresight to unsling the carbine and drop it in the dirt, Bart mused.  Muzzle like to tore up my ear, she didn't.

After a good five minutes of bawling and carrying on, and snot, my goodness could that girl make snot, and she could stand on her own without bursting into tears again, they got her cleaned up with some bottled water and a rag.  A good cry after an exhausting drive through highways littered with corpse-wagons, that doesn't make you look your best.  But what she did have on was a big dopey Christmas grin, and that looked just fine.

He told her, pretty careful and slow because she didn't look like she could pay attention much, "I better stay up here, June.  Go down about two mile, stay to the right and it turns into Iris Street, and up off of 19th Street, take a right onto it, and look for the big Dooley parked out the side.  That's Judy's house." 

Well, just saying her name was good for a couple of minutes of weeping, and snot - this girl never seems to run out of that - and a few more hugs, although a little less explosive.

After all that, Bart asked "You good to drive?"  She nodded.  "Hey, one more thing, very important.  Don't go prowling around her trailer, next to the house.  She don't care about if you wander all over the house, stay the hell away from the trailer."

Casa de Hernandez

 Well, June made it down there, and some neighbors came by for a looky-loo; they had never seen Judy look so beat up, and June told them she was June, and that they were twins. 

"She never mentioned one thing about you," said a helpful and somewhat tactless neighbor.

"I thought she was dead.  She thought I was dead, probably.  We were going to go on without the other."  Now, with the sniffing and bawling, it probably took her two minutes to get that all out.

They walked her into Judy's house, and she looked around a little.  She splashed her face with some fresh water from the bucket in the kitchen, wiped her face off with a dishtowel, and promptly looked like she was about to drop where she stood.  She politely chatted up the neighbors, fielded a few nosy and inane questions, discovered the bedroom, and dropped face-down onto the bed and passed out.  The neighbors let themselves out straight off.  "Poor thing," one said.  And they charged off to spread the news like wildfire.

Downtown

When Chew got wind of it, that there was this new twin sister in town, he sighed and said, "More work to do, more work to do," and went off to his garage.  There was the sound of hammering, much hammering, and a little harsh hissing - he had a blowtorch in there, a little one.  "Go away, working on a surprise," he'd say to visitors.  Nobody had the slightest idea what he was talking about, and more than a few worried he wasn't sharp enough to handle a torch.

[to be continued]

Chapter 9 The Delegation Returns

There was pretty much nothing but quiet and contemplation during the return of the little expedition to Farmington.  Nobody had much to say about anything that mattered.  Nobody wanted to talk about things that didn't
They came up through the southern mountains by Chama and Antonito; through Alamosa in the Big Valley; up through the Springs.  There was nothing much to see or say.

• They had a working relationship with the Navajo at Farmington.
• The Navajo and the Free Zone could exchange information on the doings of the Dark Man on the Dark lands.
• The Free Zone end of the bargain was to be run by Judy, under the name of "Sue Dill."
• Only Sue Dill or an associate would be allowed to visit the Eastern Portal to the Land in Alamosa.
• Anyone who strayed out of sight of Shell Mountain would be killed.
• Any bilga'ana except, for Sue Dill, who was caught uninvited on Navajo land would be killed.
• Only the other six members of the expedition could come to Alamosa with Sue Dill's permission.

The radio was hazy and crappy, like sunspots, and any signal out of Boulder was just ten-one-dogshit, breaker, breaker.  They gave up trying to raise the Free Zone.

So they returned to Colorado Springs, before they were beset by a heavy fatigue, and slept like the dead. And the evening and the morning brought the next day.

Chapter 8 - the Verdict and the Reckoning

"You may come to the portal of our land, by the Shell Mountain.  Do not come further than the Shell Mountain - your life will be ended.  You are not allowed onto our land by pain of death."

"We are sorry.  That is the new law."

Judy felt deflated.  The Navajo were enjoying the opportunity to flex, now that Captain Trips had cleared out the playground and there wasn't any wait for the fun stuff anymore.  Okay.  Now you get to be a nation, an intact tribe, nobody around to hassle you.  'Kay, got that.  

"She-who-came-when-the-water-burst-again, that one must never approach our land.  We cannot protect her, as she is fey.  There are other enemies that will come for her.  We cannot have more trouble come."

Judy really, really tried to look serious and attentive.  She felt like a little kid in church, when momma said - "just one more hour, honey."  Okay, they came to Farmington, check.  The Navajos were in good shape and had the southern front pretty much locked down solid.  Not a squirrel would wiggle between the Mogollon Plateau and the Big River, without the Navajo picking up on it.

The Dine' were always a little superstitious, a little spooky and watchful of evil - but you live in the wild where Plague Central sweeps down through the Four Corners every once in a while, you learn to be a little hyper-vigilant.

They were willing to share intelligence, and that was great, seeing that nobody in the Free Zone had the slightest idea about establishing outposts and listening points.  Okay.  Job done, trip over, the Navajos didn't mind having the home field advantage over the bilga'ana for a change.  They moved the Front Door to Navajo Country up to Blanca Peak, let's all meet in Alamosa.  That's only 200 miles down from Boulder, hop and a skip.  Go down, pick up some carrots and taters, pass the news, and roll on back home.

