Free Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 03] by Listening Woman [txt] Page A

pencil-drawn map. “About where are we?” Leaphorn turned up the dash light and peered at it. “About here, ” he said. He was conscious of her thigh under his fingertip.
    Exactly, he knew, as she knew he would be. “About ten miles?”
    “About twenty.”
    “So we’ll be there pretty soon?”
    “No,” Leaphorn said, “we won’t.” He down-geared the carryall over a hump of stone. The carryall rolled into the shadow of an outcrop, making her reflection suddenly visible on the inside of the windshield. She was watching him, waiting for the answer to be expanded. “Why not?”
    “Because first we’re going to the Cigaret hogan. I’ll talk to Margaret Cigaret. Then we’ll decide whether to go to the Tso hogan.” In fact, there was no reason to reach the Cigaret place before dawn. He had intended to find it and then park for some sleep. “Decide?”
    “You’ll tell me what your business is. I’ll decide whether we go on from there.”
    “Look,” she said. “I’m sorry if I was rude back there. But you were rude, too. Why don’t we …” She paused. “What’s your name?”
    “Joe Leaphorn.”
    “Joe,” she said, “my name is Judy Simons, and my friends all call me Judy, and I don’t see why we can’t be friends.”
    “Reach into your purse, Miss. Simons, and let me see your driver’s license,” Leaphorn said. He pushed the handbag toward her. “I don’t have it with me,” she said. Leaphorn’s right hand fished deftly into the handbag, extracted a fat blue leather wallet. “Put that back.”
    Her voice was icy. “You don’t have any right to do that.” The driver’s license was in the first plastic cardholder. The face that stared from the square was the face of the woman beside him, the smile appealing even when directed at the license bureau camera. The name was Theodora Adams. Leaphorn flipped the wallet shut and pushed it back into the handbag. “Okay,” she said. “It’s none of your business, but I’ll tell you why I’m going to the Tso place.” The carryall tilted over the sloping stone. She clutched the door to keep from sliding down the seat against him. “But you’ll have to promise to take me there.” She waited for an answer, staring at him expectantly. Leaphorn said nothing. “I have a friend. A Navajo. He’s been having a lot of trouble.” Leaphorn glanced at her. Her smile disparaged her good Samaritan role. “You know. Getting his head together. So he decided to come home. And I decided I would come out and help him.” The voice stopped, the silence inviting comment.
    Leaphorn shifted again to cope with another steep slope. “What’s his name?”
    “Tso. He’s Hosteen Tso’s grandson. The old man wanted him to come to see him.”
    “Ah,” Leaphorn said. But was this grandson also Frederick Lynch? Was he Goldrims? Leaphorn was almost certain he was.
    “Joe,” she said. Her fingertip touched his leg. “You could drop me off at the Tso place and talk to Mrs. Cigaret on the way home. It won’t take any longer.”
    “I’ll think about it,” Leaphorn said. Mrs. Cigaret probably wasn’t home. And whatever Margaret Cigaret could tell him seemed trivial against the thought of confronting Goldrims- -of taking the man who had tried, so gleefully, to kill him. “Is he expecting you?”
    “Look,” she said. “You’re not going to take me there first. You’re not going to do anything for me. Why should I tell you anything about my business?”
    “We’ll go there first,” Leaphorn said.
    “But what’s the hurry? Does he know you’re coming?” She laughed.
    There was genuine merriment in the sound, causing Leaphorn to take his eyes off the track he was following to look at her. It was a hearty laugh, a sound full of happy memories. “Yes and no,” she said.
    “Or just yes. He knows.” She glanced at Leaphorn, her eyes still amused. “That’s like asking somebody if they know the sun’s going to come up. Of course it’s going to come