Listening Woman jlajc-3

by Tony Hillerman

  Leaphorn listened.

  Hundred miles an hour, Begay said. He chuckled. He’s going to tell you his speedometer needs fixing.

  The headlights topped the hill, dipped downward and then raced up the slope behind them. Leaphorn started his engine and flicked on his headlights, and then the red warning blinker atop the car. For a moment there was no change in the accelerating whine. Then abruptly the pitch changed, a brief squealing sound of rubber on pavement, and the roar of a car gearing down. It pulled off on the shoulder and stopped some fifty feet behind the carryall. Leaphorn picked his clipboard off the dash and stepped out.

  At first he could see nothing through the blinding glare of the headlights. Then he made out the circled Mercedes trademark on the hood, and behind the ornament, the windshield. Every two seconds, the beam of his revolving warning blinker flashed across it. Leaphorn walked down the gravel toward the car, irritated by the rudeness of the high beam lights. In the flashing red illumination he saw the face of the driver, staring at him through round gold-rimmed glasses. And behind the man, in the back seat, another face, unusually large and oddly shaped.

  The driver leaned out the window. Officer, he shouted. Your cars rolling backward.

  The driver was grinning a broad, delighted, anticipatory grin outlined in red by the blinker light. And behind the grinning man, the eyes in the narrow face still stared dim but somehow avid from the back seat.

  Leaphorn spun and, blinded by glare, peered toward his carryall. His mind told him that he had set the handbrake and his eyes registered that the parked car was not rolling toward him. And then there was the voice of Begay screaming a warning. Leaphorn made a desperate, instinctive lunge for the ditch, hearing the squalling roar of the Mercedes accelerating, and then the thumping, oddly painless sound of the front fender striking his leg and spinning his already flying body into the roadside weeds.

  A moment later he was trying to get up. The Mercedes had disappeared down the highway, trailing the diminishing scream of rapid acceleration, and Begay was beside him, helping him up.

  Watch the leg, Leaphorn said. Let me see how it is.

  It was numb, but it bore his weight. What pain he had was mostly in his hands, which had broken his fall on the weeds and dirt of the ditch bank, and his cheek which somehow had picked up a long, but shallow, cut. It burned.

  Son-of-a-bitch tried to run you over, Begay said. How about that?

  Leaphorn limped to the carryall, slid under the wheel, and flicked on the radio with one bleeding hand and the ignition with the other. By the time he had arranged for a roadblock at Red Lake, the speedometer needle had passed 90.

  Always wanted a ride like this, Begay was shouting over the sound of the siren. The tribe got a liability policy in case I get hurt?

  Just burial insurance, Leaphorn said.

  You’re never going to catch him, Begay said. You get a look at that car? That was a rich mans car.

  You get a look at the license? Or at that guy in the back seat?

  It was a dog, Begay said. Great big rough-looking dog. I didn’t think about the license.

  The radio cleared its throat. It was Tomas Charley reporting he was set up in a half block at the Red Lake intersection. Charley asked, in precise Navajo, whether to figure the man in the gray car had a gun and how to handle it.

  Play it like he’s dangerous, Leaphorn said. The bastard tried to run over me. Use the shotgun and if he’s not slowing for you, shoot for the tires. Don’t get hurt.

  Charley said he didn’t intend to and signed off.

  He might have a gun, come to think of it, Begay said. He held his cuffed wrists in front of him. You oughta take this off in case you need help.

  Leaphorn glanced at him, fished in his pocket for a key ring and tossed it on the seat. Its the little shiny one.

  Begay unlocked the cuffs and put them in the glove compartment.

  Why the hell don’t you stop stealing sheep? Leaphorn asked. He didn’t want to remember the Mercedes roaring toward him.

  Begay rubbed his wrists. They’re just white mans sheep. They don’t hardly miss em.

  And slipping off from jail. Do that again and its your ass!

  Begay shrugged. Stop to think about it, though, he said. And about the worst they can do to you for getting out of jail is get you back in again.

  This is three times, Leaphorn said. The patrol car skidded around a flat turn, swayed, and straightened. Leaphorn jammed down on the accelerator.

