People of Darkness jlajc-4

by Tony Hillerman

  Give me the number you’re calling from. Wait right there. I’ll call the client and call you back. Be there.

  Tell him I won’t accept the fee, Colton had said. Tell him I’ll finish the job.

  You just wait, Boxholder said.

  Colton had waited. It was more than four hours before the telephone rang.

  Your man was checking into the hospital, Boxholder said. He’s in now. We’re to just keep an eye on things and when he dies, you get rid of the body. Get it right away and get rid of it.

  My God, Colton said. I baby-sit this guy until he dies?

  Not long, Boxholder said. He’s got a kind of cancer that works fast.

  Then why Colton let the question trail off.

  Maybe it doesn’t work fast enough, Boxholder said. Do you care?

  No, Colton said. I guess not.

  But it seemed curious then, and it seemed curious now, this business of getting rid of the body. Curious, but well done. The grave filled. The rotting mattress pulled across it and the trash scattered over the mattress. No one would ever find the body of Emerson Charley. Reporting time was noon tomorrow. Colton anticipated it happily. Boxholder would be pleased. Chapter Eleven

  Jim chee had rolled the two-hundred-dollar check from Ben Vines and the five one-hundred-dollar bills from the envelope Mrs. Vines had handed him into a tight cylinder. It was not much larger than a cigaret. Each night he dropped the tube into one of the boots beside his bed. Each morning, after he’d said his brief prayer of greeting to the dawning day, he shook the tube out of the boot and considered what to do with it. And each morning he finally stuck the tube back into his shirt pocket, thereby signaling that the matter remained undecided. On the fourth morning, Chee noticed that the edge of the check was frayed. He unrolled the tube, put check and cash side by side on his table, and stared at them.

  Two hundred dollars was too much to be offered for the little trouble he’d been involved in. Worse, why would Mrs. Vines offer him three thousand dollars to recover a box she had stolen herself? For those as inconceivably rich as the Vineses the money would be relatively meaningless. But his uncle had warned him against that kind of thinking.

  Don’t think a man don’t care about one goat because he’s got a thousand of ‘em, Hosteen Nakai would say. He’s got a thousand because he cares more about goats than he cares about his relatives. In other words, don’t expect the rich to be generous.

  And what would his uncle advise him to do about this particular money? Chee grinned, thinking about it. There’d be no advicenot directly. There’d be a hundred questions: Which one was lying? What motivated the large payments? Why did the Checkerboard Navajos think Vines was a witch? Or did they? How was the Charley outfit mixed into this affair? And when Chee could offer no answers, Hosteen Nakai would smile at him and remind him of what he had told Chee a long time ago. He’d told Chee he had to understand white people.

  Chee used his two forefingers to tap the stack of currency into a neat pile. Mrs. Vines had lied to him, at least a little. He picked up the check and looked at B. J. Vines’ bold signature. Vines’ story had been almost purely lies. Chee folded the check and slid it into the credit card pocket of his billfold. He put the currency in the cash compartment. He would talk to Tomas Charley and see what he could learn.

  Talking to Tomas Charley meant finding him. Becenti had remembered only that he lived somewhere beyond the eastern limits of the Checkerboardsomewhere near Mount Taylor. Chee made telephone calls. Shortly before noon he learned that Charley was employed by Kerrmac Nuclear Fuels. A quick call to the Kerrmac personnel office at Grants revealed that Charley was the driver of an ore loader, that he had the day off, that he had no telephone, the rural route address from the Grants post office matched the one the hospital had provideda mailbox on the road between Grants and San Mateo village.

  It was probably no more than thirty miles from Crownpoint as the raven flew, but for something with wheels it was around ninety. Chee told Officer Benny Yazzie, who was holding down the office, that he wouldn’t be back until evening.

