Nacho the young boy from boarding school

It was an old building; the buildings there were all old. Built in the
early 1900's, they were red brick; some would say they were Victorian, this was a three-story building, big and square with peaked roofs from those early days. This was an Indian boarding school with kids from places like Beclabito, Teec Nos Pos, Ute Mountain, White Mesa, Towaoc and Shiprock all going to school there.

Many kids went there, they had been going to school there since way back in the early days, so long ago the dormitory aides were old and they had gone to school there as children themselves. Maybe some 300 kids or more went to school there, boys and girls. Some were seniors, some just little ones in the first grade, just 6 years old or so.

There was this one boy, Nacho who stayed on the ground floor with the little ones. They all slept together in one wing, a large room with iron bunk beds all lined up against the wall. Each child had their own closet to keep their things. Of all the kids there Nacho was the small one.

At meal times he was the first in line, to march to the dining hall just a little ways away. When you are first you get the biggest of what they had. Old Man Peacock, an Indian from Oklahoma was the cook, he always saved the biggest hot dog for Nacho.

It was in the Fall, the mountains of Colorado were blue and dull gray, the wind blows cold there in November with winds swirling the leaves up and around and finding a way through coats to let you know the winters are hard in this place, but Nacho liked to go outside and play anyway.

Pino was the main dorm man, he usually sat in his office just inside the main doors and was sort of the captain of the crew working there making sure everything ran smooth. His door was always open and the kids would sit on the hard vinyl government couches so common to Indian dorms.

Pino made out work assignments, checked to see who was in the isolation room which was for sick kids. There were a lot of boys there, all ages and sizes. Often times in such a place the little ones stay around the office there finding something special about it. The way things go, each dorm aide or matron worked a shift eight hours or so and then went home.

In such a place you have an unwritten law that that is there and that is the biggest and toughest do the best, they eventually get everything. The candy parents send their kids, the warmest coats, or maybe favorite comic book or warm blanket somehow ended up with them. These things usually disappeared and went home on the weekend when their parents or relatives checked out kids for home visits.

It is hard to keep something private because it is hard to hide some thing in a locker, so you usually didn't bring good stuff to the dorm. It is just the way it is. No one can watch their stuff all the time and the big boys pick on the little ones. Some older ones are just bad apples all the way around.

Nacho hung around Pino's office alot, he was seven or so. Some say he was part Mexican, because his features looked that way. Some said he didn't know who his father was. His mother had dropped him off at the beginning of the year and left him, she liked to party. He was forgotten.

He wore a red shirt, a pullover kind that he wore everyday for a month until some of the dorm aides found him some other clothes. When you looked at him he was just a kid with large wide eyes and an easy smile. He followed the dorm aides around when they checked the building on their rounds and hung around the basement rec room.

Little kids usually sat on the floor, while the big boys take control of the TV. the reception was poor and some of the boys never moved from the vinyl couches all year they got to watch the shows they wanted to see.

Life can be hard in an Indian boarding school but Fridays were busy. After school the kids would pile off the buses and run in the dorm and grab their stuff and wait for line of cars and trucks that lined up to check out the kids. People drove windy back roads, some two to three hours from the reservations where they lived to get their kids. Some parents came every weekend, others every once in a while.

Nacho used to wait by the double white doors on the windowsill looking at the people as they came to pick up their kids.

He was always looking for his Mom. Maybe this weekend she would be there but he was always the one who stayed behind, waiting for her.

Thanksgiving was coming around and there were the usually turkey pictures put up around the dorm of pilgrims, walking turkeys and the usual decorations. These covered the white plastered walls. Nacho waited and waited and then he couldn’t be found.

Where is he?

Who?

Nacho.

I don't know, have you checked around for him?

The dorm aides went through the building, it was Friday and he was gone. The checkout log as checked again and again and his name wasn't on it. The thought that maybe someone who was going home maybe took him along for a visit was discussed and each car was chased down on the back roads headed back to the rez to see if he was there. He was not with any of them.

The wind was blowing and it was cold out. A light snow was beginning to fall and the pine trees had white tips from the snow. There was straight cut through mountain to his home. Pino looked at the mountain and thought maybe he has run away.

There were big boys left in the dorm who went out with the staff and they began to search the school grounds and found nothing. They went into the small town nearby and checked house to house and he was nowhere near there.

The dorm principal didn't want to report the boy missing to the police because he would have to explain to his boss in Albuquerque through an incident report that a boy had run away. His Christmas bonus would disappear if such a thing were reported. He told the staff, call in the rest of the staff and send out a search party for him without telling the police.

Lonnie a big rough and tumble boy from White Mesa; Jimmy King, a Ute and wrestler and Tsosie, a Navajo from Fruitland, all seniors set out toward the mountain. They lived in the honor dorm, a small building next door to the big building . They wore two coats each and extra clothes. It was getting late in the day when they set out.

Pino told them to go up the mountain, he may be trying to make a shortcut home. They followed the old trail; some say the Anasazis from way back used it.

Some said that at the high point there was an old ruin and if you built a bonfire there, and one at Mesa Verde, one at Chaco Canyon, and one at Two Gray Hills you could see all four fires on a clear night. They set out for the ruins. They moved fast, walking fast and began to run the three of them, walking and then running outdistancing the dorm staff. They left them behind; they knew had to get up there before the snow really started to fall.

When you are cold in the wet and snow and you walk a long ways through it, you get warm. You can sit in the snow and not feel cold at all and then you get tired and lay down in it. It is warm and you can go to sleep. When you sleep like that in the snow you never wake up. It is what happens to runaways who take off in the winter. This is what they thought Nacho would do if he got tired on this way home through the mountain.

They ran and ran up hill like they had never run before, pacing themselves for the long run. It was as if it was in the old days. They spoke to each other in a way to keep themselves moving. Through the pine trees and forest valleys and thickets of scrub oak. There are pinion trees with pinons the ground which they gathered and a stream they crossed. They kept going up and up.

In the clearing they saw the could the old ruins, in there were places
where the rooms were small and painted white from centuries ago. Nacho
liked the place; it was what he talked about. He thought not about the ruin itself but the people who lived in such a place, where they lived so close together, many families and the kids must have had so much to do and see there. He wanted to know what it would be like to be a part of such a people, families like that. He sometimes spoke about it when he looked up at the mountain.

In the quiet of the night, in a room not too far from the kiva they found him. He was curled up and by himself. His clothes were all wet and he was only wearing a thin coat. The room was small, painted white and maybe five feet high and five feet wide, and not so dark. He was in the corner, slumped over. They went up to him and saw he was sleeping.

The three big boys covered him with their extra coats. Then they built a fire, with wood gathered under the bottom of the pines, squaw wood it is called because it is dry to the touch and easy to burn. Then a small banquet of foodstuffs came from their pockets. A small block of cheese, marshmallows, some blue cornmeal bread, a tin of spam and some of eacock's biscuits. They made wild tea, and gathered the remnants of chilchin (red buffalo berries) and made a feast.

When Nacho woke up he was surprised to see them there. He told them, I just wanted to go home for Thanksgiving.

They said, We know….we know.

They took him down the mountain and he spent his Thanksgiving with Pino and his family. It would be nice to say his mother came and got him but she never did, he grew up at the boarding school. Nacho is grown up and a man now with his own family. He is a father and his children want for nothing. Their thanksgiving will have a bounty and their home will be filled with the smells of food cooking, and the laughter of children, the best sound of all. So it happened one Thanksgiving some time ago.

rustywire@yahoo.com