Tony Hillerman - Leaphorn & Chee 13 - The First Eagle Read online

  As soon as the four-day mourning period tradition decrees had ended, the pumper had killed the witches with his shotgun.

  He thought about that now as he chewed his toast. Eight black pins formed a cluster in the general vicinity of that north-reaching outcrop of Black Mesa that included Yells Back Butte. Why so many there? Probably because that area had twice been the source of bubonic plague cases and once of the deadly hantavirus. Witches offer an easy explanation for unexplained illnesses. To the north, Short Mountain and the Short Mountain Wash country had attracted another cluster of black pins. Leaphorn was pretty sure that was due to John McGinnis, operator of the Short Mountain Trading Post. Not that the pins meant more witch problems around Short Mountain. They represented McGinnis's remarkable talent as a collector and broadcaster of gossip. The old man had a special love for skinwalker tales, and his Navajo customers, knowing his weakness, brought him all the skinwalker sightings and witching reports they could collect. But any sort of gossip was good enough for the old man. Thinking that, Leaphorn reached for his new edition of the Navajo Communications Company telephone directory.

  The Short Mountain Trading Post number was not listed. He dialed the Short Mountain Chapter House. Was the trading post still operating? The woman lad picked up the telephone chuckled. "Well," she said, "I'd guess you'd say more or less."

  "Is John McGinnis still there? Still alive?"

  The chuckle became a laugh. "Oh, yes indeed," she said. "He's still going strong. Don't the bilagaana have a saying that only the good die young?"

  Joe Leaphorn finished his toast, put a message on his ring machine for Chee in case he did call, and drove his pickup out of Shiprock heading northwest across the Navaho Nation. He was feeling much more cheerful.

  The years that had passed since he'd visited Short Mountain hadn't changed it much-certainly not for the better. The parking area in front was still hard-packed clay, too dry and dense to encourage weeds. The old GMC truck he'd parked next to years ago still rested wheelless on blocks, slowly rusting away. The 1968 Chevy parked in the shade of a juniper at the corner of the sheep pens looked like the one McGinnis had always driven, and a faded sign nailed to the hay barn still proclaimed THIS STORE FOR SALE, INQUIRE WITHIN. But today the benches on the shady porch were empty, with drifts of trash under them. The windows looked even dustier than Leaphorn remembered. In fact, the trading post looked deserted, and the gusty breeze chasing tumbleweeds and dust past the porch added to the sense of desolation. Leaphorn had an uneasy feeling, tinged with sadness, that the woman at the chapter house was wrong. That even tough old John McGinnis had proved vulnerable to too much time and too many disappointments.

  The breeze was the product of a cloud Leaphorn had been watching build up over Black Mesa for the last twenty miles. It was too early in the summer to make a serious rain likely but-as bad as the road back to the highway was-even a shower could present a problem down in Short Mountain Wash. Leaphorn climbed out of his pickup to the rumble of thunder and hurried toward the store.

  John McGinnis appeared in the doorway, holding the screen door open, staring out at him with his shock of white hair blowing across his forehead and looking twenty pounds too thin for the overalls that engulfed him.

  "Be damned," McGinnis said. "Guess it's true what I heard about them finally getting you off the police force. Thought I had me a customer for a while. Didn't they let you keep the uniform?"

  "Ya'eeh te'h," Leaphorn said. "It's good to see you." And he meant it. That surprised him a little. Maybe, like McGinnis, the loneliness was beginning to get to him.

  "Well, dammit, come on in so I can get this door closed and keep the dirt from blowing in," McGinnis said. "And let me get you something to wet your whistle. You Navajos act like you're born in a barn."

  Leaphorn followed the old man through the musty darkness of the store, noticing that McGinnis was more stooped than he had remembered him, that he walked with a limp, that many of the shelves lining the walls were half-empty, that behind the dusty glass where McGinnis kept pawned jewelry very little was being offered, that the racks that once had displayed an array of the slightly gaudy rugs and saddle blankets that the Short Mountain weavers produced were now empty. Which will die first, Leaphorn wondered, the trading post or the trader?

