Skeleton Man

by Tony Hillerman

  Having said that, McGinnis took another sip, picked the leather pouch off his lap, and started trying to untie the thong that held it closed.

  McGinnis looked up from his labor. “You’ve seen ’em like this afore,” he said.

  “Looks like a pouch to hold his ceremonial pollen,” Leaphorn said. “Or carry the cornmeal to use for a blessing. But I don’t recognize that figure stitched into the leather. It looks a little like a baseball umpire with his chest protector. What kind of Indian was he? Hopi? Havasupai? Hualapai? Yuman? Could even be one of the Apache tribes. They all use medicine pouches.”

  “This cowboy, this Reno, said he didn’t know much about Indians. But he said this old fellow talked a lot about Masaw, or however you pronounce that kachina. Anyway, the Hopis know about him, and I think some of the Yuman people down in the canyon, too. And the Supai folks. Some of them call him Skeleton Man. Supposed to be the Guardian of the Underworld, and the spirit who greeted the first Hopis when they came up from the dark world they been living in. This spirit told them how to make their religious migrations and where to live when they finished doing that. And the big thing about him for the Hopis, this spirit taught them not to be afraid of death.”

  McGinnis paused, took another sip.

  “Getting hoarse,” he said. “That’s the most I’ve talked in a while. But anyway, he’s supposed to have let a bunch of Hopi elders look down into the underground and see where people who died were living comfortable and having a good time.”

  McGinnis stopped, examined the whiskey level in his glass. “What was that you asked me about?”

  “What was in the little pouch?”

  “Well, it wasn’t pollen. There was nothing blessed in this medicine pouch,” McGinnis said. He poured the contents out into his palm.

  A small round metal box emerged, worn-looking and with the legend Truly Sweet in red on its side. A snuff box, Leaphorn thought. Not much of that used on the reservation these days.

  McGinnis twisted off the lid and extracted a clear blue-white stone, marble-sized but not marble shape. He held it out between thumb and forefinger, rotating it in a beam of sunlight. The sunlight flashed through it, touching off glittering bursts of light.

  “When you pour your pollen out of your pouch,” McGinnis said, “then you’re pouring out a blessing. That’s the symbol of regerminating life. Of everything good and healthy and natural. Pour this little bastard out and you got the symbol of greed. It’s the sign of what folks cheat and steal and kill for. White women like to wear them to show other folks how rich they are.”

  He held it out in a beam of sunlight, admired it. “Pretty, ain’t it?”

  “Ah,” Leaphorn said, and smiled. “Mr. McGinnis, you’re starting to sound like an old-fashioned traditional Navajo.”

  “Not quite,” McGinnis said. “But remember, when that First Man spirit fella of yours, when he was talking about the witchcraft evil stuff he had in his medicine bundle, he called it ‘the way to make money.’ Always did think that was a good point we whites overlooked. I mean, when a fella had more stuff than he needed and was stacking more of it up with the people all around him hungry, that was a pretty good clue he had some of that greed sickness, and they collect these things to prove they’re better at being greedy than their friends.”

  With that, McGinnis produced a creaky old man’s chuckle and put the diamond back into the tin and the tin into the medicine pouch.

  “Somebody said money was the root of all evil,” McGinnis said. “Myself, I never did well enough here to get much of it.”

  “How about the diamond? Sounds like you wanted to make that work for you.”

  McGinnis reached out and dropped the pouch into Leaphorn’s hand, changing the subject. “Take another look at it. Up close. It’s pretty, all right. But nothing to go to jail for.”

  Leaphorn extracted the snuff can from the pouch, took out the diamond, and let the sunlight shine through it. He turned it, examined it.

  “Seems to have been shaped to fit into some sort of necklace. A pendant. You just gave him some groceries for it and got you his horse, too? I’d say you struck a pretty hard bargain,” he said. “Sounds to me like you were trying to practice ‘the way to make money.’”

  McGinnis looked defensive. “You’re making it sound worse than it was. My pickup was still running then. I gave him a ride into Page. Figured it was a fake, anyway. So did Reno.”

