Crossroads Page 51

  The joy lasted until they were married, on the day his term of service ended, with George and Jimmy as their witnesses, at the courthouse in Flagstaff. They’d abandoned their respective religions and were seeking a new faith to share, but their slate was still clean and they didn’t have a church to marry in. Russ felt obliged to write to his parents the very same day, and he didn’t sugarcoat what he’d done. He explained that Marion had been previously married and that he had no interest in rejoining the community, but that he would like to bring his wife to Lesser Hebron and introduce her to the family.

  His father’s reply was brief and bitter. It grieved him but didn’t entirely surprise him, he said, that Russ had been infected by a pestilence stemming from elsewhere in the family, and neither he nor Russ’s mother had any wish to meet Marion. Russ’s mother’s reply was longer and more anguished, more a descant on her own failures, but the point was the same: she’d lost her son. Not rejected him (as Marion, ever defensive of Russ, was quick to point out) but lost him.

  The rejection confirmed the rightness of his choice—shame and blame on anyone who refused to meet the most wonderful woman in the world—and he adored being wedded to Marion, adored having her always at his side, on his side. And yet, in his innermost heart, a shadow fell when his parents disowned him. The shadow wasn’t quite doubt and it wasn’t quite guilt. It was more a sense of what he’d lost in gaining Marion. He no longer belonged in Lesser Hebron, but he was still haunted by it. He found himself missing his mother’s little farm, his grandfather’s shop, the eternity in the sameness of the days there, the rightness of a community radically organized around the Word. He understood that his father was a deeply flawed person, his stringency a compensation for an underlying weakness, and that his mother had indeed, in a way, lost her mind. But he couldn’t help secretly admiring them. Their faith had an edge that his own never would.

  When he accepted a rural ministry in Indiana, four years later, he hoped he might regain a bit of what he’d lost. He was certainly glad to see more of his grandfather, who, in spite of himself, had married Estelle and now lived in her hometown, two hours to the north of Russ. But the sense of loss was spiritual, not geographical. It was portable and its name was Marion. As his reliance on her became routine, her capabilities merely useful to him, their lovemaking duly procreative, his misgivings about her first marriage returned in the form of grievance. He began to wonder why he’d been so determined to ignore Clement’s advice and marry the first woman he’d loved.

  On his bad days, he saw a rube from Indiana who’d been pounced on by an older city girl—snared by the sexual cunning of a woman who’d developed it with a different man. On his worst days, he suspected that Marion had known very well that he could have done better. She must have known that as soon as he left the little world of Flagstaff he would encounter women younger than he was, taller than Marion, less odd, more awed by his own capabilities, and not previously married. She’d seduced him into a contract before he knew his value in the marketplace.

  And still, even then, he might have made peace with having married her, if only she, too, had been a virgin when he met her. His grievance was no less gnawing for being trivial and godless. In the final, hard form it had taken, after his dream about Sally Perkins had opened his eyes to the multitude of desirable women, the grievance was that Marion had gotten to enjoy sex with a second person, he only with her. He could tolerate her superiority in every other regard, but not in this one.

  * * *

  Boarding the bus in New Prospect, he’d been unhappy to find Frances sitting with the other parent adviser, Ted Jernigan, in the seats behind the driver. Ted was a threat—every other man was a threat—but Russ had learned his lesson: it was better to withhold than to pester. Better to ensconce himself with the kids in back, bat around a Nerf ball, sing along with songs whose words he now mostly knew, take instruction in the playing of an E chord and a D chord, compete in an endless license-plate game, and let Frances feel left out. His acceptance by the cool kids, a result of his more laissez-faire approach to Crossroads, was such a gratifying contrast to his previous Arizona trip, he almost could have done without the complication of her.

  Now they’d entered the Navajo Nation. Along the highway, in evening sunlight, were children hawking juniper-berry necklaces, billboards advertising HAND WOVEN BLANKETS and TURQUOISE JEWELRY, a souvenir shop overflowing with generic kitsch, behind it an AUTHENTIC NAVAJO HOGAN, a wooden Plains Indian in full headdress, and an enormous tepee. The last of the five guitars on the bus had gone quiet. Carolyn Polley, across the aisle from Russ, was reading Carlos Castaneda. Kim Perkins was teaching the cat’s cradle to David Goya, other girls were playing Spades, other boys openly hooting over a pornographic comic book that Keith Stratton had bought at a truck stop in Tucumcari. Russ could have confiscated it, with some words about its demeaning of women, but he was tired and the kids in his group were all basically harmless. Roger Hangartner had smoked pot on a Crossroads retreat the year before, Darcie Mandell needed to be watched for her diabetes, Alice Raymond was grieving the recent death of her mother, and Gerri Kohl was an irritating trumpeter of hackneyed phrases (“Feeding time at the zoo” “Velly stlange”), but there weren’t any real problem kids—Perry was on Kevin Anderson’s bus. In Tucumcari, when Russ asked Kevin how Perry was doing, Kevin had said he was overexcited, had talked nonstop all night, and didn’t feel like leaving the bus. Russ could have boarded it and spoken to Perry, but Perry was Kevin’s problem now, not his.

