Land of Echoes

16

They dismounted on a hilltop a hundred yards back from the edge of a cliff that marked a natural fold in the land. The broad, shallow valley ran several miles to the east and west and was full of activity: swirling dust, vehicles, and, tiny as ants next to the equipment, men. Mounds of mineral stuff lay heaped randomly, roads winding between them. Broad ramps led out of coal trenches and up both sides of the valley, giant trucks inching up or down. About a mile to their left, Cree saw a colossal orange cube surmounted by a towering crane like the one she'd seen from the highway, rotating as it dragged soil and rock in a bucket the size of a house. Closer, along the near side of the valley, a complex of yellow steel buildings stood surrounded by parking lots full of cars and pickup trucks. A rumble of engines filled the air, and diesel exhaust smothered the sweet scent of the desert.

Julieta took off her sunglasses, squinting against the glare and the distance. She pointed to a little sports car, incongruous among the pickups.

"Proof positive our industrious Donny is on the job today."

"He won't mind you being here? If you're such enemies-"

"I called him earlier. He gave me permission to trespass. We occasionally trade such little courtesies as part of our arbitrated right-of-way settlement. Not that I don't ride on McCarty property all the time anyway-this isn't their only mine site, Donny's here only on Saturdays. And nobody else would give a damn."

"Why did we come here today, Julieta? I don't need to see this. I need to hear your story."

"You want to see where Garrett died, don't you? The dragline-that's the huge derrick thing-has moved since then. I wanted to show you where it was when he died, so if the ghost had, whatever you call it, perimortem memories, you'd know where the accident happened. I don't know how this works-would its memories kind of cling to the dragline, or to the place where the dragline was? He fell off it when it was over there"-she gestured with her sunglasses to the east-" about where that spit of land sticks out above the valley. You can't see it from here, but there's a used-up pit there. The whole operation was-"

"Julieta. I've done the math, okay?"

"What math?" Julieta started to replace her sunglasses, but Cree caught her arm and held her gaze. Beautiful astonishing dark blue eyes, suddenly frightened.

"Tommy's age, your divorce. He's your child, isn't he? That's where we should begin."

Julieta's expression changed suddenly. It was the face of a person receiving an arrow-one that had been expected. Feeling it pierce deep, painful yet familiar from years of anticipating and imagining its stab. She dropped her sunglasses and shook Cree's hand away as she stepped clumsily back to sit on a slab of sandstone.

Cree took Madie's reins and tied both horses to a pinon tree before retrieving the glasses and sitting next to Julieta. Below, the mine ground away at its business. A solitary crow, flying above them out over the rim, seemed to change its mind when it saw the operation and veered away to the east.

"Is this how it's supposed to be?" Julieta said quietly. "The way you… do what you do?"

Cree was anything but certain, but some reassurance was called for. She arched her shoulders, took a deep breath, and swept her hair back with both hands. "There are a lot of aspects to it. But right now, yes, this is what we should do."

"Why do you do that?"

" Do-?"

"You're talking like me. You're acting like me. That gesture." Julieta took off her hat, shook her hair free, and then repeated Cree's movements. Only then did Cree realize she'd been doing it.

"I'm sorry. It's… unconscious." Cree nodded and tried to smile.

"It's what I do when I'm frustrated," Julieta went on. "Or getting down to business. To something that's hard but that has to be done."

"This is definitely one of those."

Julieta looked out over the mine. "I'm not the confiding type. I'm not the confessing type. I've never been to a priest or a psychoanalyst in my life, and I have no desire to."

"I'm not your psychoanalyst."

"What are you, then?"

Cree didn't know the name for it. Think of me as your mirror. Your echo. No, too solitary. Your sister. Your friend. Too presumptuous.

"I'm someone kind of like you," she said at last. "Different enough from other people that I don't often trust them to understand me. And not the confessing type."

Maybe that helped a little. Julieta nodded. Still, it took her a long time to begin.

She married Garrett in 1982, full of optimism. Twenty years old. She dropped out of the university to devote herself to her exciting new life. Oh, she had doubts-it had all happened so fast. Sometimes she wondered if what she felt was love; more often she wondered if he really loved her, if there was anything in it for him besides her looks and sex and having a young thing on his arm to impress his fellow rich codgers. For a while the answer she gave herself was that, if that were all he'd wanted, he could have had it with lots of women without bothering to marry. There were moments when he seemed to show real tenderness and appreciation. And she wasn't just some young thing, she reminded herself, she was the smart, presentable, well-mannered daughter of a good family.

Anyway, she swore, if she wasn't good enough, she'd work twice as hard to become good enough.

She got part of the answer within the first year. Patrick Kelly sold his new son-in-law his struggling heavy-equipment business, handing over several lots full of earth-moving machinery at fire sale prices. Julieta never knew exactly what the arrangement was, but it involved keeping the name Kelly Equipment and retaining her father as its boss. The deal was a rescue from likely bankruptcy, and anyway, as Garrett reminded them, it was all in the family now.

Within six months of their wedding, pressing duties obligated Garrett to spend most of his time at their house in Albuquerque, leaving Julieta alone at the Oak Springs house. Occasionally they did things together, but always in public settings-corporate events, charity balls, or political fund-raisers where Garrett needed a well-mannered beauty on his arm and where there was no chance to talk about their relationship.

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.

He drew up and stood, both horse and rider breathing hard. Peter's eyes were wide and wary, and Julieta understood: He was afraid he'd get in trouble for goofing around when he was supposed to be at work.

This is my pony, he told her lamely. She ranges pretty far. I saw her out here, so I figured I'd…

Julieta knew that the rest of what he'd wanted to say wouldn't make sense: catch her, then ride her like crazy because if she'd wandered here from wherever he lived, it had to be sort of fated. Something that the beautiful day intended.

Julieta played the role of the indulgent boss lady, smiling in a condescending way, riding back to the house with him, letting him feel a bit awkward but also letting him off the hook. She asked him his horse's name and he told her it was Bird, and that seemed just right: a horse that could fly. The whole time, all she wanted to do was say, Show me how to do that.

Not the horsemanship, the attitude. The outlook. The freedom. Julieta stopped and turned her head quickly toward the office building half a mile away. A flash of light came and went, sunlight reflected off glass. Cree shielded her eyes and squinted to see a man standing near the Porsche, binoculars trained on them.

"Crap!" Julieta exploded. "That's Donny. I didn't want him to see you here." She looked back at the tiny figure, made a big insincere grin, and waved condescendingly. Donny McCarty watched them for a few seconds longer, then lowered the binocs and headed back inside the building.

"Why?"

"If you need to talk to him, or look at the dragline or whatever, he'll be less inclined to play along if he knows you're associated with me. God damn it!"

"Julieta, please keep going. This is important. You fell in love with Peter Yellowhorse. You had his child. How did it all happen? Did Garrett find out?"

But Donny had come out of the trailer again and this time went toward a green and white company Jeep. He got in, started it with a roar they could hear even this far away, and pulled out quickly. The Jeep headed west, away from them, trailing dust behind it.

"He's headed for one of the ramps on this side," Julieta said. All the hardness had returned. "Brace yourself. We're about to have company. And it's lousy company, let me tell you."