When boys become rabbits

Running. Out of breath. Hoping. Scared. Hiding. Running again. It was in just that order we scattered to the wind after a drunken Navajo man kicked his car door open and jumped out waving a bat wildly in the air threatening to hit homeruns with our heads as baseballs. His car was hopelessly hung up on a rock barricade we built earlier that morning. The rock barricade was a great idea at the time. After building it we decided to lay in wait for just this moment, only Greg and Ollie were standing up and didn’t think to hide.

You should have felt the adrenaline when we heard that car coming. Our hearts were beating in our ears and we had on these crazy smiles and wild eyes. This was going to be good. What we didn’t expect was for a drunken man at the wheel to come racing down the dirt road at high speed, hit the rock barricade with magnificent force, losing his front bumper and his muffler and come to a dusty metal-on-rock screeching stop. We didn’t even count on an irate drunk exploding out the front driver’s side door with a bat. We didn’t think that we’d have to run for our lives. But that’s exactly what happened.

When we saw that crazy man there was no question about it: we were out running like rabbits down a maze of deep arroyos with stagnant filthy smelling water at the bottom. And just like in the cartoons, we came to a fork in the arroyo; four boys went one way, and two ran the down the other way. I remember thinking and running, God please let that man go down the other arroyo and not after me and Joe. We ran like hell sloshing through that stinky mud. No way out unless you could climb straight up arroyo walls like Spiderman.

We ran forever before the walls gave way to narrower and smaller walls. Joe, who was eleven years old was whispering loudly and out of breath, “What are we gonna do when we run out of arroyo Delbert?” Crap, I didn’t know. But just when I was about to say I didn’t know I saw a small tree with some good cover growing out the side of the arroyo. Being thirteen years old at the time, I jumped up and crawled in and turned around and hoisted Joe up into our hiding place. And we waited.

After what seemed like forever under that tree, we started to whisper.

“When can we get out of here Delbert?”

“I don’t know… but I think we better just wait ‘til night time.”

“Oh man, my dad’s gonna kill me if I get home after dark.”

“That crazy man out there will really kill us if he catches us. We just gotta wait Joe. If you want I’ll talk to my older brother to talk to your dad and…”

And right about then Joe’s eyes got super huge and he couldn’t point except to shake all over and look scared. I stopped talking and saw a shadow draw up over Joe and the tree we were hiding in and I swear it felt like that was the last time I would ever be alive.

The crazy man was out side of our hiding spot and breathing heavy. He came after us. This time his footsteps sounded odd. There was a metallic clanging to his steps and I heard that noise before when my dad was carrying his rifle hunting rabbits out at the farm. Oh God! The crazy man had a gun and a bat! It’s funny now that I think about it seeing Joe trembling and wetting his pants. God that was hilarious, but back then I was on the verge of darting out from under that brush like I seen rabbits do when my dad was out hunting. But we sat there, still, quiet, our ears flattened against your skulls, trying to make ourselves smaller and invisible. The crazy man walked right by us and soon we could hear him in the distance in not so good English with a heavy Navajo accent, “You boys come back here! I ain’t gonna hurt you. Just put them rocks away where you found them!”

Something about his voice told me and Joe he was lying. There was no way in hell we were gonna hop out and say, “Sorry mister, we didn’t mean to rip your car all to pieces.” No way in hell.

So we hid out there and waited and waited. We watched the shadows of the tree’s branches crawl from the west to straight down, and then to the east. We waited forever before moving. But before moving, Joe and I started whispering about who was gonna take look out and see where that crazy man went to. I decided Joe was too little to dare this risky move. So, like a prairie dog with a hawk flying in circles way above, I slowly peeked out and around, ever ready to pop back down or make a run for another hiding place. Man, I was tense. I looked this way and that, frustrated by the tall rabbit brush blocking my view. Nothing. I looked back toward where the car was. Nothing. I dropped back down and saw that Joe was crying.

