THE ANCESTORS OF STAR
by
William Gaius
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
William Gaius on Smashwords
The Ancestors of Star
Copyright (c) 2010 by William Gaius
MATURE SUBJECT MATTER AND EXPLICIT
SEXUAL SITUATIONS – NOT TO BE READ
BY PERSONS UNDER 18 YEARS OR IF OWNING
OR READING SUCH MATTER IS FORBIDDEN WHERE YOU LIVE
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Author's Introduction
I'd like to think that people reading this are looking for a good romance and adventure story in a unique setting. But frankly, I'm guessing that most are interested in the story for the same reason I wrote it-the erotic content. I've tried hard to please. It's my experience that erotica is highly individual. Some who are thrilled by nylons and high heels might not be very interested in the mechanics of face sitting, for example. So what can I do? I write for myself.
This is a story of what is often called a 'female-led relationship'. This is not the same as classic female domination. Sorry, there are no whips or chains, and no rituals. (Except one.) Elaine Yellow Star dominates Tim by force of personality and the experience of middle age.
The inspiration driving the erotic content of 'The Ancestors of Star' come from books like Ian Kerner's 'She Comes First', Ken Addison's 'Around Her Finger', and Mark Remond's 'Worship Your Wife.' These male authors have found a special kind of relationship with their female partners by ceding authority in sexual and nonsexual matters, a state in which both partners find themselves unexpectedly content. Maybe it will work for you, too.
In addition to the strong romance and sex themes, this novel also attempts to peer, however imperfectly, into societies that even today seem alien to non-Native Americans. While researching this novel, I realized how presumptuous it would be to try to portray the daily lives of a real tribe like the Navajo or Pueblo peoples, whose lifestyles, customs, and religions are so complex. Many resent the intrusion of white writers and reporters into their societies, but we are still waiting for a body of fiction to rise from indigenous people (other than Sherman Alexie, of course). For the purposes of the story, I've created a tribe, the Lagalero, based loosely (very loosely) on the Navajo, but with specific cultural differences, especially in the area of religion.
So read on, and enjoy the developing (and very hot) relationship between young Tim and his Native American boss, Elaine Yellow Star.
Finally, many thanks to the two experienced writers who critiqued this novel during and after its creation: Jane Kohut-Bartels, of Atlanta, and an antipodean artist who prefers to remain anonymous.
William Gaius,
Somewhere in Arizona, Apil 2010.
Sources:
Ian Kerner, 'She Comes First', Souvenir Press, 2005. (no longer available in paper, but can be found at www.amazon.com in various formats)
Ken Addison, 'Around Her Finger' (ebook from www.lulu.com)
Mark Remond, 'Worship Your Wife' (http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=29899)
Contact author at
The Ancestors of Star
Chapter 1
Nearly an hour after I'd left I-25 and the last gas station, the pavement ended at a lonely cluster of trailer homes. I pulled to the side of the road and took out the scribbled directions. So far, so good - the ruined mission was there on the right as promised. A bullet-riddled sign warned, 'No services next 55 miles'. The gravel road forked, but neither alternative was tempting. The left fork bent downhill into a boulder-strewn valley; to the right, the road vanished into a distant range of low mountains.
Following the directions, I drove to the right, up through the mountains and onto a level plateau of scrub desert where the road led in a straight line to the horizon. In the rear view mirror, my dust rolled up in a cyclone a hundred feet high. My arrival would be visible for twenty miles. A matching dust cloud rose in the distance, another vehicle coming my way. It resolved into a gasoline truck, and when it passed, I rolled up the window so I wouldn't choke.
Not long after, I slowed for two eagles in the road, who spread their wings and shrieked at me. When I continued to creep ahead, they grudgingly hopped away from their roadkill to let me pass. At a safe distance past them, I pulled over and urinated on the road, utterly alone in this vast, parched land.
I reached in through the open window for my water bottle. The air was so dry, I'd already gone through most of the dozen bottles of water I'd bought this morning.
From the bushes, a dog emerged, trotting leisurely onto the road in my general direction. I watched it approach, noting the pointed nose, rough reddish coat, and spindly legs. It wasn't a dog; it was a coyote.
Now I was more curious. The coyotes near Chicago were reclusive, seen rarely as gray blurs streaking across a road, or watching human affairs from far off. But this creature trotted a straight path that would pass close by me, without seeming to register my presence. The closer it came, the more nervous I grew. When animals lost their fear of humans, it often meant rabies, or so I'd been taught.
I backed against the car and hoisted myself up on the hood, drawing my feet after me. The narrow dark eyes peered into mine at last, as if trying to divine the meaning of this obstacle in its path. There was an intelligence in there, but one as alien as that of a shark or a snake. I slowly took out my cell phone and activated the built-in camera.
The scruffy animal trotted over to my drying urine mark, sniffing at it. But at the electronic snick of my camera phone, it leaped sideways and ran a few steps before gathering its dignity and trotting into the brush with its head and tail high.
The sun was beginning to burn, and I got back into the car for the shade. The cell phone was in my hand, and this was as good a time as any to call Natalie. I pushed her speed dial button. I heard nothing, and after a few seconds, looked at the display.
'No Service.'
I should have known. No one lived out here, and so far, I'd seen only a single vehicle other than my own. Who'd build a cell tower out here? I climbed back into my car and resumed the long, dusty drive.
Two days ago, before pointing my car west, I'd spent the entire last day lolling in the sheets with Natalie in her breezy DeKalb apartment. My most vivid mental image of her was as clear as a photograph, the pale scalp showing through the part in her golden hair as she fellated me.
