by Aimée
“My gut feeling is that Jimmy Blacksheep was itching for a fight. Our guys go through some pretty rough times over in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was the same in ’Nam. Normal rules just don’t apply. There’s no front line—just bombing, sniping, quick and dirty firefights, and praying you come back in one piece.”
“We’ve got a complicated case with lots of pressure coming down on us and more on the way,” Ella said.
“It’s going to get even worse pretty soon. I found out that the National Guard is sending someone from regular Army to investigate. A real hard-ass—Chief Warrant Officer Neil Carson. He’s already working an internal investigation that may have direct tie-ins to what happened here. But my contact was very sketchy about the details.”
“Can you get back in touch with him? I really need to see the whole picture. So far, all I’m catching are glimpses of Blacksheep’s life here and overseas. And if it turns out the carjackers had nothing to do with the murder, I’m really going to need a much clearer idea of what I’m dealing with.”
“What’s your gut tell you?”
Ella’s intuitions were legendary. Some ascribed esoteric explanations to it related to her ancestral background, but, to her, it was simply instinct based upon experience. “There’re too many loose ends in this case. To find the big picture we’re going to have to understand how things connect. Everything, even the details of a crime, form a pattern once you understand their relationship to each other. But without identifying that pattern we won’t get anywhere.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s like that Navajo balance and harmony thing. Works more than I’d normally admit, at least in my experience here on the Rez. I’ll try to get something for you, Clah.”
Ella stood. “Will you be getting another agent anytime soon to help out?”
“I hear rumors—mostly no one wants the post. You know how it is. And priorities have shifted to fighting terrorism, something we don’t see too much around here—at least lately.”
Ella nodded, recalling a situation not too many years ago that preceded the 9-11 attacks. A group of armed activists had occupied one of the local coal power plants, threatening to put it out of commission during the dead of winter. “To Bureau agents on the way up, this may not be the end of the world—but they’re pretty sure they can see it from here.”
“Yeah. Like that.”
Ella walked back out to the parking lot with Justine, then remained silent as they drove back south through Shiprock, crossed the river, then headed west on Highway 64. Ten minutes later, they turned north in the direction of the river, which at this location flowed northwest toward Colorado, then Utah. Off in the distance, silhouetted by the sun—now low in the sky—she could see Ute Mountain, which resembled a sleeping warrior from this position.
“What background do you have on Randy Billey? Do we avoid the use of names as much as possible, or is he a modernist?”
“Modernist. He was an okay guy according to my sister, who dated him before he got married, fortunately, and is on good terms with his wife. But his injuries have really made him reevaluate his life. Right now he’s working hard to regain as much mobility as he can get and hopes that his upcoming trip to Walter Reed will help him learn to cope better around the house. He can still paint—he used to be an artist—only now he’s selling his paintings on the Internet and through a tribal cooperative that sells arts and crafts from all the Indian nations via catalog,” Justine said, then in a somber tone, added, “Randy’s paid such a high price. In a case like this, I wonder if dying’s better,” Justine mused.
“No, partner. I suppose it could be argued that things might have been easier for him then, but the fact that he’s still alive means he’s got unfinished business on this plane.” Ella thought back to the time she’d been buried alive, and had stopped breathing. “I think we’re each given a certain number of things to accomplish while we’re here, though we may never know specifically what those are. After we complete them, then we can go on. But you also have to consent to die. Randy didn’t. That’s my personal opinion based on my own experiences.”
Justine nodded, lost in thought. “Ella, someday I’d really like to hear more about what you went through down in that mine.”
“Someday,” Ella said. Truth was, she didn’t like discussing it with anyone. They invariably tried to either discount it or take it as a new gospel—of sorts—and she wasn’t comfortable with either. She still remembered every vivid detail of her own near-death experience but it was entirely possible that the answers to what a person found in the hereafter were as varied as the people who passed.
“So, how’s your mom?” Justine asked, sensing Ella’s change of mood.
