DESERT DREAMTHIS NEVER HAPPENED
Copyright 2011 Lee Dodson
a novel
By
Lee W. Dodson
Smashwords Edition
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A NOVEL © 19992004
By Lee W. Dodson
Remember, this never happened.
On Second Mesa, darknessthe night sneaks up on you. Darkness comes to Second Mesa very slowly at first, One minute it’ is lightimperceptible, the next minute it’ is gray, then suddenly it’ is dark in the summer. StartingIt starts with a casual purple tint in the middle of the sky, black on the easternone side of the world and red fire on the otherpposite side, and slowly, gradually the fire embers falldie into a black lake of a sky that is, broken only by silver brook stone stars the Old Ones have castthrown into it.
It is a theft of light by an Indian pickpocket god, and it is gone before you know it, and while you know it, while you watch and do not see.are doing something else.
Pete had witnessed this it so many times before, but so this evening he had not noticed. He wasn't brain dead, nor was he oblivious, he just took it wasfor granted that this was the way things wereit was, and that was that.. He was a matter of fact kind of guy in a matter of fact world and so long as nothing changed he was okay.who didcould get wellalong as long as nothing out of the ordinary got in the way.things stayed on track.
Slow and easy, was Pete's way. Nothing ever happened out here on the mesa, and that's the way that washe like d liked it just fine by him.
The cowboy reined left and grinned at what his horse wanted to do, but they weren’t going to play it that way. Too late in the day, Pete thought almost out loud. T It was too late in the day to do it the hard way.
The horse knew of course, but he still wanted to plunge head long into the thicket after the calf. His rider was tired and he, the horse, was tired too, but instinct was still instinct, and the calf was just yards away, hiding amongst the mesquite trees bushes.
The cowboy let out a long low whistle, and he instantly heard the dog break right and behind him into the thicket, then it was very quiet. The horse danced in place, anxious to go, ears forward, trying against the reins to turn toward where the calf hid.
The dog set up a howl and the brush shook as the calf lumbered out of the scrub brush ahead and to the right of horse and rider.
“Now,” the cowboy loosed the reins and brushed the rowels of his spurs along the big animal’s flanks. It was all the permission the horse needed. He set back slightly on his haunches and caught up with the calf in less time than it takes to talk about it.
As the calf realized there was no point in running – he was tired too – he settled into a brisk walk, the cowboy to his left and behind, the dog to his immediate right.
The cowboy murmured his approval at his team and slapped thehis reins against his chaps- covered leg to keep the beef where he worked him. The young male was hungry and he bawled out a call. Mom answered him from the roped-off draw, and the cowboy’s work was done.
He nudged the horse and led the way so he could drop the rope and let the calf go ahead. The sun was low and behind him for a change.
The young rangy man grinned to himself, “It’s all right there in front of you if you look,” referring to the yearling bull being directed toward his mother – “nothing hides for long out here” – the cowboy wondered where the thought had come from, and dismissed it as quickly as he lifted the picket rope and pass the yearling to his dinner.
The brood cow bawled and the youngster skipped along into the clot of livestock, nudging his way till he could suckle at the cow’s teat.
The cowboy reined the horse back left and let him walk toward the rise a few yards east. He dismounted and decided where he would pitch camp for this night. The sky was clear and the land would cool enough to allow good sleep for the night.
It had been a goodlong day for Pete, Max and BlueBlues. They had caught fourteen strays, if you counted thecounting calves. The light had been stolen from them while they trailed a the maverick who had pulled free the lariat from BlueBlues's saddle horn. Pete had sworen, and BlueBlues had followed the maverick, like the good cowpony that he was, and Max, like the good herd dog that he was, had chased through the underbrush where the maverick had hid.den, Wbut when they had finally caught up with the rambunctious beef, the light had gonesun was too low, and it was too late to try to make it back to the line shack.
Pete wanted to set uppitched camp at the mouth of a the dropped box canyon and where he hadso he herded the fourteen wild cattle down into the little draw. He had worked the mesa long enough to know it was wise to carry a bedroll and enough food for a day and a night. H, so he couldwas all set to sleep the onight wherever he was.
It was a lonely solitary business, rounding up wild cattle for the tribeBIA, but, what the hell, it would end up paying for aanother year at school, maybe a newer truck, and it was outside work. No bosses but a remotethe tribal council and complete freedom to poke around Indian ruinsthe outskirts of old kivas made it a damn near perfect job for a man with modest ambitioman of modest ambitionn. The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ checks were always good.
Pete was a quarter inch shy of six feet and slender enough to have been called a beanpole when he had first come to the reservation, but the work and the elements had worked their ways with him. The last few years tempered him into his current wiry self.
He pushed his Stetson back away from his brow and revealed sandy brown hair, damp from the sweat of the day’s ride. He looked all of his twenty years, young to be trusted with the responsibility of rounding up strays alone. He had learned his trade from the best. Gray eyes set in lightly tanned skin gave his whiteness away, but he was accepted, and as long as he kept to his business, and out of others’, he was left alone to do his job.
Pete was not exactly an outsider to the tribe, though one had to live in the region for at least ten years before one was a part of the community. He had been home schooled, not allowed to go to the tribal school, and his job kept him out of town most of the time, didn’t help him meld into the social structure of the tribe.
The young man spent summers here now. What had been a last resort for a boy in trouble had turned into a real job.
