Rock with Wings (7 page)

Bernie cringed at the joke.

“I wasn’t going to arrest him at first, sir. But even before he tried to bribe me, Miller acted guilty as could be. I figured he had a lot at stake to offer me that much money and the rifle to let him go. It’s in my report, and it’s all on the tape, too. You can see him fidgeting.”

Largo exhaled. “The camera wasn’t working.”

“You’re kidding? I checked it. The light was on.”

“You didn’t record anything.”

“Not again.” She tried to keep her tone neutral, her frustration at bay. Failing equipment was an ongoing problem. “I’ve got some pictures of the boxes and the rifle in the trunk of the car. I’ll add them to my write-up. That might help.”

“It might.” But Bernie heard the doubt in his voice.

“So, sir, the bribery will be a ‘he said, she said’?”

“Afraid so. Take another look at your report. Make sure you’ve put everything in, whatever you remember.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can I count on you tomorrow?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know yet, sir. It depends on my sister. If she’s not available, I’ll need somebody to stay with Mama.”

Bernie watched Largo sit down again. The men in the department didn’t have the complication of dealing with their mothers. Their sisters and aunts and maybe even their wives handled that.

“I trust you on this bribery deal, Manuelito, but you know, without the tape it will be hard to prove. There’s one good thing about this.”

She waited, wondering what came next.

“The FBI is interested.”

“Why? And that’s a good thing?”

He chuckled. “Your encounter with Miller might be what saves this whole operation from being a complete fiasco. They are sending a team to search the car again with some high-tech gizmos. Maybe Sweating Man invented a new explosive. Or maybe they’ll come up with something else suspicious. You’ve heard of fertilizer being used to blow things up, right?”

“Yes, sir. Timothy McVeigh.”

“Maybe those guys will discover an aged cow pie, sheep droppings, some horse dung in one of those boxes.”

Bernie could feel warmth in her face.

“Manuelito?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over this. Miller probably won’t sue us. The Navajo Public Safety Department doesn’t have enough money to be worth it.”

Bernie drove Mama through town with the windows down, imagining that the breeze made her cooler. She tried to shake off the embarrassment and failure that had followed her from the station, but it clung like a burr to a sock. When she reached the big highway and sped up, Mama rolled up her window. Bernie realized that winding the crank on the driver’s side caused no change in the level of the glass, another reason Darleen left the window open.

“Is there some trick to this window?”

“Your sister pulls it up halfway first.” Mama pantomimed the action with both hands. “You can roll it from there.”

Bernie expected her mother to fall asleep on the ride. Instead she said, “Oldest daughter, we need to talk now about your sister.”

When Mama said, “We need to talk,” she meant that Bernie needed to listen.

“We need to help so she doesn’t become an
adlaanii
.”

Bernie kept her eyes on the highway.
Adlaanii
were relatives and friends who had damaged or severed their connection to their family, their clan, and their friends, because of alcohol. She wondered if it was too late, if her sister already was an alcoholic. Besides the beer cans, she’d spotted an empty vodka bottle in the trunk when she loaded the walker.

“That one wants to go to the art school for Indians in Santa Fe. You know, the Eye something? It could be a good thing. I want you to help her do that.”

The Institute of American Indian Arts—IAIA for short—drew students from around the country, and even foreigners. Some of the Navajo Nation’s best-known artists had studied there. Darleen liked
to draw, but as far as Bernie knew, her little sister hadn’t even completed her GED. Bernie was skeptical, but she kept silent.

“Getting away from the ones who encourage her to have beer,” Mama continued, “that would be good. She will come home to see us on the weekends. That’s what I have to say.”

“I’m glad you wanted to talk about this, Mama. In my job, many of the people I encounter get in trouble because of drinking. Sometimes going to jail helps them realize they should give up alcohol.” And, Bernie knew, sometimes an arrest meant losing a job, falling behind on car payments, and putting additional stress on relationships. “Sister has to decide to stop drinking. No matter where she is, Santa Fe or home with you, or what she does, she will have a chance to drink. The choice is up to her. Being somewhere else won’t solve the problem. And you and I can’t solve it for her.”

