Chiliman and boy named Chee

Tahzii' (Turkey!) Tahzii' Tahzii

"Why does he keep saying that?" Nahgebah (Nah-gee-bah) said, looking at her 5-year-old nephew, Chee.

"Tahzii', Tahzii', Tahzii" he said again. He was worried about Thanksgiving, about not having a Tahzii' (Turkey) for Thanksgiving Dinner.

"Tahzii, Tahzii', Tahzii" Chee said, his small round eyes looking out the window, down Frisco street, the Southside of Flagstaff, his parents had moved into a small apartment behind the Manhattan Club, a hard luck bar that was across the alley. The light reflected all kinds of colors of the broken wine and beer bottles that lined the alleyway separating their place from the back door of the bar.

"We won't need a Tahzii' Sharlene said, “We can cook him!" pointing at Chee, who looked at her quickly with large eyes and she laughed at him.
"Don't say that!" Nahgebah said.

The little boy with curious eyes had been looking out the window and watched the world from this spot. He saw men and women standing out there with brown paper bags, drinking Roma wine, cheap liquor. They were out there all the time, some standing, and some staggering as they walked around falling down, some dirty and dressed in rags. Some just layed out there until the police came and picked them up..

His mother told him, not to talk to them, not to look at them, don't take anything from them even if they want to give you a candy bar she said. He didn't speak to them; he would just look and then run inside. Some he saw all the time. It was a strange world, far different than Shiprock where they had lived..

His mother was off working somewhere and her sisters were watching him.
They were teenagers and they were mean to him, Nahgebah and Sharlene. They were in high school raised there in town and thought living on the Navajo reservation was uncivilized, they were "Town Navajos"; much better than those who came from the Gap, Grand Falls, Dennehotso, Cow Springs and Shiprock and a host of other places they didn't want to know about or cared for..

"Tahzii', where is the Tahzii'? " he would say over and over. The two girls got tired of him saying it..

Chee could see Che' (Grandfather) the old man somewhere way out there where he lived in Dinetah. Chee could run around there and no one cared, but here he was cooped up like a chicken all day.

Chee remembered he saw some tahzii's in a pen at his Che's and they were always around. Che' told him that they were there to help them those tahzii’s. long ago there was a boy who was poor and left his home to make his way in the world and he left his home near Two Gray Hills and went to Dibensa, the mountain and when he left he was followed by a tahzii', a companion who kept him company during his time there.

This tazhii' taught the Mountain Boy to walk in a circle to find his way sometimes, making the e circle a little bit bigger each day starting from a place he knew and then going out a little further each time.

They were put there to help the Dine', the Navajo people, like his family long ago. The Mountain Boy was alone and poor dressed in rags, and the tazhii' walked in a circle and the boy followed and each
day this happened the Mountain Boy learned something new..

In doing this the Mountain Boy found out about other people and places and how they lived. His Che' told him that when you caught a tazhii' that sometimes they have things hidden in their wings and when you
caught one and held it up you could see a rainbow in their wings..

This boy from long ago carried the bird and learned some things from it; it was a special bird, a friend to him. It was a long story and Chee used to dream about that Tahzii'. Che' told him that it was put there to help Navajos, his people, Tsinalbiiltnii, Mountain People Clan and that it was here a long time and that is why Che' kept them.

During this time, Keshmish Yazhi- Little Christmas the tazhii' would be fixed up and they would gather as a family, and he would see his cousins, his brothers in the Navajo way of speaking and they would play and run around all over the place..

Chee could see that these people outside his window were different from the ones he had known, they were there and then they were gone. They carried on with the bottles they were drinking, breaking them on the ground as they finished them.

Chee would look at them and seeing the broken bottles, the small pieces of glass and wonder if these were the special jewels he had heard the Twin Heroes had gathered for gifts to their father. They glistened under the lights of the bar, all colors, red, blue, green, brown and clear. He sometimes picked them up and held them in his hand, they were pretty, but his
mother told him they were glass and could cut him..

Chee's father was gone, working in California for the Southern Pacific railroad laying tracks. He would be back to pick them up and they would be going with him to live on a railroad car.

He had seen his cousins at Belmont on a railroad car; it was place that rolled around on wheels. He wondered how would be to live on such a thing. His father left to work and to find a railroad car for them to live in.

It was his father's people that came from Two Gray Hills and he missed seeing them and only knew the place from when he heard people talk about it, he didn't know where it really was, except it was long ways
off...

