Running Barefoot (38 page)

I sped up the stairs and started throwing stuff in my suitcase. It was almost 10:00. I would never be able to sleep. My heart thudded in anticipation.

18. Oratorio

I slept restlessly, getting up to repack my bag several times. I’d never been on an Indian Reservation. I had no idea what I’d need. I woke up before the alarm and laid there feeling tired and wishing I hadn’t agreed to go, wondering what had initiated such a bone-headed move. Actually, I knew why I was going; if I was being honest with myself, it was strictly to spend time with Samuel, which again, was completely moronic. Samuel would leave again. Soon. And I would be back here again. Soon.

I threw off my covers and showered, trying to get the sleep-deprived, hairy eyeball feeling to retreat. I was ready before Samuel got there, and sat on the front porch waiting with Yazzie. He laid his big head in my lap and looked at me with mournful eyes. He knew I was going and that he wasn’t coming with me. Samuel had called after he left last night and said Nettie would come and feed the chickens and look after Yazzie. It embarrassed me a little that she knew I was going with him, although I appreciated him making arrangements for Yazzie. I wonder what she thought of his
invitation. I really didn’t want to know. I hoped she would be quiet about it, but figured the entire town would know shortly. Maybe when I got back it would be old news. I sighed gustily, knowing that I was going to get curious looks for a long time for this little “adventure” Samuel had planned.

Samuel pulled up promptly at 6:00, and my heart sped up like a silly girl when he shut off his truck and stepped out, a small smile playing around his lips.

“Ready?”

I gave Yazzie a hug and a nuzzle and stepped off the porch with my bag. I may not have known exactly what to pack, but I knew enough to realize that showing up at Stella Yazzie’s hogan with a huge trunk full of clothes and toiletries would be all wrong. I’d packed as light as I possibly could.

Samuel looked at my duffle approvingly and took it from me as he eyed my worn Levi’s. I’d dressed them up a little with a gauzy white tunic and hoop earrings. I just couldn’t rough it completely. I had on a pair of sandals, too. I put my old boots behind the front seat of his truck, knowing I would need them once we got there.

“Yep, all girl,” Samuel smirked.

“Hey, I can ride a horse, muck out the stalls, milk a cow, and fight off ornery chickens, Mister,” I said tartly. “I just like dressing like a girl. I spent too many years wearing my brother’s old clothes. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No ma’am. I definitely don’t have a
problem with the way you look.” Samuel replied, all signs of teasing gone from his voice.

I swallowed hard and tried not to smile.

Samuel had gassed up the truck before he’d come for me, and there was a Diet Coke in the cup holder waiting for me, as well as a heavenly smell coming from a brown bag sitting on the seat.

“Sweaty Betty’s cinnamon rolls!” I yelped, recognizing the aroma.

“What did you just call her?” Samuel raised his eyebrows as he slammed his door and started up the truck.

I filled him in on Betty’s unfortunate nickname as I happily munched on the warm, sticky piece of paradise.

“I wish I’d known her nickname before I inhaled three of those rolls.” Samuel shuddered in mock horror.

“If you’ve lost your appetite I still have room for this last one,” I supplied, licking my fingers. “Say what you want about Levan, but it definitely has its perks. Sweaty Betty’s cooking is one of them, sweat and all.”

“Honestly, I have nothing but good things to say about Levan.” Samuel rested his forearms against the steering wheel, settling in for the long drive.

“Really?” I was a little surprised. I remembered how his grandmother’s words at my kitchen table so many years ago had left a different impression. “Do you think you would ever want to
live here?” As soon as the words left my mouth I viciously regretted them, realizing how eager and desperate I must seem - like a woman who was already making wedding plans and looking at houses. I hadn’t meant it like that.

Samuel stared out his window for a minute and then looked at me soberly, his eyebrows drawn down in a slight V.

“No Josie. I don’t think I’d want to live here,” Samuel said softly.

