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there in the same amount of time.”
    “What are these little fiber-like lines on the map?” I moaned. “Just before we get to the famous mesas in the John Wayne movies.”
    She stared at them, trying to figure it out with me. “Maybe farm-to-market roads,” she said. “This is New Mexico and Arizona. Our roads suck eggs. We’ll go due north to Shiprock first, that’s a good highway, and it’s all in New Mexico. But once we turn west into Arizona, it’s all desolate terrain. That’s when those fibers for roads on the map begin. They might even be dirt roads. It happens in this part of New Mexico, too. It leads us to a sparse area and then we’re on our own. Nobody lives there, I guess.”
    “We’ll stock up with food and drink,” I instructed, “and extra water for the radiator, just in case.”
    On the way, we passed by Window Rock. I recognized it because the Indian reservation where Kerr contracted was near there. All these eroded hills and giant rocks. Like the roadrunner and coyote cartoons I used to watch. New Mexico was the world’s best-kept secret, I decided.
    The town of Shiprock had an eroded hill that did indeed look like a ship. A sandstone hill, I assumed, that had worn down to a God-made sculpture of a ship floating on just enough rock to keep it afloat. How long has it been here , I wondered as I stared, and how much longer before it crashes? Will they change the name of the town when it does?
    The edge of Monument Valley was less than an hour due west of Shiprock. And now the fun began. Small paved roads narrowed into a one-lane graded dirt road. Miles of this allowed me near the table-like structures resting on red sand that were prominent in the John Wayne movies. Some of the structures looked like stalagmites.
    We were probably breaking some law if we walked up to these mesas. Somehow they were protected, or should be. Between that and being tired, we settled for a small rise of a sand-like dune near the dirt road we were on. I parked my van off to the side of it, sure we were the only human beings around in this heat, and positioned the van in such a way that we could sit at the back with the rear doors open and get a perfect view of the most scenic mesas. We imbibed over a quart of water, then a still-icy soda each, and just stared. That was enough. To just stare.
    “I’m part Cherokee,” I said to Carmen. “Not enough to lay claim to the heritage, but enough to feel proud. And I feel so proud even though this is Navajo country.”
    I glanced at her shyly, afraid I looked the fool. She nodded her head supportively, and returned to viewing the mesas in front of us.
    “I wish I knew a Cherokee song,” I continued, “or any Indian song, for that matter. I want to share this with whatever spirits might be hovering around, as more than a descendent of a white conqueror. But it’s okay to be white, too. Now I can make amends somehow, right here, right now, to my Indian side. And live in harmony. I guess. Even though that sounds so hippie.”
    She shook her head and looked at me mockingly. “You’re on a crusade, Dalhart. Still the Marine. You live in a van when you could be starting a career any of the rest of us would die for. It’s like you’re looking for yourself. But you’re so against our generation. You even still use the word ‘hippie.’ You’re so like them, though, you know? Not exactly. But this anti-materialism thing about you is. Yet you hate their lifestyle and politics. I guess the word is complex. You’re so damn complex, mi amour .”
    “I hope to have money someday, Carmen. I’m not a back-to-nature freak. People wonder what I’m doing here. Maybe it’s my upbringing. On the farm where I worked with my parents, we felt so productive. Me and all the families around and all the kids on those farms working them with their parents. The work was hard, and we’d complain or want better. But now America just wants out. Wealth is new to us. Yet another God-given