Hunting Badger jlajc-14

by Tony Hillerman

  “Oops,” Chee said, stepping out of her line of vision and reaching for his pants. “Sorry. Let me get some clothes on.”

  While he was doing that, Leaphorn was apologizing, saying they’d only be a minute. Chee waved them toward the room’s two chairs, and sat on the bed.

  “You look exhausted,” the professor said. “The policewoman at your roadblock said you’d probably been searching in one of the canyons all day. But Joe learned something he felt you needed to know." She gave Chee a wry smile. “I told him you probably already knew it.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Chee said, and looked at Leaphorn, who was sitting uneasily on the edge of his chair.

  “Just a couple of things about this George Ironhand,” Leaphorn said. “I guess you knew he was a Vietnam veteran, but we heard today he was a Green Beret. Heard he was a sniper, won a Silver Star. Supposed to have shot fifty-three North Viet soldiers over in Cambodia.”

  Leaphorn stopped.

  Chee thought about that for a moment.

  “Fifty-three,” he said finally. “I appreciate your telling me. I think if the FBI had let us in on that little secret, Officer Nez would have kept his body armor on in the canyon.”

  “I imagine the FBI would know this man was a veteran,” Leaphorn said. “They’re pretty thorough in checking records. But they might not know about the rest of it. To know that, they’d have to turn up the business about him getting decorated.”

  “Or pass it along if they did,” Chee said, his voice now sounding more angry than tired. “We might leak it to the press; the feds wouldn’t want the public to know we’re chasing a certified official war hero.”

  “Well,” Leaphorn said, "they probably didn’t pick up the sniper bit. Army records would just show he received the decoration for something general. Risking his life beyond the call of duty. Something like that.”

  “OK,” Chee said. “I guess I wasn’t being fair.”

  “At least, though,” said the professor, "I’d think they should have told you he was a combat veteran.”

  “Me, too,” Chee said. “But I guess nobody’s perfect. I know we weren’t today. All we got was a lot of exercise.”

  “No tracks?”

  Chee waved his hands.

  “Lots of tracks. Coyotes, goats, rabbits, lizards, snakes, variety of birds every place there was a seep,” Chee said. “But no sign of humans. We even picked up what might have been puma tracks. Either that or an oversize big-footed bobcat. One sign of porcupine, rodents galore, from kangaroo rats, to deer mice, to prairie dogs.”

  “Could you rule out humans?”

  “Not really,” Chee said. “Too much slick rock. We didn’t find a single place in maybe five miles we covered where anybody careful couldn’t find rocks to walk on.”

  “So the hunt goes nowhere,” Leaphorn said. “I guess until someone comes up with a better reason for leaving that escape vehicle where it was left.”

  “You mean better than running down into Gothic Creek to hide?” Chee laughed. “Well, I guess that was better than the first idea. Thinking they trotted over to the Timms place to fly away in that old airplane of his." Chee paused. “Wait a minute. You said you had two things to tell me, Lieutenant. What’s the second one. Do you have a better idea?”

  Leaphorn looked a bit embarrassed, shook his head.

  “Not really,” he said. “Just more stuff about George Ironhand. Maybe it might mean something." He glanced at Louisa. “Where do I start?”

  “At the beginning,” Louisa said. “First tell him about the original Ironhand.”

  So he recounted the deeds of the legendary Ute hero/bandit, the futile efforts of the Navajos to hunt him down, describing Bashe Lady’s account of how those hunting him thought he might be a witch because he seemed able to disappear from a canyon bottom and reappear magically on its rim.

  “She said the Navajos thought he escaped like a bird, but actually he escaped like a badger." Leaphorn paused with that, watching for Chee’s reaction.

  Chee was rubbing his chin, thinking.

  “Like a badger,” Chee said. “Or a prairie dog. In one hole and out another. Did she give you any hint of where this was happening? Name a canyon, anything like that?”

  “None,” Leaphorn said.

  “Do you think she knows?”

  “Probably. At very least, I think she has a pretty good general idea. She knew a lot more than she was willing to tell us about that.”

