P.J. answered the phone by saying, “Yes,” in a tone that busy people use. Chee explained again, hurrying it a little.
“Does this involve that casino robbery? Shooting those policemen?”
“Well, yes,” Chee said. “We’re checking on places they might be hiding. We know there’s an old coal mine in Gothic Creek Canyon, abandoned maybe eighty or ninety years ago, and we thought that perhaps -"
“Good thinking,” P.J. said. “Especially the “perhaps” part. That coal up in that part of the world is uraniferous. Well, all coal tends to be a little radioactive, but that area is hotter than most. But that’s a lot of years for the radioactive stuff to get washed away, or lose its punch. However, if you can give me a general idea of where the mine might be, I’ll tell you if we’ve surveyed that area. If we have, I can get Jesse to check our maps in the van and see what hot spots showed up. If any.”
“Great,” Chee said. “We think this mine was dug into the east slope of Gothic Creek Canyon. It would be somewhere in a ten-mile stretch of the canyon from where it runs into the San Juan southward.”
“Well, that’s good,” P.J. said. That’s on the Navajo Reservation, and that’s what our contract covers. The Department of Energy has hired us to help ’em clean up the mess they left hunting uranium. They provide the copters and the pilots, and we provide the technicians.”
“Do you think you’ve surveyed there yet?”
“Possibly today,” she said. “We’ve been up there south of Bluff and Montezuma Creek this week. If they didn’t cover that today, they probably will tomorrow.”
Chee had been feeling foolish during most of his earlier telephone conversations, his skepticism about this idea reviving. Now he found himself getting excited. P.J. seemed to be taking the notion seriously.
“Can I give you my number? Have you call me back? I’ll be reachable tonight and tomorrow and however long it takes.”
“Where you calling from?”
“Shiprock.”
“The copter will be coming in about an hour or so. Calling it quits for the day and downloading all the data they’ve collected. Why don’t you drive on over and see for yourself?”
Why not, indeed. “I’ll be there,” he said.
Chee had given up on putting on his left sock, and was easing a sandal on that foot when he heard a vehicle bumping down his access road. It stopped, the west wind blew a puff of dust past his screen door, and a few moments later Officer Bernadette Manuelito appeared. She was carrying what seemed to be a tray covered with a white cloth, holding the cloth against the breeze with one hand, tapping on the screen with the other.
“Ya’eeh te’h,” she said. “How’s the ankle? Would you like something to eat?”
Chee said he would. But not right now. He had a can’t-wait errand to run.
Bernie had been looking at the sandal on his left foot, frowning at it. It was not a pretty sight. She shook her head.
“You can’t go anywhere,” she said. “You can’t drive. What do you think you’re doing?” She put the tray on the table.
“It’s just over to the Farmington Airport,” Chee said. “Of course I can drive. Why not? You use your right foot for the gas pedal and the brake.”
“Take off the sandal,” Officer Manuelito said. “We’ll wrap it up in the bandage again. If you think it can’t wait, I’ll drive you over there.”
Which was, of course, what happened.
The woman who Chee presumed was P.J. turned out to be the same small, slightly sunburned blonde he’d noticed at the helicopter when he’d come to talk to Jim Edgar. She was standing beside the craft holding a black metal box, the box being linked by an insulated cable to the big white pod mounted on the copter’s landing skid. When she noticed Chee limping up, her expression was skeptical. Not surprising, he thought. He was wearing his worn and wrinkled ‘stay at home’ jeans and a blue T-shirt on which some of the mutton stew Bernie had brought him had splashed when she drove too fast over a bumpy place.
Chee introduced Officer Bernadette Manuelito, who looked uncharacteristically neat and spiffy in her uniform, and himself.
P.J. smiled. “I’m Patti Collins. Just a minute until I get this data unloaded.”
Jim Edgar was leaning on the doorframe of his hangar watching them. He held up his hand in salute, shouted, “Heard you found Old Man Timms’s airplane,” and disappeared back in the direction of his workbench.
P.J. was unjacking the cable. “You got here fast,” she said. “Let’s take this into the lab and see what we have.”
The lab was a standard-looking Winnebago mobile home, its white exterior badly in need of washing but the interior immaculate.
“Have a seat somewhere,” P.J. said. She connected her black metal box to an expensive-looking console built into the back of the vehicle and did those incomprehensible things technicians do.
The console made computer sounds. The attached printer began spewing out a roll of paper. P.J. studied it. “Well, now,” she said. “I don’t know if this is going to help you much, but it’s interesting.” She detached a couple of feet of paper and laid it on a large scale U.S. Geological Survey map spread across the tabletop where Chee and Bernie were sitting.
“See this,” she said, and traced her finger down a tight squiggle of lines on the computer printout. “That coordinates with this." She traced the same fingertip down Gothic Creek on the USGS map.
It was meaningless to Chee. He said, “Oh.”
“It shows there’s been a distribution of radioactive material downstream from here,” P.J. said, tapping her finger on the h in Gothic Creek on the map legend.
“Would that suggest the mine waste dump might have been there?” Chee asked. “That would be interesting.”
“Yeah,” P.J. said, studying the printout again. “Now my problem is whether it’s interesting enough to divert the copter a couple of miles tomorrow to get a closer scan.”
“It would be a big help to us,” Chee said.
“I’ll talk to the pilots,” P.J. said. “It would just take another twenty minutes or so. And if it’s hot enough, we ought to get it on the map anyway.”
“Would there be room for me to go along?”
P.J. looked at him skeptically. “You were limping along on that cane. What’s the deal with your ankle?”
“I sprained it,” Chee said. “It’s just about healed.”
She still looked skeptical. “You ridden in a copter before?”
“Twice,” Chee said. “I didn’t enjoy it either time, but I’ve got a good stomach for motion sickness.”
“I’ll let you know,” she said. “Give me the number where you’ll be tonight. If it’s go, I’ll call you and tell you where to meet the refueling truck.”
Chapter Twenty-one
For once Chee came out lucky with the timing. As promised, P.J. had called him. Yes, they would revise their schedule for the next day a bit and divert a few miles to do a follow-up low-level check of the Gothic Creek drainage. He could go along. Everything had been more or less cleared and approved. However, it was one of those ‘less said the better’ affairs. Why run the risk that some big shot far removed from the scene might suspect this rational interpretation of regulations could cause trouble? The most economical and convenient time to do this diversion would be the final flight of the day. Chee should be at the refueling truck at 2:40 P.M., at which time the truck would be at the same place Chee had seen it previously, parked beside the road leading to the Timms place on Casa Del Eco Mesa.
“Thanks,” Chee said. “I’ll be there waiting.”
And he was. He’d gotten down to the office in the morning, caught up on paperwork, handled some chores for Captain Largo, had lunch, bought himself some snack stuff (including an extra apple to offer to Rosner) and headed west for the mesa. By two-fifteen, he and Rosner were sitting in the shade of the truck snacking and watching the copter land. It was the same big white Bell with radiation-sensor pods on its landing skids, and the pilot put it down far enough away to avoid blasting them with dust.