But yet, more mystical hints about She-Who-Ain't-Welcome, okay, and how the Walkin' Man was just exactly what the Dine' were talking about when they said there were witches around, and they were probably right.  10-4, let's save it for the next roundup.

Projecting the inner serenity that comes out from dog-tired exhaustion, talks and gifts and farewells, and back to Farmington, where they hadn't even turned on the heat in the rooms.  Everything was just hunky-dory, and they bedded down for the night; the evening and the morning brought the next day.

Chapter 7 The Pleading

In Balance

In our law, we hold that "It is the duty and responsibility of the Dine' to protect and preserve the beauty of the natural world for future generations."

"We do hear of what is known that is a secret of your visit. None of the men know it - only the Turquoise Girl.  She is different than so many bilga'ana; and she has spoken with some people here and impressed them with her sense."

"Do you know that you were followed down from the mountains of dawn by Náshdóítsoh - the - watcher?  Since you came down to Pagosa Springs, you have been guarded.  You have been watched over, and this is noticed."

Many bilga'ana bring wrong and evil in their wake.   Never have we seen Náshdóítsoh follow one.

"The girl has a purpose that we must join with.  We can put things right in a way that helps both our people.  The Elder Mothers wish to speak with her again."

Tseipei stood, the elder men stood, and began to walk towards the doorway.  They stopped, and turned to the men from the Zone, still seated.  "Come, come now!" an old man waved them along.  "Let's go."
.....
The wait took hours and hours.  When Judy came out, she was wearing a small but beautiful turquoise pendant, set in finely wrought silver. A mountain lion was engraved into it.

"Sue Dill, they are calling me, in my protector name.  If you go anywhere in the Land, tell anyone that you go in the name of Sue Dill, and they will grant you passage and protection."

Chapter 6 On the Big Rez...

There was a little commotion, and of course a massive delay and banter when they pulled Seth's license.  Now, Locklear is a common enough name, but a real common Navajo name, so Seth had to answer about a billion times about NOT being Navajo, thanks for the compliment, and phone calls placed off to ranch stations to know if anyone had heard of a Seth Locklear, and such, and came to naught, naturally.  It was just a name, turns out. There WAS a Seth up by Teec Nos Pos.  Not that guy, no.

Shiprock.

After they came across the border to the patrol cars, there was more standing around while Nez talked on the radio, in the patrol car.  The snipers were given the wave, mobilized, and headed off over the hill in wisps of dust.  The little delegation was cleared to go up to Shiprock Chapter House for a quick review.

"What about our belongings?"

"They will be sorted out and brought to you in Window Rock.  Your clothes will be cleaned and disinfected".  Navajos took no chances, and by the looks of distaste, they didn't think that the Bilga'ana knew how to keep clean.

Just like prisoners, they all had to strip down and shower, a matron watching Judy, Yazzie watching the men.  It was a half-hour mandatory shower, and they had to use Nix - a flea and tick dip - and a foul brown shampoo that smelled like fresh road tar.

Then, the doctor out of NNMC examined them - right out of the shower, no gowns or such, just buck-naked.

After that, they were declared "decontaminated."  They waited for their clothes to go through the laundry.  And waited.

Instead, they were offered second-hand clothes from the local church donation box.  The officers were dressed in their street clothes.  At the end of the parking lot, the two patrol cars sat nose-to-nose, stuffed with laundry, burning.

Captain Trips seems to have really gotten on the Navajos' nerves.

Window Rock.

  While they waited, an older, greyhaired lady in Western dress came to meet with Judy, alone. They spent an hour or too, off in the recesses of the Chapter House.  When they came back, Judy was as grim and silent as usual.  Her companion turned and walked off silently.

The trip to Window Rock was called off.  Window Rock is the nation's capital for the Diné, "the people," as Navajos call themselves.  Clearly, the leaders were having second thoughts about bringing the bilga'ana to the capital city.  So they waited, and waited, for a small contingent to drive up the hundred or so miles from Window Rock.

The met in the Shiprock Chapter House.  Edmond Tsipei gathered them all around a meeting room with a yellow wood table in the center, local rugs across the round walls.  He was the Attorney-General of the Navajos.

"You have to think of how these times have been for the Diné folks.  By tradition, this has been our home forever, the dinttah, since this world began.  God placed us in the center of this world, surrounded four holy mountains.  

What is within, is home.  What is outside, is the wild. Ethnographically, linguistically, we understand that our people came from the Athabascan culture, like the Apache, the central Canadian highlands - many centuries ago.  But this land by our reckoning is ours.  In our culture, we have been here since we came from the earlier Worlds.  Here unto the Fourth World we came, the first breath of life upon the glittering world."

"Our dealings with the bilagáana have always brought us sorrow. He put us on the Hwéeldi - the deathwalk - a hundred and fifty years ago. We were marched three hundred miles, and placed in a camp beside our enemy, the Mescalero Apache. Brother Howard Gorman said - "our ancestors were taken captive and driven to Hwéeldi for no reason at all. They were harmless people, and, even to date, we are the same, holding no harm for anybody...Many Navajos who know our history and the story of Hwéeldi say the same." After six years, we had dwindled to less than ten percent of our population surviving. We were allowed to return home. Many clans became extinct, much wisdom was lost." 