He didn’t mind. His friend and boss, at the local office of the BIA had said that Pete was just happy to be anywhere. The cowboy was more contented than happy. The job was good. He was making a little money, how much or how little depended on his own diligence, and he liked the aloneness of it, most of the time.
Four bucks a head, was what the man had said. Four bucks a head meant he had done about sixty-four dollars today, not bad for 1961. Calves paid the same as full grown stock, and they were easy...they rarelynever left their mamas' sides.
The corral at the line shack was pretty near full, and in another couple of day or sosweek, Pete would have more than enough cattle to drive to First Mesa, collect his pay, come back, and start all over again. It would be a good payday.
Max lay himself down a couple of yard or sos from the campfire and yawned while he watched BlueBlues pull at the end of his tether. The old dog couldn’"t figure out why a horse, any horse, wanted to work his way all the way out to the end of his tether, but that's the way horses were, and there was no changing it. You could argue all day long with a horse, and he's still going to be a horse.
BlueBlues was glad he didn't have on a hobble. He hated a hobbles. Pete was smart, for a man. Pete knew sensed what BlueBlues needed without being told, and that was the best part ofabout their relationship. But Pete was still a human, so he did some dumb things and some smart things, but he had. h No horse sense and good senset all, whenunless it had to do with BlueBlues.
The name Pete had given him indicated his good sense. The horse was called Blues because of the way his hooves hit the ground, a definite, bluesy beat.
Pete thought it good was wonderful out here. You couldn't even see the glow of city lights. He could hear BlueBlues pulling at the scrub grass and chewing on the grease wood, and that was good because it meant there would be no disagreementsarguments at midnight between Max and BlueBlues.
Max was beat and beat-up. He was too big to scamper around through the trees and cacti like he did when he was a pup...or even n when he was a young dog. He was big now, and his size made him scary to beef, but it was hard for him to move through the thickets. His short brown hair kept him fairly clean, but his size tore his flesh as he scraped the bushes when he was workeding.
Max’s name was a mispronunciation of a pejorative for a man from South of the border. As a pup, the brown dog had come over on a busload of braceros, therefore, he was the Mexican dog, or Mex, then Max.
Pete liked this part of the day. The business of cowboying was over for the day, and he gave himself to looking around, taking pleasure in the view. What everyone called the Arizona desert was not really a desert – he had thought of it that way in the beginning, but he had come to understand that it was more like a short, sparse forest. The stunted scrub stood imbedded in wind-blown sand. The tiny green or blue green or gray leaflets clung to the angular branches taking only what sunlight the plant could tolerate.
The short scrub thrived in perpetually moving sandy soil. The tops of the scrub brush were head high and could be seen over only when he was on horseback, then he could see over dwarfed treetops clear to New Mexico.
As he came to know the desert better he developed what the old timers called good sight, he saw its true life, a quality elusive to those who had forgotten it by living here so long.
The semi-darkness, the point in the day when natural color goes to varying degrees of gray, returned his memory to the stories and tall tales he heard when he first came here. This cowboy soaked up the yarns as a substitute for television. Truth told, he liked the stories better than television because they were never interrupted. The narrative continued from beginning to end, complete with sound effects until it was finished, deeper meanings delivered by inference.
The sound effects depended entirely upon the quality of the teller.
On the reservation, a good storyteller was a welcome guest although the distance made visits rare. Pete had lived with one of the best. He was a boy then, trying hard to be a man, and he sat in a world lit only by kerosene lanterns and fire light, listening to narratives conjuring pictures in the smoke which swam below the rounded ceiling of the hogan. The stories were handed down by old men who could have been eyewitnesses. So vivid the descriptions, it was probably true.
The people and the desert were two parts of one thing, quiet and plain until you sat leather andor worked livestock with them. They were full of the unspoken like Anasazi nights in which the moon was a dark black circle rimmed with a cold white perimeter giving enough illumination to call it so, only enough light to whisper a description of itself to the stars.
Thosee unaccustomed to desert night would have been edgy at the sounds the evenfall wind made as it wandered and tickled the leaves of the flat forest. Pete heard it like the mountain men heard the steady run of water in a stream, drawing attention only if something was out of place. He kindled a little fire and mused absently over the day and the memories of the smoky hogan tales.
Normally, Pete talked or sang over his chore as he knelt, one knee on the ground and cooked. Tonight he was silent. The horse and dog gave him his distance. He was that way sometimes, lost from the desert and his companions. Some would have called these infrequent moments a mood, but out here alone, there was no word for it in English.
The Navajo had a sentence that described the condition, and Pete had heard the sentence once, but he had forgotten it. He tried to remember the words, but never did.
The cowboy vaguely recalled the day he had first heard them. It was on an afternoon, and he had been sleeping. Someone had spoken the words over him. It was more real than a dream and less real than being awake. Whoever had said these hazy things over him had
not stuck in his memory, or he would have remembered the person and the words.
He was in no way troubled by the thin wisps of the smoky memory. Pete was settled with it. Whatever had happened back then was long in the past. He never delved into it. Why would he? The idea that there was anything special about him made him sneeze at the thought.
What was there had come as a gift that had been sown inside him so long ago that Pete no longer recognized it as such.
