Part 13 (2/2)

”You sure this is the right way?” Mary asked.

”No,” Chee said, ”but I'm sure it's the right direction.”

”And you still think we can find the hogan? After all these years?”

”Probably,” Chee said. ”She said nine miles north-west by north of the trading post, at the south side of an isolated b.u.t.te. And she described the b.u.t.te.” He pointed ahead. ”That must be it. And out here they'd have had to build the hogan of stone, so it's still there. It's just a matter of hunting it. And I'm pretty good at hunting.” Chee paused, thinking about that statement. ”Or I used to think I was.”

The land sloped downward now, into an immensity of erosion. What once had been a sandstone plain had been carved into a grotesquerie of shapes-tables, heads, layer cakes, twisted spires, exposed ribs, serrations, and weird forms that suggested things to which Chee's imagination could not attach names. Wind and water had cut through the overlay into the blackness of coal deposits, into crimson clay, into the streaky blue of shale. Every color showed except green. This was the Bisti bad-lands. It stretched away for fifty miles under a sky in which clouds had been steadily building.

”I have a hunch he's not dead,” Mary said. ”I sort of sensed she was hiding something.”

”She was nervous,” Chee said. ”Maybe she was lying and maybe there was another reason. But if the bones are there, we'll find them. And if they're not, we'll find Tsossie.”

As he said it, his confidence surprised him. But he was was confident. Finding Tsossie, skeletal or breathing, involved things purely Navajo-a pattern of thinking and behavior with which Chee was in intimate harmony. He felt no such harmony with the thinking of the whites who must be involved in this affair. For all enterprises, such harmony was essential. Especially for the hunter. And this was from the very start a hunt. confident. Finding Tsossie, skeletal or breathing, involved things purely Navajo-a pattern of thinking and behavior with which Chee was in intimate harmony. He felt no such harmony with the thinking of the whites who must be involved in this affair. For all enterprises, such harmony was essential. Especially for the hunter. And this was from the very start a hunt.

One of the prayers from the Stalking Way ran through his mind, and the voice of his uncle chanting: I am the Black G.o.d as I sing this,Black G.o.d I am. I come and I standbeneath the East, beneath the Turquoise Mountain.The crystal doe walks toward me,as I call it, as I pray to it,toward me it comes walking, understanding meit walks this day into my right hand.Pleasant, it comes to join me,in its death it obeys the voice of my singing.In its beauty I obey the crystal doe.

Perfect understanding, Chee thought. Harmony between deer and man. Harmony between Jim Chee and Tsossie, or the bones of Tsossie, and the thinking of those who had placed Tsossie's corpse among the rocks. But Jim Chee didn't understand the thinking of whites. Neither Changing Woman nor Talking G.o.d had given him a song to produce that understanding. What would his uncle say to that? Chee knew exactly what the old man would say. He could almost hear him, because he had heard him so often: ”Boy, when you understand the big, you understand the little. First understand the big.”

And that would mean, in this case, that if Chee learned to understand all men (the big), he could understand white men (the little). His uncle would add that if a Navajo could find harmony with a deer, he could find equal harmony with a white man. Chee grimaced at the winds.h.i.+eld. And then his uncle, who never failed to belabor a point, would add some wisdom about deer and men. He would say that the deer is much like the Navajo in fundamental ways. It loves its offspring and its mate, food, water, and its rest. And it hates cold, hunger, pain, and death. But the deer is also different. Its life is short. It builds no hogans. The Navajo is more like a white man than like a deer.

That's about what his uncle would say, Chee thought sourly. But his uncle had no dealings with the whites when he could avoid them. And how would his uncle explain the thinking of a white man who filled his home with mementos of his achievements but kept his greatest honors hidden away in a keepsake box? The medals Tomas Charley had described were a Bronze Star and a Silver Star, which-as the military encyclopedia in the university library had informed him-are awarded for deeds of courage in combat; and the Purple Heart, awarded to those wounded in action. You would expect to find them framed in places of prominence on Vines' wall, along with his other trophies. Why did he hide them away with a package of old boy-hood photographs and a double handful of rock fragments? A Navajo might either advertise his exploits or modestly conceal them. Why would anyone hide some and advertise others?