  Professor Bourebonette was smiling. “She didn’t show any signs of affection for you Navajos. You 'Bloody Knives.' I think that after about four hours of that, she was getting under Joe’s skin a little. Right, Joe? Arousing your competitive, nationalistic macho instincts, maybe?”

  Leaphorn produced a reluctant chuckle. “OK,” he said. “I plead guilty. I was imagining Bashe Lady in one of those John-Wayne-type movies. Tepees everywhere, paint ponies standing around, dogs, cooking fires, young guys with Italian faces and Cheyenne war paint running around yipping and thumping drums, and there’s Bashe Lady with a bloody knife in her hand torturing some tied-up prisoners. And I’m thinking of how it actually was in 1863, when these Utes teamed up with the U.S. Army, and the Hispanos and the Pueblo tribes and came howling down on us and -"

  Professor Bourebonette held up her hand.

  Leaphorn cut that off, made a wry face and a dismissing gesture. “Sorry,” he said. “The old lady got on my nerves. And I’ll have to admit I’d love to see the Navajo Tribal Police catch this new version of Ironhand and lock him up.”

  “The point of all this is that the George Ironhand you’re looking for is probably the son of the original version,” Professor Bourebonette said. “The first one took a new wife when he was old. The right time span for this guy. Right age to be in the Vietnam War.”

  Chee nodded. “So the man we’re looking for would likely know how his daddy did the badger escape trick. And where he did it.” He looked at Leaphorn. “Do you have any ideas about that?”

  “Well, I was going to ask you if you had found any mine shafts down in Gothic Creek Canyon.”

  “We saw several little coal digs. What they call dog holes. None of them went in more than a few yards. Just people digging out a few sacks to get them through the winter. That creek cuts through coal seams in a lot of places, some of them pretty thick. But we didn’t see anything that looked like commercial mining.”

  “Maybe Ironhand has himself a hidden route up some narrow side gulch,” Leaphorn said. “From the way the old woman told the story there just had to be a quick way to get up and down the canyon wall. Did you see any little narrow cuts like that? Maybe even a crack a man could climb?”

  “Not in the section we covered,” Chee said. “Maybe we’ll find one farther down toward the San Juan Canyon.”

  “If they had a secret hidey-hole, I think you’d find it not too far from where they left the truck. They’d be carrying a lot. Food and water probably, unless they stocked up in advance. And four hundred and something thousand dollars. From that casino it would be mostly in small bills. That would be a lot of weight. And then weapons. They apparently used assault rifles at the casino. They’re heavy.”

  That triggered another thought in Chee—a worry that had been nagging for attention.

  “You mentioned a roadblock on your way in from the Ute Reservation. An NTP block, I think you said. Talking to a policewoman.”

  “It was one of our patrol cars, but the man sitting in it was wearing a San Juan County deputy uniform. The woman was wearing a Navajo Police uniform. Up here it would probably be one of your people out of Shiprock.”

  Chee was doing a quick inventory of police women at Shiprock. There weren’t many. “How old?” he asked. “How big?”

  Leaphorn knew exactly what he was asking.

  “I’ve only seen her a time or two,” he said. “But I think it was Bernadette Manuelito.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Chee said, voice vehement. “What are they using for brai
ns?” He was pulling on his socks. “What the devil does she know about staying alive at a roadblock?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The roadblock as Leaphorn described it was on Utah 163 about halfway between Recapture Creek and the Montezuma Creek Bridge. A sensible place to put it, Chee thought, since a fugitive who spotted it would have no side trails to detour onto. There was only the brush bosque of the San Juan River to the south and the sheer stone cliffs of McCracken Mesa to the north. What wasn’t sensible was assigning Bernie to such dangerous duty. That was insane. Bernie would be working backup, surely. Even so, this would be a three-unit block at best. Whoever they had would be up against men who had already proved their willingness to kill and their ability to do it. They’d used an automatic rifle at the casino, and a rumor was afloat that they also had night-vision scopes missing from a Utah National Guard armory.

