Stealing Fire (23 page)

“Iris,” I said, “from now on, we're going to be each other's shadow.”

She launched into Al Jolson's version of “Me and My Shadow,” and my grandfather added a little soft shoe.

“I'm serious.”

Grandpa said, “You want serious? Good. I think it's time for the three of us to have a talk where no one can find us or eavesdrop.”

“Should we stick Finnerty on guarding Wright?”

“Nope,” Grandpa said. “Someone else. Anyone.”

“Trusting your instincts on this one.”

As it turned out, Harry Goulding was Mr. Wright's shadow that day, and he was glad for the chance. Harry hadn't heard all eighty years of Wright's stories.

The three of us walked upstairs to the bedroom for our private talk. Harry hollered at my back, “Hey, Yazzie! Don't forget about the Ute guy. He's still hanging around, waiting to talk to you.”

Grandpa said, “Well, he's persistent. I'll give him that.”

 

Thirty-nine

I closed our bedroom door in Harry and Mike's place and sat on an old-fashioned chair that was little and rickety. Looked like it was the last remaining piece of a long-gone dining set built for people a whole lot smaller than me. Iris and Grandfather sat together on the edge of the bed.

“First, sweetheart,” I said, “don't tell anyone you're expecting. We don't want it dangled as a threat against you.”

She understood. There was no way she was telling anyone. Fortunately, Wright had been wrapped up in himself and didn't hear the news. Grandfather's lips were sealed. Frieda and Mom were old-fashioned—they both thought it was bad luck to talk about a pregnancy until about ten minutes after the baby was born and deemed healthy. They also thought the dog, Shorty, was good luck and had somehow been responsible for this news. Iris had simply agreed with them. It's often the easiest way to go.

“Olgivanna's arrival,” Grandpa said, “what do you make of that?”

That was an easy one. “In Wright's mind,” I said, “it will be like the long-awaited steamer sailing into port, carrying all the supplies imaginable. She is his center. I don't know what drafts they could be talking about, but there are homes to design, and given a large desk—the movie crew could whack one together for him in an hour—he'll have the space he needs. Probably better than drawing on a tablecloth.”

“After all,” said Iris, “age has made his designs so much better. He's confident, experimental. He has been honing his skilled eye, and craft, for decades. He may have apprentices, but let's face it—none of them are Frank Lloyd Wright.”

My grandfather said, “I think his wife is worried about him. I don't know what that shriek was about, but I can tell you one thing—the man has been coming to this desert for over a decade. He has seen a tarantula before.”

“He was probably spooked to begin with.”

“Maybe,” he allowed. “And maybe he wanted Finnerty gone. If so, his shriek sure did the trick.”

“I haven't been in the wife business very long,” Iris said, “but if things get strange, men sometimes depend on women to be their compass.”

Someone to tell Wright if a situation was as weird as he thought, or if his imagination was getting the best of him … That made sense to me.

“Before Olgivanna gets here, I want to clean up a few loose ends. After she arrives, it won't be easy. She is,” I said, “complicated.”

“And very protective.”

I thought a minute. “When it's all said and done, we three are the people who count most. We love each other. Meaning, we watch out for each other.”

“Absolutely,” Grandpa said.

“Okay. You stay around Goulding's with Iris. When she gets up to go to the bathroom, go with her. When you get up, she goes with you.”

“Yazzie, I'll just whiz off the porch. If I'm real lucky, I'll hit someone.”

“Grandpa.”

“I was going off the balcony in Santa Fe as soon as I was taller than the rail. Caught hell for it a few times, too.”

“I guess,” Iris said, “we should call you Dead-eye Dick.”

Grandpa slapped both knees and hooted.

“Iris, he'll get even for that—but stay together and don't leave this building. I'm out and about, checking on Wright. Sniffing around.”

I closed the door and heard them yakking like a couple of school kids.

Mose yelled to me through the door, “Hey! Don't walk under any balconies!”

There are no words to say how much I loved them both right then.

