Rock with Wings

by Anne Hillerman

  He looked up at her and typed: thinking.

  “Me, too. It’s making my brain hurt.”

  Leaphorn typed something else.

  “Chee? Oh, right, I haven’t given you the update.”

  She filled him in on the discovery of Samuel’s body, the man hiding in the bathroom, and Paul’s adventures setting up the tour company. She remembered what Chee had wanted her to ask. “Hold on a second. I left my backpack in the living room, and I need to show you something.”

  She located the backpack on the coffee table, then remembered her phone was in her pocket. She called up the photo Chee had sent her of the necklace.

  “Chee said he e-mailed this to you, but he wasn’t sure it came through. He asked me to get your opinion. Does it look familiar?”

  Leaphorn studied the photo, then tapped three times, his code for maybe.

  Why.

  “You know Chee. He doesn’t like loose ends.” She told Leaphorn the story of the bloody towels. “He’s been wondering why someone would abandon something so beautiful. It doesn’t sit right with him. Like me and those darn boxes of dirt.”

  She watched the hummingbirds for a few minutes more while Leaphorn typed. Not a message this time; he was calling up his e-mail. Chee had managed to send the Lieutenant the same photo.

  Leaphorn switched out of e-mail and typed. Will get back to Chee.

  “Have some tea first,” Louisa said when Bernie went to say goodbye. “It’s herbal. Good for you. Better than all that coffee you and Joe drink. I won’t keep you long, but you have to try this.”

  Louisa poured a cup for Bernie, one for the Lieutenant, and one for herself. “You know, when Chee gets back from Monument Valley, you both should come over. That would be fun. Joe and I will rent some of those old John Ford movies that were filmed out that way.”

  Bernie took a sip, then added some of the honey Louisa offered. It didn’t seem to help. If she drank half a cup, that would be polite enough, Bernie decided. Then she could be on her way.

  She glanced at Leaphorn, sitting in his familiar place. His eyes were closed, his tea untouched.

  On the drive to the office, Bernie puzzled over Miller without coming up with any ideas, then turned her thoughts to the Rotary speech. She’d finished a mental list of the major talking points when her phone rang. She put it on speaker.

  “Mr. Tso’s daughter called,” Largo said. “She says her dad asked her to call you. Says he remembered something else and wants to talk to you.”

  “About the car?”

  “I asked her that. She said he wouldn’t tell her. He said he could only talk to the police about it. He said it was important.”

  “OK. I’m near that turnoff, so I’ll stop and see him now.”

  “The daughter said to tell you that his grandson will be there, too.”

  Bernie hoped surprise would work in her favor with Aaron Torino.

  When she got there, the young man’s posture told her he hadn’t expected his grandfather to have company. She started over, introducing herself with her clans. Some young people reciprocated. Some looked puzzled. Some saw this link to tradition as old fashioned. She watched Aaron’s attitude shift from surprise to impatience. He gave her a hard look but didn’t speak. The man could use a refresher course in manners, she thought.

  Mr. Tso said, “Officer Manuelito is curious about the car out there. I told her you might know something.”

  Aaron was older than Bernie expected, probably mid-twenties, but he acted like a teenager. She wondered if he’d been arrested. He had the sort of arrogance she’d observed in ex-cons.

  “My grandson was bringing us some beans,” Mr. Tso said. “You have some, too.”

  “Only a small serving.” She didn’t want to hurt his feelings by refusing. And they couldn’t be as bad as Louisa’s tea or Mr. Tso’s ultra-sweet coffee, could they?

  Aaron disappeared into the house. She heard some noise, and then he came back to the doorway. “Gramps, you got any salt?”

  “It’s here on the porch.”

  Mr. Tso motioned Bernie to the wooden chair again. There was room on the bench next to him for Aaron, but the young man squatted on the porch step, balancing the plate on his lap. Bernie studied the pinto beans he’d given her on a plate with a chip in the rim. Then she tasted them, lukewarm and old. “I’m the officer who talked to you on the phone. I’m investigating the car fire, trying to find out if anyone out here saw anything. Your mother and your grandfather both suggested that I talk to you.”

