Redeye (28 page)

After hobbling our horses above the city, we carefully ventured down sturdy ladders. I felt right at home. Even though there was rubble and cave-ins most everywhere, some rooms felt as though people had recently lived there. We were instructed by Andrew and Zack and Bumpy in the art of rubble removal and relic gathering. It must be done very carefully. The dust was thick and the work hard but exciting. Several fine specimens were found, labeled, and recorded in the log book as follows: seven bowls, six ladles, four arrows, numerous potsherds, a tiny awl, and three bone needles. Soon the finds, the discoveries of relics, came too rapidly for the catalogers to keep up with their tasks.

Several specimens were separated out by Bishop Thorpe and his son, Hiram. They would not allow those specimens—three bowls, two with crosses and one with a “swastika,” a type of very ancient cross, Hiram told us—to be cataloged with the others. Those belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bishop Thorpe told Zack, and must be labeled as such in the log
book. The bowl with the swastika had ten lines drawn on it, which Bishop Thorpe said represented the ten lost tribes of Israel. He was very excited. Zack was very angry.

While Zack and Bishop Thorpe argued over classification, it began to
snow
. The Mexicans quickly gathered wood from the mesa top, and a large fire was built under the protective overhanging cliff. Everyone was in a celebratory mood. We watched the snowflakes fly sideways out across the empty space between us and the slowly disappearing rock wall across the gorge.

Bumpy asked Zack about the horses, and Zack agreed that the horses should be taken out of the bad weather on top of the mesa. There was a draw nearby, on the mesa top. This was the place to which the horses must be taken. Andrew asked if I wanted to come along, and as we started up the ladder, Zack suggested we take sleeping bags in case we decided to stay with the horses. And he gave us the rifle that had been brought along—in case we saw a deer.

Because I had worked for the rancher Merriwether and the Mormon Bishop I knew the spirit of each of them. My people and our chief, White Deer, are under the power of Bishop Thorpe because of the supplies that the Mormons give to our people and because of the Mormon god that White Deer believes is the strongest and most feared of all gods.

I knew of the love in Merriwether's heart for the ancient homes of the Anasazi. It was a kind love. None of my present people other than my friend Lobo knew Merriwether. My people now believed that Merriwether was evil, that he worshiped a god that was not a true god. This is what Bishop Thorpe told White Deer and White Deer told my people.

White Deer told our tribe that our job was to frighten the white people coming into the mesa with our war paint and weapons. No war paint had been worn by our people in many seasons, and we no longer used the bows and arrows that we were to display to the white people who are called tourists. Bishop Thorpe had obtained a paper from the new U.S. Indian agent that would stop the taking of relics from the mesa. I asked White Deer if this was the plan of White Deer or the plan of Bishop Thorpe. White Deer said that it was the plan of neither. It was the plan, he said, of the Mormon god. Bishop Thorpe had learned what to do in a dream.

I was growing tired of the Mormon god. The Mormon god lived in the heart of Bishop Thorpe rather than Bishop Thorpe living in the heart of the Mormon god. So I went into the fields for a night and sought out the gods of my fathers but they did not come to me, so I did not fear deep in my heart for what I would do.

I told Lobo of my plans to be true to Merriwether and he said he would follow me and do what I asked.

I traveled with my people to the mesa top. We went by a long, secret way so that we would not have to travel up the narrow trail and leave signs for the tourists to see. We were to appear in war
paint and with weapons across the gorge from Eagle City with the rising sun on the second day the tourists were there. This was the dream message to Thorpe. The tourists would be frightened and Bishop Thorpe would go down into Eagle City and give a paper from the new government Indian agent to Merriwether. The paper would say that Eagle City belonged to the Mescadey only. Then we could return to our village.

Lobo asked me, “How will we know how to stop all this?”

“We will decide according to what we think is just.”

“You will stand against your own people?”

“Our own people are not standing for themselves so I will not be standing against them.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Nor does all the rest we are doing. I do not want to fool Merriwether, for he is a good man.”

“But he is white.”

“Thorpe is white too.”

“Then why are you fooling him?”

“I do not believe his heart.”

“Whatever you say. You are my friend. I will hit any enemy with my big limb while you watch from the mesa top.”

“This is serious business.”

“No business which is serious business should be all serious.”

“You talk loco. Let your limb talk.”

“He is tired of talking. He wants battle.”

I am in a sheltered draw near the top of the trail that leads up from White Rock. It is morning. The snow has
finally
stopped. Tiny diamonds seem to lie upon the ground and in trees. I feel farther from civilization than ever in my life. Andrew and I are sitting across a little fire and looking at each other mostly. Bumpy has just left for Eagle City to say we and the horses are safe.

Late yesterday, as we hurried here, I rode behind my Andrew, on his horse, with my arms about him. He is thin, but oh so powerful. Can this actually be happening? I keep asking myself.