I considered opening the door and hurling myself out on to the highway. I bit down on the urge to explain myself, realizing that anything I said would just dig the hole deeper. I finished my cinnamon roll without enjoying it and gulped down half of my Diet Coke. The awkward silence between us remained for many miles as the morning sun climbed sluggishly above the hills and stretched its long arms across the sleepy valley to the left of the long stretch of I-15 we traveled along. We would be traveling on I-15 for 90 miles until we turned off onto I-70 and traveled east towards Moab, cutting down through Monument Valley and into Arizona.

We finally relaxed into conversation, and I relinquished my discomfort as he shared experiences of his life in the military, and I tried to find humorous anecdotes from daily life in Levan. We had led very different lives for the past few years, but somehow I didn’t feel alienated from him because of his experiences, like I once had when I’d
read his letters. I just wanted to know more, to understand him better.

We stopped for a late lunch in Moab, but were on the road again within fifteen minutes, fast food between us. Samuel wanted to reach his grandmother’s before we ran out of daylight, and we had a ways to go yet. The landscape had steadily grown more stark and dramatic. Huge plateaus and jutting mountains thrust upwards out of the flats, like enormous castles coated in thick red rock. I’d often wondered how the fleeing Mormons had felt when their leader had declared that the Salt Lake Valley was “the place.” They’d traveled so far and long, suffering terribly, only to wind up in a rather barren, treeless, waterless valley. How their hearts must have trembled within them and how despair must have threatened to overcome them. But they’d prospered. I wondered now how the ancient indian tribes had existed and thrived in this desert landscape. However breathtaking and majestic it might be, it was completely inhospitable. I must have mused aloud, because Samuel leaned into the wheel and his eyes narrowed on the scenery around us as he began to talk.

“The Hopi actually have an interesting legend about how they came to be on this land.”

“The Hopi?” I questioned blankly.

“The Hopi Indians occupy a section of land here in the four corners area, mostly in the high desert of northeast Arizona, surrounded on all sides by the Navajo Nation. The Hopi are pacifists – in
fact Hopi means ‘the peaceful and wise people.’ This story kind of illustrates that quality of humble acceptance that is traditionally Hopi. Anyway, the Hopi say that back when the first humans crawled up from the underworld into this world, mockingbird met them with several ears of corn, all different sizes and colors, laid out before him. Mockingbird told them that each tribe or family must pick an ear of corn. The ear of corn would tell them their destiny – for instance, the Navajo were said to have picked the yellow corn which meant they would have great enjoyment but a short life.”

Samuel stopped talking at this point and glanced at me ruefully. “I haven’t necessarily had great enjoyment in my life, so I’m hoping the other half of the Navajo destiny won’t apply either.

“So, all the tribes started grabbing the corn. The Utes took the flint corn and the Comanche took the red corn. The Hopi stood by and watched everyone grabbing and jostling for the best ear of corn, but they didn’t take any. Finally, there was only the short blue corn left – the piece nobody else wanted. The short blue corn predicted a destiny of hard work and toil – but also predicted long, full lives. The Hopi leader picked up the blue corn and accepted this destiny for his people, and they wandered around looking for a place to live. Eventually, they came to the three mesas in the desert. The God of death, Masauwu, owned the land. He said they could stay. The Hopi looked
around them and said “life will be difficult here, but nobody else will want this land, so no one will try to take our land away.”

I laughed out loud at that. “I guess that’s looking at the bright side of things.”

“Well, they had it mostly right. The Hopi were farmers, and because they actually came up with successful methods to grow crops in this environment, they were constantly being raided by surrounding Ute, Apache and Navajo tribes who wanted their corn.”

“So nobody wanted their land, but they wanted their crops?”

“Pretty much.”

We drove in silence for many miles more, each of us lost in reflection.

“I like how you know not only your history, but the history of other tribes. You are like my own personal guide of all that is Native American.”

