Dust Devil (54 page)

"Thank you, gentlemen.” Chase took a drink of the champagne before continuing. "To have won the primary was difficult. But to win the race
— it may well prove impossible.”

Peter said, "We’re having the campaign literature delivered to our promo man this week. The sooner—” He halted
as the Railroad Commissioner, a distinguished man with salt-and-pepper hair, stopped by the table to congratulate Chase.

"It doesn’t take much to make an Indian acceptable, does it?” Chase asked after the man left. "A year ago
— hell, a month ago — an Anglo wouldn’t be seen shaking hands with an Indian.”

"It’s the 'in’ thing to do now,” Will said.

That night the five men retired to the empty AID office to plan the last half of their campaign. "What you will have to be,” Peter said, "is the Great Mediator of the problem of Sovereign Nations of the Indian reservations versus the State. This is the crux of the problems facing you. It’ll be the hot issue of this campaign. You must be prepared to face Masters with solutions and answers.”

Will went over to the state map tacked to the wall.
Multicolored pins splotched the various counties. "There are three basic voting blocs.” His gnarled finger pointed to the northern area of the state. "Here, and in Bernalillo County, are the Rio Grande Democrats — mostly Spanish surnames. Then there are the widely dispersed Republicans with no one concentration.

"Lastly are the Border Democrats, mostly Anglo and from the eastern and southern counties, known as Little Texas. The Anglos there are racially biased
— especially the Texas cowboys and oilmen who run the Border counties.” Will shoved a pin in Lea County. "Here’s where we’ll start.”

Thus Chase began his grass-roots campaign with the Border counties. He explained what he proposed to do calmly and concisely to the Mexican peon, the Anglo roughneck, the Indian miner. When he at last visited one of the powerful oilmen in the county, he was told, "All I’m interested in is sending to Santa Fe the best damned governor that money can buy!”

If Chase won the office, he realized it would only be through voter apathy on the part of the Democrats. Hardly a triumph, but still it would be a beginning.

He had expected some word from Christina, at least a biting condemnation at his challenge of her
fiancé, but neither saw nor heard anything of her until Will charged into the office one afternoon late in August.

"Chase! Chase! You won’t believe it! I’ve located a pocket of powerful Anglos that can’t be bought
—t hat will consider listening to you. I’ve arranged for you to debate Masters at the town’s auditorium.”

Skeptical, Chase narrowed his eyes. "Don’t tell me
— you’ve located another cemetery for a captive audience.”

"I’m serious! It’s the town northwest of here—Los Alamos, the one that’s filled up so rapidly over the last year.”

Chase smiled. "The town they say is supposed to be a home for pregnant WACS?”

Will threw up his hands, and Chase said, "I know, I know. The town has something to do with the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki earlier this month.”

"Will you do it?” the old man asked. "Will you debate Masters?”

"Set up an appointment,” Chase said. "I’ll be there to talk
— if they want to hear my answers.”

It was not that easy, for first Chase had to be cleared by a governmental war agency, known as the Manhattan Project, quartered in the long
Arias de Quiros
complex of buildings along the north side of Santa Fe plaza’s Palace Avenue. The erect army major refused to discuss with Chase anything about Los Alamos, though he did hint that the people were a high-grade cross-section of the nation.

"As newcomers to New Mexico they’re uninformed, Mr. Strawhand, but interested. They’re cordial, a bit curious about their Spanish-speaking associates
— and notably without prejudice.”

Chase thought he was prepared when he arrived at the small school auditorium. He was mildly surprised to see it was packed. At one end of the stage were two chairs draped with his campaign colors, black and beige. At the other end two chairs were draped in purple and gold,
Masters’ colors.

By all accounts he should have been nervous. He had never spoken before a large group of people. All his campaigning had always been a handshake here, a few words there. Maybe he was not nervous, he reasoned, because there was so little hope of winning.

Calmly he took his seat. Masters still had not shown up, and Chase wondered if at the last minute Masters had considered it beneath him to debate an Indian. However Chase’s opponent did appear, fifteen minutes late and with an entourage that mounted the platform with him. Secretaries, ad men, and advisors. There was a smattering of applause for the Senator, and he nodded genuinely. Then Chase noticed in the front row the elegantly dressed, starkly beautiful woman.

Christina Raffin had come. Chase was curious why she had not taken a seat on the platform with Masters. Her presence would be a certain sign of her support, and thereby her father’s support. Obviously just being there was enough, for people were nodding toward her, whispering. Wherever Christina went, stares were to be expected.

Masters opened the debate, keeping on safe ground until midway through his speech, then, "But if my worthy opponent, who represents the minorities of our state . . . and I might add, it’s time they were recognized . . . were to be elected governor, it would be enacting legislation which presently gives the Indians immunity — as they pay no county, state, and city taxes.

"You must realize if the Indians become a part of state politics too soon, they will lose the services and protections accorded them by the specialized agencies and programs of the federal government. These programs assist in the support of Indian cultures and communities. It would be brutally inhumane to the Indian,” Masters concluded.

Oh, clever, Chase thought. Not fighting the minorities openly, only expressing concern for their welfare.

It was his turn now. "I’m impressed, Senator Masters, by your concern. But I hope you realize that to continue the policies you mention will tend to deny to the individual Indian the right to opt for whatever life and role he seeks. What must be done, and what I hope to do, is to find a middle ground in which all three of New Mexico’s cultural heritages
— the Indian, the Hispanic, and the Anglo — can meet and work out our problems.”

There was more, but as Chase thought about it later he felt his speech lacked
Masters’ expertise. Masters was a brilliant orator. His words drew the attention in soft-spoken tones one time, then compelling, urging, motivating his audience, his sheep, with gripping, reverberant oration the next.