On top of the mesa the wind and snow blew fiercely and I heard thunder. Back home in North Carolina, Uncle Ross used to say that snow and thunder together was a bad sign.

We gathered the horses and mules together, found the safe draw, and here the wind was not so bad. The horses would be fine, but for us—our first job was to get a fire going. We found a spot under a rock overhang, mostly out of the snow. Bumpy hobbled the horses, so sad with their heads bowed and snow sticking to their eyelashes and manes, while Andrew and I brought in a plenitude of small tree limbs and sticks. Bumpy got a fire going and then he and Andrew fashioned a canvas wind and snow break. This was taking time and it was beginning to get dark, yet snowing still. I helped in every way I could.

Andrew and Bumpy cut limbs and brush with a hatchet and
had started fashioning a lean-to. It was my job to continue work on the lean-to while they then looked about for firewood again.

I could only think of one thing: my Andrew. We would be sleeping that very night in close, very close, proximity. Out on the mesa, with cowboys, normal rules of decorum may be temporarily suspended, it appears.

Our lean-to is against the same rock wall providing the overhang over the fire. It is a safe place.

Last night, smoke occasionally swirled into the lean-to, and occasionally a harmless snow spray blew over the fire.

Andrew returned before Bumpy. Everything was so quiet, and magic, in the soft, swirling snow.

“We're all set—except for food,” said Andrew. “But I think Bumpy brought some apples and jerky. We can roast the apples.” He turned his face to me, over his shoulder, as his hands extended over the fire. His face was red. “Come here, I want to show you something,” he said.

I had been sitting on the soft pine branches under my sleeping bag. I stood and walked to the fire. Though occasional sprays of snow drifted into our little haven, we were as safe and snug as bugs in a rug, and here I was a million miles from home, with my Andrew.

“I want to show you something,” he said again. He seemed nervous. I thought he meant that he had
brought
something to show me. He was wearing a big coat and a cowboy hat. He removed his hat. “Have you ever observed horses kissing?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” I replied. “I have seen them play as
if
they were kissing.”

“Whatever it is they're doing . . . if not kissing.”

“I don't know if it's kissing or not,” I said. “I was just thinking that—”

“They plant their feet and stretch their necks toward each other. A couple were doing it just after we got here, as if they were happy to be out of the cold wind, so I was thinking as we gathered wood that I wanted to come back here and try that with you.”

I felt faint.

“I left Bumpy,” he said, “and promised myself that if I did not ask you I would have to shoot myself, so you see, Star, I'm asking you simply to save dying.” He looked at his feet, backed up a step without giving me a chance to answer, and slowly started stretching his neck toward me. The fire was warm at his left hand, my right. “They just sort of play and nuzzle,” he said. He was nervous and embarrassed.

“I know,” I said. “I've seen them.” And then and there, his cheek touched mine and my first thought was, Oh it's so cold. I wanted to touch his cheek with my warm hand. “You're cold,” I said. I
did
touch his cheek with my hand.

“Not inside. I'm not cold inside.” And his face turned so slightly toward mine and he took a little playful nip of my cheek just as a horse would, and I, leaning forward, my feet planted, my neck outstretched, I turned my face and nipped back and then we were in an embrace. An embrace. All my longings and yearnings to hold him were being satisfied and I remembered all that Aunt Sallie had taught me about young men and as quickly as I remembered, I forgot.

I was kissing Andrew Collier full in the mouth, only the second boy I'd ever kissed that way. I was pulling his back in toward my breast as if I were pulling his ribs into mine so that we could never part. Our coats were big and heavy. We heard Bumpy, and stepped back apart, looking at each other. Bumpy came up pulling a log, his back to us. He hadn't seen us, as far as I know.

We kept the fire roaring and sat facing it under our little shelter. We ate jerky, then roasted and ate an apple apiece. We had a saucepan for melting snow to drink.

As we ate, the three of us talked about little things, nothing important. I only remember my feelings of warmth and happiness.

When it came time for bed we discovered that we were one sleeping bag short! I must have broken out in a sweat as I thought of the possibilities.

“I guess we'll have to sleep together, old boy,” Andrew said to Bumpy.

They agreed, and something inside me said that Andrew Collier would be in my arms and I in his before the night was done. Andrew, after rising in the night to tend the fire, perhaps an hour after bedtime, stopped and sat to talk with me. It was too cold for him to set thusly, but I couldn't bear for him to leave me, so I as it were “invited him in,” and I have now, while retaining my virginity until my wedding day, felt the warmth, the taste, of kisses sweeter than any honeysuckle on earth—as sweet as the smell of acres of wisteria. And I have aroused passions from the depths of my body and soul, passions I never knew existed.

And now—here this morning—we sit staring at each other.

Suddenly a shot rings out from the direction of Eagle City. Then another. Andrew says someone has probably shot a deer.

“But we've got the only rifle—remember?”

He looks at me with an odd expression.