The tractor

It was still dark when I awoke. As manage to roll over with all those blankets, I could hear my chei walking around in the blackness. I knew it was him because of the way he would take his steps. Slippers rasping on a dusty wooden floor. How he moved in the dark without coliding with unseen obstacles was unlearned only until recently, he saw without seeing. He knew where everything was, the stove, the chizh, and the match. I guess when you reach a certain age, you pay attention to where everything was. Without learning, you would stumble alot.
A match was lit, only after the ashes were dumped and kindling was placed, and the fire was then started. As the little fire rose, he added larger pieces to heat the cabin and expell the mountain chill. There was dancing light on the ceiling, on two walls, and his face. He was a old man as I remember, the small fire casted his shadow on the ceiling, but he was an old young man. He placed the burner plates back and all I could see was the fire burning through the cracks and holes in that ancient trading post stove and smell of burning pine filled the one room cabin, chei finished getting dressed. He later walked out the front door and then to where, I didn't know.
I threw off the volumous blankets that protected me from the Chuska range cold and ran over to the stove to get warm again. My Ma'sani' was up also. She would tell me to make sure that I help Grandpa as much as I can because she was worried that he would hurt himself. You see, shichei was a man who would refuse to show weakness, especially in his seemingly old age. I looked out the window and I saw nothing except for the predawn glow of Father Sun coming out of his slumber. I also heard nothing. I wondered where he was as I turned like chicken in a Shiprock market rotisserie, as some of you know, the side of you away from the stove gets cold in a hurry. All of this and trying to stay awake made for a hard morning until the growl of the chainsaw reminds me of a work filled day. I was fifteen at the time, and I had the duty of driving the truck to haul the firewood. Chei took his trusty John Deer with the log hook. We would use his tractor to pull logs from piles to make them more accessible to remove limbs and cross cutting them into blocks and then fill the pick-up truck to be hauled back to the cabin.
We spent all day gathering wood. After finding the naturally seasoned fallen wood, dried by the Chuska Sun, he would saw while I held the log so it wouldn't turn or fall. If a supporting piece was cut off, I would feel it twist or fall but I couldn't allow it. Man those logs were heavy. All the while, my cheii would tell me the meaning of life. He taught me to always achieve. No matter what, strive to learn. Navajo or white, learn the ways so you can be better than nothing.
He asked my brother and me one time in his grumbly Navajo Godfather voice, "are you a shit-dog?"
All I could think was my chei cussed, but my little brother can only ask, "what's a shit-dog Grandpa?" The little dude saw a window to cuss.
"Well, a shit-dog is a dog that don't do shit", my cheii said.
Enlightenment abounds...alas the meaning was known. My cheii said that alot. "Don't be a shit-dog," he would say.

My chei was born in 1910 and was raised in the traditional light of the Dine', the Navajo way, but he always had a fascination of the whiteman and his ways. It all started when he was a little boy when he saw what they had. The car was one of the things that brought him wonder. He knew that the way of life for all the Dine' would never be the same, so he decided that he must learn and the only way of doing that was to go to school. He was one of a very few that actually ran away to school. He was not wanting to be white, he just wanted to know what they know because they seem to have knowledge from a different world, a knowledge that is not mostly mystical but logical.
Whenever we visited my grandparents as a young kid, I alway saw my grandad in the garage tooling around with engine parts or building something and he always had a book near by. He had all kinds of books and magazines which included subject matter such as horticulture, mechanics, manuals, and the news of the world. He used to tell us stories about the second world war and some of his adventures. Every time we came to see him he had a story to tell or a lesson to give. We always went home with something to ponder.

As the sun made the shadows from the trees longer, it was time to go back to the cabin and unload the last load of chizh. This time it was different, told me to drive the tractor. As far as I could remember, nobody was allowed to drive his tractor, nobody. Even asking him would be sacrilegous. But there I was with my grin from ear to ear and my heart full of pride. It was indeed an honor.
Well, my chei left this world in 2003 but not without seeing me graduate with an engineering degree. For him to tell me how proud he was of me made me feel like that day I got to drive his tractor.