  He tossed his head toward Mr. Tso. “Talk to him. He has nothing to do but pay attention to what happens out here.”

  “Your grandfather tells me he wasn’t feeling good that day. That he was in bed resting, and then he smelled something, and when he got up he saw the fire. Is that right, sir?”

  Mr. Tso gave a quick nod.

  Aaron took a bite of beans. Chewed. Swallowed. “You know a dude, a cop named Wheeler?”

  “Officer Wheeler. Yes.”

  “He’s been riding one of my friends pretty hard. If he lets up, I might remember something.”

  “I don’t have any control over what Officer Wheeler does. He told me there have been a bunch of car fires lately in Window Rock, too.”

  Aaron laughed. “That guy stays up with the news.”

  “He’s wondering if this one might be tied to those. He mentioned the idea of gang involvement.”

  Aaron took another bite of beans, added salt.

  Bernie heard Mr. Tso’s bench creak as he shifted his weight. Then he spoke. “I have been thinking about the questions you asked me about that fire.” He pressed his palms together. “Some young people might go out to where that car is. They drink, play loud music. My grandson, I tell him not to go there. I tell him to make those boys go somewhere else.”

  “That party was nothing,” Aaron said. “You make it sound like a big deal.”

  “Come up here and sit with me. Don’t make the lady talk to you down there on that step.”

  To her surprise, Aaron rose and joined Mr. Tso on the bench. “Grandfather, you didn’t tell me you’d been sick.”

  “It was because of what I saw up there on the ridge.” Mr. Tso continued. “It was in the late afternoon, after you brought food for the sheep. Sometimes it looked like a man. Then it was low, like a coyote. Then a man. I saw it before the car caught on fire, my grandson. That’s what I needed to tell the officer, too.” Mr. Tso turned his attention to the west, where a few high clouds caught the beginnings of the sunset color show. The day had started to cool a bit. “No more talk of that.”

  Aaron looked at his grandfather’s empty plate. “Would you like more food?”

  “No.” He handed the plate to Aaron. “Bring me some water.”

  Aaron headed inside, and Bernie followed. He turned to her. “You’re bothering an old man. I left before the fire, OK? I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Your grandfather invited me here, and he was glad for my company. I think he gets lonely.”

  “Lonely, so then he makes up stories. Do you think he is crazy?”

  “I think Hosteen Tso is a fine old gentleman. A warrior. What do you think?”

  Aaron looked at his empty plate. “I think he imagines things, maybe because he’s mostly here by himself. Sometimes he can’t sort out what happened last week from what happened a long time ago.”

  “Has he talked about a creature prowling on the ridge before?”

  “Yeah, he mentioned it the first time a few months ago. He said he’d seen something out there walking. He was shook up about it, too. He called it human and then said it could have been a big dog or a wolf. Or something else. He told me to be careful, and to be sure to leave before dark. He worries about me the same as he did when I was a kid.”

  The same way Bernie’s mother worried about her and her little sister, she thought. It didn’t matter how old she got, how good a cop she was, Mama would always envision her as a child whom she needed
to protect. She pulled her attention back to Aaron’s story.

  “A few days ago I brought him some groceries, wire to fix the fence, gasoline for his chain saw, other things he asked for. I hung here longer than usual to help because his hip and back hurt. He said he thought the pain came because of what he’d seen on the ridge.” Aaron didn’t use the word for the evil creatures either in English or, more descriptively, in Navajo, Bernie noticed.

  He walked to the stove and turned off the propane burner beneath the pot of beans. “It was the same story that he told out there on the porch. He tells those stories over and over, and I can’t tell if the same thing happened again. He comes up with stories he heard as a boy to make sense of things.”

  “The old stories are part of what makes us Navajo. They give us a framework. They’ve helped me when I have to do a job I’d rather not face.” Bernie put her plate on the counter next to the other two. “You asked me about his story, if I believe it. I’ve seen some things at night when I’ve been working alone that I don’t talk about. A lot of what happens leaves me puzzled, makes me wonder.”