Apart from the horse and the dog, and, of course, the people present when the gift was given, few knew or suspected Pete had any gift. In fact, he himself had never been sure he actually had any either. Its arrival was as subtle as the hues in the landscape. It had come as carefully and as quietly as the pads on a bobcat’s feet.
Tonight, Pete mused over the old ones, the ancients, the Anasazi, or the disappeared, a people discussed in lowered, secret tones, and rarely spoken of in the presence ofto white men. He had overheard discussions while he was yet considered an outlander but had been wise enough to pretend not to hear. Privacy among the peoples of the nation was esteemed above every other value.
The issue was not truly secret. It was privately held folklore sometimes mistaken for superstition, anathema to the prevalentcurrent mood of modernization in the BIA. Politically, the speaking of the old ways was thought to have given the appearance of clinging to backwardness, an inability to advance with the times.
Ghosts were relegated to the position of primitive imagination that held no place here.
To progressives, ghosts were imaginary things. Tto intruding white overseers, who assumed the dreamy quality of the nations’ ways wereas useless attempts to retain a dying culture. Exaggeration, they called it was the term applied. SoTherefore, the peoples of the nations kept close any talk of the old ones.
The tourists liked the stories, but they were dismissive of any lingering consideration beyond how cute the stories were.
Pete’s situation was different from other white men. He had worked and had lived in the nation for long enough for his whiteness to be overlooked. His knowledge of the Navajo language was better than he would confess, his accent pretty good, but he was hesitant to let anyone outside a small circle know what he could understand.
He had learned to keep shut about most things. It was necessary – he was young when he came here, but sixteen years is manhood to the Navajo. It had taken time to be accepted, but then only those over forty and the very young, those under ten, spent any words on him.
That he could and would work hard, stood him in good stead with the older people, that he smiled easily and spoke softly made him liked by the little ones.
Pete made his meal, gave the leftovers to Max, and settled down to drink a last cup of coffee before he turned in. It
It was a good dark night with a bent toothpick of a new moon. It was a sweetthe kind of night that bespokebrought dreams of pretty girls and soft, magic music. It was a night that brought dreams of purposewonderfully straight tomorrows and slow, steady success.
The fire had died down and hinted ainto the little red glow that was supposed to stay all night, the kind of fire that could be rekindled in the morning for quick coffee and a good smell to start the day. Pete drowsed and listened to the music of the creatures who ruled night thethe night world over.
He liked it here. The little moon gave bare light to this place. The air made little currents as it drafted up from the still warm land. It seemed to speak in the brush as it moved up and away. This little spot of ground lent itself to musings and dreams of pretty girls and soft, magic music that plays only in a cowboy’s head. He would think about his future, about finishing up school, and about the slow, steady success he would have if he played his cards right.
The cowboy had first overheard the discussions, and as he became less of an outsider, less white, he learned more.
The matter of the Anaszai was less of a secret than an outsider would think, but what they discussed openly was rarely mentioned to outsiders. While ghosts were quite real to the people, they were rarely revealed to anybody else.like many things the nations held in their lore.
Ghosts were imaginary things the white man would assume to be part of the dreamy quality of the nations’ quaint history and nothing more than an attempt to retain a dying culture. It was an exaggeration, therefore, the people of the nations rarely talked about it when outsiders were near.
BlueBlues snorted and shied half way. Max picked up his head up off his paws, ears forward, nostrils seeking the scent. Pete sucked in air. Something had stirred the stillness off to the east.
There it was again.
What?
Couldn't be a cat. They don't like fires or men. Couldn't be a coyote. They could smell a camp for miles and would steer clear, and there were too many cattle to make even the hungriest try for it. Antelope, mule deer, maybe.
Nope. It was something else.
Man, maybe?
Hell, no. There wasn't anybody within twenty miles of here, unless they were drunk, and if they were drunk, what the blazes would they want out here? Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.
There it was again, and it wasn't the the wind that sent a little tickle from his collar to the back of his scalp..
Pete stoodgot up to take a look. Max cocked his head to his right, thought about it, but decided it wasn't worth the effort, so he put his head on his paws and waited for the manhis friend to go look and forget about it. There was nothing out there, and the dog knew it, no smells, but the man needed to look, so you let him look. A man is always going to be a man, so you let him.
BlueBlues wasn't as sure as Max. He was a horse, and his eyes were on different sides of his head, and they weren't connected at all. BlueBlues was like any horse in the world. He was a one thing with two mindsschitz. Whatever happened, he had two opinions, which sometimes they matched, and but most times they didn't. Part of him swore there was nosomething out there, and the rest of him was sure there was. There was noNo point in taking a chance so Hhe decided to follow Pete as far as the tether would allow.
Pete went to the edge of theas far as the campfire light could reach, which was not far because the fire was dying out. He strained his eyes to their farthest reach and could detect nothing but the bright stars on deep black sky.
Nope. Nothing there. He shrugged and laughed a tight little sound, mocking himself audibly.
Oh, well.
Pete came backreturned firesideto the camp and. He looked at Max who was watcheding the other side of the campfire as iflike he wereas giving a stranger the once over.looking at something solid. Pete looked to Bluesthe horse who had circled around the taut radius of the tether to move close to the light rim of the campfire.followed him back and whoHe, too, was lookeding at something over his right shoulder on the other side of the campfire. Pete thoughtdecided they were nuts...until he followed their gaze to its focuslooked, and what he saw made him damn near fall into his boots.