The sky was darker now and the wind blew from the northwest. It gusted around the pickup, kicking up a flurry of sand and tumbleweeds.

”That has to be our b.u.t.te,” Chee said. He pointed through the right side of the winds.h.i.+eld. ”It's the only one within nine miles of the trading post. And it's in the right direction.”

The track emerged on a great sheet of barren granite and skirted an island of overlaid sandstone. The island was capped by a slab of white limestone, which left a wide overhang where the softer rock had worn away. It suggested to Chee a table where giants dined. Suddenly, just beyond this landmark, he took his foot from the gas pedal and let the truck roll to a stop.

”What?” Mary asked.

Chee looked at her. ”Boy,” he said. ”Am I stupid.” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Two sets of keepsakes, he was thinking. One on the walls. One hidden in the safe. What was the difference between them? The difference was in time.

Mary was staring at him. ”Come on,” she said. ”Cut it out. Let me in on it.”

”I'm still getting it sorted out,” Chee said. ”But what it boils down to is why a man who's very much into keeping mementos and showing them off would hide the best of them in his wall safe.”

”Like those medals,” Mary said.

”Like those and his high school football team picture, and a couple of athletic awards.”

”And black rocks,” Mary said.

”Let's get to those later. Stick to the easy stuff now.”

”Easy if you've thought of the answer,” Mary said. ”Quit showing off, d.a.m.n it. What have you thought of?”

”The only difference I can see is the ones in the safe were all from Vines' early life. Boyhood and young man in the military. The stuff on the wall is after he struck it rich.”

Mary had her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her expression said she was looking for significance in this. ”Before the oil well explosion and after the explosion. Is that it? And how about the rocks?”

”We better get moving,” Chee said. ”It's going to get dark.” He put the pickup in gear.

”In other words, you don't know about the rocks.”

”Somehow they had to be important. A memento of something important,” Chee said. ”And from his early life.”

”I'll buy that,” Mary said. Moments ticked away as the pickup jolted over the rocky surface. ”Hey,” Mary said. ”I know what. The rocks are from when he found the uranium deposit. They're his first ore samples. Don't you think?”

”That would fit,” Chee said. ”Sure. Why didn't you think of that earlier?”

”You didn't ask me,” Mary said. ”All you had to do was ask.”

”Okay, then. Explain why he keeps those medals in the safe.”

”Maybe he's keeping them for somebody else,” Mary said.

The wind rocked the pickup again, buffeting it with a barrage of driven sand. Chee down-s.h.i.+fted to pull the truck up a steep incline.

”Mary,” he said, ”you're a genius.” He switched on the transmitter and raised the dispatcher at Crownpoint. His instructions were specific. Call Martin at the FBI. Tell him to have the Veterans Administration make a high-priority emergency check on the military record of Benjamin J. Vines. Was he a first lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division? Had he won the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart? What kind of discharge? Any criminal record in the service?

The dispatcher read the instructions back. ”Anything else?”

”Tell Martin I'll explain it to him when I see him tonight. Tell him I'll be late. And...wait a minute.” Chee fished out his notebook. ”Give him these names, too.” He read off the names of those killed in the oil well explosion. At the name of Carl Lebeck, he paused. Lebeck the geologist. Lebeck the well-logger. For a geologist, black rocks might be a memento. ”Put the name of Lebeck first,” Chee said. ”Tell Martin that if Vines didn't win those decorations, to have the VA go down that list of names and see if Lebeck or any of the others won them.”

”Got it,” the dispatcher said. ”You still at Bisti?”

”Northwest of the burned-out trading post,” Chee said. ”We'll be out here until after dark, the way it looks.”

”Better watch the weather,” the dispatcher said. ”It's snowing some over on the west side. Inch on the ground at Ganado. Not supposed to amount to much, but you know how that is.”

”We'll watch it,” Chee said. He flicked the radio switch and put the pickup back into gear.

”What are you thinking?” Mary asked.

Chee frowned at the winds.h.i.+eld. ”Mostly, I'm just taking a shot in the dark.”

”But just mostly,” Mary said. ”Have you figured a way that Vines and the oil well connect?”

”They must,” Chee said. ”They have to connect. If not Vines, then Gordo Sena. One or the other has to connect.”

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