“I don’t see him Joe. He’s gone. Don’t be afraid,” I said trying to calm him down. Joe was my best friend. And then he started stuttering. So today, if you ask me where Joe started stuttering, I can tell you it was right there under that tree along the arroyo and after building that stupid barricade. That was when his S’s were one to many and his D’s got dragged out way too long.

We finally decided it was time to move. I told Joe to wait while I made my way along the bottom of the remaining lengths of the arroyo to the end where it gradually raised up to meet the surrounding landscape. I looked back and saw Joe sticking his head out from under the tree looking at me with eyes all big. I waived to him to come but to keep low; that day our war games we played was real, what with that lunatic out there hunting us down like rabbits.

After meeting up we discussed that the safest route out of that mess was to go to the trading post about a mile away and use Joe’s only quarter to call my brother Steve to come get us. We leapfrogged from one bush to the next, ducking and diving and looking and waiving to each other to come. Finally we made it to the road. After crossing the road one at a time we made it across Grandma Helen’s field and in the middle we stopped frozen, dead in our tracks. At the end of the field a man stood with his arms out waving wildly. We both squinted as best we could; squeezing rays of light into a thin beam that bounced off the back of our eye balls making the man come into sharper focus. It was Grandma Helen’s scarecrow.

Finally, after a day of hiding and running, we made it to the big cotton wood tree near the trading post and stopped dead tired. It was just a little further to go, not more than 20 yards to the pay phone. We started moving again and we heard a burst of laughter. The old gang was there already, all four safe and sound. It sure was good to see them laughing and waving us over to the cool shade of the trading post.

When we got there Anthony, Vernon, Greg and his little brother Ollie were sipping cold sodas. Anthony started laughing hard and said, “From here we could see you moving across the valley like real army guys!” His nick name was Ants.

“Ants, man, when did you guys get here?” I asked taking a cold drink of soda from Ollie’s bottle.

“We ran straight here man. We didn’t stop for nothing when we saw that crazy dude chasing you and Joe.”

“Was he really behind us?” I asked.

“Shoot, he was so close to grabbing Joe that I was sure you guys were getting the crap beat out of you when we lost you guys.”

“And you didn’t call Steve or the police or anything when you got here?”

I was sick and tired of Ants. This was why he wasn’t my best friend. He never thought of anyone else except himself and what made him laugh. He was really laughing now.

I looked down at Ollie and Greg’s feet. Their father was a white doctor at the Presbyterian clinic near the old school. They were wearing flat pieces of sand stone rocks on their feet, taped up with duct tape; somewhere during our escape Ollie and Greg lost their flip flops along with their nice $20 dollar fishing poles and tackle box. I swear they looked like cavemen with their crazy rock sandals.

I asked Ants about Ollie and Greg’s rock sandals and Ants said when they saw the crazy man chasing after me and Joe they knew they had time to stop and look for flat rocks to tape to their feet. I remember thinking it must’ve been nice for Ants, Vernon and Greg and Ollie to just stop running for their lives and stroll around looking for rocks to make sandals. Just great.

We started out for home after finishing up a call to my big brother Steve. Steve was in the 11th grade. Steve said we could go screw ourselves because he wasn’t going to leave his summer job, drive across town and pick us up, except he used the F word instead of screw. Steve was a big jerk sometimes.

We could hear the old car roaring along without its muffler minutes before we could see it coming. That noise sent us running again, this time into the hills behind the trading post. It was long past sundown when we finally got home and sure enough, there was Mr. Yazzie waiting for Joe. My big brother Steve hollering for me to come to dinner. When I got home Steve said I better get ready to tell mom what happened. Walking through the door I thought it would’ve been better for that crazy man to have caught a hold of me.

Unintended target

Across the brushy reservation range land near the bottom of a mesa two Navajo men sat in a blue 1978 Ford F-250. Intermittently one or the other would raise their hand and a container it held to their mouth, pull long and hard, and finishing, throw an empty beer can out the window. This had been going on for some time. Besides the wind blowing through juniper trees and the sound of the Navajo men talking loud, you could hear the tribal AM radio station blaring old forgotten country tunes from Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash. Between them was a rifle, butt-stock firmly planted between the four wheel drive shifter and the seat, barrel pointing to the roof of the cab, and a caliber .223 Remington hollow point bullet, with 69 grains of propellant, chambered.