 

Forty

I wandered around the movie set. I was nonchalant. I found the person I was looking for seated in a chair just to the side of the set. I stood tall next to him. The crew was setting up the cameras, using doubles to get the lighting just right. The scene would be shot on an area of rippled tumbleweed and sand. I looked at the man. He was avoiding me. Trying not to feel me. And then he looked up.

“Hi, Mr. Goldman,” Finnerty said. “Sorry about last night.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Sure there is. Your grandfather's no spring chicken. I was supposed to be watching him, and instead we both got soused.”

“My grandfather,” I said, “can be very persuasive.”

“True, Mr. Goldman.”

“We're around the same age. Just call me Yazzie.”

“And you call me Rick.”

We shook hands.

“I have a confession to make,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I shouldn't have paid any attention, you know, too much drink for both of us, but some of the stuff your grandfather said about the Irish really set me off.”

“I don't blame you.”

“Talkin' like I'm no true Irishman because I enjoyed Belfast. Sure I did. Same as any big city, a young man finds ways to have a good time.”

“No explanations necessary.”

“Well, there is one thing … I'm the one who took that big spider and stuck it in Wright's shoe. Honest to God, I woulda rather got your granddad, but you were hovering over him, and there was that spider, and it was so easy to reach right under the old man's bed.”

“That's why you were all over Wright, straightening out those covers.”

“Trying to get that spider, I was. Just a joke, you know?”

“Well, you scared the pants off Wright, I'll say that.”

He laughed. “Worked pretty good, but when I saw him, God help me, I thought he was headed straight to the grave, and I'd sent him there. I was ashamed and scared and I turned tail and run.”

“He's edgy. When his wife arrives, he'll feel easier.”

“His wife's coming?”

“Yes. She's worried about him. Probably has a right to be.”

“No more problems from me. Promise.”

“Good to know. He has plans for the work of a lifetime. He's added more drafts for the project, so he probably wants to see what she thinks before they run them by the board in New York.”

“Seems like I stepped in a hornet's nest getting near that man.”

“He doesn't know you're the one who planted that tarantula.”

“You're not telling him?”

“Can you think of a reason why I should?”

“I didn't know he was such a big shot,” Finnerty said.

“Even big shots get spooked.”

He rubbed his chin. Looked me up and down. “You're an Indian, aren't you?”

“Navajo and Jewish.”

“Boy, that was some hand you got dealt.”

“Happy about who I am.”

“Every right to be, I'm sure. But I was just thinking that you Indians are kind of like the Irish. You got pushed and pushed to the edge of decent land by everyone and his brother, and then over the edge.”

“Can't argue with you there.”

“Quiet on the set!”
came the call. I knew Mr. John would follow with the orders “Lights! Camera!…”

Finnerty got up. “Well,” he said, “glad we're on good terms. I'll make my apologies to Mr. Wright after his wife gets here. I'm sure there'll be quite a fanfare.”

I watched him walk away from the camera and from me toward one of the big tents for the crew. After a couple of takes, he came out wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Too hot for long-sleeved khaki. Wearing his holster, pistol in it. The tent flap fluttered in a faint breeze. He looked up the hill and waved to me. I waved back, and then he was lost in the crowd. Everyone was taking their places on the set.

I walked toward the Gouldings' house, and then backtracked past the set, walking quiet just behind the piñons. I lifted up the back door of the tent, spotted the cot where the shirt he'd taken off was lying in a crumple.

I poked around. Not much space, but enough for gear and a few what-nots. When I lifted the mattress off his cot, the only thing that surprised me was that I was not surprised by what I'd found. I put all the covers exactly as they'd been, and crept out through the back. I had no intention of telling anyone, including Iris and Grandpa, what I'd seen.

*   *   *

I had a very good talk with the oddity called Yazzie Goldman. We apologized to each other. We trusted each other. These things happen. Someday this would be funny. Wright was a very important man—like I needed Goldman to tell me that.

