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]