The Corn Singer: An Epic Story of Crossed Cultures, History, Adventure & Romance

By John M. Lester

Bradley Pino was born in 1926 atop the ancient Acoma Pueblo mesa 357 feet above the desert floor. Brad was taught reverence for nature by his grandfather, hunting and fishing by his father, faith by his mission priest, and bravery by historys face-painted warriors. Brads father is a proud full-blooded Acoma Pueblo Indian. His mother, Catherine, is Anglo. Brads nemesis calls him a half-breed.

Forced to leave his boyhood home and attend a public high school, an Anglo school, Brad is faced with cultural changes and bullying over the attention of a popular Anglo girl. Unexpected events occur that take Brad and his brother-friend Ashkii Dighin far from home to face life-threatening challenges and a brush with World War II.

When great responsibility is placed in Brads hands, he responds by performing the most selfless act of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: May 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781489712608

John M. Lester

As a part-time resident of Santa Fe. New Mexico, Lester developed a deep fondness for the Southwest, its people, history, landscape and flavors. Lester traveled the back country, oftentimes, on horseback. He has researched the Acoma Pueblo and its ancient mission from inside its walls, where he was inspired by the emotion in the historian’s voice as he spoke of the invasion by the Spanish Conquistadores, the Pueblo Revolt, and the enslavement of his ancestors. John Lester is an Architectural Designer who lives, works, and writes, in Lewes, Delaware. He has studied Creative Writing at The University of Delaware, Long Ridge writers group, and Wilmington College. Lester is a member of The Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild.

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Copyright © 2017 John M. Lester.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-1152-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1153-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1260-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906287

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 05/11/2017

Contents

The Corn Singer

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine~

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen~

About the Author

Dedication:

I dedicate this book to my wife, Carolyn

My children: Cherie, John Jr. and Andrew, and to my Grandchildren, Emily, Sarah, Hudson & John III.

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Oh the comfort

The inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a reader, having neither to weigh thought nor measure words but pouring them out just as they are-chaff and grain together, certain that the reader will sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

Dinah Craik (paraphrased)

The Corn Singer

I had never seen my father frightened before that night. Until that night, my world was smaller, simpler, and sheltered. Until that night, I was still a boy.

Pack everything, he shouted, rushing into the house. We’re leaving. I’ll explain later. His voice was urgent and frightening.

I packed my mule, Cibo, and harnessed Grandma’s burro, Talent, to his cart. We loaded everything we could grab, leaving only space for Grandma, Mother, and my sister Paula. We packed our clay cooking pots, water jugs, and the blankets Grandma had woven years ago. I hung an extra bag of grain from the side of the cart for the animals.

Where’re we going? I asked.

We haven’t figured that out, Mother said.

Grandma’s broad brow wrinkled as she blotted tears with her long gray braid. Father had already snapped the reins when Grandma jumped from the cart and ran back into the house. Seconds later, she returned with a leather pouch that held her silver and turquoise jewelry.

Your Grandpa made these for me, and I’m not leaving it for them, she said.

I wondered who them was.

My little sister Paula, frightened by the strange way Father was acting, protested leaving her playmates who had gathered at the rim of the mesa waving their colorful scarves and singing her name. Distraught, Paula lay sobbing in the cart, curled on a stack of folded blankets.

After descending the steep cart path, my father and I took turns riding Cibo. When it was his turn to walk, he carried a stout club he’d ripped from the limb of a dead cottonwood.

By dark, we had nearly reached Magdalena and could hardly lift our feet to take another step. We pulled the cart off the dirt road and hid it behind a sand mound covered with clumps of twisted junipers.

Frightened still, I watched as Father went back to sweep away our footprints and wheel marks with a leafy piñon branch. Settled for the night, Grandma, Mother, and Paula slept in the cart covered with layers of blankets and a heavy canvas, while Father and I bedded down on the sand underneath the cart.

I was confused by our sudden move and didn’t feel like sleeping. I asked Father again why we had to leave the mesa so suddenly.