  That bird sure didn’t want a ticket, Begay said. He glanced at Leaphorn, grinning. Either that, or he just likes running over cops. I believe a man could learn to enjoy that.

  They covered the last twenty miles to the Red Lake intersection in just under thirteen minutes and slid to a gravel-spraying stop on the shoulder beside Charley's patrol car.

  What happened? Leaphorn shouted. Did he get past you?

  Never got here, Charley said. He was a stocky man wearing a corporals stripes on the sleeves of his uniform shirt. He raised his eyebrows. Ain’t no place to turn off, he said. Its fifty-something miles back up there to the Kayenta turnoff He was past that when I started chasing him, Leaphorn interrupted. He must have pulled it off somewhere.

  Begay laughed. That dog in the back. Maybe that was a Navajo Wolf.

  Leaphorn didn’t say anything. He was spinning the car across the highway in a pursuit turn.

  Them witches, they can fly, you know, Begay said. Reckon they could carry along a big car like that?

  It took more than half an hour to find where the Mercedes had left the highway. It had pulled off the north shoulder on the up-slope of a hill leaving the roadbed and plowing through a thin growth of creosote bush. Leaphorn followed the track with his flashlight in one hand and his .38 in the other. Begay and Charley trotted along behind him Begay carrying Leaphorns 30-30. About fifty yards off the highway, the car had bottomed on an outcrop of sandstone. After that, its path was blotched with oil spurting from a broken pan.

  Hell of a way to treat a car, Begay said.

  They found it thirty yards away, rolled into a shallow arroyo out of sight from the highway.

  Leaphorn studied it a moment in the beam of his flashlight. He walked up to it cautiously.

  The drivers door was open. So was the trunk. The front seat was empty. So was the back seat. The front floorboards were littered with the odds and ends of a long trip gum wrappers, paper cups, the wrapper from a Lotaburger. Leaphorn picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled of onions and fried meat. He dropped it. The nearest Lotaburger stand he could remember was at Farmington about 175 miles east in New Mexico. The safety inspection sticker inside the windshield had been issued by the District of Columbia. It bore the name of Frederick Lynch, and a Silver Spring, Maryland, address. Leaphorn jotted it in his notebook. The car, he noticed, smelled of dog urine.

  He didn’t leave nothing much back here, Chancy said. But here’s a muzzle for a dog. A big one.

  I guess he went for a walk, Leaphorn said. He’s got a lot of room for that.

  Thirty miles to a drink of water, Charley said. If you know where to find it.

  Begay, Leaphorn said. Take a look in back and give me the license number.

  As he said it, it occurred to Leaphorn that his bruised leg, no longer numb, was aching.

  It also occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Begay since after they’d found the car.

  Leaphorn scrambled out of the front seat and made a rapid survey of the landscape with the flashlight. There was Corporal Charley, still inspecting the back seat, and there was Leaphorns 30-30 leaning against the trunk of the Mercedes, with Leaphorns key ring hung on the barrel.

  Leaphorn cupped his hands and shouted into the darkness: Begay, you dirty bastard!

  Begay was out there, but he would be laughing too hard to answer.

  » 3 «

  T

  he file clerk in the Tuba City subagency of the Navajo Tribal Police was slightly plump and extremely pretty. She depos
ited a yellow Manila folder and three brown accordion files on the captains desk, flashed Leaphorn a smile and departed with a swish of skirt.

  You already owe me one favor, Captain Largo said. He picked up the yellow folder and peered into it.

  This will make two, then, Leaphorn said.

  If I do it, it will, Largo said. I may not be that dumb.

  You’ll do it, Leaphorn said.

  Largo ignored him. Here we have a little business that just came in today, Largo said from behind the folder. A discreet inquiry is needed into the welfare of a woman named Theodora Adams, who is believed to be at Short Mountain Trading Post. Somebody in the office of the Chairman of the Tribal Council would appreciate it if wed do a little quiet checking so he can pass on the word that all is well.

  Leaphorn frowned. At Short Mountain? What would anyone Largo interrupted him. There’s an anthropological dig out there. Maybe she’s friendly with one of the diggers. Who knows? All I know is her daddy is a doctor in the Public Health Service and I guess he called somebody in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the BIA called somebody in . . .

