But the rain had almost finished drenching this part of the Grand Canyon and was drifting northeastward, leaving the Coconino Plateau to dump its tons of water across the Colorado on the Kaibab Plateau. Now the canyons draining the other rim of the great river would be roaring with flood.
Chee took a hard look at the torrent pouring out of the slot. In a few minutes he could buck it. In a few hours it would be a mere trickle. In a few days the stone floor of the slot would be dry again, collecting dust, waiting for the next male rain to flush it clean.
Ten minutes later, Chee was splashing wearily upstream against the diminishing flow. Calling for Bernie.
28
“I think it would be safe enough,” Bernie said. “The water’s not so deep now. Not running so fast. Let’s climb down and get out of here.”
Joanna Craig looked doubtful. “How about that man?” she asked. “He’s down there somewhere. And he has his pistol.”
“I think he’s gone,” Bernie said. “Gone forever. And we have your pistol, too.”
“I don’t know, though. What if he comes back?”
“If he comes back, we shoot him,” Bernie said. “Let’s get out of here before there’s more rain and it gets worse again.”
“He said he unloaded the pistol.”
“He said it, but he didn’t do it. I checked. It’s still loaded.”
“Do you know how to shoot it?”
“I’m a policewoman,” Bernie said, and was surprised to hear the pride in her voice. Noticing she hadn’t said “former policewoman.” She’d thought she’d gotten over that.
They eased their way down off the platform into the water flow. Not much more than ankle-deep now, but cold. No matter how hot the summer day, these male rains in the high country were always icy. If Jim was here to hear her, she’d be tempted to say “cold as a police sergeant’s heart.”
Even as she thought that, she heard his voice, and her name. The echoes off the slot’s cliffs were repeating it: “Bernie, Bernie, Bern, Ber…” But even in the echoes she recognized Jim’s voice.
“Jim!” she shouted. “We’re up here. We’re coming down the wash.”
That, too, immediately translated itself into a clamor of echoes. But he would have understood enough of it.
“Come on,” Bernie said, leading Joanna on a splashing run down the stream. With Bernie thinking she didn’t really know whether the blond man with the gun was actually gone forever. Thinking she should have warned Jim. Thinking it was too late for that now. Stopping to get Joanna’s pistol out of her pocket, just in case.
And when they started running again there was Jim Chee, splashing toward them.
“Bernie!” he shouted, still running. “Thank God.”
“Jim,” she said, gesturing toward Joanna, “this is Joanna Craig and—”
Their reunion was too violent for that sentence to be completed. He splashed into Bernie, partly due to enthusiasm, partly because he had lost his balance. The impact of a soggy man with a fairly dry woman was forceful enough to send out a spray. Then they were hugging each other with force and enthusiasm.
“Jim,” Bernie said, when she had recovered enough breath to say it. “Where have you been? I was afraid you—”
“I thought I had lost you, Bernie,” Chee blurted out. And, alas, added: “Why didn’t you wait for me? I thought I told you—” He was smart enough to end it there.
Bernie backed away a little. “Ms. Craig,” she said, “this is Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. He used to be my boss. Sometimes he thinks he still is.”
“How do you do,” Chee said to Joanna. “And we’re going to be married right away,” and he hugged Bernie again.
Bernie found herself talking directly into his left ear. “Jim, there’s a man in here. With a pistol. Claims to be a deputy from California. Big blond man.”
“He’s gone,” Chee said, still hugging Bernie. “Washed down the canyon out there, and on down into the Colorado.”
“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Chee,” Joanna said. “But if it’s safe now, we should get out of this water. Get someplace out in the open air.”
They started down the runoff flow, which was diminishing quickly, with Bernie talking fast about how she had gotten here, about the diamonds, about the arrival of Joanna and Chandler, about the dried, emaciated corpse, about Chandler taking the diamonds.
“That body washed by me,” Chee said. “And so did the blond man, carrying some sort of rope knotted on the ends. In fact, I think I might have been able to save him, but the rope got caught in that cat’s claw brush at the mouth of this slot. Instead of trying to get to where I could pull him to the bank, he was trying to jerk it loose.”
“That rope had all those diamonds in it,” Bernie said, and explained how Chandler had rigged two long wool hiker’s socks together to carry them.