Standing on the other side of the dwindling campfire was a life size Kachina, like person man size. Big man size.
Big, hHe was big. Hell, he must havewhatever it was stood nearly seven feet tall, all red with the black zig zag stripes that wrapped all the way around his body. He had wore a headdress on that looked like a space helmet out of old science fiction movies with great red antlers or antennae. ItHeIt was the damnedest thing Pete had ever seen.
Pete swallowed a couple of timestwice, trying to keep himself standing up. It wasn't working. He wanted to fall down toon the ground, but BlueBlues and Max were watching so he really couldn't look like a fool in front of them. dog and the horse.
"What do you want?" was the best he could come up with at the time.
The thing spoke. It spoke in what Pete was pretty sure was a Hopi dialect.
"I don't speak Hopi," was all he could croak out.
The thing spoke again. This time, Pete was sure it was a Zuni dialect.
"I dI don't speak Zuni." It was The words came easiPete’s mouth worked better this timeer, slowly though, the cowboyPete was almost comfortablewas getting used to this.
The thing spoke again, and Pete was real sure it was Navajo, as different though as the King James version to regular English, and it sounded like he said a name.
"My Navajo is not the beststinks,." he said. Not true, but Pete did not want to misunderstand anyone that big…. oOut here in the middle of nowhere. Besides, the dialect was old.
The thing took a step forward. "Then I mustI speak foul my mouth withsmelling white talk?" Pete could hear the rustle of leather as the thing moved.
"I speak white?" Whatever it was, it was incredulous at the indignantity atof having to converse with a "white man." in the “white” tongue.
“If you want me to understand, speak white.”:
"There is no word for this in any of my good tongues, but of all the words I know none works me for this time."
At least this thing was direct.
"What do you want?" Pete still squeaked, trying to be direct right backbut at least he was talking.
The Kachina stood very still for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do with an awkward situation. He bent toward the fire and looked into it for a long time. Pete didn't know what else to do but wait, so he did. At length, the thing spoke again in very long and deliberate tones.
"On First Mesa... Harry Brave Elka man has been killed. The tribal council believes it was his woman that did it." The thing paused. "Is that what you say? His woman?"
"Yeah. His woman. That's what we call it."
The thing nodded clumsily. "Yes, then it is what I have said. They believe his woman did it. It is not true, of course, but that is what they think."
Pete shuffled. If this was a dream, it was a humdinger. And if it wasn't, he’d been too long in the desert was nuts. He couldn't help himself. He had to ask.
"So...what's it to me?'
The thing lifted its arms in a movement that resembled a shrug. "I don't know. I' m supposedjust supposed to to tell you. Just because I'm a god doesn't mean I you. I don’t know everything."
This dream was getting too confusing for a simple cowhand. Pete was real tired of trying to figure it out.
"Then, why are you here?"
"This tongue is not adequateable.”
. It's too limited for what time I have."
Pete was more confused. "You want to tell me…… what's going on here?" He let the words trail off, hoping the thing would complete the thought.
The thing shifted, it seemed to Pete, uncomfortably.
"NJust Harry Brave Elk killedo," was all it answered. It turned and walked into the darkness. It halted for a moment and said over its shoulder “That’s all I have for you.” Pete waited for a moment and then decided to follow. He stirred a branch into the embers of the fire and made a torch of the greasewood. It flared into a yellow blaze and bathed the surrounding area in a brief glow.
There were footprints leadingwhich led to the west, deep and clear tracks, thattracks that suddenly faded into nothing but sand and pieces of rock.
Pete decided it was all a dream and wanted to dismissed it from his consciousness, but it reminded him of something that had happened a long time ago. Maybe it had, and maybe iIt hadn't happened. It was the wanderings of a lonely lonely mind on a lonely night. He lay down and slept... fitfully...until just before dawn.
The next morning, the dream was still with him, which was odd because Pete rarelynever remembered his dreams. They were things that happened at night, and were put away the next day with used dirty dishesclothes...washed up and cleaned out and forgotten.
It was Max who brought it up. Pete believed Tthere were the moments in the span of the day when the landscape showed its contour. Evening was one and morning was the other. To him morning was better – probably because he was fresh. It was private time few but the peoples would understandsaw.
Warming air came in from the eastern rim of the world, . It was Pete’s natural alarm clock – because it would blow across the embers of last night’s fire kicking up the smell of the still glowing kindling. Or on clear days (and most were) the light breeze would run before the sun as gently as a tide ran against a shore.
He had always set his bedroll on the west side of the cook fire as he had always done for just this purpose. It was ahis rule to be up before the sun and before the cattle began to stir.
There was not much, but enough forage in the little canyon – they would have to be moved to feed soon or they would bolt and he would lose a few.
As Pete poured the last of his coffee out on the embers of the cook fire, Max sat and watched with more than casual interest. The cowboy did not cluck or kiss the air as was his custom. He absentmindedly kicked sand over the last of the fire and did not give his usual attention to rolling up his bedding.
The horse watched, with his head low, as the cowboy carried the saddle and tack and slung it across the animal’s broad back. Blues rolled his head slowly and waited without another move until the gear was cinched securely and waited again as he was not tethered.
Nothing moved. The horse, the dog, not even the cattle down the draw. There was no breath of wind in the yet cold stillness as the upper rim of the sun cleared the low flat hills to the east.