Four days ago on Tuesday the men’s mother smoldered with anger that another coyote jumped the corral and killed a sheep that was nearly ready to drop a lamb. In unflattering Navajo she cussed the devil for the fifth attack in a month. Brushing aside traditional teachings, which was to find a medicine-man to determine the meaning of these attacks, she told her boys to hunt the coyote and kill it dead, adding that her boys might as well do something useful for once.

Smarting with their mother’s insult, one of the boys, Jack, got up from the dinner table and walked to the closet and dug out the old semi-automatic rifle while the other, Sam, went to fetch the bullets from his dresser drawer. They both walked outside to the truck and drove to the earthen dam. Noon passed into afternoon, and finally at early evening the boys gave up and headed for home. No coyote.

Day in and day out this was the routine. Load up, park at the dam, look through old BIA binoculars, sleep some, get hungry, and drive back home. And at every one of the evenings they would hear their mother cuss the coyote at the dinner table and scold them because they weren’t looking hard enough, “Probably just sleeping up there, too,” she finished.

But today was different out there on the range land near the mesa. Dark clouds were forming in the north and a cold breeze blew through the juniper trees. In Navajo Jack said he didn’t feel any good. Sam looked at him through eyes connected to a body that consumed nearly seven cans of beer. Focusing a minute, and refocusing the next, he asked if Jack was afraid of the messenger, coyote. It was said in Navajo that the coyote brought bad omen.

“No, I ain’t afraid of nothing!” Jack said in a too loud voice.

Sam looked at his younger brother and wondered if in fact Jack was too loud for his liking. He’s always like that, too damn loud and always looking for something to be mad about, Sam thought. Before he fully comprehended what he was doing, Sam was pointing his finger at Jack and said even louder in slurred English, “You’re a chicken.”

Looking at Sam, Jack smiled and thought about the time Sam couldn’t get up the nerve to ask Ruthie out to the country western dance at the boarding school gym and said so.

“And let me tell you, Ruthie sure kisses good,” Jack said. Sam’s quick glance and outrage told Jack he hit the target good.

“You go to hell!” Sam said in Navajo, which literally was translated as, “You go the land of the evil spirits!” Sam regretted ever telling Jack he liked Ruthie.

From behind a large sage bush near where the blue truck was parked, the coyote cocked its head a little sideways and turned an ear toward the sound of the men arguing. It turned its nose upward smelling the wind and looked again. Calculating the danger, the coyote started out for the sheep corral taking a circuitous route behind the truck nearly a hundred yards distance. From years of dodging vehicles and the people in them, the coyote knew that it was better to go behind them than in front.

Jack and Sam’s argument turned to who was the one more afraid to go the outhouse at night, alone, when they were kids.

“You couldn’t even go to the outhouse without waking me up to walk you over there! You were a chicken then and you’re a chicken now!” Jack taunted.

Just about the time Sam was going to bring up Jack’s childhood bedwetting, Sam looked into the rearview window and saw the coyote trotting along, head turned and looking at him right in the eye. Sam blinked and looked again, focusing better, and sure enough he saw the coyote. Jack noticed and turned and looked too. They were in shocked disbelief for a good second.

When the second was over and in the mad scramble for the rifle a shot went off in the truck. The blast was deafening and the muzzle flash from the gun momentarily blinded both men. In the quiet that followed, Jack saw what was left of the top of Sam’s head and started to shout his bother’s name, frantically trying to stop the bleeding. It was no use. Sam was dead as a door nail.

Down at the house, their mother heard the rifle go off and thought, finally, I hope those no good boys have killed that damned coyote. She opened the curtain and dried her hands on her apron and looked toward the mesa with her old binoculars and could see one of her boys running wildly around the truck and do something on the other side, what it was she couldn’t tell. And she saw the coyote standing there on the hill side looking at the truck and she thought it odd, why aren’t they shooting at that devil!