She'd outdone herself that day. "There's more where that came from," she said afterward. "But Tim..." There was a long pause.
"What, Babe?" I already knew what she was going to ask. Again.
"Are you going to do that for me? You know I want you to try it. Please? You're going to be gone for such a long time."
My anger had flashed. "Not now. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I don't want to hear any more of it." Going down on her? Crawling on my knees while she stood or sat above me? That was not what a man did with women.
She shrugged, as she had on similar occasions, and changed the subject. "Can't you put off going for another day or two?"
Later, she'd gone down on me again. Maybe leaving her in Illinois for a year wasn't such a great idea after all. I looked again at the lonely wasteland around me. I'd miss that hot mouth.
The poor road kept my speed under thirty, so it was another hour before I crested a hill and looked out over a broad valley. Against a multihued backdrop of layered cliffs and peaks, a ribbon of green traced a riverbed. A scattering of white and gray houses studded the strip of habitable land.
I drove down the steep switchbacks into the town. At close range, the scene was less charming. Most of the structures were mobile homes in different stages of disrepair. Of the conventional houses, many had lost most of their paint. The remains of wrecked cars and appliances littered the landscape. Everything baked under the merciless New Mexico sun.
As I approached the end of the road, dogs ran from nearby houses, barking furiously, and gathered in a comet's tail behind and beside my car. Brown teeth and pink gums flashed at my window, inches from my shoulder, and claws scratched at the door. The glass was quickly slathered with dog saliva.
I looked in vain for signs. At the tee intersection where the road ended, brown-skinned Indian children rode bicycles in a circle. A beaten pickup truck weaved among them. Since the kids showed no signs of moving on, I stopped short of the crossroads and cautiously pushed the door open. The dogs fell back, still barking loud enough to deafen.
It wasn't very hot, but the sun chewed at my neck. A man with my coloring shouldn't stay out in this blast of ultraviolet for long. But the children rode in a circle thirty feet away, paying no attention to me or to the corrosive sun. The pickup truck turned around and again accelerated though the whirling bicycles, while the kids dodged and screamed joyfully.
The truck turned again and started back towards the kids. I waved the driver down. He skidded to a stop a few feet away and leaped out, driving the dogs back with shouts and kicks. Under a brown cowboy hat, his hair hung down his back in a long black braid.
"Dude," I said. "Which way to the clinic?"
He pointed back the way I'd come. "About a hundred miles. If you hurry, you'll make it by sunset."
My eyebrow twitched. I gestured both ways along the crossroad. I said, "Is it this way or that way?"
Even at a distance of six feet, I caught a whiff of alcohol. "This isn't tourist country," he snapped, jumping back in his truck. He yanked at the gear lever, backed up a few feet, and took off, spraying gravel against my pants. The kids howled in anticipation of another round of their dangerous game, and the dogs, roused from their afternoon slumbers, ignored me to join in among the circling bikes.
I shrugged and got back into the car. I looked both ways for clues. The circling children had moved further down the road, blocking the way to the left, so I turned right. One way was no more promising than the other.
After a half-mile, I passed a grubby gas station-minimart set among the bleak houses. Beyond, a weatherbeaten sign appeared, 'Council Offices'. Below this, in smaller letters, 'US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs'. Below that, in even smaller letters, 'Clinic in Back'.
I followed the dirt driveway behind a freshly-painted gray clapboard building to a complex of similar buildings. The first building had a dozen cars parked in front. A red sign beside the door listed the clinic hours: 8:30 to 4:30, Monday to Friday.
The waiting room was bright, and - blessed be - air-conditioned. Twenty or thirty patients sat on plastic chairs, eyes straight ahead. No one looked at me, except a toddler who cringed against his mother and stared as if I had three heads. Perhaps he had never have seen a white man, or at least a pale one with shaggy blond hair.
A woman sat behind a desk, working with a computer. I said, "Hello, my name is Tim Hyatt. I'm supposed to ask for Ms Star..."
She looked up suddenly, as if I'd startled her. "You're expected," she said, standing up. Dressed in tee shirt and jeans, she stood as tall as me, just shy of six feet. Her eyes were a dark liquid brown, and her bronze features smoother and livelier than the other faces in the room. Her age was concealed behind an aura of physical fitness. She could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty.
"Can I wash up before I see her?" A coating of dust itched my eyes and drew at my skin.
"Come with me," she said, and led the way through a door behind the desk. Glossy, black hair waved loose and straight past her shoulder blades, and the denims clung tightly to her hips. We passed examination rooms and a half-dozen people, mostly women, doing medical things - not a lot of privacy here - until we reached a door with a nameplate, 'E. Y. Star, RN, Head Nurse'. Instead of knocking, she turned the knob and walked in, seating herself behind the desk.
I sat in the single visitor chair. "I didn't realize that was you..." I stammered.
"This is a small clinic in a town where everybody knows everybody. No need for name badges here, Mr. Hyatt," she said. "Welcome to our clinic. I'm the director and the head nurse here, and the one who spoke with you on the phone. Did you find your way okay?" Her voice was soft and musical. And she wore no wedding ring. But did Indians even wear wedding rings?
"Your directions were good, but there weren't many opportunities to go wrong."
"Were you impressed? I mean, when you came into town?"
I thought for a minute how best to answer. "Not in a positive way. It's kind of bleak."
