Taboo

Keywords: Cayote,

The road coming off the reservation is long and dusty. The only pavement you see is the invisible line between the rez and the county. Once on the pavement the cloud of dust that built up on the old pick up truck is bit by bit sailing into the wind. It's about ninety-five outside the truck and you can finally roll down the windows to get some air, but dust has a way of finding itself onto your black dress and you are covered in a light dun color that must be brushed off before you see the human resources director in town about a job. Beads of sweat evaporate as the air blows through your hair, it hasn't rained here in six months and it looks like it's gonna be another six before it decides to.

The highway is a long tongue of black stretching from horizon to horizon, east to west, with nothing but desert on either side. This old truck is the only vehicle on the road, well, road between the pot marks and large cracks that haven't been repaired since 1960. That's when the left front tire blows and for the next seventy feet of bad road, (better than the dirt washboard you just drove off of), you careen from side to side trying to control you sudden decent in forward thrust. A cloud of dust erupts on either side of the road and finally you come to a rest on the right side of the road on a sand bar that has already buried half of the remaining tires on your old pick up.

Safe for the moment you bang your head against the wheel and a loud beep of the horn blasts into the desert air and is sucked into the void without anyone else to hear the sound. There is a spare tire in the back of the pick up with a jack, but you are in your finest clothes and have no wish to soil them. That's when you notice that you are covered in dust from head to foot and the black dress is now embedded with dust that even a good brushing won't get out. Frustrated, you open the driver's side door and keep it propped open with one of your high heeled feet while you find a cigarette and lit up. Bits of dust fall from your hair as you smoke and glancing at your face in the mirror you see your fine black eyebrows have a nice dun color to them and dust is now embedded into the carefully done make up you spent an hour on this morning.

One cigarette turns into two and then three, ten minutes becomes an hour before you decide to move. It is now ten O" clock and the temperature just rose another five degrees and sweat is beginning to turn your dusty figure into adobe. IT is flat in all directions and not even a buzzard is visible let alone another vehicle to offer any assistance. Right now you should be sitting in an air conditioned office building talking up your resume with the law firm you wish to be engaged with. The thought enters your mind that being a woman is one strike against you and being an Indian woman is like having the world against you. Even if they let you in it would be to clean the toilets instead of writing briefs and studying for the bar.

One way or another you got to get this wreck of a truck back on the road and decide which direction you want to go in no matter what the rest of the day brings.

Somehow preserving the slight chance that you might get to the law firm and produce yourself in a presentable manor your first consideration is to keep the dress as pristine as possible. Stepping outside the vehicle you remove your dress and pantyhose and high heels. The beads of sweat evaporate as soon as your skin is open to the air and clan only in bra and panties you go about the task of changing a flat tire.

An hour and a half later, you are on your knees with an old jacket to keep from scraping your skin and you are almost in tears. Not that the jack was any good to begin with, which it meets a marginal description of it"s name sake, it"s the soil beneath the tire. The flat part of the stand keeps sinking into the soil once the weight of the truck is put upon it thus never lifting the truck up but assisting the jack lower into the ground. This causes the tire to sink just a fraction of an inch lower each time she tries. Even using flat rocks to prop the jack on, the rocks sink. It"s a wonder why she isn"t sucked into the ground like quicksand.

This calls for another cigarette and she rises from her knees and pads on the hot ground to the open driver"s side door for her cigarettes. As she rounds the headlights, watching where she is stepping, she hears a voice.

"Excuse me, but can I help you sister?" The voice is the tongue of the Navajo and not Anglo and startles her to a stand still. Her head snaps up and there is an older man dressed in faded denim, His face is lined and creased by years of desert weather and his skin is much darker than hers yet he still sports long dark hair slightly graying and it is almost impossible to tell what his age is.

"I"m sorry little sister, but I do not mean to frighten you. I only wish to help." His hands are outstretched in a universal offering of help; they have a look of old, dried leather imbedded with calluses upon calluses. His smile is weak but genuine and it is hard not to trust such a disarming smile. Yet, there Is not another vehicle anywhere to be seen, nor any type of home or even a path where he might have come from.

