Book Review: The Navajo Family Blessing Series by Cheryl Reavis

By Kristy McCaffrey

I’ve previously reviewed One of Our Own by Cheryl Reavis, but now that I’ve completed the entire series, I thought I’d put all the books together in one post. This series features contemporary Navajo culture in the Window Rock area. Since I lived for a year on the Navajo reservation when I was nine years old, I can appreciate the time and care that Reavis took in researching the setting and beliefs of the Native Americans. She gets it right, and so much more. Please don’t be deterred by the old covers. My guess is that despite these books being decades old, Ms. Reavis has been unable to gain the rights back, so her hands have been tied as to updating and labeling the stories (it took some digging for me to identify which books were in the series and in which order they should be read). As an added bonus, I’ve included an additional book (by a different but no less talented writer) that also features a Navajo hero.

One Of Our Own

Book 1

Sloan Baron has come to Navajo Country to see her estranged brother, who is in critical condition after a car accident. She already has been caring for two of his children, and now she learns that he has a third child, a young half-Navajo boy named Will. As she navigates the mess her brother has left behind, she finds an unlikely ally in Navajo Tribal Policeman Lucas Singer. Together, they try to unravel the laws regarding children on Indian Reservations. They also fall hard for each other. This is such a wonderful book! Ms. Reavis has created well-rounded characters that you’ll love and root for and cry over, along with a peek into the traditions and beliefs of the Navajo people. This is a story that will stay with you long after it’s ended. Moving and deeply romantic, I highly recommend.

Find One Of Our Own at Amazon

Meggie’s Baby

Book 2

This story features Meggie Baron, Sloan’s niece, who was a child in the first book, and her love for Jack Begaye. The story begins with their estrangement, but the bond is still there. However, Meggie has gotten pregnant by another man, and although she didn’t love the father, this is a hurdle that she and Jack must overcome, as well as the custody issues by the grandparents of the unborn child. This is an engaging and emotional read, with wonderful details about the Navajo and their culture.

Find Meggie's Baby at Amazon

Mother To Be

Book 3

The heroine in this tale, Lillian Singer, is older sister to Lucas from Book 1 and in her forties. Wanting to carve an identity away from the reservation, she became an attorney and works out of Albuquerque. But family draws her home to Window Rock, and she’s tasked with getting Tribal Police Chief Johnny Becenti out of his self-imposed exile after the death of his wife. Lillian and Johnny have a history of not getting along, but that’s about to change. This book really got to me, as I didn’t expect to love these two as much as I did.

Find Mother To Be at Amazon

The Music Box

Book 4

When Eden Trevoy learns from her archaeologist mother she was adopted, and that her father was Navajo, she’s drawn to Tribal policeman Ben Toomey to learn more about her heritage. But when she discovers the true identity of her father, her world is turned upside down. To say more would ruin the surprise, but through it all, Ben and Eden can’t help but fall for each other. Another wonderful love story set against the backdrop of the Navajo culture.

Find The Music Box at Amazon

Medicine Man

Book 5

The last installment in the Family Blessing series features Will Baron, who was the child involved in the custody issue from Book 1. Now a paratrooper stationed in North Carolina, he’s awaiting orders when he meets single mom Arley Meehan. The timing couldn’t be worse, since he’ll be leaving soon and she’s in a custody battle with her ex. Will, half-white and half-Navajo, had trained to be a medicine man, but is now at a crossroads as he faces the legacy of his father, Sloan’s brother, a man he never knew. This story didn’t have quite the sparkle as the others, and I think it was because it didn’t take place on the reservation but rather in North Carolina. But several of our favorite characters show up, so it’s a fitting end to the series.

Find Medicine Man at Amazon

If you enjoy stories with a Navajo hero, don’t miss this bonus read!

