Flight of the Eagle
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 6
The Navajo Nation in January was cold and still and exactly itself.
Aiyana had been home four days and had slept more than she had slept in three months and had eaten her grandmother’s cooking and had sat with Thomas in the evenings watching the news without talking and had let the land do what it always did — hold her, absorb what she had been carrying, return her to herself.
She had not opened her laptop once.
On the fifth morning she sat at the kitchen table with her tea and watched the light come up over the mesa and thought about nothing in particular, which her grandfather had taught her was not emptiness but restoration. The body and the mind returning to their base state before the next thing was asked of them.
Rosalie moved through the kitchen behind her. The cedar box sat on its shelf above the table. Outside the window the juniper stood dark against the brightening sky.
Her phone was on the table face down the way she kept it in the mornings now, a discipline she had started in October when the notifications had become a thing that needed managing rather than a thing that informed her.
She turned it over at seven thirty to check her messages.
There were forty-three of them. This was not unusual anymore.
She worked through them methodically, flagging what needed James and what needed Sandra and what needed Carol and what she needed to answer herself. She was halfway through when she saw the news alert Sandra had forwarded at six forty-seven that morning with no message attached, which was Sandra’s way of saying this one speaks for itself.
She opened it.
SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
PRESS RELEASE — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Senator William Garrett (D-MT), Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, today introduced Senate Bill S .1847, the Indigenous Women and Girls Accountability Act, calling for the establishment of a fully integrated, cross-jurisdictional reporting and accountability system for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across the United States.
The bill mandates the creation of a National MMIWG Unified Reporting Center with mandatory participation from federal, state, tribal, and county law enforcement agencies. It requires standardized data collection protocols including mandatory recording of tribal affiliation in all missing persons reports, quarterly public case status reporting, and an independent oversight board with enforcement authority.
The bill allocates $340 million over five years for implementation, training, and family support services.
Senator Garrett said in a statement: this legislation is long overdue. The data gap is not an accident. It is a policy failure that has cost lives across generations. We are ending it.
S .1847 has seventeen co-sponsors as of this filing. A companion bill is expected to be introduced in the House within the week.
Aiyana set the phone down on the table.
Rosalie was at the stove with her back turned. The kitchen smelled like coffee and fry bread and the particular warmth of a house that has been lived in by people who love each other for a very long time.
Aiyana said, Grandmother.
Rosalie turned.
Aiyana turned the phone so she could see the screen.
Rosalie read it slowly, the way she read things that mattered. When she finished she set the phone back on the table and looked at her granddaughter for a long moment.
Then she went to the doorway of the next room and said Thomas. Come see this.
Thomas read it standing up, still in his work jacket, coffee in one hand. He read it twice the way he did with things he wanted to be certain of. Then he set the phone down and picked up his coffee and looked out the kitchen window at the mesa.
He stood like that for a while.
Then he said, $340 million.
Aiyana said yes.
He said, seventeen senators.
She said yes.
He nodded slowly. He said, the eagle knew.
He went back to his chair.
The call from the FBI field office in Gallup came that afternoon.
She almost did not answer it. The number was unfamiliar and she had learned to let unfamiliar numbers go to voicemail since November. But something made her pick up, the same internal compass that had made her send the Shark Tank letter before she could stop herself, and she answered it.
The voice on the other end was a man who identified himself as Special Agent Marcus Webb, Gallup field office. He said he was calling regarding case file number 2017-ABQ-4419, the missing persons case of Lena Marie Begay, last known address Navajo Nation, Apache County.
Aiyana sat very still.
He said he was calling to inform her that the case had been reactivated and assigned to an active investigator as of that morning. He said he understood she had been calling the office for some time and that he wanted to personally apologize for the lack of response she had received. He said he could not make promises about outcomes but that he could promise the case would receive the attention it deserved and that she would receive regular updates going forward.
He spelled her name correctly without being asked.
She said, her name was Lena Begay and she was twenty-three years old and she deserved to be found.
He said, yes ma’am. She did. We are going to do our best.
She thanked him and ended the call and set the phone on the table and looked at the cedar box on the shelf above her.