From this the story grew. The dead person becomes a wounded fugitive from the mafia who had come to the home of his Granddad to die. But Chee notices this poor fellow had been given only part of the burial ritual and denied other parts, and that the old man who abandoned the hogan left behind his Four Mountains Bundle, the sacred objects that traditional Navajo collect from the reservation’s Four Holy Mountains. Of course the FBI neither knows these oddities are crucial nor how to explain them. Chee does, and thus I have my chance to lead readers through some of the margins of Navajo culture.
Skinwalkers (1986). How do I awaken Jim Chee, sleeping in his cot beside the paper-thin aluminum wall of his trailer home, so he will not be killed when the assassin fires her shotgun through said wall? Everything I try sounds like pure psychic coincides—which I detest in mysteries. Nothing works until I remember the “clack, clack” sound made when a friend’s cat goes through the “cat door” on his porch. I write in a spooky stray cat, for whom Chee makes this cat door (thereby establishing him as a nice guy and giving me a chance to explain Navajo “equal citizenship” relationships with animals). The cat, spooked by the assassin’s approach, darts from its bed under a piñon into the trailer and awakens Chee. At book’s end, when I need to terminate a budding romance, the cat serves a wonderfully symbolic role. This was the first book in which I used both Leaphorn and Chee. It made a great leap forward in sales and hit a bunch of best-seller lists, but not the crucial one in the New York Times.
A Thief of Time (1988). My “breakout book” was described earlier in considerable detail. It was a “breakout” in more than sales and eventually led to the Public Service Award of the U.S. Department of Interior, an honorary membership for life in the Western Literature Association, the American Anthopolgy Association’s Media Award and the Center for the American Indian’s Ambassador Award, a beautiful bronze of a Comanche warrior holding his coup stick.
Talking God (1989). A book modified by coincidences. While writing Chapter 3 I stop because it’s time for Sunday Mass. But the problem stays with me during the ceremony—how to describe a corpse found beside the railroad outside Gallup. I notice an elderly Hispano usher with an aristocratic face dressed in an expensive but well-worn suit. He becomes the victim. But such a man refuses to fit my gang murder plot and turns the book into a Central American political conspiracy assassination. Next, old writing friend Bill Buchanan (Shining Season, Execution Eve, etc.) mentions a man responding to Bill’s refrigerator sale want-ad was not a potential buyer but a lonely fellow needing to exchange words with a fellow human. That, too, sticks in my mind. I use it. It turns my assassin into a terribly lonely man and provides a much better ending. The first chapter was no problem at all. I have an urban wannabe Navajo send a Smithsonian official a box of her ancestor’s bones, dug from an ancient Episcopal graveyard, for her to display along with the bones of his ancestors. I received “good-for-you” applause from about twenty tribesmen for that one.
Coyote Waits (1990). When Barney and I were prowling the Four Corners with me writing and him photographing stuff for our Hillerman Country he taught me a lesson in optical perspective that solved Leaphorn’s problem in finding the needed witness. Barney anthromorphized cliffs, canyons, trees, etc., turning their reflected lights and shadows into presidential profiles, bears, and so forth. (Something I do with cloud formations, seeing in them not only God’s glory but dragons, Popeye, and aircraft.)
“Stop,” Barney would say, and point at a rock formation. “See the zebra with the pipe in his mouth?”
I’d say no. He’d say back up a little. We’d stop where all the necessary elements would line up properly and I would either see suggestions of a zebra or, often, simply say I did and drive on with Barney explaining how viewer position and the optics of telescopic lenses affect what you see. It was the sort of data I usually find easy to forget, but I remembered it when stuck for a logical way to have a witness out in empty country witnessing a murder. He became a lonely high school kid whose hobby was landscape photography and who found a way to declare his love for a girl by careful placement of white paint on basalt rocks so the message could be read only from the perspective of her hogan.
I spent weeks trying to have Leaphorn figure that out, wishing I’d never heard of optical perspective.