Coyote Dream

By

Jessica Davis Stein

Sarah Friedman has come from New York City to the American Southwest to buy Indian art for her family’s store. When her car breaks down, she finds herself in the company of Ben Lonefeather, a solitary Navajo with a great talent for sculpture and pet coyotes he's raised since they were pups. While waiting for the parts to repair her vehicle, she falls hard for Ben. But after a whirlwind affair, she returns home believing that she and Ben could never really be together. Their differences—she’s Jewish and he’s Navajo—are simply too great. This is an epic love story that I had trouble putting down. A sad side note: this was the only novel Ms. Stein wrote before passing away a few years ago. It’s a shame, because it’s quite simply incredible.

Find Coyote Dream at Amazon

Feral Dogs, Hexes, and Living With The Navajo

By Kristy McCaffrey

When I was nine years old, my parents, my sister and I moved to the Navajo Indian Reservation. I very much did not want to go. My dad, who has long had a deep and abiding respect for Native Americans, saw this as a chance to give back with his life. He took a job as an accountant with an arts and crafts store in Window Rock, Arizona—capital of the Navajo Nation. We obtained a house just across the border in New Mexico, in a small town aptly called “Navajo,” supported by a local sawmill.

It was 1975 and we lived in a neighborhood that consisted of generic government housing. We weren’t rich by any means, but when we moved in, it became quickly known that we had a working telephone and my mother was generous in sharing kitchen items. After a time, she had to start saying no. The charity was simply getting out-of-hand. Unfortunately, many of the Navajo were complacent and drank too much. Even as a child, it struck me as a rather depressing place to live.

View from our front door ~ Navajo, New Mexico ~ 1975.

My sister, nearly four years younger and in kindergarten, embraced the journey with much more enthusiasm. She quickly came home speaking Navajo. I, however, was in fourth-grade and only one of two white girls in the classroom. I was teased constantly, for having braces, for being different, for being pale. I became friends with Nancy, the only other white girl in a class of well over forty children, because our Indian classmates assumed we should be friends and naturally herded us together. At first, I was glad for a comrade, but it didn’t take long to realize Nancy was mean, overbearing and manipulative. She repeatedly betrayed my confidences. These usually entailed discussions about boys in class, and hardly seem of importance now, but at nine years old it devastated me. From it grew anger and bitterness, which I naturally directed at my environment. How easy it is to let this be a template into another culture.

We weren’t the only outsiders in the community. My large class had four teachers, two of which were a white husband and wife team. My mother soon began babysitting their toddler daughter, so it was natural that they would look out for me. This was a double-edged sword, since being viewed as the teachers’ favorite didn’t further endear me to my classmates. However, they did teach me separately in math, since my skills were more advanced than the other students, and one day, when one of the Navajo instructors was absent, I was assigned to administer spelling quizzes all day. These experiences certainly bolstered my confidence.

Every so often a high point would occur. School field trips were not of the normal variety, with one a hike into the nearby wilderness to view a natural stone arch. My mother, who accompanied us, was amazed the Navajo children knew the names of all the local vegetation. Other incidents were somewhere between odd and almost comical. When my sister’s little Navajo playmates would return home after an afternoon at our house, my mother would have to drive one little girl despite that she lived two doors down because the child feared a shape-shifter named Billy Blue Eyes. When I contracted strep throat, a visit to the local clinic had my mother holding my screaming self down as an elderly Navajo woman repeatedly stabbed my backside with a dull needle filled with penicillin. And some experiences chilled to the bone. The teenage girl next door getting beat up by her boyfriend, who at one point pulled a gun. The dying puppy my mother rescued from our front porch, the one I’d callously walked by for days, because dogs died so frequently on our street that I couldn’t bear to open my heart for fear the pain would swallow me whole.

Navajo, New Mexico in 1993 when I returned with my husband.
It's considered the most Navajo town in the U.S., with 95%
of its residents having full or partial Navajo ancestry.

