Black Hole Canyon from THE BISTI BUSINESS

On August 8, 2013 I published a post on this blog called We Meet Jazz Penrod Again, in which the junior detective told our hero, BJ Vinson, he and his brother Henry Secatero had discovered a lead: A car parked out on the Navajo Reservation where it had no business being. Let’s accompany BJ and Jazz as they check out the situation. The following passage comes in Chapter 17 of THE BISTI BUSINESS, beginning on Page 139.

*****

This is not really the red rock part of New Mexico, but the massive, wind-carved sandstone shelves—some the remnants of ancient barrier reefs—glowed red and orange, striated with layers of black and yellow and brown and white. I identified feldspar and hematite, quartz and dark-brown calcite, degraded coal and gypsum embedded in the host rock, all deposited eons ago when the shallow marine sea retreated with the upheaval of mountains in what is now southwestern Colorado. Volcanic eruptions had spewed fire and ash over the entire area. As the water retreated, sand dunes consolidated into cross-bedded Entrada Sandstone. Over the ensuing ages, the ceaseless battle between wind and rock and water had chopped the terrain to pieces, creating the present landscape.

The Shiprock monolith, which lay in the distance ahead of us, was the throat of a volcano that had died long ago. The terrain around it eroded and washed away, leaving a 450-foot pile of black basalt towering over the Navajo Nation.

Long before we reached Shiprock, Jazz had me turn south on a rocky dirt road. As we began climbing. I kept a wary eye on the gas gauge Throwing the car into low gear to make it up and down the steep inclines of the washboard landscape was eating up the fuel. The rental sedan wasn’t made for this kind of country, and I was about to give it up as a bad venture when he pointed left.

“Take that road there.”

“What road?”

He laughed. “It’s a road down into Black Hole Canyon. Or at least a track. The car’s not far now if I understood Henry right. If it’s still there, that is.”

With more than a little trepidation, I followed his directions. My stomach fell along with the road as the earth dropped sharply. To our left, there was nothing but open air. The narrow ledge supporting us hugged the wall of the canyon—and it was a canyon, not a big-assed arroyo as he'd described it earlier. We dropped farther down the uncertain trail while tons of mudstone leaned outward above the car, threatening to shove us into the abyss. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

“This is the worst part,” Jazz said. “The trail curves to the right just ahead, and there’s an overhang. That’s where Henry said the car was parked.”

“Like someone wanted to hide it,” I rasped, desperate for the sound of my voice once last time before we ran out of road and pitched over into oblivion.

“Yeah, like that. Me and Henry used to come out here when we were kids and hunt jackrabbits and rattlesnakes.”

I grunted. It was supposed to be a laugh but didn’t come out that way. “I thought you Native Americans were into preserving the environment, not killing anything that moved.”

“I’m half white. I guess that part of me’s a killer.”

The cryptic remark would have earned him a glance if I hadn’t been concentrating on keeping the car on this pitiful excuse of a scree-littered burro trail. “Your brother doesn’t have white blood, does he?”

“No, but the family ate the jackrabbits. Guess they ate a little snake now and then, too.”

We inched around the curve, and I tapped the brake. A car blocked our progress—a brown four-door Ford sedan.

We didn’t need to get out of the car to know what had happened, but we did it anyway. The stench was overpowering. Something—or somebody—was dead. Without touching a thing, I peered through the windows and determined no one was in the passenger compartment. The odor seemed to come from the rear of the vehicle, so the body was in the trunk. Was it a confidential investigator called Hugo Santillanes or a kid named Lando Alfano?

*****

Hope you’ll be motivated to get a copy of the book. Thanks for reading. Be happy to hear from you.

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Jazz Penrod and THE BISTI BUSINESS, Revisited

A friend of mine who is as taken with the other-worldly beauty of Bisti/De-Na-Zin as I am recently asked my permission to post something about The Bisti Business. I agreed and understand he posted  yesterday. Check out donaldtmorgan.com to see what he had to say.

This got me to thinking about BISTI, so I decided to excerpt something out of the book as the subject of this post. As I’ve already shared with regular readers, Jazz Penrod is one of my favorite characters in the novel. He’s sassy, saucy, and meets life head on. If being gay puts him at a disadvantage in society, he doesn’t seem to know it.

Let’s visit Jasper Penrod once again as he helps BJ look for Lando Alfano and his traveling companion. But don’t’ call him Jasper. He considers Jazz as much cooler. The scene below comes at the beginning of Chapter 17 and needs no explanation.

*****

     Jazz Penrod phoned early the next morning asking for a meet. When I picked him up on the sidewalk in front of his mom’s house, he was dressed in denim cut-offs so tight he’d had to split the seam up the outside of the thigh in order to sit down. A thin T-shirt with straps—what my mom had called an undershirt—exposed his broad, red-brown shoulders and sheathed his torso like original skin. He wore open sandals, more like shower clogs than shoes, without socks. He grinned and shoved a black-billed cap with a red Captain Morgan logo back on his head.

     “Mr. Vinson,” he said.

