Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 13] (16 page)

"I can remember the meaning. She wouldn't be in the office that day. She was
taking the Jeep and heading southeast, over toward Black Mesa and Yells Back
Butte. Working on the Nez plague fatality."

"Did she say she'd be trapping animals? Prairie dogs or what?"

"Probably. I think so. Either she said it or I took it for granted. I
don't think she was specific, but she'd been working on plague. She still
hadn't pinned down where Mr. Nez got his fatal infection."

"And that would have been from a prairie dog flea?"

"Well, probably. That
Yersinia pestis
is a bacteria spread by
fleas. But some of the
Peromyscus
host fleas, too. We got two hundred
off one rock squirrel once."

"Would she have had a PAPR with her?"

"She carries one with her stuff in the Jeep. Was it still there when
they found the vehicle?"

"I don't know," Leaphorn said. "I'll ask. And I have one more
question. In that note, did she tell you why she planned to quit?"

Krause frowned. "Quit?"

"Her job here."

"She wasn't going to quit."

"Her aunt told me that. In a call Pollard made just before she
disappeared, she said she was quitting."

"Be damned," Krause said. He stared at Leaphorn, biting his lower
lip. "She say why?"

"I think it was because she couldn't get along with you."

"That's true enough," Krause said. "A hardheaded Ionian.

SUMMER HAD ARRIVED with dreadful force in Phoenix, and the air conditioning
in the Federal Courthouse Building had countered the dry heat outside its
double glass windows by producing a clammy chill in the conference room. Acting
Assistant U.S. Attorney J. D. Mickey had assembled the assorted forces charged
with maintaining law and order in America's high desert country to decide whether
to go for the first death penalty under the new congressional act that
authorized such penalties for certain crimes committed on federal reservations.

Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police was among those
assembled, but being at the bottom level of the hierarchy, he was sitting
uncomfortably in a metal folding chair against the wall with an assortment of
state cops, deputy sheriffs, and low-ranking deputy U.S. marshals. It had been
clear to Chee from the onset of the meeting that the decision had been long
since made. Mr. Mickey was serving on some sort of temporary appointment and
intended to make the most of it while it lasted. The timing of the death of
Benjamin Kinsman opened a once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity. National—or
at least congressional district regional—publicity was there for the grabbing.
He'd go for the historic first. What was happening here was known in
upper-level civil service circles as "the CYA maneuver," intended to
Cover Your Ass by diluting the blame when things went wrong.

"All right then," Mickey was saying. "Unless anyone has more
questions, the policy will be to charge this homicide as a capital crime and
impanel a jury for the death sentence. I guess I don't have to remind any of
you people here that this will mean a lot more work for all of us."

The woman in the chair to Chee's right was a young
Kiowa-Comanche-Polish-Irish cop wearing the uniform of the Law Enforcement
Services of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She snorted, "Us!" and
muttered, "Means more work for us, all right. Not him. He means he guesses
he don't have to remind us he's running for Congress as the law-and-order
candidate."

Now Mickey was outlining the nature of this extra work. He introduced Special
Agent in Charge John Reynald. Agent Reynald would be coordinating the effort,
calling the signals, running the investigation.

"There'll be no problem getting the conviction." Mickey said.
"We caught the perpetrator literally red-handed with the victim. What
makes it absolutely ironclad is having Jano's blood mixed with the victim's on
both of their clothing. The best the defense can come up with is a story that
the eagle he was poaching slashed him."

This produced a chuckle.

"Trouble is, the eagle didn't cooperate. There wasn't a trace of Jano's
blood on it. What we'll need to get the death penalty is evidence of malice.
We'll want witnesses who heard Mr. Jano talking about his previous arrest by
Officer Kinsman. We need to find people who can remember hearing him talk about
revenge. Talking about how badly Kinsman handled him during that first arrest.
Even bad-mouthing Navajos in general. That sort of thing. Check out the bars,
places like that."

"Where'd this jerk come from?" the LES woman asked Chee. "He
sure doesn't know much about Hopis."

"Indiana, I think," Chee said. "But I guess he's been in
Arizona long enough to establish residency for a federal office election."

Mickey was closing down the meeting, shaking hands with the proper people.
He stopped Chee at the door.

"Stick around a minute," Mickey said. "I want to have a word
or two with you."

Chee stuck around. So did Reynald and Special Agent Edgar Evans, who closed
the door behind-the last departee.

