Shutter(7)

“In the Navajo way,” she explained, “you aren’t supposed to shake the branches like you did just now.” My feet braced my weight above the needles and branches. “When the pi?on is ready, it will fall to the ground by itself. You’re being impatient.” She shook her head. “Doing it like that calls the bears to you. But they would have to get through me. Bears know better than to bother your grandma—the meat’s too tough.”

I pulled myself down out of the trees and sat at Grandma’s side. We picked pi?on until the sun was about to set and our gunny sack strained from the nuts pulsing inside.

When we got back to the truck, Grandma heaved our gunny sack into the cab and caught her breath. Then she grabbed the black box she’d brought, poking a small hole with a pen and covering it with black tape.

“What is that, Grandma?”

“I am going to make us a camera out of this box.” She turned to me and smiled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve tried this, so let’s hope it works.”

I watched her in silence as she pulled out a dark blanket, draping it over herself and the box. I could hear a rustle and scrape under the wool.

“Grandma. What are you doing?”

She emerged from the blanket with pieces of pine needles in her hair.

“I had to put some paper in the camera.” She pushed me into the last beam of sunlight. “I’m going to take your picture.”

“With what, Grandma?”

“With this box. Now, be quiet and watch. Stand right there.” She waved her hand to the right and I moved with it. “Right there.”

I watched her pull the sticky tape from the makeshift camera.

“Stay still.”

A bright light came from behind my grandma’s head. Standing in the yellow haze, I saw the gray shadow of a man, thin and refined in a white cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. I didn’t know if I’d seen him before, but something about his presence was familiar. He smiled deeply as he looked at Grandma, then began walking toward me. I felt the surge of his energy when he came to a stop to my left. He left heat in the corners of my eyes. I turned back to the camera and didn’t even breathe for a good ten seconds.

“That’s it.” She fastened the tape back to the hole and put the black box back into the truck cab. The cloudy form trailed her, then flew away into the late afternoon shade.

“You took a picture? Already? When can we see it?”

“Soon, Rita.”

I watched Grandma’s box all the way home and wondered how it could possibly be a camera. It looked like a discarded cardboard box from our garage, painted up with tar.

We arrived thirty minutes later and unloaded the loot from the pi?on trees. My grandma carried the black box in and walked straight into the closet, emerging with a black plastic bag.

“We’ll take this into town tomorrow,” she said, resting the black plastic bag on the table with her Reader’s Digest. “Don’t open it, because it will ruin the picture.”

I stared at the untouchable bag. I wondered if the man would be in the picture with me. I hoped he would. He had a nice smile, with a perfect dimple on one cheek.

IT TOOK US thirty minutes to drive to Gallup the next day. The white light of midmorning made the sagebrush on the side of the road glisten. Herds of sheep dotted the landscape between the dirt road and cattle guards. On the way in and out of town, Grandma and I would count the hills. There were nine hills there and nine hills back.

We pulled into a space in front of Mullarky’s Photo Shop, right off Route 66. I could hear the whistle of the trains that moved through the city, some clanging on the long and oily track line. Mullarky’s was across from the tracks in an abandoned bank building from the early 1900s. It had a fake but regal fa?ade with old Kodak signs and neon lights. When you walked in, the door rang like an aged church bell.

Mr. Mullarky was a white man with bright eyes and deep lines falling from the sides of his face. He wore a lot of turquoise on his wrists, more than I had ever seen any Navajo wear.

“Hello, Mrs. Todacheene. It’s been so long since we’ve seen you in our shop.” The man was still holding Grandma’s hand. I wanted him to let it go.

“Hello, Tom.” She freed her hand from his grasp. “I have something I need developed. I took Rita’s picture yesterday with a box camera and wanted to see if it worked. I haven’t tried this in a while.” She slid the black bag onto the counter.

“Well, just hold on a bit. This won’t take long at all.” He moved his body between the glass cases and went to the back room. I wondered about what the Mullarky man did behind that black curtain. I tried to follow but was tethered by Grandma’s lingering stare.

Instead, I wandered around Mullarky’s shop with my mouth open. The west wall was bent into a soft corner, much like the storefront. The wall was covered in small rectangles, forming a grid of color. The green boxes right in the middle fanned out to the yellows, the whites, and the reds. The yellow rectangles said KODAK in bright red letters and stood in rows all the way to the end of the building.

“Grandma. What’s in here?” I pointed to the colorful boxes.

“That’s film,” she explained. “That’s what you put in the camera to take a picture.”

Up on the walls, there were dozens of pictures of Gallup in another time: the train station, Navajos in velveteen and moccasins, Indians in warbonnets and outfits I had only seen in the movies. There were classic cars like the ones in fifties movies, some filled with Navajos, their hair in short crew cuts, with letterman jackets and their jeans rolled up in tight cuffs.