Christmas, 1968

The Navajo winter of 1968 was exceptionally cold. Tribal elders across the reservation were unsure about the meaning of the bitter winds and deep snow. While they thought about these things and put more firewood into their stoves, a great wind howled down through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and finally howling across barren stretches of the Bisti badlands in northern New Mexico.

In the middle of these badlands, at a lonely section of Highway 371, tufts of Indian grass and Juniper trees poked through snowdrifts. In the sky, storm clouds darkened out the sun so that in the distance a light from a kerosene lamp could be seen at a window of a hogaan, the traditional Navajo dwelling.

Standing at this place by the road, Marine Cpl. Keyanni looked toward the hogaan a half a mile away in the distance, the collar of his military issued jacket turned up against the wind. In 1966, William Keyanni was one of the first boys to stand up at the tribal boarding school when a Marine recruiter asked if any young Navajo men wanted to become a US Marine. Two years later on Christmas Day, Billy was finally home standing by the road and looking at the light in the window.

Inside the hogaan Billy’s aging mother and father sat at a table covered with cloth hand-sewn from cotton sacks that once held Blue Bird Flour. The table cloth was a beautiful pattern of blue birds sitting on top of golden wheat bushels, and if you looked long enough you could imagine hearing the bluebird’s summer song.

On the cooking stove a pot of mutton stew with potatoes and dumplings was coming to a boil. Sitting by the stove were the twins, Billy’s youngest brother and sister named Sally and Sam, warming their faces and playing Navajo string games. As quick as Sam would show Sally different string design he would bring his hands together and make another design and Sally would laugh. Turning from flattening dough into perfectly round tortillas, Billy’s mother would shush her saying in Navajo, “Do not be too loud. Sit quietly,’ and soon the sound of the boiling stew would fill the silence again.

Out side by the road, Billy started out for home walking across a snow covered field, his foot steps crunching along the way. At a small rise, he turned and looked back at his foot tracks and clapped his hands, rubbing them together and placing them over his ears. It was cold. He looked around to the Chuska Mountain range in the west and the tip of Mt. Taylor to the southeast. He took a deep breath and held it and then let it go. He was finally home. Last winter Billy was sat behind walls of empty ammunition crates filled with dirt and huddled under roofs made of olive green sand bags as two divisions of the North Vietnamese Army pounded Khe Sanh with mortar and artillery fire for 77 straight days and nights. Now he was on a small hill near home and it was so quiet he could hear his heart beating and he found peace unsettling.

After stirring the pot of boiling stew and lifting the last tortilla from the smooth cast iron surface of the old cooking stove, Billy’s mother wiped her hands on her apron and ordered her family to wash their hands and to get ready to eat. She reminded her family by saying in Navajo, “A long time ago, it is said, a holy person was born named Jesus. Because of that we are going to have a special meal today.” At the wash basin, Billy’s father waited patiently while Sam and Sally splashed water on their hands and giggled, causing their mother to shush them again. When their father washed his hands his turquoise ring banged against the enameled wash basin, making an odd metallic sound.

The small Navajo family sat down at the table and steam rose from the stew pot and the children looked at the tortillas. Billy’s mom sat down and took a deep breath and looked to the wall where a picture was hung of Billy in his Marine uniform. She bowed her head and prayed in Navajo for her son. At the Navajo words for, “across the ocean,” she stopped praying and held her breath a moment and cried. Billy’s father took her hand and continued on with the Navajo prayer. At the end of the prayer Billy’s father intoned the Navajo holy words, “It shall all be returned to beauty,” repeating these words four times to the four directions as he had been taught by his father and grandfather years ago.

Billy stood at the hogaan and waited, putting his ear to the southeast wall and listened. When he heard his mother stop praying his mischievous smile disappeared and he thought about how fortunate he was to make it home. He heard his father praying and whispered along. Only at the end he wiped his tears and thanked the holy people for brining him home safely.