I don’t have time to talk about it now, he said sternly. You’ve gotta trust me. We’ll discuss things in the morning. For now, try to get some rest. I need time to think.

I felt more like talking than sleeping. I lay wondering why the tribal police bell had sounded ten gongs—the signal for immediate help—a sure sign of trouble. I had watched eager boys only a few years older than me strap on weapons and be deputized on horseback. I tried to clear my mind for sleep by repeating the prayers our mission priest taught us.

I reminded myself that our people had survived on that flat-rock mountain for more than nine hundred years, long before the Europeans claimed to have discovered our country. All that time the high mesa walls provided fortification against marauding tribes. I had to believe we could have survived whatever was happening now.

The desert floor was hard. I found by squirming my back and shoulders around, I could form the sand to the contours of my body.

I lay still, staring at the sky through the spokes of wagon wheels and tried to fall asleep by counting the stars.

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I lay thinking about how peaceful life was on the mesa. I did my chores, carried water from the cistern, fed our pen of turkeys and spotted rabbits, and took care of Cibo. Cibo, my mule is my best friend. It’s Cibo that I spend most of my time with. She’s of royal blood, one of many offspring from the famous Andalusia breeding stock that was a gift to George Washington from King Charles III of Spain.

Grampa Pino traded seven sheep, three goats, and several pieces of pottery for Cibo and presented her to me on my twelfth birthday. I’m fortunate to have such a noble and intelligent animal. When I look deep into her eyes, I sense the bond that can exist between an animal and a human. Grampa said, Until you’ve loved an animal, part of your soul remains unawakened.

Cibo is the smartest, smoothest riding mount on the mesa. We know every stream, path, and arroyo between my home and the Enchanted Mesa a mile to the north.

I have climbed every low-branched tree and bathed in every stream. I know the handholds and foot crevices in the ancient rock walls that lead up the treacherous old route to the top of the mesa.

Grandma Pino had only one son, my father Juan. Father fell in love and married out of the pueblo to my mother Catherine, an Anglo. Mother grew up near Alamogordo and moved to Santa Fe when she started college.

Grandma Bradley named my mother Catherine, because her priest suggested she would live an extra-blessed life if she bore the name of a saint. Every time I hear that story, I claim I’m her extra blessing.

After my parents married, they moved into Grandma Pino’s house on the Acoma Pueblo mesa. Often in the clouds, our village rests 357 feet above the desert floor. I was born atop the mesa seventeen years ago, in 1926. My given name is Juan, the same as my father’s, a direct reflection of Spanish influence. Mother insisted I also be given an Anglo name. She named me Bradley—her last name before she married my father—but most people just call me Brad. When I was six, my sister Paula was born. She’s named for my mother’s sister Pauline, a schoolteacher in Galisteo. My father, Paula, and I consider ourselves proud members of the Acoma Pueblo.

Unlike warrior nations, Pueblos are peaceful tillers of the earth. Our home on the sky-high mesa is the oldest of the three villages of our reservation.

Grandma Pino’s house is a good, sturdy home made of adobe bricks, mud-plaster, and straw. Every spring, Grandma mixes thick mud-plaster to coat places where the adobe has chipped off or washed away.

If I marry an Acoma woman, I must choose wisely, since not only the house, but all honor, virtue, and spiritual training of the family would become her responsibility. Our children and I would become members of her clan and live in her home, not mine. Like my father, I would be responsible for protection, hunting, growing crops, and tending livestock.

Grandma’s stable is out back where Cibo and her burro, Talent, live. She named her burro Talent because he’s trained to pull a cart, carry leather sacks of water, or a rider. Talent’s spirit reminded Grandma of my Grandpa. They’re both a little stubborn, she’d say, but she believed he was the most talented man on the mesa.

Grandpa fashioned silver jewelry and wove sweet-grass baskets, but most of all he was a talented potter. Collectors travel great distances to buy or trade for the hand-coiled pots he fashions and fires. I have often watched his steady hand as he painted intricate black-and-white designs on his pots with the frayed tip of a yucca spike.