  McGinnis ushered him into the back room-his living room, bedroom and kitchen-and waved him into a recliner upholstered with worn red velour. He transferred ice cubes from his refrigerator into a Coca-Cola glass, filled it from a two-liter Pepsi bottle, and handed it to Leaphorn. Then he collected a bourbon bottle and a plastic measuring cup from his kitchen table, seated himself on a rocking chair across from Leaphorn, and began carefully pouring himself a drink.

  "As I remember it," he said while he dribbled in the bourbon, "you don't drink hard liquor. If I'm wrong about that, you tell me and I'll get you something better than soda pop."

  "This is fine," Leaphorn said.

  McGinnis held the measuring cup up, examined it against the light from the dusty window, shook his head, and poured a few drops carefully back into the bottle. He inspected the level again, seemed satisfied, and took a sip.

  "You want to do a little visiting first?" McGinnis asked. "Or do you want to get right down to what you came here for?"

  "Either way," Leaphorn said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm retired now. Just a civilian. But you know that."

  "I heard it," McGinnis said. "I'd retire myself if I could find somebody stupid enough to buy this hellhole."

  "Is it keeping you pretty busy?" Leaphorn asked, trying to imagine anyone offering to buy the place. Even tougher trying to imagine McGinnis selling it if someone did. Where would the old man go? What would he do when he got there?

  McGinnis ignored the question. "Well," he said, "if you came by to get some gasoline, you're out of luck. The dealers charge me extra for hauling it way out here and I have to tack a little bit on to the price to pay for that. Just offered gasoline anyway to convenience these hard cases that still live around here. But they took to getting their tanks filled up when they get to Tuba or Page, so the gas I got hauled out to make it handy for 'em just sat there and evaporated. So to hell with 'em. I don't fool with it anymore."

  McGinnis had rattled that off in his scratchy whiskey voice-an explanation he'd given often enough to have it memorized. He looked at Leaphorn, seeking understanding.

  "Can't say I blame you," Leaphorn said.

  "Well, you oughtn't to. When the bastards would forget and let the gauge get down to empty, they'd come in, air up their tires, fill the radiator with my water, wash their windshield with my rags, and buy two gallons. Just enough to get 'em into one of them discount stations." Leaphorn shook his head, expressing disapproval.

  "And want credit for the gas," McGinnis said, and took another long, thirsty sip.

  "But I noticed driving in that you still have a tank up on your loading rack. With a hand pump on it. You keep that just for your own pickup?"

  McGinnis rocked a little while, considering the question. And probably wondering, Leaphorn thought, if Leaphorn had noticed that the old man's pickup was double-tanked, like most empty-country vehicles, and wouldn't need many refills.

  "Well, hell," McGinnis said. "You know how folks are. Come in here with a dry tank and seventy miles to a station, you got to have something for 'em."

  "I guess so," Leaphorn said.

  "If you haven't got any gas to give 'em, then they just hang around and waste your time gossiping. Then they want to use your telephone to get some kinfolks to come and bring 'em a can."

  He glowered at Leaphorn, took another sip of bourbon. "You ever know a Navajo to be in a hurry? You got 'em underfoot for hours. Drinking up your water and running you out of ice cubes."

  McGinnis's face was slightly pink-embarrassment caused by his admission of humanity. "So finally I just quit paying the bills and the telephone company cut me off. I figured keeping a little gasoline was cheaper."

  "Probably," Leaphorn said.

  McGinnis was glowering at him again, making sure that Leaphorn wouldn't suspect some socially responsible purpose in this decision.

  "What'd you come out here for anyway? You just got a lot of time to waste now you're not a cop?"

  "I wondered if you ever had any customers named Tijinney?"

  "Tijinney?" McGinnis looked thoughtful.