One night, a Navajo man came to our front door with a shotgun. He said he was going to shoot our dog, believing that he’d killed his daughter’s poodle, the animal reportedly torn apart. There was a pack of rather mean canines that roamed the neighborhood—they’d already attacked me one day while walking home from school—so there was no doubt they had done the slaying. My dad had erected a barbed-wire fence for our two dogs, Labrador-mixes and not feral by any means, so we were certain that neither was guilty. (The fence was to protect them.) My dad spent several hours, and several beers along with my mom’s enchiladas, trying to convince the man not to shoot, and thankfully it worked.

I developed a panic-filled fear of AIM walkers, fueled by stories heard from classmates. I now know that this acronym stands for the American Indian Movement, a group dedicated to addressing the issues of present-day Native Americans, but in my scared mind they were ghost-like shape-shifters that prowled the wash behind our house. There were many nights I literally shook in terror while trying to sleep, fearing they would snatch me from my bed.

Our house sat at the base of a sheer red rock cliff. At times, the monolith stifled me with its presence, but it also beckoned to be climbed. So, one afternoon, my mom, dad, and sister clambered up its face to the top. At the midway point, a precipitous rock face had to be traversed and our overweight black Labrador, Raquel, couldn’t navigate the steep path. She paced at the bottom, barking and whining, while our other dog, Rommell, scrambled onward with us. The expansive view at the top, coupled with the solitude and palpable energy in the land, left me with bittersweet memories. The region drenched the soul with possibilities, but I know now that I was too young to appreciate it, to channel it in a useful way. In some regards, the Navajo themselves, at that place and that time, had lost their center as well.

The sheer cliff across the street from our house. I climbed
to the top with my family and one of my dogs.

And then there was the hex. At the arts and crafts store that employed my father, a worker found a Styrofoam cup tucked away on a shelf. Inside were various items that included a torn corner of a $5, $10 and $20 bill. It was immediately clear to those who discovered it that a curse had been placed. Soon thereafter, a medicine man was called. Since it involved all of the employees, my dad was allowed, despite being a white man, to participate in the ceremonies conducted.

At the first ritual, the medicine man found a buried pot outside the building, at the base of the famous local landmark, the window rock. This was accomplished when his hand trembled over the exact location. On the outside of the pot, stick figures represented the employees, and lightning bolts painted above indicated death by lightning strike. At the time, we were having terrible storms every day. Inside were pieces of coral, turquoise and silver, and a section of human skull.

Window Rock

At the second ceremony, a bowl filled with some type of tea was passed around to ingest, and then each employee was asked to look into a crystal to identify who had placed the hex. My dad says he saw nothing, but it was generally agreed that the perpetrator was a former employee who had been fired. She was part of a major Navajo clan, and her dismissal had possibly angered the wrong people. But the curse spoke of deeper problems within the Navajo and their way of life. The crafts people—those who made Indian jewelry and the iconic Navajo weavings—were at odds with the administration, which included my dad. There were those who wanted progress, and those who didn’t. At the conclusion of the ceremony, after a sand painting was created, the piece of skull inside the pot was burned. Two female employees reported instant relief from a terrible headache that had plagued them all evening. Back at home, at the same time, my mother said I’d been distraught and crying for hours from pains in my head, which immediately stopped when the bone was destroyed. It seemed family members had also been included in the hex.

My dad never attended the third, and final, observance—the Blessing Way—because we had returned to Phoenix. He has always joked that the hex was never fully removed. As evidence, he cites various mishaps that occur whenever he and my mother return to the Navajo Reservation: car breakdowns, money stolen, and in one instance missing a critical turnoff because five Indians stood in front of a directional sign.

