Navajo Strong

By Joyce Phillips

 book of poems, a Navajo man, and beautiful New Mexico sunsets were long ago memories. That is until a letter arrived from a man Sally believed was dead in Vietnam and a granddaughter she didn't know was alive.Correspondence over thousands of miles wrote of past hurt, disappointment, and love. Three women discover relationships between a grandmother and granddaughter, and a mother and daughter. A man finds the woman he believed kept him alive for four years in a Hanoi prison cell.Sally has begun a life in Yangzhou, China. Will the discovery of her Navajo family lure her back to New Mexico? Or will she return to the man she loves and children she teaches in China?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joyce Phillips
• Release date: May 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393431817

Book preview

Navajo Strong

Navajo Strong

Joyce Phillips

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is coincidental.

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Copyright © 2019 by Joyce Phillips

Cover Art: Ambrose Begay

Layout and Design: Wicked Whale Publishing

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All rights reserved. In accordance with U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher / author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at [e-mail]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Dedication

Rehoboth Christian School, Rehoboth, New Mexico. Its students, teachers and staff. Each day I spent there was a gift. I have beautiful memories.

Contents

About the Cover Artist

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

ALBUQUERQUE

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

NAVAJO TACO WITH FRY BREAD

About the Author

About the Cover Artist

The cover painting of a Navajo woman was done by Ambrose Begay. An award-winning artist, Ambrose paints in Watercolor and Pyrography. His wife, Clara Begay makes Native American cloth dolls. They have a website: becoindianarts.com

Prologue

Kinaaldá

Dust clouds followed Chooli Begay on her morning run to the east. Moccasins touched the earth. The drum beat became softer the farther she ran, her breath louder. Yas, her white rez dog, ran next to her. Her pony, Niyol, whinnied from his nearby corral.

Chooli continued toward the rising sun. With each step, she moved closer to her future as a woman.

Her mother made the traditional Navajo biil dress Chooli wore. Grace had knelt in front of her loom for many weeks to slowly weave the complicated pattern. Chooli’s turquoise necklace and silver bracelets belonged to her family for generations. The soft deerskin moccasins were new.

Atza beat the drum for his granddaughter. Using a single deerskin padded stick, he kept the beat steady for her heart to hear. The longer she ran, the stronger she would become. The land under her feet belonged to the Navajo in New Mexico.

Next to Atza was Chooli’s father. Paul had been a rodeo rider when he met Atza’s daughter, Grace. There was an accident, and Paul fell under a bull crushing his right leg. The leg healed, but pain continued. He didn’t ride in rodeos anymore and did odd jobs on the rez. Together, they would keep the drums talking for two days to honor Chooli and her journey. Her family used the beat to chant prayers for her.

Atza did this for Chooli, while he remembered her grandmother.

Her hair had been washed and combed by her mother. She pulled it straight for Chooli to grow strong and tall, then tied it in a ponytail. But the curls kept escaping. The light brown hair was finer than that of the Navajo. Chooli’s curls were like her grandmother's blond curls.

Grace did her best to push away all thoughts about her mother. She needed to care for her daughter and be a part of this important time. Chooli was thirteen and they were there to share her kinaaldá.

When Grace had her own coming of age ceremony, her mother had not been there. She never knew her mysterious Anglo mother. A picture in her father's wallet was her only connection. Her father had said little over the years. 

Chooli returned to the hogan after running. Her path represented a circle beneath the sacred mountains that marked the four corners of the Navajo reservation. There was work for her there; corn to grind with her family's stone. 

After drinking from a gourd of water her mother held for her, Chooli knelt by a granite rock and spread dry corn kernels on the flat surface. She picked up the round rock she would use to grind the kernels into a fine meal, then bent over and pushed the stone forward. She needed a great deal of corn flour for her cake. There were many elders and children from her clan to feed in the morning.

The men dug a round hole in the ground and lined it with dried corn husks on the bottom and sides. The husks pointed toward the sky. Chooli thought it looked like a sunflower.

When she finished grinding, she made a batter with flour, water, and honey in large iron pots with help from her mother and aunts. They stirred the mixture with sticks and poured it into the hole made by the men.

The men covered it with more corn husks and earth, then built a fire on top to bake the cake. The alkan bread baked in the earth under the night stars. It would be ready the next morning.

The men continued to drum and sing prayers throughout the night.

Grace knelt beside her daughter. My daughter, you are a traditionalist. I am proud of you. You bring our family much honor.

"It is because of my family. You have taught me the way of the Diné. Grandpa has shown me how to be honorable."

