Dust Devil (52 page)

"Private Strawhand,” an aging male reporter asked, "Edward R. Murrow reports that you were involved in a project— the 'Code Talkers.’ Can you tell us anything about it?”

"Private Strawhand has nothing to say, gentlemen,” a familiar sultry voice broke in.

Chase turned to find Christina edging through the reporters toward him. There were shouts and wolf calls as the members of the press made way for the tall, chic blond dressed in a gray velveteen skirt with matching jacket thrown over the frothy apricot blouse. But Christina had eyes only for
him.

"Is Private
Strawhand your fiancé, Miss Raffin?” asked a woman reporter with a large-feathered hat. Her tongue practically licked her lips in anticipation of a hot story.

Without taking her gaze from
his, Christina said, smiling, "Just tell your readers that information is Top Secret Classified Material. I’m sure the Pentagon will decide what information to release.”

"But, Miss Raffin, with
— ”

"Come on, Chase,” she said, taking his arm. "I’ve taken the liberty of making reservations for you at the Harvey House. It’s the best Santa Fe has to offer right now.”

"You shouldn’t of,” he said, attempting to control the conflicting emotions that bombarded him. "Will telegraphed he rented my old place for me.”

The photographers continued snapping their cameras
as he and Christina climbed into the 1938 Bentley Sports Roadster. "Nice,” he said, dropping his duffel bag in the rear seat.

"It’s difficult getting enough gas coupons
for it.”  She started the engine. A nervous tension seemed to lay beneath the surface of the coolly composed, beautiful face.

"I’m sure you’re able to manage,”
he said dryly.

She
flashed him a feigned look of reproach. As she whipped the car out onto the highway, she dug into her purse and handed him a package of cigarettes, her own personalized brand still. "Are you surprised to see me?”

He
withdrew a cigarette, and she passed him her gold-plated lighter. "Nothing you do surprises me, Christina.”

She looked at him, then looked away, concentrating on the road ahead. After a lengthy silence, she asked, "Are you still angry at me?”

He stretched out his long legs as far as he could in the confines of the car. "Does your father know, you’re here?”

"No. He thinks I’m meeting with Phil’s Campaign Committee for Governor.”

"So Masters thinks he’s ready for the big step? Have you two set a wedding date?”

Her
gaze flashed to him and skittered back to the road. "No,” she said so softly that Chase was not sure he heard her. She slowed the Bentley as the car approached the plaza. "Chase, there hasn’t been anybody to take your place.”

"I bet that didn’t keep you from looking, did it?” Christina’s eyes filled. "Don’t. I know I was wrong.”

He slouched further down in the seat. "Don’t, also. I’m too tired to play your games right now, Christina.”

She maneuvered the roadster out of the plaza, turning onto Castillos Street and halting before the old two-story Victorian home. She turned toward
him. "I want you. But I don’t think you know your own mind.”

H
e wanted her, too. His nostrils flared with the subtle scent of her perfume. But he told himself that he wasn’t ready to be her plaything. Too easily he could get caught in the web she spun. He got out, leaning his hands on the door. "So long, Christina.”

She met his gaze steadily. "I won’t wait for you to change your mind,” she said and sped off, leaving him watching her
. . . and wanting her.

A mousy old lady, who roomed on the first floor and who had turned up her nose at Chase when he lived there previously, stopped him at the stairs, asking for an autograph. Chase blinked in surprise; then, repressing his old mocking smile, said, "Certainly, Miss McCauley,” and scrawled his name beneath his photo in the newspaper clipping she handed him.

Later that afternoon, as he sat reading the newspaper, trying to catch up and assimilate all the news that had occurred in his absence, Will came by. The old man took his hand affectionately. "It’s great to have you back, Chase!” He stepped away and looked at the tall young man in uniform. "It looks like that stint in the service civilized you.”

Chase grinned. "Uncle Sam succeeded where you failed.” He invited Will into the sparsely furnished room and offered him a cigarette, but the attorney shook his head. "May’s threatening to poison my coffee if I don’t give up smoking. I would have been at the depot, Chase, but I was in court with another
BIA case.”

"What’s the Indian Bureau done this time?”

Will ran his hand through his thick, snowy hair. ''The same old thing. They’ve issued an order to the superintendents in the field to prosecute any 'so-called religious ceremony.’”

Chase grimaced. "What’s the reasoning behind that?”

Will rolled his eyes. "The religious ceremonies, they say, promote idleness, cause Indians to give away their property recklessly, contain danger to health, or promote indifference to family welfare. That means the destruction of a ten-thousand-year-old religion that contains the same moral code as Christianity!”

"The offense,” Chase said, "is that the Indian religion stands in the way of the meddling Christian missionaries
— who you know represent a considerable political power. It’s just a modern-day Spanish Inquisition, isn’t it?”

"The Taos Pueblos have hired me to fight the order in court. They’d rather go to jail before they abandon their religion.”

Chase was reminded of a sign he had seen in the San Francisco PX drugstore — ONLY ANGLOS NEED APPLY. "Why do you do it, Will? What do you get out of all this? You’re certainly not making a name for yourself — nor a fortune.”

Will scratched his head. "I haven’t rightly figured that out yet, son,” he said with a deprecating smile. "May claims I’m getting senile in my old age.” He fixed an eye on Chase. "Your old job at AID is still open if you want to take on the
BIA.”

Though
tfully Chase ground out his cigarette stub in the chipped ashtray. "Thanks, Will, but I plan to start a bank.” He looked over at the attorney, expecting derision.

"Put me down for ten shares of stock.”

Chase looked at Will, trying to hide the surprise and the gratitude. It was another one of those times when the Indian "thank you” would not be out of line, but Chase could not even manage that. "What if I lose your money?”