  “Wonder what?” Aaron was giving her his full attention now.

  “Wonder what was going on, and if I’d seen something or just imagined it.”

  “I thought he was trying to scare me into staying out here with him when he told me what he saw before the car burned. I told him I couldn’t. I’ve got to get a job, and this place doesn’t even have a telephone.”

  “So we’re back to the car. What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing. I told you already. But let Wheeler know it’s not connected to the vehicles that burned near Window Rock, and to give those dudes a break. And tell him that my friend, the one he’s hassling, he’s not hanging with them anymore.”

  “What is your friend’s name?”

  “Vernon Vigil.”

  “I’ll mention it.”

  Aaron took a mug to the big red thermos that sat on the kitchen counter and pushed in the button to start the flow of water. “You’re a cop. You stay up with stuff. I need to ask you something. Do you know anything about a new solar project out here?”

  “It sounds great to me. A way to provide power for people like your grandfather, and the extra power would help other people. They’ve been experimenting with it a long time and the new technology seems dependable and safe.”

  “They want to put some of those collector things by this house. Someone has been talking to me and Mom about it, and we think it sounds like a good deal. Grandfather could get electricity as well as some money, but he won’t do it. He says the panels would spoil the view, and he wants to see Ship Rock as it was meant to be seen. He would rather live in the dark out here alone than change his mind.” Aaron sipped the water. “What do you think?”

  “I think solar power is great, but people have a right to say no.”

  “You sound like him. Mom and I are trying to persuade him to come and live with her in Gallup. That way he wouldn’t have to see the panels. Or he could stay here with lights and a refrigerator. Have shows on TV instead of just looking at the scenery and watching the dust settle.”

  Aaron poured a second cup of water. “Want some?”

  “No, I have to go.” She stood a little straighter. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me anything about that car?”

  “Nothing to say.”

  She went back to the porch and said good night to Mr. Tso.

  “Come back,” the old man said. “I have stories for you.”

  Aaron walked to the car with Bernie. “If you’re really a cop, how come you aren’t driving a police car instead of that thing?”

  Bernie gave her Toyota a pat on the hood. “No patrol unit because I’m off duty, on my way home. Any shortcuts back to Shiprock?”

  He looked at her vehicle again. “You’ve got enough clearance to make it.” He gave her directions that sounded simple. Straight, a right at the big fork, then a hard left before the old windmill. Watch for ruts.

  She found the big fork—at least, she assumed it was the right junction—easily enough, thinking about Aaron and how he stood to benefit if the burned car scared his grandfather into moving. She considered the connection between Roberta Tso and Miller. Decided that the stolen car report on her desk would have Miller’s contact information, and that he needed to answer some questions.

  It was getting dark, the last rays of the long-lasting June sunset bathing the landscape in dusty pink. She drove on, savoring the fading light and the cooling air. She avoided most of the teeth-shaking holes in the road as she searched for the windmill without luck. She prided herself on her sense of direction. How could she miss a windmill? Maybe Aaron had given her wrong directions. She switched on the headlights and decided to turn around if she didn’t find the windmill at the top of the next rise.

  Then, instead of the windmill, she saw an animal standing in the road, its eyes reflecting greenish gold in the fading light. In her years of cruising back roads on the reservation, beginning long before she was a legal driver, she’d encountered scores of coyotes. This one was huge, unlike any coyote she’d ever seen. She slowed down to let it move aside, but it held its ground. Goose bumps rose on her skin.

  Her logical mind tried to make sense of it. Maybe it was a hybrid, an animal born of a large coyote and an even larger dog. Maybe a wolf hybrid had escaped from that refuge near Ramah and trotted out this way.

  She slowed some more. The animal watched, challenging her to proceed. When she honked, it began to lope toward the car.

  Without hesitation, Bernie made a U-turn back to Mr. Tso’s place, glad that the dirt was hard-packed here and, for once, happy that there had been no rain to soften the soil. She glanced in her rearview mirror, wondering if it would chase her, but the animal had disappeared.

