Riders on the Rez Read online

Jelly-Belly

  A house trailer sat up hill behind the hogan, and a group of men stood by an empty corral at the side of it.

  “Billy, come meet some more of your rellies,” Uncle Atsiti called

  The men all had flat butts, just like Dad’s. Uncle Atsiti still wore his cowboy hat, but he and three of the others had their hair in long pony tails. One had his hair tied up in red string. He was rounder than the rest of them.

  “These three are your cousins. “Ro, Mo, and Joe…,” Uncle Atsiti waved around the circle.

  “Yo! ’S’up, Billy?” They held their hands out on the down low for me to slap.

  “And this is your other uncle. Just call him Jelly-Belly.”

  Everybody laughed at that, even Jelly-Belly.

  “Billy’s dad is a warrior, you know,” Jelly-Belly said to the others. “How is he doing in Afghanistan?” he asked me.

  Before I could answer him, I heard a galloping horse coming up fast behind me. I felt a hot wind as a gray one with two riders pounded by.

  Danny and an older boy were riding bareback, sitting straight and tall. The big kid held the reins. Danny had his arms folded across his chest.

  “Whoa!” The kid slid off the horse and came over to us.

  “I know who YOU are,” the kid said to me. “You’re Billy!” He fake-punched my shoulder. “I can always use another little cousin to beat on!”

  “Yo, Champ!” Atsiti said.

  Joe, Moe, and Ro said, “How’s it going, Hands?”

  “How many baskets did you score in that last game?” asked Jelly-Belly.

  “Enough to win,” the kid said, “but I couldn’t have done it if my team hadn’t gotten me the ball.”

  He turned to me. “Come on, Billy. Let’s go see your mother! Margaret used to be my favorite baby sitter.” He took my empty bottles, filled them with a hose from one of the green plastic barrels by the horse corral, and handed one to me.

  Danny kept busy taking care of the horse. He checked its hooves and he fed it some hay, but he never looked our way.

  7

  Funeral Plans

  Mom made on a lot over the big kid. Turned out ‘most everybody called him T.C. “Do you have a girlfriend, yet?” she asked.

  “Oh, Several,” he said. He grinned and pretended to shoot a basketball. “Can I help it if champions are irresistible?”

  “T.C, take some of this fry bread to Danny,” Mona said, handing him a puffy piece of bread in a handkerchief. “He hasn’t had any breakfast.”

  “Wanna come with, Billy?” he asked.

  I didn’t think Danny liked me too much. He wasn't very friendly. “Nah, I’ll stay here.” T.C. left and I ate some fry bread with syrup and listened to the women talk.

  “So it’s not going to be a traditional funeral, then?” Mom asked.

  “Pfttt!” Great-Grandmother made a noise and went into the hogan.

  “No, it’s a church one,” said Mona. “But I still think the kids should stay outside or with friends.”

  “What’s the difference ?” I asked. I needed to know just in case they were going some place where I wanted to go

  “Traditional Navajos are always buried on the land,” Mom said. “Your grandmother became a member of the Full Bible Church before she died. Her service will be there and she’ll be buried in their cemetery.”

  I was about to ask why kids couldn’t go when Jelly-Belly came around the hogan. “Come on, Billy. Let’s go watch 'em shoot some baskets.”

  8

  Basketball

  Danny was dribbling and pointing to one of the other cousins. T.C. swooped in, took the ball away from him and sank it through a hoop on a pole made from a tree trunk.

  “Is T.C. really good?” I asked Jelly-Belly.

  “Oh, yeah! He’s the best center on the Eagles and they were division champs this year. Ro, Mo, and Joe played real good, too, when they were in school. Ro was even All-State.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I’m the drummer in the family.” He pointed at his chest. His tee-shirt had a picture of a drum kit on it.

  “Don’t you play Indian drums?” I asked.

  “Oh, sure. I do, that, too.” He laughed. “But whachoo think, we’re not modern here on the rez?”

  I didn’t know what to say. My Shi-ma’s hogan didn’t look very modern to me.

  One of the Os left the game and trotted over to us. “Billy, you look like a b-ball player,” he said. “Wanna shoot a few?” He shot the ball to me, fast. It bounced off my stomach before I could catch it and. I hoped Danny hadn't seen my bobble.

  I didn’t want to shoot baskets, but I didn’t want to be a wuss and wimp out either.

  “Never mind, guys,” Jelly-Belly said. “Here comes Mona. It must be time to get ready.”