Hillerman Country (1991). The first time Barney and I had a chance to work together since digging postholes in 1942 produced this book, and it was a labor of love. I sent Barney a lengthy listing of places he needed to photograph to go with my text. He’d send me great sheets of contact prints of totally different landscape—proving that I was still Little Brother and that photographers march to their own drummers. So I bent a bit, and so did he, and we were both delighted with the finished product. Barney, who always felt hospitals were entered only to visit sick friends, died while out shooting another book assignment just a few weeks after our joint venture was published.
Sacred Clowns (1993). This book grew from something left over from an earlier one. The Dark Wind had required me to learn about the Hopi. I had slept in my pickup at the edge of Walpi, awaiting morning to interview a fellow for a magazine article. I awoke at sunrise (easy when you’ve been cramped in a Toyota truck) and saw a man emerge from a house. He held the bundle he was carrying up toward the rising sun, stood like that for a long moment, apparently chanting, and then disappeared again into his house. I learned he had been presenting his eight-day-old child to God, symbolized by the rising sun, in a ceremony in some ways like a Christian baptism and in some ways more than that. The elder I interviewed explained that the chant he had sung presented the infant as a child of God, and recognized the human father and mother as foster parents—promising to nurture God’s child by the Creator’s rules and asking God’s blessings on this task.
Sacred status given children in the religious philosophy of many of the pueblos cast light for me on the role of the Koshare, Mudhead, and other “sacred clown” societies and helps explain why one rarely sees a pueblo child thumped on the ear or otherwise physically punished. I share this belief that each human has this special relationship with God who (“Judgment is mine, sayeth the Lord”) will take care of meting rewards and punishment. Therefore, I spent untold months trying to come up with a way to use it in a plot in a book we named Mudhead Kiva.
During this process I discovered I have cancer, spend some time in the hospital—wonderful periods away from the telephone for thinking. By the time I got back to serious writing, Mudhead Kiva has died and Sacred Clowns has emerged, leaving HarperCollins to explain an imaginary book they had been advertising. However, the story improved as much as the title.
Finding Moon (1995). Closest to my heart, but not to those of editor, publisher, and many of my readers. Peter Thorpe, the talented jacket designer of my Navajo police books, did a beauty for this one—painting a moon rising over Cambodian mountains with the figure of man outlined against its face. I got an early look and endorsed it, whereupon it was redesigned to fit more into the pattern of my previous books—the sort of development that reminds writers of their place in the publishing world.
The Fallen Man (1996). Several notions in my collection of potential story ideas collided for this one. Idea one was to leave a mountain climber trapped atop Shiprock, as was Monster Slayer in the Navajo origin story. Two was having a custom-made competition rifle firing custom-made ammo used by a sniper on the rim of Canon de Chelly to assassinate a witness far below. Three was to involve cattle rustling and the antirustler tactics of working with “watchers.” Some of these worked but a half dozen others misfired, forcing me to learn a lot more about serious mountain climbing than I wished.
The First Eagle (1998). This book was trigged by a new death penalty law for certain felonies on federal reservations. Since about 95 percent of federal reservation acreage is also Indian Reservation acreage this looked like a special “Death Penalty for Indians Law.” Making the book work required a plot even more convoluted than those I us
ually impose upon readers. Luckily Marie was a bacteriology major, a big help in working bubonic plague into the plot—as were the vector controllers who hunt down the sources of the disease and the bacteriology professors upon whom I imposed.
I gave myself a problem by picking Gold Tooth, Arizona, as a crucial location because my map showed it in the very empty country where Hopi and Navajo territory abut. Wonderful name, Gold Tooth, and a ghost town, too, but I couldn’t find the unimproved dirt road that was supposed to lead to it to get a visual fix. That bothered me. So Marie and I made another “find Gold Tooth” journey along the road between Moenkopi and the Hopi Mesa, looking for some sort of junction. We failed again, but at the Tuba City Trading Post found a Navajo woman who knew the way.