  When the Many Farms water tower appeared on the horizon, he ventured forward and made Ted Jernigan trade places with him. Taking the Ted-warmed seat, he asked Frances if she’d gotten any sleep.

  She leaned away from him and gave him a cold look. “You mean, between hearing how Ted would have handled the Viet Cong and how much I overpaid for my house?”

  Russ laughed. He couldn’t have been happier. “I kept waiting for you to come and join us.”

  “One of us knows every single person on this bus. The other one doesn’t know anyone.”

  He lost his smile. “Sorry.”

  “When you told me you could be a jerk, I didn’t believe you.”

  “Very sorry.”

  She turned to her window and didn’t look at him again.

  The sun had dropped behind the Black Mesa, beginning the long dusk in Many Farms, the somber illumination of its overwide roads, its identical BIA-sponsored houses, its utilitarian school buildings and dusty warehouses. Russ directed the driver to the council office and hopped out while the other two buses pulled up behind him. The air had a wintry bite, a thinness that his heart immediately registered. As he approached the office door, a sturdy young woman in a red wool jacket came out. “You must be Russ.”

  “Yes. Wanda?”

  “Russ, if I may say so, we were expecting you earlier.” In person, too, her voice was plangent. “I would like to discuss your plan with you.”

  “The, ah—mandate?”

  Wanda’s emphatic nodding matched her voice. “We have the mandate and you can help us. However, because you prefer to stay in Many Farms, we are willing to accommodate a second group here. I have spoken to the director and he is okay with it.”

  “What is the mandate?”

  “To conform with the mandate, we need handicapped access ramps at Kitsillie. A ramp for the front and a ramp for the fire exit. The toilet also must be handicapped-accessible. But may I be completely open and honest with you? I feel you would be more comfortable in Many Farms.”

  Over the idling of three buses came the crunch of boots on gravel, the growling voice of Ambrose, a murmur from Kevin Anderson. If Russ’s group stayed in Many Farms, he would have to be with Perry, and Frances with Larry. Quickly, before Ambrose could interfere, he told Wanda that he’d rather stick to the original plan. Her emphatic nod said one thing, her troubled expression another.

  “You may go to Kitsillie,” she said, “but I would ask you, in all respect, to
stay close to the school. No one should walk alone, and no one should be outside after dark.”

  “That’s fine. We’ve had the same rule in the past.”

  She stepped away to greet Ambrose and Kevin. Not for the first time, Russ was impressed by Ambrose’s way of forging a connection with a stranger, the compassionate scowl with which he conveyed that she was being seen as a person, taken seriously. Scowling as if nothing on earth mattered more to him, he asked Wanda how Keith Durochie was. It should have been Russ who’d asked the question.

  “Keith is not good,” Wanda said, “but he is resting comfortably at home.”

  “How bad is it?” Russ said.

  “He is resting comfortably but I am told that he is very weak.”

  Into Russ’s throat came the sadness of life’s brevity, the sadness of the sunless hour, the sadness of Easter. God was telling him very clearly what to do. He had to stay in Many Farms, where Keith had lived since 1960, so he could visit Keith and keep an eye on Perry. In light of Keith’s condition, his wish to enjoy sex with a person not Marion seemed even more trivial, and he’d been insane to imagine it happening in Arizona. He’d let himself forget how bleak the reservation was in late winter, how demanding it was to lead a work camp.

  And yet, when he thought of doing God’s will, at the cost of his week with Frances on the mesa, he felt unbearably sorry for himself. It was strange that self-pity wasn’t on the list of deadly sins; none was deadlier.

  The swing driver, a gaunt lung-cancer candidate named Ollie, had taken over the wheel of the Kitsillie bus. From the seat beside Frances, Russ directed him to Rough Rock and from there up the side of the mesa. The road was stony and narrow, and there was still enough light to see how close to the edge of it they were, how fatal a plunge would be. At a particularly harrowing bend, Frances gasped and said, “Oh Jesus, Jesus.” She clutched Russ’s hand, and, just like that, he was holding hers. She’d said it herself: jerks turned her on. Behind the bus, a horn began to honk.

  “Yeah, where am I supposed to go?” Ollie said.

  The honking persisted until they reached a straightaway. Ollie pulled over, inches from the edge of a chasm, and a pickup truck, still honking, gunned past them. One of its bumper stickers said CUSTER HAD IT COMING. Its driver stuck out his arm and gave the bus the middle finger.

  “Charming,” Frances said.

  “Are you okay?”

  She let go of Russ’s hand. “I’m waiting to hear there’s a better road back down.”

  As if from a different world, the gentler world of New Prospect, Biff Allard’s bongo drums started up, joined by one guitar and then another, and then by Biff’s reedy voice.

  Bus driver Ollie, bus driver Ollie

  Rollin’ through the hills, movin’ down the valley

  Some folks like to drink, some folks like to cuss

  Ollie gets high on a TWELVE-TON BUS

  A cheer went up, and Ollie waved his thanks. He didn’t know that Biff had written the song for the earlier driver, Bill.