Grandpa died the week after Talent was born. It was as if they traded places, and it was now up to Talent to do the heavy work. Grandma waited nearly a year before she charcoaled his name on the adobe wall above his stall. By that act, she acknowledged him worthy of his name.

Grandpa Pino taught my father to fish and hunt. Years later, my father taught me as, someday, I will teach my son. We live on the game and fish we catch. We stew rabbits, birds, and turtles. Our men dig pit traps with sharpened stakes for large game like elk and wild boar. Anything we can add to the food supply allows us to keep our turkeys and rabbits for when weather makes hunting difficult. All food is shared with the Pueblo. We grow corn, squash, beans, and pumpkins to go along with the game. Sometimes, Grandma Pino fries stale bread in fat, that’s a real treat.

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I n the middle of the night, huddled under the cart on the cold desert floor, I awakened, dreaming a shotgun blast had struck my face. Ventura winds swirled clouds of coarse sand behind the mound, peppering us with cold gray grit. Sand was in my mouth, in my ears, and in my eyes. I tugged the blankets up to cover my face, but my feet stuck out in the cold.

Wind resonating through the junipers sounded like the growls of a pack of lobos. I knew the rest of my family was safe in the cart, wrapped in an envelope of blankets and heavy canvas. I thought how warm and safe Paula must feel, nestled between Mother and Grandma. For the first time in my life, I was hungry, I was cold, and I was scared.

Was that sound the wind, or could it be a pack of lobos? I shook off the sand, drew in my feet, repositioned the blankets, and lay shivering. Father’s club rested on the blankets between us.

During the night, Father knelt and whispered, If you’re awake, don’t try to follow me. I got to my knees and watched him creep to the edge of the mound, the club tight in his fist. Moments later when I peeked out, I heard an outburst of cursing from two bedraggled men as they drew near the bend in the road where we had turned off. They were cursing and muttering something about losing tracks because of the sandstorm. When Father crept back under the cart, he didn’t mention the two men he’d seen carrying lanterns at the bend.

Are we being followed? What are we running from? I asked. What’s happening? I need to know. Father put his finger to his lips, as if to say someone could be listening. I didn’t get much sleep that night.

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A s the sun crept over Timber Peak and streaked up Sawmill Canyon, Father crept out again. All was clear for now. Mother, still wrapped in her blanket, handed out hard-boiled mallard eggs from deep inside a clay water jug and then tore off chunks of chili corn bread for each of us. My father ate his as he walked down to the dry arroyo where he had hidden Cibo and Talent for the night.

Cibo was tethered to a thick root protruding from the side of the arroyo, but there was no sign of Talent. The sandstorm had covered his tracks too. Father walked back to the cart disheartened. He asked me to take Cibo and look for him. You’ll make better time. Talent must have wandered away or been frightened by the storm. I’ll stay and help the women repack the cart.

Talent knows his name and will usually come when I call. I hung a sack of grain from my saddle horn and headed to the arroyo. Having a herd instinct—a natural fear of predators—Talent wouldn’t have drifted far from Cibo. They felt safer together.

I started in a wide circle at the edge of the arroyo near the place where they’d been tied, but fresh sand drifts made it slow going. Cibo struggled to pull her feet out of the deep sand. I moved down onto the hard-packed floor of the arroyo and followed the snaking ravine, all the while calling Talent’s name.

I was about to turn back when Cibo’s long ears twitched forward. She had heard or sensed something that I hadn’t. Instinctively, she picked up speed. Faster and faster she ran. Her long ears pinned back against her head and nostrils flared, she inhaled quick, huffy breaths.

Approaching a bend in the steep banks, I heard Talent’s high-pitched squawk. Around the bend stood a thief, a giant barrel-chested man in a tattered sweatshirt and striped pajama bottoms tucked into knee-high cattleman’s boots. His tangle of shoulder-length hair and matted beard carried bits of straw and dried food. He was as shaggy as a winter buffalo.

