“What now?” Delonie whispered.
“We wait until it gets a little lighter,” Leaphorn said, talking very low. “Mr. Vang told me Mr. Delos comes up here alone. The way he describes his hunting tactics he gets out to the blind when there’s just enough light to see a little. That would be just about now, I’d think.” Vang was sort of semi-standing in the space behind them, leaning forward for a better view out the windshield. “He says its takes him about twenty minutes to walk from the cabin around to the hillside where the blind is. There’s a regular trail he follows, and he wants to be off it and into the blind before the elk come out of the timber on the slope to start drinking in the stream. He wants to be all ready with everything when that happens. He used to talk to me about that. Back when I was younger. When he was still trying to teach me how to be a hunter.” The tone of that was sad.
“When did he stop doing that?” Leaphorn asked.
“A long, long time ago,” Vang said. “When I was maybe twelve. He said he didn’t see any signs in me that I would get to be one of the predator people. But he was going to try again later.”
“But he didn’t?”
“Not yet,” Vang said.
Delonie wasn’t interested in this.
“Point is you think he’s already gone?” Delonie asked.
“That is, if he was ever here.”
“Oh, I think he was here,” Vang said. “I was to come here to meet him. After I left that box . . .” 234
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“After you left me that gift box of poisoned cherries,” Delonie said. “I guess you were supposed to come and give him a report on how many of them I’d eaten before they killed me.”
“No. No,” Vang said. “I was just supposed to leave the box.”
Leaphorn made a shushing sound.
“Hand me up the rifle, Mr. Vang,” Delonie said. “I want to do some looking around through the scope. See what I can see.”
Vang dropped back, felt around, handed up the 30-30.
Delonie put it on his lap, muzzle pointed away from Leaphorn, and began loosening the clamps that held the scope in place. He took it off, pulled out his shirt tail, pol-ished the scope with the cloth, then looked through it. First peering at the house, then scanning the area around it.
“No sign of any life,” he said. “Didn’t expect any.” The rifle lay on the seat beside Delonie. Leaphorn reached it, slid it away, leaned it against the driver’s-side door. He glanced at Delonie, who hadn’t seemed to notice.
“Let me have a look through that scope,” Leaphorn said, and Delonie handed it to him.
Leaphorn looked, saw no signs of life, hadn’t expected any. “Nobody home,” he said, also wondering if there ever had been.
“Beginning to wonder some more about all this,” Delonie said. “You pretty sure Mr. Vang has been telling us right?”
“Oh yes,” Vang said. “I told you right. You see that little bit of white on top of that bush. Beside the house?
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See? It sort of moves when the breeze blows? That’s a white towel.”
Delonie said, “Towel?”
Leaphorn said, “Where?”
“Look at the bushes right by the uphill side of the house. Beyond the porch. On the bush.”
“That could be anything. Piece of some sort of trash caught there,” Delonie said.
Leaphorn moved the scope. Found bushes, saw a wee bit of white amid the green, looked again. Yep.
“I see it now,” he said, and handed the scope to Delonie. He said, “Mr. Vang, you got damn good eyesight. But Delonie is right. It could be anything.”
“Yes,” Vang said. “But I remember Mr. Delos told me when he went hunting he would hang out a white towel there, and when he came back from hunting, he would take it in. That was so I would know to wait for him.”
“Well, now,” Delonie said, “if Mr. Vang here is telling us right, I guess we could walk right up there and make ourselves at home.”
Leaphorn had no comment on that. He held his wrist-watch close enough to read its hands, looked out at the brightening sky, and found himself confronting the same need for self-analysis he’d felt a few days ago when he was home alone, analyzing what he had run into since he’d begun this chase of Mel Bork and the tale-teller rug.
Wondering if he had slipped prematurely into senile de-mentia. Why was he here and what did he expect to accomplish? He couldn’t quite imagine that. But on the other hand, he couldn’t imagine turning back either. So they may as well get on with it.
“Here’s what I think we should do,” Leaphorn said.
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“Mr. Vang will stay in the truck here. Sitting behind the steering wheel. Like the driver doing just what Mr. Delos probably was expecting to find. Is that right, Tommy?”
“I think so. This is what he told me to do.”
“Then Mr. Delonie and I will get out and find us a place where we can sit and watch for Mr. Delos to come back.
Either we’ll sit together, or close enough so that when Mr.
Delonie gets a good enough look to make sure he knows who it is, he can signal me, one way or another.”
“Um,” Delonie said, “then what?”
Leaphorn had been hoping he wouldn’t ask that. “I guess it will depend on a lot of things.”
“Tell me,” Delonie said. “Like what?”
“Like whether when you see him you tell us he is this Shewnack. Or whether you tell us he isn’t, and you don’t know who he is.”
“If he ain’t Shewnack, I’d vote for just driving right on out of here. Heading right on home.”
“I guess we might do that,” Leaphorn agreed. “But I’d think if it’s Delos, then I think you have some questions you’d like to ask him about that bottle of poisoned cherries he sent you. I know I’m curious about the one on top of that slice of fruitcake he sent me off with.” Delonie snorted. “He’ll point at Tommy Vang here and tell us Vang must have done that. Tell us that Tommy has been sort of crazy ever since he was a kid. All mixed up by all that violence back in Laos, or wherever it was.”
While he was listening to that, Leaphorn was thinking that Delonie was probably right. That was just about what Delos would say. And it might even be true. But if he was going to play out this game, he had better get moving. He THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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opened the truck door, which turned on the interior light, and quickly shut it.
“Let’s minimize the light,” he said to Delonie. “When I say ready, we both hop out and shut the doors behind us. Then Vang can climb over into where he’s supposed to be sitting.”
“First off,” Delonie said, “you hand me back my rifle.”
“I’ll carry it,” Leaphorn said.
“I’ll put the scope back on it,” Delonie said. “Can’t use the scope here in this closed space with it tied to a rifle barrel. But get it outside and it’s better.” Leaphorn considered this.
“I’ll tell you this, too. I ain’t getting out of this truck without that rifle,” Delonie said. “If it’s Shewnack, he’d kill me on sight. I want to have something to protect myself with.”
“So do I,” Leaphorn said. “I want to protect myself from going to jail with you if you shoot him.”
“Don’t trust me?”
“You think I should?”
Delonie laughed. Punched Leaphorn on the shoulder.
“Okay,” he said. “You keep that pistol I’ve noticed has been bulging out of your jacket pocket. I’ll take my rifle.
And I promise you I won’t kill the son of a bitch unless it comes to downright self-defense. No other choice.” He held out his hand. Leaphorn shook it.
“Now,” he said. “We get out.”
They did, quickly, and Leaphorn handed Delonie the rifle over the hood of the truck.
“Noticed you handed it butt first,” Delonie said. “I appreciated that.”
“Just good manners,” Leaphorn said.