It had all been a mess, but life cannot be planned. In the end, things might not work out the way a person thought they would, but if you pay attention, there is always the opportunity to make them work out even better than you thought possible.

And I liked this movie business.

Maybe after this was over, I'd get a job on a set. Maybe turn into a star. Helen could be a set designer. I thought she'd enjoy that.

 

Forty-one

There he was, I'd almost forgotten about him, the Ute looking for me, Yazzie Goldman. He was waiting on the porch of Goulding's trading post, leaning against a pale blue Lincoln. He shook my hand, Indian-style, gentle as the wings of a moth.

“Hey, you want to sit down? Still warm in this sun, October or not.” He patted a bench in the shade.

I didn't think it was the Ute we'd seen at Hambler's, but I couldn't honestly say. I have trouble telling one Ute from another. This man was in better shape than that guy had been. He had soft, warm eyes, spoke well. Snazzy dresser, wearing white-man clothes.

I couldn't imagine what his story would be. I waited for him to start talking, feeling like I was going to be taken for a ride. That's the bad part of my job—trust starts wearing thin. The railroad is good pay, but it sure wasn't enough to make up for all the troubled people who had come in and out of my life, and home, during the last week.

The Ute introduced himself. He said to me, “I'm Tony Wopsock, Bear Indian Ute.”

“I'm Yazzie Goldman, born to Bitter Water—”

“You can skip all that. I know who you are. It's why I've been trying to have a meeting with you.”

A meeting?

“Let me ask you something first,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“I was threatened up northwest of Gallup by a Ute who was all boozed up. Worse than that, he threatened an elderly white man in his trading post. Hambler's. The Ute was holding him hostage, actually, and I don't know if Hambler would still be alive if we hadn't showed up.”

“Are you asking if that was me, and now I'm all cleaned up and have some devious plan I want to work on you?”

“I guess so.”

“That guy wasn't me. I wonder what a Ute was doing down there.”

“Family trouble,” I said.

“Intermarriage?”

“I believe so.”

“Doesn't usually work out—the extended family's fault, mostly. Lots of Utes, those who've stayed on the rez, can't tell one Navajo from another.”

What was there to do about that, but laugh? We did. I went inside and got us a couple of Cokes. We sat on his bench out of the sun. Doesn't matter what color your skin is—we're all animals whose insides and outsides dry up when we don't have enough to drink and the light is fierce.

The bench was a smooth, peach-colored stone. On one end, a sculpted Navajo woman rose up, carved blanket over her head, holding a jug that created a thin fountain, water spilling into another jug below.

“Wait,” he said. “The man at Hambler's trading post … Charley Buck?”

I searched back in my memory files. “Hambler may have mentioned the name Buck.”

“I see him at powwows. He's bad business, always in a gray mood. He depends on his daughter now, but his son-in-law doesn't go for him.”

“That's the one.”

“That's not a Ute-Navajo problem. The
man
is a problem, always has been. His family has had healing ceremonies for him—no luck.”

“Some people, you can't fix them, no matter what,” I said. “You have to avoid them.”

“Or let them go. Now, my proposition for you.”

We sipped our Cokes and looked at the sky. You don't want to jump into any conversation that involves help or money—just let it float for a time. We talked about the new tourists, and we talked about how much we liked Mike and Harry Goulding.

“I don't know them that well,” he said. “I have a nephew who sells them hand-carved flutes. He can't keep up with the orders. He also plays for folks when they go on camping trips with Harry.”

“You live around here?”

“I grew up on the White Mesa rez.”

“That's a sorry little band of folks—no offense intended.”

“None taken. It's not like the other Ute tribes. Poor as dirt. I moved to Salt Lake City.”

“Uintah is mighty, goes almost right there.”

“My mother has plenty of family there, and I was hungry for a big city and opportunity to make money,” he said. “Went to college. Had a well-off roommate who was smart about money. He taught me how to keep mine straight and how to make it grow. Taught me about business. Best thing that ever happened to me.