The Darkness Rolling Page 8

  “I want to tell you,” said Linda, “it is a privilege to be in your home. I am eager to know the parents of so fine a man as Yazzie.”

  “Nuts to all this courtesy,” said Iris. “You’re stunning, you’re gorgeous.”

  Linda said, “Aren’t you kind?”

  Mose could see Linda was puzzled by Iris, or maybe by the cat’s aberrant eye.

  Iris plunged straight ahead. “So who do you think is the best-looking man in Hollywood? I go for Clark Gable.” Arms high like a touchdown had been scored. To keep from falling off, Cockeyed pinched her blouse with his claws.

  Linda suppressed a laugh. “I’d say Tyrone Power. And he’s great to work with.”

  Mose slapped his knee. He liked this conversation.

  “Next to you,” Iris went on, “who’s the most beautiful woman?”

  “I don’t like competition,” Linda answered.

  Mose grinned. Iris gave a twisted smile that the old man read as, I knew that.

  “Iris,” said Linda, “you sound New Yorkish. Do you feel at home in Monument Valley?”

  Iris gestured to Mose, who noticed everything. “In my family here Mose is my uncle, Nizhoni is my sister,” a nod at Mose’s daughter, “and I guess Yazzie is my nephew. Uncle Mose had a stroke, they needed my help, I came.” Her smile turned coy. “And I fell in love.”

  “With Yazzie?” said Linda, arranging surprise on her face.

  “Not hardly,” said Iris. She stroked the head of Cockeyed.

  Yazzie put in, “I never met my aunt until the night before I left to meet you at the train.”

  Iris gave Yazzie a funny look. Then she said to Linda, “I’m in love with painting this country.”

  “You mean…?”

  “I mean real painting.”

  That was a surprise. And a hint.

  “May I see?” asked Linda.

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Bouncing outside and up a gentle hill, Iris led them toward the old well. Mose still felt good about the way he’d dug that well out, then had it drilled deeper, then sluiced the water downhill to give the post running water.

  When Yazzie took hold of the wheelchair, Mose growled at him and muscled himself up. He wanted to negotiate the slope of sand, stone, greasewood, and sagebrush on his own.

  Just beyond the well stood a timeworn grain shed, and Mose saw from the doorway what a fine studio Iris had made of it. Endless energy, that young woman.

  Gazing around the shed, Linda exclaimed, “Iris!”

  Mose could see why. Huge charcoal drawings were pinned to the old wooden walls, and they were dazzling. He’d guided scores of white visitors as they tried to capture the canyon country in paint. They traveled thousands of miles to get the chance, but the landscape mocked their efforts. The scope, the grandeur, the magnificence of vistas like the Grand Canyon—such marvels could not be captured and straitjacketed on canvas and in paint, still less on paper and in watercolor. The scale of Mose’s homeland spoke with the sky-booming voice of God, beyond man’s ability to imitate.

  So Iris had gone at things slantwise. She’d sketched the shed skin of a rattlesnake abandoned on slickrock. A branch of driftwood stranded on a sandbar. The bleached skull of a coyote. The head of an elderly Navajo man, his hair bound back traditionally in a white chongo. The figure of a Navajo woman weaving at a loom.

  No vistas, no mesas, no canyons, no skies. His country seen, and treasured, in its details. His skin prickled with love for his niece.

  “These are studies,” said Iris. “Want to see the paintings?” Her body wriggled with excitement, but it didn’t come off as bragging.

  “Please,” said Linda. She sounded genuinely impressed.

  Iris lifted the paintings out of big portfolios, oils on canvas. They were even more impressive. Her colors were vibrant, audacious, almost outrageous. She was not so much painting Mose’s homeland as her own amazement at it. His heart surged.

  She held each one up for a long moment, set it down, and showed the next one, all without a word.

  “Enough?” asked Iris, her fingers drumming on the last canvas.

  Linda nodded. “Your work is extraordinary.”

  “I know,” said Iris.

  “Iris!” said Mom.

  Cockeyed snapped his head toward Nizhoni, the crazy eye wayward.