The thief was yanking Talent’s halter with one hand and flailing his flanks with a coiled bullwhip with the other. He shouted curses in Spanish as he struggled to drag Talent up the steep incline of the arroyo walls. When he saw me, he kicked Talent’s hocks and began pulling and twisting his tail, but Talent would not be stolen. His front legs were braced forward against the gravelly incline and would not budge.

My first instinct was to bluff the thief by running Cibo straight at him, stopping short and grabbing Talent’s halter line.

I dug my heels into Cibo’s flanks, she charged harder and faster. When the thief’s eyes locked on mine, a brown, scatter-toothed scowl crossed his face. If I stopped short now, I knew I’d feel the skin-ripping lash of rawhide. He’d aim for my neck, coil his whip around my throat, choke me, and yank me to the ground. But it was too late. Cibo, unafraid, bounded true as an arrow toward the thief. At the last second, panic crossed the big man’s face. His bullwhip was cocked back ready to strike. He was not backing away.

Then suddenly, like when you’re under water or deep in a cave, everything went silent: no hoof beats from Cibo, no squawks from Talent, and no cracking whip. For an instant, I felt like I was flying. Cibo had gained enough speed to propel us through the air in a lunge three times her length. I lay stretched flat on her neck, the saddle horn pressed into my gut, gripping two fists full of stubby mane hair.

We landed with a crunching blow, striking the thief square in the chest with the hard bone of Cibo’s head. The thief shot backwards, landing breathless in a cloud of dust and a cluster of river rocks, his coiled bullwhip still clenched in his hand.

I didn’t have to lead Talent back. He was already on his way up the arroyo and reached my family before I did.

Chapter Two

B y the time I returned, Father was more composed now that Talent had returned.

Brad, Paula, sit down. I’d like to explain what happened and why we had to leave the mesa so suddenly.

He told us that while everyone was in the kiva yesterday, he was busy preparing for services in the mission.

"I heard shuffling and whispers coming from the baptistery. When I drew back the curtain where the silver chalices and vessels of holy oils are kept, suddenly everything went dark. The baptistery curtain was wrapped over my head, covering my eyes, and was twisted around my throat.

"I gasped for air and struggled to un-wrap the cloth from around my neck. One of the burglars shouted threats of what would happen to my family if I reported the theft to the tribal police.

Before they left, something hard struck me behind the knees. I went down, striking my head on the base of the altar. I awoke dizzy, with warm blood dribbling across my cheek. I managed to push the blindfold above one eye in time to see the cross and chalices shoved into a burlap corn sack. The bandits made their escape, but the threats to my family stayed with me.

My father had surprised three thieves attempting to make off with the sacred cross and the two-handled chalices the King of Spain sent our pueblo nine hundred years ago to commemorate the completion of our mission. It was the silver cross affixed with the body of our savior that struck me behind my knees.

The only voice Father could identify was the maverick Apache who still wore tattered leathers. His wild, unbraided hair stank of duck fat when he leaned to see if I was still alive. The third man was carrying the carving of San Esteban’s head, as if the power of the saint might ensure a safe getaway.

Father said the Apache was the same one that drifts by our pueblo to trade. He’s an intimidating loner, an outcast of his tribe. Once, he attempted to pass off stained turkey feathers as McCall plumes, claiming they were from Mexico. In the past, he’s traded stolen property: once, a donkey cart, other times, musical instruments.

My father’s attackers threatened harm would come to every member of his family if he went to the tribal police.

The thieves escaped dragging the bag of silver chalices, leaving my father bound and gagged on the mission floor. As soon as he could free himself, he rushed to the tribal police chief and reported the robbery and the threats against our family.

The chief jumped out of his chair and brushed by me on his way to the knotted bell-cord outside his office. By the time the bell clanged ten times, five men had gathered, strapping on gun belts and jamming ropes and bullets into their saddlebags. Six or seven more were there within minutes. The chief, anxious to get started while their tracks were fresh, climbed on the rock he kept beside the hitching post and flung his body on his tall roan. ‘Let’s head out,’ he shouted, spinning the roan toward the cart path. I insisted on riding with them, Father said.

