By the time they had Canfield's working tent pitched and supper cooked, the first stars were visible over the canyon walls. A nighthawk flashed past them, hunting. Up canyon a rasping hoot touched off a dull pattern of echoes.
"Saw-whet owl," Canfield said. He grinned at McKee. "If Leaphorn was right, maybe that's Horseman's ghost enjoying the night out."
They ate and then sat in the silent darkness, watching the light of the early moon light the top of the canyon walls. From some infinite distance came the faint sound of barking.
"Take your pick," McKee said. "A coyote, some sheepherder's lost dog, or one of my witches turned into a wolf for the evening."
Canfield took the turquoise frog from his pocket and rubbed it, chuckling.
"I'll say it's a witch," he said, "because this keeps me safe from witches."
Actually, McKee remembered, the turquoise shape wasn't a Navajo charm. It was a much older Anasazi fertility totem with nothing at all to do with witches.
Of course it didn't really matter.
Chapter 8
McKee left the campsite before dawn, called Leaphorn's office from the Gulf station on the highway at Chinle, and then ate a leisurely breakfast at Bishbito's Diner while he waited for the policeman to make the sixty-mile drive from Window Rock. Leaphorn arrived while he was finishing his third cup of coffee. He handed McKee a sheet of paper and sat down.
"Take a look at that," he said. "And then let's go and find that boy who went to warn Horseman."
The paper was a carbon of an autopsy report form:
Subject: Luis Horseman (war name unknown).
Age: 23.
Address: 27 miles southwest of Klagetoh.
Next of Kin: Wife, Agnes (Tso) Horseman, Many Goats Clan.
Time of Death: Between 6 P.M. and 12 midnight, June 11 (estimated).
Cause of Death: Suffocation. Substantial accumulation of fine granular material in lung tissue, windpipe, throat and nostrils.
There was more information, negative reports on blood alcohol and on abrasions and concussions, and an analysis indicating the "fine granular material" was common silica-based sand.
"The medical examiner said it looked like he got caught in a cave-in," Leaphorn said. "Like he had been buried in sand."
"You think so?"
"And somebody dug him out? And laid him out there at Teastah Wash with the bottle of whiskey he hadn't drunk?" Leaphorn thought about his own questions. "I don't know. Maybe. But there wasn't any sand in his cuffs, or in his pockets, or anywhere else."
"It wouldn't make any sense anyway," McKee said.
Leaphorn was looking out the window. "I think I know a lot about witches," he said. "You think you know a lot about witches. How do you kill a witch?"
The question surprised McKee. He thought about it. "You mean do you smother them?"
"Remember that case over at Fruitland?" Leaphorn asked. "That guy whose daughter died of t.b.? He shot four of them. And then there was that old Singer up near Teec Nos Pas a couple of years ago. He was beaten to death."
"There's no special way that I know of," McKee said. "There was supposed to be a hanging back in the 1930's but there wasn't any proof and they think it was just gossip. Usually, though, it's heat-of-passion stuff—beating, shooting, or knifing. Something like that. Why? You think somebody thought Horseman was a witch?"
"Makes a certain amount of sense," Leaphorn said. "But I don't know." He was still staring out the window. "Why kill somebody like Horseman? Just another poor soul who didn't quite know how to be a Navajo and couldn't learn to act like a white. No good for anything."
McKee could think of nothing to say. Out the window there was the highway, the asphalt strip of Navajo Route 9, and across it to the east, the blue-gray mass of the Lukachukai Range. He wondered what Leaphorn was seeing out there.
"I was in charge of the Shiprock subagency when that Fruitland thing happened," Leaphorn said. "That one was mine. I heard that Navajo Wolf talk and I didn't pay much attention to it and so we had five bodies to bury."
"Four," McKee said.
"No. It was five." Leaphorn turned, smiling grimly. "This isn't Salem," he said. "We don't recognize witchcraft legally and the guy shot an old Hand Trembler and his wife, and a schoolteacher and her husband, and then he shot himself. Didn't want to stand trial for murder."
"What are you trying to do?" McKee asked. "Figure out a way to blame yourself for Horseman?"
"I could have gone in and looked for him."
"But not found him," McKee said. "Besides, Horseman wasn't a stranger. The old woman said the Wolf is a stranger."
"Yeah," Leaphorn said. "That's what she said. Maybe she had a reason to lie. Let's go find that boy who went out to warn Horseman." He looked at his notes. "Billy Nez. Let's go find Billy and see what he knows."
But finding Billy Nez was not possible.
They found his family's hogans east of Chinle, not far from Shoemaker's, but not Billy. His uncle was sore about it.
"Kid took a horse and took off after breakfast," he said. "He's gone all the time. Screwing around back up in the mountains somewhere, when he's supposed to be helping out."
Would he be back tonight? The uncle couldn't guess. Sometimes he was gone for days. He and Leaphorn talked a moment and then the lieutenant returned to the carryall, and turned it back toward Chinle.
"Found out a little," Leaphorn said. "The boy knew where Horseman was hiding—somewhere back up in those canyons. But when he went to tell him he hadn't killed anybody, Horseman was gone." Leaphorn paused. "Or at least the kid said he was gone."
"You don't think he was?"
"Probably," Leaphorn said. "The uncle also told me something else. Billy Nez is Horseman's younger brother."
"His brother?" McKee said. "How about the different name?"
"Family broke up," Leaphorn said. "Billy was living with his uncle so he used Nez instead of Horseman. You know how it is with the Dinee. The only name that really counts is the war name you get when you're little. And that one's a secret inside your family and it's only used in your Blessing Way ceremonial or if you get somebody to sing you a cure."
It was noon when they reached the Chinle sub agency office and the man Leaphorn wanted to see was at lunch. They found him at the diner, and Leaphorn introduced him as Sam George Takes. He was a round-faced, barrel-chested young man, wearing the uniform of a Law and Order sergeant. McKee ordered chicken-fried steak, more lunch than he usually allowed himself.
"Hell, you know how it is, Joe," Takes was saying. "It's summer, school's out. He's probably chasing some girl and no telling when he gets back."
"That's right," Leaphorn said. "That's what you do when you're sixteen or so. Hanging around some girl's hogan. Or, if your brother is missing, maybe looking for your brother."
Takes put down his fork. "And he don't find him and he comes home and his uncle sends him in here like he said he would and we find out whatever he knows, which is probably nothing, and that's the end of it. Why are you worrying?"
"It could work out like that," Leaphorn said. "But you know how news travels on this reservation. It could be by now he knows his brother is dead. So maybe he connects it to this witching gossip. Then he collects some cousins and uncles and goes looking for the Wolf."