"Grandfather, thank you for your offer but I do not wish to put you to so much trouble, least you hurt yourself at my expense." She is amazed that she even remembers her own language after all the years she was punished at school for speaking it.

"Do not worry, little bird, I am stronger than you think." He smiled and his face seemed to smooth out just a bit, as if he lost some of his wrinkles.

At this moment the realization that she was clad only in bra and panties overcame her and she blushed. Flustered she tried to do something with her hands to cover herself up but had no idea how and this caused her to shift positions slightly and raise goose bumps all over her torso.

The old man, still smiling, removed his old faded jean jacket and placed it around her arms in a fatherly move and she was comforted. On closer observation, she noticed that he might not be as old as she first thought and had that kind of rugged masculine look about him. The image sent an erotic pulse through her and her nipples hardened and she felt moisture between her legs. She blushed again at the thought.

He wore an old oxford shirt that once had been white but with age and dust and repeated washings had turned a sepia color. The top buttons were unbuttoned and showing a bronzed chest without hair. On his feet was hand made moccasins paper thin in appearance yet durable enough to scratch gravel for thousands of miles. He was as tall as she was and rail thin, like a man who ate once every other day weather he needed it or not.

She pulled the jacket around her and felt as though she had been covered in a cavern of denim, yet the jacked was only a size or two larger than one she would wear herself. As she did so, her palms passed over her hardened nipples and she let out a silent sigh.

"Excuse me little one," and he passed around her and went to the heart of the problem, the flat tire. He got down on one knee and inspected the problem from all angles and then sat back on his haunches and pondered. "Have you some tobacco, sister?"

She retrieved the partial pack of cigarettes and mover to him and offered him one by extending the pack forward allowing a smoke to protrude. His face was on the same level as her panties and he seemed able to smell her scent by a slight hesitation prior to plucking the smoke from its package. To obscure his attention she flicked her lighter the instant the cigarette touched his lips. His eyes looked up at her and the deep hazel with the black pupils froze her. He inhaled deeply and pushed the still lit lighter away from the edge of the cigarette and the spell was broken, she shook her head and asked, "What do you think, Grandfather, can it be fixed?" All the Navajo in her seemed to come back in a flood. Not just the language, but everything. How one treats elders, the traditions, the old songs and stories, late night fry bread, long sweat baths, lodges, herding sheep, everything came to her all at once and she was more native than she had ever been in her life.

"This problem is not insurmountable little one. It is like climbing a mountain, once you are on the top; all you have left is downhill." They both laughed at his remark. With his hands he dug around the area where the jack and the rock had been. It took a while but he found something solid to replace the rocks on and requested her to find as many flat stones as she could.

Carefully picking her way through the desert, picking up stones and returning them she pilled up a nice little pile in the course of an hour or so. He created a rock bed to place the jack on and succeeded in raising the truck only a few inches. He cleared the silt under the axel and placed flat rocks under the axel until the axel rested on the stones. Together they dug out the flat tire enough space to replace it with the new tire. It took them some time for all of this and it was almost two when they were done and the temperature was hovering around a hundred degrees. Sweat poured from each of them and evaporated just as easily in the dry desert thirsty for any moisture at all. To get the truck off the rocks and jack, she had to put it in the lowest gear and pull forward by an inch or two. Even then, they had to dig out the jack and remove some of the stones in order to drive on.

Thankful for all the effort that the old man went to on her behalf she asked, "Can I drop you anywhere, Grandfather?" He seemed puzzled at this question and she added, "I have nothing to offer you but the comfort of my truck, as it is, to take you where you wish to go."

The old man seemed to sniff the air around him with his eyes closed. He turned completely around and when he opened his eyes he pointed with his nose in the opposite direction she was going in and said, "I have a place over there, past eagle point.

Keywords: Cayote,