Zuni Stew: A Novel (21 page)

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Authors: Kent Jacobs

Tags: #Government relations, #Indians, #Zuni Indians, #A novel, #Fiction, #Medicine, #New Mexico, #Shamans

BOOK: Zuni Stew: A Novel
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

The walk back to the pueblo took longer than usual; Louis Paul leaned on his son the last few miles. He wasn’t hungry, telling his wife that he would rest, eat later. “Just some water,” he said wearily.

Linda heard the glass hit the floor moments after she had placed it by the bed. She found him looking surprised and rubbing his neck. He apologized, and said, “He’s dead.”

“Who’s dead? Not Doctor Bill...”

“No. The senator from Illinois. The man questioned me...Washington... my testimony. He ridiculed me.”

38

J
osh left the hospital, assured that Bill was in surgery.

Exhausted, Jack led Lori to the room where Bill would eventually be moved. They collapsed on the twin beds. Lori slept soundly, but Jack was tormented. Vivid, sickening nightmares.

Massive bear. A large hump on his back. Grizzly. Raging cavernous mouth. Red pupils. Roaring, screaming, rising to its full height and reaching out with deadly curved claws. Ripping, ripping, ripping. Fifteen-hundred pounds of muscle and fury. Blood-covered brown, white-tipped fur. Gabriel’s blood. Blood everywhere. The event indelible in his mind.

Sweating, on fire, disoriented. Jack made it to the bathroom and threw up. He looked at himself in the mirror. It wasn’t his reflection. Older. Long hair, scruffy beard. Sunburned. Dark sunken skin around bloodshot eyes. “I look like shit,” he murmured. He couldn’t even recognize his own voice when he hissed, “I hope that grizzly tore out his heart and ate it.”

An hour later, Bill was moved into the room. Slanted rays of cool pale violet touched the rimrock. The windows of the U.S. Public Health Hospital in Gallup lit up. Early morning rounds. Lori scooted the only chair to the head of the bed. The screech was awful. Jack leaned against the deep windowsill, arms crossed, head down.

The floor charge nurse stepped into the room, saying, “Ms. Wilson, you have a phone call.”

“May I take it in here?”

“Of course.”

“Yolie here. Is it okay to talk?”

“I’m with Jack. What’s going on?”

“The pot’s gone from simmer to full boil. Your Chicago boss is in a piss-pot of trouble. Director Kelley is on his tail but good.”

“What have they got on Brooks?”

“Seems someone has sent copies of a report detailing very illegal dealings at the Port Authority in Calumet. Sent to Kelley himself.”

“Wonder who would be able to do that?”

Yolie cleared her throat. “¿
Pues?
I wonder. Who would ever want to burn SpecialagentinchargeassholeBrooks?”

“Does he suspect you?” Lori moved to the window, stretching the chord to the max.

“That’s why I’m calling you, silly girl.”

“How did you find me?”

“Lori, you’ve been so busy baby-sitting that Italian hunk of a doctor. It’s a long story. For now, let’s just say there’s a forest ranger that is a really good guy, even with the limp. A colleague.”

“I figured that out.”

“Thought you would. Brooks screwed him good. Josh Flores is a very intuitive man—little gets past him. Brooks sent the poor guy on a risky assignment, his first crack out of the box. New to Montana, he got trapped by a booze-crazed tribal leader. A carbine round shattered the head of his femur. Joshua was treated locally, not sent to Denver. Good V.A. and Army hospitals there. Bad results, uncorrectable. Brooks dumped him. Listen, Lori, Director Kelley has called in experts from the Atomic Energy Commission. Any idea why?”

Lori repeated her question to Jack. “I think I know,” he said. “Remember the Geiger counter going crazy? When we got in the Wagoneer? Let me talk to her.”

“Hey, Yolanda. It’s Jack D’Amico. Thanks for watching over Agent Wilson who’s watching over me.”

“Any time, Doctor. So why the AEC? Why would the director of the FBI bring them into the picture?”

“Yellowcake. They were burying big blue barrels of it at the Salt Lake. No one would notice or question the new radiation.”

Lori reached for the phone. “Yolie, what was Senator Trask up to?”

“Later. I’m in Albuquerque.”

