Free Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 14] by Hunting Badger (v1) [html] Page A

shaded his house trailer, so maybe no one was there
waiting to order him back to duty. Chee had time left on his leave.
He’d spent the morning making the long drive to the west slope of the
Chuska range and then into high country to the place where Hosteen
Frank Sam Nakai had always spent his summers tending his sheep, and
where he now spent them doing the long slide into death by lung cancer.
But Nakai wasn’t there. And neither was his wife, Blue Woman, nor their
truck.
    Chee was disappointed. He’d wanted to tell Nakai that he’d been
right about Janet Pete—that marriage with his beautiful, chic,
brilliant silver-spoon socialite lawyer would never work. Either she
would give up her ambitions, stay with him in
Dinetah
and be
miserable, or he’d take the long bitter step out of the Land Between
the Sacred Mountains and become a miserable success. In his gentle,
oblique way, Nakai had tried to show him that, and he wanted to tell
the man that he’d finally seen it for himself. Chee hung around for a
while, thinking Nakai would be back soon. Even with his cancer in one
of its periodic remissions, he wouldn’t be strong enough for any
extended travels. Certainly Nakai wouldn’t be strong enough to conduct
any of the curing ceremonials that his role as a
yataalii
required of him.
    When the sun dipped behind the thunderheads over Black Mesa on the
western horizon, Chee gave up and headed home. He would try again
tomorrow unless Captain Largo located him. If that happened, he’d be
spending what was left of his vacation trudging up and down canyons,
serving as live bait for three fellows armed with automatic rifles and
a demonstrated willingness to shoot cops.
    Now he put his binoculars back into their case, drove down the hill
and left his pickup behind a screen of junipers behind his trailer. A
note was fastened to his screen door with a bent paper clip.
    “Jim — The Captain says for you to report in right away.”
    Chee repinned it to the door and went in. The light on his telephone
answering machine was blinking. He sat, took off his boots, and punched
the answering-machine button.
    The voice was Cowboy Dashee’s:
    “Hey, Jim. I filled the sheriff in on us finding Old Man Timms’s
airplane. He called the feds, they got me on the phone, too. (Sound of
Cowboy chuckling.) The agent quizzing me didn’t want to believe it was
the same airplane, and I don’t blame him. I didn’t want to believe it
either. Anyway, they sent somebody down there to make sure us
indigenous people can tell an old L-17 from a zeppelin, and now the
same old manhunt circus is getting organized just like in ‘98. If you
want to save what’s left of your vacation, I’d recommend you keep a
long way from your office.”
    The next call was brief.
    “This is Captain Largo. Get your ass down here. The feds located
that damned airplane, and we’re going to be the beagles on one of their
fox hunts again.“ Largo, who normally sounded grouchy, sounded even
grouchier than usual.
    The third call was his insurance dealer telling him he needed to add
an uninsured motorists clause to his policy. The fourth and final one
was Officer Bernadette Manuelito.
    “Jim. I talked to Cowboy, and he told me what you did. And I want to
thank you for that. But I was at the hospital in Farmington this
morning, and they have Hosteen Nakai there. He’s very sick, and he told
me he needs to see you. I’m going to come by your place. It’s ah, it’s
almost six. I should be there by six-thirty or so.”
    Chee spent a moment considering what Bernie had said. Then he erased
calls one, three and four, leaving the Largo call (in case the captain
needed to think he hadn’t heard it). Why would Nakai be in the
hospital? It was hard to imagine that. He was dying of lung cancer, but
he would never, never want to die in a hospital. Nakai was an
ultra-traditional. A famous
yataalii
,
a shaman who sang the
Blessing Way, the Mountain Top Chant, the Night Way, and other