Billy turned the door knob and opening the door he shouted, “Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!” The twins were out of their chairs and running to Billy before mother and father lifted their heads from prayer. Billy’s mother started to cry, “Shi yazhi! Shi Yazhi!” my child, my child, as she got up from the table and ran to him. Billy’s father sat frozen in disbelief. Every one stood at the doorway hugging and crying.

For generations of this small family winter’s bitter winds and deep snows came to mean the love and rejoice for a son once lost returning home.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers are thought to bring joy, but to Alice the nascent sunflowers signaled budding loneliness and later full sunflowers, with their yellow petals and large round faces, were a symbol of loneliness in full bloom. Any day now a yellow sun faded 1948 Bureau of Indian Affairs school bus would show up at her traditional Navajo dwelling to pick her two boys up and take them to the boarding school across the mountains and into the plains to of the Midwest.

Herding sheep on summer days that grew shorter, Alice often looked to where the dirt road meandered across flatlands and to the highway for the telltale sign of dust rising from the road, slowly making its way to where Alice’s summer camp was. Days past and her heart grew heavier when she watched her boys play and run and tease each another, and soon they too grew quieter and played less. The school bus would come eventually.

When they could not bear the feeling any longer Alice asked the boys to unlock an old blue trunk and to take out their school clothes. Three sets of white cotton dress shirts and three small blue jeans each and two pairs of brown leather shoes with hard rubber soles. The boy set out almost immediately on polishing their shoes with sheep tally to a nice dark brown. The holes in their socks were darned and, as best she could, Alice cut the boys’ hair and threw the clipped hair into the fire. After dinner of tortillas and mutton, Alice made the boys recite their alphabets and count to ten, even though she didn’t understand English. Satisfied that they were ready, Alice blew out the kerosene lamp and told the boys to sleep.

Five days later Alice spotted a dust trail rising slowly across the plains. The bus was finally coming. She turned the sheep and started for home. The bell on the only goat in the herd rang now and again and sheep dogs out front of the herd zigzagged between bushes looking for rabbits. Watching the dust trail making its way across the flat lands Alice felt the loneliness of not having her boys, Peter and Thomas, near her and she cried and stopped several times to regain her composure. She thought about the silence that arrives after the boys leave for boarding school. No laughter. No footsteps. No questions about new things they learned about the earth or plant and animals while out herding sheep. Silence, the kerosene lamp and loneliness, would soon take the boys places at the dinner table.

When she got home, the bus driver was standing near the bus with one foot on the bumper and his elbow resting on a raised knee. Kids of different ages and sizes were looking out from the bus and watching, their eyes wide open, some still crying for home and their families.

The bus driver greeted Alice in the traditional way and made small talk. Looking down, Alice asked when the boys would be back again. The bus driver said for Christmas and with his fingers he counted one, two, three, four months. With that Alice called for the boys to come out of the house. One by one the boys came out holding sacks with their clothes. The bus Driver got back on the bus and ordered the children to stop looking and chattering. The bus quieted down and Alice could hear the leaves in the trees rustle a little in the wind.

Standing at the front of the bus, Alice fidgeted with the bottom button of her faded velveteen blouse and looked off into the distance. The boys looked down trying not to cry. Finally Alice told the boys not to forget their morning offerings of corn pollen to the dawn, to learn as much as they can and to pay attention to their teachers. She looked across the way passed the grazing pastures to the mountain. Now, looking at the boys, she gently cupped their small heads with her hands and pulled them in for a hug and they began to cry. It was finally time to go.

The bus started, turned and left. Half an hour later it was across the valley. Alice returned to the sheep corral and felt comforted in softly whispering a Navajo Blessing Way chant. Walking in the land of the holy, holding the hands and being led by the holy, walking a path of corn pollen to a land where all is beautiful and all peaceful. Now she cried, long soft crying sounds with deep breaths. The wind picked up and she let the sadness go with the wind.

Now, at the corral, the sheep moved closer together anticipating the opening of the gate. Alice threw the gate and the sheep rushed out and into the hills passing a patch of sunflowers and not stopping to eat its green leaves, thick stock, or even the beautiful bright yellow flowers and large round face full of seeds.