  Chee imagined a bloody scene and drove the first eight miles of his trip much faster than the rules allowed. Then, abruptly, he slowed. A belated thought worked its way through his anger. What was he going to say when he got there? What would he say to the officer in charge? It would probably be a Utah state cop, or a San Juan County deputy. He tried to imagine the conversation. He’d introduce himself as NTP out of Shiprock, chat about the weather maybe, discuss the manhunt a minute or two. Then what? They’d want to know what he wanted. He’d tell ‘em he didn’t think Bernie had any roadblock training.

  Down the slope, Chee’s headlights illuminated a red REDUCE SPEED sign.

  Then what would they say? Chee took his foot off the gas pedal, let the car roll, imagining a tough-looking Utah cop grinning at him, saying, “She’s your lady? Well, then, we’ll take good care of her for you.” And a deputy sheriff standing behind him, chuckling. An even more dreadful thought emerged. The next step. They’d tell Bernie she had to stay in her car, run and hide anytime a stop seemed imminent. Bernie would be outraged, furious, terminally resentful. And justifiably so.

  The car was rolling slowly now. Chee pulled it off onto the shoulder, slammed it into reverse, made a pursuit turn, and headed back toward Bluff, giving his idea of saving Officer Bernadette Manuelito more thought.

  That thought was quickly interrupted. The sound of a siren in his ear, the blinking warning light atop a Utah State Police car reflecting off his rearview mirror. Chee grunted out the Navajo version of an expletive, slammed himself on the forehead with a free hand, and angled his car off on the shoulder. Of course. He’d done exactly what one does to trigger pursuit from every roadblock from Argentina to Zanzibar. He put on the parking brake, extracted his NTP identification, turned on the overhead light, did everything he could think of to make it easier for whichever cop would show up at his driver-side window.

  He’d guessed right for once. It proved to be a Utah State Policeman.

  He shined his flash on Chee, looked at the identification Chee was holding out, and said, “Out of the car, please,” and stepped back.

  Chee opened the door and got out.

  “Face the car please, and put your hands on the roof.”

  Chee did so, happy he’d left his belt and holster on the motel bed, and was patted down.

  “OK,” the State Policeman said.

  And then another voice, Bernie’s voice, saying: "That’s Sergeant Chee. Jim, what are you doing here?”

  And Chee stood there, still leaning against the car, grimacing, wondering if there was any way things could possibly get any worse.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The eastern sky was glowing pink and red over the bluffs that gave Bluff, Utah, its name when Officer Jim Chee climbed into his patrol car. He inserted the key, started the engine, did what all empty-country drivers habitually do: he checked the fuel gauge. The needle hovered between half and quarter full. Plenty to get back to the rendezvous point on Casa Del Eco Mesa, where Nez and he were scheduled to resume the search of their canyon. But not enough to feel comfortable when you’re going a long way from paved road and service stations. He glanced at his watch, pulled out of the Recapture Lodge lot onto U.S. 163. The Chevron station-diner he’d pass should be open about now. He’d stop, fill the tank, buy a few emergency-ration candy bars to share with Nez and continue, not thinking about how foolish he’d looked last night.

  Good. The station must be open. He couldn’t see whether the lights were on, but a pickup was driving away. Chee stopped by the pumps, got out. A man was sitting on the gravel beside the station’s door, back against the wall. If Chee had numbered the drunks he’d dealt with since he joined the Navajo Tribal Police, this one would be about 999. He stepped out of the car, wondering what the station operator was doing, and gave the drunk a closer look.

  Blood was trickling down the man’s forehead. Chee squatted beside him. The man looked about sixty, hair graying, wearing a khaki shirt with LEROY DELL embroidered on it. The man was breathing heavily. The blood came from an abrasion cut over his right eye. Chee started for the car to radio this in and get an ambulance. Get a pursuit started.

  “What? What are you doing? Oh!”

  Chee spun around. The man was staring at him, eyes wild, getting up.

  “What happened?” the man asked. “Where is he? Did he get away?”

  Chee helped him to his feet. “You tell me who hit you,” he said. “I’ll radio it in and get you an ambulance and we’ll see if we can catch him.”

  “The son of a bitch,” the man said. He waved his hands. “Look at the mess he made.”

  On the other side of the entrance, under a sign reading REST ROOMS CUSTOMERS ONLY, a garbage can lay on its side, surrounded by a scattering of cans, bottles, newspapers, sacks, crumpled napkins - all those things people discard at service stations. Nearby, a newspaper-vending machine was on its back.

