Moonlight Water (22 page)

She cranked a hard left. “Road's gonna get rough now.”

Unintentional joke. No road at all, just a hint of wear across rocks. It was bumpy and slow, like driving on the backs of giant tortoises. Two minutes later they were negotiating through soft sand, and Red was sure they'd get stuck. “We might have to let some air out of the tires,” said Zahnie. But she kept going. Soon they were driving across slickrock, following slight scarring on the surface.

Red quelled his fear by looking at the canyon walls. It was like the Grand Canyon but more intimate—red rock, purple and ochre earth, green cedars, the walls shelving down in lacy terraces gracefully chiseled over millions of years by the wildest of sculptors, the deities Water and Wind. Though ruins must have been tucked into many niches, he didn't see any. He wondered at the human beings who lived here one or two millennia ago. He wondered at the human beings who ventured now into this remote, fantastical, beautiful place.
Mad seekers of life, perhaps. Like us?

She said, “People have been trying to tear up this land for money for quite some time. In the nineteen-fifties we had uranium on the cranium, prospectors looking to get rich and helping the world blow itself up.”

Grabbing for gold,
Red thought,
instead of feeding their spirits.

Though the tracks had been obvious at the turnoff, they'd mostly disappeared. Once in a while you could see a fragment in some sand.

“We're driving into a huge maze with no idea where we're going, right?”

“Worse. Recently the pot hunters have gotten desperate. They work with headlamps at night, in very, very remote locations. Our policy is to assume they're armed and dangerous. Word is, whether you're a civilian or you're government, if you come on what looks like a pot hunter in the outback, mind your health and keep going. They have guns, and they're nuts.”

“So who did the feds arrest back in Moonlight Water?”

“The little fish, as usual.”

A few miles up, Zahnie stopped at the mouth of a canyon, entering from the left. It ran back about a quarter mile and crooked out of sight to the right. Like all the deep-walled canyons in this country, it was a step into an alternate world. Perhaps a world of infinite curves of stonescapes, like mirrors receding forever within mirrors, seducing the unwary. Perhaps a world where entire civilizations lived in beauty they could not share with the mass of mankind. Perhaps where the ancient Anasazi still endured, living out the peace they wanted a millennium ago.

She got out and checked the few tracks. He walked with her. “Someone, we're guessing Wayne, drove in, came out, headed up-canyon. I can't figure out what's going on.”

They climbed back in and bumped into the side canyon. After ten minutes it ended in a sheer wall. As they looked around, sitting still, a raven landed on the hood and peered in at them. When Zahnie touched the gas, it flew.

“Winsonfred ever mention Ed to you?”

She looked at Red cockeyed.

“You know, Ed the buzzard?”

“Oh, Ed. Grandfather doesn't talk to me about that. He knows better.”

“You do know about Ed, though.”

“Tony talks about him.”

“You don't believe?”

She sighed. “I grew up with a lot of stuff, and I don't know what to think. I do know there's more to the world than the scientists and white folks generally include in their way of looking at things.”

“I don't know anything about Navajo spirituality.”

“I can tell you one thing. It doesn't include Ed. Winsonfred came back talking about reincarnation after he went to Taos.”

Red gave her a quizzical look.

“About, mmm, thirty years ago, Winsonfred's wives kicked him out for fooling around.”

Winsonfred fooling around at seventy-three? This was good.

“So he upped and went to Taos with a hippie girlfriend. Lived in a commune that summer, and they treated him like a guru, a fountainhead of Native wisdom. When it got cold, though, Winsonfred came back to the hogan, begging to be let in.” She snorted. “He brought some new ideas as souvenirs, including his belief in reincarnation. Anyway, that part's not Navajo.”

For a moment she just drove. “I walked away from traditional Navajo stuff. I walked away from my family. That was after Roqui left me.”

Red looked at Zahnie. Her face was set hard.

“About Ed. Do you believe Grandfather?”