“Well, they’re gone now,” Chee said. “Maybe they’ll sink to the bottom of the Colorado River, or wash all the way down to Lake Mead.”
“They were Ms. Craig’s diamonds,” Bernie said. “Or would have been. I saved one of them for Billy Tuve to use as evidence—if he needs it.”
She took the snuff can from her pocket, handed it to Chee. “Be careful, Jim. Don’t you drop it.”
Chee grinned at her. “Now, Bernie, you’re not supposed to talk to me like that until after I’m your husband.”
But he was careful with it, taking out the folder pouch, putting diamond in pouch, pouch in can, and can in his pocket.
The early twilight of the world outside the slot greeted them now. They ducked under the cat’s claw brush and walked out of the now-shallow flow to the cliff-side bank where Chee had waited.
“Free at last,” Bernie said, and they began their trek down the canyon to its confluence with the Colorado. The big canyon flow was also sharply diminished now. Chee finished his account of Dashee’s misfortune just as they reached the big river. There they heard a helicopter over the rim.
“That will be the one coming for Dashee,” Chee said. “I hope he’s smart enough to get them to wait a little while in case we show up.”
He was. On the flight back to the Park Service landing pad, Chee presented Dashee with the snuff can, pouch, and diamond, Billy Tuve’s evidence to get the charges against him dismissed.
“And don’t forget to tell Tuve to get the diamond he actually owns out of the court’s evidence room,” Chee said. “And after he uses the one Bernie salvaged from the Skeleton Man shrine as evidence to get his charge dropped, tell the sheriff to start looking for another suspect in that Zuni homicide, and then I guess he should give that diamond to Miss Craig, here.”
“Or maybe the insurance company will claim it,” Joanna said. “I’ll get my attorney, to decide how to handle that.”
“One more thing,” Chee said. “Tell Tuve not to try to pawn that twenty-thousand-buck diamond of his for twenty dollars again. It makes pawnshops suspicious.”
“And causes way too much trouble,” Bernie said.
“Well, I can think of one good thing that came out of all this,” Chee said. “Old Joe Leaphorn’s been retired long enough so those tales he likes to tell at those little Navajo Inn coffee meetings are getting awful stale. When he hears all the details, this one’s going to give him ammunition for another couple of years.”
At Park Service headquarters the party broke up. After much handshaking and good-byes, Joanna went off to the Grand Hotel for a hot bath and a long sleep. Cowboy was hauled away to the hospital for an ankle x-ray and a cast. And Chee arranged for a ride for Bernie and himself back to where his car was parked near the Salt Trail terminus on the Grand Canyon rim.
Total exhaustion won its battle over Bernie’s postadventure excitement very early on her drive homeward with Chee, but not before some loose ends had been dealt with. Chee had told her that if she was willing, he would pick her up tomorrow and they could scout for a house to buy, or a building lot if that seemed a better idea.
“You know, Jim,” said Bernie, “I went back to your mobile-home place yesterday—or was it the day before yesterday, I’m too tired to remember—and I think you’re right. I think we should live there at first. Then if we don’t like it, we can do something else.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Chee said.
“Well, I went by there and you weren’t home, so I walked around it. Sort of inspected. And it could be fixed up some.”
“You’re just saying this because you’re tired, and damp, and so sleepy you can hardly keep your eyes open. You just don’t feel up to renewing our old argument.”
Bernie laughed, sort of feebly. “No. It’s because I sat there on that log you like to sit on, and I watched the river go by, and the breeze blowing in the cottonwoods, and listened to all the birds that hang around there. And I just felt comfortable with it.”
“Well, how about that,” Chee said. And that was followed by a period of meditation.
“Bernie, I was just going to tell you that I’ve had a big ‘For Sale’ sign painted. Already have it put up on the highway, with an arrow pointing toward my place. And I called in a want ad to the advertising people at the Gallup Independent and the Farmington Times, giving my telephone number and—”
Bernie broke the Navajo “don’t interrupt” code.
“How did you describe it?”
“Well, I said, ‘Beautiful shady site overlooking San Juan River on the west edge of Shiprock with roomy, attractive, and comfortable mobile home trailer. Electric and phone lines installed.’”
Bernie laughed and reached over and hugged him.
“You didn’t mention water.”
