Stallion Gate (11 page)

“We know what you’re doing up on the Hill and we want you to stop it,” Ben said.

Neither Joe nor Roberto paid attention to him.

“I met your mother once,” Roberto said.

“Yeah?”

“I guess you were in New York. She was a clan mother, wasn’t she? Winter Clan?”

“You’re a Winter Clan?”

“Summer.”

“She was Winter.” For Christ’s sake, everyone on this side of the pueblo was Winter Clan. Then he remembered that Roberto was blind. “This is mostly Winter Clan here.”

“We want you and the Army to stop it,” Ben said.

“Well, Ben,” Joe said, “I doubt very much you know what’s going on up on the Hill, but if you want to stop it, you tell a general, you don’t tell a sergeant.”

“Your mother made great pots,” Roberto said. “She had that special clay.”

“Yeah, the white clay.”

“You were the only one besides her who knew where she got it, she said,” Roberto told Joe.

“Her and Sophie.”

“You’re making poison,” Ben said.

“Ben,” Joe asked as softly as he could, “remember Pearl Harbor? Bataan?”

“You play the piano, she said,” Roberto told Joe. “And I met your brother, Rudy.”

“I am telling you now to stop it.”

Joe was trying to control his temper. “You really ought to take your case to Roosevelt, Ben. Or maybe to the boys from Santiago who are out fighting right now. Or to their mothers.”

Ben spat in front of the jeep. “Talking to you puts me in mind of the worm. The worm has no ears and no balls.”

“Well, Ben, your contribution to the war effort, sitting and farting and sorting feathers, is known and appreciated by all.”

“It’s been a good visit,” Roberto told Joe. With his walking stick, he hit Ben on the shin to locate him.

“Anytime,” Joe said.

Ben acted as if there was a whole lot of conversation yet to be had, but Roberto gripped the old man firmly by the arm and, blind or not, led him across the road to Ben’s yard.

Crazy. First Harvey, now Ben Reyes.

“I’ll give you a dollar for each one.” Mrs. Quist stood in the doorway and brushed dust off her white suit.

She’d been coming from Southern California to Santiago as long as Joe could remember. Once she’d been a visible woman, a little tanner each year. Now she was wrapped up like an ambulatory burn case. Her voice was nasal, as if it, too, were burned. Joe slid out of the jeep and followed her into the house.

Five pieces were lined up on the table. A polychrome pot with a plumed serpent chasing itself so closely that its jaws bit its own tail. A plate as black and shiny as coal but perfectly round and decorated with a ring of a hundred finely drawn feathers. A brown pot grooved like an acorn squash and as smooth as polished stone. A tall wedding pot with elegant twin necks. A little black seed bowl, round as a ball with a small hole.

“This house is a mess. If Dolores saw it …” Mrs. Quist sighed from aggravation and waved away the dust.

“A dollar each?”

“I’ll lose money. If you take in the expense of my travel, the ration cards for gasoline, hotel, food, closing down the shop, there’s no way I’ll see a profit. What with gas coupons this is the first time I’ve been here for two years. Dolores and I had a deal, though.”

“You did say a dollar.”

Mrs. Quist carefully put the squash pot into a box padded with newspaper and excelsior. “I can’t sell them in Santa Fe. There aren’t any tourists, just soldiers. Soldiers buy postcards, not pots. Probably by the time
I get back to Los Angeles, half of these will be broken, so I’m paying five dollars for two or three pots.”

She wrapped the plate and dropped it gently into the bottom of another box, then wrapped the polychrome pot and set it on top of the plate. “I may not be able to sell any of these. The war changed everything. People are coming back from France and Italy, they’ve been all over the world now. They’re going to want fine arts, to collect paintings—Picassos, Monets—not Indian pots.”

“That sounds tough.”

“That’s the way of the world, Joe.”

He couldn’t see her eyes through her dark glasses. Her mouth was a lipsticked oval. He’d grown up with the annual visits of Mrs. Quist, with her annual words of wisdom. He couldn’t remember when there’d been a good year for selling pots.

“Most traders are only working on consignment now, in fact.” She packed the tall wedding pot with special care. “They wouldn’t give you any money at all, and then you’d have nothing.”

“Nothing instead of five dollars?”

Mrs. Quist packed the bowl last, and then she laid and smoothed a dollar bill on the table where each piece had stood. “There.”