"We have been good Americans - great Americans. Almost every Navajo male has served his country in military service. Navajos are buried in many foreign lands, under the US flag. We are harmless people - we are helpful people."

"Now, the bilagáana have again brought the curse by deviltry in their deep laboratories, making poison near our homes in Arizona, and once again, the Navaho population is decimated. Many of our friends are gone. We, too, are gathering to survive this plague brought on by the bilagáana."

"And we, too, dream. We see the call of the White people to the Free Zone. We see that the great holocaust has left many evil spirits about, and brought forth a great Witch."

"What does God do with the evil that a man has done? Some say he takes their spirit up, with good and bad, and allows for redemption in the next life. Some say he makes them all-good and brings them to heaven. Or they are all-bad and sends them to Hell. Does that sound sensible, true Christianity? Would not God bring forth the good that lives in a man, leaving off the husk of evil to stay behind?"

"Navajo believe that the husk of sin and injustice is shed when a man dies; and when many men dies, the world becomes a sea of these little evil wisps, these chindi. When they whirl about, they gather like a bonfire, and bring forth great evil. That is your Dark Man, your Hardcase.  You have brought it forth by your bad science, your own guilt."

 

The Indictment

"This, then, is your indictment.  This indictment was drawn up after the plague came, and it was known that it came from the hand of man."

"Why should we let you enter our land alive?  You have had that first test, and obviously passed.  You came with courtesy and respect.  You do not behave like most bilagáana."

"Now, what do you want from us?  The Navajo have long been foolish - they are kind to those who do not deserve kindness.  No more!  We shall make no agreements, no treaties.  We will stand alone to survive.  What do you want?"

Several old men and women were sitting out by the carpeted walls, eyes bright but else immobile, silent.  One man stood and spoke. "We can not help you with sorcerers and witches.  Our people have a lore about them, one which the bilagáana long scoffed at, and tried to drive out of us.  We can protect our home from these evil ones.  We will not help you."  His face was kind and pitying.

Seth spoke up.  "All of this wickedness is not of our doing.  We're just innocent people, just folks, fellow Americans, gathering at a new place so that we might survive.  None of us did these wicked things to the Navajo."

The old man spoke - "There are those who live inside the holy mountains, and there are others.  What difference is it of ours whether some of the others fight?  What does that do to the people of the Land?  Bilagáana are bilagáana, White or Black, North or South, for bilagáana we care not.  Leave us be.  Stop bringing us death."

"You settle in the Free Zone - you settle on blood sands, where the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes were exterminated in the Colorado Wars.  How many Indians have you in the Free Zone?  But how many ghosts walk among you?" 

"You stumble over the bodies of the unburied - but walk unseeing through the many ghosts your people have made there.  We will not help." 

The little delegation sat there, not quite knowing what to say.

"Keep your ghosts.  Keep your witch.  Keep your walker.  Live with ánti’įhnii.  Get away." 

 Attorney Tsipei folded his hands.  The indictment had been read.

Chapter 5. On the 64 West...

That morning, down at the free breakfast buffet, which wasn't itself worth trying as the mice had gotten into the Cheerios and Frosted Flakes and Cap'n Crunch, the fridge was unspeakable and the freezer unexamined, but they fried up a can of Spam or two and some mesa-cake tortillas, thank you Wal-Mart at Aztec, and coffee, of course.  And they brought sugar - and of course those little Mini-Cremers at the buffet never go bad, having been through a plague and a couple months of room-temperature.  One or two were gnawed into - but the rodents preferred the cereal fare, it was clear.

They all sat around and had what would be called a Breakfast Power Meeting in the old days, and had breakfast for sure.  Power, either electrical or personal, wasn't much of that.  The blinds were open, and the day was already warming up.

"Well, as Eve said to Adam, what the fuck do we do NOW?" offered Jack.

They turned to Judy, who did the unexpected.  She shrugged, and said "Any ideas?"

It was a fine move in Team Leadership, but it made everyone nervous.  There was only one thing to do, though.

"Well," Seth suggested, "we just have to drive out to the border there and get out and wait.  I wonder how long we'll have to wait?  Should we send up a signal or some such?"

"I figure they'll probably let us stand around for a half-hour or so, let us declare our intentions, and then come down with the greeting party."  Tom, pretty insightfully.

"Everybody got some identification?" Judy asked.

Surprised, they checked.  They all had billfolds.  Seth opened his, and a badge flashed.

"You sworn?" Asked Judy.

Seth grimaced.  "Yeah, I'm a back-deputy up in Gunnison County, in case they run out of regulars.  Hey!  Guess what, they did!!  I'm a regular deputy now!  I expect, that even makes me sheriff!!  I'll sure as hell vote for myself!"

Ben Martinez pushed back from the table.  "Let's get started, before he turns into the fucking Governor of Colorado,"  Laughs.

"One thing now," Judy said.  "By the way, who's a veteran here?"  They all raised their hands.  "Army."  "Marines."  "Air Force," said Walsh.