  While he drove, Chee worked at memorizing the Night Chant. He switched on the tape recorder and ran the cassette forward to the place where the singer awakens the spirit of Talking God in the sacred mask. On Interstate 40, he drove in the slow lane, listening carefully. Truckers, wise to the ways of this stretch of highway, roared past him, safe in the knowledge that tribal police had no jurisdiction here. Passenger cars slowed to the legal fifty-five, eyeing him nervously. Chee ignored them all. He concentrated on the voice of his uncle, strong and sure, singing the words that Changing Woman had taught at the very creation of his people.

  Above the hills of evening, he stirs, he stirs.

  Covered with the pollen of evening, he stirs, he stirs.

  The Talking God stirs, he stirs amid the sunset.

  Along the trail of beauty, he stirs, he stirs.

  With beauty all around him, he stirs, he stirs.

  The recorder was on the seat beside him. Chee silenced Hosteen Nakai’s voice with a touch of the off button, concentrated a moment, then repeated the five statements, trying to reproduce cadence and notes as well as meaning. By the time he reached the Grants interchange, he was confident he had the entire sequence of mask songs fixed in his mind.

  Even among a people who placed high value on memory and who honed it in their children almost from birth, Chee’s talent was unusually strong. It had caused his family to think of him from a very early age as one who might become a singer. The Slow Talking Dinee had produced more famous singers than any of the other more than sixty Navajo clans. And the family of his mother had produced far more than its share. His uncle, the brother of his mother, was among the most prominent of these. He was Hosteen Frank Sam Nakai, who performed the Night Chant and the Enemy Way and key parts of several other curing ceremonials, and who sometimes taught ceremonialism at the Navajo Community College at Rough Rock. It was Hosteen Nakai who had chosen Jimmy Chee’s war name, which was Long Thinker. Thus his uncle was one of the very few who knew his real and secret identity. His uncle had named him, but when he had asked his uncle to teach him to be a singer, his uncle had at first refused.

  There is a first step which must be taken, Hosteen Nakai had said. Nothing important can happen before that. As a first step, Jimmy Chee must study the white man and the way of the white man. When he came to understand this white man’s world which surrounded the People, he must make a decision. Would he follow the white man’s way or would he be a Navajo?

  His uncle had driven his truck into Gallup and parked it on Railroad Avenue, where they could see the bars and watch the Navajos and the Zunis going in and out of them. Jimmy Chee remembered it very well. He remembered the woman who came out of the Turquoise Tavern and the man in the black reservation hat who followed her. They had walked unsteadily, both drunk. The woman had lost her balance and sat heavily on the dirty sidewalk, and the man had bent to help her. His hat had fallen and rolled into the gutter. Hosteen Nakai’s fierce eyes had watched all this.

  They cannot decide, he said. The way Changing Woman taught us is too hard for them, and they have lost its beauty. But they do not know the white man’s way. You have to decide. It is easy, now, to be a white man. You have gone to school and there are scholarships to go more, and jobs if you learn what the white man puts his value in.

  Jimmy Chee had said that he had already decided. He wanted to walk in beauty as a Navajo.

  You can’t decide until you understand the white man. They have much that we don’t have. To be a Navajo is to have no money, Hosteen Nakai had said. When you are older we will talk again. If you still wish it, I will begin teaching you something. But you must study the white man’s way.

  Chee had studied. After Shiprock High School, he had enrolled at the University of New Mexico. He’d studied anthropology, sociology, and American literature in class. Every waking moment he studied the way white men behaved. All four subjects fascinated him. Wh
en he came home during semester breaks to his mother’s place in the Chuska Mountains, Hosteen Nakai taught him the wisdom of the Dinee. Finally his uncle began teaching him the ritual songs that brought the People back from their sicknesses to walk in beauty. And Chee’s memory always served him well.

  On the road that leads from Grants into the back side of Ambrosia Lakes uranium fields, Chee returned the recorder to its case and concentrated on finding the home of Tomas Charley. He found it some thirty feet west of the narrow asphalt pavement. It was a two-room adobe to which someone had connected a wooden frame lean-to with a roof of red composition shingles. A 1962 Chevrolet Impala squatted on cinderblock supports in the front yard, all four of its wheels missing. Chee pulled his patrol car to a stop beside it and sat waiting. If someone was home, willing to receive a visitor, he would appear at the door. If he didn’t after a polite interval of waiting, Chee would knock.