  Iris put her hand gently on his neck. “She wants me to be modest and demure,” she told Cockeyed. “A real lady.” Then to everyone, “My motto is ‘Well-behaved women seldom make history.’”

  Linda laughed merrily. Then she asked, “For sale?”

  Iris considered, trying to hold still. “I don’t know. I have a show in Santa Fe in July, and I need twenty paintings for that. You’re welcome to come.”

  “How about a sale while I’m here?” said Linda.

  Iris pursed her lips, thinking. She looked into Cockeyed’s straight eye.

  “Just two or three,” said Linda. “Good to be able to say you’re collected by a famous woman.”

  “Then sure,” said Iris. “Pick two or three, any you want.”

  The walk back down the hill was quick and animated. Trailing, Mose saw that Iris had a bit of an I won swagger.

  * * *

  Zopilote watched the five of them come out the back door of the house single file, his son and the old Jew last. The young woman led the way, and Zopilote still didn’t know who she was. She looked like the old man, and was probably family. She spoke English with a queer accent and punctuated it with hand gestures that would make Zopilote want to back away.

  He thought, She better leave soon, or she’ll find herself buried here. Why should he spare anyone from the Goldman family, except maybe his son? Very maybe.

  He had no idea what they were doing now, walking uphill in the dark. He especially wondered what that movie star was doing there, at an old trading post.

  They came up the path to the shed. Zopilote slid lower behind the rocks until he could see with only one eye. As the path got a little steeper, his son tried to push the old man’s wheelchair, but Mose made a garbled sound, closer to a bark than a word, and his son backed off. But the old man couldn’t do it alone, and he had to be helped.

  Old Goldman can’t get the chair up that easy grade with just one arm. Good.

  They went into the shed, and he heard some exclamations and made out a word here and there, but he couldn’t tell what they were talking about.

  After a few minutes they pranced back down the hill. Zopilote heard some words about how wonderful the young relative was. Apparently her name was Iris.

  He watched his son hold the old man’s chair back so it wouldn’t roll downhill too fast. My enemy is helpless.

  He would wait until he saw the strange young woman—Iris, he reminded himself—until she left on one of her walks, and then slip into her shed.

  * * *

  We all four of us sat at the dining table, and Mom brought the good silver and napkins from the kitchen. I was glad Grandpa had bought real silverware in Santa Fe and brought it to Oljato. It made my mother feel special, as if part of her lived in an oasis of the raw desert.

  Straight to the point, as usual, Iris said to Linda, “You like misbehaving.”

  “When I can get away with it,” said Linda.

  “Are you misbehaving with Yazzie these days?”

  Mom said, “Iris!” banged a plate down in front of her, then laid one at each of their places and steamed back into the kitchen.

  Grandpa slapped his knees. Ordinarily he would have hee-hawed. I felt pretty uneasy about how that might come out.

  I decided to take a risk. “I think we should find a movie star to misbehave with Grandpa.”

  All of them hooted. Grandpa rocked in his wheelchair until we were afraid it would fall over. Then he clapped me on the shoulder with his good hand. Cockeyed rested on Iris’s shoulder in perfect calm.

  “You are a fine figure of a man,” Linda said to him. “How tall are y
ou?”

  That got Grandpa going. He whipped out his blackboard and wrote: 6-8.

  “Oh, my,” said Linda. She threw me a mischievous look and glanced to make sure Mom was out of hearing in the kitchen. “Eight inches. I hope you’re not like Fats Waller.” She sang a few wordless notes and said, “And, I hope you’re misbehavin’.”

  Grandpa gestured toward his lap and scratched on his blackboard, CAN’T!

  We all laughed. Cockeyed raised both eyes to the ceiling, one behind the other.

  Mom emerged from the kitchen, and we all straightened out our faces. She set a platter of steaks on the table. “Backstraps,” she said. “Jake Charlie shot a deer.”

  She placed saucers and bowls in front of everyone, kneeldown bread, our Navajo version of tamales, and pinto beans spiced with chiles. They were grown in our backyard and watered with runoff from the roof. Green chiles weren’t a bit Navajo, but Grandpa looked at them fondly. From his rearing in Santa Fe he loved them.

  Mom sat down and said, “I hope you like green chiles, Linda.”

