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.