  The front door opened and Chee could see someone looking at him through the screen. A child. Chee waited. No one else appeared. Chee climbed out of the carryall.

  Ya-tah, he said. Hello.

  Hello, the child said. It was a boy, about ten or twelve.

  I’m looking for Tomas Charley, Chee said.

  He went to get my mother, the boy said.

  Where’s that?

  They won’t be there, the boy said. She’s a weaver. My uncle was taking her to the rug auction.

  At Crownpoint? Chee asked. *

  Yeah, the boy said. She’s going to sell a bunch of rugs.

  Chee laughed. I’m not very lucky today, he said. That’s where I came from and now I’ll have to drive right back.

  You going to see my uncle there?

  If I can find him, Chee said. What’s he driving?

  A 1975 Ford pickup, the boy said. An F-150. Blue. If you see him, tell him maybe somebody wants to buy our old Chevy. Tell him a man came by right after he left, looking for him, the boy said.

  Sure, Chee said. Anything else?

  Maybe the man will see him there at the rug auction, the boy said. He’s a blond guy, wearing a yellow jacket. He was going to look for him there.

  Okay, Chee said. He looked at the car with more interest now. The exposed brake drums were brown with rust and the upholstery in the back seat hung down in dusty festoons. Tomas Charley’s nephew was overly optimistic. No one was going to drive all the way to Crownpoint to arrange to buy that junker. Chapter Twelve

  It was after sundown when Chee drove past the Tribal Police office. It was dark. On the other side of the village, perhaps two hundred assorted vehicles were parked at the Crownpoint elementary school, suggesting a good turnout for the November rug auction. Chee found a blue Ford 150 pickup. Parked next to it was a green-and-white Plymouth, like the one Charley’s nephew had said the would-be car buyer was driving. Chee checked it quickly. It was new, with less than three thousand miles on the odometer. A folder on the dashboard suggested it had been rented from the Albuquerque airport office of Hertz.

  Inside the school, the air was rich with a mlange of aromas. Chee identified the smells of cooking fry bread, floor wax, blackboard chalk, stewing mutton and red chili, of raw wool, of horses, and of humans. In the auditorium, perhaps a hundred potential buyers were wandering among the stacks of rugs on the display tables, inspecting the offerings and noting item numbers. At this hour, most of the crowd would be in the cafeteria, eating the traditional auction dinner of Navajo tacostortillas topped with a lethal combination of stewed mutton and chili. Chee stood just inside the auditorium entrance, methodically examining its inhabitants. He had little idea what Charley would look likejust Becenti’s sketchy description. His inspection was simply a matter of habit.

  Looking for someone?

  The voice came from beside him, from a young woman in a blue turtleneck sweater. The woman was small, the sweater large, and the face atop the folds of bulky cloth was unsmiling.

  Trying to find a man named Tomas Charley, Chee said. But I don’t know what he looks like.

  The woman’s face was oval, framed by soft blond hair. Her eyes were large, and blue, and intent on Chee. A pretty lady, and Chee recognized the look. He had seen it often at the University of New Mexicoand most often among Anglo coeds enrolled in Native American Studies courses. The courses attracted Anglo students, largely female, enjoying racial/ethnic guilt trips. Chee had concluded early that their interest was more in Indian males than in Indian mythology. Their eyes asked if you were really any different from the blond boys they had grown up with. Chee looked now into the eyes of the woman in the bulky blue turtleneck and detected the same question. Or thought he did. There was also something else. He smiled at her. Not knowing what he looks like makes it tougher to find him.

  Why not just go away and leave him alone? she asked. What are you hunting him for?

  Chee’s smile evaporated. I have a message from his nephew, he said. Somebody wants to buy his old car and

  Oh, the young woman said. She looked embarrassed. I guess I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I’m sorry. I don’t know him.