Locklear, Marine, looked at him. "Ah.  A gentleman's alternative to military service."

"Fuck you, Marine." said Walsh, kindly.  "Mickey's little hand is on the eight, time to go.  Do you know what time that means?"

"Almost every Navajo's a veteran.  And we've got a sworn officer here.  Listen.  What I want to do here is to meet with one of the leadership - not the politicians, but the old men of the tribe that might understand what it means to set up a connection with the Free Zone."

"Not every Navajo's going to like hearing command from a twenty-year-old female.  When we cross that line, Seth will be in charge, and then in turn, by military rank.  What was your highest rank?"

"First Sergeant.  First Lieutenant.  Chief Petty Officer.  Gunny.  Squadron leader. Airman."

Everyone looked at Ben Martinez.  He hadn't said a lick.  "Marines.  Vietnam."  Then a long pause. "Major."  He stared at his feet.

If the military had command for "Stare with your mouth open, look stupid, HUT!" they all could have passed for a drill team.  Ben looked up and looked around at everyone.  "s'right.  Major.  Went in as private.  I don't want nothing to do with command."  His look of sad agony was enough.  Ben wasn't part of the command structure, here or on the Big Rez.  None of the Navajos would hear about this Colonel who served in Vietnam.  They all felt a private, tender spot for Ben, to be watched out for.  "Got your back, soldier," said Sandoval.  That was that.

They jammed all the perishables into the back of the car, took another pickup for the rest of the folk, and drove up to the border.

The border sign was down a little way, on the slow sweep of a hill rising West maybe fifty feet, out maybe a mile or two.  They all left the vehicles back about a hundred yards.  Everyone was dressed Western in jeans and boots, except for Judy.  She wore a cowgirl-style long skirt that went down to her boot-tops, and a tastefully-embroidered button shirt.  

The Ram was still parked there.  Judy walked around it.  Nothing seemed touched.  But she had left three greeting cards on it - in the cab, under the wipers, and stapled four-corners to the tarp.  All were gone.  The staples were even taken out, and the handle polished to remove any smudges.  The tarp was pulled down tighter, tight as a drum.

"They don't know what to make of us.  No surprises.  They inventoried our stuff.  Well, they sure do seem mistrustful,   see'n as how they've been screwed with for, four hundred years, maybe?" Judy.

And they waited.

Blue and gold, blue and gold are the colors of the West, especially in wintertime.  Come spring and summer, a little green peeps up and disappears, but it's a camo green, an olive green.  Angels who painted the West, must have been colorblind, or the Easterners used up all the red and green.  The wind rushed by a little, not bad - not kicking up the dust.  Desert or grasslands, not a tree to be found, but little shrubs speckled the hills, set apart as though by a gardener, measuring the distances.  Each one stayed a respectful distance from its neighbor, so as not to fight over water.  If some new shrub tried to come up closer, it just wouldn't make it during the dry season.

Some small puffs of cloud came up from behind the hill.  They were coming.

A brown patrol Jeep crested the hill about a hundred yards off to the left of the road.  About another minute, its twin brother, a few hundred yards to the right.

About a thousand yards out, they stopped.  Two men got out of each one, went around to the shadow side on the north of the Jeeps, sat down and started fiddling with something.  After a few minutes, one lay prone in the shadow, with another one behind the back wheel.

Ben put his head down, hands up to cover his face.  "This sucks." he said.  "I hate this."  He sat down in the roadway, his face covered.

Doc, came over and asked, "Something I can do for you, Ben?"  He shook his head 'no.'

Seth whispered to Doc, "Those are long-range snipers.  They're taking no chances."

Two more, and these were patrol cars - white, Navajo Police four-wheelers - came up in sequence, one after another, pulled over at about 250 yards out into the brushy grass.  They were not subtle - you could see the glint off their scopes, and one got the shadow, one got the dog duty lying on the sunny side, on a blanket.

Two patrol cars came up and stopped about fifty yards from the border where the Ram was parked, and got out and stood in front of the car.  Four of them.  They didn't seem all that worried.  No surprise. Six snipers on seven men - or six men and a girl.

One lifted a bullhorn and called out, one word - "JUDY."

Judy marched up the yellow line at a brisk pace.  The man with the bullhorn said "Stop.  Arms up.  Turn around.  Proceed with arms up." She stopped about halfway there, put her arms up, and pirouetted slowly around; then followed with her hands raised.  Wasn't armed - anyone could see that.  All of the four had sidearms, anyway.

She stood and talked with the officer with the bullhorn - and talked, and talked.  And talked.  Fifteen minutes on a desert road with nothing to do, trying one's damnedest to look un-threatening - well, it gets boring after a while.

They were called down in sequence, first was Seth.  He walked all the way with his hands up.  They could see him slowly drop his arms after a pat-down (the Police didn't pat down Judy, they noticed.)
He fished out his billfold, and was clearly offering his ID.  Even though they couldn't hear a thing, they must have seen his star, because all of the stress seemed to pass out of the four officers; they stood relaxed and started to engage in evident small-talk, and then stopped.  Seth gestured down the road.  Calls and responses on the radio went on for a bit.  The dog-duty snipers in close got to stand down and sit in the four-wheelers.  Judy and the officers walked down the road toward the little Free Zone platoon.

