air was being sucked out of him.
âItâs a nice one, Leaning Bird,â she said.
She could see that her words jolted him. He inhaled deeply and let his breath out. It sounded like years of breath and secrets withheld.
She went on impersonally, âLeaning Bird. Single family, dating from about eleven hundred A.D. , lots of potsherds and corncobs still in it because itâs on the Navajo side and itâs hard to land there. If you take the timeâ¦â
He struggled not to get sucked into the magnetism that sang to him from Leaning Bird. He grabbed Zahnieâs words as a lifeline to the present and held on.
âI mentioned time. Youâve heard about Navajo time?â
âKind of, yes.â
âItâs similar to what Anglos call mañana landâitâll get done when it gets done. Maybe. Makes them very impatient. Navajos, we think itâs what whites donât know, what they donât hear. Leaning Bird reminds people of that rhythm. That things happen when they happen, no rush, give everything the attention it needs, get to the next thing whenever you get there. Which will piss off an employer who is expecting you at nine oâclock.â
He paid attention to the ebb and flow of her words.
She said, âThis is amazing country, ruins and rivers and red-rock walls. You want the short, white-man version of where you are?â
âSure.â
âThese rock walls date to more than two hundred million years ago, when dinosaurs were roaming around. Further downriver, the walls rise higher. The whole area was pushed up by a collision between oceanic and continental plates. When they collided, the rock layers were folded up, just like when you push on a rug. The river has since cut its way down the crevices into the fold.
âThis place is a map of time on the earth, geologic time. The river cuts a giant slice and lays it bare so you can see it, where the ocean once was, where all the layers were formed, fossils from sea creatures. A million years here, a million there. You understand time passing, shaping the earth, how things changed and how they keep changing, going on forever. You donât feel it with head knowledge. Itâs bone knowledge.â
âAnd there were people here.â
âLots of them, Desert Archaic, then Basket Makers, then Anasazi. The rock art is their message, what they wrote down, not for us, but for themselves and their children, to describe their world. Weâre part of that chain going back in time, forward in time, one link as important as another.â
âI saw rock art yesterday. It vibrated.â
He saw her look at him strangely, and felt a little embarrassed. âIâm not sure what the Anasazi story is,â she went on, âthe real story, beyond the facts. New Agers imagine them as an ideal society, farmers who lived in tune with the earth.
âSome archeological evidence says the Anasazi had the same troubles we have, including war.
âWhatever we can know of the truth, itâs in the rocks. Rock is what lasts, so thatâs where the story is told, the rock of the cliffs and the rock of the ruins.â
Red gazed down into the water as it rolled by. Iâm doing it, Winsonfred, he thought. Iâm listening to the stories.
He grinned to himself.
âWhat are you thinking?â
âItâs smart-ass.â
âJust like you. What are you thinking?â
âAbout that old Bill Haley and the Comets song, âRock Around the Clock.ââ He sang out the first line smart and sassy.
âI give you all that great stuff, hand you mysteries, and youâre reeling old rock and roll through your head!â
He shrugged. âItâs a funny head.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
First he heard it. A blast of sound loud as a Tchaikovsky symphony with all 120 instruments blaring full bore, except that this sound was chaosâslams, sucks, swooshes, gushes,
Lynsay Sands
Debbie Fuller Thomas
Donna Augustine
Kristal Lim
Patricia Dusenbury
David Moody
Jennifer Harlow
Ava May
John Rickards
Philip Blood