When was it mailed?
I got it about the middle of April. So I guess it was mailed just before he got killed. Tso glanced down at his hands. He had obviously thought a lot about this. I was busy with a lot of things then, he said. He glanced up at Leaphorn, looking for some sort of understanding of this failure. And it was already too late, anyway.
Bennie thought it could wait a little while, Theodora Adams said.
I suppose I operated on Navajo time, Tso said. But he didn’t smile at the old joke. I hadn’t seen the old man since I was eleven or twelve. I guess I thought it could wait.
Leaphorn said nothing. He was remembering Mrs. Cigarettes voice on the tape recording, recalling for Feeney what Hosteen Tso had told her. . . . And he said he’d get somebody to write to his grandson. That’s what Mrs. Cigarette had said. Get somebody to write.
Hosteen Tso hadn’t lived more than an hour after that. And yet the letter had been written.
Who the hell could have done it? Leaphorn decided he’d go back to Short Mountain and talk to McGinnis again.
You have any idea what those valuable things he wanted to give you could be? Leaphorn asked.
No, Tso said. I have no idea. Everything I found in the hogan wouldn’t be worth a hundred dollars. Tso looked thoughtful. But maybe he didn’t mean money value.
Maybe not, Leaphorn said. He was still thinking of the letter. If McGinnis hadn’t written it, who the hell had?
» 9 «
McGinnis poured the bourbon carefully, stopping exactly at the copyright symbol under the Coca-Cola trademark on the glass. That done, he glanced up at Leaphorn.
Had a doctor tell me I ought to quit this stuff because it was affecting my eardrums and I told him I liked what I was drinking bettern what I was hearing.
He held the glass to the light, enjoying the amber as a wine-lover enjoys the red.
Two things I cant even guess at, McGinnis said. The first is who he got to write that letter for him, and the other is how come he didn’t come back to me to write it for him after he found out the address. McGinnis considered this, his expression sour. You might think its because I’m a man whose known for knowing everybody’s business. A gossip. But then all those people out here know I don’t talk what I write in their letters for them. They’ve had many a year to learn that.
I’m going to tell you exactly what was in that letter, Leaphorn said. He leaned forward in his chair, eyes intent on McGinnis’s face. I want you to listen. It said, My Grandson. I have ghost sickness. Nobody is here to get me a singer and do the things necessary so I can go again in beauty. I need you to come here and hire the right singer and see about things. If you don’t come I will die soon. Come. There are valuable things I must give you before I die.
McGinnis stared into the bourbon, full of thought. Go on, he said. I’m listening.
That’s it, Leaphorn said. I memorized it.
Funny, McGinnis said.
I’m going to ask you if that’s about the same as the letter he was telling you he wanted written.
I figured that’s what you were going to ask, McGinnis said. Let me see the letter.
I don’t have it, Leaphorn said. This Benjamin Tso let me read it.
You got a hell of a memory, then, McGinnis said.
Nothing much wrong with it, Leaphorn said. How about yours? You, remember what he wanted you to write?
McGinnis pursed his lips. Well, now, he said. Its kind of like I told you. I got a reputation around here for not gossiping about what people want put in their letters.
I want you to hear something else, then, Leaphorn said. This is a tape of an FBI agent named Feeney talking to Margaret Cigarette about what Hosteen Tso told her that afternoon just before he got killed. Leaphorn picked up the recorder and pushed the play button.
. . . say anything just before you left him and went over by the cliff? the voice of Feeney asked.
And then the voice of the Listening Woman. I don’t remember much. I told him he ought to get somebody to take him to Gallup and get his chest x-rayed because maybe he had one of those sicknesses that white people cure. And he said he’d get somebody to write to his grandson to take care of everything, and then I said Id go and listen Leaphorn stopped the tape, his eyes still on McGinnis’s.
Well, well, McGinnis said. He started the rocking chair in motion. Well, now, he said. If I heard what I think I heard . . . He paused. That was her talking about just before old Tso got hit on the head?
Right, Leaphorn said.
And he was saying he still hadn’t got the letter written. So nobody could have written it except Anna Atcitty, and that’s damned unlikely. And even if she wrote it, which I bet my ass she didn’t, the guy that hit em on the head would’ve had to gone and mailed it. He glanced at Leaphorn. You believe that?
No, Leaphorn said.
McGinnis abruptly stopped the rocking chair. In the Coca-Cola glass the oscillation of the bourbon turned abruptly into splashing waves.
By God, McGinnis said, his voice enthusiastic. This gets mysterious.
Yeah, Leaphorn said.
That was a short letter, McGinnis said. What he told me would make a long one. Maybe a page and a half. And I write small.
McGinnis pushed himself out of the rocker and reached for the bourbon. You know, he said, uncapping the bottle, I’m known for keeping secrets as well as for talking. And I’m known as an Indian trader. By profession, in fact, that’s what I am. And you’re an Indian.
So lets trade.
For what? Leaphorn asked.
Tit for tat, McGinnis said. I tell you what I know. You tell me what you know.
Fair enough, Leaphorn said. Except right now there’s damned little I know.
Then you’ll owe me, McGinnis said. When you get this thing figured out you tell me. That means I gotta trust you. Got any problems with that?
No, Leaphorn said.
Well, then, McGinnis said. You know anything about somebody named Jimmy? Leaphorn shook his head.
Old Man Tso come in here and he sat down over there. McGinnis waved the glass in the direction of an overstuffed chair. He said to write a letter telling his grandson that he was sick, and to tell the grandson to come right away and get a singer to cure him. And to tell him that Jimmy was acting bad, acting like he didn’t have any relatives.
McGinnis paused, sipped, and thought. Lets see now, he said. He said to tell the grandson that Jimmy was acting like a damned white man. That maybe Jimmy had become a witch. Jimmy had stirred up the ghost. He said to tell his grandson to hurry up and come right away because there was something that he had to tell him. He said he couldn’t die until he told him. McGinnis had been staring into the glass as he spoke. Now he looked up at Leaphorn, his shrunken old face expressionless but his eyes searching for an answer. Hosteen Tso told me he wanted to put that down twice. That he couldn’t die until he told that grandson something. And that after he told him, then it would be time to die. Looks like somebody hurried it up. He was motionless in the chair a long moment. Id like to know who did that, he said.
Id like to know who Jimmy is, Leaphorn said.
I don’t know, McGinnis said. I asked the old fart, and all he’d say was that Jimmy was a son-of-a-bitch, and maybe a skinwalking witch. But he wouldn’t say who he was. Sounds like he figured the grandson would know.
He say anything about wanting to give the grandson something valuable?
McGinnis shook his head. Hell, he said. What’d he have? A few sheep. Forty, fifty dollars worth of jewelry in pawn here. Change of clothes. He didn’t have nothing valuable.
McGinnis pondered this, the only sound in the room the slow, rhythmic creaking of his rocker.
That girl, he said finally. Let me see if I guessed right about the way that is. She’s after that priest. He’s running and she’s chasing and now she’s got him. He glanced at Leaphorn for confirmation. That about it? You left her out there with him?