“What kind of gun?”
“Pistol. I don’t know what kind. It wasn’t a revolver.”
“Anything missing?”
“I don’t know,” Dell said, grimacing again. “Tell the truth, I don’t give a damn. I’ve got a hell of a headache. You take a look if you want to.”
Chee looked. He opened the cash-register drawers.
“Empty.”
“I take the money home at night,” Dell said.
“You better call somebody to come down here and look after you,” Chee said. “I’m going to get myself some gas and see if I can find that pickup truck.”
Finding the truck occupied much of the day. A Bureau of Indian Affairs cop sent over from the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico spotted it at the Aneth Oil Field about sundown. It was stuck in the sand of an arroyo bottom off an abandoned road. South of Montezuma Creek. West of Highway 35. Back on the emptiness of Casa Del Eco Mesa. Back within easy walking range of Gothic Canyon, or Desert Creek Canyon, or anyplace else for a man burdened only by an old newspaper.
It was farther, however, than Sergeant Jim Chee could have walked that evening. Chee had sprained his left ankle climbing down a rocky slope while on this fruitless hunt. It had been one of those no-brainer accidents. He’d put his weight on a protruding slab of sandstone that looked solid but wasn’t. Then, instead of facing the inevitability of gravity and taking the tumble with a roll in the rocks, he’d tried to save his dignity, made an off-balance jump and landed wrong. That hurt, and it hurt even worse to require help from a deputy sheriff and an FBI agent to haul him back to his car.
Chapter Eighteen
The voice on the telephone was Captain Largo’s, with no words wasted.
Chee said, “No sir, I can’t put any weight on it yet,”; listened a few moments, said, “Yes sir,” listened again, another "Yes sir,” and clicked off. Total result: Largo wanted to know when Chee could resume his canyon-combing duties, preferably immediately; Largo instructed him to fill out an injury report form, and Largo had already sent somebody down to his trailer with it. It should include name, phone number, etc., of the physician who had X-rayed the ankle. Chee should do this immediately and send the report right back. Largo was shorthanded, and Chee should not waste the messenger’s time with a lot of conversation.
Chee adjusted the ice pack. He tried to think of the word, in either Navajo or English, to describe the color the swelling had turned and settled on ‘plum-colored.' He considered whether he should resent the lack of either sympathy or confidence the captain’s call had indicated. About the time he’d decided to pass that off as part of Largo’s natural-born grumpiness, the messenger arrived.
“Come on in,” Chee said, and Officer Bernadette Manuelito stepped in, in full uniform and looking neater than usual.
“Wow,” she said. “Look at that ankle." She made a wry face. “I’ll bet it hurts.”
“Right,” Chee said.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot,” she said, her tone disapproving. “Barging right in like that.”
“I didn’t “barge right in.” I drove up to get some gasoline. I noticed a pickup driving away. Then I saw the victim sitting by the wall. And weren’t you supposed to bring me a report to fill in and then rush right back to the captain with it, with no time wasted talking?”
“I still think you were lucky,” Manuelito said. “You’re a fine one to be thinking I wasn’t competent to work on a roadblock.”
Chee was conscious of his face flushing. He looked at Bernie, found her expression odd but inscrutable—at least to him.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Professor Bourebonette told me.”
“I don’t believe it,” Chee said. “When did she say that? And why would she say anything like that?”
“At the roadblock. She and Lieutenant Leaphorn came through about an hour or so after you -" Bernie hesitated, seeking a way to describe Chee’s arrival. “After you were there. They stopped and talked a while. That’s when she said it. She asked me if you had come by, and I said yes, and she asked me what you’d said, and I said nothing much. And she acted surprised, and I asked why, and she said you’d gotten all angry and excited when they told you they’d seen me at the roadblock and ran right out and drove away.”
Chee was still trying to read her expression. Was it fond, or amused? Or both.
“I didn’t say you were incompetent.”
Officer Manuelito said, “Well, OK,” and shrugged.
“I just thought it was too dangerous. Those guys had already shot two cops, and shot at another one, and the Ironhand guy, he’d killed a lot more in Vietnam.”
“Well, thanks then." Manuelito’s expression was easy to read now. She was smiling at him.
“The captain said for you to rush that report right back to him,” Chee said, and held out his hand.
She gave it to him, secured to a clipboard with a pen dangling.
“Which one was it? Ironhand or Baker?”
“A tall, middle-aged Indian,” Chee said. “Sounds like Ironhand.”
“And he just took newspapers? Like the radio said this morning?”
Chee was trying to fill in the form with the clipboard balanced on his right knee. “Apparently. The victim didn’t think anything else was missing. But then he was still pretty stunned.”
“I think you should call Lieutenant Leaphorn,” Manuelito said. “It sounds awfully funny.”
Chee looked up at her. “Why?”
“Because, you know, running that risk just to get a newspaper.”
“I meant why call Leaphorn?”
“Well, you know, I think he’d be interested. At the roadblock he told us we should be extra careful because he guessed it would be about now those guys, if they were hiding in the canyons, about now they’d be making their move. And the deputy I was working with said he thought they’d be more likely to lie low until everybody got tired of looking before they made a run, and the lieutenant said, maybe so, but their radio was broken. They’d wouldn’t know what was going on. They’d be getting desperate to know something.”
“He said that?” Chee said, sounding incredulous. “About making their move now. How the devil could Leaphorn have guessed?” Manuelito shrugged.
“And that’s why you think I should call him?”
Now it was Bernie’s turn to look slightly embarrassed. She hesitated. “I like him,” she said. “And he likes you. And I think he’s a very lonely man, and -"
The buzz of the telephone cut her off. Captain Largo again.
“What the hell are you and Manuelito doing?” Largo said. “Get her back up here with that report.”
“She just left a minute ago,” Chee said. He clicked off, filled in the last space, signed the form, handed it to her. Leaphorn liked him? Nobody had ever suggested that before. He’d never even thought of it. Of Leaphorn liking anyone, for that matter. Leaphorn was—Well, he was just Leaphorn.
“You know, Bernie,” he said. “I think I will call the lieutenant. I’d like to know what he’s thinking.”
Chapter Nineteen
Having resigned himself to more long hours spent listening to elderly Utes recounting their tribal mythology, Joe Leaphorn was reaching for his cap when the phone rang.
“Hello,” he said, sounding glum even to himself.
The voice was Jim Chee’s. Leaphorn brightened.
“Lieutenant, if you have a minute or two, I’d like to fill you in on what happened at the Chevron station in Bluff yesterday. Have you heard about that? I’d like to find out what you think about it.”
“I have time,” Leaphorn said. “But all I know is what I got on the television news. A man shows up at the station around opening time. He knocks out the operator and drives off in a previously stolen pickup truck. The FBI presumes the man was one of the casino bandits. The newscaster said a Navajo Tribal Policeman was at the station buying gas when it happened, but the robber escaped. Is that about it?”