“I guess so. Is the boss here?”
Sandra motioned toward his office with a slight twist of her chin.
Bernie knocked, and Largo waved her in. He politely inquired about Mama and learned she was waiting in the car, and no, she didn’t want to come in. Mama didn’t like being in the police station.
“Since I had to come into town, I thought I’d see if they’d found any drugs yet in Miller’s car.”
“I haven’t heard anything new.”
Largo didn’t seem happy. She waited.
“No stolen credit cards or bootleg booze, explosives, or anything illegal so far.”
Largo stood, rolled his neck, stretched his long arms behind his back. “I don’t know what to think about that dirt, Manuelito. Maybe Miller was stealing Indian land a little at time. Next thing you know, one of these Arizona tourists will try to run off with Tsé Bit’ a’ í Ship Rock itself.”
Bernie cringed at the joke.
“I wasn’t going to arrest him at first, sir. But even before he tried to bribe me, Miller acted guilty as could be. I figured he had a lot at stake to offer me that much money and the rifle to let him go. It’s in my report, and it’s all on the tape, too. You can see him fidgeting.”
Largo exhaled. “The camera wasn’t working.”
“You’re kidding? I checked it. The light was on.”
“You didn’t record anything.”
“Not again.” She tried to keep her tone neutral, her frustration at bay. Failing equipment was an ongoing problem. “I’ve got some pictures of the boxes and the rifle in the trunk of the car. I’ll add them to my write-up. That might help.”
“It might.” But Bernie heard the doubt in his voice.
“So, sir, the bribery will be a ‘he said, she said’?”
“Afraid so. Take another look at your report. Make sure you’ve put everything in, whatever you remember.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can I count on you tomorrow?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know yet, sir. It depends on my sister. If she’s not available, I’ll need somebody to stay with Mama.”
Bernie watched Largo sit down again. The men in the department didn’t have the complication of dealing with their mothers. Their sisters and aunts and maybe even their wives handled that.
“I trust you on this bribery deal, Manuelito, but you know, without the tape it will be hard to prove. There’s one good thing about this.”
She waited, wondering what came next.
“The FBI is interested.”
“Why? And that’s a good thing?”
He chuckled. “Your encounter with Miller might be what saves this whole operation from being a complete fiasco. They are sending a team to search the car again with some high-tech gizmos. Maybe Sweating Man invented a new explosive. Or maybe they’ll come up with something else suspicious. You’ve heard of fertilizer being used to blow things up, right?”
“Yes, sir. Timothy McVeigh.”
“Maybe those guys will discover an aged cow pie, sheep droppings, some horse dung in one of those boxes.”
Bernie could feel warmth in her face.
“Manuelito?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over this. Miller probably won’t sue us. The Navajo Public Safety Department doesn’t have enough money to be worth it.”
Bernie drove Mama through town with the windows down, imagining that the breeze made her cooler. She tried to shake off the embarrassment and failure that had followed her from the station, but it clung like a burr to a sock. When she reached the big highway and sped up, Mama rolled up her window. Bernie realized that winding the crank on the driver’s side caused no change in the level of the glass, another reason Darleen left the window open.
“Is there some trick to this window?”
“Your sister pulls it up halfway first.” Mama pantomimed the action with both hands. “You can roll it from there.”
Bernie expected her mother to fall asleep on the ride. Instead she said, “Oldest daughter, we need to talk now about your sister.”
When Mama said, “We need to talk,” she meant that Bernie needed to listen.
“We need to help so she doesn’t become an adlaanii.”
Bernie kept her eyes on the highway. Adlaanii were relatives and friends who had damaged or severed their connection to their family, their clan, and their friends, because of alcohol. She wondered if it was too late, if her sister already was an alcoholic. Besides the beer cans, she’d spotted an empty vodka bottle in the trunk when she loaded the walker.
“That one wants to go to the art school for Indians in Santa Fe. You know, the Eye something? It could be a good thing. I want you to help her do that.”
The Institute of American Indian Arts—IAIA for short—drew students from around the country, and even foreigners. Some of the Navajo Nation’s best-known artists had studied there. Darleen liked to draw, but as far as Bernie knew, her little sister hadn’t even completed her GED. Bernie was skeptical, but she kept silent.
“Getting away from the ones who encourage her to have beer,” Mama continued, “that would be good. She will come home to see us on the weekends. That’s what I have to say.”
“I’m glad you wanted to talk about this, Mama. In my job, many of the people I encounter get in trouble because of drinking. Sometimes going to jail helps them realize they should give up alcohol.” And, Bernie knew, sometimes an arrest meant losing a job, falling behind on car payments, and putting additional stress on relationships. “Sister has to decide to stop drinking. No matter where she is, Santa Fe or home with you, or what she does, she will have a chance to drink. The choice is up to her. Being somewhere else won’t solve the problem. And you and I can’t solve it for her.”
“Coyote lives with us,” said Mama. Coyote, prince of chaos, a troublemaker, trickster, transformer, and more. “But you help your sister.”
A sudden blast of wind shook the car, and Bernie gripped the wheel and tapped the brakes. The gust had pushed the horse trailer in front of her into the left lane, and a car that was passing her put on the brakes, narrowly avoiding an accident.
“Mama, promise me you will never get in the car with Sister if she has been drinking. You could both die. I’ve seen it.”
“Daughter, why do you worry so much?”
Bernie watched a flock of small white clouds assembling on the horizon, looking like cotton balls on a child’s painting of a perfect day. They scudded against the deep turquoise backdrop, casting black shadows that moved over the dusty country below. The clouds were too small and too independent to build to thunderheads. At best, they’d screen the sun later to provide a bit of cool; at worst, they would make dry lightning, starting fires in the mountains.
By the time they got back to Mama’s house, midday heat had settled in with full force. Too warm for anything except a big glass of water—or maybe her first Coke of the day—and a good book.