  “Who was he?” Chee said. “I want to call it in. Give us a better chance to catch him.”

  “I don’t know him,” the man said. “He was a big Indian-looking guy. Navajo probably, or maybe a Ute. Tall. Maybe middle-aged, or so.”

  “Driving a blue pickup truck?”

  “I didn’t see the truck. Didn’t notice it.”

  “Did he have a weapon?”

  “That’s what he hit me with. A pistol.”

  “OK,” Chee said. "Why don’t you go in and sit down. I’ll get the police on it.”

  The dispatcher sounded sleepy until the pistol was mentioned.

  “Call him armed and dangerous,” Chee suggested. “You might mention this is in the area we’re hunting the Ute Casino perps.”

  The dispatcher chuckled. “Those the perps the feds said were long gone. Flown away?”

  “Don’t we wish,” Chee replied, and went back into the station to find out just what had happened.

  Leroy Dell was sitting behind the cash register, holding his head.

  “They’ll be sending an ambulance,” Chee said.

  “Down from Blanding. About twenty-five miles from the clinic, and twenty-five back,” Dell said. He groaned and grimaced and described to Chee what had happened. When he was walking from his house up behind the station to open the place he’d heard a sort of a crashing sound. He’d hurried around the corner and seen a man going through the trash. He had shouted at him, and the man had said he just wanted to get some old newspapers.

  “Just newspapers?”

  “That’s what he said. And I said, “Well you’re going to have to clean up the mess, too.” And then I noticed the vending machine was turned over and went to look at that and I saw he’d broken into that. And I turned around and said he was going to have to pay for that and he had this gun in his hand and he hit me.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  “Pistol. I don’t know what kind. It wasn’t a revolver.”

  “Anything missing?”

  “I don’t know,” Dell said, grimacing again. “Tell the truth, I don’t give a damn. I’ve got a hell of a headache. You take a look if you want to.”

  Chee looked. He opened the cash-regist
er drawers.

  “Empty.”

  “I take the money home at night,” Dell said.

  “You better call somebody to come down here and look after you,” Chee said. “I’m going to get myself some gas and see if I can find that pickup truck.”

  Finding the truck occupied much of the day. A Bureau of Indian Affairs cop sent over from the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico spotted it at the Aneth Oil Field about sundown. It was stuck in the sand of an arroyo bottom off an abandoned road. South of Montezuma Creek. West of Highway 35. Back on the emptiness of Casa Del Eco Mesa. Back within easy walking range of Gothic Canyon, or Desert Creek Canyon, or anyplace else for a man burdened only by an old newspaper.

  It was farther, however, than Sergeant Jim Chee could have walked that evening. Chee had sprained his left ankle climbing down a rocky slope while on this fruitless hunt. It had been one of those no-brainer accidents. He’d put his weight on a protruding slab of sandstone that looked solid but wasn’t. Then, instead of facing the inevitability of gravity and taking the tumble with a roll in the rocks, he’d tried to save his dignity, made an off-balance jump and landed wrong. That hurt, and it hurt even worse to require help from a deputy sheriff and an FBI agent to haul him back to his car.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The voice on the telephone was Captain Largo’s, with no words wasted.

  Chee said, “No sir, I can’t put any weight on it yet,”; listened a few moments, said, “Yes sir,” listened again, another "Yes sir,” and clicked off. Total result: Largo wanted to know when Chee could resume his canyon-combing duties, preferably immediately; Largo instructed him to fill out an injury report form, and Largo had already sent somebody down to his trailer with it. It should include name, phone number, etc., of the physician who had X-rayed the ankle. Chee should do this immediately and send the report right back. Largo was shorthanded, and Chee should not waste the messenger’s time with a lot of conversation.

  Chee adjusted the ice pack. He tried to think of the word, in either Navajo or English, to describe the color the swelling had turned and settled on ‘plum-colored.' He considered whether he should resent the lack of either sympathy or confidence the captain’s call had indicated. About the time he’d decided to pass that off as part of Largo’s natural-born grumpiness, the messenger arrived.