Song of the Lion

by Anne Hillerman

  “I don’t think so. Someone wanted to blow you up. Chee asked me to keep you safe.”

  “If Chee were here, I’d ask him to take me. You don’t want me to hitchhike. Who knows who might pick me up? Another bomber. Come on, Manuelito. It’s been a tough day. Play nice. A little fresh air, the world’s best view. You might find some inspiration there, too.” Palmer sighed. “I need some time, some space to process all this. It’s depressing to think of being back in that little motel room. The canyon is why we’re all here, you know? The mediation isn’t just theoretical. Something real and, well, precious is at stake. Maybe Rick’s death did have something to do with the meeting.”

  She heard a vulnerability in Palmer’s voice she hadn’t noticed before.

  He said, “If we leave now, we can catch the sunset from the deck at the Watchtower. I’m sure you’ve got your gun in case you need it.”

  She restarted the engine. “OK. I’ll call Chee and tell him the plan.”

  “Does he know about my nephew?”

  “He knows the name of the victim, but not the link to you.”

  Bernie dialed Chee’s number and heard it go straight to voice mail. “Palmer and I are taking a road trip out to the canyon. Catch you later.”

  Bernie drove southwest on US 160, the highway also known as the Navajo Trail. She and Palmer sat in silence. She cruised past the small assortment of buildings that comprised the outskirts of Tuba City and on southwest into the open country. The sky was a moving collage of white and gray against deep blue, the upper atmospheric winds creating a dynamic pattern. Bernie felt her tension begin to disappear. She loved to drive, especially when the scenery took her breath away.

  They passed a homemade sign on the side of the road that announced “Dinosaur Tracks.”

  Palmer said, “Dinosaur tracks?”

  “The Navajo Nation is full of surprises. This area is called Moenave.”

  “Have you been out there?”

  “When I was in high school.”

  “Are they real?”

  “They looked real to me. Dinosaurs used this area as a highway about two hundred million years ago. They say several different kinds of them walked in the mud on their way somewhere and back again. The guys who live around here take you on a little tour. They even show you what they say are dinosaur droppings.”

  “Droppings? I get an image of littering. You know . . . dinosaurs leaving water bottles, gum wrappers, cigarette butts.”

  Bernie laughed. “Not quite. It’s prehistoric poop. Coprolite.”

  “Do you know the Diné word for dinosaur?” he asked. “I can’t remember it.”

  “I’ve heard na’asho’iiłbahitso. Giant lizard. That’s not a word I use very often.” She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw the car she had noticed before behind them again. The driver kept a respectable distance behind her Toyota, but he or she failed at being inconspicuous.

  She turned right onto the road indicated by the dinosaur sign. The sedan continued on. After a few hundred yards, out of sight of the highway, she pulled into the improvised dirt parking lot across from a row of small open-air booths where families in the area sold dinosaur tours, jewelry, and souvenirs.

  Perhaps because of the cold and the wind, only two of the booths had merchandise. A woman sat in one and a man in the other, both huddled as far out of the wind as they could manage, bundled in coats and hats. The woman had a blanket wrapped around her, too.

  Palmer looked out the window. “Where are the tracks?”

  “Oh, past the sales booths. The hike to see them takes about half an hour, depending on how much information the guide shares.”

  “It makes me cold just looking at those people over there. I can pass on seeing the tracks for now. Let’s head on to the canyon.”

  She drove back to the main highway, noticing that the blue sedan had parked at the dinosaur track entrance. She could see a young Navajo man behind the steering wheel. She didn’t spot a passenger. She continued beyond the junction for the one-runway Tuba City Airport to the intersection with US 89. Bernie turned south toward Cameron, and the blue sedan followed.

