Free The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman Page A

place,” Leaphorn said. “Wouldn’t take long. Unless you have something else to do.”
    Garcia glanced at him, looking surprised. “You want to do that?”
    “I’d like to see if she ever got her pinyon sap back. Or found out who stole it. Or anything.”
    “Well, why not? That would probably be as useful as anything we learned here.”
    They came to a culvert bridging the borrow ditch beside the county road. Up the hillside beyond it was an old-fashioned dirt-topped hogan; a zinc water tank sat atop a platform beside it. Behind it was a slab-sided out-78
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    house, a rusty-looking camping trailer, and a sheep pen with a loading ramp. Garcia slowed.
    “That it?”
    “Yep,” Leaphorn said.
    “Probably nobody home,” Garcia said. “I don’t see any vehicles.”
    “There’s that old tire hanging on the gate post though,” Leaphorn said, pointing. “Most people out here, they take that off when they leave the hogan.”
    “Yeah. Some of ’em still do,” Garcia said. “But that old custom is sort of dying out. Tells the neighbors it’s safe to come in and see what they can steal.” Leaphorn frowned, and Garcia noticed it.
    “Didn’t mean that as an insult,” Garcia said.
    “Trouble is, it’s true.”
    “Well, times change,” Garcia said, looking apologetic.
    “It ain’t like it used to be.”
    But it was at the Peshlakai place. As they drove up the track and stopped east of the hogan, a woman pulled back the carpet hanging across the doorway and stepped out.
    Leaphorn got out of the car, nodded to her, said, “Ya eeh teh.”
    She acknowledged that, nodded, looked surprised, and laughed. “Hey,” she said. “Are you that policeman that made Grandma so mad years and years ago?” Leaphorn grinned. “I guess so, and I came to apologize. Is she here?”
    “No, no,” the girl said. “She’s gone off to Austin Sam’s place. He’s one of her grandsons, and she’s taking care of one of her great-grandchildren. She does that for him some when Austin is off doing political cam-THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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    paigning. Running for the Tribal Council seat in his district.”
    Leaphorn considered that a moment, wondering how old Grandma Peshlakai would be now. In her nineties at least, he was thinking, and still working.
    “I’m sorry I missed her. Please tell her I said, Ya eeh teh .”
    This very mature woman, he was thinking, must be Elandra, who had been a lot younger when he’d first met her.
    “Elandra, this man here is Sergeant Garcia, a deputy with the sheriff’s office down in Flagstaff.” The glad-to-meet-yous were exchanged, and Elandra, looking puzzled, held back the doorway carpet and invited them in. “I don’t have anything ready to offer you,” she said, “but I could make some coffee.” Leaphorn was shaking his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “I just came by to see your grandmother.” He paused, looking embarrassed. “And I was wondering if anything new had come up in that burglary you had.” Elandra’s eyes widened. “Lots of years gone by since then. Lot of things happened.”
    “Long ago as it was, I always felt sorry that I couldn’t stay on that case. I got called away by my boss because the federals wanted help on that fire at the Totter store.” Elandra’s expression made it clear that she remembered. She laughed.
    “I’ll tell her you told her ‘ ya eeh teh ,’ but telling Grandma to ‘be cool’ isn’t going to do it. She’s still mad at you for running off without finding that pinyon sap.” Then she had another sudden memory. “In fact, long time ago when she was going off to help with Austin’s kids, she 80
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    said you had told her you would come back sometime to deal with that stolen sap problem, and she left something for me to give you if you did. Just a minute. I’ll see if I can find it.”
    It was closer to five minutes later when Elandra emerged from the bedroom. She was carrying a sheet of notebook paper folded