Afterward Masters cordially shook Chase’s hand before the audience. "You’re wasting your time with these people,” he told Chase quietly. "Our political machines may not be able to control their votes, but we can have their votes thrown out for the very good reason the Los Alamos people are residents of a federal reservation and subject only to federal jurisdiction. They know it and may not like it if we do it, but there’s nothing they can do about it.”

"Oh, but there is,” Christina said, appearing suddenly backstage. She came to stand between the two men. "Some of the Los Alamos people are already threatening to petition Texas for admission.”

Masters scoffed, and Christina shrugged her shoulders. "Agreed, nothing will come of it
— except that before election time you can bet Governor McDonald will make certain that Los Alamos is made a separate county. He can’t afford not to, Phil. This is a highly paid group of people with scientific and technical backgrounds.”

"I don’t want to debate the issue here, Christina.” He took her arm. "Let’s go.”

Christina looked to Chase. "I think,” she told Masters without looking away from Chase, "that this gentleman and I have old times to discuss.”

Masters’ smooth fa
cade erupted, as if he could not believe what he heard. Chase was not sure he had understood correctly either. Not what she said but what she meant. He wanted her just as badly as he ever had. But with reason he was leery. What was she after this time?

"Nothing,” she told him when she slid into his new car, a 1939 Plymouth. She sat beside him but not touching him. "Just a ride home.”

Her mere presence charged the car with electricity, and Chase felt if he were to touch her tiny lights would go off in the darkness. She smoked in the taut silence as Chase drove down the wretched, narrow road that connected Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains with civilization.

Santa Fe came into sight before Christina finally spoke. "Chase, I want to talk about us.” She stretched out a hand, and he felt her fingertips rest on his arm.

"Don’t, Christina. Find yourself another stud.”

"I don’t want anyone else. I’ve tried to forget you. I told myself that you weren’t capable of living in my world
— and I wasn’t capable of living in yours. That we’d be miserable together. But I’m miserable without you.” She paused, waiting for him to say something. When he did not, she said, "Well, do I have to ask you? Okay, I’ll crawl. Will you marry me, Chase?”

He
stopped the Plymouth right in the middle of San Francisco Street and came around to hers side of the car. While traffic backed up and horns honked, he pulled her from the car and kissed her. His fingers bit into her arms, and his mouth bruised her soft lips. He half expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. She clung to him, returning the fierceness of his kiss.

"Take me home,” she said, when they returned to the privacy of his car, ignoring the shouts and
curses and laughter of the people on the streets. "I’ve something to tell my father that won’t make him happy. And besides, I think it’s time he met his prospective son-in-law.”

It was a mansion, a sprawling Victorian house that lay inside the city, though at one time it was beyond the city’s
outskirts. Hired guards were posted at the iron-picket gates. When he drove down the long, tree-lined drive that circled before the veranda’s steps, Christina asked, "Nervous?”

He
shook his head. "Should I be? What can he take from me or do to me?” He smiled at Christina. "There must be some good in him to have produced a daughter like you.”

Christina laughed, an unaffected joyous laugh. "Meet him first. I’m a late-in-life child. His first wife never had any children. And his second wife, my mother, had only me. So I’m special.”

"I didn’t know Raffin was married before.”

"Not many people do. It’s a secret I think he’s ashamed of. She was Mexican. And in case you haven’t heard, my father’s terribly bigoted.”

"Then why did he marry her?”

"It’s all history. She was heiress to a reasonably large land grant. In any event, she left him. Interned herself in a convent where she died some years later.” Christina leaned over and brushed his jaw with her lips.

"I guess that’s one of the reasons why I’m so attracted to you. You obviously aren't after my inheritance, or I wouldn’t have had to beg you to marry me.” Her fingers slipped inside his shirt, and she murmured, "Of course, there were other reasons.”

H
e grabbed her hand and moved it down over the swelling crotch. "See what you do to me? Come on, or I’ll change my mind and haul you off to the bushes.”

H
e had known that the Senator was very old, nearing eighty. But his age did not lessen the power that exuded from the man’s dominating presence. "Daddy,” Christina said, "I want you to meet Chase Strawhand. He’s running against Phil, you know.”

Chase put out his hand to the old man who sat in the winged-back chair with a crocheted blanket across his lap. The man ignored it, looking past him, to his daughter. "Where’s Phil? Weren’t you two going over the campaign notes later tonight?”

"Daddy! Stop being rude!” Christina put her hands on her hips. "You might as well know now I don't intent to see Phil again. At least not on a romantic basis.”

Raffin fixed his ferret eyes on Chase. "And you intend to see this
—t his man of color?”

"Daddy!”

"Christina, I’ve spoiled you. You've always had what you wanted. But this time I won’t permit it! I won’t let you ruin your reputation, gallivanting around with this redskin!”

"I’m perfectly old enough—”

Chase turned to leave. He wanted to hit the old man. And it was not the man’s age that kept him from doing it. It was the realization that hitting Christina’s father would not change the old man’s prejudice or the thousands like him.

"Wait, Chase, I’m going with you!” Christina said and left her father raving after her.

Chase sat behind the steering wheel and found his hands were gripping it as if he’d break it. Christina passed him a cigarette. "Daddy’s a touchy old bastard. But he knows he can’t manipulate me like he does everyone else.”

Chase inhaled deeply on the cigarette and switched on the ignition. "I’m bushed, Christina. Go back inside. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

"No, I’m going with you.”

He
raked a brow. "To my attic room? The landlord would really get a charge out of that.”

Christina smiled like a cat. "How about our summer hogan?”