A woman with a shawl over her head leaned in the open doorway, watching while Blizzard parked. To Chee, she looked about eighty, or a little older, with a once-round face now shrunken by the years.
“I hope you are well, Grandmother,” he said in Navajo. He told her his mother’s clan, and his father’s, and that he was a tribal policeman. “And this man beside me is a Cheyenne Indian. His people were part of those who beat General Custer. And we have come to find out if you can help us with a problem.”
Gray Old Lady recited her clans, including being born to the Bitter Water People of Delmar Kanitewa’s father. She invited them in, signaled them to seat themselves on a bench beside the table, and offered them coffee. While the pot heated on the wood stove against the wall, Chee made his pitch. It was the fifth time he’d made it since morning and he hurried through it, making sure the old woman knew they didn’t want to arrest the boy – only to talk to him.
She poured the coffee into two tin cups. The pot held only enough for a half-cup for Chee and Blizzard. None for her. She put it back on the shelf.
“I know the boy,” she said. “My grandson’s son. We called him Sheep Chaser. But I haven’t seen him this year. Not for a long time.”
Chee sipped the coffee. It was strong and stale. Through the doorway into the other room he could see a form lying motionless under a blanket. “Does Sheep Chaser have any good friends around here? Somebody he might be visiting?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “He goes to live with his mother’s people. The Tano People. I don’t know anything about him anymore.”
Which was exactly what Chee had expected to hear. He translated the gist of it to Blizzard. Blizzard nodded and grunted. “Tell her I said thank you very much for all the assistance,” Blizzard said.
“We thank you,” Chee said. He nodded toward the doorway. “Is someone in your family ill?”
She turned and looked into the bedroom. “That is my husband,” she said. “He is so old that he does not know who he is anymore. He has even forgotten how to walk and how to say words.”
“Is there anyone helping you?” Chee said. “Taking care of things?”
“There is the bilagaana from the mission at Thoreau,” she said. “He comes in his truck and keeps our water barrel filled and twice a week he brings us food. But this week he hasn’t come.”
Chee felt sick. “Is his name Eric Dorsey?”
Gray Old Lady produced an ancient-sounding chuckle. “We call him our begadoche. Our water sprinkler. Because he brings our water. And because he makes us laugh.” The memory of laughter produced a small, toothless smile. “He has this thing, like a duck, and he pretends to make it talk.” But the smile went away and she drew her hands up to her chest, looking worried. “Except this week, he didn’t come.”
“How much water do you have?” Chee asked.
“One barrel is empty,” she said. “The other one, maybe about this much.” She demonstrated six inches of water with her hands. “When he comes he always looks into the barrels, and last week he said he would fill them when he came this time. But he didn’t come.”
Blizzard had said polite words to the old woman in English and was walking back to the car. She kept her eyes on Chee, looking worried.
“Do you think he will come next week?” she said. “If he doesn’t come next week I will have to use less water.”
“I will send someone out here to fill your water barrels, Grandmother,” Chee said. “I will send somebody from the mission at Thoreau or somebody from the tribal office at Crownpoint. And when they come you must tell them that you need help.”
“But the bilagaana has helped us,” she said, looking puzzled. “In many ways.” She pointed at the rocking chair. It was beautifully made, with simple lines, and looked new. “He made that for us, at the school I think. He said that chair would be better for my back when I sit beside the bed. And with the duck he would make my husband laugh.”
“Grandmother,” Chee said. “I think the bilagaana who helped you is dead.”
She seemed not to hear him. “He brings us food and he fills our water barrels and he took my man in to see the bilagaana doctors. And he helped us when my daughter had rugs to sell. He told us the man at the trading post was not paying enough. And he sold them for us and got a lot more money.”
“Grandmother,” Chee said. “Listen to me.”
But she didn’t want to listen. “The trader had been giving us fifty dollars but Begadoche got three hundred dollars once, and once it was more than six hundred. And when I had to sell my necklace and my bracelets because we didn’t have any money he told me the pawn place in Gallup didn’t give us enough, and he knew someone who would pay a lot more because they were old and he got them out of pawn and the man he knew gave us a lot more money.”
Chee held up his hand. “Grandmother. Listen. The bilagaana won’t come anymore because he is dead. I will have to send someone else. Do you understand?”
Gray Old Lady Benally understood. She must have understood all along because even while she was talking her cheeks were wet with tears.
Chapter 11
LOOKING BACK on it, trying to analyze how it came to be, Chee finally decided it was partly bad luck and mostly his own fault. They had left Blizzard’s car at Gallup. Bad luck. It meant they had to head back in the direction of Chee’s place to get it. Bad luck, again. It happened that way because the very last people they’d wasted their time checking lived over by the Standing Rock Chapter House. So they drifted homeward past Coyote Canyon on Navajo Route 9. That took them right past the Yah-Tah-Hay intersection, which put them almost as close to Chee’s trailer in Window Rock as to Blizzard’s car in Gallup. And somewhere before then Blizzard had said he was just too damned tired of driving to drive home. That brought them to the part that was Chee’s own fault.
“Why don’t you get a motel room in Gallup?” Chee said. “Then you can just call your office tomorrow. Find out if they’re ready to let us give up on this one.”
“I’ll just sleep in my car,” Blizzard had said.
It was at that point Chee had screwed himself up once again. Maybe it was being tired himself – not wanting to drive into Gallup and then back to Window Rock – or maybe it was feeling sort of guilty for thinking Blizzard was such a hardass when actually he was just new and green. Or maybe it was sympathy for Blizzard – a lonesome stranger in a strange land – or maybe he was feeling a little lonely himself. Whatever the motive, Chee had said, “Why don’t you just bed down at my place? It’s better than the backseat of a car.”
And Blizzard, of course, said, “Good idea.”
And so there they were, Blizzard deciding he’d sleep on the couch and saying he’d volunteer to cook supper unless Chee wanted to go back into Window Rock and eat someplace there. Then the telephone rang.
“It’s Janet,” the caller said. “I got the impression the other day at the Navajo Inn that you wanted to talk to me about something. Was I right?”
“Absolutely,” Chee said.
“So I have an idea. Remember you telling me about that old movie that used Navajos as extras, and they were supposed to be Cheyennes but they were talking Navajo, and saying all the wrong things? The one that they always bring back to that drive-in movie at Gallup? Sort of a campy deal, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show?”