Chee extracted a sheet of typing paper from his desk and pencilled in the area around the butte, the roads and the terrain features. He drew a tiny h for the Tijinney hogan, an l for Woody's lab, a faint irregular line from the hogan to represent the track in from the dirt road, and a little j and k for where Jano and Kinsman had left their vehicles. He examined his work for a moment, then added another faint line from the saddle back to the road.
Leaphorn was watching. "What's that?"
"I saw a flock of goats on the wrong side of the saddle and a track leading in. I think it's a shortcut the goatherd uses so he doesn't have to climb over," Chee said.
"I didn't know about that," Leaphorn said. He took the pencil and added an x near the Yells Back cliffs. "And here is where an old woman McGinnis called Old Lady Notah told people she had seen a snowman. The same woman? Probably."
"Snowman? When was that?"
"We don't know the day. Maybe the day Miss Pollard disappeared. The day Ben Kinsman got hit on the head." Leaphorn leaned back in his chair. "She thought she'd seen a skinwalker. First it was a man, then it walked behind a bunch of junipers and when she saw it again it was all white and shiny."
Chee rubbed a finger against his nose, looked up at Leaphorn. "Which is why you were asking me about that filter respirator suit, isn't it? You thought Pollard was wearing it."
"Maybe Miss Pollard. Maybe Dr. Woody. I'll bet he has one. Or maybe somebody else. Anyway, I'm going to go talk to that old lady if I can find her," Leaphorn said.
"Dr. Woody, he'd have access to animal blood, too," Chee said. "And so would Krause, for that matter."
"And so would Hammar, our man with the iron-clad but unchecked alibi. Now I think it might be worth the time to look into that."
They considered this for a while.
"Did you know Frank Sam Nakai?" Chee asked.
"The hataalü?" Leaphorn asked. "I met him a few times. He taught curing ceremonials at the college at Tsali. And he did a yeibichai sing for one of Emma's uncles after he had a stroke. A fine old man, Nakai."
"He's my maternal granduncle," Chee said. "I went to see him last night. He's dying of cancer."
"Ah," Leaphorn said. "Another good man lost."
"Did you see the TV news this morning? The press conference J. D. Mickey called in Phoenix?"
"Some of it," Leaphorn said.
"He's going for the death penalty, of course. The sonofabitch."
"Running for Congress," Leaphorn said. "What he said about cops out here having no backup help, lousy radio communications, all that's true enough."
"It's a funny thing," Chee said. "I catch Jano practically red-handed standing over Kinsman. He was there, and nobody else was around. He had a fine revenge motive. And then there's Jano's blood mixed with Kinsman's on the front of Kinsman's uniform—just about where he would have cut himself on Kinsman's buckle if they'd been struggling. You have a dead-cinch conviction—and all Jano can do is come up with a daydream story about the eagle he poached slashing him—and there's the eagle right there with no blood on it, so he says not that eagle. That's the second eagle, he says. I caught one earlier and turned it loose." Chee shook his head. "And yet, I'm beginning to have some doubts. It's crazy."
Leaphorn let that all pass without comment.
"That other eagle story is so phony that I'm surprised Janet's not too embarrassed to give it to the jury."
Leaphorn made a wry face, shrugged.
"Jano claims he pulled out a couple of the first eagle's tail feathers," Chee said. "I saw one circling up there over Yells Back with a gap in its tail plume."
"So what are you going to do?" Leaphorn asked. "Jano told me how to locate the blind where he caught the first eagle. I'm going to get myself a rabbit as eagle bait and go up there tomorrow and catch the bird. Or shoot it if I can't catch it. If there's no old blood in the grooves in its talons, or in its ankle feathers, then I don't have any more doubts."
Leaphorn considered this. "Well," he said. "Eagles are territorial hunters. It would probably be the same bird. But the blood could be from a rodent it caught."
"If there's dried blood anywhere, I'll take it in and let the lab decide. You want to come along?"
"No thanks," Leaphorn said. "I'm going to go find the lady with the goats and learn about that snowman she saw."
Chapter Twenty-three
ACTING LIEUTENANT JIM CHEE reached Yells Back Butte early and well prepared. He climbed the saddle while the light of dawn was just brightening the sky over Black Mesa, carrying his binoculars, an eagle cage, his lunch, a canteen of water, a quart thermos of coffee, a rabbit and his rifle. He found the tilted slab of rimrock just where Jano said it would be, straightened out the disordered brush that formed the blind's roof. He took out his medicine bag and removed from the doeskin pouch the polished stone replica of a badger, which Frank Sam Nakai had given him as his hunting fetish, and an aspirin bottle, which held pollen. He put the fetish in his right hand and sprinkled a pinch of pollen over it. Then he faced the east and waited. Just as the rim of the sun appeared, he sang his morning song and sprinkled an offering of pollen from the bottle. That done, he shifted into the hunting chant, telling the eagle of his respect for it, asking it to come and join in this sacrifice that would send it into its next life with his blessing and, perhaps, save the life of the Hopi whose arm it had slashed.
Then he climbed down into the blind. By 10:00 A.M. he had watched two eagles patrolling the rim of the butte to the west of his position, neither the one he wanted. He'd found the feather he'd left behind on his original visit to the blind, retrieved it, wrapped it in his handkerchief and laid it aside. He'd consumed about fifty percent of his coffee and the apple from his lunch sack, and read two more chapters of Execution Eve, the Bill Buchanan book he'd brought along to pass the time. At 10:23, the eagle he wanted showed up.
It came from the east, drifting over Black Mesa in lazy circles that brought it nearer and nearer. Through gaps in the blind's brush roofing, Chee followed it through the binoculars, confirming the irregularity in its fan of tail feathers. He lifted the struggling rabbit out of the eagle cage, made sure the nylon cord on its leg was secure and waited until the bird's hunting circle was taking it away. Then he put the rabbit on the roof, squirmed into his best watching position and waited.
On its next circle it swept southward, lost altitude and patrolled over the rolling sagebrush desert away from the butte, disappearing from Chee's view. He put the rifle in a handier place and waited, tense. A moment later, the eagle reappeared, rising on an updraft just a few yards above the rim of the butte and not fifty yards from the blind, then soared above him to the left.
The rabbit had long since given up its struggles and sat motionless on the roof. Chee stirred the brush supporting it with the rifle barrel. Startled, it scrambled to the end of the cord, jerked at it, sat again. The eagle turned, tightened its circle directly overhead. Chee jerked the cord, provoking a fresh flurry of struggles.
And then the eagle produced a raucous whistle and swept down.
Chee pulled the rabbit back toward the center of the blind. As he did, the eagle struck it with a crash, blanking out the sky with extended wings. Chee tugged at the cord, pulling against the thrust of beating wings, reaching for the eagle's legs.
He was lucky. When it struck, the eagle had locked both sets of talons, one through the rabbit's back, the other on its head. Chee grabbed both legs and brought bird, rabbit and much of the brush roof falling down on him. He dragged his jacket over the eagle, folded it over head and wings and inspected the bird's legs. He saw fresh blood on its talons. At the base of the ruff feathers on its left leg, he found something black and brittle. Dried blood. Old rabbit blood, perhaps. Or Jano's. The lab would decide. Either way, Chee could rest now.