Leaphorn did find some of the dynamite. But first he discovered what had to be Hosteen Tsos tracks, undisturbed in the quiet dust for months. They were moccasin prints scuffed across the white floor. Mixed with them were boot tracks which Leaphorn had long since identified as Goldrims’s. They led into what seemed to be a dead-end cavern. But the cavern turned, and dropped, and widened into a room with a ceiling which soared upward into a ragged hanging curtain of stalactites. Leaphorn examined it quickly with his flashlight. In several places the calcite surface was piled deep with ashes of old fires.
Leaphorn took two steps toward the old hearths and stopped abruptly. The floor here was patterned with sand paintings. At least thirty of them, each a geometric pattern of the colors and shapes of the Holy People of the Navajos. Leaphorn studied them recognizing Corn Beetle, the Sacred Fly, Talking God, and Black God, Coyote and others. He could read some of the stories told in these pictures-formed-of-colored-sand. One of them he recognized as part of the Sun Father Chant, and another seemed to be a piece of the Mountain Way. Leaphorn came from a family rich in ceremonial people. Two of his uncles were singers, and a grandfather; a nephew was learning a curing ritual, and his maternal grandmother had been a Hand-Trembler famous in the Toadlena-Beautiful Mountain country. But some of these dry paintings were totally unfamiliar to him. These must be the great heritage Standing Medicine had left for the People the Way to start the world again.
Leaphorn stood staring at them, and then past them at the black metal case that sat on the cave floor beyond them. His flashlight beam glittered from the glass face of dials and from shiny metal knobs. Leaphorn squatted beside it. A trademark on its side read hall crafters. It was another radio transmitter. Wires ran from it, disappearing into the darkness. Connecting to an antenna, Leaphorn guessed. Taped securely to its top was a battery-powered tape recorder, and wired to both tape recorder and radio was an enameled metal box. Leaphorn was conscious now of a new sound, a sort of electric whirring which came from the box another timer. The dial on its top showed its pointer had moved past seven of the fifty markings on its face. There was no way of telling whether each mark represented a minute or an hour. It was obviously adjustable. Behind the radio a paper sack sat on the floor also linked to terminals on the timer box. Leaphorn opened the sack gingerly. In it were two dynamite sticks, held together around a blasting cap with black friction tape. Leaphorn rocked back on his heels, frowning. Why dynamite a radio?
He studied the timer again. It seemed to be custom-made. Sequential, he guessed. First it would turn on the radio, and then the tape recorder, and when the recording was broadcast, it would detonate the dynamite.
Leaphorn extracted his pocket knife and carefully removed the screws that attached the dynamite wires to the timer. Then he cut the tape recorder free, sat on the floor and pushed the play button.
You were warned. But our people
The words boomed out into the cave. Leaphorn stabbed the off button down. The voice was that of Goldrims. But he couldn’t risk playing it now. Sound carried too well in this cavern. He shoved the recorder under his shirt. He would play the tape later.
As it happened, Leaphorn had cut it close. He found Father Benjamin Tso waiting where he had left him, hidden among a cluster of stalagmites close to the cage door. He told the priest what he had learned, of Goldrims’s leaving to pick up the ransom, and of the radio and the time bomb in the cave room where Father Tso had been left.
I saw the radio, Father Tso said. I didn’t know what was in the sack. He paused. But why would he want to blow me up? The voice was incredulous. Leaphorn didn’t attempt an answer. Far back in the darkness a tiny dot of light had appeared, bobbing with the walk of whoever carried it. Leaphorn prayed it was Jackie, and only Jackie. He motioned Father Tso back out of sight and climbed quickly onto a calcite shelf, from which he could watch and launch his ambush. He was still trying to control his breathing when the yellow light of a battery lantern joined the glow of the butane light at the cage.
Time to talk again. The voice was Jackie’s. Got questions for two of these boys. He hooked his lantern on his belt, shifted the shotgun he was carrying to his left hand and fished a piece of paper from his shirt pocket.
Leaphorn moved swiftly. He had the walkie-talkie out of its case, holding it like a club as he came around the wall of stalagmites. Then he hesitated. Once he jumped down to the lower calcite floor, there was no cover. For thirty yards he would be in the open and clearly visible. It was much too far. Jackie would have him. He could spin around and shoot Leaphorn dead.
But Father Tso was there, walking toward Jackie.
Hey, Jackie said. He swung the shotgun toward Tso. Hey, how’d you get loose?
Put down the gun! Father Tso shouted it, and the cavern echo-boomed: Gun . . . gun . . .
gun . . . gun. He walked toward Jackie. Put it down.
Hold it, Jackie said. Hold it or Ill kill you. He took a step backward. Come on, he shouted.
Jesus, you’re as crazy as Tull.
I’m as immortal as Tull, Father Tso shouted. He walked toward Jackie, hands outstretched, reaching for the shotgun.
Leaphorn was running now knowing what would happen, knowing how Father Tso planned it to happen, knowing it was the only way it could work.
God forgive Father Tso was shouting and that was all Leaphorn heard. Jackie fired from a crouch. The gunshot boomed like a bomb, surrounding Leaphorn with a blast of sound.
The impact knocked Father Tso backward. He fell on his side. Only after Father Tso lay still did Jackie hear through the booming echoes the sound of Leaphorn running, and spin with his catlike quickness so that the walkie-talkie struck not the back of his head, where Leaphorn had aimed it, but across his temple. Jackie seemed to die instantly, the shotgun spinning from his hand as he fell. Father Tso lived perhaps a minute. Leaphorn picked up the shotgun it was a Remington automatic and knelt beside Tso. Whatever the priest was saying, Leaphorn couldn’t understand it. He put his ear close to Father Tsos face, but now the priest was saying nothing at all. Leaphorn could hear only the echoes of the gunshots dying away and over that the sound of Theodora Adams screaming.
There was no time to plan anything. Leaphorn moved as quickly as he could. He felt rapidly through Jackie’s pockets, finding the padlock key but no additional ammunition for the shotgun. He glanced at the cage. A quick impression of a dozen frightened faces staring at him and of Theodora Adams, sobbing in the corner.
The other ones going to be coming and I’m going to take him, Leaphorn said. Get everybody to sit back down. Don’t give him any hint I’m out here. And with that, Leaphorn ran back into the darkness.
He stopped behind the stalagmites and stared in the direction from which Tull would come. Nothing but blackness. But Tull would surely come. The sound of the shot would have reached him at the cave entrance. And he would have heard the Adams woman screaming. If he came at a run, he should be arriving now. Leaphorn held the shotgun ready, looking down its barrel into the darkness. He swung it toward the glow of light, noticing with satisfaction that the bead sight was lined exactly in the V of the rear sight. He could hear Theodora Adams’s sobbing less hysterical now and more the sound of simple sorrow. For the first time, Leaphorn became conscious of the smell of burned gunpowder.
As soon as Tull came well between him and the light as soon as he could line up the sights on his silhouette he would shoot for the center of the body. There’d be no warning shout. In this darkness, Tull was far too dangerous for that. Leaphorn would simply try to kill him. Time ticked silently away.