A Thief of Time

'Well,' Luna said. 'Not exactly. But the other men who worked here didn't have much to do with him. Maybe that was because he was willing to dig around the burials. Had given up the traditional ways. But they gossiped about him. Not to me but among themselves. And I sort of sensed they were wary of him.'

'Davis told me Lehman came. The man she had the appointment with.'

'Her project supervisor?'

&#8220Yeah.'

'Did he say what the meeting was about?'

'She'd told him she had one more piece of evidence to get and then she'd be ready to publish. And she wanted to show it all to him and talk it over. He stuck around the next day and then drove back to Albuquerque.'

'I'll get his address from you,' Leaphorn said. 'Did he have any idea what that one piece of evidence was?'

'He thought she'd probably found some more pots. Ones that fit. He said she was supposed to have them when they met.'

Leaphorn thought about that. He noticed Chee had marked it, too. It seemed to mean that when Ellie left Chaco it was to pick up those final pots.

'Would Maxie Davis or Elliot be likely to know any more about all this?'

Mrs. Luna answered that one. 'Maxie, maybe. She and Ellie were friends.' She considered that statement, found it too strong. 'Sort of friends. At least they'd known each other for years. I don't think they'd ever worked together -- as Maxie and Elliot sometimes do. Teamed.'

'Teamed,' Leaphorn said.

Mrs. Luna looked embarrassed. 'Sue,' she said. 'Allen. Don't you two have any homework? Tomorrow is a school day.'

'Not me,' Allen said. 'I did mine on the bus.'

'Me either,' Sue said. 'This is interesting.'

'They're friends,' Mrs. Luna said, looking at Sue, but meaning Maxie and Elliot.

'When Mr. Thatcher and I talked to them it seemed pretty obvious that Elliot wanted it that way,' Leaphorn said. 'I wasn't so sure about Miss Davis.'

'Elliot wants to get married,' Mrs. Luna said. 'Maxie doesn't.'

She glanced at her children again, and at Luna.

'Kids,' Luna said. 'Sue, you better see about your horse. And Allen, find something to do.'

They pushed back their chairs. 'Nice to have met you,' Allen said, nodding to Leaphorn and to Chee.

'Great children,' Leaphorn said, as they disappeared down the hallway. 'They ride the bus? To where?'

'Crownpoint,' Mrs. Luna said.

'Wow!' Chee said. 'I used to ride a school bus about twenty-five miles and that seemed forever.'

'About sixty miles or so, each way,' Luna said. 'Makes an awful long day for `em. But that's the nearest school.'

'We could teach them out here,' Mrs. Luna said. 'I have a teacher's certificate. But they need to see other children. Nothing but grownups at Chaco.'

'Two young women and one young man,' Leaphorn said. 'Was there any friction between the women over that? Any sort of jealousy?'

Luna chuckled.

Mrs. Luna smiled. 'Eleanor wouldn't be much competition in that race,' she said. 'Unless the man wants an intellectual, and then it's about even. Besides, I think in Randall Elliot you have one of those one-woman men. He left a job in Washington and worked his way into a project out here. Just following her. I think he's sort of obsessive about it.'

'Delete the `sort of,'' Luna said. 'Make it downright obsessive. And sad, too.' He shook his head. 'Elliot's a sort of macho guy most ways. Played football at Princeton. Flew a navy helicopter in Vietnam. Won a Navy Cross and some other decorations. And he's made himself a good name in physical anthropology for a man his age. Got stuff published about genetics in archaic populations. That sort of stuff. And Maxie refuses to take anything he does seriously. It's the game she plays.'

From down the hall came the high, sweet sound of a harmonica--and then the urgent nasal whine of Bob Dylan. Almost instantly the volume was muted.

'Not a game,' Mrs. Luna said, thoughtfully. 'It's the way Maxie is.'

'Reverse snob, you mean?' Luna asked.

'More to it than that. Kind of a sense of justice. Or injustice, maybe.'

Luna looked at Leaphorn and Chee. 'To explain what we're talking about, and maybe why we're doing this gossiping, there's no way Maxie would be jealous of Dr. Friedman. Or anybody else, I think. Maxie is the ultimate self-made woman from what I've heard about her. Off of some worn-out farm in Nebraska. Her father was a widower, so she had to help raise the little kids. Went to a dinky rural high school. Scholarship to University of Nebraska, working her way through as a housekeeper in a sorority. Graduate scholarship to Madison, working her way through again. Trying to send money home to help Papa and the kids. Never any help for her. So she meets this man from old money, Exeter Academy, where the tuition would have fed her family for two years. Where you have tutors helping you if you need it. And then Princeton, and graduate school at Harvard, all that.' Luna sipped his coffee. 'Opposite ends of the economic scale. Anyway, nothing Elliot can do impresses Maxie. It was all given to him.'

'Even the navy career?'

'Especially the navy,' Mrs. Luna said. 'I asked her about that. She said, Of course, Randall has an uncle who's an admiral, and an aunt who's married to an undersecretary of the navy, and somebody else who's on the Senate Armed Services Committee. So he starts out with a commission.' And I said something like,You can hardly blame him for that,' and she said she didn't blame him. She said it was just that Randall has never had a chance to do anything himself.' Mrs. Luna shook her head. 'And then she said, `He might be a pretty good man. Who knows? How can you tell?' Isn't that odd?'

'It sounds odd to me,' Leaphorn said. 'In Vietnam, he was evacuating the wounded?'

'I think so,' Luna said.

'That was it,' Mrs. Luna said. 'I asked Maxie about that. She said, You know, he probably could have done something on his own if he had the chance. But officers give each other decorations. Especially if it pleases Uncle Admiral.'Uncle Admiral,' that's what she said. And then she told me her younger brother was in Vietnam, too. She said he was an enlisted man. She said a helicopter flew his body out. But no uncles gave him any decorations.'

Mrs. Luna looked sad. 'Bitter,' she said. 'Bitter. I remember the night we'd been talking about this. I'd said something about Randall flying a helicopter and she said, `What chance do you think you or I would have had to be handed a helicopter to fly?' '

Leaphorn thought of nothing to say about that. Mrs. Luna rose, asked about coffee refills, and began clearing away the dishes. Luna asked if they'd like to spend the night in one of the temporary personnel apartments.

'We better be getting back home,' Leaphorn said.

The night was dead still, lit by a half-moon. From the visitor camping area up the canyon there was the sound of laughter. Allen was walking up the dirt road toward his house. As he watched him, it occurred to Leaphorn how everyone knew Eleanor Friedman-Bernal had left so early on her one-way trip.

'Allen,' Leaphorn called. 'What time do you catch the bus in the morning?'

'It's supposed to get here about five minutes before six,' Allen said. 'Usually about then.'

'Down by the road?'

Allen pointed. 'At the intersection down there.'

'Did you see Ellie drive away?'

'I saw her loading up her car,' Allen said.

'You talk to her?'

'Not much,' Allen said. 'Susy said hello. And she said something about you kids have a good day at school and we said for her to have a good weekend. Something like that. Then we went down and caught the bus.'

'Did you know she was going away for the weekend?'