it. It was better than no war at all.
My grandfather and my father were Agency Police on the Window Rock. My grandfather rode a while with Burgadeâs Rangers. My father fought in the Aleutians and out in Kwajalein and Okinawa with the Seventh Division. So you see itâs an old and dishonorable tradition in my family, fighting for the white man. When I was in the Army it was peacetime but they sent me overseas to Seoul for a year, so I took a flag of Navajo design and planted it on Korean soil and claimed it for the Navajo nation.
Heâd done his tour of duty with the Military Police and then heâd gone to the university at Tucson on the GI Bill. A Highway Patrol recruiter had visited the campus the spring before graduation. So here he was in a uniform with a Sam Browne belt and a big hat and a six-gun in a clamshell holster on his hip just like a movie cowboy, an
d he had had ten years of chasing speeders down the highways and untangling bloody wreckage and living on café chili and coffee. And now theyâd sent him to track down a young fugitive Apache who was up there slamming around somewhere in those hills with a .30-30 rifle that could go off any time: an Apache who was trying to cross an emotional minefield and might just be in a frame of mind to take some people with him.
Watchman resented it with the feeling he had been wound up and pointed in Joe Threepersonsâ direction and turned loose for the entertainment of the white bastards whoâd revel in watching two Indians square off, the same way they delighted in watching cockfights and prizefights between black men and Mexicans.
3.
Watchman was down on one knee inspecting the hoof-prints when the whacking boom of an explosion froze him in alarm.
Rifle shot; he recognized the sound a second later. Its hard echo beat across the hills.
The report was directionless. Watchman crouched back against a ball of scrub oak. His head turned quickly, he tried to watch everything at once. There was no way of knowing whether that rifle was shooting at him or at something else but he could hardly ignore it.
He unsnapped the holster and palmed his service revolver. The adrenaline pumping through him made his hand shake.
The rifle boomed again and this time the bullet made a crease in the earth twenty feet to his right; it whined away like a flat stone skipped across a pond.
He heard the nearby crack of the next one. It broke some twigs out of the scrub oak beside him.
He threw himself belly-flat behind the scrub oak and fired two blind shots in the general direction he thought the rifle had spoken from.
Instinct prompted panic but his experience steadied him. There were two possibilities. Either the rifleman was a terrible marksman or he hadnât meant to hit Watchman. Either way it meant he wasnât likely to get killed right here and right now.
He edged his face forward past the clumped stems of the oak to peer back toward the road ruts where the shots had come from.
This time he saw the muzzle-flash. The bullet shook the scrub oak.
That was two in a row the rifle had put into the oak; so the odds changed. Not a poor marksman; they were warning shots.
Flat on the ground he considered his horizons. There was a dip behind him, twenty feet awayâa shallow crease in the land that had probably been a torrent two hours ago. He began to slide back toward the gully; he triggered three .38s toward the place where heâd seen the muzzle flame, rolled into the gully and slithered in the mud and a rifle bullet chopped the air overhead.
Now what the hell?
He was fumbling to reload. Two cartridges dropped from his hand and he left them in the mud.
Youâve got no right to scare a man this way. He whacked the cylinder closed and fired a couple of potluck rounds. The revolver slammed against the heel of his hand in recoil; the racket had his ears ringing. The stink of cordite fouled the air.
There was a shot but it wasnât aimed
My grandfather and my father were Agency Police on the Window Rock. My grandfather rode a while with Burgadeâs Rangers. My father fought in the Aleutians and out in Kwajalein and Okinawa with the Seventh Division. So you see itâs an old and dishonorable tradition in my family, fighting for the white man. When I was in the Army it was peacetime but they sent me overseas to Seoul for a year, so I took a flag of Navajo design and planted it on Korean soil and claimed it for the Navajo nation.
Heâd done his tour of duty with the Military Police and then heâd gone to the university at Tucson on the GI Bill. A Highway Patrol recruiter had visited the campus the spring before graduation. So here he was in a uniform with a Sam Browne belt and a big hat and a six-gun in a clamshell holster on his hip just like a movie cowboy, an
d he had had ten years of chasing speeders down the highways and untangling bloody wreckage and living on café chili and coffee. And now theyâd sent him to track down a young fugitive Apache who was up there slamming around somewhere in those hills with a .30-30 rifle that could go off any time: an Apache who was trying to cross an emotional minefield and might just be in a frame of mind to take some people with him.
Watchman resented it with the feeling he had been wound up and pointed in Joe Threepersonsâ direction and turned loose for the entertainment of the white bastards whoâd revel in watching two Indians square off, the same way they delighted in watching cockfights and prizefights between black men and Mexicans.
3.
Watchman was down on one knee inspecting the hoof-prints when the whacking boom of an explosion froze him in alarm.
Rifle shot; he recognized the sound a second later. Its hard echo beat across the hills.
The report was directionless. Watchman crouched back against a ball of scrub oak. His head turned quickly, he tried to watch everything at once. There was no way of knowing whether that rifle was shooting at him or at something else but he could hardly ignore it.
He unsnapped the holster and palmed his service revolver. The adrenaline pumping through him made his hand shake.
The rifle boomed again and this time the bullet made a crease in the earth twenty feet to his right; it whined away like a flat stone skipped across a pond.
He heard the nearby crack of the next one. It broke some twigs out of the scrub oak beside him.
He threw himself belly-flat behind the scrub oak and fired two blind shots in the general direction he thought the rifle had spoken from.
Instinct prompted panic but his experience steadied him. There were two possibilities. Either the rifleman was a terrible marksman or he hadnât meant to hit Watchman. Either way it meant he wasnât likely to get killed right here and right now.
He edged his face forward past the clumped stems of the oak to peer back toward the road ruts where the shots had come from.
This time he saw the muzzle-flash. The bullet shook the scrub oak.
That was two in a row the rifle had put into the oak; so the odds changed. Not a poor marksman; they were warning shots.
Flat on the ground he considered his horizons. There was a dip behind him, twenty feet awayâa shallow crease in the land that had probably been a torrent two hours ago. He began to slide back toward the gully; he triggered three .38s toward the place where heâd seen the muzzle flame, rolled into the gully and slithered in the mud and a rifle bullet chopped the air overhead.
Now what the hell?
He was fumbling to reload. Two cartridges dropped from his hand and he left them in the mud.
Youâve got no right to scare a man this way. He whacked the cylinder closed and fired a couple of potluck rounds. The revolver slammed against the heel of his hand in recoil; the racket had his ears ringing. The stink of cordite fouled the air.
There was a shot but it wasnât aimed
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