“Is Johnny here?” she said excitedly. She sprinted to the door, brushing past a startled Mike.
Mike didn’t have to answer, he simply turned to follow the happy woman out the front door to the parked car where Johnny Thapaha sat waiting, looking into the distance. Ruth ran out the front door of town hall crying, “Johnny’s home! Johnny’s home!”
The townspeople came out of the few time-worn buildings that lined Main Street in the small, sleepy New Mexican town. Pretty soon, a small crowd had gathered around the sedan. Ruth, who was Johnny Thapaha’s youngest daughter, pulled open the front passenger’s door and helped Johnny Thapaha out of his seat. She hugged and kissed him, ran her fingers through his hair, touched his hands, his arms, his back, crying in happiness. Johnny Thapaha looked emotionlessly into the distance to a vision no one else could see.
As Mike came up to the crowd, the jubilation quieted, they turned to face the government man. The tension was palpable; the Navajo had little need for the white man’s helpers, never mind that he had just brought back their medicine man, their chanter. From the crowd stepped a young Navajo about Mike’s age. He walked up to Mike and extended his right hand.
“Hi, I’m Richard MacLaren. Thank you for bringing my father-in-law home to us. It’s been a long time since he has walked the sacred soil.”
“I’m pleased to meet you and I’m also glad that Mr. Thapaha is finally home,” said Mike.
Richard stepped to Mike’s side and turned to face the crowd. He put his right arm around Mike’s shoulder. “This brother has brought our sacred leader home. We must honor him and respect him as one of our own.”
The crowd moved forward as the men, one by one, shook Mike’s hand. The women and children largely hung back in shyness and by tradition. A few curious children came up to touch the hand and clothes of this strange looking person.
“Welcome, brother,” said Richard to Mike.
It had been two weeks since Mike brought Johnny Thapaha home to the Navajo Indian Reservation. During those two weeks there had been plenty of opportunity to celebrate the homecoming. Richard had made certain that Mike was included in every celebration, big or small.
In a rare move, the chairman of the tribal council invited Mike into the meeting hall to enjoy the camaraderie of the men in a traditional male ceremony. All the while, Mike was careful at every opportunity to show his respect for Johnny Thapaha, an elder of the tribe and one to whom all the tribal members showed great deference. Johnny Thapaha spoke very little and for the most part sat stoically, looking into the distance as he had done all the time that Mike had known him.
Given Johnny Thapaha’s aloofness, Mike was astonished at Richard’s invitation to Mike to join his father-in-law at a sunrise ceremony.
“Mike, Johnny would like you to accompany him to the mesa tomorrow to welcome the sun. Be at his hogan at 5:00 a.m.,” said Richard.
Promptly at 5:00 a.m. the next morning, Mike was at the hogan of Johnny Thapaha at the foot of Red Mesa. As Mike got out of his government sedan, the door of the hogan opened. Johnny Thapaha walked out without a word and started up a narrow footpath carved out of the side of the mesa. Mike followed slowly and carefully. One false step and he would fall several hundred feet to his death.
After a half hour hike up the narrow footpath, Mike reached a small landing just under the mesa top. He stopped for a moment to admire the vista that this perch offered. To the east he could see the first few rays of sunlight breaking the horizon. Overhead, two hawks made swooping motions in the sky as they searched for early-morning thermals. The dark morning sky was still, cold and desolate. Mike wished he had worn more clothing as he pulled his windbreaker around his neck. Somewhere in the dark valley below, Mike heard the haunting, mournful tones of a Native American flute, its tune occasionally broken by the muffled cadence of a drum.
Snapping out of his reverie, Mike made the final climb to the top of the mesa. Reaching the top of the mesa, he saw Johnny Thapaha already kneeling before the sunrise, his hands outstretched before him. Johnny Thapaha said nothing. His countenance was frozen by the early rays of the sun. Mike quietly walked to a point behind Johnny Thapaha and also kneeled, out of respect for the old man’s worship ceremony.
As the morning light filled the sky, Johnny Thapaha rose, with his sacred bundle clutched hard to his breast. Having been warned of the tribal custom, Mike averted his eyes. He looked out over the valley below, examining the valley and the sparsely populated land. The landscape was broken by occasional hogans spewing forth plumes of smoke as Navajo mothers prepared the morning meal. Yellow school buses slowly made their way across the desert flats, stopping to pick up Navajo children and carry them to government schools.
Navajo shepherds took their flocks out of the corrals that held them during the night. Faithful black, white and rust colored collies ran helter skelter, yipping and collaring wayward sheep. This pastoral scene was exciting to Mike, whose entire existence to this point had been spent in the homogenized sanitary world of cities and college towns.
Mike was transfixed by the sight of a Native American community wakening and stood in awe of the tremendous vistas painted by nature in this southwestern desert. In a way, Mike felt as though it were a homecoming. His youth had been spent growing up in a culture as alien to him as it would have been to these Navajo. Having been landed in America as a very young child, Mike’s passage through his country had been hampered by his feelings of being a stranger in his adopted land. Here, the pastoral scenes evoked a sense of community unlike any Mike had felt before.
Turning around, Mike realized that he was alone on the small windswept mesa, alone with only the two circling hawks floating high in the clouds. In near panic, Mike wondered where Johnny Thapaha had disappeared to. Of course, thought Mike, remembering where he was — Johnny Thapaha wasn’t going to wait for him.
Mike hurried over to the edge of the mesa. Sure enough, Johnny Thapaha was well on his way down the twisting narrow footpath. Mike started down.
By the time Mike reached the bottom of the timeworn path, Johnny Thapaha was almost to his hogan. He hesitated for a moment at the door to the sod hogan. Then as silently as ever and without looking back, he opened the door and disappeared inside. During the entire time that Mike had been with Johnny Thapaha, not one word had passed between the old Navajo and the young Chinese-American.
Mike stood next to his car and watched as Johnny Thapaha went inside. Mike then got in and drove back to the motel in which he was staying, a small, privately run motel with small individual cabins for each guest.
Mike went to the public pay telephone in the aluminum and glass box and dialed McHugh’s telephone number at the National Security Agency.
The familiar gruff voice answered. “McHugh here.”
“Commander, this is Mike Liu. I’m calling to check in.”
“Well, bust my balls, if it isn’t our wandering man in the desert. I didn’t know you worked here anymore, it’s been over three weeks, you know. Have you found out anything?”
“Well — actually no, sir. However, Johnny Thapaha did invite me to a special ceremony this morning.”
“I can’t keep you out there forever. I’ll give you another week. Then you’ll have to come home to reality.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mike stirred the glowing embers of the campfire with an old branch and then put in two small logs to keep the fire going. Sparks flew out as Mike stirred the fire. The two new logs quickly caught fire and the campfire crackled with renewed energy. Tiny gnats and moths flew around the fire flirting with conflagration every second. Mike and Johnny Thapaha were on Red Mesa in the dead of a moonless night. The night sky was filled with millions of stars shining steadily on the two men sitting by the small fire. A city boy, Mike had never seen so many stars. He leaned back and just soaked in the energy from so many light years away.