  Leaphorn looked surprised. “Well, now. Is that right? Then how come you estimated it at ten thousand dollars when that burglar stole it?”

  McGinnis laughed, peered at Leaphorn, raised his eyebrows. “Are we still having a friendly conversation here? Or are you back to being a cop?”

  “Let’s keep it friendly.”

  “Well, then. I told this young fella I wasn’t born yesterday and I knew all about those artificial diamonds. Zircons, I think they are. Did he really think I’d believe he was giving me a genuine diamond for a little food and a ride through the snowstorm? And he said, to tell the truth, he’d have been disappointed in me if I did. He said he always figured it was artificial.”

  “You say he admitted it was a fake?”

  McGinnis nodded. “Yeah. Reno said he figured that old fellow who gave it to him was either sort of crazy or a religious nut. Thought he might be trying to organize some sort of cult to the Skeleton Man down there.”

  “But you listed it as an expensive diamond in the burglary report. If I hadn’t known you so long, that would surprise me.”

  “Well, after the burglary I got to thinking about it, and I thought maybe I was just getting too cynical about things. Probably it really was a real diamond.” McGinnis peered at Leaphorn, nodded. “Yes,” he said. “A real perfect stone, too.”

  “What’s the rest of the story?” Leaphorn asked. “You found it again after you filed the burglary report? Or the burglar really took it but brought it back?”

  “Take your pick,” McGinnis said. “The insurance company cut my claim way down, anyway.”

  “How about an address for this Reno?”

  McGinnis laughed. “I said, ‘Where you from, son?’ and he said, ‘Reno. That’s why they call me that.’”

  Leaphorn examined the stone again. “I’ve seen zircon stones. This looks like a diamond.”

  “I think it is,” McGinnis said. “This cowboy, or whatever he was, said, ‘How could an old Indian down in the canyon get one of those?’ Laughed at the idea.” He pointed to the pouch in Leaphorn’s hand.

  “Take a look at that, Joe,” he said. “I guess that’s some sort of lizard stitched there into the leather. But I never saw one like it. And that fierce-looking insect on the other side—you reckon that’s got something to do with that fella’s religion?”

  “I’ll show it to Louisa,” Leaphorn said. “She’s down in the canyon now collecting oral-history stuff from the Havasupai people down there.”

  “Keep it, then,” McGinnis said. “You want to hear the story he told me?”

  “I think that’s what I came for,” Leaphorn said. “Remember, Cowboy Dashee’s cousin claims he got his diamond from an old man down in the canyon.”

  “I already told you some of this,” McGinnis said.

  “I’d like to hear it again. See if you tell it the same.”

  McGinnis nodded. “Maybe I left something out. Well, anyway, this Reno says it was raining and sleeting and he was leading his horse up one of those narrow slots runoff waters cut in the canyon cliffs, thinking maybe he could follow it all the way out to the surface. Up there a little ways he passed the mouth of one of those washes that drains into the canyon, and this old man was standing in it out of the weather. My cowboy rolls himself a cigarette, and one for the old man. The old man asks if he’s got a knife or a hatchet he’d be willing to swap for something. Reno shows him one of those big folding knives he was carrying in one of those belt holsters. The old man admires it. He goes back into his cave, and when he comes out again, he has a so
rt of fancy flat box. Looked like one a peddler might carry and it has a whole bunch of little snuff cans in it. He opens one of them and takes out a little gem and holds it out like he’s offering it to swap. Reno says no. The old man gets out a bigger one. Then Reno says he decided it might be worth as much as his old knife, and his girlfriend would go for that. So he makes the trade.”

  McGinnis shrugged, took another sip.

  “That’s it?”

  “End of story,” McGinnis said.

  “This Reno saw several diamonds in that box?”

  McGinnis pondered. “I guess so. Actually, I think he saw several of those little cans. He said something about a bunch of those little snuff cans. He said he guessed the old man used them to keep the diamonds safe.”

