Wind and Lies by Richard Parrish

Author:Richard Parrish
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Magdalena reached the tribal headquarters in Sells on Thursday afternoon a few minutes past four o’clock. There were six old pickups parked there as well, all with POLICE crudely painted on the doors or tailgates. Magdalena walked into the reception area, and no one was there. The door to Chief Romero’s office was open, and the office was empty. The door to the room on the right was closed. Magdalena knocked on it. A middle-aged man wearing the shortsleeve blue uniform shirt of a Big Reservation policeman opened the door and stared at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Magdalena said in Papago, feigning embarrassment. “I thought Chief Romero might be here.”

“He went to Ajo. Be back tonight,” the man said.

Magdalena turned to leave.

“Can I do something for you?”

She turned back to him. “Well, it’s nothing I need a policeman for.” She said “policeman” as though it were a royal appellation.

“How do you know?” came another voice from within the room.

Five more policemen sat on metal folding chairs around a scarred wooden table. Magdalena put on the best look she could muster of a little Indian girl wowed by the attention of all these important men.

The policeman who had apparently just spoken got up from his chair and walked toward her. “I’D take care of this, Henry,” he said. “This ain’t no job for a married man.” The other men snorted, grunted, laughed.

“My name’s Roberto,” the man said. He came out of the room and stood in front of her, appraising her frankly. He was a little shorter than Magdalena, stocky, and his face was acne-scarred. His small black eyes were a little too close together. Even from three feet away, his fetid odor of stale sweat and dirty clothes was strong.

“I’m from San Xavier,” Magdalena said. “I’m going to student-teach here at the school this summer. I need to find a house. Can you show me some of the abandoned places?”

Unlike the San Xavier Reservation, where many of the Indians had been granted ownership of parcels of land under a governmental allotment program established by the Dawes Act of 1897, the land on the Big Reservation was owned communally by the tribe. If you abandoned the place where your family had traditionally lived, and if it was clear that you didn’t intend to return, another Indian could move into it. In Sells there were many such empty shacks and houses, left vacant by families who had moved to the white man’s cities in search of work and opportunities not available in Sells.

Roberto looked crestfallen. “I’m not from here,” he said. “I’m not real familiar with what’s empty.”

“Hey, let a real man help,” another of the policemen said. He got up and came out of the room. He was taller and thinner and much better-looking than Roberto, even handsome.

“I’m Tomas,” he said, looking her over hungrily. “Sells is my home. I know every empty place.”

“Don’t get too close to him,” Roberto said to Magdalena. “His wife is bigger than me, got arms on her like King Kong.

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