  9

  On the Road to Kayenta

  Mom and I rode in the first truck with Uncle Atsiti, T.C., and Jelly-Belly. Everyone else except Great-Grandmother was in the other one.

  We passed an old man wearing a hat like Atsiti’s He was following a flock of sheep and goats down the middle of the rocky road. Uncle Atsiti slowed down and swung off the road into the desert.

  He rolled down his window as we passed, and lifted two fingers off the steering wheel.. “Yaah-te,” he hollered. “Wave to your Great-Uncle, Billy,”

  “Great-uncle?” It took me a minute to work that out? "Does that make him my dead grandmother’s uncle, too?” I turned around to look at him.

  “Yes, he was your grandmother’s uncle, too” Mom said. “Don’t ask any more questions about your grandmother. We don’t like to talk about those whose spirit has left their bodies.”

  This was news to me. Where we lived, lots of people talked about dead soldiers, mostly about how full of life and how brave they had been.

  “Margaret, you haven’t done right by this boy if you are just now telling him that,” said Jelly-Belly. “Billy, what do you know about being a Navajo?”

  “Well, I learned some words on the bus; but mostly Dad and I only know what Mom tells us. That hasn’t been much.”

  Jelly-Belly poked Mom. “Get over it, Margaret. Those were hard times for all of us, but we survived, didn’t we?”

  Now I had about eleven more questions, but before I could ask any of them he said, “Did she even tell you that the Navajo Nation is bigger than many states?”

  Mom made her lemon-sucking face. “And poorer than most of them, too,”.

  “Not anymore. Not for long, anyway. We do more than just herd sheep now, Sis” he said. "You’d be surprised at how many Navajo writers, teachers, business people and doctors we have these days."

  “And Navajo warriors,” I reminded them. I thought Dad should be counted too, even if he grew up in Albuquerque, instead of on the Rez.

  “Yeah. And we’re gonna have a Navajo player in the NBA one of these days soon!” T.C. added. “What’s your favorite sport, Billy?”

  We were just coming into a small town. “I like skateboarding best,” I said as we passed the sign that said Kayenta pop. 4922.

  Uncle Atsisti stepped on the brakes. “That’s it!” He took a sharp left turn. “We’ll leave you guys at the skate park while we go to the funeral.”

  10

  At the Skate Park

  From the size of the town, I didn't expect much of a park, but it was a great one! It had everything, including grind boxes, ramps, pipes, and even a partial bowl! Some of the big kids were playing S.K.A.T.E. One of them did a perfect Kasper Flip.

  T.C. headed for a group of girls leaning against a metal building. Danny followed him, but Shawna took my hand. “Teach me to ride a skateboard, Billy.”

  A kid about my age in a black GrimReaper shirt with a skateboarding space alien on the front, was doing some pop-shove-its. He wasn’t wearing a helmet or pads.

  I knew Mom wouldn’t let Atsiti leave until she saw me put mine on. That was alright. I didn’t want to skate right a
way, anyway.

  “O.K., but you have to wear pads.” After I got Shawna outfitted, I made her turn around; and then I shoved her, just little bit, between her shoulder blades.

  “HEY! Watch it!” She put her right foot out to stop her fall.

  “You’ll be a goofy-foot rider,” I told her. “That’s what we call someone who rides with their right foot on the front of the board. Try it and see how it feels.”

  She wobbled a bit when she first started out. But by the time she turned around and came flying back, she looked like a cool little kit. Her arms were casual-like by her side. She even leaned into a curve like she had been doing it all her life.

  “That’s fun!” she said. “Now teach me a trick!”

  “First, you need to learn how to duck walk,” I put a foot on each end of the board and walked it forward and backward so she could see what I meant.

  “Switch your weight from side to side, and swing your shoulders in the same direction. You should practice on the dirt first, though. Let’s go over here.” I led her to one side.

  Danny had his back turned to the big kids. He was watching me show Shanna where to put her feet.

  She rocked back and forth, but the board didn’t move. “I can’t do it HERE!”

  “My board is probably too long for you,” I said.

  “No, it’s NOT! I know I can do it on the cement.” She took the board to a corner of the court where no one else was skating. She was determined to duckwalk. She frowned down at her feet, and flung her skinny body back and forth. I thought she would give up soon, but she refused to quit.

  She had managed to take a couple of steps at last, but she was concentrating so hard that she never even saw the GrimReaper kid come sailing off a box. He KAWUMPed into