  It had been a few years since she had been on this stretch of highway, but she remembered how she loved it. The hills looked like softly sculpted mounds in the afternoon light. The bands of ashy gray, warm tan, striking white, and a touch of iron red marked the northern end of what photographers and geologists called the Painted Desert. The landscape, barren of vegetation but rich in color, reminded her of the hues used in weavings from the Two Grey Hills area, Mama’s home territory. The erosion had created a web of shallow crevasses from top to bottom. Navajoland had to be the most beautiful country anywhere, she thought, stretching from the blue mountains of Colorado to this fine desert and beyond.

  Palmer intruded on her day dream. “I still can’t wrap my brain around the news about my nephew getting killed.”

  Bernie said, “Do you know why?”

  “No idea. We hadn’t spoken in years. He was the son of my sister-in-law, who drank herself to death after her other son died as a little guy, from what we think was abuse by one of her boyfriends. No one could prove it.”

  Traffic picked up on US 89, the route from Page and the cold blue water of Lake Powell to the Grand Canyon. Even in November, Grand Canyon National Park drew visitors from all over the planet, and US 89 led most efficiently to Desert View Drive, the paved road that accessed the rim of the canyon, and Technicolor views. She noticed that the blue sedan stayed behind them. She felt her instinct for danger crank up.

  Palmer said, “Have you ever been in the gallery at the Cameron Trading Post? I’m talking about the one in that other building, not the big gift shop.”

  “Yes. They have amazing things. Prizewinners from a lot of the big Indian shows. Someone told me she saw an old rug my mother made in there. I’d like to see it. Thanks for reminding me.”

  A few minutes later, she turned into the parking lot outside Cameron Trading Post, noticing that the car did the same.

  Palmer looked up from his phone screen. “Good thing we’re stopping. I could use something to eat. My blood sugar is low. Diabetes.” He started to take off his seat belt.

  “Hold on. That blue sedan has been on our tail ever since we left the mediation. I wanted to see if it would keep following us, and unfortunately, it did. The driver parked over there.”

  Palmer glanced out the rear window. “You realize this is the logical stopping point between Tuba City and the Grand Canyon.” She noticed him studying the vehicle. “But I remember seeing the car outside the hotel when Katie brought my things and took me to the meeting. And another time, too, at the Justice Center.”

  If she had been in her unit, Bernie would have called Sandra and asked her to run a quick plate check so she’d have a better idea of what she was dealing with. In lieu of that, she resorted to plan B. “I’m going to go up there and talk to him.”

  “You know the whole thing is about me.” Palmer grimaced “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. Stay here and lock the doors.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She gave Palmer her fiercest look, then dialed Chee’s number and hung up when it went to voice mail. “Keep trying to reach Chee. Tell him where we are and about the car and that I’ll call him as soon as I know something.”

  She touched the holster on her hip and opened the car door.

  “Are you sure that—”

  She cut him off. “Stay here and call Chee.”

  She pulled her shoulders back, stood straight, walked to the sedan, and tapped on the driver’s window with her left hand, her right on the gun. A young man lowered the window. She showed him her badge. “I’m the driver of that Toyota you’ve been tailing.”

  “Oh my God.” He slunk back against the car seat. “I didn’t know you were a cop.”

  “Why were you following me?”

  “It wasn’t you, I swear. I needed to talk to Palmer, and he kept blowing me off. I hav
e to tell him something he ought to know for the mediation. There’s some bad dudes out there and I heard—”

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  “No. No, ma’am. You wanna see my license or something?”

  “Definitely.”

  Like the plates on his car, his license was from Arizona. She handed it back to him. “Come inside with me and we’ll talk where it’s warmer.”

  When the young man climbed out of the car, she could see that he was small and lean. He zipped up a blue sweatshirt against the cold.

  She motioned to Palmer to join them.

  14

  The restaurant occupied the back of the trading post, past racks of T-shirts with Kokopelli and petroglyph designs, Navajo- and Hopi-style necklaces made overseas, and vintage glass display cases with the real stuff. The Cameron Post, one of the few on the reservation that had once been run by a Navajo, featured supplies attractive to area residents as well as a wide spectrum of Grand Canyon souvenirs for travelers. The Navajo weaver who frequently demonstrated her craft as part of the post’s attractions had already left for home.

