By late July Josiah divided his time between the cattle, which were past Flower Mountain then, still heading southwest, and this woman. Josiah didn’t mention her much any more, not since Auntie had cornered Tayo in the storeroom. He said it was better this way; Tayo wouldn’t have to lie if he didn’t know anything. Tayo helped him as he had promised, riding along the fence line between Acoma land and Laguna land. When they found tracks and sagging wires on the fences with bits of light hair caught in the barbs, they rode through the Acoma gate and brought the cows back again.
When they had finished with the cattle, there was always the sheep camp. Auntie insisted that they check on the sheepherder because she was certain that he would run off and leave the sheep penned up to slowly die of thirst, or worse yet, that the sheepherder had got drunk and burned up the little sheep-camp house. Even after they had driven over the bumps and washed-out places on the sandy road, and made sure that these things had not happened, she would be satisfied for only two or three days. Then she would be convinced that the sheepherder had lost all the sheep, and that he was too lazy to hunt for them, and the sheep were wandering in the red rocks, where coyotes would pick them off, three and four at a time. Tayo wondered where she got these ideas, because they never happened, but when she talked about them, they sounded possible, not likely, but possible, so they had to go again. At first Tayo thought it was because Auntie never trusted her sheepherders, but later on, he saw that she wanted to keep Josiah busy, too busy to go to Cubero. They had a good man working for them then, an Apache guy from White River, and he was probably the best sheepherder they ever had; but whenever she wanted to persuade Josiah to go check up on things, she would go into a long history of what the Apaches had done to the Pueblo people, dwelling especially on Geronimo. Once, Robert heard her as he was leaving for the fields. He winked at Josiah and Tayo, and then with a serious face he said, “I thought the sheepherder’s name was Mike, not Geronimo,” and walked out the door.
As dry as it was, with the grass getting thin and short, Josiah said it was a good thing to check anyway, especially in case the river started drying up and they’d have to start hauling water to the sheep again, as they had during the dry years before. They took Mike some sugar and flour and a little coffee. He never had much to say to them, but Tayo saw that he was reading some kind of book about auto mechanics. He took good care of the sheep in an offhand way, carrying the book around with him while he herded them; and when the old black mother dog had had pups, he had trained the best two for sheep dogs. Tayo mentioned the book to Josiah, and he shook his head. “Well, he won’t be around long then. Too bad. He’s a good man.” A week later the Apache left for California and they hired their cousin Pinkie again. Auntie was against it because Pinkie had black-out spells, and she said, “The whole herd of sheep could wander onto the tracks and get hit by the Santa Fe Super Chief before Pinkie woke up.” They hired him anyway and six sheep disappeared right after that, during a dust storm, Pinkie said, but he had a new harmonica and a blue pearl-button cowboy shirt they’d never seen before.
All that summer, while Josiah and Tayo watched the cattle and the sheep camp, and Robert worked in the fields each day, Rocky read magazines and ran laps at the baseball diamond twice a day. In the afternoons he hitchhiked to Paguate to see his girl friend. Auntie made it clear to everyone that it was all necessary if Rocky were to keep his football scholarship to the university. But Tayo knew that Rocky was already talking about the war and about joining the Army before he got drafted. He would be the first one ever to get a football scholarship, the first one to go with no help from the BIA or anyone. She could hold her head up, she said, because of Rocky. And she looked hard at Josiah when she made the remark, as if to let him know that there were others who prevented her from carrying herself quite so proud.
In the evenings, after they ate, Josiah would wash up, change his clothes, and go out again. Old Grandma was back in her chair beside the stove after all day outside under the elm tree, and she would listen carefully for Josiah to pour water into the tin basin. Then she would say, “Aren’t you going to rest, Josiah?” He dried his face and hands slowly, without answering her, because they both knew what she was really asking. When was this affair with this Mexican woman going to end? His hair was gray, but when he combed it and walked out the door, he was smiling and his face wasn’t tired or old. After he was gone, Auntie made an inaudible remark from the stove, where she kept her dishpan to keep the dishwater hot. She poured rinse water over the dishes so that they rattled together violently. She wiped them and put them in the cupboard, slamming the doors and dropping the frying pan down hard on top of the stove. This way they all knew she was angry, and all summer long, every night, they listened. Grandma never said anything about it; Tayo didn’t know when or how she had learned about it, or if maybe she had known all along. They got into the habit of leaving before Josiah did, or right afterward. Robert left earlier, with the excuse that he had to chop wood or see how the little apple trees behind the house were doing. Rocky wasn’t even there, because he ate most of his evening meals at Paguate with his girl friend’s family. Auntie didn’t care for that either, but Rocky was her special one, so all she said to him was “How do you like living at Paguate now?” looking angry as she said it.
Tayo got up to leave after he heard Josiah’s truck pull out of the yard. But before he got out the door, Auntie turned around and looked at him; she didn’t seem to care if old Grandma heard what she said or not. “I was always happy he didn’t get married,” she said grimly, “but now, worse things are happening. The way he goes off every night reminds me of our old dog, Pepper. That dog was the same way every time a female dog was in heat. Just like that. I try to tell him to stay with our own kind; but he doesn’t listen to me. That woman is after anything she can get now.” Old Grandma nodded her head and said, “That’s right, that’s what will happen.” Auntie sat down on the bench by the table, triumphantly. She folded and refolded the damp dishcloth on the table in front of her. Tayo was aware of how dim the room was then with no light except the faint twilight still coming in the windows.
“Remember what happened to that dog?” She seemed to be talking to both of them, although Tayo had never even seen Pepper. Her voice seemed to come from every part of the room. “Pepper got run over on the highway, chasing some she-dog in heat.”
He remembered when his mother died. It had been dry then too. The day they buried her the wind blew gusts of sand past the house and rattled the loose tin on the roof. He never forgot that sound and the sand, stinging his face at the graveyard while he stood close to Josiah. He kept his head down, staring at small round pebbles uncovered by the wind. Josiah held his hand as they walked away from the graveyard. He lifted him into the front seat of the truck and gave him a candy cane left over from Christmas. He told him not to cry any more.