  “I have a home in New Mexico, and my cook has taught me to love them. It’s practically addicting—almost as good as margaritas.”

  All set to it, Linda eating heartily. “I really like being here tonight,” she said. “You’re regular people, like the folks I’m most comfortable with.”

  Mom said, “Not so regular. My extraordinary father has read the classics in Spanish and English, and his family has a big house in Santa Fe.”

  Grandpa gave his lopsided grin.

  “So how did he come to live here?”

  “A story for the next time we see you,” said Mom.

  “Hmm,” said Linda. That mischievous look came back. “A sophisticated city or a gorgeous hideaway. I wonder which Yazzie will go for.”

  Mom said, “That question scares me.”

  Silence. It scared me, too.

  “Well, if everyone is finished,” said Mom, “let’s move back to the living room. The dessert needs to cool off a little. Yazzie, would you build us a fire?”

  Three of them couldn’t fill the oversize leather sofa, but they sat close, shoulders touching. I got a flame started with pinyon in the big lava-rock fireplace. I remembered watching Grandpa mason every stone of it himself. If home could take on a sensuous smell, I was sure it would wear pinyon.

  Iris got up and stood on the hearth, her back to the fire. She must have liked the warmth, but Cockeyed jumped down and curled up on the coffee table. I could hardly remember Iris ever keeping her hands so still.

  “Nothing smells as good as this fire,” she said.

  I took the chair flanking the sofa and breathed the pungent sweetness of the burning wood into my soul.

  We passed five minutes in small talk. I wondered if Mom was going to broach a certain touchy subject, and Cockeyed’s tail was twitching.

  Soon she brought the fry bread, the honey jar, and a speckled pot of sweetened, fresh-brewed coffee on the table. Linda put a dollop of honey on the fry bread and wolfed it down.

  Mom sat on the sofa next to Grandpa, wiped her hands on her apron, and said, “This is good, Linda. It’s so good to have you here. Yazzie says you’re very generous to him.”

  “Actually,” Linda said, “he intends to pass that generosity on to you.”

  I fished in my Wranglers and brought out some bills. One by one I stacked twenties next to Mom’s plate and topped them with a big grin.

  She raised an eyebrow toward me.

  “From Miss Linda Darnell and the studio for watching over her. Three hundred bucks out of the four hundred for a week. It’s yours. Please,” I said, “don’t toss it in a wad. It means something to me.”

  Mom looked stumped. Grandpa started scribbling something on his blackboard.

  Linda pitched in. “The next four weeks he’ll be guarding me until I go to bed. But, because he is so diligent and so attentive, I’ve arranged for my next studio to pay him three hundred a week, to make sure I make it to the next set on time and safely. That’s a total of twelve hundred more dollars.”

  My head jerked toward Linda’s face. She smiled like a first dawn. She was trying not to look like she was gloating. I wondered who the head of her next studio was, thinking, business or personal?

  I found my voice and tried to fill it out with gladness. “Mom, right now this is my way of taking care of the family. I’ll give you two hundred of each week’s money. You can pay medical bills or pay the Babbitt driver for plenty of stock to make a profit on.”

  Mom clasped her hands and her lips went into a line.

  I was afraid Grandpa might be thinking, The medical bills, my fault. I built this trading post, and now I’m busting it. I wanted to say to him, Grandpa, you gave us everything. Instead, I leaned over and patted his leg. Gave him a reassuring smile.

  “Look,” I said, “I can hire Katso to watch the sheep, starting tomorrow. He’s willing, and I’ll pay him myself. When the shoot’s done, and we have money and goods to trade, Grandpa can stock up on the finest rugs and baskets we’ve ever had. And we can sell them to the movie people, people with real money. There will be more movies made here.”

  Mom said, “It’s not the same as having you home.”

  “From now on I’ll be here every night.”

  “What I want is for you to be here, at home, all the time.” I looked at Grandpa and he nodded.

  Awkward silence. Cockeyed’s crazy eye peered intensely into the shadows above the chandelier.

  Never shy, Linda said, “Nizhoni, you’re not pleased?”

  Mom stood up. One of her hands scratched the other arm like fingernailing ant bites. “Linda, I miss my son, and this is where he belongs.”

