White Dove, Tell Me: A Novel

By Martin Etchart

In the town of Urepel, Arizona, Xabier Etxea, a young Basque-American sheep rancher, and his wife grapple with the rituals, mores, and spirituality of their heritage and the realities of living in the new American West. Their tenuous balance of the past and the present is disrupted when Xabier’s father is unexpectedly killed.

             In the wake of this tragedy, Xabier learns that not only is the family ranch in jeopardy of foreclosure but his father’s death may not have been the accident it first appeared to be. Now, he must find a way to save his family’s ranch while unraveling the mysteries leading to his father’s death. Along the way, Xabier strives to adhere to his father’s memory and words—the invitation to stay true to who he is without losing his arima (soul).

            In lyrical language that evokes the mythologies that have shaped the Etxeas’s worldview, White Dove, Tell Me speaks to the divided self that seeks to honor the family’s Basque heritage, while they strive for understanding in a new land.         

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781647791339

Book preview

Cover Page for White Dove, Tell Me

White Dove, Tell Me

THE BASQUE SERIES

Chorizos in an Iron Skillet: Memories and Recipes from an American Basque Daughter

Mary Ancho Davis

The Good Oak

Martin Etchart

The Last Shepherd

Martin Etchart

Basque Firsts: People Who Changed the World

Vince J. Juaristi

The Basque Hotel

Robert Laxalt

Child of the Holy Ghost

Robert Laxalt

The Governor’s Mansion

Robert Laxalt

Sweet Promised Land

Robert Laxalt

Speaking Through the Aspens: Basque Tree Carvings in California and Nevada

J. Mallea-Olaetxe

The Deep Blue Memory

Monique Laxalt Urza

Travel Guide to Basque America: Families, Feasts, and Festivals

Nancy Zubiri

Jaialdi: A Celebration of Basque Culture

Nancy Zubiri

White Dove, Tell Me

A Novel

Martin Etchart

University of Nevada Press | Reno, Nevada 89557 USA

www.unpress.nevada.edu

Copyright © 2024 by Martin Etchart

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover design by TG Design

Cover photograph © Sue McDonald/Shutterstock.com

Bible quotations are from the 1954 New Catholic Edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

ISBN 978-1-64779-132-2 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-64779-133-9 (ebook)

LCCN 2023942815

Urepel, Arizona, population 657, established 1927

PALM SUNDAY

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no knows the Father except the Son.

MATTHEW 11:27

Contents

killing a pig

planning a funeral

finding a dove

making a prayer

drinking a beer

talking to Aitatxi

searching the night

counting the flock

learning a truth

getting a text

starting a fight

sending a text

making a list

breaking a heart

having Basque hands

opening a door

telling a story

making a plan

building a fire

running in place

learning to dance

singing a song

saving the world

starting a journey

finding a heart

turning a page

reading the past

texting a friend

running the water

driving the car

praying for light

walking the fence

speaking the truth

searching the ashes

when forever ends

learning to talk

going to mass

changing the past

living the present

Glossary of English to Basque Terms

About the Author

killing a pig

The blood on the floor belongs to me, and my wife, Idetta, knows it.

Damn it, Xabier, I told you to take your boots off outside. Idetta stands at the stove bouncing the crying baby on her hip and stirring a pot of lamb stew.

I did. I drop my bloody socks into the sink and crank on the faucet; the pipes shudder before spitting out water. Big pig—blood seeped through.

Idetta blows a dangling lock of hair out of her eyes. Then why didn’t you take off your socks?

I wash pig’s blood from my hands. You didn’t tell me to do that.

And you couldn’t figure it out?

I give her a wink. Too much thinking for a dumb Basque-O.

Too little you mean. Idetta grabs a towel and thrusts the crying baby into my arms. See what he wants.