Father, I know you, sort of

My father came for a weekend visit.  He's getting older.  I notice that more and more.  I wonder about his life, now that he speaks more freely of his younger years.  This morning, upon seeing a Mercedes in the parking lot of the local hip diner, he mentioned when he owned one.  

"Boy!  That is a nice Mercedes, son.  I remember when I had one years ago.  But then my first marriage fell apart and I left it behind along with my ex-wife." 

He drifted off to "Long Ago land" and I drove out of the parking lot, not saying anything.  He'd be back soon enough from Long Ago land.  

"I called it quits when I learned she was messing around on me while I was in School at ASU.  The only things I took from the house were my dog Skip and a box of records and I didn't look back."  

Several months ago, my mom called and among the tidbits or our conversation she casually said, "I see your father's first wife died; her obituary was in the paper."  And that was all she said because I changed the topic.  I always felt uncomfortable talking with my parents about their lives outside of being parents. 

This morning, I could tell in his voice that his first wife's infidelity still stung in that mysterious place inside all of us that holds anger and betrayal for too long, decades in some cases.  

As I drove him to Home Depot for roofing materials, I wondered in and out of the thought that if children are, in part, the sum of their parents experiences in life, psychologically transfered through the task of raising children, I wondered what part of my father's experiences I inherited.  

Not wanting to open up that Pandora's box I asked my father if he ever owned a motorcycle and he said he did, "A Harley." 

"That thing could go, man! I wrecked it once and my mother sold it to a kid at the mission school and two weeks later he got wiped out, killed, up in Colorado somewhere and my mom in Navajo said, 'I told you so.'  I stood there looking at her completely blank."  

We laughed and I said he still looked blank.  He laughed again and said, "Hey!  That's elderly abuse."  We laughed all the way to Home Depot. 

I relaxed a little and thought, getting older isn't so bad.   

The foolishness of dares

I dove too deep on a dare when I was a kid. 

"Pick up the silver dollar and you can have it." 

I watched the coin flipped through the air.

The small splash it made. 

Turning this way and that.

disappearing at the bottom of the pool.

"Okay. Go!"

I took a deep breath until my small chest revealed my ribs

and I went.  

Touching the bottom with my palm.

Feeling for the treasure. 

Found.

My small fingers made a fist around my wealth. 

Turning and pushing off with my small feet.

Misjudging air in my small lungs. 

Waiting an eternity to reach the shimmering surface 

while my small legs kicked. 

Panicking I opened my fist and grabbed madly for the light.

Breaking the surface and inhaling and coughing and laughing and sadness

as I looked down to watch the silver dollar tumble to the bottom of the pool. 

Bear Island

The hull of the small boat slapped against the water and the day was clear and the morning air cold. Frank sat at the wheel while Yellow Dog stood at the bow with his nose pointing east into the wind like a bowsprit. I sat aft untangling the small bait net looking up now and again to see if were were getting closer to the bait waters where Frank would gracefully cast the net in shallow water and hundreds of small bait fish would jump and churn the waters a second before the net was pulled closed.

After catching bait fish, Frank steered the small boat into the Bogue Inlet and into deeper waters. With the rising temperature Yellow Dog would eventually settle in for a quick nap as we slowly made our way into the cross waters of the Bogue Inlet and the many waterways behind Bear Island. Frank knew where the fish would be today and he assured me that it would only be a matter of time before we'd be knee deep in Bluefish, Cod, and maybe even a shark. At the mention of shark Yellow Dog barked and sat up attentively and we laughed.

By 8:30 Frank made the first cast. I'd follow in pursuit and watched the bait fish tumble through the air on weighted line and finally plop into the inlet. With our first cast of the day settling into the murky depths and Yellow Dog's interest waning into another nap on the cushioned seat aft, Frank and I gradually warmed up to conversation about fishing and the fish he'd caught. I spotted a White Crane, gracefully standing on one leg in a marsh surrounded by reeds and looking slightly downward and remembered Navajo creation stories and the role White Crane played in our survival from worlds long past. Frank listened as I told him about these stories and with his sun baked eyebrows furrowed, he'd ask what I thought, after all these years, about the changes in tribal communities. We'd talk at length on different things like alcoholism and joblessness and ceremonials.