“What?”

“I quit. Josh met me. He’s getting my luggage.” As a parting zinger, she added, “I’m a free
Chicana
and I’m going to kick ass. See you for breakfast.”

Lori turned to Jack. “She’s fearless. I’ll bet you she’s dug up lots of intel. Nothing in Washington is really hidden—it’s all glass. She could get hurt.”

“The only way to kill a story is to have some dead people. That’s exactly what happened to my family,” Jack said, gritting his teeth.



Louis Paul sat in a rocker. Tito sat cross-legged in front of him. “The evil is not gone. I feel its presence, near.” His tone of voice resonated with sadness, heartbreak. “Our senator, Richard Phillips, is at his ranch. I watched through his window. Telephone call made him very upset.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. Cowboy saw me. I ran to Box Canyon.”

“Phillips—the white man that made a fool of you in Washington?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going after him, aren’t you?”



Taos. The ranch house. Phillips was once a big man, now he was wizened, hunched. He drained the last swallow of coffee, wiped his thin lips. Dropped the
Journal
to the wood floor.

Trask’s death was big news. Network headliners reported on the senator’s work, legislation, words of regret from his colleagues.

Using two canes, he pulled himself out of the chair. He cursed the wet weather, the long flight from DC, the chill of the hacienda, no sleep. It all combined to make a perfect storm, wracking his limbs with constant pain. He moved slowly to his drawing table, nearly slipping on a Navajo rug. He snapped on a gooseneck lamp and swiveled to a long oak map cabinet adjacent to his desk. Long narrow drawers. Meticulous museum-quality preservation sheets. He flipped the sheets until he found the one he wanted.

New Mexico. Arizona. Red lines marked the Zuni reservation boundaries. Green delineated the sacred Salt Lake. Purple identified mining sites. Blue areas marked...

A knock on the door interrupted him. “Yes?”

“Sir, seen a bear this morning—early.” It was Ray, Phillip’s foreman. Rain dribbled on to the floor from his yellow slicker. He pulled out a red bandana to mop his face and hat. He was as old as the senator, and totally dedicated to him.

“Where?”

“Box Canyon.”

“That’s too close. Kill it.” Phillips paused, looking at the foreman’s expressionless face. “After you get him, come have lunch with me. Maria’s making red enchiladas.”

“Yes, sir.”

Phillips gazed down at the blue areas—water sources. Water Sources.

His constituents with deep pockets and mineral leases. Trask wanting federal boundaries re-aligned had seemed innocuous at the time. He had listened to NPR earlier in the morning—the only decent source of national news in the hick state. A single sentence made him choke on a swallow of coffee.

Before Trask’s death, the FBI had been investigating the senator and his involvement with a uranium mine in Canada.

His boney finger flipped to a tab in a worn leather journal. He fumbled, finally managed to dial the number. A terse ‘Yes’. Unfamiliar voice.

“Is Mr. Knapp available?”

“He’s dead.” The line clicked and all he heard was a very loud dial tone.

Phillips was alone. Suddenly irritable. Trask had abandoned him. Then suddenly elated, he was the sole survivor. The recipient of all the future money.



Louis Paul washed his long hair in
amole
suds. Brushed it until it shone. The silver white streak came alive.

Holding the ancient fetish in his palm, he allowed himself to rise to a different level. At peace. Real. His world came into stronger focus. The sky was bluer.

When he was young, only six or seven winters, his father had taught him that all land, rivers, streams, all real powers of Nature, privately owned or not, belong to our land. Ancestral land.

They came. Took our lands. Herded us into their imposed corrals like cattle. Left us barren land. Dry rivers. Poisoned water.

He lowered his head in shame, speaking softly. “Mother Earth, insulted. They absorb and destroy Salt Lake, Sacred Mother.” The fetish warmed in his hands. He rubbed it. Almost dropped it. The lifeline of the bear was glowing red.

Fetish in his pocket. At the single window he looked out upon
Dowa Yalanne.

Aloud, he said to the sacred mountain, “I am ready to leave my body.”



Eggs over easy, green chile sausage, biscuits. Coffee. Lori smiled at Jack over the thick lip of her mug. “Glad your appetite is back.”