The officers shooed the men off to the side, and one knelt down by Mr. Martinez, his face still covered.  The officer said, "Sir, I'm Officer Kenny Nez of the Navajo Police, and this here's Mike Yazzie.  We'd heard you were feeling poorly.  Can we give you a ride up to Shiprock?"

Ben uncovered his face; he'd been crying a bit.  He shook his head, 'no.'  Officer Nez suggested that they ride up in the Ram, Ben and Officer Yazzie.  Ben nodded yes, got up, and the three of them walked over to the truck.

Nez called for the patrol car to move out of the left-hand side of the road up ahead, and they helped Ben into the passenger's side of the truck.  Yazzie started it up and they moved slowly west until the truck disappeared from sight.

 That left the five, back standing around.  Nez asked them for names, and driver's licenses.  He took the licenses, and radioed in the five names.

"Down the road, one at a time, on the yellow line, arms up.  Start when I call your name."

Doc Tony fretted. "Can we just leave the car sitting on the road?" Nez looked at him very seriously, and said "We never ticket on weekends."

Chapter 4 To Indian Country

The Run to Farmington

It was about four hundred miles for the run to Farmington.  They fitted out three pickups with a trailer; one carried a gas tanker with about seventy gallons, and another truck was a diesel - they could pick up diesel on the way; and a nice new rough-country auto.

One truck was a beaut, a rancher's pride - a brand-new Ram Pickup, top-shelf, 6.2 liter.  A present from Captain Trips, through the dealership down in Denver.

They took a summer route down by Pagosa Springs, up across Del Norte and South Fork.  The drive was beautiful late Spring in the Rockies; the flatlanders kept wanting to rubberneck, and lookie-loo on the way.  There was time for that on the return.

They had five Westerners along - Montanan and Wyoming fellas, who were joyful to get out of the frying-pan flatlands - Jack Sokoloff and Walsh; three Coloradans - Wayne Sandoval and Seth Locklear, two who lived in the mountains, and a flatland medic from Fort Collins, Tony Westerfield, who could keep his mouth from running most of the time; Judy, of course, she was the organizer of the little expedition, and a quiet older fella out of Jemez Springs.  He still went up for elk with his grandsons; not young enough for heavy lifting, but he would be fine.  His name was Martinez.

They hauled out by six AM, "to beat the traffic," said Westerfield, and then prudently shut up for the rest of the trip, to everyone's approbation.  Still, Westerfield was banished to drive the car solo for the first part of the trip - the fear of a Chatty Cathy on a seven-hour trip filled everyone with dismay.

The car was for the nice things, the gifts and such.  The heavy gifts and other stuff went in one of the pickups.  Ten thousand rounds of .30-06 and a thousand each of shotgun, bird in various gauges.  A thousand .308 for the odd long-gun round.  Plenty of medicines, especially antibiotics, bandages and dressings, scrubs and gloves and disinfectant.  Folks who live in a part of the country where the Plague still exists, do appreciate their disinfectant.

Plague, actually, beats down quite well with tetracycline.  Get it at the horse and cattle supply; it's no different than the people stuff.  Of course, the FDA and CDC would scream and holler if they thought people were using horse drugs.  In sad irony, there WAS no FDA or CDC anymore, they'd been wiped out by a plague that was their own damn fault, sort of.

Hard candies, stuff that would do well out in the truck; some sugar and flower, and nice spices here and there. Cumin and oregano are always welcome.  A couple bags of pinto beans and some rice, and dried corn.  A little masa harina, a little nice cooking oil, some canned goods here and there.

Into Center, Colorado

They rolled down the valley into Center near Alamosa in late morning; stopped for a piss, gas and nibble, and a well-deserved stretch, and a little shopping.  Not much there, but it was the produce aisle, sure.

If you were the only people left in the world, which they damn near were, and had never seen the Alamosa basin and the San Luis valley, you might suspect that you were in the middle of the world, ringed by high mountains still bonneted with snow.

Taters weren't up yet, but some carrots were fine, and some tomatoes.  Twenty, thirty pounds in the back of the car, which was cool enough with the windows down to bring vegetables.  Sidestepped Durango, and made it down to Aztec by three.  They picked up the gorgeous Animas that ran down out of Durango and followed into town.

Into Aztec, NM

They stopped in town for a pee and a stretch.  The town, like everyplace, was utterly vacant and without a hint of life; the tumbleweeds blew marvelously through the hot streets.  They drew the trucks into a circle up at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Aztec, and heated up some canned black beans and carrots over a small campfire in a grassy island.  No chance of a fire going anywhere, surrounded by a dozen acres of asphalt.

Jack had rode down with Judy all the way, and when she went off for a girl pee, he muttered - "You know, that gal don't say three, four words all the way down.  It's unusual, but I been looking forward for some one to talk to."

They all had ten years on her, Mr. Martinez thirty; but she was the purpose of this whole trip, and had an air of command that was surprisingly smooth and effective for an expedition of rugged and independent men.

She come back, and Tony , Doc - he wasn't a real doc, but he had been a combat medic, and all the company called him Doc - anyhow, Doc/Tony whispered,  "Something's making me feel kinda funny."

