Blasphemy

She looked up at him, looked away. “Hardware glitches.”

“Hazelius told me it was software.”

“That, too.” Again her eyes looked away.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

She faced him directly, her mahogany eyes veiled and troubled. “No.”

“Is it something . . . serious?”

She hesitated. “Wyman? You do your job and let us do ours—okay?”

She turned abruptly and walked back toward the barn. Ford watched her until she vanished into the shadowed interior.

10

RIDING BALLEW, FORD GRADUALLY RELAXED, TRYING to keep his mind off Kate, where it had been dwelling far too much for his liking. It was one of those glorious late summer days, tinged with melancholy, that reminded him the season would soon be over. Snakeweed bloomed golden among the dry grasses. Prickly pears were turning furzy with spines, and the tips of the Apache plumes had traded their blossoms for the puffs of red- and-white feathers that signaled autumn’s approach.

The trail petered out, and Ford continued cross-country, navigating by compass. Ancient corkscrewed junipers and hoodoo rock formations made the mesa top feel prehistoric. He crossed the track of a bear in sand, the paw prints looking almost human. Shush, the long-forgotten Navajo word for “bear” popped into his head.

Forty minutes later, he reached the edge of the mesa. The cliff dropped away sheer for a few hundred feet before stepping down through shelves of sandstone toward Blackhorse, two thousand feet below. The settlement looked like a cluster of geometric marks on the desert, about a half mile from the base of the mesa.

Ford got off and searched the edge of the cliffs until he found the slot in the rimrock where the Midnight Trail descended. It was marked on the map as an old uranium prospecting road, but rockfalls, landslides, and washouts had turned it into an intermittent track. It plunged through the rimrock and switchbacked down the face before crossing a rib of mesa and zigzagging down more switchbacks to the bottom. Just tracing the line of the trail, in places barely more than a few feet wide, made him dizzy. Maybe he should have taken the Jeep after all. But he sure as hell wasn’t turning around.

He led Ballew to the edge and began walking down, trailing the horse. Unfazed, the horse lowered his head, gave a sniff, and followed Ford down. He felt a twinge of admiration, even affection, for the old gutbucket.

Half an hour later they emerged at the bottom. Ford mounted and rode the last bit of trail down a shallow tamarisk-shaded canyon to Blackhorse. Cow pens, corrals, a windmill, a water tank, and a dozen shabby trailers completed the town. Behind one trailer stood several eight-sided hogans built of split cedar, with mud roofs. Near the center of town, a half dozen preschool children romped on a dilapidated swing set, their voices shrill in the desert’s emptiness. Pickup trucks were parked beside the trailers.

Ford nudged Ballew with his heels. The old horse moved slowly over the flats on the outskirts of town. A steady wind blew. The children stopped playing and stood like miniature statues, watching him. Then, as if on cue, they ran off squealing.

Ford halted Ballew fifty feet from the closest trailer and waited. He knew, from Ramah, that Navajo personal space began well before the front door. A moment later a door banged, and a rangy man in a cowboy hat with bowlegs came hobbling down from one of the trailers. He raised his hand to Ford. “Tie your horse over there,” he called, over the sound of the wind.

Ford dismounted, tied Ballew, and loosened the flank cinch. The man approached, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. “Who are you?”

Ford stuck out his hand. “Ya‘at’eeh shi ei Wyman Ford yinishye.”

“Oh no, not another Bilagaana trying to speak Navajo!” the man said cheerfully, then added, “at least your accent is better than most.”

“Thanks.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Nelson Begay.”

“You found him.”

“Got a moment?”

Begay squinted, looked at him more closely. “You come down off the mesa?”

“I did.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

Begay said, “That’s a hell of a trail.”

“Not if you walk your horse.”

“Smart man.” Another awkward pause. “You’re . . . you’re from the government, then?”

“Yes.”

Begay squinted at him again, gave a snort, then turned and limped back to the trailer. A moment later the door slammed. Silence took over the town of Blackhorse, except for the wind, unfurling skeins of yellow dust around Ford as if weaving a blanket.

Now what? Ford stood in the swirling dust, feeling like an idiot. If he knocked on the door, Begay wouldn’t answer, and all he’d do is establish himself as another pushy Bilagaana. On the other hand, he had come here to speak to Begay, and speak to Begay he would.

Screw it, the guy can’t stay in his trailer forever. Ford sat down.

The minutes dragged on. The wind blew. The dust swirled.

Ten minutes passed. A stink beetle marched purposely through the dust on some mysterious errand, becoming a little black dot as it went off and disappeared. His mind wandered, and he thought about Kate, their relationship, the long journey his life had made since then. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to his wife. Her death had wrecked any sense of security he had felt in life. Before, he hadn’t known how arbitrary life could be. Tragedy happened to others. Okay, lesson learned. It could happen to him. Move on.

He saw the faint movement of a curtain in a window, which suggested Begay was watching him.

He wondered how long it would take the guy to get the message that he wasn’t moving. He hoped soon— sand was starting to filter into his pants, work itself into his boots, sift down his socks.

The door slammed, and Begay came stomping out on the wooden stoop, arms crossed, looking mightily annoyed. He squinted at Ford and then shambled down the rickety wooden steps and came over. He extended his hand and helped Ford up.

“You’re about the patientest goddamn white man I ever met. I suppose you’ll have to come in. Broom yourself off before you ruin my new sofa.”

Ford slapped off the dust and followed Begay into the living room, and they sat down.

“Coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Begay returned with mugs of liquid as watery as tea. Ford remembered this, too—to save money, Navajos used the same coffee grounds multiple times.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

Begay heaped sugar into his mug, followed by a good pour of half-and-half from a carton.

Ford took in the room. The brown crushed-velvet sofa he sat on looked anything but new. Begay eased himself into a broken Barcalounger. An expensive giant-screen television set sat in one corner, the only thing of any value in the house as far as he could see. The wall behind it was plastered with family photographs, many showing young men in military uniform.

Ford turned a curious gaze on Begay. The medicine man wasn’t what he had expected—neither a young, fiery activist nor a wise and wrinkled elder. He was lanky, with neatly trimmed hair, and looked to be in his early forties. Instead of the cowboy boots most Navajo men wore in Ramah, Begay wore high-top Keds, battered and faded, their rubber toe-caps peeling off. The only gesture to being Native American was a necklace of chunk turquoise.