Grace smiled and looked at her father bending over the fire pit. Your grandfather taught me too. He has the heart of a warrior.

"Was Grandmother here for your kinaaldá?" Chooli asked.

Grace sat back and looked to the east. No. I did not know my mother. We will not talk about her today. Save your questions for another day. Listen to the prayers your family will sing tonight.

I am a woman now. It is time I know. Chooli spoke slowly, thinking about each word. Her mother had always expressed angry thoughts and words toward Chooli’s grandmother. She wanted to know why.

Her mother was silent. She continued to gaze to the east as if she was looking for something, or someone.

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Chooli sat in the hogan with her mother and listened to the prayers. For weeks she had trained herself to stay awake and to run. Her kinaaldá was the start of a new life for her. The women would invite her to join them at council meetings. She could plan for her future. As a woman, she would have choices.

The air in the hogan became lighter and her eyes heavier as she listened to the drums.

Her mother poked her and whispered, Don’t sleep now. Later.

The sun was rising, and it was her last day to run. Chooli sat still while her mother and aunts washed and tied her hair. Someone had found a waxy substance to tame her unruly curls. Without sleep she wasn't sure she could run far. Her eyes wanted to shut. But the drums continued to fill the air.

Chooli ran. When her strength waned, she thought of her grandmother. Her grandfather had promised to tell her about her grandmother after her kinaaldá. She ran away from her childhood and toward her inner woman. When she returned to the hogan, she would unwrap her corn cake. She grimaced when she thought of all the people who waited for a piece of the baked bread and hoped there was enough to feed everyone. She planned to save the moist, tender middle part for her family.

The men would prepare a barbecue, and the women would bring more food. There were sweets for her to distribute to the children. Chooli looked forward to singing and dancing after the feast.

Atza watched his granddaughter run. As Chooli disappeared into the morning sun, he remembered another girl with curls. He continued to beat the drum and chanted a different prayer: Let her be safe wherever she is. Let her have a happy life. I send my love to protect her.

Six thousand miles away in Yangzhou, China, Sally Raymond was leaning over her bed, ready to crawl in. Suddenly, she heard drums. She looked at the bedroom wall, wondering what her neighbors were doing.

Her sleep that night was restless. A girl with light brown hair ran toward her.

1

CHOOLI

Chooli tethered Niyol under the pinion trees outside her grandfather's hogan. She walked toward the eight-sided wood cabin and thought about what it was like to visit her grandfather when she was a kid. The blue sky with fluffy white clouds had always seemed so close she might reach up and feel their softness. Many times, she had reached for the clouds. She even tried standing on Niyol’s back. Later she climbed to the top of a nearby hill, but the clouds were always too far away.

Grandfather’s medicine hogan was one mile from her family’s trailer at the far eastern edge of their property. The hogan where her grandfather stayed more often as he got older didn’t have electricity or running water. He told Chooli he could hear the voices of the ancestors better on the mesa’s open space.

The temptation to run to greet her grandfather was strong. But she was an adult now, so she walked with measured slowness. As she was about to call out to him, the wind carried his morning prayer of peace to her. 

Turning, she saw him emerge from the dry creek bottom and come toward her. The sun rose behind him, and as he came closer, Chooli saw him drag his left foot. The worn pinion stick in his hand seemed to groan as it bore his weight. He had once walked with a limp and later struggled with a strong stick. There were private moments when she saw pain in his eyes. Today his lined face spoke of peace.

As the old man drew closer, he recognized her and smiled. Hello, Granddaughter. You have come today for answers.

"Yes, Shicheli. I have questions about my grandmother that my mother does not answer."

"Your Shimá feels her mother abandoned her. When it was I who abandoned her and your grandmother."

Atza pulled out a worn, hand-tooled wallet from his back pocket. He sat down on a log bench outside his home and motioned Chooli to sit next to him. The east-facing door was open to welcome the new day’s energy. His pony nickered to him from the paddock.

From a small pocket inside the wallet, he brought out a photo of a young Navajo man in an Army uniform. Next to him was a smiling Anglo girl with a head full of blond curls. She looked up at the man with yearning in her eyes. He looked down at her with pride.

Atza’s face wore the same expression when he looked at the photo in his hand. The first time I saw your grandmother, she was laughing with a group of Navajo girls. It was my first day of school at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I saw her yellow hair and heard her gurgling laugh. I immediately believed she had been sent to make me happy.

Did she see you? Was it love at first sight? 

Chooli's teenage mind was all about romance. She had seen boys at school look at her as if they were seeing her for the first time. Like the tall handsome basketball