  She drove faster now that she knew the road, her brain repeating the soothing words of the old prayers. When she passed the house, Aaron’s truck was gone, the porch empty, the place dark.

  At the burned car, Bernie slowed down to study the ridge above. Its rocky profile cut into the blue-black of the early evening sky.

  16

  The People Mover sat in Paul’s yard like a prehistoric monster. Chee parked beside it. Next time someone wanted to make a horror movie, he thought, they should consider using all the dead cars and pickups in Navajoland. Have them come back to life and stalk their former owners, punishing them for neglect and abuse.

  His cousin rested under the ramada with a book: John Wayne’s Kitchen: Favorite Recipes of Monument Valley. A covered pot simmered over the wood fire.

  “Hey, is there a recipe for True Grits in there?” Chee said.

  “Haven’t gotten to that yet. I’m looking for something easy I can fix when I start having guests in the hogan. And when you abandon me, bro.”

  Chee sat next to him. At that level, he could smell something interesting coming from the pot. “An officer I work with told me you had some trouble with the People Mover.”

  “No worries. It came out all right. Ron Goodsprings took the customers, and I rode along as sort of his assistant. He said you’re working with his niece. Was she the one who told you?”

  Chee nodded. “I thought I had fixed the problem for you. I’ll take another look and see if I can figure out what went wrong.”

  Paul gave him his classic grin. “You don’t have to play mechanic. The one who helped me with the customers figured out what the problem was. All fixed.” He went back to the book. “You remember pigs in blankets?”

  “I sure do. Hot dogs with a biscuit on the outside. Your mother made them all the time, and we loved them. Is that what you’re cooking?”

  “Nope.”

  “So are you going to explain what went wrong with the beast?”

  “I was hoping not to, but here goes.” Paul put the book down so he could use his hands to tell the story. “The man who helped me had an idea that maybe the thing wouldn’t run because it was out of gas. He loaned me a
gas can and took me to the station after the tour. I bought gas. Then he gave me a ride back to the People Mover. I poured it in and—gr, grr, grrrr, grrrrrr, vroom! Off we went. That sucker uses a lot of gas, and the gauge doesn’t work.”

  Chee smiled. Another lesson in the futility of guilt and worry. “So what’s for dinner?”

  Paul handed Chee a rag. “Take a look.”

  Chee tripled the thickness of cloth against his skin and lifted the handle on the heavy pot. Inside was a concoction he couldn’t recall seeing before. “I give up.”

  “I call it Monument Valley Surprise. It’s an experiment. If we like it, I might serve it as dinner to the folks who come to stay here overnight. The recipe says to cook it another half hour.”

  As it turned out, half an hour wasn’t enough. But Paul declared it fit for visitors and had three helpings. In addition to a bit more cooking, Chee suggested fewer onions and chiles and more potatoes and meat.

  Chee slept poorly, troubled by images of Samuel’s body and upset at the idea that the man had hurt and embarrassed little Alisha, and probably other girls too. He missed Bernie and wondered if she missed him. When he finally did fall asleep, he dreamed that Darleen was in jail for stealing Melissa’s earrings.

  He awoke feeling unsettled, said his prayers with corn pollen, started a fire from last night’s embers, and cooked enough eggs for breakfast for two. Paul joined him, and they watched as morning brought the color back to the monuments.

  Chee took the smoother route back to the office. When he reached the pavement, he noticed the undelivered citations on the seat next to him, the original and the new citation, which included the addition of human remains to the illegal gravesite. He’d check in at the office and start the paperwork with Bahe that meant he could go home. He could deliver the citation on his way back to Paul’s. Or maybe Tsinnie could be the gofer. As he pushed the button to lower the window, he realized that he’d miss driving this unit—it worked better than the one he used at Shiprock. And he’d miss Bahe. He would recommend that the station look into luring Erdman away from the hotel, putting her to work for the Navajo police. She wasn’t Navajo, but you didn’t have to be to join the department. She was smart, she knew the area, and she had good instincts. Perhaps a woman would get along better with Tsinnie.