The bills crinkled. One slowly spun.

“Aren’t you going to pick them up?”

“Later.”

The breeze was nothing more than warm air drifting into a cool adobe house. The spinning bill drifted to the table’s edge.

“Well, it’s your money, you do what you want with it.”

“Oh, I’m only doing what Dolores would have done if she were here, Mrs Quist. She would have listened to everything you said and she would have taken a dollar a pot. You’re going to make twenty, twenty-five dollars apiece? You’ve always made that kind of money off Dolores. She always knew. I used to tell her, but she was too embarrassed for you to say anything. She was embarrassed for your greed. But she said you could have the pots, so you can. Except this one.” Joe removed the seed pot from the box. “Now, that’s your dollar bill on the floor, and you can pick it up if you want.” He hadn’t meant to frighten her, but Mrs. Quist stepped back as if he were going to hit her. “No? Then let me help you go.”

He carried the boxes to the Hudson and carefully laid them on the backseat. He held the door for her while she quickly got behind the wheel, put in the ignition key and pressed the starter. Her sunglasses trembled until she caught her breath.

“Joe, if I were you, I’d pick up all that money and clean up that house before Dolores sees it.”

“Dolores is dead. Died last year.” Joe pushed the car door shut. “I thought you knew.”

A Cadillac was squeezing through the alley along the back fence of the Reyeses’ yard, and Joe paid no more attention to Mrs. Quist as she pulled away. The Cadillac was a white coupe with chrome louvers, and it taxied like a fighter plane up to the pump. The driver’s window
rolled down and a thin black arm hung jauntily out. A diamond ring winked from the pinky.

“Hey, you
are
back home, Joe. I looked for you last night at the Casa and you weren’t there.” Pollack grinned and shook his head, expressing separate emotions at the same time. “Someone said they saw your jeep outside here. That’s good. It’s good to come home.” Pollack had a sly ivory smile, a wide nose and a flat forehead that curved into tight gray hair with blue-black scalp shining through. When he spoke, his hands had the sort of fluttery movements that put Joe in mind of ladies’ fans at gospel meetings. When he got excited, his eyes looked as if they would pop from sheer spirit. He always dressed in a silk shirt during the day and a tuxedo at night. Altogether he gave the impression of an alley cat who had achieved a dignified old age. “It’s good to see you back here.”

“You drove all the way for the sight?”

“I was looking for you. You know, I can’t go up that secret mountain to get you, so I’ve got to catch you when I can. I could have used you last night. Had a piano player must have been German. All he knew was polkas. Must have been a POW.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s your club, too, you know.”

“I haven’t heard you say that for a long time.”

“You don’t share the profits, mind, because your daddy Mike never put any money in. But we were partners. His name is on the papers. He was going to buy in, but he never had the chance. I always sent a little
money this way to your mother, you know. I didn’t have to, but I did. What is that you’re smoking? Smells like it collected in a hoof.”

“I know.” Joe dropped the homemade and stepped on it.

“Thing I learned was always be sharp. A person in the public eye has a responsibility to look sharp.”

Joe stepped on the running board. “What are you leading up to? So I didn’t get to the Casa last night.”

“I’m selling it.” Pollack was pleased by Joe’s surprise.

“The Casa Mañana?”

“Yeah. Eddie Junior’s coming home from Italy. I’m going to set us up in a nice club in Harlem.”

“That’s too bad. I mean, that’s great for you and Eddie, but the Casa was the best club in the state.”

“The only one with the authentic big-band sound. One hundred thousand dollars. That’s including kitchen, tables and chairs, liquor, liquor license, plus parking lot—practically an entire block. Albuquerque’s going to boom after the war, you know.”

“Why doesn’t Eddie Junior come here?”

“He grew up with his mother. All he knows is New York.” Pollack’s eyes wandered off in thought.

“And Italy.”

“Italy, yeah.” Pollack brightened. “A war hero like you. A veteran. Wouldn’t it be great if you came to New York and played in our new club? One little thing, Joe. A matter of clear title. I’m going to need your signature on the papers, you being Mike’s heir.”

“Me being his heir? To what? I don’t have a share of the club, you said.”

“It’s a nicety.”

“The nicety is I’m a partner without a share?”

“There’ll be a consideration.”

“Money?”