As Idetta kneels to wipe up the blood, her yellow dress rides up her wide hips to expose thick calves. My wife is solid as a mare and moves through life like she’s plowing a field. Only I won’t tell her that. Unless I want a pop on the head. And even though we are both twenty-five, she seems older. Another thing best not to mention.

In an effort to quiet the baby, I sing to him, Uso zuria, errazu.

It is the same song Aitatxi sings outside while he finishes butchering the pig. He’s making tripota for next week’s Easter meal. Something he hasn’t done for years—not since Mom died. But Dad asked him to, and I’m glad because I’ve always liked blood sausage.

Uso zuria, errazu, norat joaiten ziren zu? I sing in Euskara and then repeat in English. White dove tell me, where do you go?

I don’t know the rest of the song’s words because Aitatxi only ever sings the beginning, over and over. I have no idea where the hell the white dove is going. So I sing, To Paris? To France? To Spain? Making up any place I want. To Rome or Saturn or Mars?

Today, my singing is definitely not what the baby wants. The sound of my voice makes him cry harder.

I scan the laminate countertop for the baby’s pacifier and find it wedged between the chipped bowl my mother used to make Gâteau Basque and a new stainless steel Instant Pot.

My jaw muscles tighten.

Ever since the baby came, Idetta has been going on about how an Instant Pot would cut down her cooking time. I told her good food takes time. Idetta said a baby takes more. Then she went and bought the pot on credit without telling me.

As I snatch up the pacifier, my fingers graze the Instant Pot, but I don’t say anything. In the year we’ve been married, I’ve learned that Basque women in general, and Idetta in particular, shouldn’t be argued with while cleaning up after a Basque man.

I try to slip the pacifier into the baby’s mouth. But it’s a no-go; he spits it out. Sobs rack his two-month-old body. His tiny hands curl into tiny fists. He wails.

I think not having an official name is the reason he’s upset—a primal need for identity causing his distress. I want to name my son Ferdinand, after my father. But since the boy was born in Arizona and not Euskal Herria, Idetta thinks it’s too ethnic and wants a more American name.

Justin is high on her list.

Ferdinand, I whisper into my son’s ear.

Idetta glares up at me. That’s not his name.

Even though we need to agree on a name soon—the baptism is scheduled for the week after Easter—I don’t push it. Instead, I remind myself I’m lucky Idetta married me. Every so often I forget she said, I do, and imagine her saying, I don’t. If I told Idetta this, she would frown and ask me why I would think such a thing. And what could I say? Sometimes I find the past difficult to accept and the present hard to remember.

I hum and rock the baby from side to side.

Idetta gets to her feet. With her back to me, she throws the bloody towel into the sink and turns on the water. As her dark hair falls over one bare shoulder, like a rope knotted to the base of my spine, longing draws me to her.

I slide in behind Idetta and press against her body.

Really? Now, Xabier?

As she washes out the bloody towel, I take her left ear lobe between my lips and hold the tiny wooden flower I carved in front of her face.

You could have picked me a real flower.

I nibble her neck. Real flowers die, but like our love, this will last forever.

Idetta drapes the towel over the faucet. Did you use the pig knife to carve it?

I cleaned off the blood first.

Ugh. She elbows me in the ribs and takes the crying baby. Call your father and Aitatxi in for lunch.

Before I turn away, Idetta plucks the tiny flower from my hand and places it on the windowsill alongside all my other wooden carvings.

A little blood never hurt anything, she says with a hint of a smile—then coos to the baby, Isn’t that right, Justin.

Oh hell no. I yank open the door. You are not going to name my son after some tatted-up pop singer. I’ll carve Ferdinand on his ass before I let that happen.

I shut the door behind me with a bang. Inside, Idetta laughs. I laugh too—dumb Basque-O. I step over the sleeping sheepdogs, Txauri and Haugi, and to avoid splinters, tiptoe to the edge of the porch. There, I shade my eyes against the sharp April sun.