"Honest answer," she said. "You're in Indian country. The Lagalero reservation is only here because in the 1890s no one else wanted this land. It's a hundred miles from anywhere. You can only raise a few sheep on it and you can't mine anything out of it. But it's all ours."
I said nothing, thinking it was better to listen much and talk little for the first few days.
She took a file out of her desk drawer and spread it open on the desk.
"You said here that you wanted to get experience to help you get into med school."
"Yes."
"Did you have to come all the way out here for that? Don't they use student help in clinics back in Chicago?"
There was nothing I could say other than the truth. "I understand that the Bureau of Indian Affairs gives out medical scholarships..."
"...and you think a year's experience on a reservation would help your case?"
"Could it hurt?"
"Well, recommendations from the staff here will certainly help. Most important, you'll know if you could really stand six years of service on a reservation when you graduate. Our Dr. Murphy started out just like you, working in the clinic for a year. He won a scholarship and he's been back here for three years. But..."
I waited politely.
"...but he's Lagalero, and you're not. He was raised here and he's comfortable with life here."
She got up and came around her desk, moving with catlike grace. From behind, she roughly squeezed my shoulders and biceps.
"Hey!" I half stood up.
"Relax. I'm concerned about your fitness. The work will be pretty physical." She resumed her seat.
I sat down again, still unnerved. "I see you got the photos I sent." Pictures of myself in my competition swimsuit were taped inside the manila folder.
"When I asked for proof of physical fitness, I meant a letter from a teacher or team coach. I didn't really expect a Playgirl photo spread. But you made your point."
She gazed at me a moment, and said, "I've got to get back to the patients," she said. "Any questions?"
"Not really. There was that one strange question on the application."
She raised an eyebrow.
"About how I'd feel taking orders from a woman."
She smiled, the first I'd seen on anyone since driving into town. "We have only two doctors, a woman and a man, but the day to day running of the clinic is up to me. I'm the boss here. The last thing I want is some jackass coming in here with a sackful of testosterone and giving the women a hard time. God knows we get enough of it from our own men."
The glint in her eyes startled me. Behind the soft voice and lovely body was a strong spirit, a street fighter.
"The ideal man for this job should be smart and built like an ox, but able to take orders without question. In my experience, it's hard to find those three qualities in the same person at the same time. If I hire someone who's unsuitable or who leaves on me, I can't get the money put back in my budget. I have to make the right decision the first time.
"I'll show you your dormitory room and leave you there. They serve meals for government staff in the cafeteria behind the dorm. Supper's between six and seven, breakfast from six to eight. I'll expect to see you in the clinic at eight."
I stood up when she did, and followed her across a dusty courtyard that separated the clinic from another gray wooden building. She touched my elbow and said, "You know, it was your answer to that question got you the job."
Chapter 2
Showered and wearing fresh clothes, I stretched out on my bunk. The room was stark. The only luxuries were plain drapes on the window, a tiny mirror, and a cheap clock radio at the bedside. The walls were thin as paper, so I could hear every sound in the corridor and in the next rooms. But a couple of pictures on the wall, a little TV set, and it wouldn't be so bad.
'... your answer to that question got you the job,' she'd said. I picked up a file folder by the bedside, and I found the photocopy of the application I'd sent her six months before.
'The staff of the clinic is mostly female, and your supervisor will be female,' read the question. 'Will you have any problems taking orders from a woman? A one-word answer will not suffice.'
I had written, 'Whether my supervisor is male or female is unimportant. In fact, a woman can make a better boss than a man, because men are driven by issues of territory and dominance. I can be comfortable in a subordinate position to a woman, especially one who challenges me to prove myself.'
Before mailing the application, I had pondered my answer for some time. I'd inferred from the question that my boss would be a woman. My reply had sounded high-minded and noble six months ago, but now it just sounded silly. 'I can be comfortable in a subordinate position to a woman...' It evoked all sorts of perverse images. I cringed to recall it now, yet I had sent it off in the mail to someone I knew only as a voice on the phone.
And it was a lie. The more I looked at my own handwritten words, the more they had 'lie' all over them in flashing red letters. Surely, Ms. Star had seen that. I'd been raised in a home with an authoritarian father and a doting mother. She looked after both of us, making our meals and washing our clothes and making our beds without so much as a 'thank you' or a grunt in acknowledgment. But the question on the application had practically begged the reply I sent.
'A woman can make a better boss than a man...'?
Right.
On the bright side, the prospect of a female boss and coworkers had provoked visions of sexual adventures out in the mysterious West. But today, the reality - the dust, the heat, and the bleakness, not to mention Ms. Star's peculiar behavior - pushed those fantasies off into the next galaxy. This was no place to look for nookie.
The clock said 6:30, and I decided to get some food. It was an hour later in Illinois, too; time to find a phone and check in with Natalie and my folks. But as I combed my hair in the tiny wall mirror, I was startled by a knock. I opened the door, and a tall, burly man stood there. Even in the dim corridor, he hid his eyes behind dark glasses. He wore a khaki uniform with Smokey the Bear hat, a six-pointed star, and a huge holstered revolver.
"Good evening, Mr. Hyatt," he rumbled. "I'm Matt Hunter. I heard you'd arrived today."
"Hello," I said. "What can I do for you?"
"Have you got a half hour? I make a point of welcoming all the new people to town. I'll show you where things are."
"I'm kind of tired," I said. "How about - "
"I think it would be a good idea if I showed you around Lag City now." This time, he said it in a cop voice.