  Up on the mesa, as the sky darkened, the moon highlighted patches of snow on the north-facing slopes. Russ struggled to integrate his memories of the mesa and the sadness of Keith with the new possibility embodied in the woman next to him. He felt warmed not only by her shoulder but by the triumph of having brought her, after so many complications, to a place that had formed him. He wondered if she could love the place herself—love him—and if he might yet grow old with her. Though the road had leveled out, he put his hand on hers again. She gave it a squeeze and didn’t let go until he stood up to address the group.

  “Okay, listen up,” he said. “We’re going straight to the chapter house and see if we can get some dinner. I don’t want to hear any complaining about the food. You hear me? We’ll see a lot of mutton stew and frybread—if you don’t like it, you’ll eat it anyway. We need to remember, at all times, that we are guests of the Navajo Nation. Our attitude is gratitude. We come with our privilege, come with all our nice things, and we need to remember how we look to the Navajos. Do not ever leave your things unattended, except where we’ll be sleeping. Do not ever leave the school area by yourself. Are we clear on that? I want to see groups of four people or more, and no one ever leaves the school after dark. Understood?”

  There was no electricity or telephone at Kitsillie—except for the chapter house and the school building, still unfinished after five years of work, there wasn’t much of anything—but, Wanda be praised, Daisy Benally and her sister were waiting for the bus. Daisy, an aunt of Keith’s by marriage, hadn’t been young when Russ met her in 1945; now she was stooped and shrunken. Her sister, Ruth, was nearly as fat as the average Hopi. The two of them had made a vat of stew in the chapter-house kitchen, which smelled of hot oil, and they now proceeded, by lantern light, while the Crossroads group settled into the common room, to cook the frybread. The room’s chill pervaded the concrete floor, the dented metal folding chairs, the particle-board tables. Russ asked Frances what she was thinking.

  “I’m thinking, yikes. You told me it was primitive, but.”

  “It’s not too late to go to Many Farms. Ollie can take you back.”

  She bristled. “Is that how you think of me? The lady who can’t hack it?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I wouldn’t mind finding a bathroom, though.”

  “Brace yourself.”

  As he weighed whether to sit with Alice Raymond—whether it would make her self-conscious about her mother’s death, and whether his concern about making her self-conscious concealed a craven fear of her bereavement—he thought of Ambrose, whose instincts with teenagers were unerring. He was relieved when Carolyn Polley sat down with Alice. He didn’t have to be good at everything, he only had to be good at getting Frances. He ate his dinner with her and Ted Jernigan.

  “Not to complain,” Ted said, “but there’s something not right about the bread.”

  “The oil’s a little rancid, maybe. It’s only a taste—it won’t hurt you.”

  “Where is the mutton?” Frances said, poking at her bowl. “All I have is turnips and potatoes.”

  “You can ask Daisy for some meat.”

  “I’m dreaming of the beer nuts in my suitcase.”

  Outside the chapter house, a truck banged by in a roar of downshift. Russ didn’t give it a thought until he’d finished his dinner and stepped outside. The temperature had plunged but Ollie was in shirtsleeves, smoking a cigarette and looking up the rough road to the school building. A hundred yards up, a pickup truck’s headlights were aimed down at the bus. The sound of its engine was distinct in the still, cold air. Wanda had promised to come up and check on the group, but Russ didn’t think the truck was Wanda’s. Hoping there might be some other benign explanation, a lost calf, a relative fetching Daisy and Ruth, he rounded up the group and got everyone on the bus.

  In its headlights, as Ollie steered it up the road, Russ recognized the pickup from their encounter with it earlier. Ollie slowed down and tapped the horn, but the truck didn’t move. There was menace in its headlights. Frances again clutched Russ’s hand.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  As he got out and approached the truck, its doors opened and four figures jumped out. Four young men, three of them in hats. The fourth, in a jean jacket, his hair loose on his shoulders, stepped forward and looked directly, insolently, into Russ’s eyes. “Hey, white man.”

  “Hello. Good evening.”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “We are a Christian youth fellowship. We’re here to perform a week of service.”

  The man, seeming amused, looked back at his companions. Something in his manner reminded Russ of Laura Dobrinsky. The younger Navajos don’t like you, either.

  “Would you mind letting us through?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “In Kitsillie? We will be working to finish the school building.”

  “We don’t need you for that.”

&nb
sp; Anger rose in Russ. He had an angry white thought—that, year after year, the tribe itself did little to finish the school—but he didn’t speak it. “We are here at the tribal council’s invitation. They’ve given us a job, and I intend to do it.”

  The man laughed. “Fuck the council. They might as well be white.”

  “The council is an elected body. If you have a problem with our being here, you can take it up with them. I have a busload of very tired kids who, if you wouldn’t mind, need to sleep.”

  “Where you from?”

  “We’re from Chicago.”

  “Go back to Chicago.”

  Russ’s blood rose further. “For your information,” he said, “I am not just another bilagáana. I’ve been a friend of the reservation for twenty-seven years. I’ve known Daisy Benally since 1945. Keith Durochie is an old friend of mine.”