“I don't know,” Red said. “Winsonfred said Ed watched me come into town, described what I did, said he got the info from Ed. Don't know how else Winsonfred could have known.”

“He comes up with those things.”

“Wonder if Ed will report to Winsonfred about us out here. Maybe if Wayne caught us, Ed would tell Winsonfred to send the cops.”

“You can hope,” she said with a smile.

She stopped suddenly. Here was the mouth of another canyon, and more ATV tracks going in and out. They followed these, too, this time for maybe an hour. Twice Zahnie pointed out ruins on the north wall of the canyon. “I'm only showing you the best ones,” she said.

Red wanted to go exploring—to touch—but this was not the day.

Finally, they came to a wall about fifteen feet high across the canyon. End of the line. They got out. The heat almost made Red itch. A little trickle ran down the wall, and a pool collected at the bottom, a couple of inches deep. She stooped beside the pool, took off her baseball cap, filled it with water, and slapped it on her head. The water soaked her hair and ran down her cheeks. She gave him a beguiling smile.

Red followed suit.

She glanced warily at him and took off her shirt. Her bra was a no-nonsense type, and her delicate cleavage was more alluring than she could have guessed. She soaked the shirt in the pool and put it back on.

Red followed suit.

She studied the pool. He could see what was on her mind, but she wasn't about to do it. At last she turned and sat down, shorts and all, in the two inches of water.

He did the same.

Merriment played on her face. They smiled at each other, aware of what was happening to the other's nether regions, which were similar but interestingly different. And aware of how very good it felt. And all conspired to make Little Turtle Without a Shell look pretty pert. Red did not say one word that might break the spell.

 

26

CANNONBALLS

Don't bathe in rainwater. The male rain will mate with you.

—Navajo saying

 

The rest of the day was just what Red wanted. A spanking-hot sun. The most spectacular red-rock scenery on the planet. A glorious, cool-shadowed twilight. Nary a sign of any bad guys. And the play of words and eyes of two people who were soon to be lovers, and knew it, and loved life, and the air, and the way they inhabited the world. The coming of evening felt savory.

They drove out of that canyon, then up and back through other canyons, like a yo-yo. They laughed a lot. They noticed the orange blossoms of the globe mallow, the feathery lavender blossoms of the tamarisks, the outrageous fuchsia blooms on the prickly pear. Occasionally they saw rainbows of rock on the skyline, the miracles of the stone arches of this country, and a true-blue arc of sky within. They saw ruins they promised themselves they'd visit someday. They laughed at each other's every line or smiled wide, deep, love-drunk smiles. They drank the heady wine of the first hours of new romance.

Red started some words to a nice tune he made up as he went, and Zahnie pitched in a couple of good lines:

“Running on stones,

Jumping them wide,

Waterfalls down,

Laughing we try.

“[chorus]

So long to the past.

It's gone at last,

Birds circling high.

Come hold my hand.

It's warm by your side.

“Bring me your story,

I'll give you mine,

Water and fire

Burning back time.

“[chorus]

So long to the past.

It's gone at last,

Birds circling high.

Come hold my hand.

It's warm by your side.”

In one side canyon a little water flowed. Zahnie chugged the SUV a quarter mile up, and they walked another quarter along a sluice no wider than a thigh, carrying the food and sleeping bags. There they found the prize they hoped for, a clear, deep pool. It collected at the foot of a lip ten or twelve feet high. Zahnie climbed the lip first, stood silhouetted against the pearly evening sky, and piece by piece removed all her clothing. She came to the edge and looked down at Red, who was gazing up at her marvelous brown-red body. Then she leapt in the air, shrieked like a kid, doubled up, and cannonballed into the pool. She stood up grinning wildly. The water trickled around the nipples of her lovely breasts and covered with a cool blanket the mysteries below. God, she was something out in the wild. This was her true home.

As fast as he could, Red jimmy-jammed out of his shirt, shorts, and shoes, clambered up the rock, and cannonballed down beside her.