  Bernie asked for a table for three near the windows facing the Little Colorado. The young man, looking sheepish, followed her and the hostess quietly to their seats. The ambience—the pressed tin ceiling and the huge rugs on the walls reflecting the variety of designs created on the Navajo Nation—gave the restaurant a feeling of times past. Undoubtedly many secrets had been shared here. Appropriate, she thought. A good place to figure out what was going on with this inept stalker.

  The hostess offered them menus. After she left, Bernie said, “Mr. Palmer will be here in a minute. Anything you want to tell me before he shows up?”

  “Are you really a cop?”

  “Officer Bernadette Manuelito from Shiprock.”

  “No kidding? I thought you were his girlfriend.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Rocket.”

  “Rocket? No, your real name. Just show me your ID.”

  He looked straight ahead, then said, “Um, it’s Robert.”

  She glared at him.

  “Robert Palmer. I left my wallet in the car, but I can get it if you want.”

  “Palmer, the same as Aza?”

  “Yeah, Palmer like Aza, Arnold, Robert. Lots of us Palmers.” He opened the menu. “Are you buying?”

  “Are you cooperating?”

  He shrugged. “You sure are tough for such a short babe.”

  Bernie couldn’t help but laugh. “You sure are tough for such a short guy.”

  Robert smiled for the first time. “We gotta be, don’t we? We should let the lawyer buy. He has the money.”

  “Are you related to Aza?”

  Robert put down the menu. “We go way, way back, all the way back to his time in Shiprock. Back before he got to be a hotshot.”

  He stopped talking as Aza approached the table and pulled out a chair. He sat between the young man and Bernie, his only option. Aza picked up the menu and studied it as though he’d never seen one before. Robert stared at the tabletop.

  “Enough, you two. Tell me what’s going on here.” She turned to Robert. “You can start.”

  But Aza spoke. “I told him back at the meeting I had nothing to say to him. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Like you left me and Mom alone, huh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it. You’re so full of judgments and anger, and now you’ve got the police involved in our private—”

  “Wait a minute,” Bernie said. “I invited him in. I don’t like being followed, and he said he wanted to talk about a plan to disrupt the mediation. I thought we both should hear him out. I didn’t realize he was your son.”

  The conversation paused while the waitress took orders, a Coke for her, a burger for Robert, and a hot beef sandwich for the mediator. The break seemed to have calmed Robert, Bernie noticed, but Aza sat with clenched jaw.

  Bernie said, “After the bomb in Shiprock, the Navajo Nation is keeping an eye on Mr. Palmer for his own protection. Robert, acting like a stalker is never cool, but with the mediation and all the security, it could get you arrested.”

  “Dear old Dad would probably like that.”

  “I wouldn’t like it. You don’t know a thing about me. That’s my fault, I guess.”

  “You think?”

  Bernie said, “Be kind to each other, you two.”

  Her comment hung over the table as the waitress gave Bernie a Coke, brought tea for Robert, refilled the water glasses, and left.

  “Kind?” Robert leaned back in his chair. “OK. Nice way to blow me off back at the meeting.”

  “I’ve reached out to you more times than I can count, and you’ve ignored me. When you approached me at the session break? That wasn’t the place or the time for a father-son conversation. I take my work seriously. Not that you’d know anything about work. If it wasn’t for your mom’s boyfriend hiring you—”

  Robert didn’t wait for Aza to finish. “How do you know that? Anyway, I’m not after a relationship with you, dude. I just needed to tell you something and you wouldn’t give me a chance, so I tried to talk to you at the hotel, but you took one look and had her, the officer, drive away. Like you’re scared of me or something.”

  “I needed to go for a drive after hearing some bad news. It had nothing to do with you.”

  The food arrived. Palmer sprinkled pepper on the gravy that covered his roast beef sandwich. “What happened to your glasses?”

  “I got my eyes fixed.”

