Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

At first, it really wasn't too bad. True, she was often lonely; her main company consisted of the servants and groundskeepers who maintained what was then a handsome ranch estate. But living mostly apart, that was only temporary, Julieta told herself. She loved the house and the land. She'd always wanted horses, and now she had four of them; she rode every day. She kept busy, volunteering at the Gallup hospital where she first met Joseph Tsosie. Garrett was kind, in his way, and she wanted to be a good wife; she was willing to wait for this period of preoccupation with business to end so they could talk about their marriage, their plans, the prospect of having kids.

Anyway, she told herself, this was probably the way love worked, especially if you were married to such an important, busy man. Her parents were certainly no kind of example to follow.

Somewhere in that first year, though, a number of troubling things happened. Coal prices were depressed, and in a cost-saving move McCarty Energy consolidated management; Kelly Equipment got swallowed whole by the bigger company. When the dust settled, the result of the deal was that Garrett had made off with Kelly's equipment inventory and accounts receivable, netting about ten million dollars, and Kelly had ceased to exist.

But it was still all in the family, Julieta assured herself. It wasn't Garrett's fault; Kelly had been floundering for years. And Daddy still had a terrific job. Sure, he had less authority, but frankly he was probably in a niche better suited to his talents.

It was about then that she began noticing the amused or averted eyes of some of their acquaintances in Albuquerque. One of them, an older woman Julieta thought she knew well enough to confide in, took her aside at some function. She was an energy exec's wife, too, a slim, hard, fifty-year-old with a high silicone chest and a taut-skinned face that had been maintained with ruthless discipline, and she explained that this was how it worked. They like us younger, she said, because it makes them feel more virile around their buddies and competitors. But they're busy. They can't drag us along everywhere. They like having company where they are, but they don't need to be held down by their wives, even much younger ones. And we don't really want to do everything with them, all those boring meetings and golf and the backroom deal making and all, do we? We don't really want to know everything. Give it a few years. You get used to it.

Used to it, Julieta mumbled. To what?

Honey baby, this is not some kind of a secret, is it? You were a beauty queen, weren't you? That means you're a practical girl. You figured out what counts, and you did very well for yourself. All you have to do is keep being practical.

What isn't a secret?

You're his wife, the older woman reminded her reassuringly. But then her kindness took on a cruel, satisfied edge as she swigged some more scotch and went on: Really, none of us ever thought Garrett would marry again, not with his tastes. So you did very well. The others don't matter. They appear for a few weeks or months, they get a sports car or a diamond bracelet, and they go away. Trust me. I've been married to Elliot for twenty-six years. Now he's a doddering old fart, too old to get up to much mischief, and I'm the one who gets to have the fun. But if I'd raised a fuss about it back whenever, it wouldn't have lasted this long. I wouldn't be where I am now. But I was like you. Smart. Practical.

It turned out that Garrett's affairs were no big secret or even much of a scandal. In his social circle, it was something of a gentleman's hobby. One of the things they acquired and compared notes on. Almost a little competition, like their golf.

It devastated Julieta. For the first time, she realized that this was not and never would be the true love she yearned for. Garrett had shrewdly folded together several objectives by marrying her: He'd attained both a presentable trophy wife, naive and isolated enough to be conveniently set aside when not needed, and, as a little sweetener, the easy conquest of Kelly Equipment. But the things she wanted-a relationship and a family-weren't part of anybody's plans.

She was afraid to do anything about it. She couldn't bring it up with Garrett: She knew that the older woman was right, he'd shed her completely if she made it an issue. And she couldn't admit to her parents that there was a problem. They'd only blame her. Now she saw, too, that her father's job depended on her staying married to Garrett. Dad had ended up losing money on the deal with McCarty Energy; her parents needed his salary.

She spent a year or so trying to think it through. When she was with Garrett, she tried hard to be a better companion and wife, beautiful and spirited and devoted, hoping to win his full attention; but she began to feel increasingly used and soiled after his rare visits to the house. She made excuses to stop going to those excruciating social events. She rode her horses hard, every day. She volunteered at the Indian Hospital. Without any real friends from high school or UNM, unable to talk to her parents about her situation, she remained a virtual exile at the house.

Julieta had taken off her hat and was sitting cross-legged on the slab of sandstone, elbows on knees, shoulders slumped. Staring at the ground, hair veiling her face, she looked like a teenager, angry at herself but abject and so much softer now.

Given what Julieta was revealing, Cree thought, and the intensity of the feelings involved, the idea of Garrett McCarty's perseverating after death was well worth exploring. She stared speculatively at the mammoth dragline as Julieta continued.

"I was too young to know what to do. I really didn't have enough perspective to decide if this whole arrangement was maybe sort of okay or completely wrong and horrible. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. Well, except Joseph… we got together once in a while, and I felt safe confiding in him."

"What was his take on your situation?"

"He very tactfully always told me the same thing-I should think better of myself, I should follow my heart and not let anyone treat me like that. But he never forced his opinion on me." The memory brought a wan smile to her lips, and the glance she gave Cree was quick and shy. "His response was very ' Navajo'-restrained and patient. Our conversations always included a lot of silence. He was my first Navajo friend." The smile widened, then suddenly faltered and faded as some other memory intruded.

When she went on, she seemed to hurry, as if telling it before she could change her mind: "So this had been going on for two years and I was pretty much a wreck. And then one day I rode out to the foot of the mesa and was sitting on a boulder staring back at the house when I saw another rider coming. He was riding like a crazy person, hell-bent for leather, but he wasn't actually going anywhere, he was just… it's hard to describe… riding. Playing. He went back and forth, around in circles, the way the swallows fly at sunset, just… swooping and spiraling for the fun of it."

The rider was a young man, dressed in denim work clothes with his shirt unbuttoned and flapping behind him, hair long, chest bare and belly tucked lean below the chiseled lines of his ribs. He'd ride with his hands up above him, he'd get up on his knees with arms spread wide, staying on the wiry palomino by meshing perfectly with the horse's movements. He'd lie down with his feet over the rump and arms around the lunging neck, he'd jump over brush and boulders. All this was bareback. He was laughing for the sheer pleasure it gave him.

As he circled closer to Julieta, she recognized him: He was one of the estate's grounds crew, a Navajo named Peter Yellowhorse who came three days a week to tend to the gardens and pool and fix things around the house and barns. Back among the boulders, she watched him for about fifteen minutes. He didn't see her until he was about a hundred feet away, and when he did, he just about fell off.