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.