  I’ll just ask around, Chee said. Her distaste for police was another standard reaction Chee had learned to expect from the young Anglos the reservation seemed to attract. He suspected there was a federal agency somewhere assigned to teach social workers that all police were Cossacks and that Navajo police were the worst of all. Are you with the Bureau of Indian Affairs? he asked.

  No, she said. I’m helping the weavers’ cooperative. She gestured vaguely toward the checkin table, where two Navajo women were sorting through papers. But I teach school here. Fifth grade. English and social studies. The hostility was gone from her eyes now. The curiosity remained.

  I’m Jim Chee. He extended his hand. I’ve been assigned to the police station here. Fairly new here.

  I noticed your uniform, she said. She took his extended hand. Mary Landon, she said. I’m new, too. From Wisconsin, but I taught last spring at Laguna Pueblo school.

  How do you do, Chee said. Her hand was small and cool in his, and very quickly withdrawn.

  I have to get back to work, Mary Landon said, and she was gone.

  It took Chee about thirty minutes to establish that Tomas Charley was present at the auction and to get a description of the man. He might have done it faster had there been any sense of urgency. There wasn’t. Chee was more involved in getting acquainted with the occupants of his territory. Then Mary Landon was at his elbow again.

  That’s him, she said. Right over there. The red-and-black mackinaw and the black felt hat.

  Thanks, Chee said. Mary Landon still wasn’t smiling.

  Tomas Charley was leaning against the wall alone. He seemed to be watching someone in the crowd. Mary Landon said something else, but Chee didn’t hear it. He was studying Charley. He was a small mannot over five and a half feetand skinny. His face was bony, with small, deep-set eyes and a narrow forehead under the brim of his tipped-back hat. There was an alertness about him, a tension. The eyes shifted to Chee now, quickly past him, and back again. Becenti had said he was half crazy, a fanatic. The small black eyes had the look of those who see visions. Getting Tomas Charley to talk, Chee thought, would take a lot of care and a lot of luck.

  As it developed, it was no trouble at all. They talked a bit about the rug auction, and about the drought. Chee leaned against the wall beside the man, guiding the conversation. The auctioneer was on the stage now, a florid white man explaining the rules in a West Texas voice. Chee talked of Sheriff Gordo Sena, of jurisdiction problems between Navajo police and white sheriffs. The first rug was auctioned for $65. Bidding on the second one stuck at $110. The auctioneer put it aside and joked with the crowd about its stinginess. He moved the offer up to $155, and sold it.

  Chee talked of Mrs. Vines’ job offer, of what she’d said of the burglary, of his decision not to get involved in it, and of Vines’ withdrawing the offer. Tomas Charley said less and less.

  It’s no business of mine, Chee said. I don�
�t care about the burglar. He grinned at Charley. I know who went in Vines’ house and got that box. You know who went in. And Gordo Sena never is going to know. What I’d like to know is what was in that box.

  Charley said nothing. Chee waited. On the fifth rug, bidding was spirited. The auctioneer sold it for $240.

  I’ve got a curious mind, Chee said. Lots of things funny about Vines. Lots of things funny about Gordo Sena. Mrs. Vines, too.

  Tomas Charley glanced at him, then glanced away. He stood with his arms crossed in front of him. The fingers of his left hand, Chee noticed, tapped nervously against his right wrist.

  Why did Vines bury your grandfather there at his house? Chee asked. I wonder about that. And why did somebody try to kill your father? And why did Mrs. Vines want me to find Vines’ old box? And then not want me to find it? And why did Gordo Sena warn me to mind my own business?

  Chee asked the last question directly to Charley. The drumming fingers stopped. Charley pursed his lips.

  I don’t give a damn if you got into Vines’ house and took something, Chee said. None of my business. But what was in that box?

  Rocks, Tomas Charley said. Chunks of black rocks.

  It occurred to Chee that he hadn’t really thought about what the box might hold. But he hadn’t expected this. He considered it. No papers? he asked. Nothing with anything written on it?

  Mostly rocks, Charley said.

  Nothing else?

  Some medals, Charley said. Stuff from the war. Stuff like that. He shrugged.