     I popped the lock, and he flowed into the passenger’s seat like liquid mercury. “Morning, Jazz. What can I do for you?”

     “Maybe it’s what I can do for you,” he countered, and then laughed aloud at my quick frown. “No, not that. I picked up a rumor. Thought you’d want to know.”

     “Fine. How about some breakfast?”

     “Okay by me.”

     After we gave our order to a waiter in a nearby café, Jazz threw a long arm over the back of the chair next to him. As a trained investigator, I believe I notice things others do not, but I would have erroneously described him as skinny. Not so. He was slender, yes, but buffed with defined muscles—corded muscles. That thin shirt stretching over his torso clearly outlined a six-pack.

     “Okay, now tell me about that rumor.”

     “My brother—you know, Henry Secatero—he called me last night. He was over at the Chapter House to meet this girl. I’d told him about those missing guys, so when he heard there’d been outsiders on the rez where they didn’t have any business, he thought of Lando and Dana.”

     “Did he get any details?”

     “Well, there’s a car, somebody said. Supposed to have been parked out on the rim of Black Hole Canyon. Been there a few days.”

     “Where is Black Hole Canyon?”

     “Sort of a rugged area not too far off the highway. It’s not really a canyon, just a big-assed arroyo. But Henry said the car’s not in it, just pulled up under an overhang where it’s kinda out of sight.”

     My coffee and French toast and Jazz’s bacon and eggs and hash browns with a side of ham arrived. He stopped talking and dug in, eating rapidly while I munched and mulled over what he had told me. I was tempted to dismiss the incident; there was nothing to directly tie this to Lando, but I was looking for a car, and Henry had found one. It was worth checking out.

     Jazz put down his knife and fork after his last bite of ham and drained his glass of orange juice. “You wanna go take a look?”

     “Jazz, you’re not out to put your mark on me, are you?” I felt like a fool; there were more attractive fish in the ocean than me, but every look, every gesture seemed to be bait—chum for the sharks.

     “I wouldn’t mind,” he admitted, “but I heard you when you said you were taken. Look, I liked Dana and respected Lando. If I can help them out, I’d like to do it.”

     “Fair enough. If you’re finished, let’s go.”

     “Let’s rumble, but first I gotta go home and change. I’d burn up out there in the sun dressed like this.”

*****

Thanks for reading. Look around the site while you’re here, and give me some feedback on Jazz Penrod.

Don

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

We Meet Jazz Penrod Again

In the post of July 11, I introduced you to the delightful teenager Jazz Penrod in THE BISTI BUSINESS (Martin Brown Publishers). Today, as I rummaged around for something to write about, I came upon a passage that sort of showcases his sassy, aggressive side while demonstrating he has a serious nature, too. After all, he’s doing his best to help BJ solve a murder. This begins on Page 128 of BISTI.

###

CHAPTER 17

Jazz Penrod phoned early the next morning asking for a meet. When I picked him up on the sidewalk in front of his mom’s house, he was dressed in denim cut-offs so tight he’d had to split the seam up the outside of the thigh in order to sit down. A thin T-shirt with straps—what my mom had called an undershirt—exposed his broad, red-brown shoulders and sheathed his torso like original skin. He wore open sandals, more like shower clogs than shoes, without socks. He grinned and shoved a black-billed cap with a red Captain Morgan logo back on his head.

“Mr. Vinson,” he said.

I popped the lock, and he flowed into the passenger’s seat like liquid mercury. “Morning, Jazz. What can I do for you?”

“Maybe it’s what I can do for you,” he countered, and then laughed aloud at my quick frown. “No, not that. I picked up a rumor. Thought you’d want to know.”

“Fine. How about some breakfast?”

“Okay by me.”

After we gave our order to a waiter in a nearby café, Jazz threw a long arm over the back of the chair next to him. As a trained investigator, I believe I notice things others do not, but I would have erroneously described him as skinny. Not so. He was slender, yes, but buffed with defined muscles—corded muscles. That thin shirt stretching over his torso clearly outlined a six-pack.

“Okay, now tell me about that rumor.”

“My brother—you know, Henry Secatero—he called me last night. He was over at the Chapter House to meet this girl. I’d told him about those missing guys and one turning up dead, so when he heard there’d been outsiders on the rez where they didn’t have any business, he thought of Lando and Dana.”

“Did he get any details?”

“Well, there’s a car, somebody said. Supposed to have been parked out on the rim of Black Hole Canyon. Been there a few days.”

“Where is Black Hole Canyon?”

“Sort of a rugged area not too far off the highway. It’s not really a canyon, just a big-assed arroyo. But Henry said the car’s not in it, just pulled up under an overhang where it’s kinda out of sight.”

My coffee and French toast and Jazz’s bacon and eggs and hash browns with a side of ham arrived. He stopped talking and dug in, eating rapidly while I munched and mulled over what he had told me. I was tempted to dismiss the incident; there was nothing to directly tie this to Lando, but I was looking for a car, and Henry had found one. It was worth checking out.

Jazz put down his knife and fork after his last bite of ham and drained his glass of orange juice. “You wanna go take a look?”