"There're several points I want to make," Mickey said. "Point
one is that the victim in this case may not have had a perfect personal record,
you know what I mean, being a healthy young man and all. If there's any talk
going around among his fellow officers that the defense might use to dirty his
name, then I want that stopped. Going for the death penalty, you understand
why."

"Sure," Chee said, and nodded. "I'll get right to the second
point then," Mickey said. "The gossip has it that you're engaged to
this Janet Pete. The defense attorney. Either that, or used to be."

Mickey had phrased it as a question. He and Reynald and Evans waited for an
answer. Chee said: "Really?"

Mickey frowned. "In a case like this one, in a touchy business like
this, culturally sensitive, the press looking over our shoulders, we have to
watch out for anything that might look like a conflict of interest."

"That sounds sensible to me," Chee said. "I don't think
you're understanding me," Mickey said. "Yes, sir," Chee said.
"I understand you." Mickey waited. So did Chee. Mickey's face turned slightly
pink.

"Well, then, goddamnit, what's with this gossip? You got something
going with Ms. Pete or what?"

Chee smiled. "I had a wise old maternal grandmother who used to teach
me things. Or try to teach me when I was smart enough to listen to her,"
Chee said. "She told me that only a damn fool pays attention to
gossip."

Mickey's complexion turned redder. "All right," he said.
"Let's get one thing straight. This case is about the murder of a law
officer in the performance of his duty. One °f your own men. You're part of the
prosecution team. Ms. Pete runs the defense team. You're no lawyer, but you've
been in the enforcement business long enough to know how things work. We got the
disclosure rule, so the criminal's team gets to know what we're putting into
evidence." He paused, staring at Chee. "But sometimes justice
requires that you don't show your hole card. Sometimes you have to keep some of
your plans and your strategy in the closet. You understand what I'm telling
you?"

"I think you're telling me that if this gossip is true, I shouldn't
talk in my sleep," Chee said. "Is that about right?" Mickey
grinned. "Exactly."

Chee nodded. He'd noticed that Reynald was following this conversation
intently. Agent Evans looked bored. "And I might add," Mickey added,
"that if somebody else talks in their sleep, you might just give a
listen."

"My grandmother had something else to say about gossip," Chee
said. "She said it doesn't have a long shelf life. Sometimes you hear the
soup's on the table and it's too hot to eat, and by the time the news gets to
you it's in the freezer."

Mickey's beeper began chirping as Chee was ending that observation. Whatever
the call was about, it broke up the cluster without the ritual shaking of hands
that convention required.

Chee hadn't lucked into a shady place to leave his car. He used his
handkerchief to open the door without burning his hand, started the engine,
rolled down all the windows to let the ovenlike heat escape, turned the air
conditioner to maximum and then slid off the scorching upholstery to stand
outside until the interior became tolerable. It gave him a little time to plan
what he'd do. He'd call Joe Leaphorn from here to see if anything new had
developed. He'd call his office to learn what awaited him there, and then he'd
head for the north end of the Chuska Mountains, the landscape of his boyhood,
and the sheep camp where Hosteen Frank Sam Nakai spent his summers.

From Phoenix, from almost anywhere, that meant a hell of a long drive. But
Chee was a man of faith. He did his damnedest to maintain within himself the
ultimate value of his people, the sense of peace, harmony and beauty Navajos
call
hozho
. He badly needed Hosteen Nakai's counsel on how to deal
with the death of a man and the death of an eagle.

Hosteen Nakai was Chee's maternal granduncle, which gave him special status
in Navajo tradition. He had given Chee his real, or war, name, which was
"Long Thinker," a name revealed only to those very close to you and
used only for ceremonial purposes. Circumstances, and the early death of Chee's
father, had magnified Nakai's importance to Chee—making him mentor, spiritual
adviser, confessor and friend. By trade he was a rancher and a shaman whose
command of the Blessing Way ceremonial and a half dozen other curing rituals
was so respected that he taught them to student
hataalü
at Navajo
Community College. If anyone could tell Chee the wise way to handle the messy
business of Kinsman, Jano and Mickey, it would be Nakai.

More specifically, Nakai would advise him on how he could deal with the
problem posed by the first eagle. If it existed and he caught it, it would die.
He had no illusions about its fate in the laboratory. There was a chant to be
sung before hunting, asking the prey to know it was respected and to understand
the need for it to die. But if Jano was lying, then the eagle he would try to
lure to that blind would die for nothing. Chee would be violating the moral
code of the Dine, who did not take lightly the killing of anything.