Except she was gone, running back up the rock, hooting as she went. He followed. They roared like savages or like small water gods. In this series of jumps Red was never able to catch up with her. Always she ran half a lap ahead of him, glistening with drops and the blue twilight and with the glow of the love in his eyes following her.

Then he didn't even look, just cannonballed off with his eyes closed. He came up snorting and spouting, and before he could clear his eyes to see, she grabbed him, encircled him in her arms, wrapped his lips in hers, and wrapped her wet thighs around his hips.

After a precious and private hour or two they napped without remembering to eat. Much later they woke up intermittently to watch the Big Dipper circle the North Star and speak thus of great wheels of time and the dance of galaxies. Then they made love again in the time known to human beings, dozed awhile, and repeated verse and chorus.

Zahnie's love that night felt like the first drops of rain on Red's parched heart after a long drought. His heart beat with utter surprise. He had spent his life more turtle-shelled than he had ever known.

 

27

THE HUNT

Don't yell when it is raining. You'll be struck by lightning.

—Navajo saying

 

Unfortunately, the next morning there were still looters to chase down. Zahnie was keen to hunt, and Red was half-willing. He was more willing after she got up and packed and he was sure she wasn't going to slip back down next to him.

More leisurely now, or at least with less intensity, they drove back down the narrow little side canyon (Honeymoon Canyon, he called it in his mind). Lukas Gulch looked roomy beside it. The peculiarity was, as soon as they turned up the canyon he said, “Stop the car.” He turned one ear toward something.

“You hear it?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“A high-pitched buzz.”

“My God,” she said, “another damned ATV.”

She looked around furiously, slammed the Bronco into reverse, bounced them backward past the turn, and rammed them back into Honeymoon Canyon. One curve and they were mostly out of sight.

“I wonder if he hears us as clear as we hear him?”

“Not over that hornet engine of his,” Red said, hoping he was right.

Red hated the idea of a showdown with the angry redneck Wayne Kravin. He got out Wayne's service automatic.

She gave Red a look, bombed out the door, crashed it shut, and cringed at the noise.

The high-wound engine kept whining. She ran up a little slope, whipped the binoculars out of her fanny pack, and got them trained on the intersection. Red kept up, ready.

The engine revved its whine higher.

Long moments passed.

Then the ATV came into view. It looked for sure like Kravin's, purple and white. Wayne wore the same helmet he was wearing at the ruin the other day.

Zahnie brought her hands down and stared without the binocs, gape mouthed. The ATV passed the turn without even a hesitation and boiled its way down-canyon. Wayne was sure in a hell of a hurry. A blue feather flapped wildly in the wind behind his helmet.

Suddenly Zahnie yelled, “Jesus H. Christ!” and started running for the Bronco.

Red hotfooted along behind.

*   *   *

The chase that followed made Red's skull of permanent potential interest to phrenologists. Zahnie charged over rocks, slalomed through sand, and did takeoffs and landings bumpier than a student pilot. Real quick, Red rammed his arms against the ceiling, trying to hold his body down. It did no good. His noggin felt like a battered grapefruit.

He didn't see how they'd catch Wayne Kravin once he saw the pursuit, and he couldn't figure why they would want to crack their own heads instead of Wayne's.

They were in luck. Wayne's engine kept him from hearing them until the Bronco was reasonably close. Then they were in for bad luck. When Wayne did see and hear them, it put a booster up his ass. He put the pedal to the metal. So did Zahnie.

The next several minutes, or several lifetimes, were indescribable. Red tumbled through an overwhelming assault on all senses slashed with random, savage pain, and fear roaring in his ears like a hurricane.

Suddenly Wayne zoomed into a washout and hit something that brought the ATV to a sudden stop—and his body flew without benefit of wings, sailing above the sagebrush like a Frisbee.

Zahnie dodged whatever the ATV hit. Their rear fender brushed the machine aside with a clang. They careened out of the washout, caught a little air, and whumpffed to the earth.

Before Red could catch his breath, Zahnie was out of the Bronco, running and hollering, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”