Our conversations were generous. Just as I'd shared my stories, Frank recalled his father with amusement and puzzled on his upbringing. Nearly 70 years old, Frank recalled his childhood with pleasure.

"Oh man, my father was the town drunk in Gainsville. No lie." Franks said. "The old guy would be in downtown bars as soon as they opened and he'd come home when they'd close."

As I listened to him I remembered the old bars in down town gallup. As a child I'd sit in the car waiting for my mother to pick up pawned jewelry or repaired cowboy boots for my father and as I'd wait outside in the car I would watch Indian men come and go from the Club Americana, the Tropicana Bar, or from Eddie's Place. Who were these people I'd wonder. Where did they come from. Where are their mothers. Oh, a million questions raced through my head as I looked out from just over the door. Checking and rechecking if the doors were locked.

"My father was something, let me tell you, " Frank said as he checked the tension of his fishing line. "We were kids back then racing around town on our bicycles and we'd come to a halting stop when we'd see my father sitting by the park on a bench with a bottle in a paper bag and he'd yell out, 'Hey everyone! That's my boy over there!' I'd wave at him and turn with the rest of the boys in another direction."

Suddenly Frank's line snapped to attention and the reel raced and Yellow Dog barked and I shouted, "Fish on!" 

The mystery of the unknown fish at the end of the line was nearly all of the joy of fishing with Frank. Was it a shark? Perhaps a 100 pound Cod. Maybe even a Sea Bass; a monster in it's own right. Frank would let the line run, saying as he did, "We gotta wear this guy down. Oh man! Break him down." After fifteen minutes Frank called for the catch net and Yellow Dog and I fumbled through the boat, over the tackle boxes and there, finally, was the green fishing net for bringing fish aboard.

The first shimmer of the fish set our hearts racing. In all the excitement Yellow Dog jumped over board to get a closer look, and there, finally was the fish. A fine Bluefish. I quickly scooped the net over and hauled the Blue into the boat and with a suddenness that even now catches me by surprise, Frank whacked the Blue in the head and blood mixed with the water against the white hull.  Eventually the fish stopped moving and in the silent aftermath of witnessing life's animation leave the fish only our hard breathing could be heard and the fish lost its beautiful color. Yellow Dog, with his head down and eyes looking at Frank, knew too that death came and took the magic we all shared in spite of our differences.  

The way home was quiet.  The motor droned on and the waves slapped at the hull again.  Small marshes and islands passed and larger boats made troublesome waves for us to endure.  Yellow Dog did not sleep but looked back to where we were, our furry bowsprit no more.  I didn't want to talk after the sudden strike that left the Bluefish dead and the water pink at the bottom of the boat. Frank didn't talk either. Water slapped the hull and Yellow Dog, finally leaving his post aft leaned over the starboard side biting at small waves made by the boat's curved hull. The boat's small engine struggled against the outflow of water from Bogue Inlet caused by low tied and we finally turned into Franks inlet and could see his dock and up in the Carolina trees the lights of his house.

As we tied the boat to the dock, the cats raced down the steps from the large house hoping to feast on what wasn't taken to Frank's wife and the kitchen. Frank took the fish to the table and started the cutting. " You cut here and here. Take the knife along this part and pull in clean from here. And you have a fine fish for eating."  His hand skillfully ran the blade through the fish and I watched. 

That night after dinner with Frank and his wife he walked me back to my car and said, "I should've said I was going to blow that Blue over the head before I did. Sorry 'bout that."  I said it was nothing, just caught me by surprise I suppose.  Frank made an offering, "Would you like to go out to Bear Island next week again?  This time you can take Yellow out on the beach and give that old boy some running time.  I'll take Nance and we'll cook out.   I think there's more stories to tell and a hell of a lot of fish to catch." I looked at Frank and at Yellow Dog. "You bet. Maybe this time I can do the thumping and cutting."  We laughed in the dark driveway.  His wife Nancy waved goodbye from the patio.  

