Bernie? Chee checked his phone and her text made him smile. He replied: Miss you too.
Palmer spoke articulately and with conviction. He had shed the quiet persona Chee had seen on the drive to Tuba as easily as he had changed clothes. Chee had noticed the same sort of transformation in Lieutenant Leaphorn when they had worked cases together, from a silent, self-contained listener to something bordering on charming, cajoling a subject into cooperating.
Palmer closed his notebook. “The delegates will now introduce themselves. I will welcome the speakers by reading the brief biography they put together for today.”
Palmer called the name of the elderly woman representing the Hualapai and read what she’d written about herself. She had a red folder in her hands. Palmer lowered the microphone so she could be heard. She greeted the audience in what Chee assumed was the Hualapai language. Then she switched to English, talking about the importance of the Grand Canyon as the place of the creation of the universe, the site of the tribe’s ancestral origin and their spiritual homeland.
Chee wondered if pure randomness accounted for her being first or if Palmer had stacked the deck. The delegates paraded to the microphone, said their bit, and sat back down. A diverse group of people, he noted, most of them thoughtful. The session dragged on.
The delegate from the Havasupai Nation, the youngest of the negotiators, was at the podium now. He referred to some note cards and, like the Hualapai representative, talked about the Grand Canyon’s profound importance: “We act as though we humans own the planet and that everything on it is for sale. That isn’t true. The world is not a marketplace but a holy place. My goal is to help keep the canyon and the land that surrounds it sacred.”
The delegate from the US Forest Service took the stage. He spoke with the jargon of an insider, talking about mitigating environmental impact and responding to concerned stakeholders.
The word stakeholders shifted Chee’s thinking to those metal platters that held a nice piece of beef. He pictured a thick steak, grilled crisp salty outside, juicy with the first cut of the knife. He’d buy some steaks to barbecue as soon as he got home.
He forced his attention back to Palmer, who jotted notes as the man in the green uniform droned on, his voice soft enough to soothe a restless two-year-old at naptime. Three of the delegates looked like they had drifted off, and Chee’s own eyelids were growing heavy.
Then his phone vibrated again. He pulled it from his pocket. Bernie. He responded to her call with a text . . . Will get back to you at the break.
After Mr. Forest Service finished, Palmer announced a twenty-minute recess. The delegates left through the stage door, but Palmer stayed at the podium. Chee saw the young man who had asked him about the mediator earlier come onto the stage through the side door. Palmer glanced up, startled.
Chee moved forward, on alert. Palmer stepped away from the podium to face the man, hands extended palms up. The young man headed back toward the side door. Palmer dropped his notes, grabbed his black bag, and hurried after him.
Chee raced to the stage and then to the delegate waiting room, searching fruitlessly for Palmer. He took the door that led outside.
Palmer was lighting a cigarette. The young man stood across from him, staring at the ground. If they had been involved in conversation, they weren’t talking now.
Chee approached. “Everything under control out here?”
“Chill, Sergeant. I’ll be in when I finish this cancer stick.” Palmer exhaled smoke as he spoke. “Give us some privacy. This is absolutely none of your business.” The expression on the younger man’s face reminded Chee of a harshly scolded puppy.
Chee stood by the door, upwind from the cigarette smoke, aware of the jagged energy between the men, of the discomfort and awkwardness in the exchange. He was ready to intervene, and hoping he wouldn’t have to.
He called Bernie, hoping to hear her voice, but she didn’t answer. He left his usual message: “Just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you. Everything is OK here. Call when you get a chance.” Chee watched the younger man kick at the dirt a couple of times, then storm off. The mediator crushed the cigarette butt under the sole of his boot and glanced at Chee. “Aren’t you cold and bored out here?”
“What were you and that young guy doing? The bomber is still on the loose, and you’re a target, man. Don’t put yourself at risk.”
“No need to fret. No explosives involved except a few choice adjectives. Like I said, give me some privacy once in a while. I’ll have to fire you if you keep breathing down my neck. Don’t worry so much.”
He resented Palmer’s attitude and his words left Chee uneasy. Whenever someone told him not to worry, that usually meant there was something to worry about.
9
As the delegate statements continued, Chee noticed the people in the audience growing quieter. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear someone snore. If those in attendance had expected fireworks after last night’s uproar, they must have been disappointed.
Then the big doors that led to the hallway opened with a screech. The person at the microphone, a woman representing Arizona’s Office of Tourism, stopped in midsentence. Many of the audience, startled by the sound, turned toward an embarrassed-looking Cowboy Dashee.
Chee took a step toward him, and Dashee motioned with his chin toward the hall. Chee eased the door closed.
“A lady was raising a ruckus outside and then collapsed by the front door. She says she won’t get up until she can come into the meeting. Maybe you could talk to her.”
“What about Silversmith or Redbone? Or the Arizona Highway Patrol guys? I’m supposed to keep an eye on Palmer.”
Dashee reached into his pocket and handed Chee a card. “She gave me this when I told her she had to leave. Whatever she wants, I thought you might like to keep it in the family.”
Chee saw the official Navajo Public Safety logo and the police crest along with the station number in Shiprock. The name read “Officer Bernadette Manuelito.”