“Jazz, you’re not out to put your mark on me, are you?” I felt like a fool; there were more attractive fish in the ocean than me, but every look, every gesture seemed to be bait—chum for the sharks.

“I wouldn’t mind,” he admitted, “but I heard you when you said you were taken. Look, I liked Dana and respected Lando. If I can help them out, I’d like to do it.”

“Fair enough. If you’re finished, let’s go.”

“Let’s rumble, but first I gotta go home and change. I’d burn up out there in the sun dressed like this.”

###

So there he is, Jasper (Jazz) Penrod, aggressively showing off his natural assets, flirting, yet quite practical when he’s about to go out into the brilliant high desert sun to make what will be a vital breakthrough on the case. Go, Jazz!

 

Next week: Yep, one day we’ll get to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness?

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Hogans: Homes and Ceremonial Lodges

In Chapter 38 of THE BISTI BUSINESS, our investigator, BJ Vinson, goes to a deserted hogan on the Navajo Reservation where his helpers, Jazz Penrod and his half brother, Henry Secatero, are hiding someone for him. What is a hogan? The simple answer is a hut, but maybe it goes deeper than that. Let’s take a look.

According to the 2010 Census, the Navajos are the largest tribe in the United States by population (308,000). As a matter of interest, the Cherokee (285,000) and the Sioux (131,000) are the next two tribes in order of ranking.

A Conical Navajo Hogan

The Navajo (so named by the Spanish) are an Athabascan-speaking people whose ancestors probably migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska (as did the Apache, a related tribe) to the southwestern United States. They were believed to have made this migration circa 1400 CE and were well-established by the time the Spaniards arrived. They call themselves Diné. Their homeland, Dinétah, is a 16,000,000-acre reservation in the Four Corners Area that spills over into three states: Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Their traditional home is bounded by four sacred mountains: Blanca Peak (Sisnaajini or Dawn or White Shell Mountain) in Colorado, Mount Taylor (Tsoodzil or Turquoise Mountain) in New Mexico, the San Francisco Peaks (Dook’o’oostííd or Abalone Shell Mountain) in Arizona, and Hesperus Mountain (Dibé Nitsaa or Big Mountain Sheep) in Colorado. Navajo toddlers are told they should never go beyond these boundaries.

Until contact with Pueblos and the Spanish, the Navajo were largely hunters and gatherers. The tribe adopted crop farming from the Pueblos, growing mainly corn, beans, and squash. After the Spanish arrived, the Navajo began herding sheep and goats as a main source of trade and food. At that time, meat became an essential part of their diet, as well as a form of currency for trading. Eventually, the size of a family’s sheep herd became a status symbol.

 

Today, the tribe is world famous for its fine silver and turquoise jewelery-making, especially its hallmark piece called the "squash blossom" necklace, which first appeared in the 1880s. They are equally renowned for their weaving skills. Two Gray Hills and Teec Nos Pos and Ganado and Chinlee are just some of the distinctive styles and patterns that have become so well established. Some of the rugs go for thousands of dollars.

Historically, Navajo society has been matrilineal, meaning women owned the livestock and land. Upon marrying, a Navajo man moved in with his bride in her dwelling among her mother’s people and clan. As anyone reading the popular Tony Hillerman novels of the two Navajo cops, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, is aware, the tribe is a clan society. Offspring of a marriage are “born to” (and belong to) the mother’s clan, and are said to be “born for” the father’s clan. When strangers meet, it was (and perhaps is) customary to identify the born to and born for clans as a means of identifying background. A Navajo must date and marry an individual outside of his or her own clans, which include the clans of their four grandparents.



Log, mud caulked Hogan

The hogan, the traditional home of the Navajo, is a shelter built for a man or a woman out of wood and often covered in mud with a smoke hole at the apex of a domed roof. The door always faces east to welcome the sun each morning. A blanket is hung like a curtain in place of a door. In the winter, there might be a second blanket draped behind the first as added protection against the cold.

Those who practice the Navajo religion of seeking harmony in all things, regard the hogan as sacred. The religious song, “The Blessingway” (hozhooji) describes the first such structure built by Coyote with help from beavers to be a house for First Man, First Woman, and Talking God.

Sometimes, there would be a summer hogan with a brush wall surrounding an open space where much of the family’s time was spent. Many families still live in hogans, although trailers and modern houses are beginning to replace them. Even so, there will still be a hogan nearby to be used for ceremonial purposes.

The Navajo sweat houses are a smaller version of a hogan, except there is no smoke hole, as a fire will never be built in one. The rocks are heated outside and carried into the building using tongs.

The hogans Jazz and Henry took BJ to were abandoned huts of relatives. Probably long-dead relatives, although they did not die in the structures. Had that been the case, the buildings would have been destroyed, or at the least had a large hole torn in the sides to allow the spirit of the deceased to escape. Even so—modern guys though they were—Jazz and Henry would have been reluctant to enter them.

 

Next week: Inspiration hasn’t struck, as yet.

 

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.