Puzzled, I tied my shoes quickly while he paced in the corridor. He led the way to the end door, where his white Blazer waited. The door panels were labeled 'Lagalero Tribal Police' in gold letters. The interior was neat, but smelled of cigar smoke and sweat.
"That car of yours - " He pointed to my dust-covered Taurus. The Illinois plates already looked out of place. " - it's not going to last around here at all. You'd better do something with it."
"You mean the roads? It took a beating coming in here - "
"I mean the kids will steal it or vandalize it. You need to get it garaged somewhere." He pulled past the town offices to the main road, and turned right.
We passed a steepled church, the tallest building around. Graffiti was spray-painted on the front wall, three-foot black letters on the only freshly painted building in sight. Next to it was a nondescript community hall. A bulletin board in front was covered with posters and gaily-colored announcements. "Most of the social things in Lag City happen in the hall and the church," said Hunter.
For the next minute, he was silent as we rolled slowly down the road. Anxious to talk about something, I said, "Have you lived here all your life?"
"Almost." He lit a cigarillo and lodged it in the corner of his mouth. "I left the rez for a few years and got in a couple of years of college - community college - and then I went into law enforcement. After six months, I was divorced and homesick, and they needed another cop around here."
"Homesick? For this place." I immediately regretted my outburst, but since it was too late, I could only wait for his reaction.
"Son, I was born within a gunshot of where we are right now. Good or bad, home always sticks with you. There are other reasons to stay, too. Maybe in a year, you'll understand about us."
Relieved that he wasn't angry, I pushed further. "Miss Star's an RN. She must have gone away to school for quite a while."
He snickered. "She planned to get out of here altogether. She went to nursing school and got an RN and went to work in Albuquerque. But she got tired of the racism, and when her mother was murdered, she came back to Lag for the ceremony and never left."
"Murdered?"
He nodded soberly. "When her stepdad got drunk, he'd decide Star's mom was screwing somebody, and he'd punch her some. The guy who was police chief at the time thought wife beating was a fact of life, and he didn't interfere. One day, her dad came home and beat her mom's skull in. He's in prison for life."
"Jesus!"
"Shocking, isn't it? At least, if you're a biliga'ana boy from the Midwest. Too bad, but it's the kind of story you'll hear around here. Too much alcohol and drugs, no work, and nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of the same. And then there's meth. Goddam stuff is popping up everywhere, even killing people. If anything destroys the tribe, it'll be drugs, but meth is the worst of all."
About twenty teenaged boys were clustered in front of an open garage. As one, they glared at the police car with exaggerated venom. A forest of middle fingers went up.
"They've been warned away from that place."
Hunter shouted through the open window in a language that was soft and musical, entirely incongruous with the obvious message. The youths shouted back in the same language, plus a few English phrases. "Fuck you," and "Arrest this, pig." But they began to move slowly away from the garage.
"Fucking Snakes," said Hunter. "They pretend to be big city bangers. Lag City's too small for a supermarket or a movie theater, but it's big enough for two gangs." He turned the car around and started back the other way. "They'll be back there in a half-hour, and I'll get a call. I'll have to call Charlie Two Clouds to help me take a couple of those fuckers to the cells for the night."
I hadn't noticed one of the teenagers chasing after the car until Hunter suddenly braked, and the kid beat on the window. "Hey, is the white kid the nurse's new fucktoy?" he shouted.
Hunter put the car in park and calmly said, "That was the wrong thing to say." He kicked the door open, knocking the wiry kid into the dust, and jumped out. His tonfa stick materialized in his hand. Lifting the teenager by the shirt, he tapped the side of his head with the baton, speaking in Lagalero in a cadence with the taps, as if reciting a poem. He pushed the kid onto the road and got back in, snickering, as the kid lay on his elbows and shouted curses.
After we'd started down the road, he said, "He scores points with the other assholes by doing that. I can only try to make it a little less rewarding."
"He said that in English. He meant me to hear it, didn't he," I said. Testosterone and adrenaline flooded my veins. I had tried to memorize the kid's face, in case I came across him later. If it became necessary to establish a presence around here, sooner or later I might have to beat the crap out of someone. It was not too soon to start looking for candidates.
"The younger men around here, especially the gang-bangers, hate women in authority," said Hunter, "But if the women didn't take charge of things, nothing at all would get done.
"The punks aren't crazy about white people, either." He looked at me as if to make certain I was listening. "Unless they're bringing drugs. Until people get used to seeing you around, you'd better not stray very far from the clinic, and you shouldn't come down to this end of town at all.
"But they're just kids. The ones you have to watch out for are the Redskin Rangers. They're the tough ones, the career criminals."
"Ms. Star seems like a nice lady," I said, trying to change the subject.
"She's a fine woman, but a little uppity for this place. She doesn't take any shit from the men around here, including me. There's rumors circulating about her, but you'd be smart to ignore them. Her job protects her some. She's pulled more than one bullet out of those gang kids when there's been no doctor around."
Gangs, bullets, drugs, murder, prison. What I learned during my year off college, by Tim Hyatt.
We drove slowly to the other end of town. Hunter pointed out the places I should know about, the schools, an auto repair shop, and such, until the main road ended in a grove of trees and a little pond. It was the first open water I'd seen in hundreds of miles. Two pickup trucks were parked at a little pumphouse, filling the ubiquitous plastic tanks, which were as wide as the bed of the truck and three or four feet high. .
"There's a spring here, right next to the river. That's all the good water we've got, not enough to grow anything. The river floods a couple of times a year, but it does no good. It only causes damage."