“A consideration.”

“A definite sum?”

“Considerable.”

“Give me a number. A hundred-dollar consideration? A thousand-dollar consideration? Give me the range.”

“I can’t say.”

“I can say. How badly can I fuck up your bill of sale?”

“Joe, we’re friends, we’re partners.”

“I’m just finding out.” Joe studied Pollack’s aghast face. He slapped the top of the car. “Fuck it. Bring around the papers, I’ll sign them. You don’t have to bring any ‘consideration.’ ”

“You scared me.” Pollack still looked gray.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that gravity’s got me down today.”

“Well …” Pollack didn’t dare say much else.

“You ever wonder what they’re doing up on that secret mountain? On the Hill? What would you say if I told you they were making a machine to end the world? To blow up the whole thing?”

“Now I know you’re fooling.” Pollack started the engine, eager to get away.

“Yeah.”

“Well. Now we got that settled, Joe, I best be going. Good to see you back in your own home.”

“Yeah.”

Pollack backed up, U-turned and eased between the Reyeses’ yard and the goat fence that served as the boundary for outhouses, compost heaps, cornfields. With his eyes, Joe followed the Cadillac in gaps between adobe walls, past the Winter Squash kiva, into the plaza and under the cottonwood. He looked back to the dirt road between the outhouses and the homes. He hadn’t noticed before that Mrs. Quist’s Hudson had stopped halfway into a cholla cactus. Her door was open and he could see her hands over her face, although he didn’t realize she was crying until her dark glasses fell onto the ground. As she leaned to retrieve them, she almost fell out.

It was unbelievable, Mrs. Quist had been robbing Dolores for as long as he could remember; for years she’d paid Dolores a dollar a pot, fifty cents a pot, a twentieth of what she could get in Santa Fe or L.A. When Joe thought of the money she’d made off Dolores … It was a predatory relationship. It was like watching a cat cry over a mouse. It was insane.

He went into the house. On the table was the black seed pot, a dark moon with a seed-sized hole on top. In the air, released from the newspapers, was the dust of the pots, the starchy smell of dry clay and the overwhelming scent of memory. Dolores was there in the chair by the table; all he had to do was raise his eyes to see her. She was a small woman with fine features
and unlined skin and complete concentration. Her hands worked quickly, moving her polishing stone over the pot. Starting from the bottom, she drew a straight line up to the lip, and a line beside that, and a line beside that, using only enough pressure for the clay to rebound brighter until the surface of the pot was faceted by hundreds of lines like the iris of an eye, and then her fingers gave the pot another pass, following the infinitesimal ridges between the lines. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he heard the musical sound of her voice. He pressed his back against the wall and looked.

No Dolores. Only dust motes stirring slowly in the light above the table, chair and pot, the last and only piece of hers he had. He snatched it and ran out the door.

The Hudson was gone. Coming along the outhouses and fences was a jeep, Sergeant Shapiro at the wheel and Corporal Gruber with him. The MPs had helmets, guns and clubs, so they were on duty. They were weight lifters, mouth breathers. Gruber had blunt ceramic features, Shapiro a slack blue jaw. His face was screwed up into something approaching passion or desperation. Joe had never seen them on the reservation before.

The jeep skidded to a stop in front of him. Gruber looked disgusted. Shapiro had trouble finding words. “Chief, did you see me the other day?”

“When?” Joe was still glancing around for Mrs. Quist’s Hudson.

“On patrol, walking my horse.”

“No.” Joe brought his attention back.

“It was the day the high explosive was stolen at the Hanging Garden. You didn’t see me on patrol?”

“What day was that?”

“It was bad enough the bunker was broken into. Augustino saw me. Captain Augustino says I learn to ride or I go into the infantry, and he’s personally going to see I got to the Pacific. He says I’m going to be in the first fucking boat that hits Japan.”

“ ‘The first asshole in the water,’ the captain said,” Gruber reminded him.

“You taught Dr. Oppenheimer how to ride, you can teach me how to ride,” Shapiro told Joe. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. My life is in your hands.”

“I’m working tomorrow.”

“Chief, I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want. You’ll see.”

“Maybe in the afternoon.”

The Hudson still hadn’t crossed the plaza. It seemed to have simply disappeared, as if Mrs. Quist had gone straight to heaven to buy from Dolores direct.