“No, ma’am. If I can find the key to Darleen’s car, we’ll get some groceries and I’ll treat you to lunch in Shiprock.”
Mama nodded, and then reached across the table and put her hand on top of Bernie’s.
“My daughter, I have been thinking about your friend, the one who got shot.”
Bernie knew she meant Leaphorn. The statement caught her off guard.
Mama put her hand on her chest, over her heart. “When a bad thing happens, it leaves a bruise here.”
Bernie set her spoon down. The incident had emblazoned itself in her mind. She had pulled her weapon for the first time since she’d been an officer. She would have killed the perpetrator if she could have. And if she had acted more quickly, she might have intervened before the shooter hurt her mentor. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I understand. I am happy you are here, my daughter. We will laugh together. We will cook today.”
Bernie felt relief roll along her spine like a warm breeze. Mama didn’t have a lecture for her this morning. “What shall we make?”
“Atoo’. The meat came already from Mrs. Darkwater’s nephew. Potatoes, onions in the drawer there.”
Mutton stew, and no one made it like Mama. It took time, but it was worth it. And, Bernie thought, cooking would keep her from dark thoughts and obsessing about Miller.
“We need corn, maybe some squash.” Mama said. “In the old days, I had it from the garden. Now we have to go to the store.”
“We might have to make do with what we have here. I looked where I asked Darleen to put the extra car key, and I couldn’t find it. She might have one of those magnetic key cases on her car, I don’t know.”
A cloth pouch hung like a saddlebag from Mama’s walker. She reached into it and pulled out a pink, sparkling heart—Sister’s key ring.
“She gives me these in case she’s drinking. She’s a good girl.”
Bernie hadn’t driven Darleen’s car for so long that she’d forgotten its idiosyncrasies. First, she figured out how to unhook the wire that kept the trunk closed so she could lift Mama’s walker inside and then refasten it to keep the lid from bouncing open as she drove. She helped Mama with her seat belt, then realized she couldn’t open the driver’s door.
“Put your arm through the window. You have to do it from the inside.” That explained why the car was so dusty. If Darleen rolled up the window, she had to climb in the passenger door and scoot over to drive.
Then the car wouldn’t start.
“Push on the floor.” Mama demonstrated.
Yes, Bernie remembered, pump the accelerator a few times to get the gas moving so the ignition could catch.
She looked at the fuel gauge. Full? Then she remembered that it didn’t work.
She drove holding her breath, hoping there was enough gasoline to make it the ten miles to the gas station and convenience store at the intersection of the Toadlena road and the four-lane highway, NM 491.
“What’s that up there?” Mama said.
A tan creature was moving from the road into the empty field beside it. “I think it’s a dog.” Stray dogs were a long-standing problem on the reservation.
“Glad it’s not a coyote.” Coyotes in your path meant bad luck. If a person couldn’t turn around or go a different route, a special prayer helped keep evil away.
The dog loped along the road’s shoulder, then back onto the asphalt, then off again. Not exactly trotting—more like staggering. The canine version of a drunk.
Bernie slowed down, watching it. One summer when she was a girl, she’d encountered a pack of dogs, and one of them had bitten her before her uncle scared them off. Ever since, most dogs, especially big ones, made her nervous. The animal trotted away from the highway lopsidedly and lay down in the weeds. Maybe distemper, she thought. Or maybe a car had hit it, and that was why it walked funny.
Parking beneath the overhang at the gas pumps, she pulled out her cell phone to call about the dog, but the battery was dead. “I’ll be right back. Would you like something?”
“Too expensive.”
Inside the store, Cathleen stood at the cash register. Bernie gave her $20 for gas and asked if she could use the phone.
“What’s the matter? Don’t the radio in your car work?”
“I’m off today. I need to tell animal control about that dog.”
“There’s more than a few of ’em around here.”
“The tan one. He’s walking funny. I think he’s sick.”
Cathleen turned serious. “We found two dead ones out there.” She pointed to the back of the store. “Not shot or nothin’. Must be a dog flu.”
Sandra, the Shiprock station’s dispatcher, receptionist, and go-to girl, answered the phone. “I heard you were spending the day with your mom. What’s up?”
Bernie explained about the dog.
“I’ll let the guys know.” Animal control had an overwhelming job. Lack of money and access to clinics for spaying and neutering, combined with the practice of leaving unwanted animals along the highway to fend for themselves, had created a bad and long-standing problem for people with livestock.
After filling the tank and making a note of the odometer reading for Darleen, Bernie put air in the tires. Darleen didn’t have a tire gauge in the car—if she had one at all—so Bernie estimated the pressure, hoping she got it right. Heat and overinflated old tires led to blowouts.
It was a typical June morning on the Colorado Plateau: clear, warm, with a few clouds beginning to form in the brilliant sky. This time of year—Ya’iishjaatsoh, according to the Navajo way of calculating the seasons—brought the hottest weather, broken only by the longed-for arrival of summer rains.
The trip to the grocery took longer than expected. Mama insisted on pushing her walker down every row at the store, examining the merchandise and declaring most of it too pricey.
“Does Sister bring you to the market with her?”
“No. She goes after her class.”
“What class?”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Bernie had encouraged Darleen to get her GED. Maybe Sister had listened to something she said after all. If, in fact, Darleen actually had enrolled in something. Bernie pushed the critical thought away and focused on filling the cart.
After shopping, they drove to Bernie’s trailer for her stew pan, and for her mother’s bathroom break. Mama paused outside to study the loom Chee had built. “Cheeseburger did a good job.”
“He did.”
“Something like this needs to stay busy.”
“I’m going to use it one of these days.”
Mama ran her hand along the smooth frame and stayed quiet, but Bernie sensed the unspoken When? and Are you sure?
Then they stopped for a burger and an ice cream cone at the Chat and Chew. But Bernie couldn’t get Miller out of her mind, and the police station was only a few minutes away.
“Mama, I need to check on something at the office,” she said.
“Park in the shade. I will wait in the car. Don’t be too long.”
Sandra looked up from her magazine when Bernie came in. “You took the world’s shortest vacation.”