Will shrugged, reminding Chase of the Indian’s fatalism. "Working for AID I’m not going to get rich anyway. Why not take the chance?”

Ten shares was one thousand dollars, and Chase estimated his back pay amounted to thirty-nine shares. With a goal of three hundred shares, that left him only two hundred and fifty-one shares to go.

Chase bought a piebald and set out to ride the reservations that encircled the Santa Fe-Taos-Albuquerque area. For the first time he was selling himself, his word, his integrity.

It was not easy.

All the rest of the summer and fall and into the new year of 1944 he rode back and forth over the mountains and up and down along the Rio Grande, pouring out a torrent of words after the initial Big Smoke in the tepees and frame houses and adobe homes. Firmly he shook hands with the more progressive Indians and even exchanged the formal
abrazo
with the growing number of Mexicans who were willing to invest their few hard-earned dollars in Chase’s scheme. In the barely accessible trappers’ camps even a few Anglos contributed toward the bank. A share here, two or three there — his goal was coming into sight.

He found out a lot about raising money. He found out also that he could not give up his goal for a bank if he wanted to. He did not want to, of course, but there was a yoke of responsibility that attached itself to him like a tic the minute someone had trusted him with his capital.

However, the strong protectiveness he felt toward his investors was not the first time he had experienced the feeling. He had first known that feeling as a senior at the Indian Boarding School when a little girl with frightened eyes had stood before him.

One afternoon he stopped by the AID office, ostensibly to keep Will abreast of the bank’s progress. After a few moments he asked the old man, "Do you hear anything of Deborah?”

Will hooked his thumbs under his suspenders and fixed Chase with a penetrating look. "You haven’t told me everything that happened between you two over there in Mindanao, son. And I know it’s none of my business. But the one time I ran into Deborah she asked me not to mention her name to you.”

Chase grunted and looked down at the linoleum floor.
He was stupefied by the monstrous dejection that slammed him. "I guess she has a right to feel that way.” He looked back to Will. "I want her to be happy, Will. I’ll stay out of her life.”

When he turned to go, Will said, "Chase.”

Chase looked at him.

"She’s opened an art gallery over on Canyon Road
— in partnership with another Navajo. Ma-Pi-We, I think his name is. You might wander by there sometime.”

Ma-Pi-We
— Navajo for Red Bird. Slowly Chase shook his head. "I don’t think so, Will. It’s easier this way.”

By July Chase had reached his goal of three hundred shares, $30,000. The Mercantile Bank of Santa Fe became a chartered fact, and it opened its doors in a small square stucco building just behind the old Military Church off the plaza.

For a few days, weeks, the success was heady for Chase. The evening of the stockholders’ first meeting he went by the Aid office for Will. After Chase had cranked his torpedo Ford, Will said, "You’ll be able to afford a Rolls Royce Phantom when you’re elected Chairman of the Board.”

Chase tugged at the tie around his neck, unused to the wardrobe of a civilized man. "I ought to hang myself with this,” he muttered. Then, "I’m not going to accept the nomination, Will.”

Will’s mouth fell open. "But this is what you wanted. This bank was your idea. Jumping jackrabbits, Chase, it’s your bank!”

"No, it’s the stockholders’ bank
— the Indians and Mexicans and even the Anglos who trusted me.” He let out on the clutch, and the car shot out into the traffic. "Besides, the bank is not what I wanted.”

"You want Christina Raffin,” Will said.

Chase looked at him. "Yes. I guess that’s it.”

The small building was packed, mostly with Indians proud of the accomplishment, but a few men from the press were there to cover the story, also. As he looked around at the assembly, Chase felt a thrill of pride that was quickly tempered as he wondered what he would do next. Maybe start a hotel, he reflected wryly. Conrad Hilton, another New Mexican, was making a success of buying hotels.

Chase and Will made their way to the board room where a highly polished new table fenced by hardback chairs dominated the surroundings. When the stockholders saw Chase, they began sitting down. Taking his seat at the head of the table, Chase looked around. He recognized almost everyone. Friends.

As he called the meeting to order and began the Order of Business, a very old woman interrupted it when she was wheeled into the room by a giant, barrel-chested Mexican. There were gasps of recognition from two or three of the people there.

Chase leaned to Will and whispered, "Who is she?”

"Rosemary Rhodes,” Will replied with something
that was a mixture of respect and awe.

CHAPTER 54

Chase found it strange that a woman who owned the Santiago Silver Mines, was a stockholder in the Santa Fe Railroad, and practically controlled the largest bank in Santa Fe, the First National Bank, would have wanted to invest in his insignificant one, but there was no accounting for people, he thought. And she did seem somewhat eccentric—an extremely rich old woman wearing only one little ornament, the cheap tourist jewelry fashioned by the Navajo. But it was, of course, beautiful work.

He scrutinized the turquoise and silver bracelet on her veined and brown-spotted wrist more closely. He realized it was the work of the bracelet that intrigued him. Each bracelet was as individual in workmanship as was a painting. By merely looking at the design or the quality of the stones and types of turquoise used, one could determine almost within a hundred-mile radius where in the state the design was fashioned.

298

But that particular bracelet — Chase knew he had seen the handiwork somewhere before. It was very distinct, excellent craftsmanship. He should have remembered. He frowned, aggravated that he could not recall.

He continued with the business in hand, addressing the stockholders in Spanish, which seemed to be the language of common denominator. He wondered if the old woman understood the Spanish and glanced once or twice in her direction, always somewhat distracted to find the intense gaze of those greenish blue eyes on him even when someone else held the floor. In that seamed face the eyes were alive and ever-young. He found himself fascinated by her and had to force himself to keep to the business at hand.