“Well, it’s no big deal to haul your water in. There’s that storage tank there by the trailer, and the hose runs into the kitchen, and—”
“Another hose into the bathroom. Right?”
“Well, I didn’t mention the bathroom problem.”
Bernie didn’t answer that.
“I thought about trying to explain that arrangement, but they charge by the word. And I was afraid that might sort of, you know, diminish the appeal. What do you think?”
“I think it would diminish the appeal,” Bernie said, and yawned.
“I’ll try to work out a brief way to put it,” Chee said. “Do you have any suggestions?”
But, alas, Bernie was already asleep.
29
Captain Pinto returned to the table the Navajo Inn diner had come to reserve for Leaphorn and friends’ coffee chats. He carried a tray of doughnuts, one for each participant. He took the chocolate one for himself, said, “Pick the one you like,” and sat down.
“Joe,” he said. “You were going to tell us how that slow-moving love affair between Sergeant Chee and Bernie Manuelito came out of this. Did I miss anything?”
“Nothing interesting,” Captain Largo said.
“Well, I think you all know the happy ending,” Leaphorn said. “They had a fine traditional wedding at her mother’s place. But…”
“But what?” Pinto asked.
“Well, apparently Chee’s performance down in the canyon made such an impression on Bernie that she gave in, and they’re living in that little old house trailer Jim calls home.”
“I’ll bet that won’t last long,” Largo said. “That Manuelito girl, she’s something else.”
They tried their doughnuts, sipped coffee.
“Bernie heard from that Joanna Craig woman,” Leaphorn announced. “The one who was trying to recover her daddy’s arm bone. She said they’ve done the DNA test, and they have a perfect match. She told Bernie the lawyer who got control of the estate involved in this, he called her lawyer and was offering some sort of deal. And Joanna said she’d rather burn in hell than make a deal with that man.”
“Another thing,” Pinto said. “I heard Tuve told the Arizona State Police that Ms. Craig shot that private eye, that Sherman. How’d she get out of that?”
“The way I heard it, Sherman was maybe a little embarrassed getting shot by a woman with his own pistol, or maybe it was he didn’t want a lot of digging into what he was doing out there. Anyway, he insisted that it was an accident. Claimed he was fooling with the pistol and it went off.”
“What’s that all about?” said Largo. “I wasn’t in on that.”
“Don’t ask,” Pinto said. “It’s way too complicated to understand.”
“Well, how about the diamonds, then?” Largo said.
“Chee told me the Park Service and the Arizona people recovered the body of that Chandler fella. The Colorado River had washed him all the way down to the shallow end of Lake Mead. But no diamonds on him. Found the body of the Skeleton Man, too. But no identification. No more chance of doing that than they have of finding the diamonds.”
Joe Leaphorn, the legendary lieutenant, was smiling. “Just think. Million of dollars’ worth of diamonds on the riverbottom. Or Lake Mead. Maybe the pumps will suck some of them up. Maybe we’ll be hearing of diamonds being sprayed out of those wonderful Las Vegas fountains. Just think of the new set of legends this is going to produce.”
About the Author
Tony Hillerman is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America and has received its Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian’s Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for the best novel set in the West, and the Navajo Tribe’s Special Friend Award. He lives with his wife in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Also by Tony Hillerman
Fiction
The Sinister Pig
The Wailing Wind
Hunting Badger
The First Eagle
The Fallen Man
Finding Moon
Sacred Clowns
Coyote Waits
Talking God
A Thief of Time
Skinwalkers
The Ghostway
The Dark Wind
People of Darkness
Listening Woman
Dance Hall of the Dead
The Fly on the Wall
The Blessing Way
The Boy Who Made Dragonfly (for children)
Buster Misquite’s Cowboy Bond (for children)
Nonfiction
Seldom Disappointed
Hillerman Country
The Great Taos Bank Robbery
Rio Grande
New Mexico
The Spell of New Mexico
Indian Country
Talking Mysteries (with Ernie Bulous)
Kilroy Was There
The American Detective
The Best American Detective Stories of the Century
Credits
Cover design and illustration by Peter Thorpe
Copyright
SKELETON MAN. Copyright © 2004 by Tony Hillerman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2004 ISBN: 9780061801877
FIRST EDITION
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