“Past the top of the hill out of Moenkopi Wash, drive slow and keep a close watch beside the road to your right. In about a mile you see a place where people have turned off the pavement. Follow the track maybe fifteen miles or twenty miles or so.”
We found the tire tracks, drove the fifteen or so miles, past one distant windmill, past three cows, and came finally to a roofless, windowless stone building to our right and an old-fashioned round hogan to the left. It didn’t look much like what I’d described, but Marie consoled me with the reminder that not many of my readers would be seeing it.
Hunting Badger (1999). An actual crime—odd enough to fill the need of any mystery writer—was the seed from which Hunting Badger grew. I planned to use the sour memories of the event: theft of a water tank truck by three heavily armed men, murder of the policeman who stopped them, an FBI-orchestrated, incredibly bungled, Keystone Cops manhunt, evacuation of Bluff, Utah, quarter-million-buck federal reward offer, which attracted a horde of bounty hunters, vast waste of tax money, etc., as the background for my plot. I thought it would make an easy book to write. It didn’t. I was left with the problem of how to have my own bandidos escape. Help came from some elderly aviators who filled me in on the sort of vintage aircraft I needed to delude my FBI characters, and from Patti Collins and her Environmental Protection Administration helicopter crew, who provided data on abandoned coal/uranium mines where I needed them.
The three anthologies that bear my name, Spell of New Mexico, The Best of the West, and The American Detective Story all sprang from the ideas of others. Spell was the result of lunches at Campus Drug with Jack Rittenhouse, history editor of the University of New Mexico Press and lifelong book collector. At these, we fell into the habit of remembering what famous folks, from D. H. Lawrence to Karl Jung, had written about New Mexico. Jack suggested we collect a bunch of these into an anthology. I liked the idea but not the work. Jack said he’d do the collecting, editing, etc. (95 percent of the work), if I’d write the introduction and the connective tissue. When the book was being published Jack said he couldn’t put his name on it due to University Press rules.
Best was another product of those lunches and another of Jack’s ideas, which was to go back to the beginnings of literacy in our part of the world and collect bits and pieces that reflected on the territory and the times. It would range from letters, diaries, documents, and even tombstone declarations and warnings inscribed into rocks, all the way to fiction. It sounded to me like a staggering job, but Rittenhouse had most of the books and other documents needed in his own collections and knew how to find what he didn’t have. I would simply help with the sorting and write the explanatory notes. Jack was ill now, had retired from his post at the University Press and therefore the rule that kept his name off our first venture wouldn’t apply. Now I learn that the rule existed only in Jack’s imagination. He loved books more than anyone I’ve ever known. But he didn’t want to have his name on one. While we were still debating that, Jack came by my house and said we’d have to rush the job. His doctor had told him his cancer would give him about four more weeks of life. We finished just in time and while the Rittenhouse name isn’t on the dust jacket, I bent my promise a little by telling the story in the Foreword.
The American Detective Story was the idea of Rosemary Herbert, now book editor of the Boston Herald, who wanted to illustrate the evolution of the American version of this genre—from the cozy British “tale of ratiocination” to the “mean streets” of the United States. I had written some about that and liked the idea. But Rosemary knew much more about the form and, as usual, she did most of the work. She even posed for the dust jacket photo.
Bibliography
Books by and about Tony Hillerman
Books by Tony Hillerman
The Blessing Way. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Lt. Joe Leaphorn must stalk a supernatural killer known as the “Wolf-Witch” along a chilling trail of mysticism and murder.
The Fly on the Wall. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
A dead reporter’s secret notebook implicates a senatorial candidate and political figures in a million-dollar murder scam.
The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Retells a Zuni myth in which, through the intercession of a dragonfly, a young boy and his sister gain the wisdom that makes them leaders of their people.
The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other Indian Country Affairs.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
Hillerman, who knows the Southwest like no other contemporary writer, presents nine extraordinary, true tales that capture the history and rhythms of daily life in New Mexico.