He paused a long time, staring at the pond. "Look here, Mr. Hyatt. Some of the clinic people wanted me to talk to you in confidence. I'm sure you won't repeat it to anyone, especially Star."
He turned to face me. "You won't repeat it, will you? Ever?"
"Whatever you say, Mr. Hunter."
"Star has a reputation for getting it on with most of the college boys she's hired. Everyone in town's aware that she hires only hunky biliga'ana boys.
"What she does with them is her business, but last year, the boy she hired wasn't interested. I think he was gay, or something worse. Star was miserable for the whole time, and when she's miserable, everyone around her is miserable, too. She was written up by the Health Service for the way she's been treating the nurses. One of them even quit. That's a desperate move when jobs are so scarce.
"Everyone around here's got a stake in the clinic. It started as a coat closet in the tribal council office, and she's built it up from that. She's one of us, too, and nobody wants to replace her, even if we could. But the situation's out of hand."
He looked at me, his eyes fierce. "Are you getting my message?"
"You make it sound like it's all on me to save the clinic."
"I don't think I could put it any better, Mr. Hyatt, but that's all I'm going to say about that. You go on and work in the clinic as if we never had this conversation. Understand?" He looked grimly at the pond again.
My face burned. I didn't know what to say, other than, "I understand."
Hunter said no more, and put the Blazer back in gear again. Back at the dormitory, he climbed out of the idling truck and soberly shook my hand. "Well, Mr. Hyatt, welcome to our home. I hope you won't regret coming here."
Oh, I regretted it, all right. My gut was heavy with a horrible sinking depression. I had three hundred and sixty-four more days to endure this hellhole of violence and poverty. Not to mention the bizarre clues I had gathered about my lady boss. I felt a little stomach-sick.
Instead, I forced a smile and a "Have a nice evening," as Hunter got back into his Blazer and moved it the 200 feet to its spot behind the town headquarters.
It was too late to get some supper, but I was able to buy a withered hot dog and a Coke at the gas station. Night was falling fast as I strolled back to the dorm. I watched as the thin clouds lit up salmon pink and violet. Just for a moment under that glorious light, things didn't seem so bad after all.
Chapter 3
I woke to a narrow beam of sunlight shining past the edge of the curtains into my eyes. My first thought was, 'I forgot to call Natalie'. My second thought was, 'I didn't set the alarm last night.'
The clock said 8:15. Great Jumpin' Jesus! To sleep in on my first day of work! I sprang out of bed and gathered my toiletry kit. I'd stayed awake a long time thinking about Ms. Star. Until Matt Hunter's revelations of the night before, I'd scarcely thought of her in a sexual way. After that, I thought of nothing else.
I quickly washed, shaved, and pulled on fresh clothes in the deserted communal bathroom. Still pulling a comb through my hair, I crossed the courtyard and went through the clinic door at 8:40.
Ms. Star stood looking over the shoulder of a clerk at a keyboard. When she looked up, her eyes sparked and her nostrils flared. "Come with me," she snapped. I followed her into the office area.
Out of sight of the patients, she turned abruptly and planted an index finger in my breastbone. "You're late, and it's your first day. When I say eight o'clock, I don't mean forty minutes after eight, or even two minutes after eight. I mean exactly eight o'clock, or earlier. The doors open for patients at 8:30 and we will be ready."
I put my hands on my hips. I was about to say, 'I was tired after the long drive,' but I hated making excuses. Excuses always made you look weak. Instead, I narrowed my eyes and said, "Sorry. It won't happen again." I tried meeting her gaze, but it was difficult looking her in the eye.
"I expect not," she said, and she softened her voice. "Now here's your first assignment. When you're a doctor, you'll be able to tell your patients that you worked your way from the bottom." She pointed to a cart full of flat stainless steel containers. As I stared at it, I realized that I was looking at about two dozen bedpans. "Get 'em nice and clean."
I suppressed the urge to complain and decided to put the right face on it. "OK, Ms. Star, where do I work and where are the tools? I'll make up the lost time." I made my voice sound bouncy and enthusiastic, as if I'd eagerly anticipated this cart full of bedpans since leaving Illinois.
"In the staff toilet. Ask for Rose and she'll show you."
I found the staff toilet, which apparently doubled as the sanitation room. Besides the toilet bowl, hand sink and shower, there was a deep tub on one wall, and a rack with antibacterial soap and a plastic mesh scrubber. There were rubber gloves, too, but they were too small for my hands.
I asked around the office for Rose, but all I got were two blank looks and a muttered 'Doing an errand somewhere.' But what could be hard about cleaning bedpans? I could ask Rose later, and confirm that I'd done it right.
I went back and wheeled the cart to the little room, and used it to prop the door open. I took a bedpan from the top shelf. It had quite a bit in it. I dumped the contents into the tub, and the ugly mass swirled into the drain and instantly blocked it. The stench rose up, thick and nauseating, and drove me back toward the door.
A short woman in a white tunic came to the door and said, "Shut that damn door. It stinks out here. Do you even know what you're doing?"
It stinks out there? I weep for you! I'm in here with the stink! I pulled the cart all the way into the room and closed the door. I searched in vain for a ventilation fan switch before turning my attention back to the sink. I tried washing the disgusting lump down the drain, but the stream of water was not enough, and drops of water spattered on my face. I screwed up my courage, scooped it from the drain with my fingers, and carried it dripping to the toilet. Disgusted to the point of retching, I washed my hands several times with the antibacterial soap.
The door opened, and an older woman came in. "You're Tim?" she said. "Oh, boy, I can tell what you're doing wrong just from the stink. There's rules for everything here, even bedpans."