“You’ll find that most of the legends among Native Americans are variations of the same stories. We might tell them a little differently, or have our own slant on things, but they’re all similar, especially among tribes that occupy the same geographic area. The Hopi share a lot of religious similarities with the Navajo. Each tribe is big on religious ceremonies. Both religions center around harmony, of things being in balance, and the importance of having a good heart, which mostly comes from being at peace with the people and circumstances in your life.”

“
Hozho
,” I remembered aloud.

Samuel gaped at me and then nodded his head. “Yeah,
hozho.
How did you know that word?”

“I remember talking about harmony with you a long time ago. I’ve thought about it many times since. I even wrote
hozho
on my Wall of Words.

“Imagine that, a little girl from Levan, Utah with a Navajo word written on her wall.”

“Imagine that.” I agreed. “So Samuel?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you found it?”

“What?”

“Harmony, balance, hozho….Whatever you want to call it. Since you’ve been gone all these years, have you found it?’

Samuel looked at me for a moment and then returned his gaze to the road. “It’s an ongoing thing, Josie. You don’t just find it and keep it. Just like maintaining balance on a bike – one little thing can start you wobbling. But I learned that a big part of harmony for me is having a purpose. I also had to let go of a lot of anger and sadness. When I met you all those years ago, I was filled with anger. I started changing when my heart started to soften.”

“What softened your heart?” I asked softly.

“Good music and a friend.”

I felt my eyes burn a little and turned from him, blinking quickly to lap up the sting of tears. “Music has incredible power.”

“So does friendship,” He supplied frankly.

“You were every bit as good a friend to me,” I responded quickly.

“No I wasn’t. Not even close. But as nasty and mean as I often was, you never held a grudge. I could never figure you out. You just seemed to love me no matter what. I didn’t understand that kind of love.

“Then I had an experience that taught me. You know I took my Dad’s scriptures with me when I left for the marine corp. I’d read them a little. I’d flipped through them, reading this and that, starting and stopping. I don’t think I ever told you about the experience I had. It might be in one of those letters I brought over.

“I was in the middle of Afghanistan in an area where we believed a large group of Taliban fighters had hunkered down – there was one guy in particular that we really wanted bad. Rumors of Osama himself were rampant. I’d been sent on ahead with another sniper – we’re always sent out in pairs – to scout out an area thought to overlook a possible opening to a series of caves the terrorists were supposedly using as a hidey hole. I’d been battened down, on my belly, looking through my scope for hours on end for three days. I was exhausted and irritable, and I wanted to blow up the whole God-forsaken country and just go home.”

“It sounds terrible,” I commiserated.

“It was.” Samuel laughed without much humor and shook his head. “Before I’d been sent out on this little scouting trip, I’d been reading the
parable about the prodigal son. It’d made me a little bit mad. I felt angry for the son who stuck around and was faithful and then got pushed aside by his dad. I thought I understood what Jesus was trying to teach with that parable. I thought it was all about that Jesus loves the sinner not the sin, and that he will forgive us if we will just return to him and allow him to heal us. And I knew all that was true, but I just kept thinking about how it wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, and the ‘good son’ didn’t deserve to be taken for granted. I was even thinking that Jesus’ parable wasn’t the best example of welcoming the sinner back into the fold – that he could have used a better story to illustrate his point.

“So here I am, tired, ticked-off, and I’ve got this story of the prodigal son running through my mind. Just about this time, I see what looks to be the target approaching this entrance with two other men. I get excited, because I’m thinking – finally someone’s going to get what they deserve. Can you imagine it? I’m critiquing the master teacher in my head, and I’m getting ready to blow another guy’s head to kingdom come. I’m all excited, I’ve got the orders to shoot to kill, and suddenly my partner says - “It isn’t him.”

“It’s him! I’m saying. It’s him! It’s a go! I’m insisting that I shoot even as I’m realizing it isn’t our guy, but I don’t stand down.” Samuel’s voice and body were tense as he retold the story, and he shook his head adamantly, transported back to the craggy overlook in a country far away.