Walsh roared at that.  "Something's making you look kinda funny, too, but you should blame your parents."

Doc flipped him the bird, friendly-like, and said - "You gettin' a feel - how empty Aztec is here now?"

Sandoval looked at him all straight, and said, "We've been meaning to tell you, son.  There's been a real bad epidemic called Captain Trips...Are you just picking up on that, 'migo?  Walsh snorted a bean out his nose, and rolled back, grabbing for his bandanna and laughing.

"No, I mean - fuck you - I mean, kinda TOO empty - like we're being watched?"

Judy spoke up.  "Mr. Westerfield's right.  We are being watched."  She always called them Mister Somebody - a blend of Western manners and commander's protocol.

"We come in to Navajo lands, and we best be on our good behavior.  I haven't talked to an Indian since the epidemic, and they've gotta be twice as jumpy as we are.  Whatever we come across, we have to back down, turn the other cheek, be nonviolent no matter what.  If something goes down, that will keep us alive."

They all nodded, solemnly. If you didn't look at her, or pay attention to the pitch of her voice, she was damned good at command.  That's for sure.

Farmington, NM.

They all pulled over on the side of the road just before the "Welcome to Farmington!" sign, a puff of hot dust marking their arrival.

Judy hopped out and faced north, and they all assembled in front of her.  A few dropped to parade rest, not really thinking about it.  They waited for her to start out.

"As you know, we're here to get to know our neighbors, or establish diplomatic relations for the Free Zone, or whatever you want to call it."

"We go into Farmington, and get towards the west side of town on Main Street.  We look around for a good hotel that's worth using - they're all pretty near downtown."

"If you've been riding with a holster or sidearm, disarm and put everything in the car, if there's room.  Don't wear a duster, nothing but a denim jacket.  People will be watching you, and they will want to know if you're armed.  From now on, all weapons stay in the hotel.  If a firearm is discharged in town, we turn around and go back home, if we make it that far."

"If you see anyone watching you, ignore them.  Don't wave, and don't react if you hear any noises after dark.  We are in a reasonably safe place.  React to nothing - and you won't get hurt."

She paused, as the men started looking around at each other, uneasily.  She was asking them to place all their safety, all their trust in her hands.  And when it all boiled down to the beans, she was a twenty-year-old girl.  But there wasn't a damn thing else to do.

"Okay?" and she waited for any questions.  There were none.


"We settle in to the hotel a bit, unpack our personal belongings.  The Ram's loaded up with gifts and presents, and tarped down nicely, thankya, gentlemen.  None of the perishables are in it - no medicine or fresh produce.  We run down main street, fill it up and gas up the car - we can do that with the other trucks, but maybe later." 

"Mr. Sandoval, Mr. Martinez, clear your stuff from the Ram at the hotel.  About one hour after we arrive, take the Ram west on the 64 out of town.  Watch for a sign that says "Welcome to the Navajo Reservation.  Stop the truck on pavement, off-road if you can find it.  Don't cross the border - stop in the road if you have to.  I'll be following in the car.  That's where we leave the truck."

 "Do we need a detail to unload?"

"No.  We just leave the whole thing there, including the truck."

"You're giving them THE TRUCK, too?"  Ben Martinez pissed off.  They had picked out the best truck that they could find from the new stock in Denver.  It had just turned 500 miles.  It still had the new truck smell.  Wayne Sandoval turned and began woefully wiping the bugs off the windshield where the wipers hadn't got.  They looked like mourners wiping down a hearse.  That was a nice truck.

"Leave the truck, engine off and keys clipped on the door with a carabiner.  Unlocked."

"Is it going to be safe?" asked Tom Westerfield, always a flatlander.  "What if somebody steals it?"

Jack Sokoloff chuckled.  "Tom, IT'S gonna be fine.  IT'S gonna be around next week.  Your little pink ass, though, can't say for sure."

Jack went on.  "We're in Indian Country now, Tom.  Don't you get it?  We're at their home, and our safety is entirely dependent on our hosts.  We've rolled in unexpectedly.  Let them do what they do, on their time."

Judy nodded, as Tom offered, "Is it really proper to call it Indian Country?  I mean, shouldn't we be saying..."

Ben Martinez chimed in, "Dammit, leave all that Boulder PC horseshit at home.  Indians call Indians 'Indians' out this way, and call it 'Indian Country' or 'the Big Rez' or whatever they damn well want.  They're not on notice for our political correctness.  They're asking whether or not to let us leave alive.  White folks have been nimble with the fucking words for hundreds of years.  Where'd that get the Indian folk?  Don't call them Indians - don't call them Native Americans.  In fact, just shut up and speak when you're spoken to.  Friendly tip from a Hispano-American.  Don't be a gabacho."

Walsh, just for mostly to shake off the boredom and the aches of the road, put to boot in a little, too.  He hadn't been asked to be on his best behavior since last time he went to church.  That had been a while.

"Do you know anything about the real history of the Indians in the Southwest?  I hope to God you don't.  Captain Trips has called for closin' time and pay up, and it's the Anglo folks that pretty much gone broke and walked away.  White folks means Europeans too, ain't no difference.  Ain't no sympathy gonna that get you, anyhow.  We've walked in, and we're at their disposal.  So dummy up."