She put on the gloves and reached under the sink for a gallon bottle of a blue liquid. "I'm only going to show you once, Tim, so pay attention." She poured a few ounces of the liquid into some of the pans. "You swill it around, just a little, and let it sit for five minutes. Then you dump it in the toilet and wash it out with a pan of the same stuff." She demonstrated, using the gloves that were already there.
"The gloves don't fit me," I said.
She left for a second and brought back a new pair of Extra Large for me, and stood over me while I washed two of the pans myself. Before she left, she said, "I'm going to get the OSHA handbook and leave it outside this door. You better read it before tomorrow."
When I finished, everything gleamed. I'd even washed the cart and sink with the diluted blue liquid. After triumphantly rolling the finished pans to the oven for sterilizing, I sought out my new boss. She was poring over a stack of forms in her office.
"Next, we have to take some blood from you," she told me. "The mail plane takes the routine samples out on Tuesday afternoons, and that's today. We need to give you a complete physical and establish your state of health before you start working here."
"Well, my health might never be the same after cleaning those bedpans," I said. I smiled, to make sure she knew I was joking.
She caught it, and once again flashed the same pretty smile I'd seen yesterday afternoon.
She had me bring her a urine sample, and led me into a little room to take my pulse and blood pressure. She had me lay my arm across a table. When she put on the tourniquet, I started to sweat, and yellow comets drifted across my vision.
"You're not going to faint, are you?"
"I'll be okay, Ms. Star." I clenched my stomach muscles to stay conscious. I felt the prick of the needle and a dark curtain threatened to obscure my vision altogether.
"Everyone here just calls me Star, and you should, too," she said.
"Is it a nickname?" My words sounded as if spoken by someone else into a long pipe. The walls swooped gracefully around me. She held my arm in place and changed blood tubes.
"My full name is Elaine Yellow Star, and my maternal clan is Lightning-Under-Water. When I was born, the star Sirius was at its height. We call it Ma'i, the coyote; white people call it the Dog Star. The shaman named me after it. What's funny, is that Ma'i is so obviously blue. While preparing for my puberty ritual, I asked the holy man why, and he said, 'Because the Dog Star is yellow.' I mean, you only have to look at it to see it's blue, but I wasn't old enough to contradict the shaman. I just thanked him. Many years later, I finally found out what he meant."
"I don't understand."
"I had a visitor from a Texas tribe, who told me that Blue Star was his favorite brand of beer. The medicine man wanted to name me after my star, but he didn't want to name me after a beer, especially a Texan one."
How I loved listening to her soft voice! She continued, "First I dropped my biliga'ana name when I got politics. I called myself Yellow Star until I went away to college. But my roommate was Jewish and told me what 'yellow star' meant to her. So I shortened my name again, to just Star."
She pulled the needle out. Her tale had distracted me so that she'd drawn five tubes of blood without my noticing.
"Jeez, that's a lot of blood," I said, holding the cotton to my arm and swaying in my seat. "Do you have to feed the vampires, or what?"
"Oh, we have a lot of diseases to worry about around here," she said. "We do a complete chemical screen, drug testing, some antibodies, and STDs."
"STDs? You think I've got the clap?"
"I don't think anything. We have rules. We have to know if you have anything when you come in here. You should be warned - STDs are a big issue on the rez, everything from chlamydia to gonorrhea to AIDS."
She had another needle, which only went just under the skin, for TB testing. It didn't bother me at all. As she threw the needles in the biohazard bin, I started to get up. She said, "Hold on. We've got to do your physical now. Get your shirt off and get up on the table."
I tried to stay calm as I unbuttoned my shirt and shrugged it off.
She held a stethoscope to my back, with the usual commands to hold my breath, breathe in, breathe out. Her fingers drifted across my skin like warm feathers, and I began to respond physiologically.
"Lay back," she said, and listened with the stethoscope to my chest, in more places than any doctor has checked before or since. When her finger brushed my nipple, possibly by accident, an electric thrill rippled over my body. I was becoming more aroused by the minute. She put her hand flat on my belly and tapped that hand with the other, the way doctors do, moving to several places just above my belt.
For a moment, nothing happened, and I looked down. A hand hovered over my belly, edging tentatively toward the bulge in my jeans. When she saw my look, she snatched her hand back. "Stand up," she snapped. "Drop your jeans and underwear."
Christ! I was nearly fully erect. I hesitated too long, and she said, "You're going to be carrying heavy loads. I have to check for an inguinal hernia. Drop 'em."
As a competitive swimmer, I knew that much. Someone always seemed to have a hand in my crotch. I loosened my belt and let the jeans and underwear fall. But this time, she seemed wholly clinical, reaching underneath without looking, and having me turn my head and cough. She couldn't have missed my all too obvious condition, but she didn't linger or comment.
Once she'd seated me at the table again, she checked off a long list of questions about my medical history. Finally, very businesslike, she took the clipboard and blood tubes with her and left the room, saying, "The doctor will be here in a minute."
It was more like twenty minutes before a small Lagalero woman came into the room. She had been the one who'd yelled at me for leaving the toilet door open.
She introduced herself as Toni Waters. She scanned the clipboard. "Hmm. This is just a routine physical. Star knows what she's doing better than most of we doctors. Any questions? Any problems I should know about?"
"No - well, just one. Are STDs such a big problem on the reservation?"
She signed the form. "Why, yes. They're all over the place. Why?"