As I drove off into the night I looked back in the rearview mirror and saw Frank's large outline and his arm outstretched and waiving goodbye. 

There were many more outings to Bear Lake and like Frank said more stories and more fish. Yellow Dog nearly drowned a few times and the cats, like clockwork, would come running to the dock at the sound of the boats small engine sputtering against the water as we made the final turn home.  

Mountain, mountain

My father observed, "The mountains keep this part of the house dark."
I look and see that it is still dark and wonder about the mountain's shadow.
"At home, by this time, the sun is warming up the living room."
I recall that slivers of sunlight streak across the Navajo rugs near the fireplace.
"Boy, I can sure feel my joints this morning."
I look at my father and see, again, that he is getting old.

I ask how his coughing is doing.
"I'm okay, for the most part. I just can't go outside when it's too early."
Is that what the doctor says?
"Yeah, he's always telling me to wear something warm."
I look at my father and ask where his jacket is.
"I forgot it on the bus when I came in last night."
My father it getting more forgetful now.

"When we passed the mountains outside of town I remembered the Blessing Way song:
(In Navajo)
Beautiful sacred mountain in front of me.
Beautiful sacred mountain behind me.
Beautiful sacred mountain above me.
Beautiful sacred mountain below me.
I am surrounded by beauty."

He sings gently in the morning as the coffee drips into the pot.
We stand around the kitchen table and I ask him why he remembered it.
"I've been thinking a lot, actually remembering these songs more now."
We sip coffee in the silent knowledge that in old age, they say, we are called more often to remember our beginnings.

As I pour my father another cup I remember that words are defined by their opposite words.
Smile is understood because, in part, we know the word frown.
Now is a word we comprehend because we also understand later.
Here is a word because of there.
start is a word because of end.

As I look at my father, standing at the window, warming his hands in the sunlight finally peaking the crest of the mountain,
I wonder about the end because he is here with me now, but older.
Suddenly, I want time to stop.
But the ticking of the second hand on the clock above the sink reminds me that I have now, in the Zen sense of the word, to love my father and to forgive him.

My father looks from the window and says, "You know, son, I remembered a song when I saw the mountain just outside of town. Did I tell you this before?"
I say, "No, dad, you didn't. How did it go.?"

"Beautiful sacred mountain..."

Defiance

Rushing about in the morning darkness
The cold reminding me it is still winter
The clock ticking reminding me to hurry
And television news reminding me of an imperfect world

When suddenly I hear a lonely chirp
Could it be?

I stop and hold my breath, nothing
I mute the imperfect world, nothing
I listen and hear only time
and wonder

And when I've had enough of the wondering game
I hear another chirp and another

Like water in the desert
My heart consumes this little bird's chirping
And suddenly,
A storm of emotion
I missed the morning birds
Their cacophony and clamour
Their constant company for morning coffee
The grand excitement they create for the day

And I think to myself, Winter, you have stayed too long
Though you are necessary in the cycle
It is time for you to go
Return to the north and take with you your sister the cold
Make way for birds
For things new and green
For warmth and friends
For laughter
Make a way for rebirth

Later, as I make may way to the frosted car
My breath condensing into tiny clouds
I whisper a prayer for the brave bird
Facing Winter alone, in the dark morning
As I scrape the window I am curious about this brave bird
Where did she get her strength? Her Courage?
Because now I'm reminded
Of the exposure deaths of Indian men in town
The one found behind the hotel,
the one in the field,
the one near the road,
The one lost in the snow

And here is this bird
Death defying bird

As I make my way back to the house
Leaving my car to warm
Walking careful not to slip on the ice
snow crunching under foot
I marvel at this bird
This fearless messenger

I cannot wait for tomorrow morning
and the mornings to come
Come spring!
Come summer!
And replace the ones winter has taken
With things new and green
With warmth and friends
With laughter
With rebirth