Joseph said almost nothing until it was time to bring up his errand. He began his request with a preamble, which the old people waited out, nodding respectfully. But in fact, they needed no persuasion. They answered by praising Uncle Joe's judgment, saying they trusted Joseph and appreciated Julieta. As for the bilagaana psychologist, to Joseph's astonishment, they said Tommy had asked them to bring her to him. In one of the few moments when he could speak clearly.
Uncle Joe asked them to remind him how to get to the summer camp, which entailed a lot of gesturing and drawing maps in the sand. It was almost six miles north. The grandfather promised he would tell his daughter and son to expect visitors from Tommy's school tomorrow.
It was almost five o'clock by the time they left. Saying good-bye to the two old people moved Joseph deeply: seeing them standing there, in the last inhabited part of a once-thriving family compound, surrounded by the ruins of hogans whose occupants had died or moved and the remains of defunct sheep operations. A snapshot of two lives approaching their end. Of a bygone era. The old man took his wife's hand and held it against his chest, and they stood motionless, watching the truck pull out as if reluctant to see their visitors go.
The truck bumped and tilted slowly back down the driveway.
Though what the Keedays said about Tommy was deeply troubling, Joseph concluded that the meeting had been very successful. Despite their fear, the old people were facing this family problem with courage. They'd insisted on the old healing ways yet were open-minded about Cree Black. Clearly, Uncle Joe was held in great respect by these people, and he'd done a terrific job, handling everything with perfect tact.
And yet from the pressure he felt in his chest, Joseph knew there was still a lot of unfinished business. The tightening knot in his throat was like a lock, holding back the secrets.
Uncle Joe gripped the wheel hard and said nothing. He seemed burdened, too-sad, preoccupied. Again he had refused Joseph's offer to drive, yet now he seemed shaky. The sweat on his temples gave it away: Whatever else he might be worried about, he was entering alcohol withdrawal.
'You know Margaret's Catholic,' Uncle Joe said, out of the blue. 'I don't take much stock in it myself, but, boy, does that woman feel better after she goes to confession.'
The invitation touched Joseph, but though he ached to tell, he stalled with an uneasy joke: 'Why is it I have such a hard time picturing you as a priest, Uncle?'
'Maybe the same reason I have a hard time seeing you as any kind of sinner. Any more than my wife.'
'I still haven't told Julieta that I didn't place her baby. That I didn't know where he was or who he was.'
Uncle Joe winced with discomfort as his body shook slightly. 'So after today, you'll tell her. Blame me if you want, tell her I always refused to tell you. I don't care, got nothing to lose.'
'There's something else I never told her. Never told anybody.'
Uncle Joe put the truck into low gear to bring it over a particularly uneven shelf of rock.
'I need to tell her. But I'm afraid to for a lot of reasons. One of them is that she's fragile, she has a very strong front, but when she breaks, it's… painful.'
'She's in for a rough ride, Julieta. Whatever you tell her or don't. Just stand by her, you'll probably fix it up.'
'If she lets me. If she'll forgive me. She can get very angry, Uncle. She… hurts herself with her own anger. She might not forgive me.'
Uncle Joe concentrated on his driving, the sweat beading on his grizzled temples. Joseph wished he'd get stern, get clever, anything that would force it out of him in some way. But of course Uncle Joe wouldn't. It was up to Joseph to tell it, to face it. To let out the pressure that was choking him.
'This was back before the baby was born,' he began. 'She was six, seven months pregnant, she was living in that apartment in Gallup, she was hiding from Garrett McCarty. I was her only contact with the world. I was the only one who knew what she was going through. She'd been hurt by her husband and then Peter Yellowhorse had left her and gone to California. One time she showed me this letter he'd written, how he'd gotten a job out there, he had another girlfriend, he was going to try out for the movies. That was the only time she'd heard from him. When she wasn't sad, she was furious. She'd risked everything for him, and he'd tossed her aside.'
Uncle Joe just drove. Up and down and over the rough track, the endless fields of stone and sand jolting past. The constant roiling and pitching. Joseph gripped the door handle, feeling seasick.
