Wild Penance

24

My blood still coursed with unspent adrenaline when I walked into the BLM office a few minutes later. I felt like sopapilla dough when it hits the hot grease. I knew I shouldn’t have let Suazo get to me like that-I should have called the sheriff when he took a swing at me instead of taking him on myself. But if I hadn’t pinned him against his truck, Suazo would have been long gone before a deputy could have gotten there, and it would turn out like all the rest of the times we’d tried to press charges and he’d gone free. Either way, nothing stuck to Suazo, so what had I accomplished?

Rosa Aragon was at the desk again, a telephone receiver pressed to one ear, her head bobbing up and down in agreement with the caller. Roy here? I mouthed. She nodded more emphatically and pointed a thumb toward the hall.

Roy was in his office, rubbing his head with consternation as he stared at a pile of papers in front of him. I tapped my knuckles against the door frame. “Having fun, Roy?”

“Hell, no, I’m not having fun. I hate this stuff. What are you doing in here now-come to give me an excuse to give up on this blasted paperwork for a while?”

“Actually, I brought you some more paperwork.” I put my targets on the desk. “But if you need a break I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“No, no. Sorry, I can’t. But sit down a minute, I want to talk to you about something. I was just thinking about you this morning.”

“Uh-oh.” I sat in the gray-green metal and vinyl chair in front of his desk.

“No, no, it’s nothing bad. In fact, I talked with the wife a little about this, too. No, I was just thinking maybe we ought to look for a different assignment for you here when this team effort with the Forest Service is done.”

“What do you mean?” My chest tightened.

“I mean, something where you get around people a little more. Not so much of that remote-area stuff. I think you got too much talent to be a range rider.”

I stood up. “I don’t want a change of assignment, Roy.”

He got up, went around me, and closed his office door. “Sit down, Jamaica. This is just you and me here. Just relax, you’re not in any trouble.”

I sat, but right on the edge of the seat, ready to break with it, if need be.

Roy saw it. He sat back in his chair, picked up a pencil. He twirled the pencil like a baton-over his knuckles and under his hand, again, then again. “Will you just settle down? You’re like an unbroken filly!”

I released my grip on the arms of the chair, tried to find a place for my hands in my lap.

“Jamaica, you don’t have to make the switch today. I’m just saying I think it’s time we found something better for you, something where you got to be around civilization once in a while.”

I laughed. “You think I’m uncivilized, huh?”

He smirked. “I wasn’t saying that. I just want you to have a chance to be around people a little more. I had an idea maybe we’d put in for-”

I cut in, “I’m okay, Roy. Why are you doing this? Do you think I can’t handle my job?”

He threw the pencil down on the papers in front of him, but it rolled across the desk toward me, then fell onto the floor. Neither of us moved to get it.

He broke the silence. “I used to do your job. I did it for years. It’s hard, mean, low-paying, lonely-assed work. Nine out of ten resource protection agents don’t last three years at range riding. You been doing it six. I see all the signs in you: you’re burned out. If I don’t move you, I’m going to lose you. That’s all I know. Besides, I don’t know how much longer that will even be a job classification with the BLM. Things are changing.”

“You used to be a range rider?”

“Hell, yes, I was, for almost seven years. It damned near cost me my marriage. I got so used to being alone, out by myself, I got to be like you said-uncivilized. I couldn’t open up and talk anymore. I didn’t have any patience with people. But I was lonely, too, and down. I was real down. I just didn’t know how to reach out to anybody.”

“I never knew that about you.”

“Yeah, well, take it from me. You want a change of assignment. And I’m not talking about a desk job, either, so don’t worry about that.” He surveyed his piles of paperwork. “I wouldn’t wish this stuff on a dog I didn’t like! No, I’m talking about one of the other resource protection agent posts, maybe with the Rio Grande Use and Management Division, or liaison with the Ski Valley or the pueblo. Something where you aren’t out by yourself in the backcountry all the time.”

“Those are all a grade higher rank than me.”

“I know that. But let’s don’t get the cart before the horse here. I’m just thinking out loud, wanted to see what your reaction would be.”

“I don’t think so. I see a lot of politics in all those things you mentioned. I’m no good at sucking up.”

“Well, ain’t that the truth!” He twisted his mouth up at one side and gave a little snort. “I didn’t think I could do the job of field manager either when my boss offered it to me. Hell, I still don’t like the paperwork. But when I get sick of people and these four walls, there’s plenty of stuff to do out there.” He jerked his thumb toward some unknown point behind him. “I’m only here a few hours a day. It’s good to have a healthy balance between the two.”

“Roy, I just don’t know. This job is pretty much why I came here. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“You know anyone at Tanoah Pueblo?”

I thought of Momma Anna-and immediately about the assignment she had given me. “I know a few people with the tribe.”

“The Santa Fe office wants us to appoint someone to work as a liaison to the Tanoah and manage the public lands that abut theirs.”

“Liaison? You can sure bet I wouldn’t be any good at that.”

“Yeah, I remember that first day you come in here with your paperwork to be a range rider. There was a lot of money lost on bets then that you wouldn’t last a month.”

“Oh, yeah? Who won?”

“I did. Now get on out of here and let me do my work. You need to rest before you go out tonight.”

I got up and started for the door. “Roy, can I just say something and you won’t say anything back?”

He eyed me suspiciously and didn’t answer.

“If I’ve ever done anything to hurt you or offend you, I’d like for you to forgive me.”

Roy screwed up his face, as if he’d encountered a bad smell. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” I started to close the door.

“Is this about you showing your ass all over the county on Saturday night?”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Never mind.”

“It’s none of my business what you do in your time off,” Roy said. “But you could have had your lights put out instead of that other gal. That’s the part that worries me.”

As I was heading back out the front of the building, Rosa hung up the phone. She motioned me over to the front counter and asked, “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you when you came in before. How was your reunion with your brother?”

“My brother?”

“Oh, no, I hope I didn’t spoil it.”

“Rosa, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a brother.”

“You mean you… you mean, you don’t-? Tell me the truth now, Jamaica. You don’t have a brother?”

“I don’t have a brother. I’m an only child.”

“Ay-ay-ay!” she squealed. “This man called on Friday and said he was your brother. He wanted me to tell him where you live. I told him I don’t know where you live. He said he was just back from overseas in the service.”

“What did he sound like?”

“I don’t know. He sounded like an Anglo, like you. I didn’t tell him anything, Jamaica. I promise. I don’t know where you live, and Roy wasn’t here. You know, all you got for an address is a rural carrier box.”

“What did he say when you told him you didn’t know?”

“He just said, ‘Thank you very much, I’ll find her,’ and then he hung up. He sounded like a nice man. But, ay! That don’t sound so good, a man trying to find out where you live and saying he’s your brother, when you don’t have a brother!”