Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

"Only way to go, double cab," Joseph said. He looked out at the crowd.

Uncle Joe nodded again and then waited, smoking in silence. By now he'd be aware that Joseph had something on his mind, but he was giving his troubled nephew the time he needed to open the topic.

"Something has come up," Joseph admitted.

The old man bobbed his head.

"Uncle Joe, I need some information that only you know."

The head stopped moving. "Huh. Long time ago. Why is it important now?"

"You know the school where I treat the kids sometimes?"

"Julieta McCarty's school. For smart Navajo kids. Of course I know it."

Joseph shifted uncomfortably between the arms of the lawn chair.

"There's a student there with a bad problem. He's got a… a form of seizure activity that's very unusual."

"You want medical advice or spiritual guidance?" Joe Billie said chidingly. "Those, I can give you, sure. But history advice, we made a deal on that. I kept my part of the deal. You still have to keep yours."

"Things change, Uncle! He's fifteen now. Maybe there comes a time when a kid needs to know the truth about where he came from. Who his parents really were."

Uncle Joe made an unconvinced noise.

"He's from up east of Sheep Springs. Where I remember you used to work, back when I was just coming into practice." Joseph turned to observe the old man's reaction, but the maze of seams was utterly unreadable. "I've met the grandparents at the hospital a couple of times. They say they know you."

"Like you say, I used to work up there. Probably anybody with livestock on the eastern rez knows me."

Frustrated, Joseph lowered his voice: "This boy has a severe problem, like nothing I've ever heard of. It's mystified the hospital doctors. We need to know his real medical background. If we're going to look at the possibility of congenital factors or cranial trauma, we need to know his birth history. Right?"

"Julieta thinks it's her boy. She's pressuring you to tell her, and she doesn't know you don't know."

"That too. Look, Uncle, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. I'm asking as a physician."

Uncle Joe thought about it, taking a longer swig from the bottle and then making a face at it as if the taste displeased him. The crowd shuffled past, and an old woman stopped to inspect Uncle Joe's wares. Neither of them said anything until she'd moved on.

"Tell me about this boy's problem," Uncle Joe said at last.

Quietly, Joseph detailed Tommy Keeday's symptoms: the convulsions, the confusion of his body parts, the insensitive arm, the asynchronous breathing. He mentioned Sam Yazzie's observation that when it came upon Tommy it seemed to mesmerize or paralyze the other boys, and he immediately regretted it: The last thing he wanted was to suggest anything supernatural, get the old man prattling about superstitions. He finished up quickly, careful to avoid mentioning that they'd brought in a Seattle parapsychologist to look into it.

"Bad," Uncle Joe said. His yellow eyes floated moist in their sockets, still expressionless. "Bad business. Dangerous for you."

" Uncle-"

"I'll tell you something, Joseph," the old man hissed. He looked quickly around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear and then went on almost inaudibly: "One time I met a guy people said was a witch. In your world, you don't know guys like this. And you don't want to. You look in their eyes and you can see one minute they're one thing, next minute they're something different. They're crazy and sick like a dog with rabies. They can make other people crazy, too. I've seen it."

Joseph ignored the narrowing eyes and rasping voice, and persisted, "His name is Tommy Keeday. His parents were killed in a car crash about six years ago. Keeday, Keedah," he repeated, adding the more traditional pronunciation. He watched his uncle's face carefully, hoping to see a reaction to the name. But either it meant nothing to the old man, or he was truly a master of the poker face.

Uncle Joe stared at him for a full minute. "Here comes your aunt," he said finally. "Maybe we should take a walk. If I don't take a piss, I'm going to embarrass my wife in public. I'll show you the new truck."

Joseph greeted Margaret Billie, a hardy, pretty woman in her midsixties with her graying hair knotted behind her head and bound with strips of fabric. She wore a traditional outfit she admitted was intended to help sell herbs, a calf-length dress decorated with an embroidered bodice and set off by a handsome silver crucifix and turquoise necklaces. They exchanged courtesies and news of relatives for only a moment before Uncle Joe started walking off by himself and Joseph apologized and followed. Aunt Margaret took her seat behind the counter, waving understandingly as Joseph looked back.

They walked up the lane for a bit, then cut between concessions, across the next row, and again between booths to the vendor parking lot. Uncle Joe found his way to a massive new Dodge Ram with spotless burgundy and silver paint, looked quickly around, and urinated in its shadow. When he was done he lit another cigarette and turned to Joseph.

"Power windows, power locks, power mirrors," he said. "Power seats that go every which way. You want me to show you?"

"No, Uncle."

"Didn't think so." Uncle Joe chuckled, as if relieving himself had restored his sense of humor. Or maybe it was just the booze starting to hit him, Joseph thought. The old man walked around to the back of the truck and took a seat on the bumper, tipping himself cautiously back against the tailgate. A hundred yards away among the parked vehicles, a group of teenagers had gathered around a jacked-up muscle car and were listening to rock and roll from its speakers.

"I'm an old drunk, idn't it?" Uncle Joe said.

Surprised, Joseph didn't answer.

"Been a drunk most of my life. But I never stole and never got into fights, never had a car accident. Never shamed my family that way. Stayed married, took care of my kids. Old drunk, but could be worse, idn't it? Cancer will kill me before the booze does." He frowned accusingly at his cigarette and kept the scowl as he looked at Joseph. "Your mother is a strong woman, she did a great job with you kids after your father died. Nobody could have done better. But sometimes a young man needs an older man to talk to. About his problems. About his life. Why don't you talk to your uncles, Joseph? Not even your Uncle Joe Billie, whose name your mother honored by giving it to you?"

Joseph felt the skin of his face, not so much hot as exposed, naked. "I don't know, Uncle."

"Sure you do. So do I." The rheumy eyes in their whorls of wrinkles stayed steady on Joseph's. He was talking about his overeducated nephew's ambivalence and shame, and the shame of being ashamed, and the conflict between reason and magic, belief in modern science and respect for tradition, the whole difficult knot for which Joseph knew no solution.

Frustrated, Joseph scuffed the ground, trying to think of a way to explain it in terms Uncle Joe would comprehend. "I don't understand why if somebody comes to you with a sick cow you'd prescribe surgery or an antibiotic and never think twice about it. But for a man you'd prescribe a Sing."

"Wouldn't treat a cow the way I'd treat a horse, either. Different anatomy, different body chemistry, different diseases- need different kinds of treatment, right? Same way, a man's a different thing. A man has special parts that need a special kind of cure." Uncle Joe tapped his head and his heart meaningfully, then laughed at his own lecturing tone. "Besides, I'm a DVM, not an MD. State catches me treating humans, they'd lock me away for sure."

Uncle Joe chuckled at the thought, then the wrinkles swarmed into a frown again. He waved away the argument as a digression and returned to his thread of thought. "So, in your whole life, you came to me one time, fifteen years ago. I helped you. Didn't I earn your respect then?"