“Yeah, where am I supposed to go?” Ollie said.
The honking persisted until they reached a straightaway. Ollie pulled over, inches from the edge of a chasm, and a pickup truck, still honking, gunned past them. One of its bumper stickers said CUSTER HAD IT COMING. Its driver stuck out his arm and gave the bus the middle finger.
“Charming,” Frances said.
“Are you okay?”
She let go of Russ’s hand. “I’m waiting to hear there’s a better road back down.”
As if from a different world, the gentler world of New Prospect, Biff Allard’s bongo drums started up, joined by one guitar and then another, and then by Biff’s reedy voice.
Bus driver Ollie, bus driver Ollie
Rollin’ through the hills, movin’ down the valley
Some folks like to drink, some folks like to cuss
Ollie gets high on a TWELVE-TON BUS
A cheer went up, and Ollie waved his thanks. He didn’t know that Biff had written the song for the earlier driver, Bill.
Up on the mesa, as the sky darkened, the moon highlighted patches of snow on the north-facing slopes. Russ struggled to integrate his memories of the mesa and the sadness of Keith with the new possibility embodied in the woman next to him. He felt warmed not only by her shoulder but by the triumph of having brought her, after so many complications, to a place that had formed him. He wondered if she could love the place herself—love him—and if he might yet grow old with her. Though the road had leveled out, he put his hand on hers again. She gave it a squeeze and didn’t let go until he stood up to address the group.
“Okay, listen up,” he said. “We’re going straight to the chapter house and see if we can get some dinner. I don’t want to hear any complaining about the food. You hear me? We’ll see a lot of mutton stew and frybread—if you don’t like it, you’ll eat it anyway. We need to remember, at all times, that we are guests of the Navajo Nation. Our attitude is gratitude. We come with our privilege, come with all our nice things, and we need to remember how we look to the Navajos. Do not ever leave your things unattended, except where we’ll be sleeping. Do not ever leave the school area by yourself. Are we clear on that? I want to see groups of four people or more, and no one ever leaves the school after dark. Understood?”
There was no electricity or telephone at Kitsillie—except for the chapter house and the school building, still unfinished after five years of work, there wasn’t much of anything—but, Wanda be praised, Daisy Benally and her sister were waiting for the bus. Daisy, an aunt of Keith’s by marriage, hadn’t been young when Russ met her in 1945; now she was stooped and shrunken. Her sister, Ruth, was nearly as fat as the average Hopi. The two of them had made a vat of stew in the chapter-house kitchen, which smelled of hot oil, and they now proceeded, by lantern light, while the Crossroads group settled into the common room, to cook the frybread. The room’s chill pervaded the concrete floor, the dented metal folding chairs, the particle-board tables. Russ asked Frances what she was thinking.
“I’m thinking, yikes. You told me it was primitive, but.”
“It’s not too late to go to Many Farms. Ollie can take you back.”
She bristled. “Is that how you think of me? The lady who can’t hack it?”
“Not at all.”
“I wouldn’t mind finding a bathroom, though.”
“Brace yourself.”
As he weighed whether to sit with Alice Raymond—whether it would make her self-conscious about her mother’s death, and whether his concern about making her self-conscious concealed a craven fear of her bereavement—he thought of Ambrose, whose instincts with teenagers were unerring. He was relieved when Carolyn Polley sat down with Alice. He didn’t have to be good at everything, he only had to be good at getting Frances. He ate his dinner with her and Ted Jernigan.
“Not to complain,” Ted said, “but there’s something not right about the bread.”
“The oil’s a little rancid, maybe. It’s only a taste—it won’t hurt you.”
“Where is the mutton?” Frances said, poking at her bowl. “All I have is turnips and potatoes.”
“You can ask Daisy for some meat.”
“I’m dreaming of the beer nuts in my suitcase.”
Outside the chapter house, a truck banged by in a roar of downshift. Russ didn’t give it a thought until he’d finished his dinner and stepped outside. The temperature had plunged but Ollie was in shirtsleeves, smoking a cigarette and looking up the rough road to the school building. A hundred yards up, a pickup truck’s headlights were aimed down at the bus. The sound of its engine was distinct in the still, cold air. Wanda had promised to come up and check on the group, but Russ didn’t think the truck was Wanda’s. Hoping there might be some other benign explanation, a lost calf, a relative fetching Daisy and Ruth, he rounded up the group and got everyone on the bus.