Read Online Zuni Stew: A Novel by Kent Jacobs - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kent Jacobs
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stuff.”
Stan drove a faded red VW bug with ratty seats. He turned out to be a talker, a big guy with thinning grey hair and bushy sideburns. His pharmacy jacket barely buttoned over his gut.
At Vanderwagen, he pulled in to pick up his mail. The post office was inside the White Water Trading Post, on the left.
Jack wandered past the silversmithing area. Findings, silver. Drills, polishing machines. Turquoise, coral, bone, agate, shells, and amethyst. All in bins, sold by the pound. Zunis, as well as two Navajo women in long skirts, waited at the pawn counter.
The trading post had it all: blankets, saddles, rifles, chainsaws. Jack needed only one thing—sustenance. He spotted a couple of shelves of foodstuffs in a small room. Skirting the pawn line, he almost tripped over a drunk propped up in the corner.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
The man, who was probably thirty but looked sixty, slurred, “Why did you do this to me?”
“What?” Jack leaned closer. The man’s hands were shaking and tears were running down his cheeks.
“I’m gonna go crazy. Buy me a beer...”
“What you need is a shower and some food. Get a job.”
“If I had a job, man, I’d get my wife back. Get my family...”
A woman, her face creased and leathered, said, “Come on, Earl, coffee in the truck.”
He helped lug the guy to his feet. The man kept muttering ‘Lost my place in line.’ Jack snapped up a loaf of fry bread, paid for it, and was in the VW before Stan showed up.
“I saw you met Earl,” said Stan, turning on to the highway. “Since his brother was killed in Vietnam, he’s never spent more than a week outside of jail. It’s the whiskey. Some winter he’s going to freeze to death.”
Jack and his twenty-five cent fry bread left Gallup just before two o’clock in a USPHS-labeled white Chevrolet, ready to take over as the only doctor available for the whole damn Jicarilla Apache nation.
Mario checked out a dozen trading posts in Gallup. He had to step over a half-dozen drunks in the space of an hour, and was disgusted and angry by the time he finally hit on something at a spot in the road called Vanderwagen. A hung-over Zuni remembered being in line, trying to pawn a necklace. Mario dropped a five in his lap. It disappeared. An Anglo, “Blue Eyes,” the man called him, bought fry bread. Mario pressed for more—what was he driving, which way did he head. All he got was a blank look. Indians were good at that.
A platinum-blonde woman with a beehive hairdo came out of the walk-in vault. Seeing Mario, she asked if he needed help.
“No, I got what I needed. Tell me, do the Indians around here get drunk every weekend?”
“Around here every day is a weekend,” she responded.
Mario slammed the screen door of the trading post behind him, stubbing his toe on the iron bars. The wheels of his car spewed gravel as he headed toward Zuni.
Jack drove north on Route 666 to Shiprock, toward Farmington. He was in Navajo country. A hexagonal hogan beside every house. His mind drifted. The lake house. Silver Bay. Lake Superior, more like the Atlantic Ocean than a lake. The opposite of the parched expanse in front of him. Desolate, windblown.
The road was bad; he was detoured repeatedly to the side of the pockmarked pavement. He passed a solitary Indian. Where was he headed? There wasn’t a dwelling in sight. What do they do out here? Herd sheep, craft jewelry. Make babies for the white doctors to deliver.
Crownpoint and Kayente to the west. Monument Valley in the distance. No trees, no gardens. An occasional trailer, truck. Ramshackle fencing, a hogan. The light crystalized, a mirage appeared out of nowhere. He was in it. The light was mind-boggling, reaching his eyes with a fluttering effect. A shimmer. Scintillation and shimmer. He had never experienced such a clear head.
East at Shiprock, rumbling onto a steel-structured bridge over the San Juan River. Irrigated fields of alfalfa and corn. He
Stan drove a faded red VW bug with ratty seats. He turned out to be a talker, a big guy with thinning grey hair and bushy sideburns. His pharmacy jacket barely buttoned over his gut.
At Vanderwagen, he pulled in to pick up his mail. The post office was inside the White Water Trading Post, on the left.
Jack wandered past the silversmithing area. Findings, silver. Drills, polishing machines. Turquoise, coral, bone, agate, shells, and amethyst. All in bins, sold by the pound. Zunis, as well as two Navajo women in long skirts, waited at the pawn counter.
The trading post had it all: blankets, saddles, rifles, chainsaws. Jack needed only one thing—sustenance. He spotted a couple of shelves of foodstuffs in a small room. Skirting the pawn line, he almost tripped over a drunk propped up in the corner.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
The man, who was probably thirty but looked sixty, slurred, “Why did you do this to me?”
“What?” Jack leaned closer. The man’s hands were shaking and tears were running down his cheeks.
“I’m gonna go crazy. Buy me a beer...”
“What you need is a shower and some food. Get a job.”
“If I had a job, man, I’d get my wife back. Get my family...”
A woman, her face creased and leathered, said, “Come on, Earl, coffee in the truck.”
He helped lug the guy to his feet. The man kept muttering ‘Lost my place in line.’ Jack snapped up a loaf of fry bread, paid for it, and was in the VW before Stan showed up.
“I saw you met Earl,” said Stan, turning on to the highway. “Since his brother was killed in Vietnam, he’s never spent more than a week outside of jail. It’s the whiskey. Some winter he’s going to freeze to death.”
Jack and his twenty-five cent fry bread left Gallup just before two o’clock in a USPHS-labeled white Chevrolet, ready to take over as the only doctor available for the whole damn Jicarilla Apache nation.
Mario checked out a dozen trading posts in Gallup. He had to step over a half-dozen drunks in the space of an hour, and was disgusted and angry by the time he finally hit on something at a spot in the road called Vanderwagen. A hung-over Zuni remembered being in line, trying to pawn a necklace. Mario dropped a five in his lap. It disappeared. An Anglo, “Blue Eyes,” the man called him, bought fry bread. Mario pressed for more—what was he driving, which way did he head. All he got was a blank look. Indians were good at that.
A platinum-blonde woman with a beehive hairdo came out of the walk-in vault. Seeing Mario, she asked if he needed help.
“No, I got what I needed. Tell me, do the Indians around here get drunk every weekend?”
“Around here every day is a weekend,” she responded.
Mario slammed the screen door of the trading post behind him, stubbing his toe on the iron bars. The wheels of his car spewed gravel as he headed toward Zuni.
Jack drove north on Route 666 to Shiprock, toward Farmington. He was in Navajo country. A hexagonal hogan beside every house. His mind drifted. The lake house. Silver Bay. Lake Superior, more like the Atlantic Ocean than a lake. The opposite of the parched expanse in front of him. Desolate, windblown.
The road was bad; he was detoured repeatedly to the side of the pockmarked pavement. He passed a solitary Indian. Where was he headed? There wasn’t a dwelling in sight. What do they do out here? Herd sheep, craft jewelry. Make babies for the white doctors to deliver.
Crownpoint and Kayente to the west. Monument Valley in the distance. No trees, no gardens. An occasional trailer, truck. Ramshackle fencing, a hogan. The light crystalized, a mirage appeared out of nowhere. He was in it. The light was mind-boggling, reaching his eyes with a fluttering effect. A shimmer. Scintillation and shimmer. He had never experienced such a clear head.
East at Shiprock, rumbling onto a steel-structured bridge over the San Juan River. Irrigated fields of alfalfa and corn. He
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