Hell of a way to treat a car, Begay said.
They found it thirty yards away, rolled into a shallow arroyo out of sight from the highway.
Leaphorn studied it a moment in the beam of his flashlight. He walked up to it cautiously.
The drivers door was open. So was the trunk. The front seat was empty. So was the back seat. The front floorboards were littered with the odds and ends of a long trip gum wrappers, paper cups, the wrapper from a Lotaburger. Leaphorn picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled of onions and fried meat. He dropped it. The nearest Lotaburger stand he could remember was at Farmington about 175 miles east in New Mexico. The safety inspection sticker inside the windshield had been issued by the District of Columbia. It bore the name of Frederick Lynch, and a Silver Spring, Maryland, address. Leaphorn jotted it in his notebook. The car, he noticed, smelled of dog urine.
He didn’t leave nothing much back here, Chancy said. But here’s a muzzle for a dog. A big one.
I guess he went for a walk, Leaphorn said. He’s got a lot of room for that.
Thirty miles to a drink of water, Charley said. If you know where to find it.
Begay, Leaphorn said. Take a look in back and give me the license number.
As he said it, it occurred to Leaphorn that his bruised leg, no longer numb, was aching.
It also occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Begay since after they’d found the car.
Leaphorn scrambled out of the front seat and made a rapid survey of the landscape with the flashlight. There was Corporal Charley, still inspecting the back seat, and there was Leaphorns 30-30 leaning against the trunk of the Mercedes, with Leaphorns key ring hung on the barrel.
Leaphorn cupped his hands and shouted into the darkness: Begay, you dirty bastard!
Begay was out there, but he would be laughing too hard to answer.
» 3 «
T
he file clerk in the Tuba City subagency of the Navajo Tribal Police was slightly plump and extremely pretty. She deposited a yellow Manila folder and three brown accordion files on the captains desk, flashed Leaphorn a smile and departed with a swish of skirt.
You already owe me one favor, Captain Largo said. He picked up the yellow folder and peered into it.
This will make two, then, Leaphorn said.
If I do it, it will, Largo said. I may not be that dumb.
You’ll do it, Leaphorn said.
Largo ignored him. Here we have a little business that just came in today, Largo said from behind the folder. A discreet inquiry is needed into the welfare of a woman named Theodora Adams, who is believed to be at Short Mountain Trading Post. Somebody in the office of the Chairman of the Tribal Council would appreciate it if wed do a little quiet checking so he can pass on the word that all is well.
Leaphorn frowned. At Short Mountain? What would anyone Largo interrupted him. There’s an anthropological dig out there. Maybe she’s friendly with one of the diggers. Who knows? All I know is her daddy is a doctor in the Public Health Service and I guess he called somebody in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the BIA called somebody in . . .
Okay, Leaphorn said. She’s out in Indian country and daddies worried and would we look out after her right?
But discreetly, Largo said. That would save me a little work, if you’d take care of that. But it wont look like much of an excuse to ask Window Rock to let you off guarding those Boy Scouts. Largo handed Leaphorn the Manila folder and pulled the accordion files in front of him. Maybe there’s an excuse in these, he said. You can take your pick.
Ill take an easy one, Leaphorn said.
Here we have a little heroin stashed in the frame of a junk car over near the Keet Seel ruins, said Largo as he peered into one of the files. He closed the folder. Had a tip on it and staked it out, but nobody ever showed up. That was last winter.
Never any arrests?
Nope. Largo had pulled a bundle of papers and two tape cassettes out of another folder.
Here’s the Tso-Atcitty killing, he said. You remember that one? It was last spring.
Yeah, Leaphorn said. I meant to ask you about that one. Heard anything new?
Nada, Largo said. Nothing. Not even any sensible gossip. Little bit of witch talk now and then. The kind of talk something like that stirs up. Not a damn thing to go on.
They sat and thought about it.
You got any ideas? Leaphorn asked.
Largo thought about it some more. No sense to it, he said finally.
Leaphorn said nothing. There had to be sense to it. A reason. It had to fit some pattern of cause and effect. Leaphorns sense of order insisted on this. And if the cause happened to be insane by normal human terms, Leaphorns intellect would then hunt for harmony in the kaleidoscopic reality of insanity.
You think the FBI missed something? Leaphorn asked. They screw it up?
They usually do, Largo said. Whether they did or not, its been long enough so we really ought to be checking around on it again. He stared at Leaphorn. You any better at that than at bringing in prisoners?
Leaphorn ignored the jibe. Okay, he said. You tell Window Rock you want me to work on the Atcitty case, and Ill run over to Short Mountain and check on the Adams woman, too.
And Ill owe you a favor.
Two favors, Largo said.
Whats the other one?
Largo had put on a pair of horn-rimmed bifocals and was thumbing his way owlishly through the Atcitty report. I didn’t hoorah you for letting that Begay boy get away. That’s the first one. He glanced at Leaphorn. But I’m not so damn sure this second ones any favor. Dreaming up reasons to borrow you from Window Rock so you can go chasing after that feller that tried to run you down. That’s not so damned smart getting mixed up in your own thing. Well find that feller for you.
Leaphorn said nothing. Somewhere back in the subagency building there was a sudden metallic clamora jail inmate rattling something against the bars. Outside the west-facing windows of Largos office an old green pickup rolled down the asphalt road into Tuba City, trailing a thin haze of blue smoke. Largo sighed and began sorting the Atcitty papers and tapes back into the file.
Herding Boy Scouts is not so bad, Largo said. Broken leg or so. Few snakebites. One or two of them lost. He glanced up at Leaphorn, frowning. You got nothing much to go on, looking for that guy, anyway. You don’t even know what he looks like. Goldrim glasses.
Hell, I’m about the only one in this building that doesn’t wear em. And all you really know is that they were wire rims. Just seeing em with that red blinker reflecting off of em that would distort the color.
You’re right, Leaphorn said.
I’m right, but you’re going to go ahead on with it, Largo said. If I can find an excuse for you.
He tapped the remaining file with a blunt fingertip, changing the subject. And here’s one that’s always popular the vanishing helicopter, Largo said. The feds love that one. Every month we need to turn in a report telling em we haven’t found it but we haven’t forgotten it.
This time we’ve got a new sighting report to look into.
Leaphorn frowned. A new one? Isn’t it getting kinda late for that?
Largo grinned. Oh, I don’t know, he said. Whats a few months? Lets see it was December when we were running our asses off in the snow up and down the canyons, looking for it.
So now its August, and somebody gets around to coming into Short Mountain and mentioning he’s seen the damn thing. Largo shrugged. Nine months? That’s about right for a Short Mountain Navajo.
Leaphorn laughed. Short Mountain Navajos had a long-standing reputation among their fellow Dinee for being uncooperative, slow, cantankerous, witch-ridden and generally backward.
Three kinds of time. Largo was still grinning. On time, and Navajo time, and Short Mountain Navajo time. The grin disappeared. Mostly Bitter Water Dinee, and Salts, and Many Goats people live out there, he said.
It wasn’t exactly an explanation. It was absolution from this criticism of the fifty-seven other Navajo clans, including the Slow Talking Dinee. The Slow Talking Dinee was Captain Howard Largos born-to clan. Leaphorn was also a member of the Slow Talking People. That made him and Largo something akin to brothers in the Navajo Way, and explained why Leaphorn could ask Largo for a favor, and why Largo could hardly refuse to grant it.