Pete led the horse to the picket rope and motioned Max to his duties. The dog held for a moment and then loped into the little canyon to scare up the cattle. The workday had begun – the only thing out of the ordinary was the quiet.
The drive to the line shack took about three hours and a half. Pete was satisfied that his guess was a good one and that his decision to overnight at the canyon minimized any loss of stock to the dark.
Max stayed with his job of loping the outer perimeter of the moving herd together and lagged behind the group as they came to the line shack.
They were ready to driveAs they approached the cattle back toward the line shack,. Max would skirted the outer edges of the herd and, doing his job, kepteping the mamas from meandering off into the brush. He had been thinking about it for some time because it was daybreak when he came over to Pete and BlueBlues and mentioned it, almost in passing.
"Well?" Blues murmured. The big, corklion colored dog sat near the horse and pretended to scratch his jaw with his right rear paw.
"Well, what?" BlueBlues was always ready to mix it up with the big dog.
"I wasn't talking to you,you; I was talking to the boss." He did one of those quizzical dog things, cocking his head to one side and asked the same question. "Well?"
Pete didn't want to hear it. The damn dream was still with him. He pretended not to know what the dog meant, but Max was too direct to take ignoring as any kind of realfor an answer.
BlueBlues knew trouble a discussion Pete wasn’t ready for was brewingthis discussion, so he tried to pick a fight by stretching down to bite Max on the rump, but the big dog was havingwanted none of it. He bored in on Pete.
"So?"
"So what?" Pete would have to deal with it because Max was that kind of dog. Must have been a Pit Bull bitch back there somewhere in his lineage because h. He wasn't goingdidn’t intend to let it go.
"I've got a question...did you see it?" Pete did not look at Max as he tossed off the question.
Max wasn't falling for itthis one. Pete had sucked him in before, and Max was still embarrassed about the stick and running for it when it wasn't there. The dog would play it much cagier this time.
"See what?"
This was too much for BlueBlues. The horse had seen the dog in action before. Make the human commit first, even if it was stupid, that way you could never be the bad guy. Typical dog trick.
"I saw it. The big red guy with the hat. Ugly hat, if you ask me. Ugly guy, too. Bad attitude. Hiding something, if you ask me." BlueBlues said and shook his head up and down as if to confirm the thoughthis words.
"Real good, you jerk. Go along to get along. You are such a horse sometimes." The dog didn't wantlike having his plan screwed up by a big, dumb horse.
"For once, you oldmangy cur, give a direct answer instead of pulling anyour interrogation routine. He wants to know exactly what theyour question is,." Blue spat.
"HNo, he doesn'tknows. He's avoiding the issue here, and you're not helping." The big dog turned to leave and make another of his daily runs around the perimeter of the herdcamp and the little herd, but he stopped short. The big brown tan dog craned his neck around to see the effect his next words would have on the horse. "You already know what I mean."
BlueBlues pulled back his lips as the dog turned to make his rounds. "I hate to say it, but he has a point, boss." Pete threw the blanketslapped across BlueBlues's back and bent to liftover in the saddle. BlueBlues put his nose into Pete's legside.
"GThere's got to be a reason he told youu were that stuff." The horse blew air out his nostrils for emphasis.
Pete shifted inlifted the saddle onto BlueBlues's back. "TIt's time to finish upwork. We can talk about it later." The cowboy hauled in the cinch n his leg and kickeddropped the stirrup. The horse waited for his boss to nudgeget on. Pete leaned back ontied the bedroll down with theand latigos, and as he was about to reinget on, the horse said. "I bet you don't know what he said in his other languages."
Pete yanked the reins around so the horse faced him. He didn’t know the horse understood other languages, but then again, the horse had livedwas born in these parts a long time.
"What'd he say?"
BlueBlues was diffident. "You're right,right; we can talk about it later. Probably none of our business." The roan was mildly annoyed Pete had taken too long to answer. BlueBlues changed his mind again as was his habit. He was a horse after all, and horses do that. have split personalities.
It's their eyes. The placement of their eyes.
One eye is connected to one side of his brain, and the other eye is connected to the other side of his brain, and the two sides of his brain aren't positively connected by anything of real substance. There are no wires there. There are only brain waves that are more like what two magnets produce when they pass each other.
That's why a horse will shy at a piece of paper that blows across their path. One eye sees it, passes along the information to its side of the brain which processes it, and it figures that little piece of paper is not a threat. The paper leaves the field of vision of that eye, and it is gone from the horse's mind.
But then, oh then, that paper enters the field of vision of the other eye, it's a whole new ballgame. Big surprise. The other side of the horse's brain is busy with something else, and that paper is a real shock. The horse shies, the rider falls, gets mad, the horse wonders what the hell the rider is so ticked off about because he was just being his own natural self, doing what he thought he ought.
That's why a real intelligent animal, faithful and loving, like a horse can be so utterly nuts when everything else was going so well. That's why a horse will change his mind so often. It's not that he is stupid with one brain,brain; it's that he's smart with two brains.
Can anybody relate toBbut anybody knows that.?
No one but Pete had anythingmuch to say for the rest of the morning, and all he really did was whistle now and again to give orders and avoid Max. They drove the cattle back to the line shack and put them into the big picket area for counting. Along the way, another couple of cows joined in, so there were enough to drive over to First Mesa.