  “The money doesn’t make up for a short absence?”

  “The money helps,” Mom admitted, “but…” Longing drained her face.

  Iris jumped in. “Yazzie, what’s your dream? I mean, Uncle Mose’s was to go on an adventure into the wilds and create his own living, independent of his well-fixed family.” Cockeyed turned his face straight into Iris’s.

  She looked at Grandpa. He nodded. Everyone looked relieved.

  “What is your dream, Yazzie? Say it.”

  Everyone waited. This felt dicey.

  “Maybe I don’t know. Part of me wants to go to L.A. and New York and Paris and Rome and … I joined the navy to see the world.”

  One tear held fast in the corner of Mom’s eye.

  Iris gave me an odd look and plunged straight ahead. “Linda, we barely know each other, but can we talk about this in front of you?”

  Linda hesitated, and then she surprised us by saying, “Yes, why not?”

  Silence all around.

  “Okay,” said Iris. “We’re going to talk about dreams.”

  * * *

  Dreams … How about nightmares? Zopilote felt like smashing the window.

  Just then he heard something, a snick, and it was the second time—the first time he’d thought it had been his imagination. Had the rhythm of nature turned in on itself? He had not chosen the Navajo Witchery Way. It had called to him, made itself his home, had yanked him inside it. And inside that circle? Anything could happen.

  He would have to be more careful. Perform some rituals, maybe.

  * * *

  “Let’s start easy,” said Iris. “I’ll tell you my mother’s dream. She wouldn’t mind.”

  “Easy” was hard to imagine with my Aunt Iris. I listened, but I sat on the edge of my seat, never sure where her words would take us.

  Grandpa gave us his version of cheering. He loved his sister with all his heart.

  “Frieda Goldman grew up in the same Santa Fe household with Uncle Mose. Everyone played music. But for my mom, it was her heart, part of who she was.

  “When she was twelve, she was the violist in the family string quartet. Uncle Mose was busy then, learning about silver and turquoise and rugs. So she gets to be twenty, and she yearns for more. A touring violinist comes to t
own, and she gets infatuated with him. First he charms her out of her clothes, and then into touring around with him, and finally into moving with him to New York.

  “It’s a real dream come true. She gets into Juilliard, a new school for musicians. She gets a job in the viola section of the Metropolitan Opera, and she’s still in love. A Cinderella story without the wicked stepsisters. And it happened because she had the guts to fling caution to the winds and run off with a man she hardly knew.”

  Mose held up one hand to say stop and scribbled with the other. At length he held up a sign: DAD + MOM = MAD.

  “Right. That’s what I hear. Your parents…” Iris shrugged. “What can I say?”

  I hoped this story was going someplace where it came out supporting a person’s right to have dreams.

  “Anyway, after twelve years, my mother gets walloped with a big dose of the truth. It turns out the violinist is a bastard. They have an apartment in Greenwich Village, but he won’t marry her, and he’s mostly gone, supposedly on tour. Now, after all this time together, he comes to their apartment, to her, and he’s begging. He has a babe in arms. He can’t help it, he has to come clean. He has a wife in Chicago, always has. And the wife, she just bore a daughter and died doing it. Will Frieda take the child?

  Here my grandfather made a growling sound that burbled at the base of his throat. Iris looked at him.

  “I know, I know. She’s heartbroken, stunned, but, yeah, she loves him, so she’ll take the baby, even forgive the guy. Plus, she hadn’t been able to have kids, and she felt that pain like a hole in her stomach. It was a piece of her that felt completely skewed. He goes on tour, he leaves the baby with her, and—guess what?—she never hears from him again.”

  Iris paused. “End of story? No. That kid was me.

  “Fade out. Twenty years pass in New York while I grow up and Frieda plays her heart out in the opera orchestra. Fade in: Mom’s father dies in Santa Fe, and we go home to New Mexico for the funeral. We never go back to New York. Six more years we’re still in Santa Fe, living in the house where you all grew up, Uncle Mose.

  “So I ask her—this is just a couple of years ago—‘Mom, are you ever sorry that you ran off with that bum to New York?’ I was hot to know.