  "They had a place over in what used to be the Joint Use Reservation. Over by the northwest corner of Black Mesa. Right on the Navajo-Hopi border."

  "I didn't know there was any of that outfit left," McGinnis said. "Sickly bunch, as I remember it. Somebodyalways coming in here for me to take 'em to the doctor over at Tuba or the clinic at Many Farms. And they did a lot of business with old Margaret Cigaret and some of the other shamans, getting curing ceremonials done. They was always coming in here trying to get me to donate a sheep to help feed folks at the sings."

  "You remember that map I used to keep?" Leaphorn asked. "Where I'd record things I needed to remember? I looked at it this morning and I noticed I'd marked down a lot of skinwalker gossip over there where they lived. You think all that sickness would account for that?"

  "Sure," McGinnis said. "But I got a feeling I know what this is leading up to. That Kinsman boy the Hopi killed, wasn't that over there on the old Tijinney grazing lease?"

  "I think so," Leaphorn said.

  McGinnis was holding his measuring cup up to the light, squinting at the level. He poured in another ounce or two of bourbon. "Just think so'?" he said. "I heard the federals had that business all locked up. Didn't that young cop that used to work with you catch the man right when he did it? Caught him right in the act, the way I heard it."

  "You mean Jim Chee? Yeah, he caught a Hopi named Jano."

>   "So what are you working on out here?" McGinnis asked. "I know you ain't just visiting. Aren't you supposed to be retired? What're you up to? Working the other side?"

  Leaphorn shrugged. "I'm just trying to understand some things."

  "Well, now, is that a fact?" McGinnis said. "I was guessing you were trying to find some way to prove that Hopi boy didn't do the killing."

  "Why would you think that?"

  "Cowboy Dashee was in here just the other day. You remember Cowboy? Deputy with the sheriff's office?"

  "Sure."

  "Well, Cowboy says the Jano boy didn't do it. He says Chee got the wrong fella."

  Leaphorn shrugged, thinking that Jano was probably kinfolks with Dashee, or a member of his kiva. The Hopis lived in a much smaller world than the Navajos. "Did Cowboy tell you who was the right fella?"

  McGinnis had stopped rocking. He was staring at Leaphorn, looking puzzled.

  "I was guessing wrong, wasn't I? Are you going to tell me what you're up to?"

  "I am seeing if I can find out what happened to a young woman who worked for the Indian Health Service.

  She was checking on plague cases. Drove out of Tuba City more than a week ago and she still hasn't come back."

  McGinnis had been rocking, holding his measuring cup in his left hand, left elbow on the rocker's arm, his forearm moving just enough to compensate for the motion-keeping the bourbon from splashing, keeping the surface level. But he wasn't watching his drink. He was staring out the dusty window. Not out of it, Leaphorn realized. McGinnis was watching a medium-sized spider working on a web between the window frame and a high shelf. He stopped rocking, pushed himself creakily out of the chair. "Look at that," he said. "The sonsabitches are slow learners."

  He walked to the window, crumpled a handkerchief from his overalls pocket, chased the spider across the web with it, folded the cloth carefully around the insect, opened the window screen, and shook it out into the yard. Obviously the old man had a lot of practice capturing such insects. Leaphorn remembered once seeing McGinnis capture a wasp the same way, evicting it unharmed through the same window.

  McGinnis retrieved his drink and lowered himself, groaning, back into his chair.

  "Sonofabitch will be right back first time he sees the door open, "he said.

  "I've known people to just step on them," Leaphorn said, but he remembered his mother dealing with spiders in the same way.

  "I used to do that," McGinnis said. "Even had some bug spray. But you get older, and you look at 'em up close and you get to thinking about it. You get to thinking they got a right to live, too. They don't kill me. I don't kill them. You step on a beetle, it's like a little murder."

  "How about eating sheep?" Leaphorn asked.