  “Where did this fancy box come from?”

  “Reno said he asked the old man that. The Indian fellow couldn’t speak English but he made airplane gestures, and sort of simulated a plane crash and everything falling down. And then a big fire.”

  Leaphorn considered this, with McGinnis watching.

  “Mr. McGinnis,” Leaphorn said. “Were you living here in, let’s see, 1956 I think it was?”

  McGinnis laughed. “I was waiting to see if you’re still as smart as you used to be,” he said. “You passed the test. It was summer, June, before the rains start. Up to then, it was the worst airline disaster in history. Couple of those big airlines collided.”

  “And it happened just about there,” Leaphorn said, pointing out the window toward the rim of Marble Canyon—not visible from here but no more than twenty miles away.

  McGinnis was grinning. “I got a bunch of clippings about that back with my stuff,” he said. “It was old news by the time I got out here, but people still talked about it. Two of the biggest airlines of the time ran together, tore the end off of one of them and the wing off the other one, and everything was all torn up and falling into the canyon. Bodies of a hundred and twenty-eight people showering down the cliffs. Most exciting thing that ever happened around here.”

  “And all their luggage, too,” Leaphorn said.

  “And you’re thinking that might have included a leather-covered peddler’s case with a lot of jewelry in it.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Leaphorn said.

  “Tell the truth, that same thought did occur to me, too,” McGinnis said. “And I didn’t think a jewelry drummer would be carrying zircons in such a fancy case.”

  6

  Almost everyone liked Bernadette Manuelito. Always had. Her teammates on the Shiprock High girls’ basketball team liked her. She was popular with her fellow botany students when she worked as an assistant in the university biology lab. Other recruits in the Navajo Police Department training program approved of her—and so did those she worked with during her short stint with the U.S. Border Patrol. Ask any of them why and they’d tell you Bernie was always cheerful, happy, laughing, brimming with good nature.

  But not today.

  Today, as she drove her old blue Toyota pickup west on U.S. 64 toward Shiprock en route to a dutiful call upon Hosteen Peshlakai, she was feeling anything but cheerful. Her mother had been difficult, full of those personal questions that are tough to answer. Was she absolutely sure about Jim Chee? Hadn’t she heard that his Slow Talking Dinee clan produced unreliable husbands? Did Chee still intend to become a medicine man, a singer? Shouldn’t she see about finding another job before getting married? Why was it Chee was still just a sergeant? And so forth. Finally, where were they going to live? Didn’t Bernie respect the traditions of the Dineh? Chee would—at least he should—be joining their family; Bernie wouldn’t be joining his. He should be coming to live with Bernie. Had she found them a place? So it went—a very stressful visit that dragged on until she agreed to drive down and have a talk with Hosteen Peshlakai, who as her mother’s elder brother was Bernie’s clan father. It was a promise Bernie had been happy to make, and not just to break off the maternal interrogation. She admired Peshlakai, loved him, too. A wonderful man.

  Wonderful late-summer morning, too, with a great white many-turreted castle of cumulus cloud building over the Carrizo Mountains and another potential rainstorm brewing over the Chuskas. Usually such dramatic beauty and the promise of blessed rain would have had Bernie happily humming one of her many memorized tunes. Today they merely reminded her of the drought-stricken look of the slopes where Towering House clan sheep herds grazed, and that the summer monsoon rains were too late to do much good, and that even these promising-looking clouds would probably drift in the wrong direction.

  She could blame this unusually negative mood on all those probing maternal inquiries, but it was the “missed call” message on her cell phone when she returned to the truck that made her start thinking hard, and painfully, about her mother’s questions.

  The caller was Jim Chee. The tone was strictly official—Sergeant Chee speaking with no hint of sentimental affection.

  “Bernie, I won’t be getting to your place today.” Then came a terse explanation about having to help Cowboy Dashee help Dashee’s cousin, which required going down into the Hopi Salt Shrine area in the Grand Canyon, where he “might have to spend a day or two.”

