This is crazy, she told herself, panting, breathless from the steep climb. I should turn back, I don’t even know him, what if someone sees me, what if I die out here? Although she carried a sharp wood carving knife in her pocket and was no stranger to the wildlife in the canyon, she felt anxious. She had been told by her mother and father to never wander alone through the woods, especially at night. They had warned her that if she did, she could be attacked by stray campers breaking the laws that forbade non-members of the Navajo Nation to abide within its territory, not to mention wolves and bears she might stumble upon.
She nearly screamed when the beam of her flashlight lit up the tips of Jack’s boots. He was sitting on an old tree stump a few yards off the entrance. He stood and approached her, his heels crunching on the gravel. She stood and waited for him, her breath still caught in her throat.
“You’re trembling,” he said gently as he ran his hands down her shoulders. Even though it was an unseasonably warm evening, she had hiked for at least a mile, and she was wearing a bulky knit sweater her grandmother had made that would keep an Eskimo warm, she was still shivering.
“I guess I’m a little chilly,” she lied, feeling a drop of sweat trickle down her back.
“You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Anna,” she replied shyly. “Anna Becenti.”
Jack shook her hand. “Nice to officially meet you, Anna Becenti. I’m Jack Foreman. And why don’t we go get warm?”
He motioned to the tree stump where he had been sitting, and Anna noticed a folded blanket and a big, brown paper bag. Jack also had a flashlight, and he shone it ahead and guided Anna by the arm to the spot.
“How did you get here?” Anna knew the Coconino National Park rangers were usually scarce at night, but still she worried. What if we get caught?
“I drove, silly, but I parked my car up ahead off the highway. I had to hike two miles to get here.” He spread the blanket in a little alcove under a large pine tree that was a few yards away, motioned for her to sit down next to him, and opened the bag, pulling out a bottle of wine and two plastic cups.
Anna felt her mouth drop open. “Alcohol isn’t allowed here,” she whispered fiercely. She had never had as much as a sip of wine or beer in her entire seventeen years on earth. Prohibition had always been the law of the Navajo Nation ever since it formed its own sovereign government, laws, and judicial system in the 1920s.
“Relax, I’ll hide it if we see any cop cars or rangers drive by,” he said with a cavalier flair, twisting the cap off the cheap white wine, then pouring it into the plastic cups until they were full.
“But…” Anna started to protest as he handed her the cup, but then stopped, taking it. He won’t believe me if I tell him I’ve never had anything alcoholic to drink before. I guess it won’t hurt to try it and when he’s not looking dump it out. After he tipped his cup to hers in a mock toast, she put the wine to her lips and sipped. Yuck. It tasted like the vinegar her mother sometimes added to tone down the gaminess of some meats like goat and rabbit. But she did like the radiating warm glow it seemed to spread to her insides, so she took a few more sips and then a gulp, realizing it wasn’t so bad after all. Besides, she was thirsty.
“Whoa, slow down a little,” Jack said, grinning. “I walked a long way to get here, so we need to make this last.” He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes as they sat next to each other on the blanket under the night sky. Suddenly his face loomed close, he closed his eyes, and his lips were touching hers, kissing her. Anna had read about kissing, heard her older sisters and friends talk about what it was like, but had never experienced the sensation before. It was her very first kiss, and initially, she hoped she was doing it right, then she just closed her own eyes and experienced the warm wonderful sensation of it.
They talked, laughed, kissed, and cuddled for almost an hour until the wine ran out and Jack said he better get back to the hotel where his family was staying before they sent someone out looking for him. He had told them he was merely making a store run.
On her way back home, Anna mulled over all of the things she had learned about Jack Foreman, smiling dreamily and almost tripping over an old tree root she had stepped over a thousand times in her travels.
She stopped and pulled a few mint and lemon balm leaves from the herb garden in their yard and chewed them quickly, trying to cover the taste and smell of the wine in her mouth. Then quietly as she could, she let herself in through the back door. She opened the refrigerator and helped herself to a glass of cold milk. That way if someone gets up, I’ll just tell them I couldn’t sleep. Milk always put her back to sleep.
But no one woke up. It was just before midnight when Anna finally fell asleep, dreaming of Jack’s kiss.
THE FOREMAN FAMILY was staying for three weeks in Arizona, where Jack’s father worked at a manufacturing plant while he, his mother, and two younger brothers toured Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, and Sedona. Then they would head back to their home in Gary, Indiana.
Jack and Anna stole away to their favorite spot a few more times, sharing bottles of wine, making out under the stars.
Anna thought she was in love, so much so that she invited Jack to sneak back with her one night into their family hogan.
The tent-shaped log structure, situated on the Becenti property by the woods about a half-acre away from their more contemporary house, was a traditional sacred space her family used for occasional sweat lodges and other ceremonies her father hosted for family and friends.
The mountain weather had grown chilly with the approach of fall, especially in the evenings. Anna figured the hogan would provide shelter from the cold wind as well as privacy, despite her misgivings that she was somehow being sacrilegious to her ancestors.
She led Jack by the hand through the blanket-covered entrance to what appeared on the outside as a large, clay-covered hut. Once inside, Jack let go of Anna’s hand and looked around him in awe. Three ten-foot cedar logs intersected from the ground up to form the foundation of the tent-like structure, with a huge wooden pole rising up in the center for support. The walls were also made of vertical cedar logs.
“This is so cool,” he whispered, staring almost reverently at the wooden structure around him as his eyes adjusted to the shadowy interior. “What do you do in here?”
“It’s called a hogan.” Anna ran her hand along the smooth amber-colored wood of one of the support beams, feeling ambivalent now about her decision to bring Jack into her family’s sacred space. “It’s a Navajo word meaning ‘the place home.’ My people lived in hogans for many years up until the early nineteen-hundreds when the government forced the Navajos to buy HUD houses with more modern bathrooms and kitchens. But my dad was one of several Navajo leaders—elders, medicine men, business men—who decided our people needed to remember their heritage and bring the hogan back.
“In 2001, a partnership formed between the Navajo Nation, Northern Arizona University, the US Forest Service, and a Navajo-owned log home factory to start building log hogans from surplus wood out of the local forests. It’s like there’s been a hogan revival on the Navajo Nation. They’re built like this one or in hexagon or octagon shapes, and some are even used as homes if they meet government regulations. Ours is just used for ceremonial purposes.”
Jack walked over to a charred, round space toward the center. “Can we somehow build a fire?”
“No!” Anna whispered. “My family might see the smoke. But there are some blankets we can cover up with to keep us warm.” She pulled down two Native American wool blankets her mother had made from pegs where they hung in the hogan.
They sat on two of the dozen mats scattered about, huddled under the blankets.
“Too bad we drank all the wine earlier.” Jack fished in his pocket and held out a rolled joint. “Good thing I brought my emergency stash.” His pout