"Star said some of my blood was to look for STDs. It's required for new people here."
She smiled, and her white teeth shone against bronze skin. "Only the AIDS test is required by law. We may have other STDs here, too, but those tests aren't required for your job. But Star is always going the extra mile for her student help."
"What does that mean?"
Waters sat down and leaned close. "Nothing - just that Star takes extra good care of her temporary employees. We know you'll want to return the loyalty. Everyone at the clinic is rooting for you. Life might return to normal around here."
If I thought I'd been embarrassed in my meeting with Matt Hunter, I must have been bright crimson then. But I nodded soberly, trying hard to look serious.
At the very least, I knew exactly what was expected of me.
For some reason, this reminded me to call Natalie at lunchtime. She'd be hopping mad by now.
Chapter 4
I had already tried unsuccessfully to raise a cell phone signal, but a clerk told me there was an 800-only phone in the cafeteria, and the gas station sold phone cards. At noon, I put on my sunglasses, prepared to walk up the drive to buy a card, when Star spoke from behind.
"Forget your lunch hour. I've got to show you something, and this is the only time I'll have today."
I bit back a remark and followed her out the door. She carried a lunch-sized cooler and a brown paper bag.
"Do you have a water bottle?" she said.
"No."
She led me to a beaten old Jeep. "You'll have to share mine for now. Get one of your own soon. And get yourself a wide hat and a big tube of sunblock. You'll need them here, or we'll be popping tumors off you before autumn."
"Where are we going?"
"Some errands, and I've got to show you one of your jobs."
My stomach contracted. Maybe she was about to show me what I now understood to be my 'main job'. Had I washed properly this morning, in my rush? I had at least brushed my teeth.
There were no seat belts, and I hung onto the roll bar as she tore down the drive and bounced onto the road.
"You'll have to store that Taurus and get an old piece-of-crap rez rocket that's tougher and not worth stealing," she shouted over the roar of the Jeep and the wind.
We left a huge dust cloud behind as we sped down to the end of the road. Just before the pond, Star turned off the gravel onto an inconspicuous dirt road and up a steep slope, following a barely visible trail over the rock. After another mile, we arrived at a dirt airstrip marked off by 55 gallon steel drums. A white twin-engine airplane waited near a small shed.
"Don't bother getting out," she said. "This guy'll talk your ear off." Without turning off the engine, she hopped out of the Jeep and took the cooler to a Lagalero man who sat on a chair in the shade of the little shed. She spoke for half a minute to the man, who waved at me.
She jumped back in and rammed the gearshift lever forward. "The blood goes off to Santa Fe for analysis. It's a light week. Only fourteen samples, including yours."
We plummeted down the hill at a speed that bounced me clear of my seat so that I had to hang on with two hands. Back to the tee intersection , she skidded onto the road I'd followed when I'd arrived in town just yesterday.
"Pay attention to where I'm driving. Part of your job will be picking up patients who have no one to drive them, so you have to learn the reservation roads pretty well. The more you drive around, the better. We have an air-conditioned van for patients, but it's on the way to Santa Fe today, taking someone for treatment."
After a few miles, she turned off the main road, and raced down another dirt track. She pulled up at a crossroad and paused for the dust to roll away in the light breeze. She pointed to the left. "If you're interested in prehistoric Native American culture, there's some ruins a few miles down this road, completely undisturbed. Some of our old men say our ancestors lived there, but that's not very likely. Either way, it's sacred to our people. It's also in a nice cool spot in the mountains."
"The more I learn about this place, the more I guess I'll like it," I said. "I'd really like to see that." With the right vehicle, I could make the year pass quicker by exploring this not-so-little bit of the Great West. Some ancient ruins would be a good start.
"Good. We'll make a picnic of it on Saturday."
"Just you and I?"
"Is that a problem? Should I invite others?"
"No, no. Just asking. I'm already looking forward to it." A whole day alone with this beautiful woman? I felt an anxious quiver in my belly.
Star took the paper bag from beside her seat. "You were going to lunch when I drafted you. I've got a couple of chicken sandwiches here. I made them in the cafeteria kitchen this morning. We can eat them and go on."
She turned toward me in her seat and handed me a sandwich with a delicate hand. I ate it slowly and respectfully, acutely aware that her hand had made it, touched it. When I turned toward her, our knees brushed. Neither of us moved to break the contact as we ate and then talked.
She had me tell her more about myself, and I told her again, in more detail, how I had come to New Mexico as part of my master plan to get into medical school. I carefully avoided mention of Natalie. My parents could never afford the costs of medical school, I told her, and I wanted to avoid the fate of others who were trapped in eternal payment of student loans.
"How about a girlfriend? A handsome, twenty-two-year old athlete would have to have a girlfriend." She took a drink from her water bottle and passed it to me.
I took a long, slow drink before answering. "I've had a few. There's one girl I've been going with, but I don't know if it'll last for the year I'm gone." I was uncomfortable with the lie. Natalie and I were informally engaged - no ring yet, but a promise I'd made in exchange for personal intimacy.
"We do let you go home for Christmas, don't forget. You can renew your relationship then." She studied me with those fascinating eyes, which lost only a little of their sparkle in the bright sun. Every word I said would count now.
"Maybe, maybe not," I said. "A lot can happen in seven months."
I hoped to God my message was clear.
We drove for an hour and a half, stopping at isolated sheep and goat ranches and clusters of trailer homes. The hogans were rarely spaced closer than a mile from one another. Star taught me not to walk directly up to one. It was considered very bad manners in these parts. We waited outside each hogan until we were noticed from inside. Since nearly everyone had a few furiously barking dogs, this rarely took long. Star showed me how to hold the dogs at bay with a gruff voice and carefully metered kicks until the owners called them off.
