“I think we should let Mr. Delos take his luggage with him,” Leaphorn said.
“Oh,” Delonie said. And laughed. “I guess we wouldn’t 262
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want the ranch cleanup crew to worry about his driving off and leaving all his stuff behind. That would cause a lot of trouble.” He secured the shovel and handed it to Leaphorn. “Tommy, why don’t you look around in there and bring out his bag, or his shaving stuff, or whatever he brought with him. Want to leave the place tidy.” Wordlessly, Tommy stepped back onto the porch and disappeared into the cabin. Leaphorn followed him, picked up the 30-30, returned with it, and tossed it into the grave beside the body.
“Hey!” Delonie shouted. “That’s my rifle.”
“Was it?” Leaphorn said, staring at him. “Folks out of prison on parole are not allowed to have guns. Violates the parole. If you get down there and get it, I guess I’ll have to take you in. Turn you over to your parole officer.”
“Well, then,” Delonie said, and shrugged.
Tommy appeared carrying a large satchel in one hand and a small briefcase in the other. He sat the satchel on the porch, nodded to Leaphorn, and displayed the case. “When he travels, this is the one he carries to keep his special money in,” he said. “There’s money in it now.” Leaphorn took the case, clicked it open, looked in. The money was there, in bundles secured by rubber bands. He took one out, checked it. All fifties. Delonie, who had been watching this, said, “Wow!” Leaphorn pulled the satchel over, opened it, and checked the contents. He found clothing, toiletries, electric razor, spare shoes, nothing unusual. He looked at Delonie, whose eyes were still focused on the briefcase.
“I think we will keep the satchel out,” he said.
Delonie grinned. “I agree.”
“Maybe there is enough in there to give Tommy Vang THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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something to live on when he gets back to Laos and his mountains,” Leaphorn said. “And I am going to take out two of those fifty-dollar bills to pay Grandma Peshlakai for that pinyon sap he stole from her, and two more to pay her for about thirty years of interest.” Shoveling in the pile of humus took less than five minutes. Toppling the stone slab, with Delonie helping out with his undamaged arm, took only seconds. Leaphorn stepped back. It had worked even better than he expected. He spent another few moments collecting leaves, pine needles, and assorted debris, and scattering it in places that looked unnaturally fresh. Then he stepped back, inspected it, and said: “Finished.”
“What we do now?” Tommy asked.
“We get Mr. Delonie to a doctor, and then we go home.”
“Back to Flagstaff ?” Tommy asked.
“There first,” Leaphorn said, “because you have to pack your stuff and make your reservations and all that.
And then—”
“And then I go home,” Tommy said.
23
Daylight now, the sun just up, and Tommy Vang driving.
Driving a little too fast for this road, Leaphorn thought, but Leaphorn was just too worn out to object. They bumped along down the creek, across the culvert, through the gate they’d vandalized, and back on the bumpy gravel.
Delonie groaned now and then from his back seat location when they jarred over a rough place. Otherwise, it was quiet in the truck. Not that there was nothing to say.
It was a matter of being too tired for conversation.
Leaphorn yawned, rubbed his eyes.
“If I doze off, Tommy, you need to remember when we get to Lumberton you have to take the left turn. Toward Dulce. We stop at the Jicarilla Health Clinic there. Leave Mr. Delonie with them.”
“Like hell,” Delonie said. “You go off and leave me, how do I get back to my place?”
“Somebody will offer to take you,” Leaphorn said.
“They’re generous people.”
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“Oh, yeah. That’s not what I’ve heard you Navajos say about the Apaches.”
“Just offer to pay them something then,” Leaphorn said. He was tired of Delonie. Or maybe just tired in general. He leaned against the door. Yawned again. Dozed.
Came suddenly awake when Tommy braked for a stop sign at Gobernador.
“Turn left here,” Tommy said. “Right?”
“Right,” Leaphorn said.
When he awoke again, Tommy was tapping his arm.
“Dulce,” Tommy said. “Here’s the clinic.” Leaphorn opened the door, got out, stiff and sore but happy to see Delonie was getting out, too. He’d expected an argument.
“I guess you’re right,” Delonie said. “This arm is just aching now but this place in the ribs, it’s really hurting.
What do we call it? Hunting accident?”
“That’s what they’ll be expecting,” Leaphorn said.
“How about you were climbing up some rocks, the rifle fell, went off, shot you in the arm, and then you crashed down over some other rocks. Banged up your ribs.”
“I think that sounds reasonable,” Delonie said.
The triage nurse who checked Delonie in didn’t seem suspicious. But the young Apache doctor who took over seemed to have his doubts. He raised his eyebrows, looked at Leaphorn’s identification as well as Delonie’s, shook his head, got Delonie to lie on a gurney, and made another careful inspection of rib damages.
“Fell on some rocks, huh?” he said, looking up from Delonie’s rib cage at Leaphorn and making it sound like a question. “You see it happen?”
“Didn’t see it until after it happened,” Leaphorn said.
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“That rifle of his didn’t accidentally shoot him twice, did it?”
Leaphorn responded with a weak smile and a negative head shake.
“Whatever, then,” the doctor said, and rolled Delonie down the hall to wherever he intended to patch him up.
Leaphorn was asleep again before Tommy Vang got them out of Dulce, awake again momentarily the next time the truck stopped. He remained conscious long enough to ask Tommy where they were and what time it was. Tommy said Farmington and almost noon. Leaphorn said, “Due north now to Crownpoint,” and Tommy laughed, said, “You just go back to sleeping, Lieutenant. I remember where we left your pickup.”
Leaphorn did go back to sleep, and by the time they rolled into the Navajo Tribal Police substation at Crownpoint, he suddenly found himself sort of dazed, but finally wide awake.
He looked at his watch. “You made good time, Tommy.
Did some violating of the speeding laws, I guess.”
“Yes. Went very fast sometimes,” Tommy said, grinning as he said it. “I’m in a hurry to get home. I’ve been gone about thirty years.”
And he demonstrated that hurry by speeding out of the police parking lot while Leaphorn was still climbing wearily into his own truck. But he did lean out the driver’s-side window to give Leaphorn a farewell wave.
24
And now three rest and recuperation days had passed.
The Legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired, was sampling a grape from the basket of goodies he had brought with him to welcome former Navajo Tribal policewoman Bernadette Manuelito, now Mrs. Jim Chee, and Sergeant Chee back from their honeymoon trip to Hawaii. And Bernadette was frowning at him, looking incredulous.
“You’re saying that’s the last time you saw this Tommy Vang? He just drove away? And you just got in your truck and came back here?”
“Well, yes,” Leaphorn said. “Of course we shook hands. He said he’d call me. Took down my number and address and all that. And we wished each other luck. All that sort of thing.”
Bernie was refilling his coffee cup, looking even prettier than he remembered, but not totally happy with 270