“Coyote lives with us,” said Mama. Coyote, prince of chaos, a troublemaker, trickster, transformer, and more. “But you help your sister.”

A sudden blast of wind shook the car, and Bernie gripped the wheel and tapped the brakes. The gust had pushed the horse trailer in front of her into the left lane, and a car that was passing her put on the brakes, narrowly avoiding an accident.

“Mama, promise me you will never get in the car with Sister if she has been drinking. You could both die. I’ve seen it.”

“Daughter, why do you worry so much?”

Bernie watched a flock of small white clouds assembling on the horizon, looking like cotton balls on a child’s painting of a perfect day. They scudded against the deep turquoise backdrop, casting black shadows that moved over the dusty country below. The clouds were too small and too independent to build to thunderheads. At best, they’d screen the sun later to provide a bit of cool; at worst, they would make dry lightning, starting fires in the mountains.

By the time they got back to Mama’s house, midday heat had
settled in with full force. Too warm for anything except a big glass of water—or maybe her first Coke of the day—and a good book.

“It’s so hot, Mama. Let’s wait until later to start cooking.”

“Summer.” Mama said it as though that was all the explanation needed. “You remember this when you get cold at Késhmish.”

Christmas, and most of December, brought the area below-freezing nights, but the worst of winter came in January and February. Bernie remembered the deep snow a few years past that had created an emergency for livestock, and the welcome sound of New Mexico National Guard helicopters flying in hay to keep animals from starving. The Navajo Nation had worked with the state to help families isolated by the blizzard and the mud that followed it.

Bernie carried the groceries into the kitchen and checked Mama’s phone for messages, but only the hum of the dial tone greeted her. Nothing from Darleen or from Chee.

Mama supervised as Bernie laid out the ingredients for the stew and a knife for each of them. As they had done so many times before, she and Mama sat at the kitchen table together. As usual, Mama didn’t do anything halfway. When she made stew, she made enough to share with friends and relatives.

First they cut the mutton into serving-size pieces and divided it between the big pots. They added water to cover it and salt and pepper, put on the lids, and set the pots on the stove, one in the front and one on the opposite burner in the back. Bernie waited for the water to boil and for the phone to ring, Sister asking for a ride home.

They chopped potatoes, carrots, onions, squash, and celery. Mama noticed Bernie looking at a scar on one of her fingers, a white crescent.

“When I was a little girl, I wanted to help with the
atoo’
.” Every time Mama told this story, it was slightly different. “My grandmother told me no, but when she wasn’t looking, I grabbed the
knife and tried to cut some meat. I nearly chopped off this finger.” Mama wiggled the finger, examined the scar. “My grandmother stopped the bleeding. My finger hurt a lot, but then she made me learn how to do the job right.”

Some say perspiring is good for you. Bernie had read articles about women paying to do yoga in a hundred-degree room. It wasn’t that hot at Mama’s house, she didn’t have to pay to chop, and they would have stew as a reward. What a deal!

The pungent smell of bubbling mutton interrupted her thoughts. Mama reached for her walker.

“I’ll check on it.” Bernie turned down the stove to simmer and skimmed off the foam from the boiling meat. Bringing them both a glass of water, she went back to work.

Mama looked at the pile of chopped vegetables. “We will put this in later. Now we should have a little rest.”

Bernie helped Mama take off her shoes and watched her stretch out on the bed. These afternoon naps still caught Bernie by surprise. Mama had always had more energy than she and her sister rolled together. It always seemed like Mama was supplied with extra batteries. But not anymore.

“You sleep, too, daughter.”

Bernie didn’t tell Mama she wasn’t sleepy. Instead, she sat on the porch with a book from Mama’s bookcase, a mystery she feared she had already read. The shade made an oasis of relative coolness. Her eyes scanned the words, but her brain couldn’t focus. The questions about Miller replayed themselves. She wished Chee were there, or at least someplace she could reach him, so they could brainstorm.

She forced herself to stop obsessing about Miller, and thought about her sister. Mama was right. She could have done more to help, but she hadn’t wanted to. Darleen knew how to aggravate her, knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to be, to push her frustration
buttons. Maybe, just maybe, the Darleen who came home from jail would be different from the one who had left.

