McGinnis nodded.
“Dashee says Tuve’s not guilty. Captain Pinto saw the reference to the diamond in that insurance stuff added to your burglary. Diamonds aren’t common out here. So I wondered if you knew anything useful.”
“Well, then,” McGinnis said. “That’s interesting. This Tuve, he claims he got it from a man down in the bottom of Grand Canyon, did he?”
He hoisted himself out of the rocker, shuffled down the store’s aisle, and disappeared again through the doorway into the living quarters.
Leaphorn sat thinking his thoughts. How much the man had aged. How McGinnis and his store seemed to be dying together. He resumed his study of the dust particles drifting through a beam of light from the lowering sun.
McGinnis came down the aisle with a small pouch of what seemed to be deer skin hanging from his right hand. He reseated himself in the rocker, looked at Leaphorn.
“I’ll tell you a story. You decide if it helps any. Probably won’t.”
Leaphorn nodded.
“Years ago. Winter, I remember. One of the cold ones. Lots of snow. A fellow came in here, said his name was Reno, probably middle thirties, riding a horse and all bundled up. Wearing a felt hat tied on with a strip of blanket holding the brim down over his ears. He said he needed some food and to use my telephone. My line was down, so I told him he could get to one at that store at Bitter Springs, and if that one wasn’t working, he’d have to get all the way to Page. He got some stuff off the shelf and I heated up a can of pork and beans for him. Then he said he didn’t have any money but he would leave me his horse and saddle for some more food and for me giving him a ride into Page.”
McGinnis chuckled at the memory, located his Coca-Cola glass, poured a trickle of bourbon into it, took a sip, and shook his head.
“It was a little roan mare and pretty used up. Limping on its back leg. Fairly good saddle, though. I put the horse in the barn with some hay, thinking I wasn’t going to make anything out of the deal, but if I didn’t take the horse, I’d probably be stuck with the cowboy, too. I asked him where he was coming from. And now we come to the funny part. He said he been down in the canyon with a bunch of hippies and got lost from that crowd and was trying to find a way out of there. Said he ran into an old Indian while he was trying to climb up a side canyon. The old man told him that slot he was going up was a dead end, and showed him how to get to a trail the horse could manage, and asked him if he had a good knife or a hatchet he’d be willing to part with. So Reno said he showed the fella his knife and said he’d take ten dollars for it. The Indian didn’t have any money but he offered a trade.”
Having said that, McGinnis took another sip, picked the leather pouch off his lap, and started trying to untie the thong that held it closed.
McGinnis looked up from his labor. “You’ve seen ’em like this afore,” he said.
“Looks like a pouch to hold his ceremonial pollen,” Leaphorn said. “Or carry the cornmeal to use for a blessing. But I don’t recognize that figure stitched into the leather. It looks a little like a baseball umpire with his chest protector. What kind of Indian was he? Hopi? Havasupai? Hualapai? Yuman? Could even be one of the Apache tribes. They all use medicine pouches.”
“This cowboy, this Reno, said he didn’t know much about Indians. But he said this old fellow talked a lot about Masaw, or however you pronounce that kachina. Anyway, the Hopis know about him, and I think some of the Yuman people down in the canyon, too. And the Supai folks. Some of them call him Skeleton Man. Supposed to be the Guardian of the Underworld, and the spirit who greeted the first Hopis when they came up from the dark world they been living in. This spirit told them how to make their religious migrations and where to live when they finished doing that. And the big thing about him for the Hopis, this spirit taught them not to be afraid of death.”
McGinnis paused, took another sip.
“Getting hoarse,” he said. “That’s the most I’ve talked in a while. But anyway, he’s supposed to have let a bunch of Hopi elders look down into the underground and see where people who died were living comfortable and having a good time.”
McGinnis stopped, examined the whiskey level in his glass. “What was that you asked me about?”
“What was in the little pouch?”
“Well, it wasn’t pollen. There was nothing blessed in this medicine pouch,” McGinnis said. He poured the contents out into his palm.
A small round metal box emerged, worn-looking and with the legend Truly Sweet in red on its side. A snuff box, Leaphorn thought. Not much of that used on the reservation these days.
McGinnis twisted off the lid and extracted a clear blue-white stone, marble-sized but not marble shape. He held it out between thumb and forefinger, rotating it in a beam of sunlight. The sunlight flashed through it, touching off glittering bursts of light.
“When you pour your pollen out of your pouch,” McGinnis said, “then you’re pouring out a blessing. That’s the symbol of regerminating life. Of everything good and healthy and natural. Pour this little bastard out and you got the symbol of greed. It’s the sign of what folks cheat and steal and kill for. White women like to wear them to show other folks how rich they are.”
He held it out in a beam of sunlight, admired it. “Pretty, ain’t it?”
“Ah,” Leaphorn said, and smiled. “Mr. McGinnis, you’re starting to sound like an old-fashioned traditional Navajo.”
“Not quite,” McGinnis said. “But remember, when that First Man spirit fella of yours, when he was talking about the witchcraft evil stuff he had in his medicine bundle, he called it ‘the way to make money.’ Always did think that was a good point we whites overlooked. I mean, when a fella had more stuff than he needed and was stacking more of it up with the people all around him hungry, that was a pretty good clue he had some of that greed sickness, and they collect these things to prove they’re better at being greedy than their friends.”
With that, McGinnis produced a creaky old man’s chuckle and put the diamond back into the tin and the tin into the medicine pouch.
“Somebody said money was the root of all evil,” McGinnis said. “Myself, I never did well enough here to get much of it.”
“How about the diamond? Sounds like you wanted to make that work for you.”
McGinnis reached out and dropped the pouch into Leaphorn’s hand, changing the subject. “Take another look at it. Up close. It’s pretty, all right. But nothing to go to jail for.”
Leaphorn extracted the snuff can from the pouch, took out the diamond, and let the sunlight shine through it. He turned it, examined it.
“Seems to have been shaped to fit into some sort of necklace. A pendant. You just gave him some groceries for it and got you his horse, too? I’d say you struck a pretty hard bargain,” he said. “Sounds to me like you were trying to practice ‘the way to make money.’”
McGinnis looked defensive. “You’re making it sound worse than it was. My pickup was still running then. I gave him a ride into Page. Figured it was a fake, anyway. So did Reno.”
Leaphorn looked surprised. “Well, now. Is that right? Then how come you estimated it at ten thousand dollars when that burglar stole it?”
McGinnis laughed, peered at Leaphorn, raised his eyebrows. “Are we still having a friendly conversation here? Or are you back to being a cop?”
“Let’s keep it friendly.”
“Well, then. I told this young fella I wasn’t born yesterday and I knew all about those artificial diamonds. Zircons, I think they are. Did he really think I’d believe he was giving me a genuine diamond for a little food and a ride through the snowstorm? And he said, to tell the truth, he’d have been disappointed in me if I did. He said he always figured it was artificial.”