"Who is this Dr. Woody anyway?" Shirley asked.
What's his specialty? And why did it take so long to get
Nez in here? He must have been running a fever for days."
"He's not a doctor at all," Howe said. "I mean he's not a practicing physician. I think he has the M.D. degree, but mostly he's the Ph.D. kind of doc. Microbiology. Pharmacology. Organic chemistry. Writes lots of papers in the journals about the immune system, evolution of pathogens, immunity of microbes to antibiotics, that sort of stuff. He did a piece for Science magazine a few months ago for the layman to read, warning the world that our miracle medicines aren't working anymore. If the viruses don't get us, the bacteria will."
"Oh, yeah," Shirley said. "I remember reading that article. That was his piece? If he knows so much, how come he didn't see that fever?"
Howe shook his head. "I asked him. He said Nez just started showing the symptoms. Said he had him on preventive doxycycline already because of the work they do, but he gave him a booster shot of streptomycin and rushed him right in."
"You don't believe that, do you?"
Howe grimaced. "I'd hate to," he said. "Good old plague used to be reliable. It'd poke along and give us time to treat it. And, yeah, that was Woody's article. Sort of don't worry about global warming. The tiny little beasties will get us first."
"Well, as I remember it, I agreed with a lot of it," Shirley said. "It's downright stupid the way some of you doctors prescribe a bunch of antibiotics every time a mama brings her kid in with an earache. No wonder—"
Howe held up a hand.
"Save it, Shirley. Save it. You're preaching to the choir here." He nodded toward the sheet on the gurney. "Doesn't Mr. Nez there just prove we're breeding a whole new set of drug-resistant bugs? The old Pas-teurella pestis, as we used to call it in those glorious primitive days when drugs worked, was duck soup for a half dozen antibiotics. Now, whatever they call it these days, Yersinia pestis I think it is, just ignored everything we tried on Mr. Nez. We had us a case here where one of your Navajo curing ceremonials could have done Nez more good than we did."
"They just brought him in too late," Shirley said. "You can't give the plague a two-week head start and hope to—"
Howe shook his head. "It wasn't two weeks, Shirley. If Woody knows what the hell he's talking about, it was more like just about one day."
"No way," Shirley said, shaking her head. "And how would he know, anyway?"
"Said he picked the flea off of him. Woody's doing a big study of rodent host colonies. National Institutes of Health money, and some of the pharmaceutical companies. He's interested in these mammal disease reservoirs. You know. Prairie dog colonies that get the plague infection but somehow stay alive while all the other colonies are wiped out. That and the kangaroo rats and deer mice, which aren't killed by the hantavirus. Anyway, Woody said he and Nez always took a broad-spectrum antibiotic when there was any risk of flea bites. If it happened, they'd save the flea so he could check it and do a follow-up treatment if needed. According to Woody, Nez found the flea on the inside of his thigh, and almost right away he was feeling sick and running a fever."
"Wow," Shirley said.
"Yeah," Howe agreed. "Wow indeed."
"I’ll bet another flea got him a couple of weeks ago," she said. "Did you agree on the autopsy?"
"Yeah again," Howe said. "You said you know the family. Or know some Nezes, anyway. You think they'll object?"
"I'm what they call an urban Indian. Three-fourths Navajo by blood, but I'm no expert on the culture." She shrugged. "Tradition is against chopping up bodies, but on the other hand it solves the problem of the burial."
Howe sighed, rested his plump buttocks against the desk, pushed back his glasses and rubbed his hand across his eyes. "Always liked that about you guys," he said. "Four days of grief and mourning for the spirit, and then get on with life. How did we white folks get into this corpse worship business? It's just dead meat, and dangerous to boot."
Shirley merely nodded.
"Anything hopeful for that kid in Room Four?" Howe asked. He picked up the chart, looked at it, clicked his tongue and shook his head. He pushed himself up from the desk and stood, shoulders slumped, staring at the sheet covering the body of Anderson Nez.
"You know," he said, "back in the Middle Ages the doctors had another cure for this stuff. They thought it had something to do with the sense of smell, and they recommended people stave it off by using a lot of per fume and wearing flowers. It didn't stop everybody from dying, but it proved humans have a sense of humor."
Shirley had known Howe long enough to understand that she was now supposed to provide a straight line for his wit. She wasn't in the mood, but she said: "What do you mean?"
"They made an ironic song out of it—and it lived on as a nursery rhyme." Howe sang it in his creaky voice:
"Ring around with roses, pockets full of posies. Ashes. Ashes. We all fall down."
He looked at her quizzically. "You remember singing that in kindergarten?"
Shirley didn't. She shook her head.
And Dr. Howe walked down the hall toward where another of his patients was dying.
Chapter Two
ACTING LIEUTENANT JIM CHEE of the Navajo Tribal Police, a "traditional" at heart, had parked his trailer with its door facing east. At dawn on July 8, he looked out at the rising sun, scattered a pinch of pollen from his medicine pouch to bless the day and considered what it would bring him.
He reviewed the bad part first. On his desk his monthly report for June—his first month as administrator in charge of a Navajo Police subagency unit—awaited him, half-finished and already overdue. But finishing the hated paperwork would be fun compared to the other priority job—telling Officer Benny Kinsman to get his testosterone under control.
The good part of the day involved, at least obliquely, his own testosterone. Janet Pete was leaving Washington and coming back to Indian country. Her letter was friendly but cool, with no hint of romantic passion. Still, Janet was coming back, and after he finished with Kinsman he planned to call her. It would be a tentative exploratory call. Were they still engaged? Did she want to resume their prickly relationship? Bridge the gap? Actually get married? For that matter, did he? However he answered that question, she was coming back and that explained why Chee was grinning while he washed the breakfast dishes.
The grin went away when he got to his office at the Tuba City station. Officer Kinsman, who was supposed to be awaiting him in his office, wasn't there. Claire Dineyahze explained it.
"He said he had to run out to Yells Back Butte first and catch that Hopi who's been poaching eagles," Mrs. Dineyahze said.
Chee inhaled, opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. Mrs. Dineyahze would have been offended by the obscenity Kinsman's action deserved.
She made a wry face and shook her head, sharing Chee's disapproval.
"I guess it's the same Hopi he arrested out there last winter," she said. "The one they turned loose because Benny forgot to read him his rights. But he wouldn't tell me. Just gave me that look." She put on a haughty expression. "Said his informant was confidential." Clearly Mrs. Dineyahze was offended by this exclusion. "One of his girlfriends, probably."
"I'll find out," Chee said. It was time to change the subject. "I've got to get that June report finished. Anything else going on?"
"Well," Mrs. Dineyahze said, and then stopped.
Chee waited.
Mrs. Dineyahze shrugged. "I know you don't like gossip," she said. "But you'll probably hear about this anyway."
"What?"
"Suzy Gorman called this morning. You know? The secretary in the Arizona Highway Patrol at Winslow. She said one of their troopers had to break up a fight at a place in Flagstaff. It was Benny Kinsman and some guy from Northern Arizona University."