Authors: Win Blevins

The Darkness Rolling (27 page)

Wow. “A guy does this every week?”

“No. Since the round-trip is two weeks of work, we give eight days off.”

That sounded good.

“What’s the pay?”

“Three hundred a week, and all Santa Fe employees get passes, and their immediate family also gets passes, to ride the railroad at any time and wherever it goes.”

Twelve hundred a month. Eight days off at a time. Free trips when I wanted. Unbelievable.

Now I was going to use that silly word. “What if the dick lives in Santa Fe?” I’d worked it out that, starting from Chicago, Santa Fe was about 60 percent of the distance to LA.

“Easier if he lives in Chicago, but one guy does it from Amarillo, which is right at halfway. He just starts by riding overnight, in a berth we provide, to Chicago. Then he works the eighty-hour shift and sleeps his way back home. Same number of hours working, plus sixteen on the train unpaid, off duty, and sleeping. Then the days off and start the routine over.”

“Pretty good money.”

“Seaman Goldman, we only hire la cr
è
me de la cr
è
me.”

Flattery or intimidation in that?

I thought for maybe too long. Finally I said, “Tell me about the other job, not riding the trains.”

Chapman grimaced. “It’s straight PI work, whenever we need it. We have, say, a robbery—God forbid, an assault or a killing. We fly you by private plane to the scene, you go wherever the investigation leads, find the perpetrators, recover the property, and turn the criminals over to the police. We fly you home. You must be available whenever we need you. We pay a retainer of three hundred dollars per month. When you’re working, we pay a hundred a day plus expenses. Guarantee of a minimum of five days of work a month.”

So eight hundred a month, at least, unpredictable hours, but probably more time off. “With a pass to ride the railroad?”

“Yes. I must say, this is a job for a man with a taste for adventure. Imagine every crime in the Four Corners that can touch on the railroad.”

Long breath in, long breath out. “It’s a lot to think about. I’ll call you.”

He blinked at me, maybe surprised. Then he stood and offered his hand. I shook it firmly, white-man style. Do as the Romans do.

“Let me know by the end of business on Friday.”

Twenty-eight

“So what did he say?”

Iris put it in gear and hit the gas pedal hard.

I told her, in detail, every nook and cranny. The further I went, the more interested, and interesting, her questions became. We were coming into Santa Fe when she got to the big question.

“What in the world are you going to decide?”

I hesitated, made one sound, and hesitated again. “I’ve always wanted to ride the Super Chief. I guess that settles it.” Funny, but I didn’t sound sure, even to myself.

“About fifteen days at home a month?”

“And twelve hundred bucks.”

“Pretty terrific,” she said, “and what would you do with that time off? Would you spend it in Santa Fe or Oljato or…?”

She pulled into a parking spot on the plaza. My head turned toward the facade of La Fonda, said to be the finest hotel in New Mexico.

She looked at me oddly. “Yazzie, I want to take you to La Fonda for lunch. My congratulations on the new job.”

I looked at her. Simply looked.
You know what your heart’s song is, dummy.

I reached out and put my hand on hers. “What will I do…?” I said. “I think I’ll read, spruce up the family house, and spend lots of time getting to know you better.”

What on earth had I just said?

I felt her hand jump a little.

I squeezed it to show that I’d meant every word.

She studied my face.

“Are you kidding? You’re talking crazy.”

“Iris, what can I say? It kind of snuck up on me. Now’s the time, and it just came out. I don’t know if I should apologize.”

“Jeez, you are so romantic. I can hardly contain myself.”

She looked out the window, back at me, back to the people on the street. Probably thinking up another wise-ass remark. I hoped so.

Out with it, open my heart
. “Iris Goldman,” I said, “will you let me court you?”

Time to listen and watch, not just to hear her words, but to watch her body speak.

Finally, she said, “We could start over lunch.”

I nodded yes and we walked inside, surrounded by swirling, dancing murals.

A white-coated waiter seated us and brought us menus.

“How would we work this? Wait,” she said, “courting means finding out whether we want to get married, right?”

The word stuck in my throat like a hot hard-boiled egg in its shell.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad to date you and have a good time,” Iris said, “but where would we live that would be close enough to see each other?”

“After Grandpa’s done with rehab, we can live here in the family house, go to Monument Valley, or go back and forth. Whatever you want.”