Dance Hall of the Dead. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
An archaeological dig, a steel hypodermic needle, and the strange laws of the Zuni complicate the disappearance of two young boys.
New Mexico, Rio Grande, and Other Essays. Portland, Ore. Graphic Arts Center Pub. Co., 1975.
Gives the reader a deeper appreciation of how Hillerman sees the land he loves, as well as the places from which he draws his inspiration and his intimate knowledge of the backgrounds upon which he casts the characters of his mysteries. The essays are complemented by the extraordinary photography of David Muench and Robert Reynolds.
Hillerman, Tony, and Robert Reynolds. Rio Grande. Portland: Charles H. Belding, 1975.
Hillerman’s essay on this beautiful river accompanies Robert Reynolds’s award-winning photography.
Listening Woman. New York: Harper & Row, 1978.
A baffling investigation of murder, ghosts, and witches can be solved only by Lt. Leaphorn, a man who understands both his own people and cold-blooded killers.
People of Darkness. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.
An assassin waits for Officer Chee in the desert to protect a vision of death that for thirty years has been fed by greed and washed by blood.
The Dark Wind. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.
Sgt. Jim Chee becomes trapped in a deadly web of a cunningly spun plot driven by Navajo sorcery and white man’s greed.
Hillerman, Tony, ed. The Spell of New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
Hillerman has organized an impressive collection of writings about New Mexico: Oliver La Farge, D. H. Lawrence, Ernie Pyle, Conrad Richter, Mary Austin, and many others.
The Ghostway. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
A photo sends officer Chee on an odyssey of murder and revenge that moves from an Indian hogan to a deadly healing ceremony.
Skinwalkers. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Three shotgun blasts in a trailer bring Officer Chee and Lt. Leaphorn together for the first time in an investigation of ritual, witchcraft, and blood.
Indian Country: America’s Sacred Land. Flagstaff, Ariz.: Northland Press, 1987.
Exciting essays of the American Southwest and its people, accompanied by photographs by Bela Kalman.
A Thief of Time. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
When two corpses appear amid stolen goods and bones at an ancient burial site, Leaphorn and Chee must plunge into the past to unearth the truth.
Hillerman, Tony, Florence Lister, and Peter Thorpe. Tony Hil
lerman’s Indian Country Map & Guide. Mancos, Colo.: Time Traveler Maps, 1998 This hardcover “European style” companion map captures events, locations, and quotations from all Hillerman’s bestselling Indian Country mysteries. Extensive illustrations by Peter Thorpe and a highly detailed map bring one of America’s most intriguing and mysterious regions to reality.
Talking God. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
A grave robber and a corpse reunite Leaphorn and Chee in a dangerous arena of superstition, ancient ceremony and living gods.
The Joe Leaphorn Mysteries: Three Classic Hillerman Mysteries Featuring Lt. Joe Leaphorn: The Blessing Way/Dance Hall of the Dead/Listening Woman. New York: HarperCollins, 1989.
Coyote Waits. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.
When a bullet kills Officer Jim Chee’s good friend Del, a Navajo shaman is arrested for homicide, but the case is far from closed.
The Jim Chee Mysteries: Three Classic Hillerman Mysteries Featuring Officer Jim Chee: People of Darkness, The Dark Wind, The Ghostway. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Hillerman Country: A Journey through the Southwest with Tony Hillerman. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Take a tour of the American Southwest through this book, which also contains photographs by Hillerman’s brother Barney.
Block, Lawrence, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey, and Donald Westlake. The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect Crime. Edited by Jack Hill. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Hillerman, Tony, ed. The Best of the West: An Anthology of Classic Writing from the American West. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
A sterling collection of classic and contemporary fiction and nonfiction, evoking the unique spirit of the West and its people.
Charyn, Jerome, ed,. The New Mystery: New & Classic Stories by P. D. James, James Ellroy, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman; New York: Dutton, 1993.
Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir Page 32