  At least, Bernie was thinking, he didn’t address me as Officer Manuelito. But there certainly was some wisdom in some of her mother’s questions. Would she, as her mother had wondered, be continuing her role as underling to a master by marrying her sergeant? Maybe mothers did know best. Bernie didn’t think so. Probably not. She wished that telephone call had included at least some hint of regret. Or of intimacy. And why didn’t he at least suggest she might want to come along?

  Perhaps Chee didn’t remember her chattering away one day about how exciting it was when the science teacher took her sixth-grade class on a field trip into the Canyon. Taught them about its geology and biology, the different kind of frogs, etc., how the heat reflected off south-facing cliffs made different species of plants grow, etc., how thrilling it had been. Forgetting that conversation would be some sort of an excuse for him not inviting her to go along. But that would mean he didn’t pay attention when she talked. That was just as bad. Maybe worse.

  At Shiprock, Bernie turned south onto old Highway 666, decided Peshlakai could wait. She would waste a minute, drive up the road along the San Juan and see if Chee’s car was parked by his mobile home by the riverbank. It probably wouldn’t be on this working day, but if he wasn’t home it would give her a chance to take a private look at his place.

  She parked where Chee’s car would have been, got out, leaned against the door, and studied the place. The trailer looked as dented, grimy, and decrepit as she remembered. But the windows were clean, she noticed, and she credited Jim with that since he was the only occupant. The axles, where the wheels would be replaced when time came to move, were covered with canvas to protect them from rain, rust, or whatever would damage such machinery. The little “pet flap” Chee had installed on the bottom of the entry door was still there even though the cat was long since gone.

  The flap revived a memory of how Chee’s mind worked. The cat, pregnant and abandoned by a tourist, had been chased up one of the trees shading his trailer. Chee had rescued it. While refusing to adopt it as a pet (which would violate nature’s sacred relationship between human and feline), he had arranged a feeding and watering place near his door, giving her some chance to survive until she learned rural ways while respecting her right to be a free and independent cat—and not a slave to his human species. After Cat, as Chee named it, barely escaped another coyote attack, he cut the hole in his door, attached the flap, and kept it open with the feeding dish just inside until Cat established her habit of coming in to eat, drink, or elude coyotes. But the arrangement remained strictly formal.

  About ten feet down aluminum-siding from the door, a metal patch had been taped to the wall, covering a hole. A deranged woman, thinking Chee was a Skinwalker and had witched her, had blasted the hole (just over the cot wher
e Chee slept) with her shotgun. Cat, ears attuned to stalking coyotes, heard the intruder coming and dived under the flap, awakening Chee and—as Chee told the story—saving his life.

  Remembering Chee telling his version of Cat’s heroism caused Bernadette Manuelito to produce her first smile of the day. She walked around the trailer, trotted up the four steps to the plank patio he’d attached to the river side of it, sat in his deck chair, and considered the view.

  The sound of the San Juan, flowing almost directly below, would be tamed to just a murmur by autumn. It had been a light-snow winter in the Southern Rockies. Thus the contribution being made by the Animas River upstream was minimal this season. The San Juan itself was still providing its final flow into the diversion channels of the Navajo Irrigation Project. The San Juan here—alas, all of this portion of the great Colorado Plateau—was thirstily awaiting the storms of winter. Or, even better, arrival of the rains of the summer’s already-tardy monsoon season.

  Well, maybe they were coming now. Last night’s TV weather forecast had suggested that the great bubble of high pressure over the high desert was finally breaking up. Bernie found herself relaxing, her normal optimism restoring itself, discounting her mother’s concerns about whether Jim Chee would be incurably a sergeant, remembering his smile, his tendency to break the white-man rules in favor of Navajo kindness, remembering his arm around her, his kiss. Ah, well, Bernie thought, she would continue her drive down to Coyote Canyon and up the canyon to Hosteen Peshlakai’s hogan. She was pretty sure that Peshlakai would tell her what she was hoping to hear—his wise Navajo version of “love conquers all.”