  “How’s your mother?”

  “Ask her yourself.”

  “I’m trying to have a conversation with you, and Lona is one of the things I know we have in common. I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a chance. I know I made some mistakes. Maybe you did, too.”

  “Mom and her boyfriend just split. Whenever they would fight, she’d compare him to you, and he got tired of it. I guess I liked him better than she did. He’s the one who paid for my eye surgery.”

  Aza continued eating.

  Bernie said, “Robert, what do you know about plans to disrupt the meeting?”

  Robert swallowed, stared down at his hands. “Let’s get this over with. I heard that some of those white-guy protest groups plan to raise hell. The outdoor recreation people, the tour directors, I can’t even keep track of them all. They’re just interested in their own causes, not the canyon itself. They want to delay the meeting as long as possible. Some of those groups have a lot of money at stake in keeping things the same. They look like the good guys, speaking up for nature and all, but they aren’t as bighearted as they want people to believe.”

  Robert looked up at Palmer from his uneaten burger. “I’m telling you this because you’re the main honcho. You run the show. You ought to know what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s not all peace and joy out here, and some of these guys are bad actors. That’s it.”

  “If I’d known why you wanted to talk to me, I would have been more sympathetic.” Aza put his silverware down on his nearly empty plate. “I couldn’t deal with any family drama this week because I had to stay focused on the task at hand.”

  “You’re supposed to be the big problem solver, but the way I see it, you just make problems.” Robert stood. “That’s what I needed to say.”

  Bernie put her hand on his arm. “Sit down. Tell me more about the plans to disrupt the sessions. Do you have any specifics?”

  “I know a guy who got offered a big job working for Canyonmark, you know, the development group? He said Canyonmark will be hiring a bunch of people if the development gets going. So I mentioned this to someone I met because he looked kinda scruffy, you know, like he could use some work.”

  Robert took a gulp of his tea. “This guy got all steamed up and started telling me how bad Canyonmark is and that a group he worked for would pay me to act as a sort of spy to help find out what Canyonmark planned before the mediation started so they could raise some hell. It so
unded like a cool job—”

  Aza put his water glass. “What happened to your judgment to get involved in something like this? What kind of a moron . . .”

  Bernie glared at Aza and he stopped talking.

  Robert’s voice tightened with anger. “You didn’t let me finish, Daddy. It sounded like a cool job, but the more I thought about it, the creepier it seemed. I said no.”

  She could see some resemblance to Aza in the young man, especially in the shape of his nose and the swoop of his eyebrows. “Robert, who was the guy and who did he work for?”

  “He just told me to call him Mr. X and he didn’t tell me what group it was.”

  Bernie waited a moment and Robert said, “He had a black beard. Kinda stocky with a suntan.”

  “Did you hear him or anyone talk about putting a bomb in your dad’s car?”

  “No.”

  “I was there right after the bomb went off.” She could still smell the burning vehicle, the seared flesh. “It wasn’t a joke. People who went to see a basketball game ended up scared. Kids were there and they might have nightmares about this. Besides the man who died, a lot of people had their cars, trucks damaged. People like you.”

  Aza said, “I just found out a few minutes ago that Rick Horseman died from that explosion. That’s why I asked Bernie to take me for a drive.”

  “Rick? No way! I didn’t . . . It’s on me.” He leaned toward Aza. “But he’s dead because of you. This is all screwed up.”

  Bernie said, “If you know anything that can help, you need to tell me so I can tell the investigators.”

  “I don’t have anything to tell you. I don’t know anything about what happened in Shiprock. I’ve got to go.”

  “Not yet.” Bernie placed her pen and notebook on the table in front of him and opened the book to a blank page. “Give me your phone number and where you’re staying.”

  “That doesn’t matter now.” But he scrawled something and handed it back to her.

  She motioned toward the waitress.

  “Would you bring us a box for his food?” She gestured at the untouched meal. Robert said, “I’m not hungry anymore.”