After a few minutes, she put the book down and, despite the heat, went for a run.

It didn’t take long to work up a sweat in the day’s heat. She kept going until she wasn’t thinking about anything anymore. Then she turned around and ran back.

When she came in from her run, she picked up Mama’s phone. Finally, there was the rapid beep. She called up the message, listened, and saved it.

When Mama woke up, Bernie put the phone on speaker and replayed it.

Darleen’s voice filled the room. “Mama, I’m OK. I’m leaving Farmington soon. I love you.”

Mama stared at the phone then turned away. Bernie saw her raise a hand to her cheek to wipe away a tear. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry before.

The Diné Bahane’, the mythic origin story of the Navajo people, concerns balance, give-and-take, facing challenges, and making one’s way in the world, negotiating the constant presence of dark and light, life and death,
hozho
and its counterpart,
hochxo
. This certainly seemed to be her journey at the moment and her sister’s, too.

Bernie wondered if her sister was hitchhiking home. She hoped Darleen was safe.

Mama seemed to read her mind. “Don’t worry about that one.” She patted Bernie’s arm. “She will be here tonight. She is ashamed. You don’t have to think like a policeman all the time.”

Afternoon turned into evening. Bernie and Mama made tortillas to go with the stew—it was too hot for fry bread—and ate together. After she helped Mama to bed, Bernie went outside. She breathed in the crisp air of the high desert evening and listened for a car on
the road or the beat of Darleen’s footsteps as she walked in from the highway, but she heard only the nonhuman sounds of the night.

If Darleen didn’t make it home tonight, or was too out of it to be trustworthy, Bernie would take Mama with her to Shiprock tomorrow and go to work. Mama could spend the day at her trailer while she was at the station. She had to be there when the feds did their special check of the car so she could see what Miller had hidden and where.

She didn’t want to live with another mistake.

She knew what had happened to the Lieutenant wasn’t her fault. But if she had been a little faster, a little smarter, a better officer, she might have snapped to what was about to unfold in that parking lot in time.

Back inside, Mama was asleep. Bernie curled up on the couch, opened her book, and started to read.

The noise of a vehicle in the driveway startled her. She glanced at her watch. A few minutes until eleven. Through the living room’s open windows she caught snippets of a muted conversation, the closing of a car door, the sound of tires on the road.

Moments later, Darleen came inside.

Bernie had been thinking about this moment, preparing for it. But the sight of her little sister, her exhaustion and sadness, swept away all Bernie’s plans, replacing them with joyful gratitude. She hugged Darleen until they both stopped crying.

Darleen pulled a wad of tissues from the pocket of her jeans and offered one to Bernie. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have to come, but I am so glad you’re here.”

“Me, too,” Bernie said. And she meant it.

“I’m starting over. I don’t want to be an
adlaanii
. I saw enough drunks to— to— I don’t know. Is Mama OK?”

Bernie nodded. The Navajo language was interesting, she thought. It had a word that meant “drunk,” but there was no simple
way to say “Sorry.” Perhaps the ancestors realized that each offense left different damages, and each required a complicated making of amends. A trite phase didn’t cut it.

“Mama and I made some
atoo’
. Want some?”

“I’m starving. But I have to take a shower first.”

By the time Darleen returned, the stew was hot. Bernie ate again with her, noticing the dark circles under her sister’s eyes.

Darleen got up for more stew. “Did Mama ask you to come?”

“No. Mrs. Darkwater called.”

“What did she say happened to me?”

“She said you hadn’t come home and that Mama stayed up all night waiting for you.”

“So I guess Cheeseburger is here, too.”

“No, but he drove back with me.”

“Back from where?”

“We were on vacation, remember? Chee found out that you got arrested.”

“I so totally screwed up. I was drinking and I said some stuff to a cop—” Darleen stood and put her bowl and Bernie’s in the sink. “What if I tell you and Mama about it in the morning? I don’t want to relive it twice, and I can barely keep my eyes open now.”