  Okay, Leaphorn said. She’s out in Indian country and daddies worried and would we look out after her right?

  But discreetly, Largo said. That would save me a little work, if you’d take care of that. But it wont look like much of an excuse to ask Window Rock to let you off guarding those Boy Scouts. Largo handed Leaphorn the Manila folder and pulled the accordion files in front of him. Maybe there’s an excuse in these, he said. You can take your pick.

  Ill take an easy one, Leaphorn said.

  Here we have a little heroin stashed in the frame of a junk car over near the Keet Seel ruins, said Largo as he peered into one of the files. He closed the folder. Had a tip on it and staked it out, but nobody ever showed up. That was last winter.

  Never any arrests?

  Nope. Largo had pulled a bundle of papers and two tape cassettes out of another folder.

  Here’s the Tso-Atcitty killing, he said. You remember that one? It was last spring.

  Yeah, Leaphorn said. I meant to ask you about that one. Heard anything new?

  Nada, Largo said. Nothing. Not even any sensible gossip. Little bit of witch talk now and then. The kind of talk something like that stirs up. Not a damn thing to go on.

  They sat and thought about it.

  You got any ideas? Leaphorn asked.

  Largo thought about it some more. No sense to it, he said finally.

  Leaphorn said nothing. There had to be sense to it. A reason. It had to fit some pattern of cause and effect. Leaphorns sense of order insisted on this. And if the cause happened to be insane by normal human terms, Leaphorns intellect would then hunt for harmony in the kaleidoscopic reality of insanity.

  You think the FBI missed something? Leaphorn asked. They screw it up?

  They usually do, Largo said. Whether they did or not, its been long enough so we really ought to be checking around on it again. He stared at Leaphorn. You any better at that than at bringing in prisoners?

  Leaphorn ignored the jibe. Okay, he said. You tell Window Rock you want me to work on the Atcitty case, and Ill run over to Short Mountain and check on the Adams woman, too.

  And Ill owe you a favor.

  Two favors, Largo said.

  Whats the other one?

  Largo had put on a pair of horn-rimmed bifocals and was thumbing his way owlishly through the Atcitty report. I didn’t hoorah you for letting that Begay boy get away. That’s the first one. He glanced at Leaphorn. But I’m not so damn sure this second ones any favor. Dreaming up reasons to borrow you from Window Rock so you can go chasing after that feller that tried to run you down. That’s not so damned smart getting mixed up in your own thing. Well find that feller for you.

  Leaphorn said nothing. Somewhere back in the subagency building there was a sudden metallic clamora jail inmate rattling something against the bars. Outside the west-facing windows of Largos office an old green pickup rolled down the asphalt road into Tuba City, trailing a thin haze of blue smoke. Largo sighed and began sorting the Atcitty papers and tapes back into the file.

  Herding Boy Scouts is not so bad, Largo said. Broken leg or so. Few snakebites. One or two of them lost. He glanced up at Leaphorn, frowning. You got nothing much to go on, looking for that guy, anyway. You don’t even know what he looks like. Goldrim glasses.

  Hell, I’m about the only one in this building that doesn’t wear em. And all you really know is that they were wire rims. Just seeing em with that red blinker reflecting off of em that would distort the color.

  You’re right, Leaphorn said.

  I’m right, but you’re going to go ahead on with it, Largo said. If I can find an excuse for you.

  He tapped the remaining file with a blunt fingertip, changing the subject. And here’s one that’s always popular the vanishing helicopter, Largo said. The feds love that one. Every month we need to turn in a report telling em we haven’t found it but we haven’t forgotten it.

  This time we’ve got a new sighting report to look into.

  Leaphorn frowned. A new one? Isn’t it getting kinda late for that?

  Largo grinned. Oh, I don’t know, he said. Whats a few months? Lets see it was December when we were running our asses off in the snow up and down the canyons, looking for it.

  So now its August, and somebody gets around to coming into Short Mountain and mentioning he’s seen the damn thing. Largo shrugged. Nine months? That’s about right for a Short Mountain Navajo.

  Leaphorn laughed. Short Mountain Navajos had a long-standing reputation among their fellow Dinee for being uncooperative, slow, cantankerous, witch-ridden and generally backward.

