Hillerman

	Hillerman Leaves Last Mystery by Jim Belshaw Journal Staff Writer Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 "... only sagebrush, rabbit brush, snake weeds, and the endless variety of demure little blossoms produced by dry country grasses" — Tony Hillerman, Arizona Highways
	In the 38 years I knew Tony Hillerman, we didn't talk much about writing. We talked about a lot of other things — football, fishing, newspapers (he had been a reporter and an editor), baseball, poker, religion, politics, food, war, power (and his eternal enmity toward those who abused it at the expense of the powerless). We talked about everything under the sun, but we didn't talk much about writing. So I never was able to get him to explain where the phrase came from — "demure little blossoms." In all the years I knew him, I'd never heard the word "demure" come out of his mouth. But there it was in an essay for Arizona Highways.
	There was the time he told me about the "greatest" chapter he had ever written. The manuscript came back from his New York editor with a note: "Tony, this is the best book you have ever written. This is the breakout book. Only one chapter needs a lot of work." Of course, it was the "greatest" chapter he'd ever written. I asked him what he did about the editor's note. He looked at me like I was from Mars, an alien unfamiliar with the reality of writers and editors. "What the hell do you think I did?" he said. "I rewrote it." In September 1970, I presented myself to the admissions office of the University of New Mexico, a newly minted GI Bill freshman. The woman at the counter grabbed a piece of scratch paper and scribbled a name on it. "This is your freshman adviser," she said. "Report to him." I looked at the name and thought, well, I don't know who Tony Hillerman is, but I know how to report. In his office, he looked at my ACT scores, went directly to the math score and said, "Journalism major, right?" It was the first of many demonstrations of his unerring ability to get to the heart of a matter quickly. In 1975, I took a job in what is now the UNM public affairs office. Early that fall, someone asked me if I'd like to get a poker game going. Hillerman was one of the players. We played on a Tuesday night and we have been playing every Tuesday night since; several years ago, we added Thursday nights as well.
	In 1992, through the coincidence of geography and Hillerman's distaste for driving at night, I became his de facto poker game driver. This led to a lot of conversations. It led to sloshing around trout streams and flying to Chicago to see a football game and, perhaps my greatest claim to fame, it led to the weekend I spent in bed with Tony Hillerman at the Super Bowl in 1996. He had written a piece for the Super Bowl program, and the NFL paid him with two plane tickets, two tickets to the game and a weekend at a resort hotel. He asked if I wanted to go. I told him it was the kind of thing I would do only for a good friend in need. When we got there, the room had only one bed. It was king-size, but still, one bed. We stared at it a long time, the way guys stare at a broken car engine in the hope it will fix itself. Finally, Hillerman said, "Oh, hell, c'mon, Jim. We can do this. We were enlisted men." And so we did. World War II had a lasting impact on his life. He was 19, an infantryman who would come home severely wounded and the recipient of the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He also came home with an abiding respect for the people who did the real work of the world. He told me once that his most treasured award was the CIB — the Combat Infantryman's Badge. He was a storyteller of the first order and the most optimistic poker player I have known in my life. I didn't think it was possible to have so much confidence in two mediocre pair, but he never failed to ride them to the awful, inevitable end, and, then, on the way home, wonder aloud about his inability to fold a lousy two pair. He was a cloud man, too, an aficionado. Often on early summer nights on the way to a poker game, he would make me stop the car so we could get out and admire an enormous thunderhead towering above the Sandias.
	When people found out I knew him, they invariably asked, "What's he like?" And I would invariably say, "If you had the power to pick your next-door neighbors, you would pick Tony and Marie Hillerman. They are smart, funny, compassionate, unpretentious human beings God gave us as something to strive toward." They were married for 60 years. When Hillerman did something I didn't think possible — completely lose a manuscript in a computer — I was one of several people who worked for days to rescue it. (Except for when he was writing, it wasn't a good idea for Tony to be around a computer. The oddest things happened.) At the same time the book disappeared, Marie struggled with a health problem. One day, as I failed again to find the manuscript, he said, "That's OK. It's only a book. All I care about right now is in the living room, trying to get healthy again." We found the book (most of it anyway), and Marie recovered. A few years ago, he called and asked if I'd come over and help him e-mail an essay manuscript to Arizona Highways. He called it "Getting to Goldtooth" and in it was the phrase — "demure little blossoms." He didn't speak like he wrote. He spoke like what he was — an Oklahoma country boy. I have no memory of any spoken word resembling any of the grace and beauty that flowed from his mind through his fingers and onto the page. So I asked him: "Where did that come from? Demure little blossoms?" He shrugged and said, "I don't know. It was just there." Demure little blossoms, random details of a desert landscape brought together in no discernible plan, like the random details of lives. Paths cross, seeds are planted and something meaningful grows. It's hard to explain. It's just there.
	Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone — 823-3930; e-mail — jbelshaw@abqjournal.com

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