I was glad to leave, but in the years since it’s been clear the experience left a lasting impression. No matter how hard I resisted, no matter how much I hardened my heart, the red rock and Navajo people seeped into the cracks of my armor, scaring me with the rawness and underlying pain, but also mesmerizing my senses with unseen forces that all but vibrated in and around me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I prepared this essay for publication on this blog (culled from writings on the subject I've penned over the years), it dawned on me why I've tended toward the mystical in several of my books, and why I've always been curious about the lives of Native Americans in the 1800's. Although I lived for less than a year with the Navajo, their painful history collided with my own anxieties and left a permanent marker in my mind. I've often considered that year a pivotal one in my development, especially as a storyteller. Even at nine years old, I couldn't keep the spirits at bay; they murmured in my ear at every turn. And so, I continually pursue tales that follow the footprints of those whispers.

I included details from the hex in my historical western romance novel INTO THE LAND OF SHADOWS. I also explored the Navajo tradition as it related to the world of the supernatural.

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Reverse Bucket List

By Kristy McCaffrey

Unless you've been living on Mars, then you've heard of a Bucket List. (And if you are living on Mars, then you win top prize for best Bucket List destination.) But what about a reverse Bucket List? I'll wager you've not penned one of those.

What is a Bucket List in the opposite direction? It's looking back on your life and shining a spotlight on what you've already accomplished. Since all you have to do is remember, it's super easy, not requiring saving money, booking an airline ticket to Africa, and working out like crazy so you won't bonk when climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. What's even more exciting about this list: you'll find yourself again. You know, that younger version of yourself, the one who faced life with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, the one who followed his/her inclinations and passions without worrying about the whys or how-to's.

Here's mine:

1. As a child, I read TV Guide cover to cover each week. I was exceptionally talented at the crossword puzzle inside due to my vast knowledge of the Boob Tube.

2. I was entranced by clouds. I studied them, photographed them, and categorized them. At school I wrote reports on them at every opportunity. Why am I not a meteorologist today?

3. When in high school, I had the same chorus teacher (Mr. Millsop) as my mother when she was in high school. This just shows how close in age my mom and I are. (Sorry Mom, your shotgun wedding is out.)

4. At age 15, I discovered the Dragonriders of Pern books by science fiction/fantasy author Anne McCaffrey. A few years later, I met my future husband: last name McCaffrey. But more importantly, I started writing fan fiction in her Pern universe, which eventually motivated me to write something original.

5. At age 17, I worked in a movie theater. Best. Job. Ever. (Free movies, anyone?)

6. In 2nd grade, I was accepted into the Gifted Program because I did exceptionally well on the placement exam. While I believe there must have been a TV Guide crossword puzzle on the test, in truth, I guessed my way through it. It really sucks to be labeled 'gifted' so young since expectations always ran high that I'd get all A's, become a fighter pilot, and whip up something tasty at Christmastime.

7. When I was about 10 years old, I put my bare feet in the ashen remains of a campfire (it looked so inviting). Shortly thereafter, I put two metal barrettes in a power socket. Blisters on my feet and electricity zipping through my body were obvious indicators of my sense of adventure and, of course, my giftedness (see no. 6).

8. When I was 9 years old, I lived on the Navajo Indian Reservation. As a writer, it's been a goldmine of unresolved issues buried in my psyche, forcing me to scratch out an essay every few years about how miserable I was. Why won't anyone ever publish these?

9. I earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering. There were many days that I felt intimidated by the intellect around me and was certain they'd discover I was an imposter, but I'm proud to look back at all my hard work and say that I've done absolutely nothing with it.

10. My children. Thanks to my four offspring, I have a permanently flabby stomach (10-pound babies will do that and I'm too lazy to get a tummy-tuck). But, they are also the most gorgeous and fantastic creatures ever. What a privilege it is to love and fight with them (and torment them).

11. My husband. As he said to me recently, "How did you ever find a man to put up with you?" (Umm, tag. You're it.)

What's on your Reverse Bucket List? Give it some thought. In shamanism, there's a technique called 'soul-retrieval', in which pieces of the self that are lost during a lifetime are embraced once again. This exercise may just help you find long-forgotten nuggets of yourself, aspects that can help you remember that life is a playground, and it's all about playing. (Just watch out for those power sockets.)