Read Online The Darkness Rolling by Win Blevins - Free Book Online Page B

please,” she said. Miss Darnell placed her pretty chin in the palm of her hand and leaned forward. “Other than who you are not going to marry.”
    I wanted to tell my story, because it would raise me in her eyes. Of course, the story was mostly about my family. My grandfather, and his devotion to the trading post, to his family, to the Navajo people, and especially to educating me. I was a branch on Grandpa’s tree. A branch growing thicker and thicker, I implied.
    As I talked, she gazed at me with those river-green eyes, eyes that told me that what I was saying was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard. In her life? That wasn’t possible.
    The food came—mine the green chile stew, hers the spicy hominy soup. While we ate, I made a couple of attempts to turn the conversation to her, but she steered it back to me. “You’re such a rare creature,” she commented. I thought I liked that, though I wasn’t sure.
    When we finished eating, she led the way to the bar and sailed back into her margaritas. I studied out the room. It didn’t look like there was anything or anyone to worry about. Which was a good thing, because she was tipsy for sure now. That made her smile more charming, her laugh more heady, and she begged more hungrily for my stories. She clasped my forearm every time she got excited or silly.
    My first full-fledged dunk into star power. I was swimming her current just fine, but it was one whale of a ride.
    Then, like pink sky breaking into deep blue, her whole attitude changed. She waved at Julius, got his attention, and beckoned him over. In an imperious tone she said, “Julius, thank you for everything today. I’ll be all right now. I won’t be needing you.”
    When he started to protest, she gave him a look that said, Be gone, little man, and not a word. And he was gone.
    She gave me a long look of appraisal and eventually took a chance. “Yazzie,” she said, the first time she’d called me that, “being a movie star is a lot of work. I’m always on. I can’t be myself with movie people, and they’re not themselves with me. It’s playacting. All of it.”
    The bartender came to ask if we wanted another drink, but before he could speak, she shook her head no.
    “I’m wondering if you and I could be friends.”
    I was stumped.
    “I had good friends in Dallas, regular folks. I talked to the girls about clothes and makeup and boys, and talked to the boys about hunting and baseball. Real stuff.”
    Another left turn. I couldn’t get a word out.
    She rescued me. “So, friends?”
    “Sure,” I said.
    She sized me up. “I think you’d better see me to my room now.”
    I did.
    At the door she said, “Don’t stay up all night and stand next to my door, please. Studio protection, it’s too much. As I told Julius, if anything happens, I’ll scream loud enough to wake the dead.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Enjoy your night with Julius,” she said.
    I didn’t think leaving her alone in a room with a skeleton-key lock was such a hot idea, but I’d been given instructions, and I wasn’t going to buck them. She wasn’t the one paying me, but she was the boss. At least when it came to me.
    My room was enough to calm me to the inside of my bones, despite the delicious Linda Darnell. Julius’s wheeze was soft. The room was pretty. Black-and-white tiles, the two finest carved wooden headboards I had ever seen, and a claw-foot bathtub. I cleaned myself up and opened the windows. Some kind of tree with feathery leaves blew against the screen, just a gentle caress. La Posada truly was a paradise hidden in the middle of the desert, and, I have to say, a real surprise tucked inside a mostly ugly town. I fell asleep listening to the leaves and smelling sage in the garden below.
    The next morning Julius was gone. I found him upright and standing opposite her door. Not to be outdone, I leaned on the wall next to him. I could hear Miss Darnell humming while she got ready, some Mexican