No telephone line came within miles of the Nakai summer hogan, but Chee
drove along Navajo Route 12 with not a doubt that his granduncle would be
there. Where else would he be? It was summer. His flock would be high in the
mountain pastures. The coyotes would be waiting in the fringes of the timber,
as they always were. The sheep would need him. Nakai was always where he was
needed. So he would be in his pasture tent near his sheep.

But Hosteen Nakai wasn't in his tent up in the high meadows.

It was late twilight when Chee pulled his truck off the entry track and onto
the hard-packed earth of the Nakai place. His headlight beams swept across the
cluster of trees beside the hogan. They also caught the form of a man, propped
on pillows in a portable bed, the sort medical supply companies rent. Chee's
heart sank. His granduncle was never sick. Having the bed outside was an
ominous sign.

Blue Lady was standing in the hogan doorway, looking out at Chee as he
climbed out of the truck, recognizing him, running toward him, saying:
"How good. How good. He wanted you to come. I think he sent out his
thoughts to you, and you heard him."

Blue Lady was Hosteen's second wife, named for the beauty of the turquoise
she wore with her velvet blouse when her
kinaalda
ceremony initiated
her into womanhood. She was the younger sister of Hosteen Nakai's first wife,
who had died years before Chee was born. Since Navajo tradition is matrilineal
and the man joined his bride's family, practice favored widowers marrying one
of their sisters-in-law, thereby maintaining the same residence and the same
mother-in-law. Nakai, being most traditional and already studying to be a
shaman, had honored that tradition. Blue Lady was the only Nakai grandmother
Chee had known.

Now she was hugging Chee to her. "He wanted to see you before he
dies," she said.

"Dies? What is it? What happened?" It didn't seem possible to Chee
that Hosteen Nakai could be dying. Blue Lady had no answer to that question.
She led him over to the trees and motioned him into a rocking chair beside the
bed. "I will get the lantern," she said.

Hosteen Nakai was studying him. "Ah," he said, "Long Thinker
has come to talk to me. I had hoped for that."

Chee had no idea what to say. He said: "How are you, my father? Are you
sick?"

Nakai produced a raspy laugh, which provoked a racking cough. He fumbled on
the bed cover, retrieved a plastic device, inserted it into his nostrils and
inhaled. The tube connected to it disappeared behind the bed. Connected, Chee
presumed, to an oxygen tank. Nakai was trying to breathe deeply, his lungs
making an odd sound. But he was smiling at Chee.

"What happened to you?" Chee asked. "I made a mistake,"
Nakai said. "I went to a
bilagaana
doctor at Farmington. He told
me I was sick. They put me in the hospital and then they broke my ribs, and cut
out around in there and put me back together." His voice was trailing off
as he finished that, forcing a pause. When he had breath again, he chuckled.
"I think they left out some parts. Now I have to get my air through this
tube."

Blue Lady was hanging a propane lantern on the limb overhanging the head of
the bed.

"He has lung cancer," she said. "They took out one lung, but
it had already spread to the other one."

"And all sorts of other places, too, that you don't want to even know
about," Nakai said, grinning. "When I die, my
chindi
will be
awful mad. He'll be full of malignant tumors. That's why I made them move my
bed out here. I don't want that
chindi
to be infecting this hogan. I
want it out here where the wind will blow it away."

"When you die, it will be because you just got too old to want to live
anymore," Chee said. He put his hand on Nakai's arm. Where he had always
felt hard muscle, he now felt only dry skin between his palm and the bone.
"It will be a long time from now. And remember what Changing Woman taught
the people: If you die of natural old age, you don't leave a
chindi
behind."

"You young people—" Nakai began, but a grimace cut off the words.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and the muscles of his face clenched and tightened. Blue
Lady was at his side, holding a glass of some liquid. She gripped his hand.

"Time for the pain medicine," she said.

He opened his eyes. "I must talk a little first," he said. "I
think he came to ask me something."

"You talk a little later. The medicine will give you some time for
that." And Blue Lady raised his head from the pillow and gave him the
drink. She looked at Chee. "Some medicine they gave him to let him sleep.
Morphine maybe," she said. "It used to work very good. Now it helps a
little."

"I should let him rest," Chee said. "You can't," she
said. "Besides, he was waiting for you."

"For me?"

"Three people he wanted to see before he goes," she said.
"The other two already came." She adjusted the oxygen tube back into
Nakai's nostrils, dampened his forehead with a cloth, bent low and put her lips
to his cheek, and walked back into the hogan.