Ella smiled slowly. “Sometimes I wish I were more like her. She’s so together, partner, except for that tension-related episode this morning over Dawn’s school play. I think it’s just the pressure of making that big decision. It looks like things are getting serious between her and Herman. Marriage serious.”
“That’s serious. How do you feel about that?”
Ella considered it before answering. “I’m happy for her, but Dawn and I will have to do some heavy-duty adjusting if Mom decides to move out. I depend on Mom a lot, more than I care to admit sometimes.”
“Rose depends on you, too,” Justine answered. “Think about it. It’s true.”
“Maybe . . . I mean, I hope so,” Ella said then added, “But you know what hurts? My mother has a more active love life than I do.” She burst out laughing.
They arrived at Randy Billey’s home, a wooden framed collection of added-on rooms like Clifford’s, a short time later. Assured the family wasn’t traditionalist, they didn’t wait by the patrol unit to be invited to approach. Justine and Ella walked up to the front door, which now had a new concrete ramp instead of steps, and knocked.
Soon an elderly Navajo man came to the door. He was wearing jeans and a faded red sweatshirt. Though he looked to be in his seventies, he appeared to be remarkably strong and muscular. “Yes?”
Ella identified herself and Justine, holding up her badge. Justine nodded, not speaking. “We’d like to speak to Randy Billey.”
“I’m his father. Come in. My son’s just finished his nightly physical therapy session, so he’s a bit tired. But visitors are welcome, even the police. Is this about the soldier from his unit who was killed?”
“Yes, it is,” Ella said, without elaborating further.
“I think he wants to talk to you about that, too. The deceased was a friend of his.”
Ella noticed that although he was clearly a modernist, Mr. Billey was still reluctant to call the dead by name. Fear of the chindi stayed with all of them, one way or another, much the way it was with Anglos who didn’t consider themselves superstitious, yet would knock on wood or refuse to venture into a graveyard after dark.
As they waited in the small living room, Ella noticed that the house was nearly empty of furniture except for a couch, a low wooden table, and some strength exercise equipment in one corner. Overhead was a simple light fixture. Before long, they heard the hum of an electric motor and a specialized wheelchair carrying a young Navajo man appeared from down a short hallway.
He sat back against the cushion, his left arm manipulating a small joystick control. Cocking his head, he gestured them to sit.
“Please have a seat on the sofa. We got rid of most of the furniture because I need room to maneuver in my chair.” As they sat down, he continued. “What can I do for you ladies—officers?”
“I understand that you knew the deceased man, that he was in your unit.”
As Randy’s father walked out of the room, giving them privacy, Randy nodded to Ella and Justine. “You can use his name now. After my tour in Iraq, the dead don’t scare me anymore. The living do.”
Ella smiled, understanding exactly where he was coming from. She’d had the same thoughts herself many times during tight situations. “I need you to tell me what you can about Jimmy. In your time
together, was he involved in anything under the table?”
“There were a few under-the-table things going on over there. Many guys in the unit never dreamed they’d ever be fighting overseas, and then all of a sudden we got the call. Three months later we were in Iraq. One of the guys painted a sign on the bumper of his Humvee that said ‘Weekends, my ass.’ Even the lieutenant chuckled. Our platoon, and our section in particular, was made up mostly of guys like me who needed extra money so they could keep that tractor running, or just stay even with bills when the rains didn’t come. Faced with long enlistments—longer than any we’d seriously considered—a few began helping themselves to whatever they could find. Not stealing from each other, but from the Iraqis. Anything of value they snagged and shipped home. But there were a lot of straight arrows, too, and Jimmy was one of them. He kept to himself when some of the guys started looting.”
“Did he know about what was going on with the others?”
He nodded. “Sure. We all did. But nobody said a word. We had a common enemy, and had to keep the trust in order to stay in one piece. You learned to keep your nose out of where it didn’t belong.”
