Doug Allyn - v108 n03-04_1996-09-10

I’d just finished bagging my samples when I saw the cloud of dust roaring toward me about one hundred yards away. Bolo, my horse, began nervously stomping and pawing at the ground as he too eyed the approaching pickup.

“Easy, boy,” I said, patting his dapple-gray neck. This seemed to do little to calm him. Perhaps he sensed my uneasiness, for I had little doubt who was in the truck or that they meant trouble.

My apprehension was reaffirmed moments later when, with a shrill squealing, the pickup skidded almost to a halt about twenty feet below me and began climbing the shallow rim of the desert basin. I put my equipment in the saddlebags just as the truck stopped. Joe Threestalks got out holding a pump-shotgun at port arms.

“You’re trespassing, washichu,” he snarled, his dark brooding eyes barely visible under the brim of his hat. Charlie Onehorse got out the other door. He didn’t have a gun, but he locked open the blade of his buck knife and sauntered forward.

“Look, guys,” I said cautiously, “I’m sympathetic with the tribal lawsuit. I really hope you win it. Honest. I was just out collecting some fossil samples.”

“So you didn’t mean no harm, huh, washichu?” Joe sneered. He brought the pump back, then snapped it forward, chambering a round with an ominous chunking sound.

“Dump out those saddlebags,” Charlie said. “Then empty your pockets.”

Since I’d just spent two hours in the hot sun sweating over a hill of poisonous harvester ants to collect the fossil fragments the ants brought to the surface during their excavations, I wasn’t too happy about complying. But I didn’t want to argue with a man carrying a shotgun. Carefully, I removed the bag and opened it, trying to explain what it was.

“Just drop it!” Joe yelled. “Charlie, get his wallet.” Charlie was reaching with one hand, the knife held in the other, when an authoritative command stopped him. We all looked around toward the source of the voice. At the top of the basin rim, silhouetted by the midday sun, I could see two legs and the outline of a hat. The rest of the figure was obscured by the brightness. But I could still tell that he was holding a rifle.

“If you touch him, Charlie, I’ll take you in for armed robbery,” Jim Buck said. “Drop that knife.”

“But we caught him trespassing,” Joe yelled.

“I heard,” said Jim, still looking down the rifle barrel.

Charlie threw the knife down angrily.

“Joe,” Jim continued in his strong voice. “Put your shotgun on the ground. Now.”

As Joe obeyed, Jim’s boots scuffed through the crusty red earth of the basin rim and he came down to us. He stopped by me and regarded each of us with his deep-set eyes. His face was flat-looking, with high chiseled cheekbones and an amber complexion. The barrel of his rifle rested on the shoulder of his khaki uniform. In the bright sunlight the reservation police badge shimmered like sterling silver.

“I shoulda known you’d take his side,” Joe said, gesturing at me.

“Taking a washichu’s side over us,” Charlie muttered in support. “Still a white man’s boy, huh?”

“First of all,” Jim said slowly as he stooped to pick up Joe’s shotgun, “I’m not taking sides. Second, I’m confiscating this gun until you prove you’re cooled down enough to handle it.”

“You got no right,” Joe protested.

Jim stared at him piercingly.

“You’d better get out of here now,” he said. “Before I change my mind and run you both in.”

Reluctantly, Joe and Charlie retreated to their truck, muttering an occasional profanity. The engine kicked over a few times, then caught, expelling an effluvium of dark, oil-laden exhaust. Joe popped the clutch, circled, and sped down the hill.

Jim watched them leave, then turned to me. I smiled.

“Sure glad you came along, Jim.”

“They meant you no serious harm,” he said. “But they might have roughed you up some. You’d best not come on reservation land anymore.”

“I think I got all the fossilized samples I need today. But this area’s still not officially reservation territory. At least not until the lawsuit’s settled.”

“And if McKitrick has his way, that’ll be never,” Jim said bitterly. “Just the same, you’d best stay away.” He pulled the slide on the shotgun back and a double-aught buck round snapped out.

“Thanks again,” I said as I watched him ascend the hill, his rifle in one hand, Joe’s shotgun in the other.

He turned back to me when he got to the top. “How’s Carol?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

He nodded and disappeared over the rim.

I scanned the mesa for the dust trail of Joe’s pickup. It seemed to be heading back toward the reservation. Or the official border anyway. If I rode Bolo along the top of the canyon, I could get to Carol’s without risking another confrontation. I swung up into the saddle and steered Bolo to the crown of the hill. Jim Buck’s brown four-wheel-drive Bronco was only about a hundred yards off, its light-bar and reservation police insignia reflecting the sunlight like mirrors. He was running a parallel course with me. Good old Jim, keeping a watchful eye on me even though I’d stolen the girl he loved.

Jim and Carol had been an item in college until her father, Paul McKitrick, found out she was dating an Indian and put a stop to it. He’d used his wealth and political connections to get Jim’s athletic scholarship revoked. Jim had no choice but to drop out. He enlisted in the army and spent three years in the military police. When he came back, Carol and I were engaged.

As Bolo trotted along at a slow pace I looked over the basin again and appreciated its beauty. Rows of cactus punctuated the dry brown landscape. Distant mountains with layers of shale separated by varying hues of red loomed majestically on the horizon. More than a hundred years ago, back when the plains Indians had signed a treaty with the U.S. government, the buffalo had roamed here alongside the nomadic Indian tribes. Back before the concept of land ownership became a pertinent issue. And long before anybody suspected that vast quantities of uranium lay beneath the shale. As I got farther from the basin, the more oppressive heat seemed to recede. Except for the hot dry wind, which the Indians say always precedes doom. They call it Viento del Diablo — Devil’s Wind.

As I came to the border of the McKitrick ranch, another rider approached me from the opposite direction. The horse, a huge white stallion, was as unmistakable as the broad, powerful shoulders of the rider. I eased Bolo to a stop as Paul McKitrick abruptly reined in his horse next to me.

“Rick,” he said with a forced grin. “I figured you were around when I saw that wreck of a Jeep and trailer parked in my drive.” I’d brought Bolo out from town in the trailer and parked it at his ranch. Mr. McKitrick took every opportunity to remind me that he always went first class.

“Why don’t you sell that old nag to the dog-food company and let me give you a real horse?” he said, glancing at Bolo. His own stallion stirred uneasily.

“He’s like a member of my family,” I said, trying to muster a smile. “Besides, he gets me where I’m going.”

McKitrick snorted, removed his brown cowboy hat, and wiped a sleeve over his artfully graying pompadour.

“Sentimentality doesn’t win the ball game,” he said. “You’d better learn that if you expect to make something of yourself.”

“I had some trouble with Charlie Onehorse and Joe Threestalks out by the basin earlier,” I said, trying to change the subject. “Jim Buck ran them off, but they still might be in the area.”