Chee waited by the door and watched the outside world go by, sometimes when his mother went home they went to Chacon's store on Frisco Street; he was kind Nakai man who gave him a penny candy when he went in. They would go and stand in line next door and get relief, commodity food with other people. He saw the kids there, some were like him, others he tried to talk to but they couldn't understand him, he was told these were Nakai, (Mexicans) a different people who spoke in another way. .

It was that day, he heard it on the radio, KCLS, and the announcer said Thanksgiving was here. Chee looked around and his aunts were getting dressed to go to Indian Mission for some kind of show,

somewhere, but he didn't know where it was. His mother's sisters, Nahgebah and Sharlene told him to go to sleep and then left him behind. When he woke he was all alone and he began to cry to be by himself. Why had they left him behind? He looked outside and wished his mother was home but she didn't come when he called. He stood by the window and cried.

There was this one old man who came around and he would drink out there every day, staggering around and drank with different people. Chee would watch him sometimes and see him walk funny, sometimes the old man would try to talk to him; he talked Dine Bizaad, the Navajo language. He spoke like his mother. His aunts would hide when they saw him come by, standing out there, they called him "Chili Man", because when he got mad and started shouting his head would turn all red..

It was him who was outside and heard the boy, Chee crying. He came to the window and said, "What is wrong?" in Navajo..

Chee talked better Navajo than Beligana (English) and said his mother was gone and his aunts had left him alone and he cried out loud for his mother. The Glahnees (Winos) in the alley just looked at him and
said, poor boy, but continued to drink and just looked at him every once in a while..

In those days people didn't want to get involved with such things, they kept to themselves, it was the rough part of town, and so the little boy cried and called out for his mother for a long time and no
one came. It grew dark, and he kept calling for her and for his Che' and the turkey he wanted..

In the light of the bar across the way, he could see that someone was coming, carrying a bag and some cooked food. It was the one they
called Chili Man, he was carrying a gunnysack and he reached in through the screen door and opened it. The boy's eyes were swollen from crying and he could see that Chili Man came into the place.

He reached in the bag and gave the boy some Kneel Down Bread and Sweet Corn Cake. It was traditional food and he liked the taste. He could see the old man go into the kitchen and do some things, he was not
sure what he was doing, so he just watched..

The old man turned around and he had a plate full of food and it was turkey, with dressing and gravy and some sweet potatoes. The little boy sat at the table and the old man fed him a little at a time, by
the spoonful. He talked to him and sang him a song his mother used to sing to him. He made him laugh as he told him some stories about Tazhii' and the mountain boy, like he remembered Che' telling him. The
old man had a strong laugh and was easy to talk to, but something inside him made him wonder why his aunts hid when they saw him around. It was as if he knew them somehow..

It was then that Sharlene and Nahgebah came home and saw the old man sitting at the table with Chee the little boy. One got a broom and the other a stick and they told him to get out. It was then that the old
man stood up and started to talk to them, scolding them for leaving the little boy alone, that his mother was working and they had left his Shi'Na"hli" (Little One) all alone. The girls yelled at him and started hitting him with the broom and told him to get out, "Get Out Chili Man, Get Out!" they said. He left and ran out the door running down the alley into the night.

Later when his mother got home after working all day, he told her what happened even though his aunts had said not to say anything about it. Chee told his mother what happened. She listened carefully to him when he said, they called him Chili Man, and as he said his name, his mother asked him to say what they called him again, and he said Chili Man.

She sat there for while and looked away out the window and there were tears in her eyes as she looked outside. She sat him down and Chee asked his mother, "What's wrong Shima?" She looked at him and said, that man, the one they called "Chili Man" is my father. He is your Che' (Grandfather) too.

Chee sat there and smiled at his mother and said, I wished for my Che' to come and get me and he did, he did. He heard me and came. He made me laugh Shima.

She sat there and told him about the old man, and how he couldn't live in the city and had no place on Dinetah (Navajoland) to go to, that he had lost his parents long ago and lived anywhere he was. The little
boy told her that he knew the story of Mountain Boy and Tazhii' and had told him about the way things were back then in the Navajo Way.
After a while, the two, Chee and his mother went out into the streets under the lights of the honkytonks went from place to place and found him standing outside the Rose Tree and brought him home. Chili Man
stayed with them and gave up the life he led before and that is how it came to be that Chili Man found his way back home one Thanksgiving back then in Kinlani (Flagstaff as they called it back then in the Navajo way of saying things). So it goes sometimes with little boys named Chee.
rustywire