He paused, picked up his left leg and repositioned it slightly on the metal rests, then continued. “But Jimmy was different from us all in some ways—a real individual. He remembered the old ways, and would say prayers to the dawn and offer a pollen blessing to the gods, even when the dawn sky was full of smoke from last night’s IEDs—improvised explosive devices. His little rituals put off some of the other guys. Medicine pouches seemed like voodoo to some. And what they didn’t understand, they’d avoid, especially the Anglos and Chicanos in the unit. But that didn’t bother Jimmy.”
“And you?”
“I chose a different road. There weren’t too many of us Navajos, even in a unit from the Four Corners, so I figured that the best way to get by was to become a bilasaana—an apple—red on the outside, white on the inside. I’ve never been a traditionalist, so it wasn’t a stretch. It was the same way for the other Navajos in our platoon. Most of them are Catholic or Baptists anyway. Even a Mormon or two, I think.”
“So you’re saying that you, for example, were trusted more than Jimmy was?” Ella pressed.
“It wasn’t like that, really. In a firefight, we could all depend on each other. But at least the Anglos didn’t give me a wide berth during downtime, like they did Jimmy. I think they were afraid of him—creeped out. He was too different. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t a good thing for the other soldiers to see him in that light—a soldier needs to know that he can count on his platoon without question if we start taking fire. But Jimmy was really trying to stay out of touch, remain a loner, and sometimes it seemed he’d go out of his way to piss people off. He played the part of the inscrutable Indian, you know?”
“Do you think that contributed in any way to what happened to him here? Some form of retaliation, maybe?”
“No,” he answered resolutely, “unless something happened after I left the unit. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I would have called if you hadn’t come by. The truth is that Jimmy couldn’t have known much about anything that was going on because people didn’t trust him enough to get personal. Jimmy made himself an outsider and outsiders stay out of the loop.”
Ella didn’t tell him about the package she’d received. Jimmy had his secrets, too, and he’d kept them, obviously, from Randy. “So what you wanted to tell me is that I should probably just concentrate on what happened once he got back here. There’s no connection between the unit and his death. Is that right?” Ella asked.
“Yeah. I know for a fact that he had a major beef with someone here. He was coming home to fix that.”
“What kind of beef?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know.”
“A woman?” Justine pressed.
“I doubt it. He had a girlfriend when he first shipped out, but she dumped him about halfway through the tour. He didn’t talk about it, so that’s all I know. But I think he was carrying a big grudge, because he shut down even more after that.”
“Were you and Jimmy friends?” Ella asked.
He paused thoughtfully, before finally answering her. “Jimmy wasn’t a team player, but I respected him. I think he felt the same about me, too. The deal is he was there for me when I needed him. Jimmy had been busy bolting a makeshift armor plate onto a Humvee, so I was asked to take over duty for him. I was riding in one of our supply trucks when we got hit by RPGs—it was like they knew we were coming. I got our wounded under cover but I went down while going back to the vehicle for ammo. I couldn’t move or even feel my legs. Jimmy had been listening to radio traffic back at camp and made sure he was in the first unit to arrive. While security laid down covering fire, he pulled me out of the wrecked truck. He took a few hits himself on his vest. Luckily, the rounds didn’t penetrate, and he got me to safety. If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have made it. He’s dead now, so telling you what I know is the only way I’ve got to repay him.”
Randy paused, and silence stretched out for a long time before he finally looked up at her again. “My life doesn’t look like much to people who can’t see beyond the chair. But when you come that close to death your perspective changes. I wanted to hang on to my life and I fought hard to stay alive. Now I’m getting a chance to do something I’ve always wanted—watercolors of the Southwest. I have a woman who loves me, my work is in demand, and I lead a comfortable life. I made it . . . but not Jimmy. Life doesn’t make much sense sometimes. But despite what happened to Jimmy, I still owe him.”
Ella nodded. She understood a debt of honor. Jimmy had risked his life for Randy, and Randy was now restoring harmony by repaying him in the only way he could. But there was more going on here than met the eye. Things just weren’t adding up right. “If you think of anything else, call us,” she said, giving him her card.