  Three kinds of time. Largo was still grinning. On time, and Navajo time, and Short Mountain Navajo time. The grin disappeared. Mostly Bitter Water Dinee, and Salts, and Many Goats people live out there, he said.

  It wasn’t exactly an explanation. It was absolution from this criticism of the fifty-seven other Navajo clans, including the Slow Talking Dinee. The Slow Talking Dinee was Captain Howard Largos born-to clan. Leaphorn was also a member of the Slow Talking People. That made him and Largo something akin to brothers in the Navajo Way, and explained why Leaphorn could ask Largo for a favor, and why Largo could hardly refuse to grant it.

  Funny people, Leaphorn agreed.

  Lots of Paiutes live back in there, Largo added. Lots of marrying back and forth. Largos face had resumed its usual glumness. Even a lot of marrying with the Utes.

  Through the dusty window of Largos office Leaphorn had been watching a thunderhead building over Tuba Mesa. Now it produced a distant rumble of thunder, as if the Holy People themselves were protesting this mixing of the blood of the Dinee with their ancient enemies.

  Anyway, the one who says she saw it wasn’t really nine months late, Largo said. She told a veterinarian out there looking at her sheep about it in June. Largo paused and peered into the folder.. . . And the vet told the feller then that drives the school bus out there, and he told Shorty McGinnis about it back in July. And about three days ago, Tomas Charley was out there and McGinnis told him. Largo paused, and looked up at Leaphorn through his bifocals. You know McGinnis?

  Leaphorn laughed. From way back when I was new and working out of here. He was sort of a one-man radar station/listening post/gossip collector. I remember I used to think it wouldn’t be too hard to catch him doing something worth about ten years in stir. He still have that place up for sale?

  That place has been for sale for forty years, Largo said. If somebody offered to buy it, it'd scare McGinnis to death.

  That sighting report, Leaphorn said. Anything helpful?

  Naw, Largo said. She was driving her sheep out of a gully, and just as she came out of it, the copter came over just a few feet off the ground. Largo waved his hand impatiently at the file. Its all in there. Scared the hell out of her. Her horse threw her and ran off and it scattered the sheep. Charley went to talk to her day before yesterday.
Said she was still pissed off about it.

  Was it the right copter?

  Largo shrugged. Blue and yellow or black and yellow. She remembered that. And pretty big. And noisy. Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t.

  Was it the right day?

  Seemed to be, Largo said. She was bringing in the sheep because she was taking her husband and the rest of the bunch to a Yeibachi over at Spider Rock the next day.

  Charley checked on it and the ceremonial was the day after the Santa Fe robbery. So that’s the right day.

  What time?

  That’s about right, too. Just getting dark, she said.

  They thought about it. Outside there was thunder again.

  Think we could have missed it? Largo asked.

  We could have, Leaphorn said. You could hide Kansas City out there. But I don’t think we did.

  I don’t either, Largo said. You’d have to land it someplace where you can get someplace else from. Like near a road.

  Exactly, Leaphorn said.

  And if they left it near a road, somebody would have come across it by now. Largo extracted a pack of Winstons from his shirt pocket, offered them to Leaphorn, and then lit one for himself. Its funny, though, he said.

  Yes, Leaphorn said. The strangest part of it all, he thought, was how well the entire plan had stuck together, how well it had been coordinated, how well it had worked. You didn’t expect such meticulous planning from a militant political group and the Buffalo Society was as militant as they get. It had split off from the American Indian Movement after the AIMs seizure of Wounded Knee had fizzled away into nothing accusing the movements leaders of being gutless. It had mailed out a formal declaration of war against the whites. It had pulled a series of bombings, and two kidnappings that Leaphorn could remember, and finally this affair at Santa Fe. There, a Wells Fargo armored truck leaving the First National Bank of Santa Fe had been detoured down one of Santa Fe's narrow old streets by a man wearing a city policemans uniform. Other Society members had simultaneously congealed downtown traffic to a motionless standstill by artfully placed detour signs. There had been a brief fight at the truck and a Society member had been critically wounded and left behind. But the gang had blasted off the truck door and escaped with almost $500,000.