With an elaborate ritual of reciting names and clan relationships, Star introduced me to some of my future passengers. A couple of lonely patients refused to let us leave without plying us with tea and biscuits or fry bread, and we didn't return to the clinic until mid-afternoon.
She introduced me to my final job of the day, mopping the floors in the wards. The clinic was larger than I'd realized. There were five acute beds in the main clinic. In a separate building were fifteen more beds for chronic patients. To tend all these patients, there was a day staff of only four. I mopped out all the wards and restrooms until well past the clinic's official closing time. It didn't help that some of the chronic patients were always anxious to talk.
At six o'clock, I finally bought a phone card and found my way to the cafeteria. The phone was in use, and I was starving, so I decided to eat before calling Natalie. Chicken stew and chicken lo mein were on the menu, but the two dishes looked about the same. I took the stew, and found a seat at one of the dozen round tables. A dash of soy sauce, to my amusement, turned the stew into lo mein.
"Can I sit with you?" The deep voice belonged to a tall white man. He had grown his hair and wore it in a single thick braid like most of the Lagalero men. I waved him to a seat, and he set down his tray.
"You're Star's new clinic assistant, aren't you? Just in yesterday?"
"That's me." Is this going to be another lecture on Star's physical needs?
"And you're...?" He reached out a hand, and I shook it.
"Tim Hyatt, from Chicago. I just finished my junior year at Northern Illinois University. Psychology."
"I'm Bob Haynes. I'm the pastor at the church down the road. The BIA agent lets me eat here at the Government rate. Saves a few dollars."
"Pastor? The church looks Roman Catholic."
"It's that, too. The priest and I share the physical facilities, but he has to drive in from Farmington every week, and he resents it a lot."
"I saw the decorating job the kids did on your building."
He chuckled. "I'll wait a few days, and paint over it, and they'll do it again. The paint's gotten heavy enough to pull the wall down one of these days."
"You just sort of live with it, then?"
"There's not a lot of choice. The kids are tireless. All that youthful energy with nowhere to put it. No stable family structure to guide them. No hope for a future."
"Well, it wasn't very promising to me, either," I said. "After I'd been in town a few minutes, it depressed me, and I only have to be here for a year. I can't imagine being here for... But you've been here how long?"
"Twelve years. But my wife had the same reaction as you. She moved back to Tucson. I go home for a few days every three or four weeks."
"Can you drive that in a day?"
"If I have to. But I know all the pilots, and whenever I can, I hitch a ride on the Piper Seneca they fly in here every week. It's supposed to be only for Government people, but there's almost always an extra two or three seats."
"Really?" I thought of blessed freedom. A few days in Santa Fe or Albuquerque to break up the deadly monotony of reservation life. And I'd only been here one day.
"What do you do, Tim? I mean hobbies, things you like doing, and such."
"I like building things with my hands. I'm not bad with carpentry and electrical. I've even done plumbing. I read a lot of medical stuff, books and such. I swim in competition, and I lift weights. I've got a whole set in the trunk of my car."
"I saw that car out there. You should get it garaged."
"So I've been told. Twice. Three times now." I laughed. "I guess when so many people say the same thing, I'd better do it."
"Probably. You know, if you have any construction skills at all, you're desperately needed around here. Some people have let their houses get run down simply because they don't know how to fix things and they can't afford to pay anyone else to do it. And more of our young people could get construction jobs if they even knew how to drive a nail."
"That sounds good. The evenings are going to get pretty long otherwise."
"Perhaps," he said, "but you might end up working longer hours for Star than you anticipate."
"Unlikely. I just worked until nearly six, and the clinic was deserted..." At that point, I understood his meaning. It surely showed on my face, because the pastor's face split in a knowing smile. Did every fucking person in town know?
I stood up. "I see the phone's finally available. I've got to call my girlfriend."
Chapter 5
Natalie answered her cell on the second ring.
"Well, hello, Tim." Her voice was cool. Where were the tears and pleading of four days ago?
"I got in yesterday late, Babe. Sorry I didn't call."
"It would only have taken a minute. I've been worried about you."
"Natalie, there's no cell service here, and just one pay phone in the cafeteria, with a lot of people lined up to use it. Babe, we're talking pri-mi-tive." I pronounced each syllable as a separate word.
"I wish you hadn't gone. I miss you. I don't know why you didn't take that job at Mercy Hospital."
"You know why. You talked me out of it, Babe. You said that part of Chicago was too violent and I'd probably get shot." Yeah, I won't get shot here, will I? "Anyway, there's more opportunity here. Remember what I said about the scholarships?"
"I remember, but I'm still not sure I want to go and live on some reservation for six years."
"They're not prisons. You can come and go to cities like Santa Fe and Albuquerque whenever you want." If you want to choke on dust and bounce your kidneys out your ass, that is.
"I've seen pictures of reservations."
"But we'd have fresh air and peace and quiet."
Oh, yes. Fresh air. You bet. And lots of peace and quiet, too.
She talked about her friends and her shopping for a few minutes. Her nasal voice irritated me. Why couldn't she have a soft, sexy voice, like Star's? But I had committed myself to her, and the sex was good.
Eventually, I had enough. I said, "Babe, there's other people waiting to use the phone, and I've still got to call my Mom and Dad. Call you in a couple of days. Love you."