Now, nobody disliked Tom, don't get me wrong.  They were all nervous, and tired and grouchy, and needed to shake off a bit of the trail.  They'd be up sitting around, having a small nip of the fine stuff, just fine.  Except Judy. She looked like the kind of gal that didn't drink, and to tell the truth, they were all a little in awe of her.  She slid into the role of Commanding Officer, god-knows-how and hallelujah!  did it fit her fine.  Every day's a jump ball, in the New Way of Things.

Plus, she seemed to want to get rid of the Walkin' Talkin' Hardcase more than anybody; that fit just fine.  Mother Abagail seemed to like her.  That made everything copacetic, coupé septique, Mamaw might say.

So it was done.  And the evening and the morning were the first day in the Land of the Diné.

Chapter 3 Plans

Le hogan est la maison traditionnelle des Indiens Navajos. Reconstruction moderne pour touristes (musée en plein air). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(@P950)
Before it was the Free Zone, before it was in the days the meetings, they would round up and talk, like a school assembly.

Judy asked - when do you discuss the reports from Farmington?   Weekly?

Everyone was there, and most folks stared at her like she was speaking in tongues.

 - How often do you go to Farmington for the watch?

They sat there, mystified.

 - What about Grand Junction, maybe?

Not a word.  Even from Tom.

Now, wait - that was before Tom Cullen came.  It wasn't Tom there.  There was a fella up from Costilla County with his brother, and he was awful slow, too, brother not a whole lot better.  Him and Tom got on well after Tom come up from the East - but he was Warren, War'n Baca, the name, Chew was the epithet, he was pretty tall and hairy, like that one in the movie.  War'n and Tom was smart enough to bait a hook, between the two of them, and they'd go fishing.  But I'm way off the topic, again.

Judy sat there, bedazzled, like she had come onto the Annual Baca Family Reunion, and discovered that ol' War'n was the Rocket Scientist of the clan.

Some folks didn't like her, for talking over them, like she was snobby-smart.  She just couldn't help it. She tried to deal the deck out slow, speeding up a little when they looked frustrated, slowing it down a little when the Baca Family Face started to spread across the crowd.

- Who's heard of Farmington?  A few hands raised.

 - Navajos.  You hear of Navajos?  Most of the hands went up, and the puzzlement began to clear.

 - Navajo land's out there by Farmington, that's the eastern corner, and a lot of the land from here to Las Vegas Nevada's on the Big Rez - the Navajo land.

 - They's thousands of Navajos who lived there before Captain Trips, and they didn't live big and fancy like the people on the Front Range.  Anyone following me?

A few hands.

 - Navajos live in the Center of the World, according to them.  Ain't nothing, ain't no plague or Captain Trips is going to coerce a Navajo to leave the Center of the World, especially no plague.  They hate illness, more so than most.  It's a thing with them.

 - Anyone know the world between western New Mexico and the Grand Canyon, ask a Navajo.  The western portal into Navajo land's down around Farmington.  So we ought to be going to Farmington now and again to know what them bastards are doing over in Las Vegas.  You with me?

Light dawns on Marble Head.  We'll leave Grand Junction for another time.  That one's too much.

Chew sat there, mouthing "NAVAJO"to himself, like he won a prize at the fair. 

Chapter 2. Judy, Judy, Judy.

 Hernandez, I seem to recall was her name, and in New Mexico, a blue-eyed Hernandez will not draw a second glimpse; Santa Fé being a melting pot for a half-century whilst Manhattan was an "Indians-only" club.  Some thought her folk came out of Hernandez the town down south.

"Indian" is the word I'll use directly here, as I hear folks who are Indians talking that way to each other.  Back in the day, there was a Gathering of Nations Powwow down south every year before Captain Trips made the big time.  He sure was a one-hit wonder, but he was on everyone's lips...

Harold was terrified of her.  That gave untold pleasure to more than one citizen of the Free Zone.  Now, she seemed to be fairly meek and forgettable, when in a group.  You couldn't get two words out of her for small talk.  She seemed impatient sometimes in little groups, and she got the reputation, among the snippy and small-minded, that she was stuck up.  But I'm kinda getting ahead of myself, Harold Lauter wasn't shown up yet in the Free Zone.

What Judy was, was whip-smart, the term fey-smart not being around much then.  She had a plainness of speech in being straightforward when she knew something; she didn't have to ease it around in conversation when she knew her stuff.  And she knew a lot of stuff, especially for a 20-year old girl.  And grim as an undertaker, that girl.  Never smiled.

Her first Chatauqua she held over at the Library.  The next they started holding up on the grounds of the Colorado Chatauqua Society digs just south of 9th and Baseline.  They didn't know what to call them, until they found the auditorium, and she read up on the movement, and got a name for those half-formed thoughts about what the Free Zone a'borning needed.

She presented about the history of the West, as she knew it - off the cuff, and with plenty of help from the locals; many of the newcomers being strangers, and even before Mother Abagail came to town.