Mouth full, Jack asked, “Heard from Yolie yet?”

She started to speak when she saw a man step into the diner. “Josh!”

“Room for two more?” he responded.


Pues,
I certainly hope so,” said a woman behind him. “Look what the red-eye flight brought in.” Low-slung bell bottom jeans held up with a neon tie-dyed scarf. White poet’s shirt tied at the midriff. Large silver loop earrings and a smile as big as Colorado. Yolie was in fine form.

“I’m retired! No more Brooks. No more Chicago. No more crap raining down from Washington.” Her OJ arrived. A vodka miniature appeared out of a huge purse.

After a long drink from the screwdriver, she told them Senator Phillips had sponsored the bill dealing with the boundaries at Salt Lake. The bastard was back in New Mexico, at his ranch above Taos. “One of our agents answered the phone in Knapp’s office; it was Phillips.”

“What were our guys after?” asked Lori.

“Bills of lading. Bills of lading containing Canadian uranium-rich ore.” As though thinking out loud, she added, “Knapp dead. Trask dead. Only Phillips is alive.”

Jack sat back in the booth, saying, “Let’s go get the bastard. Let him explain whatthefuck they were up to.”

Lori took over. “We eat, get organized. Josh, set us up with everything you’ve got.”



His strength ebbing, Louis Paul, a bag tied to his belt, climbed slowly down the creaky ladder exiting his home in the pueblo. The day was not good. Bad things will happen. He touched the bear fetish in his pocket.

He walked quietly through the semi-dark vacant passageways, softly saying his prayers. Dogs. Mongrels. Grey, sandy, mixed-color coats. Joined him. Occasional whimpers, no barking. He emerged from the pueblo complex, crossed the parking area in front of the mission. Without a signal, the pack of dogs jumped into the bed of his pickup.

Louis Paul drove north-east. Albuquerque. Santa Fe. Espanola. Velarde. When he passed the church in Ranchos de Taos, the early sun cast long, deep shadows. The familiar drive reminded him of his first summons to the Phillips ranch. The denigrating diatribe he had endured there. All a loss.

He saw the entrance, drove past, and forced the truck down a riddled dry arroyo, pock-marked with boulders. When he gunned the truck out of the sandy bottom, he topped out on a ridge where he could survey Box Canyon. With a simple hand tap on his leg, the dogs quickly were at his side. Several whimpered. Others wagged their tails. He removed the pouch from his belt and passed small grease cakes to each dog. They will need this, he thought.

With a sweeping motion, the dogs understood. Each found shelter in a clump of sagebrush or rock cluster, their coats dictating the choice of camouflage. Now out of sight to the casual observer, the dogs lay awaiting new instruction.



Jack saw him first. Lori pulled off 66, reversed. Tito hopped in the back seat of the Wagoneer.

“Hey, man, where’re you headed?” asked Jack.

“North,” Tito responded.

“You normally hitchhike when you’re going—I believe you said, north?” asked Lori.

“Father took the truck. I know where he’s going. He will need my help.”

“Why?” asked Jack.

“Have you heard of Senator Phillips?” said Tito.



They joined up at Josh’s home. Tito remained in the Wagoneer.

Before Josh raided the vault stocked with weapons and ammunition, he had covered the large windows facing the drive-in lanes with newspaper. Lori complimented his choice of wallpaper.

Josh pushed his dark glasses back on his thick hair. “Love the mellow light. Pretty clever for a defunct FBI agent.”

“You will always be an agent,” Yolanda said. “You weren’t fired. Your career was ambushed.”

“Thank you for the clarification,” said Josh.

Lori pulled on a FBI vest, then thrust a pair to Jack and Josh. “Josh Flores is hereby reinstated, and Doctor D’Amico has been deputized and will serve as Special Medical Agent. Agent Cervantes, will you second my motion?”

“I second Agent Wilson’s motion,” said Yolie.

“Let’s roll,” said Lori. “We have another man to deputize. Louis Paul’s son, Tito. She tossed a duffle bag to him, who added it to the pile in the Wagoneer. Josh took the wheel. Lori sat shotgun, a Remington .30-06 with a bore-sighted riflescope by her side. Vest pockets laden with rounds of steeltip ammo.

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