“Will do.”
The sun had already set, and the moon was rising by the time they left Billey’s home, heading back to Shiprock to see John Lee Charley. On the way, Justine glanced over at Ella. “That was an interesting conversation. Billey is sure Jimmy didn’t know anything—yet Jimmy obviously did. He sent it to you in code. Do you think Billey was trying to B.S. us?”
“It’s a possibility,” Ella said. “I also found it interesting that Jimmy had been the one scheduled to ride in that truck. That may have been the first attempt to murder Jimmy—if the insurgents were tipped off. When we get back to the station, call the National Guard. If they have more details regarding the incident where Randy was wounded, we need to know as quickly as possible. Something just doesn’t feel right about this case.”
John Lee Charley lived in a modernist housing area on the east side of Shiprock, above the river. The homes were small, three-bedroom units, each one virtually identical except for their condition, which was dependent on the resident. It was dark now, and there was a light on inside, but when they knocked on John Lee’s door no one answered. His neighbor, an elderly Navajo woman having just arrived home, judging from the bag of groceries she was taking from her car, called out to them from her driveway. “His pickup’s gone, so he’s not home.”
Ella recognized Miriam Tsosie. She’d been a member of her mother’s Plant Watchers Group for many years, then dropped out. Rose claimed that Miriam had lost heart when her daughter and her family had moved away and was suffering from ch’ééná, depression, or more literally, a sadness for what wouldn’t return. Ella and Justine walked over to where she was.
“I know your mother,” Miriam said looking directly at Ella, “so I won’t waste your time by mincing my words and pretending to like or respect my neighbor. The only good thing about that man is that he was gone for over a year. When he came home again a few days ago, he started up with all his nasty habits again—gambling and drinking all day and night. Yesterday I had to wake him up when I found him in my driveway in his truck, surrounded by bottles. Passed out, is my guess, so that’s where he
spent the night. He said that they’ll be shipping him back out again, and he just wants to have fun while he can.”
“I know it’s evening now, but do you have any idea where he might have gone?” Ella asked her.
She nodded. “I heard him talking to his friend when they left the house earlier this afternoon. They were going over to Amos Curtis’s house to play cards and get drunk. Amos lets them use his place because it’s in the middle of nowhere and the police can’t sneak up on them there.”
“Any idea where Amos lives?” Ella asked, knowing that the phrase “middle of nowhere” could describe many places on the Navajo Rez, depending on your point of view.
“Not exactly, but its southwest of Sanostee, not far from Old Sawmill Spring.”
“I’m kind of familiar with that area,” Justine said. “We can find it.”
Ella gave her a surprised look, then nodded once. “All right then. Let’s go.” As soon as they were on their way south, Ella glanced over at Justine. “Okay, I’ve got to ask. How come you’re familiar with that stretch? I didn’t think there was anything even remotely interesting out that way until you get to Two Grey Hills or Toadlena.”
“Jayne,” Justine answered with a sigh. “Back in high school she used to ride up there on horseback from Toadlena so she could meet one of her boyfriends without Mom knowing. I was curious about where she went, so I followed her one time to an old abandoned sawmill. But I remember there was also a clapboard house close by and that’s where Amos lived. At the time, the place was a wreck. Amos used to live alone with his sheep and his dog. He couldn’t stand people but managed to make a living selling wool to the weavers. He must be in his seventies now, but I’ve heard he’s changed his ways. He’s decided that he has certain material needs, so he sold his sheep and started looking for some easier way to raise cash. I think he found it.”
They’d only been on the road about fifteen minutes when Ella got a call from Joe Neskahi. “Ella, I managed to catch one of the victim’s buddies, Ben Richardson, just before he was leaving to visit his parents in Pueblo. He’d heard about the crime, but wasn’t able to tell me much. Richardson said that he and the victim barely knew each other, and were never on the same vehicle crew on a mission. He’s going to be available again in a few days when he returns to New Mexico. Basically, I got squat.”