Dashee said, “I’ll babysit for you.”
“What else do you know about this lady?”
“Well, when the guard told her the meeting was full, she started yelling and then beating on him. That’s when he called me.”
“Was the guard hurt?”
“Only his pride.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He put Bernie’s card in his pocket.
A small crowd of demonstrators and latecomers had gathered at a respectful distance to gawk. Chee made his way to the uniformed man who squatted next to a Navajo woman on the pavement. The guard told him the woman was Mrs. Nez. When he wouldn’t allow her into the meeting, she argued with him and then collapsed.
Chee lowered himself onto his heels. She was a gray-haired lady wearing traditional Navajo garb—a blouse of deep red velvet ornamented with three silver-and-turquoise pins. She had a sand-cast concho belt at the waist of her long skirt and a wide silver bracelet on both wrists. She looked pale, he thought, pale and shaken.
“Grandmother,” he said in Navajo, “they say you aren’t feeling so well.”
She looked at him, then quickly away. “My heart.” She put her hand on her chest.
Chee said, “We can call the ambulance to take you to the hospital, where the doctors can give you medicine to help you feel better.”
“That bilagaana pill won’t do no good. You help me stand now and we will go into the meeting.” She looked him over. “You’re a strong one. Pull me up.”
Chee said, “Have you had anything to eat or drink today?”
She shook her head. Chee motioned to the guard. “Could you please bring this lady some water?”
The guard came back with a bottle of water and a bag of peanuts and gave them both to Chee, who nodded his thanks.
The woman pushed herself to a seated position with a little grunt. She looked at the guard. “You go on now.” She spoke in Navajo, and her gesture reinforced her words. “Bother somebody else. This man is th
e one I want to talk to.”
Chee started to hand the woman the water, then pulled back to twist the cap loose first.
The woman put the bottle down next to her without taking a drink.
“Why are you here, Grandmother?”
“I need to go to the meeting to give somebody something. But that man over there”—she glanced toward the guard at the metal detector—“he told me I couldn’t do it. Help me up.”
Chee hesitated to put his hands on an elderly stranger, both because of fear of hurting her and the ingrained Navajo sense of personal privacy. “Can you stand if I give you my arm?”
She nodded.
He stood, and she gripped his forearm with her right hand, clinging to him for balance as she pulled herself to her feet. After a moment she took a shaky step forward. “Let’s go.”
They wobbled along until Chee could usher her to a wooden bench in the hallway.
“Please sit a moment, Grandmother, and talk to me.” To his relief, she complied, using him to steady herself and settle onto the seat. She sipped the water. He sat next to her and offered her the peanuts, but she declined with a wave of her hand.
Chee said, “The room is full. No one can go in. Every seat is taken.”
“What about you.” It was a statement, not a question. “You got a uniform.”
“Why is the meeting so important to you?”
She reached into a pocket of her voluminous skirt and pulled out a white envelope. “I have this.”
Chee noticed that someone had written “Mr. Blankenship” on the outside. He recognized the name, the delegate he’d tangled with in the meeting room before the session opened.
“What’s inside?”
She shrugged off the question. “My grandson left this.”
Chee said, “Why didn’t he come with you?”
“He could not.” Chee heard the catch in her voice and then silence. Diné grandmothers didn’t show their emotions, especially to strangers.
“Are you sure that meeting is full?”
“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”
The woman studied the floor for a moment or two. Then he felt a cold, bony hand squeeze his arm again. She held the envelope toward him.
“You take this.” She put the envelope on the bench and slid it toward him. “Give it to this man in there. Promise to do this for an old woman. Then I can go home.”
Chee noticed that the flap was tucked, but it wasn’t sealed. “I’m not sure it’s safe for you to drive, Grandmother.”
The woman took another sip of water. She gave him a look that reminded him of the sharp rebuffs he’d received from his own shimásani. “I am going to my sister’s house when I leave here. She’s out past the dinosaur tracks, not too far. She’s waiting for me now.”
Chee picked up the envelope and put it in his jacket pocket. “I will make sure this goes where it should.”
She studied his name tag. “Sergeant Jim Chee. Your Little Father was the singer, the one who married Blue Woman?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His uncle Frank Sam Nakai, his mother’s brother, was known as his Little Father in the Navajo system of relationships. He had died a few years ago. With his passing, Chee had put his own training as a hataali, what some people called a medicine man, on hold.
The woman nodded. “He did the ceremony for my grandson. After that, the boy promised he was done with drugs, with glue, spray, all that. He returned to the Navajo Way.”
Chee listened. He’d seen too many young lives destroyed by sniffing glue and hair spray. Cheap highs lethal to brain cells.
“Help me up. I have to go.”
They walked to her vehicle, a classic red-and-white Ford pickup. The woman now moved more steadily.
“You promise you will deliver that envelope?”
“I will.”
“I need two more things before I go. Do you have the card from the lady policeman?”
“Here it is.”