Fifty. That was two hundred dollars for the week. This being Friday, they would start back over to First Mesa in the morning.
Pete liked the last part of the drive. The herd was tired and hungry from the trip so the beef made a beeline for the corral. Although they had been free range for who knows how long, the beef sensed ready food when they saw the large pen up the hill and to the right.
The shack set up a little rise to the left of the cleft, the outhouse about twenty yards to the south, or left of that.
The cattle smelled the water and took the easiest route up the low parts between where the two hills met. Blues sensedknew they were well on their way and slunk south of the little herd. Pete nudged the roan’s flanks, and Blues moved himself forward.
Max trailed the herd scampering from side to side to keep an eye on the beef. The dog knew his work and understood that horse and rider would go on ahead to ungate the pen.
The cowboy relaxed in his saddle when he saw the line shack. The weathered wood cover and old shingles of the place fit neatly into a half circle of alamos or cottonwood trees, which stood before the crest of two little hills. Because of the high water table, it was the only green spot for miles.
A shed roof on the north side sheltered bales of hay and enough space to hold one mount for saddling. The pen sat ten feet to the north of that and where there would have been a set of rails, a long water trough sufficed as a barrier and gave a watering place both inside and outside the pen. Above and between the shed and pen was a hand pump and double sluice leading to the trough and to a cistern tank for the shack.
The place was old, built in the teens or early twenties, but it was well thought out. For sure, it had been put up by white men. Pete did not know the history of the “lugar”, but he was certain no woman had ever lived there.
Blues went directly to the trough and stood, nose in the water, while Peter dismounted and dropped the reins. The horse would not move very far from where he stood when Pete dropped the reins. The animal was “Indian trained” to stand still when the reins were down.
By the time the herd made the last hundred yards to the pen, Pete had the gate open and was slapping his hat against his chaps to shoo them in. It was an unnecessary exercise because they went straight to the trough.
Pete ran the latch down on the gate and went to the shed. He was hungry too, but he had to pull flakes of hay off the bales and feed the stock. Blues got his first and champed noisily as Max, paws at the edge of the trough, took long deliberate laps. A cow could lose as much as ten pounds on a short drive like today’s. Pounds were money.
The cowboy made sure he scattered enough hay into the corral so that all the stock could eat their fill. They were settled in and quiet. The sun was already high enough that the cottonwoods gave some shade at the backside of the corral, and the brood cows hugged the rails and nursed their young.
Pete went up to the pump and jacked the handle up and down. The water table must have been down so nothing came off the spout. He lifted the bucket, which was always kept on the flat boulder beneath the spout, and poured its contents down the pipe and primed it. Two or three more jacks and then cool water flowed out, into the replaced pail, over the edges and into the sluice. When the trough was full, the cowboy flipped the sluice gate over and filled the cistern tank next to the cabin.
Old habits die hard, and Pete thought for a moment about missing running water and regular hot showers, but those days were gone for the summer. He undid the leg straps on his chaps as he ambled down the hill along the sluice, toward the front of the shack.
The cowboy unbuckled the low slung belt of his chaps and slung them over his shoulder for the ten yard stroll to the shed. Blues had waited patiently and circled around to follow Pete into the shed. The routine did not varynever varied. The young man unsaddled the roan, the dog walked to the front door while the man pegged reins, saddle and chaps on the wall between shed and shack.
His day was over when the light was almost gone. Pete pushed the heavy door open and ducked his head to enter. Whoever built the place was either shorter than him by a foot, or there wasn’t enough wood to make a bigger door.
It was cold inside. The two windows, one next to the door, the other over the cot to the left, were still half foggy, but everything else was where he left it two days ago. The cast iron Forbes stove was cold, but he had stoked it before he left so it would be ready if he came back late.
Preparation for the next step was a “consistent” for him like it was for anyone else on the desert. It was practical, and more important, the routine was a matter of survival. Things could go terribly wrong and they often did. The prepared survived – the more prepared succeeded.
The exertion on the work and the passing hours that had passed made BlueBlues change his mind, and he was anxious to talk to Pete when his man brought a scoop of ful oats to the corral. "You know he said the name of the man who was killed when he first spoke. You rememberknow that much, don't you?"
Max ambled over and sat beneath the feeder. He scratched himself under the chin. "Was that what he was saying? My Hopi and Zuni are hopeless sometimes."
BlueBlues snorted, "Your English is not the best, eithertoo. The man's name is Harry Brave Elk."
Pete spit. "Never heard of I’ve seen him." BlueBlues shook his head and flopped one ear down. That wasn’t necessarily true.
Max shook himself., "You’d know him if you saw him. I say either forget it or go for it, but make up your mind."
Dogs have a pretty matter of fact way about them. It's one way or the other to them. They just want a decision. A dog can be really smart about feelings, though. If you think you're feeling one way, but don't really feel that way, a dog is going towill be the first to speak up and tell you what you're really feeling. It’s because they are so low to the ground… they have a feel for itcan tell from the way you set your feet. .
The only thing really wrong with a dog is that he doesn't like to change things in mid stream. He is not real pliable. If you're hunting, you're hunting. If you're working, you're working. Anything that interrupts the program had better be important, or he will pout.
Pete was perplexed. The dog and the horsee sensed it. They had thrown the boss a curve by admitting they, too, had seen the apparition. The animals, in an unspoken way had decided between themselves that they would drop the matter until the boss had had time to digest itall this.
