The film crew had not understood what it was they were seeing and filming at the foot of mountains of grayish mine tailings. To Sterling’s thinking this meant the secret of the stone snake was intact. But to the thinking of the caciques and war captains, the sacrilege had been the story of the stone figures all over again.
Sterling had tried to reason with the Tribal Council members. Nothing had actually been stolen or removed. Sterling had tried to argue a good many points. But nothing could be done. The Tribal Council had appointed Sterling to keep the Hollywood people under control. They had trusted him. They had relied on his years of experience living with white people in California, and Sterling had betrayed them.
Seese looked puzzled and shook her head. They had banished him forever, just for that one incident? Sterling had been coiling up the garden hose by the pool filter. He let out a sigh Seese could hear clear across the pool. “It was the last straw,” Sterling said, looking mournfully into the water. “But the other things hadn’t really been much—.”
THE RANCH
STERLING PROMISED to tell Seese the rest of the story another time. There was too much to tell right now, and Sterling had thought about it over and over. The magazine articles all seemed to be in agreement: to cure depression one must let bygones be bygones. Sterling unfolded the magazine clipping on mental hygiene from his billfold. Seese looked, but did not seem to be listening. She was intent on the lower left corner of the page, which wasn’t even the article on depression. Suddenly big tears filled her eyes. She looked at Sterling hopelessly, shaking her head, then shoved the magazine clipping back into his hands. Seese ran toward the house. Sterling felt all his strength drain away through his feet. His legs felt heavy. Maybe he would not be able to stay here after all. Some days he felt as if the atmosphere in the house was electric with tension. After years of working on the railroad section gang, Sterling knew better than to ask questions about the bosses. He fought off a wave of discouragement. He was still new to this place. Here the earth herself was almost a stranger. He could see the desert dip and roll, a jade-green sea to the horizon and jagged, blue mountain peaks like islands across the valley. When he worked in the yard with his rake, he was amazed at the lichens and mosses that sprang up on northern exposures after the least rain shower. The few times Sterling had ventured off paths that led to the corrals or water storage tank he felt he had stepped into a jungle of thorns and spines. Strange and dangerous plants thrived in these rocky hills.
For a moment the expanse of desert and sky was motionless. No hawks circled. The coyotes were silent. No sound out of the day dogs patrolling the arroyo and foothills or the night dogs in their kennels. Sterling had a great urge to stretch out on the chaise lounge by the pool.
But it would be no good for the new Indian gardener to be found asleep on the job, even if the old boss woman and her fat, strange nephew had more important business to tend to. Sterling felt safe in his room at the back of the toolshed. The small outbuilding near the corrals was easy to dismiss. But he had a space for his bed, and the other area contained a toilet with a tiny refrigerator and a two-burner stove. The shower was in the corner of the room near the tools and storage shelves. The pipe wrenches and screwdrivers had been lying untouched for a long time. Gallon cans of dried-up paint lined an entire wall of dusty shelves. Sterling was waiting to get nerve enough to ask Ferro or the old boss woman if they might want him to clean out all the no-good stuff in the shed.
His bed was comfortable, although Sterling thought the mattress was probably softer than the experts and doctors had recommended in their magazine articles. But whenever Sterling sank into the softness, he always slept without waking until morning. Yet that afternoon, by the time he had got to his room, the drowsiness he’d felt by the pool was gone. He could not stop thinking about the poor blond girl who had suddenly got so sad, who seemed even more alone than he was. She had started crying when she saw an article below the report on depression. The article was about a woman who had murdered three of her own babies. The police detective who had finally cracked the case had noticed a silky, white, stuffed toy dog sitting on a shelf in the nursery. Silky, white fibers had been found in the dead babies’ nostrils and mouths, and snagged on their tiny fingernails. The woman had persuaded everyone — husband and relatives, doctors and police — that her babies were victims of crib death. Sterling could understand how such an article might have upset a young woman such as Seese. Sterling himself had not been able to read the article without imagining a poor helpless baby struggling to breathe while its own mother pressed a toy dog over its face. Sterling had never liked dogs of any kind — stuffed or alive. He got chills each time he remembered those poor babies and the ugly glass eyes of the stuffed toy dog.
Paulie was in charge of the dogs at the ranch. Sterling had only been instructed once by Paulie, but with attack dogs such as these, Sterling vowed never to forget. No one was allowed to feed the dogs but Paulie. Sterling had to wait until Paulie opened the kennels, one by one, for Sterling to sweep and hose down. If for any reason Sterling were ever to find himself in an outer perimeter where the dogs patrolled, he was to stand perfectly still when they spotted him. If a dog attacked, Sterling was to lie facedown, motionless, knees drawn up to his belly, with his hands and arms protecting his neck and head. Paulie had rattled off the instructions in a low, mechanical voice as if he couldn’t care less if Sterling got torn up by dogs or not. Later on, Sterling had asked Seese what she thought about Paulie. Sterling himself thought Paulie would really like to see the dogs get somebody. Seese did not answer, but Sterling could tell by her expression she had noticed Paulie’s contempt for her and Sterling. “Yeah, the dogs. Well, just think about their names,” was all Seese had said. The only names Sterling could remember for the attack dogs that patrolled the property were Cy, Nitro, Mag, and Stray; and there were eight other dogs whose names were too hard to remember. Cyanide, Nitroglycerine, Magnum, and Stray Bullet were the day-shift dogs.
Sterling had asked Seese if she was afraid, but she had only shrugged her shoulders. “Those collars are electronic,” Seese told him. “They have radio transmitters in them. Lecha says one of them wears a bigger, heavier collar. A TV collar.”
Seese laughed. “She says they can stop the dogs by remote control. Give them little electric jolts. Give them signals and commands.”
Later Sterling had watched Paulie adjust and tinker with the dogs’ collars. The only time Sterling had ever seen Paulie’s face relax and soften was when he was handling the dogs. Paulie had whispered to them in a low, baby-talk voice and had stroked them before he commanded them in or out of the kennel. He stroked them while he completed the transfer of a collar from a day-shift dog to a night dog.