Falling Star (23 page)

After about one half-hour of this silence, Mike spoke.  "Elder, we do not seek to harm you.  The man who was in here before was uneducated and did not know where he was.  We simply seek your assistance in determining the mysteries of the desert, the mysteries of the visitors from the sky.  We understand that you can be of help."

Mike lapsed into a strained silence once again.  Johnny Thapaha spoke not one word.  The old man sat, his eyes unmoving, unblinking.

Finally after another half-hour of silence, concluding there was nothing that he would get out of the Navajo, Mike got up to leave.  As Mike started to open the door, Johnny Thapaha spoke.

"He was the fourth."

The news came as a jolt.  If Johnny Thapaha had found a live alien then that meant that there were four involved in the Socorro incident not three, as the government had thought for years.  However, Mike understood that this interview was over and without further comment he opened the door and stepped outside into the hallway.

McIntyre had been leaning against the window frame, gazing out into the New Mexico desert.  When he saw the door opening, he quickly took one last puff on his cigarette and put out the stub with his shoe.

"Did you get anything from the old man?" said McIntyre.

"No.  I need to get back to Washington."

0900 Hours: Thursday, July 9, 1970: CSAC Offices, Laurel, Maryland

"Welcome back, Mike," said McHugh.

"Thank you, sir," said Mike.

"Did you uncover anything of interest?"

"You know how everyone thinks there were three crewmen on the UFO that crashed in Socorro, New Mexico?"

"Yeah?"

"There were four."

McHugh paused.  "How do you know that?"

"The Air Force is holding an old Navajo medicine man, Johnny Thapaha, on suspicion of hoarding artifacts from the crash site.  Although they and I were unable to get any information from the old guy, during my interview, if you could call it that, the medicine man said that there were four."

"Have you told anyone about this?"

"No, sir."

"Don't."

"What do we do next?"

"First off, we've got to get control of the Navajo medicine man, get him out of the hands of the Air Force.  Second, we need to gain his trust so that any information he may have will be willingly shared.  Having grown up in the West, I know that failing to gain the trust of these people is the worst way to get any information."

"Yes, sir."

McHugh added.  "I understand you got a little rough with an airman yesterday."

"The guy was a racist asshole."

"Try to cool those jets, it doesn't help you," said McHugh.

Mike was one of few nonwhite officers in the Navy and McHugh knew that reports of this type could be used by those who would claim that this was the very reason that proper acculturation was so important in selecting candidates for the officer corps.  By proper acculturation, the proponents meant that only certain types of people should be naval officers.  Mike didn't fit that category, never mind his NROTC education at the University of Virginia.  White uniforms weren't the only uniform white in the officer ranks of the Navy in 1970.

"Do you want to stay on this case?  If Thapaha spoke to you, you're apparently the only person he's spoken to that we know of."

"I'd like to give it a try, sir."

"Makes sense, I'll go see the director for orders.  Just don't go terrorizing anymore airmen, okay?"

"Aye, sir."  Mike snapped to attention on that remark by McHugh.

1000 Hours: Friday, July 10, 1970: Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico

"Good luck with him," said McIntyre.  "We haven't been able to get any information out of him in the six weeks we've had him in custody.  He's all yours."

Johnny Thapaha stood erect in a regal manner in the first floor hallway of the detention barracks.  He was dressed in the same clothes that Mike had seen the last time at Holloman.  When Mike walked out of the processing office to take custody of the medicine man, Johnny Thapaha took no notice of Mike or any other person.  He stood quietly with a fixed gaze.

"Good morning, Mr. Thapaha," said Mike.

No response.

"I'm going to take you back to your people," continued Mike.  "I've made arrangements to stay with you for a short period of time."

No response.

This guy is going to be a challenge, thought Mike.

Mike had arranged for a government issued interagency motor pool car.  The tan colored Ford Fairlane did not carry any markings.  In addition, Mike was dressed in a blue button down collar shirt, tan trousers, Bass Weeguns, and a navy blue windbreaker.  With his black hair and dark complexion, Mike could have easily passed for a Native American himself.

Mike opened the door for Johnny Thapaha and then got in the driver's seat for the one hundred and fifty mile drive to the Navajo Indian Reservation near Socorro and the crash site.

The drive passed in silence.  Neither Johnny Thapaha nor Mike spoke during the two and one half hour drive.  Mike enjoyed the Southwestern desert, the colorful yellows and reds of the desert, the sagebrush and creosote bushes, the occasional saguaro cactus, the brilliant blue sky broken only by wisps of white clouds, an occasional soaring hawk, and the countless electric poles that whipped by.  A cabin could be seen every few miles in the distance, a thin wisp of smoke rising out of the smoke stack.  The land was desolate, but fascinating.

As Mike drove into the Navajo Indian Reservation along New Mexico State Route 52 from Magdalena, New Mexico, he looked for the town hall.  The poverty that followed the Navajo into the twentieth century was evident in the ramshackle housing that was clustered along the road.  Life had not changed greatly for the Navajo and they continued to live much as their ancestors had for centuries.  Mike pulled up to the neat white stucco building in the small town square and parked the car.  Leaving Johnny Thapaha in the car, Mike walked into the town clerk's office.

"Hello," said Mike to the Navajo woman behind the long wooden counter.  The attractive Navajo woman, Ruth MacLaren, was dressed in a traditional long-sleeved colored blouse and a long cotton skirt.  Her blouse was decorated with buttons of silver and a narrow string of hammered silver medallions.  On each wrist was a bracelet of turquoise and silver.  Around her waist was a belt of hammered silver.

Around her neck were several beaded necklaces of many colors, shapes and sizes.  Her black hair, glistening in the light, was arranged into two braids tied with red ribbons.  The braids ran down the front of her blouse.  She was about twenty.

"May I help you?" said Ruth.

"Yes, I spoke yesterday with Richard MacLaren about Johnny Thapaha.  Where can I find him?" said Mike.

"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.

0500 Hours: Friday, July 24, 1970: Navajo Indian Reservation, New Mexico

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."