The horse munched away on the feed, and the dog sat smiling at the lowering sun while the boss threw more hay out to the cattle in the enclosure. They were still probably hungry from the long drivewalk, and they would need the energy for the trip tomorrow. It would be a quiet night for deciding, or at least thinking about, what to do.
Pete did the chores and got ready to leave the place for the trip to town the next day. Leaving the place neat was a signal to any visitor that it was presently occupied by someone who actually lived there. While the cowboy was bothered by the vision of the night before, he was not truly troubled. It could have been all in his mind… the solitude getting to him… the mind is a funny thing, you know, it can make one believe dogs and horses talk..
The dog thought it would be a good idea to make arguments on the way to First Mesa and wanted to discuss it with BlueBlues, but it would be impossible to have a chat tonight since BlueBlues would sleep outside and Max would sleep in the line shack.
The night passed as uneventfully, but as nights here usually did. Pete did not sleep well. He had dreams of strange gods talking to him, telling him things thatwhich troubled him. Max watched him the tossing and turning from the floor, wondering if his masterhe was going to get the idea he had to do something about what he had heard.
Dawn broughtIt was another early day for the little work party. By first lightdawn the crew had the herd moving along the trail to First Mesa. The trail was like a narrow road, wide enough for one vehicle, lined with mesquite and greasewood. It made the drive fairly easy once the cattle got used to moving in the same direction.
Max made his restless circlesings all around the herd, barking here, snarling there to keep the cattle together. He was glad there were no old bulls in the group. Young bulls, no problem, but old bulls were too full of themselves to want to be herded anywhere.
And, they were plain basically lazy.
Every so oftennow and then, BlueMax would have to take off into the tules and bring a cow back into the group, but it was an easy drive, one they had made more than a dozen times. So far, it had been a pretty good summer. Pete had saved two thousand dollars already.
ByIt was late afternoon when the drive ended on First Mesa. The animals were tired and thirsty. Pete didn't have to urge them to cross the paved highway to get to the water troughs in the main corral that belonged to the Tribal Council. Max kept up his end by scurrying around the herd until they had their heads over the edge of the steel waterers inside the enclosure.
Pete hadn’t paid much attention to First Mesa when he first rode in.B He was busy making sure that someone would have the gate to the corral open and making sure none of the beef took off on him, Pete hadn’t paid much attention to First Mesa when he first rode in. It was too close to payday for one of them beef to run back into the desert.
The town had not had much chance to changed any since his last visit, but it was always goodwise to look around for anything new. The little place was just like its name. It sat on the upper edge of a large mesa. Along the southern perimeter of the town limits, long and erose cliffs commanded a view of an enormous valley about fifty to seventy feet below the rim.
The valley, really an ancient seabed, fell away for a good ten or fifteen miles to a range of small mountains. A black stripe of road ran from a cleft cut in the cliff in a fairly straight line to a cut in the mountains to the south. On a good day, you could see all the way to where the road disappeared into the little line of mountains. On a hot day, like today, the heat waveslines madewould make the whole desert floor look like it was moving.g….
The town itself consisted of a rest stop on the far eastern side where the road mounted the top of the mesa and turned west. It was another hundred and fifty yards to the first building thatwhich used to be the post office and was now abandoned. Visitors sometimes stayed in the place if the weather was bad. West of that wereas a couple of storage buildings, the general store, not quite a Western Auto, the gas station/tourist stop, then there was a large metal tribal storage building with a small attached corral, beyond that was the large cattle corral where the road turned north to cross the ten miles of mesa and headed toward Utah.
On the other side of the road wereas the Tribal Offices insideand the Potters’ place. To the north, the land climbed steadily to some low, rocky hills. Nobody knew if the place was really a mesa, it was called that for want of another description. All of the buildings were set back off the road by at least ten yards or more to accommodate livestock and cars. Some of the offsets were paved, but most were not.
The town was not placedbuilt for convenience. It was centrally located forsat north of the center of this reservation, a two- day walk, at most, for anyone who needed to be here. TheHere were the onlyy phones for a hundred miles, the only mail drop for at least that far. It had two wells thatwhich had been drilled in the late forties. The water was sweet and cold with no discernible
taste of the minerals found in the wells on the lower plain..
Max put his paws on the edge and strained into the water, drinking greedily. BlueBlues was polite and waited until Pete dismounted. More thant once, Pete had remarked that he believed the horse had some camel in him, or mustang anyway, because BlueBlues could go forever without drinking, and when he did drink, he was a gentleman about it. More likely it was the Arab in him, not that he ever bragged about it. This horse hadwould have no truck with those prissy little showoffs he saw in the parades.
Bill Potter, manager of Tribal Council and Livestock Resources, had seen them coming, had done the count with binoculars, and had Pete's check ready and waiting. The two men had a good working relationship which worked like that. Honest counts made good friends.
"Stay at my place tonight?" the heavyset t man asked. "Lorene’ would be happy to see you."
BlueBlues and Max waited for his answer. They wanted to stay. It was late to start back. Pete read the looks on their faces and nodded. “Thought you’d never ask.”
The two men and the animals walked back across the dusty pavement to a double wide mobile home set close to the road on the main and only street in town that served Bill's and Lorene's house and the local office for the BIA. Pete didn't want to be any trouble, but he would be glad to have a home cooked meal...meaning a meal he didn't have to cook.