She slipped it into her skirt pocket and smiled at him for the first time. “Remember those peanuts?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He reached into his pocket and gave her the bag. Then he opened the truck door and she hoisted herself up into the driver’s seat. He closed the door and waited until the truck started before he returned to the meeting, past the protesters outside and the crowd in the hallway waiting for a vacant seat in the room.
The door to the room screeched again, and people turned to look as Chee entered. Dashee leaned against the wall by the foot of the stairs that led the stage. His friend looked sleepy, Chee thought, and that meant nothing had happened worth getting excited about.
10
Bernadette Manuelito could be patient when she had to be, with her mother for instance, or with a stressed-out crime victim. But she preferred action, movement, doing something, not wasting time waiting. Her tolerance for boredom was as thin as the paper-like piki bread the Hopi made.
She had called Leaphorn, left a message, sent an e-mail. Since she couldn’t reach him, she decided she’d stick with her plan to drive to Window Rock to see the Lieutenant and Louisa. Even before she got Largo’s message that Leaphorn wanted to talk to her, she’d wanted to talk to him.
On her drive, she called to check in with Mama and Darleen. Her sister answered the phone.
“So what did you find out?” She could hear the smile in Darleen’s voice. “Is CS a criminal or what?”
Bernie said, “Gosh, I haven’t had time to check.”
“The Cheeseburger’s there because of that Grand Canyon development, a big meeting, right?” Darleen didn’t wait for her response. “CS wants to go up and check it out. He heard that resort could harm some sacred sites, threaten endangered species, and do other bad stuff. He wants to make a video about saving the Grand Canyon or something. Cool, huh?”
Darleen talked about her classes. She didn’t mention the friends she liked to go drinking with, Bernie realized. Was that because sister wasn’t hanging with them now? Or because Darleen knew how Bernie felt about her partying? After they hung up, Bernie realized that she hadn’t asked about Mama.
Louisa came to the door and invited her in. The Lieutenant’s housemate looked better, more rested than when Bernie had seen her last, and they chatted a bit at the kitchen table.
“Nice of you to stop by. Jim’s not with you today?”
“He has an assignment in Tuba City because of that big meeting about the Grand Canyon.”
“I love the Grand Canyon, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for Bernie to answer. “Joe’s in his office, looking forward to helping you with whatever you’re working on. Would you care for some tea?”
Louisa’s tea, brewed from an allegedly health-promoting herb Bernie had never heard of, had an aroma that reminded Bernie of sweat socks begging for a trip to the laundry. Lemon and honey couldn’t do much to make it better. Bernie had grown up drinking what her family called Navajo Tea. Mama gave it to her when she had an upset stomach. Louisa’s tea was enough to give her a tummy ache.
“No, thank you.” Bernie extended her water bottle. “I’m all set.”
“I know you need to talk about police business. I’ll make some tea for us. I’ll bring you both a mug with lemon and honey when it’s ready. You go on now.”
“Oh, please don’t worry about that. I can’t stay long at all.”
“No trouble.” Louisa turned on the burner. “You get your business done.”
The Lieutenant was sitting straighter than when she’d last visited. Returning to work had helped his recovery from the head wound more effectively than any prescription or therapy.
He glanced up from the laptop when she entered his office and motioned her to a chair, patting the seat with the palm of his hand. She watched him at the keyboard, specially modified to type in Navajo, obviously absorbed in something. He finished what he was typing and turned to her.
“Yá’át’ééh.”
His speech had improved slightly, but communica
tion both through the computer and face-to-face was easiest for him in Navajo. That was fine with Bernie. Although he’d spoken English for decades, now it posed a challenge that created a roadblock in resuming his work as a consultant with non-Navajos who had used Leaphorn’s crime-solving services in the past. Louisa could speak a few words of Navajo, and understood more. Bernie had noticed that they seemed to communicate effectively on a nonverbal level.
She talked about her family and Chee’s Tuba City assignment for a few minutes; then Leaphorn changed the subject. “Tell me about the explosion.”
She looked down at her hands, assembling her thoughts. “I was the first cop on the scene. The feds think the man killed in the explosion—” She stopped. “Did you know about that?”
Leaphorn nodded.
“They think he was collateral damage—a would-be car thief in the wrong place. They’ve moved on to radical environmental types who made threats against the mediator. But the more I think about what I saw, about the dead man, the more questions I have.”
Bernie glanced out the window at the porch. She remembered the red hummingbird feeders Louisa hung there that drew the dahetihhe, small bits of flashing feathers with voracious appetites. The constant activity buzzed on from late spring until the end of summer. Now the porch looked empty, quiet.
She said, “What if I tell you everything I observed out there, step by step as it unfolded, and about the interview with the dead man’s grandmother?”
Leaphorn nodded, swiveled his chair away from her, and picked up the laptop sitting on his desk. He turned back ready to type, focusing on the screen. She felt more comfortable speaking to the top of his head.
She started with the scene inside the gym, the sound of the blast, the glow of the burning car, the smell of the fumes, the discovery of the victim, the boys who ran, the medic who helped, the arrival of the fire truck, other cops, and, ultimately, Cordova. She painted the picture as vividly as she could. Leaphorn’s fingers moved sporadically on the keyboard as she spoke.
Song of the Lion Page 11