  McGinnis was rocking again, ignoring him. "Very small murders, I guess you'd have to say. But one thing leads to another."

  Leaphorn sipped his Pepsi.

  "Sheep? I quit eating meat a while back," McGinnis said. "But you didn't drive all the way in here to talk about my diet. You want to talk about that Health Department girl that run off with their truck."

  "You hear anything about that?" Leaphorn asked.

  "Woman named Cathy something or other, wasn't it?" McGinnis said. "The Fleacatcher, the folks out here call her, because she collects the damned things. She was in here a time or two, asking questions. Wanted to get some gas once. Bought some soda pop, some crackers. Can of Spam, too. And it wasn't a truck, either, now I think of it. It was a Jeep. A black one."

  "About that black Jeep. The family's offering a thousand-dollar reward to anybody who finds it."

  McGinnis took another sip, savored it, stared out the window.

  "That don't sound like they think she eloped."

  "They don't," Leaphorn said. "They think somebody killed her. What sort of questions was she asking when she was in here?"

  "About sick folks. Where they might have got the fleas on 'em to get the plague. Did they have sheepdogs? Anybody notice prairie dogs dying? Or dead squirrels? Dead kangaroo rats?" McGinnis shrugged. "Strictly business, she was. Seemed like a mighty tough lady. No time for kidding around. Hard as nails. And I noticed when she was walking around, she was looking at the floor all the time. Looking for rat droppings. And that pissed me off some. And I said, 'Missy, what are you looking for back there behind the counter? You lose something?' And she said, 'I'm looking for mice manure.'" McGinnis produced a rusty laugh and slapped the arm of his rocker. "Came right out with it without a blink and kept right on looking. Quite a lady she is."

  "You heard anything about what might have happened to her?"

  McGinnis laughed, took another sip of his bourbon. "Sure," he said. "It gives folks something to talk about. Heard all kinds of things. Heard she might have run off with Krause-that fellow she works with." McGinnis chuckled. "That'd be like Golda Meir running off with Yasser Arafat. Heard she might have run off with another young man who was out here with her a time or two. Some sort of student scientist, I think he was. He seemed kind of strange to me."

  "Sounds like you don't think she and her boss got along."

  "They was in here just twice that I remember," McGinnis said. "First time they never said a word to each other. I guess that's all right if you're stuck in the same truck all day. Second time it was snarling and snapping. Hostile-like."

  "I'd heard she didn't like him," Leaphorn said.

  "It was mutual. He was paying for some stuff he got, and she walked past him out the door and he said 'Bitch.'" Loud enough for her to hear him?" If she was listening."

  "You think he might have knocked her on the head and dumped her somewhere?"

  "I figure him for being hell on rodents and fleas, things like that. Not humans," McGinnis said. He thought about that for a moment and chuckled again. "Of course, couple of my customers figure the skinwalkers got off with her."

  "What do you think of that?"

  "Not much," McGinnis said. "Skinwalkers get a lot of blame around here. Sheepdog dies. Car breaks down. Kid gets the chicken pox. Roof leaks. Skinwalkers get the blame."

  "I heard she had driven out toward Yells Back Butte to do some work out there," Leaphorn said. "There always seemed to be a lot of witching talk around there."

  "Lot of talk about that place," McGinnis said. "Had its own legend. Old Man Tijinney was supposed to be a witch. Had a bucket of silver dollars buried somewhere. A tub full, the way some told it. When the last of that outfit died off people dug holes all around out there. Some of the city kids didn't even respect the death hogan taboo. I heard they dug in there, too."

  "Find anything?"

  McGinnis shook his head, sipped his drink. "You ever run into that Dr. Woody fella out there? He comes in here a time or two just about every summer. Working on some sort of a rodent research project here and there, and I think he has some sort of setup near the butte. He was in three or four weeks back to get some stuff and telling me another skinwalker story. I think it's a kind of hobby of his. Collects them. Thinks they're funny."