Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

The Keeday homesite was about four miles off the road they'd come in on, a driveway consisting of parallel wheel tracks meandering between rotting buttes and over rolling swells of bare hardpan. Uncle Joe skillfully navigated the truck over the rough ground, sometimes at no more than a walking pace. As with most rural Navajos, the various units of the Keedays' extended family had lived for generations within shouting distance of each other, so the place was about what Joseph expected: a scattering of hogans, shacks, sheds, sheep pens spread over a half mile or so. But the deaths of Tommy's parents and relocations of other kin had left the grandparents and Tommy alone on the old place, and all but the grandparents' current residence were unused and falling apart.

The old Keedays' home consisted of a small, aluminum-clad trailer fronted by a tin-roofed, open lean-to. Close by stood a log hogan in good repair. Between buildings, a little chipboard shed housed a gasoline-powered electrical generator that radiated wires to the trailer, hogan, and main sheep shed. Other pole sheds served as summer kitchen, work spaces, barns. A four-wheeled ATV and a battered white Ford pickup were parked next to a pair of rust-stained 250-gallon fuel tanks. The extensive board- and wire-fenced sheep pens were empty now but for two gaunt horses and maybe a dozen sheep. With the grandparents getting too old to manage a lot of animals, the family would have moved the main flock to some other relative's place.

They arrived and sat in the truck with the windows rolled down, listening to the silence that lay on the land like a heavy physical thing, wrapping and muffling the whole uneven circle of the horizon. At last the trailer door opened to reveal Tommy's grandmother, a tiny, wizened woman wearing a wide dark-brown dress and red wool sweater. They got out of the truck and made greetings, and after another couple of minutes the old man came out. From what Joseph could see of his face beneath his cowboy hat and black horn-rims, his deeply seamed features seemed carved of aged, smoke-darkened wood. His new-looking blue jeans and crisp checked shirt cinched with a bolo tie suggested he'd dressed up when he'd heard visitors arrive.

When Joseph had first met them at the hospital, their stiff walks, weathered faces, cautious eyes, knobbed hard-worked hands, and the faint sweet stink of lanolin and sheep manure had made them seem rustic and anachronistic, especially set against the sterile tiles of the hospital corridors. In this landscape, though, they seemed stronger, aged but hardy, at home among the brown rocks and dry earth.

But they were also very frightened. However Tommy's condition had developed in the last two days, Joseph knew, what they had seen had been harrowing.

The grandfather was older than Uncle Joe, and Uncle Joe treated him with deference as they made courtesies, mentioned family members who knew family members, remembered veterinary visits from years past, talked about the health of the flock and the price of wool. Watching them, Joseph wondered if even they knew their grandson was adopted. He tried to picture Hastiin Keeday as a member of a lynch mob that had murdered an old recluse forty years ago. To his surprise, he found he couldn't muster any judgment against him. Whatever this grave, frail man had done, he'd acted with conscience.

Another sign of eroding certainties, Joseph thought with alarm. Values, beliefs, all up for grabs.

The grandparents explained that they'd been wary when they'd heard the truck coming because a Child Protective Services agent had already been there looking for Tommy. When they'd told him that the boy wasn't there, the agent had waved legal papers and warned them that he planned to stop by the houses of Tommy's various aunts and uncles, too.

They were scared of trouble with the authorities, they said, but after what they had seen last night, they were vastly more afraid of the ghost that moved in Tommy and what it meant for their family. Even their hardbitten dignity couldn't hide that hunted, fearful look.

"What happened?" Joseph asked.

They darted glances at each other, reluctant to speak of it. But Hastiin Keeday made a grim face and ground it out: "Our son and our daughter went to the hospital and brought him back here. The Hand-Trembler, Edison Begaye, we had already asked him to be here. We held the divination last night. Tommy seemed better on the way home, and we hoped maybe he was going to be all right. But later, we saw the ghost awaken in him." The old man shut his eyes momentarily as if trying to banish the image. He gestured at a deeply bowed pinon branch among a bundle of kindling: "He bent his back like that, and he spoke in a stranger's voice. For a long time he bent back and forth on the ground, like a grub from the soil. He tore his shirt off and we could see the chindi moving in the muscles in his back. He bit himself. We couldn't stop him. Not even Hastiin Begaye, not our son Raymond. We couldn't move our legs or arms to help him."

"What did Hastiin Begaye say?" Uncle Joe asked.

The old woman answered: "The chindi of an ancestor has come into him. It's very angry because it was wronged when it was alive." The grandmother bit off the words and then sealed her mouth tight in its radiating wrinkles, growing stern, cutting off any further discussion of the details because the chindi might hear and figure out ways to sabotage the healing rituals. Joseph knew that the old people would need Ways sung, too, having been contaminated by their proximity to Tommy.

With Uncle Joe's tactful probing, they told him that the younger family members had brought the boy up to the summer sheep camp, where they were caring for him in shifts. A young grandson named Eric served as runner between sites, taking up supplies on his ATV. They had already arranged the curing Way with a renowned Singer from Red Rock, and preparations were under way for the ceremony early next week.

Joseph said almost nothing until it was time to bring up his errand. He began his request with a preamble, which the old people waited out, nodding respectfully. But in fact, they needed no persuasion. They answered by praising Uncle Joe's judgment, saying they trusted Joseph and appreciated Julieta. As for the bilagaana psychologist, to Joseph's astonishment, they said Tommy had asked them to bring her to him. In one of the few moments when he could speak clearly.

Uncle Joe asked them to remind him how to get to the summer camp, which entailed a lot of gesturing and drawing maps in the sand. It was almost six miles north. The grandfather promised he would tell his daughter and son to expect visitors from Tommy's school tomorrow.

It was almost five o'clock by the time they left. Saying good-bye to the two old people moved Joseph deeply: seeing them standing there, in the last inhabited part of a once-thriving family compound, surrounded by the ruins of hogans whose occupants had died or moved and the remains of defunct sheep operations. A snapshot of two lives approaching their end. Of a bygone era. The old man took his wife's hand and held it against his chest, and they stood motionless, watching the truck pull out as if reluctant to see their visitors go.

The truck bumped and tilted slowly back down the driveway.

Though what the Keedays said about Tommy was deeply troubling, Joseph concluded that the meeting had been very successful. Despite their fear, the old people were facing this family problem with courage. They'd insisted on the old healing ways yet were open-minded about Cree Black. Clearly, Uncle Joe was held in great respect by these people, and he'd done a terrific job, handling everything with perfect tact.

And yet from the pressure he felt in his chest, Joseph knew there was still a lot of unfinished business. The tightening knot in his throat was like a lock, holding back the secrets.