"There were easy-to-follow hoof prints and scuffmarks by the peach orchard near the trail leading down to the desert floor.

"We found where they had tied their horses and followed hoof prints across the corn field to the clay road. After a half-hour of hard riding, we stopped to allow the horses to drink from a spring before heading up the rocky promontory that faced us.

"The incline was so steep our horses had to claw bent-legged up to the edge of the cliff. From there, we could see for miles over the east prairie. Stretching tall in our saddles, we scanned the horizon for movement. One of our younger deputies placed his hand over his mouth, signaling for all to be quiet, as he pointed over the edge. We cupped our hands behind our ears and leaned forward, straining to hear.

"The eighteen-year-old slid from his horse, braced himself on his rifle stock and leaned out over the cliff. ‘It sounds like shovels striking gravel,’ he whispered.

"In the shadows at the base of the cliff, he could see the tail ends of three horses protruding from a shallow cave. The thieves had the advantage of being two hundred yards away, but we had the advantage of surprise.

"On the chief’s ‘go,’ we plunged down the shadowy side of the mountain, leaning back as far as our saddles would allow. We had no sooner started down when our horse’s hooves struck loose gravel causing an avalanche of shale and small rocks to cascade down in front of us. Our advantage of surprise was lost as rock fragments rained down on their horses. We heard their high-pitched shrieks and bellows as if someone had stuck a knife in their belly. They jumped and reared like wild animals attempting to avoid the rock fall.

Two of the thieves dropped their shovels and struggled to draw rifles from scabbards strapped on their rearing mounts. Their horses were skittering on their hind legs as if they had eaten locoweed. One thief grabbed a shovel and whacked his horse on the side of the head to get his attention, but it only made him crazier. Another managed a leap to his saddle, while the third man braced the butt of his pistol on a boulder and prepared for a shootout. By the time I noticed, it looked like its muzzle was pointing straight at my nose.

Father said he heard the crack of a young shooter’s rifle echo three times. The man beating his horse screamed with rage as he dropped his shovel, and grabbed his left thigh. His hat flew to the ground as he struggled up a boulder and leapt on his panicked mount. Bloodstains saturated his pant leg from his holster to his knee. He set his spurs deep and flogged the horse’s rump with his rifle barrel.

Following close behind the bleeding thief, the wild-haired one in leathers was nearly knocked backwards out of his saddle when a thick piñon branch sprang back and smacked him in the teeth.

The lone bandit, Father continued, "screamed Mexican curses—Gilipollas-vos-gilipollas—at the other two as they abandoned him. Too far from his mount to attempt an escape, he crouched behind a cart-sized boulder and reloaded for a shootout.

"The police chief called for his surrender but was answered with more curses and a volley of pistol shots. The chief drew his rifle as he slid down from the roan. Using his saddle as a gun-rest and his horse for cover, he leveled his rifle at the shooter. It took so long for him to aim, I wondered for a moment if he lacked the courage to pull the trigger.

The thief stood screaming and waving his pistol in a come-and-get-me attitude. But his bravado suddenly went silent when the first shot from the chief’s Winchester ripped a pocket-watch sized hole through his Adam’s apple.

When Father told me that, I remembered what a friend once said. You’re really not a man until you own a Winchester.

"Two of us tied the stolen treasure to our saddles. The others took off through the scrub chasing the two bandits that got away.

"The thieves’ lead proved too much to overcome. The chase lasted until there was no sign of movement and daylight was disappearing into the shadows on the east side of Mount Taylor.

Returning to the mesa, the chief insisted, ‘for the safety of your family, I suggest you to pack up and leave the mesa until those two bandits are behind bars. The one I shot was a brother to one that got away. He’ll be back to even the score. You can count on that. We’ll set a trap. When they come back for you, they’ll get a surprise from us.’

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B rad, Father said, turning to