“Yeah,” she said, “I’m not into it.”
The hippieish locution into it was also distasteful. “Into the trip? Or Crossroads generally?”
“Both. It’s like Ambrose said—it’s more of a psychological experiment than Christianity. It’s teenybopper relationship dramas.”
“I seem to recall that you’re still a teenager yourself.”
“Ha ha good point.”
“I’d looked forward to some time with you in Arizona. Is the idea that you’ll be alone here?”
“That is the idea, yes.”
“I hope you won’t burn the house down with some party.”
She gave him an insulted look and reopened her Bible. He no longer understood her at all, but it was true that her social life now seemed to consist of Tanner Evans. Because she and Russ and Perry had planned to go to Arizona, Marion was taking Judson to Los Angeles for spring vacation, treating him to Disneyland and visiting her uncle Jimmy, who was in a nursing home there. The trip was an extravagance, but Russ had known better than to argue, and Marion’s absence was a problem only now that Becky had decided to stay home. Very probably, Becky intended to use the empty parsonage to sleep with Tanner, which was another distasteful thought, mitigated only by Russ’s fondness for Tanner. Despite her new religiosity, Becky dressed and carried herself like someone sexually active—he really didn’t understand her. He only knew she’d never be his little girl again.
Early the next morning, he awakened with an idea so obvious he was amazed he hadn’t seen it sooner: Keith Durochie had told him not to go to Kitsillie. Keith had said that there was plenty of work in Many Farms, and who was Russ to argue with a Navajo elder? More to the point: Who was Ambrose?
A path to a week with Frances clear ahead of him, he went to his church office and waited until the hour was late enough to call Keith’s house. The woman who answered, on the fifteenth or twentieth ring, was not Keith’s wife.
“He’s at the hospital,” she said. “He’s sick.”
Russ asked what had happened, but apparently the woman had said all she could. Distressed, he called the offices of the tribal council, which Keith was a longtime member of, and learned from a secretary that Keith had suffered a stroke. How bad a stroke Russ couldn’t ascertain—the Navajos had taboos regarding illness. Setting aside his distress about Keith, he said he was arriving with three busloads of teenagers on Saturday night and needed to know where to go. The secretary connected him, through a loudly buzzing internal line, to a council administrator whose first name was Wanda and whose family name he didn’t catch. Perhaps because of the buzzing, she spoke with plangent enunciation.
“Russ,” she said, “you do not have to worry. We know that you are coming. You do not have to worry that we are not expecting you.”
Over the buzzing, Russ explained that Keith had suggested he avoid the mesa and go to Many Farms instead. To this, there was no response from Wanda, only buzzing.
“Wanda? Can you hear me?”
“Let me be completely honest and straightforward with you,” she said plangently. “Keith has had trouble on the mesa, but we have a federal mandate. There is work to be done at Kitsillie to conform with the mandate. We have delivered cement and lumber to the school, and we will be very grateful for your help.”
“Ah—mandate?”
“It is a federal mandate and we have supplies for you. One of the women from the chapter has agreed to cook for you, as you requested in your letter. Her name is Daisy Benally.”
“Yes, I know Daisy. But Keith seemed to feel we’d be better off in Many Farms.”
“We know that a group is coming to Many Farms. All of the arrangements are in place.”
“Well, then, maybe, if you could accommodate two groups there, instead of one—”
“Russ, I am speaking to you in all respect. We are not expecting two groups in Many Farms. I will personally meet you here on Saturday and explain the work that we are hoping you will do at Kitsillie to conform with the mandate. I will look forward to meeting you.”
Russ felt powerless against Wanda’s plangency, all the more so as a bilagáana. He hoped she might be easier to talk to in person, or that Keith would be well enough recovered to overrule her.
On Thursday night, after a long effort to fall asleep, he dreamed he was alone and lost on the Black Mesa, trying to get down from a trackless mountain. Far below him, he saw sheep and horses in a rock-strewn paddock, but to reach the trail leading down he had to climb higher, on ever stonier and steeper slopes. The terrain was unexpectedly vast, and the direction he was climbing seemed wrong, but he had to keep going to make sure. Finally he reached a cliff impossible to scale. Looking back, he saw that he was on a slope too nearly vertical to be descended. He saw sheer rock and yawning space and understood that he was going to die. Coming awake, in the barrenness of his marital bed, he recognized his situation. No path with joy at the end of it could be as arduous and convoluted as attaining Frances had become.