Sheep move in a rippling wave of white through the west pasture. Beyond the flock, at the edge of our 640-acre ranch, a patch of brown desert butts up against the Colorado River—the spot where Aitatxi and Amatxi built their original homestead. From where I stand, the river’s water is hidden from view as it rushes through a deep cut in the earth.

On the horizon, there’s a cluster of dark clouds—a harbinger of a thunderstorm. But the storm is still a ways off. I will have time to cover the hay bales and put the horses in the barn and take down the pig hanging from the hook fastened to the barn’s sloping western wall.

The pig’s front legs dangle above the dented bucket Aitatxi catches blood in—like the animal is trying to dive into the bucket as the last of its life drains away. Aitatxi pours the blood into a cast-iron pot. Then he sets the pot atop a grill; flames flicker up between the grates.

I call to Aitatxi across the open area where chickens peck the dirt. Where’s Dad?

Aitatxi waves toward the barn.

Dad’s been working on our old Farmall tractor since we got home from Mass. Last month, he replaced the clutch—the month before, the carburetor. He is determined to get one more season out of the Farmall. My father can be hardheaded. Something Idetta likes to point out I inherited.

I yell from the porch, waking the dogs who start to bark. Lunch!

In response, my father lets out his irrintzina, Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-yaaaaa! The cry my Basque ancestors used to call to each other across the Pyrenees.

The chickens cluck and the dogs bark and the sheep baaa and Aitatxi sings, Uso zuria, errazu, and metal tears and wood snaps and Dad’s irrintzina turns to a scream.

Dust billows out the barn’s open doorway as Aitatxi drops his bloody bucket—Txauri and Haugi leap from the porch—I run with sharp gravel biting my feet.

At the barn’s entrance, dust hangs in a curtain in front of me—obscuring the broken rafter beam, the red Farmall with its missing tire, the come-along winch and chain lying in a heap on the ground.

Txauri and Haugi bark and bark and bark.

Dad? I step farther into the barn—the dust clears—and Aitatxi wails as he falls to his knees at the blood on the floor.

Spy Wednesday

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

planning a funeral

On the day of my father’s funeral, I don’t know if my hands should go up and over or under and across. As I grasp the tie in my fingers, the black material spills down the front of my white shirt. I need to give form to the thing I hold, but I can’t remember how.

Dad taught me to knot a tie when I was twelve years old, standing behind me, calloused hands encompassing mine.

Don’t worry if you get it right, Xabier. My father guided my movement. You can always start over.

Today there can be no starting over.

My pale face fills the bedroom mirror. The shapeless black tie remains draped around my neck. A thickness clouds my thoughts like I am waking from a too-long nap, disoriented and waiting for the world to settle back into focus. I see and un-see my father’s hand reaching from beneath the Farmall.

Oh, my Xabier. Idetta carries the sleeping baby into the room. We’re going to be late.

I can’t believe he’s gone.

I know, my love. Idetta lays the baby on the bed. Then she steps between me and the mirror and takes hold of my tie.

I drop my arms to my sides and stand there like a boy—helpless and not knowing how to do the things asked of me. I don’t understand.

Maybe there is no understanding. Idetta moves the tie under and across and then flips it up and over. Only acceptance.

I nod dumbly.

Idetta presses her warm palm against my cheek. We need to hurry—I set out a tray for Aitatxi.

Idetta disappears into the bathroom. I pick up the sleeping baby and can barely feel the weight of him as he settles into the crook of my arm—like it is the safest place in the world.

But is any place safe after what happened to my father?

A tremble ripples through me. I place a protective hand on my son’s head and carry him from the room.

After I retrieve the tray from the kitchen, I take it and the baby up the creaking wooden stairs to Aitatxi’s bedroom.

The room is cool and dark. The breakfast tray of sourdough toast and fried eggs sits untouched on the nightstand. Aitatxi has hardly eaten since the accident. Four days now, lying in bed with his eyes closed, mumbling in Euskara, "Maitea gatik pasa