“Anything I should know about the meeting?”
“Chief Quanah is bringing several guests, not just our conservatorship military but also people from CoCon and GB. Other than that, nothing much. We’ll go over the order of speakers with everyone at the same time.”
We arrive at Muni Row, or the municipal area of ABQ, shortly after our conversation. Sheriff Helki brings us to the secure rear parking lot of police headquarters. There are two checkpoints, the first just requires a police window tag to continue down the back entrance road. He then must go through fingerprint and face recognition at the second checkpoint while I hand my conservatorship ID to the guard standing outside my passenger window. Mark added the non-police attendees to today’s visitors list, so we are quickly waved through.
“Do you have to go through this every day? I mean, you’re the sheriff, the head of all police in the region and you’re based out of the headquarters. I usually come through the visitor’s entrance, so what do I know?”
“I used to only badge into the two checkpoints. The other scans were used to get into the building. We’ve stepped up security recently so now I get to scan in twice. Your bicycle and trailer should be fine in the bed. We cable secured and locked both to the bed bolts, but we can bring them inside if you prefer.”
“No, they’re fine to stay here, thanks. I mean, I only half-ass lock them up at work, which I may regret one day. Oh, well.”
We head to the secure building where he needs to scan in again while I just look at the camera for facial scan. The headquarters building is a sprawling campus of only three stories, well four if we count the basement. As with most buildings on SWACon, wider is better than higher as it allows for more solar panels to capture sunlight.
The basement houses locker rooms, weight and exercise rooms, an indoor firing range, a pool, and the armory. The main floor is for visitors as well as public areas to interact with large groups of citizens or the press, a mess hall, the secured holding cells, and a security area. The second floor holds Sheriff Helki’s office, the central patrol briefing room, interview rooms, and bullpens of various divisions like Psycept. Forensic scientists, police dispatch, translators and social support, safe rooms for children or victims of abuse, and training and conference rooms are on the top floor. Sheriff Helki’s moccasins are silent on the hard floors of the stairs and I’m proud to say my boots don’t squeak. I rubbed a bar of soap on the soles last night in anticipation and it did the trick.
We emerge on the top floor to find Lt. Setimika awaiting us. After nodding to me, he quietly speaks with Sheriff Helki as he escorts us to a conference room. As he obviously doesn’t wish me to pay attention to the conversation, I look around the area as we walk. It’s been a few years since I was here in person, l wonder if it’s changed. We enter a large conference room where Chief Yanaba and Sully are standing in conversation. I settle the puppies on their mats in a corner of the room, though they’ll accompany me when it’s my turn to leave the room.
Sully is a dark-complected Black man of average height. His natural hair is kept trimmed close to his skull and his hazel-green eyes dominate his face. Wendy is his twin down their shared eye color, though her hair is shoulder length if she straightens it out. It’s always amazed me how similar their features are when they are merely fraternal twins. He’s wearing jeans and a button-down shirt with his holstered gun clipped to the outside of his belt. Chief Yanaba is a Diné woman in her fifties. She’s been the SWACon head of police for almost ten years, so probably closer to late fifties. She wears an electric blue long-sleeved knee-length dress over white linen pants with a silver and leather concha belt and her thick black hair is pulled back in a tsiyeel, a figure-eight bun. Seeing me glance quickly at her pants, she smiles and replies, “pants for work.”
I’ve interacted with Chief Yanaba more in the past few months than I ever have before. Which isn’t difficult because I only met her four months ago. Still, the sentiment stands. I’ve been floating along in the shallow end of SWACon for fifteen years and suddenly I’m tossed into the deep end. How do I get back to shallow? I liked it there.
Shortly after we enter the room Chief Quanah and his party, escorted by Mark, arrive. Though, looking at the grim faces, maybe party isn’t the right work. Puns for the win! Chief Quanah is Quohada Numunu, one of the bands of what Americans may know as Comanche. Most Numunu bands are found in Lla-Esta conservatorship, but the Quohada band lived the farthest west and chose to be a part of SWACon when it was first established, and here they’ve remained. The Quohada are just one of many examples of a band selecting to live in a different conservatorship from the rest of their tribe.
Accompanying Chief Quanah are several people. He introduces Coronel Kino as the War Chief of CoCon but merely names Nakan’oa as being from GB. He doesn’t bother to introduce the four people that entered the room with him but faded back to the walls to stand silently at attention.
“Water is available on the sideboard. Would anyone like anything else to drink?” Mark asks. “No takers? I’ll