Iris looked at me for a long time. “There is an awful lot of the ‘we’ word in this conversation.” She smiled. “Don’t take ‘we’ for granted, Yazzie Goldman.” And then she played footsie with me. She gave me coy glances. She downed a margarita. She glowed.

Finally, she leaned over and kissed me lightly, but with a lover’s touch.

“You’d be gone a lot.”

She looked at me under shelved eyebrows like there was a challenge coming.

“I guess.”

“So, are you willing to hear a better idea? Or note one?”

A beat passed. “Yes.”

“Yazzie, you’re being silly. You’re passing up the best job. What if you took the off-and-on PI work? Some months you might be gone ten days, some none. And guess what? Any time,
any
time in between, we could ride the Super Chief all we wanted. We could go everywhere and see everything. And while we were living the high life, you wouldn’t be working.”

She grinned at me, showing the impish front tooth. “How about this for a first date? We ride the Chief to Chicago and spend a few days there. I’ve always wanted to see the Art Institute. They have a fabulous collection of impressionist paintings. I’m dying to see them, sketch them, understand.”

After there had been about a hundred years of silence between us, I said, “A first date in a single sleeping compartment?”

“Oh, I think there’s enough space, don’t you?” She wiggled her whole body.

She was proposing a pretty big form of courting. I had no idea why, Iris being Iris, that surprised me.

“Let’s face it,” she said, “we do have a certain charge between us, and we can have everything we want, the whole shebang. Why not jump?”

I wanted right then to say, “Iris, will you marry me?” I choked back the words.

“Are you saying yes?”

I managed to stammer, “Yes.”

“Yes to me, or yes to the other job?”

“Yes to both. Let’s jump, and let’s do it in a big way.”

She nodded her head, slim smile. I thought she figured this was exactly the way it would turn out, and I sure wasn’t about to argue.

“Okay,” Iris said, “I have two conditions. That you start work as soon as possible so we can see if we like the arrangement. And that you take me upstairs right now.”

I looked around at the white tablecloths and uniformed waiters. “You wanted lunch.”

“Did you ever hear of room service?” she said, nodding toward the elegant, curving staircase that led upstairs.

I took her hand. She let me have a little kiss and pushed me back gently.

She said, “And we can stay for breakfast if you want.”

* * *

On the day of the summer solstice, a time of coming to maturity, I sat in a forked-stick hogan with Grandpa, Mom, and Frieda. Slowly, ceremonially, Bitsui and his family joined us. He was the staff bearer, the chief singer of the Enemy Way ceremony I needed and needed and needed. Outside the hogan sat Iris, dressed in shawls, robes, fabrics, and buckskin, my unofficial mate playing her role. We began singing the words of the ancient song:

“Sa’ah naagh’
é
i, Bik’eh h
ó
zh
ó
…”

When we finished the songs and prayers, I stepped out of the hogan so that the round dancing could begin and the ceremony would come to its climax. I walked in the steps of
h
ó
zh
ó
.
Many gifts would be given, and we would offer a lavish feast.

After a month and a half of trying the arrangement out, as Iris put it, a clerk of Santa Fe County gave state sanction to the union of Yazzie and Iris Goldman. This mattered much less to us than the afternoon several days later when another medicine singer came to our family house in Santa Fe and united us in a house-blessing ceremony, followed by another feast.

Iris and I had reserved a berth to ride the Super Chief to Chicago for our honeymoon. I was fine with watching her go crazy over the Impressionists. I loved the times when we looked at each other, and held each other. No details here, except one—it was the true high life, and it was a damn sight more fun than anything that had ever happened on a movie set.

About the Authors

Win Blevins
is the author of
Charbonneau, Rock Child, RavenShadow, Give Your Heart to the Hawks, Stone Song,
his prize-winning novel about the life of Crazy Horse, and many others. He received the 2015 Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature and has been inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

Meredith Blevins
has been a creative-arts therapist and an award-winning travel writer, and has published five books, including
The Hummingbird Wizard.
You can sign up for email updates
here
.

The Blevinses live together in Utah.

Tom Doherty Associates Books
by
Win Blevins
and
Meredith Blevins

Moonlight Water

Tom Doherty Associates Books
by Win Blevins

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