“WHAT DO YOU see, Archie?”
“Sky?” Archie asked his grandfather hesitantly.
“Is that all?” Pawpaw replied.
Archie craned his neck to search Pawpaw’s face for clues. They were sitting on the hood of Pawpaw’s blue and white battered pickup truck; Archie concentrated hard on the question while trying to ignore the metal searing his bottom through his jeans, its scorched smell combining with the arid air. The engine ticked quietly as it recovered from the long drive under the blasting sun. The sun’s rays beat heat down on their heads under the wide sky. Pawpaw squinted into the distance, lines etched into his leathery skin on either side of his eyes.
Archie scrunched his face to copy his grandfather’s. Maybe I can see what Pawpaw sees if I squint, Archie thought.
He scanned the distance. “Brown?”
Pawpaw choked back a sound. Archie sided his eyes. Is Pawpaw mad like Sir always is? Pawpaw’s lips are wriggling funny.
Pawpaw glanced down at Archie’s fair hair, shorn down to fingernail-width length. It looked like he was readying to join the military. Pawpaw hoped not. He’d like Archie to ranch like he did, ride the wild grassland and see the rough country as a land of opportunity, not stay shut up in the city of Albuquerque.
“Look again, son.” He pointed a gnarled finger.
Archie followed Pawpaw’s tanned finger, its skin grooved in lines that lead to his yellowed fingernail, the end joint swollen and bending down to the ground. Archie looked past the familiar finger and tried squeezing his cheeks up to his eyes. He said, “Sand.”
“What else?” Pawpaw asked again, his voice slow with patience with his six-year-old grandson.
“Bushes.”
“What kind of bushes did I tell you they were?”
“Sagebrush.”
“That’s right.”
Archie smiled as he ducked his head and noticed the scatter of white coffee cups under his dangling feet. “Why are there so many cups, Pawpaw?”
Pawpaw grunted, “It’s urbanites with no use for nature. Don’t you become one, Archie.”
“I won’t, Pawpaw! I promise!”
“Good boy. It isn’t only the Indians who respect land. It can’t give you anything if you don’t treat it nice. Remember that.”
“I’ll remember!”
“You be like the desert, Archie. Vast, hidden, open.”
Archie moved his lips, mouthing, “Vast. Hidden. Open.”
“Don’t be like your father and look down on other people. We all have a right to live.”
Archie swallowed. He swung his feet back and forth, like opposing metronomes, thinking how he was supposed to respect Sir, his father. But Pawpaw said to ignore him, like he always did on these long drives out of Albuquerque to the desert or forest. Sagebrush. Desert. Forest. Archie focused on those words. He liked the desert best of all. It let him see forever, and it was so quiet. Only his grandfather and the ticking of the cooling engine spoke. Sometimes the wind sighed past them. Here, he was safe with Pawpaw, learning to be like him. Archie stopped swinging his feet on that thought. He lifted his head and smiled up into his grandfather’s watchful face. “I’ll remember. We all have a right to live. I’ll remember that, Pawpaw.”
Pawpaw smiled.