Since it was Saturday a little knot of local people had gathered near the tribal store. The following morning the circuit preacher would arrive for the services they always held in the backthe back of the store if weather was bad or out on the front porch if the weather was good.
The store owner was not a good Christian man, but he who held it was his duty to provide space for worship, and it was good business to have people in to look at the latest wares although he wasn’t supposed todidn’t do any selling on Sunday. In those days the government would have let them use the community center, but the circuit preacher wanted nothing to do with the government having a hand in religion so he would borrowed the store porch or inside. The porch was better since passers by could hear the music and the message and join in if they wanted to or listen from across the street.
Some of the Navajo would begin to trickle into town on Saturday to sell goods, transact business, or meet the kids who were had been away at the school at the bus stop. Those with transportation like a pickup truck would drive in on Sunday morning if they didn't have kids to fetch.
It was not uncommon for a family to walk ten miles or more across the mesa to attend church twice a month. The people were used to it, and they felt it was a mark of dedication to their faith.
Pete wasdid not a steadyusually attendeer. He figured if God wanted to talk to him, He would. The cowboy and the Lord had an agreement. They talked when only they had to.
How that jibed with what had happened to himthe event two nights ago didn't worry him. His faith was all mixed up in the land and the culture, just like everyone else hereabouts. No one around here had any idea about what would later be called metaphysics. To Pete, iIt was just a dream, but it that had stuck with him, verymuch like the ones from years back when he first came here.
Tomorrow, Pete would attend because it was one of Lorene's rules of the house. If a visitor wasn't sick enough to die or on the road to another church somewhere else, they went to church with her and Bill. Pete, not real crazy about the rule, kept the peace at homeas a guest by going along with her, and he would get to see one of his favorite people..
Pete didn't really mind. It would be like the old days. It was cheap rent for clean sheets, a hot shower, and whatever dessert she might happen to make, which she always did.
As the two men walked, a tall, striking Navajo woman crossed the road a few yards in front of them. Her height made Pete notice her, as did Max and BlueBlues. More than that, the woman had carriage,carriage; she held her head high and proud. She wore denims, uncommon for Navajo women.
"Who was that?" Pete asked as casually as he could.
Bill had noticed Pete's interest and had grinned to himself. "Don't get your hopes up, kid. That's Rachel, Harry Brave Elk's wife. Surprised you don’t remember her. She’s about your age."
BlueBlues lifted his head enough so it would look almost like he was ready to shy, but he decided against it. Max just skipped off to the side to miss the hooves in caseif BlueBlues did decided to be obnoxious, but he didn't.
"The guy who was murdered?"
"If he was dead, it'd be a big surprise to me, and probably to him, too. That's him standing over by the door to the store." The tribal officer motioned toward a big, powerfullythick--built Indian Navajo who leaned, back against the wall, arms folded, between the show window and the screened door. “Not that I’d be a bit surprised if someone didn’t take it into his head to do him some dirt. He can be a bad’un when he wants to. A real shame, he used to be one of the nicest guys around. I thought you knew him. Graduated same year you did.”
Pete glanced his way. “Nah. Remember I was home schooled? What happened to him?”
“Nobody knows, or if they do, no one’s sayin’. Just changed. Got rich though.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Never figured that out. Some say he started sellin’ turquoise. He’s always out diggin’ around. Won’t tell anyone where the mine is…. If there is one.”
Harry Brave Elk carried the sullen look of an untrusting man who dislikedhated white men and was not too fond of Indians, either. His hair was cut long and was tucked under a tan straw hat. At his waist, he carried a cleaned and shined Bowie knife in a split sheath. His manner said he could be awas a nasty individual who did not fit with all the regularsmiling Christian Indians who sat or stood near him. He did not talk,talk; he just leaned against the wallthere and watched his wife as she walked toward the filling station. The cowboyPete realized he had seen him somewhere before, but he didn’t remember, it had been so far backber from where, or unpleasant..
Pete hadn't forgotten the dream, and by now his curiosity about whether it was a dream or whether it wasn't a dream had him wondering even more. He sensed, not to mention the fact that Max and BlueBlues probably wanted to know, but, at the moment, since they were in no position to ask Bill so, Pete would have to.
"Has anybody around here been murdered in the last littlea while?" he asked.
"Hell, there ain't been any excitement around here in so long, I've been thinking of checking heartbeats," Bill answered. "Why?"
"No reason," Pete cleared his throat and spit into the dusty ground. Max knew enough to know that when Pete cleared his throat, he was going to spit, so it was a good idea to give his friend a wide berth. The dog skipped ahead of the little party.
"I musta got it wrong," Pete mused. BlueBlues shook his head, and Max did one of his "What a jerk" numbers looks toward both the horse and the man. BlueBlues let it pass because Bill was there, but he filed it in both sides of his brain for later thought. The horse was sure that the dog had heard the same name he had heard.
By then, theThe group had arrived at the mobile home that belonged to Bill and Lorene Potter. Pete unsaddled BlueBlues and turned the hose on him for a couple of minutes. BlueBlues showed that he enjoyed the water by shaking and nipping at the end of the hoseliked that, but he would have liked it more if he could have eaten right then. A bath and dinner at the same time, heaven for a horse, wasn’t in the cards. Max curled up on the porch and went to sleep.