Harold got started adding on some ornamental facts to what Judy was talking about, I don't recall what exactly, but he came in with some facts that were exactly wrong, and found out so.  He made the lethal mistake of proposing that she and he had a difference of opinion.  She showed him patiently that his words were empty; he turned tail and ran.  After that, he loathed her.

If he saw her.  Unlike everyone else in Harold's bailiwick, he seemed to bear her no malice - he seemed like he couldn't quite see her, exactly.  It looked like he was snubbing her - but that was a social maneuver a bit above Harold's pay grade.  He just couldn't see her clearly, like a wisp of fog or a face in the clouds.

To look back, things can be clear in retrospect, it was the start of one of the fey things that would characterize Eliza Blue, 'Lizablue her name wore down to, her name....after.

For blackhearts like Harold, 'Lizablue bent the lines of evil, much like, as Einstein showed, gravity bends the spacetime continuum.  Black holes don't show up as a dot in the sky; their immense mass bends the light around them going in the shape like a wheat kernel or sunflower seed, driving them together downstream, making a gravitational lens.  Evil couldn't see 'Lizablue, especially not great evil; what it saw is a shimmer, a bubble in the light, a wavy horizon, something like that.

She had a something to her, let's call it fey, that if it were actual physical thing with mass, would be greater than the planets, the Sun.  That fey was part of her; that's all I can tell you.  Imagine some great dark unseen mass, more than all the visible universe combined, that only was known by its gravity, bending light here and there, imagine that, although it's crazy talk and falling off into nonsense.  But not dark like - the Hard Man, not that sort of bad dark.  Just dark.

I'm getting things out of turn, some, but I had to speak of how Judy was even before Mother Abagail's voortrekkers made it to Colorado.

[To be continued]

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Eliza Blue

Eliza Blue, to  the Free Zone had come.

If this story was told in the long-ago languages, that sing that she cameth, hit cymþ, áhefean styrung, áhebban andan, áhrisian brégnes, ástýrian egesa, áþweran þracu.  This is not an ancient song.

Eliza Blue - it seems she was here in the Free Zone always.  Although she's not from Colorado, we knew that, she said she wasn't.  'Course she wasn't Eliza Blue then, nor was there much to say of the Free Zone itself, mind.  I forget her real name, and most things about her back then.  Not spooky li'l gal, but not much notable.  Nothing really to see.

Captain Trips had lain waste America barely a week or two before, when she came up in the rosy-fingered dawn, up out of the morgue that was Denver; wind blew up the high prairie from Oklahoma; the charnel smell, people put bandannas across their faces so peppermint oil cleaves the smell, not to vomit.  Upriver she had cometh, we knew that, from Santa Fé to Alamosa; thence up by Colorado Springs.  

Of the Jornada del Muerto del Norte, the days of journey of the dead before Alamosa, she wouldn't tell.  She was a Western girl, laconic.  She would get on well with a girl from Vermont some; they was just some very young women that was pals, and it was the only time you would see __, still can't recall her name, but you would see her smile, or even laugh, which was all girly and tinkly and joyful.  They were just two folks who bonded and lay spirit into the new Boulder, some foundation, and a good thing.  Two folks.

She called it the Texas Plague back then.  It started around Juneteenth where she lived.  And yes, she did dream, and dreamed like the others did dream, of Mother coming who was not yet there, and the Dark One, which set her face grim, and she would speak nothing of him, other than "I will fight him.  I will break him," such as many who were angry and frightened would say.  But she was not angry or frightened.

She had come up through, it being summer, and stocked up remarkable, like a mountaineer or woodsman.  In a big Dooley pickup, with jump tanks for gas, and dragging on a shorty covered trailer, what was made up for a Move Out To Nowhere, which was what her run to Boulder was, not knowing any more than the rest.

She was right jealous about that trailer, as it was nobody's business.  She did allow that she hauled about 10,000 rounds of .22 for needs be, and later on, an elk gun that she could use smartly.  I only recall hearing that gun twice, and both times, there was a fine elk roast that evening down at the campground that was the old park before there was the Free Zone.

Otherwise, the trailer sat on the north side of her house, and walk on through her house anytime of the day, or night if she wasn't there - the door wasn't locked, ever, as she was a mountain girl.  But don't go nosin' around the north side.  You'd get a scolding, and that from a girl who drops elk at 600 yards, it makes you think.

Except for one or two pals, she pretty much kept to herself, just not much of nothin' - plain.  Plain not the kind the mean girls say, not pretty or big nose or such.  Plain like the Old Order, don't use anything unless it's needed, don't use it unless you use it up, some such.

The Dooley, she lent free out to anyone who was making a haul up out of Denver, but not the trailer.  And the next thing to get going was a truck shop, because woe on ye who damaged the Dooley, not a fender or something, but put the winch back with mud on it, and you'd get a scolding, and I mentioned about her scoldings.  She wasn't shrieky or petulant, but the blue eyes, Judy blue eyes - that's it, her name was Judy, they just bored through you like a drill bit in sandstone, and you were sorrier than sorry could be for what you done, and that was about it.  You hopped to fixing it, right away, no fuss, no threats.  Judy blue eyes, just like the song.  Yep.

[To be continued]