Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

These two people knew each other well and cared deeply about each other.

Another was, irrelevantly, about Lynn Pierce. She was pleasant and certainly competent, but she radiated a sense of tension, a hypervigilance and — sensitivity. Some internal warring was going on, and though it made sense that the nurse would be keyed up with a patient like Tommy in her care, Cree felt intuitively there was more to it. For reasons Cree couldn't guess, a good measure of that odd, sideways hyperalertness seemed directed toward Julieta and Joseph.

One final insight concerned Julieta-Julieta and Tommy. Unquestionably, Julieta was a dedicated educator, deeply committed to the well-being of her students. But there was also some special connection between the two, much more than the concern called for by professional obligations or general altruism. It was something Cree felt achingly in her own belly whenever she saw them together, heard in Julieta's voice as she tried to comfort him. It awakened her own yearnings, the feeling she felt around Hyacinth and Zoe: the DNA-deep calling to have a child, to love and nurture. Julieta's concern grew out of instincts and longings that deep and irresistible.

That thought suggested another set of questions. If Julieta wanted children, why didn't she have them? It couldn't be for want of willing males. If Cree knew one thing about men and women, it was that nature abhorred a vacuum, and that a woman so beautiful and vivid would attract the attentions of any man who saw her. Julieta had spoken in passing about other relationships, but there had to be a reason why she'd never remarried in the many years since her divorce from Garrett McCarty.

The sudden smooth hum of the truck tires on pavement brought Cree out of her musings. They had made it to Indian Route 12, and now Joseph turned north, leaving behind the dust plume that had trailed them since they'd left the school. He maintained an impassive face as he drove. The hands that gripped the steering wheel were long fingered and neatly manicured, the competent hands of a physician. Cree wished with sudden intensity she could break through to him, enlist him as an ally.

"Dr. Tsosie-can we talk?"

"If you like."

"My process is difficult to accept at first. But it's worked for me and for the benefit of many others. If you and I can cooperate, it'll really help. If we can't, it'll really get in the way."

"It may become moot. Another night like last night and he can't stay at the school anymore."

"I understand. But the pattern so far is that there's an interval between crises, right? If I can have even a few days with him, I can make progress. With your help."

He stayed quiet for a long moment. "A month ago, if somebody like you came here, I'd have advised Julieta to throw him off the grounds."

"If one of the kids got sick and asked for a Hand-Trembler or a Singer, would you throw him off, too?"

He looked at her more closely. It wasn't a long and confrontational gaze, but a short, lateral look of appraisal. Tsosie was a handsome man, with deep brown eyes that seemed to take in the sunlight and give it back, warm and clear. The reserve she sensed in him was not one of arrogance or uprightness, not even a product of his skepticism; it struck her as a habit born of a desire to deliberate, to show respect, to assert mutuality.

"Depends," Tsosie said at last. "On whether I thought he'd do some good or not."

"Can you give me the same benefit of the doubt?"

"You're here, aren't you?"

She felt like thanking him but didn't yet know what he was giving his highly conditional approval to. "The problem is," she said reluctantly, "I'm going to ask all kinds of questions that seem irrelevant and intrusive and impolite."

He chuckled with resigned amusement. "I'm a physician. I ask people about how they're peeing and pooping. I ask women what their period's like and men how their sexual functions are working. And Tommy-in the last three weeks, I'm sure he's heard it all. After last night, he'll be willing to answer you."

"I wasn't thinking only of Tommy."

He waited for her explanation, but she wasn't ready to articulate it. There was too much to explain: That every human experience, normal or paranormal, took place in a larger context. That to understand Tommy she had to know the situation here-all the layers, the reasons for the doubleness she'd felt ever since she'd arrived. That there had to be a reason why he started experiencing the possession only since he'd arrived at Oak Springs School, not at his prior school or his home, and that maybe one of the reasons the hospital doctors had never witnessed his symptoms was that the entity was spatially anchored in this anonymous patch of desert. Or limited to manifestation within the constellation of personalities, the interpersonal dynamics, surrounding Tommy at the school.

As she hesitated, trying to find the right starting place, Joseph slowed the truck and swerved to the side of the road. They were approaching a trio of people standing on the shoulder, a young Navajo couple and a little girl of about four. All three wore jeans and quilted nylon jackets of different colors; the man stood with one hand up and displaying something green, while the woman sat on a pair of large, narrow plywood boxes, clasping the little girl on her lap. When Joseph stopped the truck, the man came around to the driver's window. They exchanged a few words in what Cree assumed was Navajo-clearly a tone language like Chinese but with odd glottal stops and an underlying warm buzz like a hive of honeybees. The man put his hand through the window and Cree saw he held a one-dollar bill, which Joseph waved away with a smile. In another moment, the little family had loaded the boxes and had climbed into the bed of the truck beside them. When they were settled, the man knocked on the window and Joseph started off. The woman smiled as the wind came around her and lifted her thick ponytail.

"On their way to the Chihootsoo market in Window Rock," Joseph explained. "Going to sell their jewelry to tourists. Truck wouldn't start today."

In the side mirror, Cree could see the little girl, sticking her hands out to play with the wind. The mother's face was bright with cold as she held her daughter against her body. Her husband lit a cigarette with difficulty, put his lighter away, and slouched down with his cowboy boots up on the boxes.

"What can you tell me about Tommy? Not medically-his family history?"

Joseph's brow rippled as he deliberated. "He comes from a rural area north of here. He's always lived way out in the sticks. His family still lives partly by herding, so he grew up with sheep, goats, horses. His parents died about six years ago-as he said, a car crash while his father was drunk. So he's been living with his grandparents. He's always been in boarding schools because busing him every day would be impossible for the public schools-his home's too far out and the roads are too bad. It's not unusual on the rez. I went to boarding school-when I was his age, most kids did. Nowadays the roads are better, more people live in towns, so most kids go to public schools."

"How did he happen to come to Oak Springs?"

"Julieta has a recruiter who goes to the other schools and asks about kids with special talents and needy circumstances. Julieta's a good fund-raiser, so she's got scholarships to offer. The recruiter talked to him and his grandparents and they put together a deal with the state."

"You've known her for a long time, haven't you?"

"Yes," he answered. It was clear Cree's change of tack had caught him by surprise.

"From before she started the school?"

"Does it matter?"

"I wondered if you knew her well enough to tell me why Tommy is so important to her."

Joseph's face remained impassive, but Cree got the sense she'd offended him. Behind them, the little girl was laughing as she found wisps of straw in the truck bed and let them go into the slipstream. One arm around the girl's waist, the mother used her other hand to rummage for something in her shoulder bag. The father looked asleep, battened down against the wind.