'I knew Peter a little. The three of us got together a few times, clandestine meetings for lunch or at my place, before she got pregnant. I thought he was kind of… footloose, but I could see how they felt about each other. They were, what would you call it… kindred spirits. They had chemistry-sparks flew. And something more, deeper, at least for Julieta. Maybe for him, too, but it was hard to tell, a guy like that. He was very smart, he could talk like a poet and make jokes and he knew he was good-looking. I heard from people that he had something of a reputation, that women liked him. And he could get away with things without consequences.'
'Sounds like me,' Uncle Joe put in sadly. 'Back whenever.'
'But I never told Julieta about that. I thought they should have a chance. I thought maybe he'd change, even he would know he'd never get that lucky again. Not in this life.'
'You wanted her.'
Early on, Joseph thought, no-not exactly, not yet. At first, it wasn't something he'd let himself think or admit. 'They were in love,' he said simply. 'I liked them both. I wasn't ready, either.'
There was a period of silence during which Uncle Joe shifted and accelerated into a smoother stretch. He used the respite from two-handed driving to light a cigarette, the shaking of his hands more pronounced. 'Jesus, we've only gone about two miles. I don't know how those old people do it-driveway that takes fifteen minutes, forty minutes to the county road every time.'
'So it's winter and she's around seven months pregnant, Peter's been gone six months, she's barely hanging on. Afraid of Garrett, mad as hell at him. Still in love with Peter and so mad she'd throw things when she talked about him. And I'm thinking, How could he do this, how could he leave her? She was so beautiful, Uncle! And by then I wanted her, I wanted her to love me like that. But the last thing I could do was… put that in her way. She had enough to deal with as it was.' A gout of Uncle Joe's smoke swirled in the cab and Joseph's breath caught on it. He had to cough and clear his throat before going on: 'So one night I was at home, I was tired, I'd just come off rotation at the hospital, my first break in a while. This was just before Julieta decided to give up the baby. And I got a phone call.'
'Uh-oh.'
'Yeah, it was Peter Yellowhorse. He was still in California, he said he'd been trying to reach Julieta for days, but she never answered the phone. He wanted to know if she was all right. He said he was coming back, he was going to catch a bus. Wanted to know if she was still at the old house, or if she wasn't, could I give him her new phone number? This was when she had an unlisted number at her apartment, trying to keep Garrett from finding her. And I'm angry at him, too. I tell him, What the hell do you care? You got her pregnant, left her, broke her heart, you shacked up with some Apache girl! And he tells me he's left that girl because he realizes he can't live without Julieta, he'll do anything for her. Everything he should have known six or seven months earlier.'
'So what did you do?' Uncle Joe croaked. His voice was so gravelly and sick that Joseph pulled back from the memory to appraise him with a doctor's eye. He looked alarmingly bad-greenish, clammy, full of tremors.
'When was the last time you had a drink?' Joseph demanded.
'This morning. Just before I got your message on the machine.'
Joseph calculated the time and was appalled: almost eight hours. ' Why-'
'Because we needed old Keeday's respect. He probably knows I'm a drunk from way back, but he's been a puritan teetotaler since his son got killed drunk driving.'
'You can't just quit, Uncle Joe! Going cold turkey, you could have seizures! At your age, you'll have a heart attack!' Joseph yanked open the glove compartment, rummaged through it, found nothing. He checked the door pocket, bent to feel under the seat, twisted to scan the backseat and floor, but there was no bottle anywhere. 'Don't you keep something in the truck? You must keep a-'
'No! Today is a day of important duties that I want to respect, I don't want to be drunk for!' He gave a terrible glance as Joseph started to argue, and he brought his fist down on the dashboard so hard the sunglasses and cigarette pack there jumped. 'Don't fight with me! Just finish this business! Today we finish all this business! Tell me what you did. When he asked you where she was.'
'I told him he should stay away from her! That he was bad for her. That she was finally starting to get over him, she didn't need him coming back to wreck her life again. That I wouldn't tell him a damned thing and he should
