Like what? Leaphorn asked.
I have to get to the hogan of a man named Hosteen Tso, Theodora Adams said. I’ve found a man who knows how to get there, but my car wont go over that road. She glanced ruefully at the Corvette Stingray parked in the shade of the barn. Two young men were tinkering with it now. And then the full force of her eyes was again on Leaphorn. Its too low, she explained. The rocks hit the bottom.
You want me to take you to the Tso hogan?
Yes, she said. Her smile said please for her.
Why do you want to go?
The smile faded slightly. I have some business there.
With Hosteen Tso?
The smile left. Hosteen Tso is dead she said. You know that. You’re a policeman. Her eyes studied Leaphorns face, slightly hostile but mostly with frank, unabashed curiosity.
Leaphorn remembered suddenly when he had first seen blue eyes like that. He bad gone to the boarding school at Kayenta with his uncle and cousin and there had been a white woman there with blue eyes who had stared at him. He had thought, at first, that eyes as odd as that must be blind. That woman, too, had stared at him as if he were an interesting object. On that same day, he remembered, he had seen his first bearded man something to a Navajo boy as curious as a winged snake but somehow the unaccustomed rudeness of those pale eyes had affected him more. He had always remembered it. And the memory, now, affected his response.
Who’s your business with?
That’s none of your business, Theodora Adams said. She took a half step away from him, stopped, turned back. I’m sorry, she said. Of course its your business. You’re a policeman. She made a deprecating face, and shrugged. Its just that its something very private. Nothing to do with the law and I simply cant talk about it. She smiled again, plaintively. I’m sorry, she said.
Her expression told Leaphorn that the regret was genuine. She was a remarkably handsome girl, high-breasted, slender, dressed in white pants and a blue shirt which exactly matched the color of her eyes. She looked expensive, Leaphorn thought, and competent and assured. She also looked utterly out of place at Short Mountain Trading Post.
Do you know how to get to Tsos place?
That man was going to show me. She pointed to the two young men at her car, one under it now apparently inspecting front-end damage-and the other squatted beside him. But we couldn’t get that damned Stingray over the rocks. She paused, her eyes intent on Leaphorns. I was going to pay him twenty-five dollars, she said. The statement hung there, not an offer, not a bribe, simply a statement for Leaphorn to consider and make what he wanted of. He considered it, and found it neatly done. The girl was smart.
One thing I’ve got. Plenty of money, she said.
The Navajo Tribal Police have a regulation against picking up hitchhikers, Leaphorn said.
He turned it over in his mind. He would tell Largo his Theodora Adams was here and healthy. He would tell Largo where she wanted to go. He was almost sure Largo would tell him to take her to the Tso place, simply to find out what she wanted there. But maybe not.
By asking Largo to find out about the welfare of Theodora Adams, Window Rock had, in an unofficial, unspoken way, made him responsible for it. Under the circumstances, Largo might not want her taken into that back country.
Look, he said. How much do you know about Hosteen Tso?
I know somebody killed him, if that’s what you mean. Last spring.
And we don’t know who did it, Leaphorn said. So were interested in anybody who has business out there.
My business doesn’t have anything to do with crime, Theodora Adams said. She looked amused. It doesn’t have anything to do with the law, or with the police. Its just personal business. And if you’re not willing to help me, Ill find somebody who will. And with that, she walked across the yard and disappeared into the trading post.
One of the disadvantages of the Short Mountain Trading Post location was that it was impossible for short- wave radio communication. To contact Tuba City, Leaphorn had to drive out of the declivity made by the wash, going high enough up the mesa so that his reception wasn’t blanked out by the terrain. He found Captain Largo suitably surprised at the Adams woman’s aim of visiting the Tso hogan.
You want me to take her? Leaphorn asked. I’m going out to see the Cigarette woman and its sort of on the way. Same direction anyway.
No, Largo said. Just find out what the hell she’s doing.
I’m pretty sure she’s not going to tell me, Leaphorn said. She already told me it was none of our business.
You could bring her in here for questioning.
Could I? You recommending that?
The pause was brief Largo remembering the reason for his original interest in Theodora Adams. I guess not, he said. Not unless we have to. Handle it your own way. But don’t let anything happen to her.
The way Leaphorn had already decided to handle it would be to offer to drive Theodora Adams to the Tso hogan. If he did that there would be no conceivable way she could prevent him from learning why she had gone there. He would find the Adams woman and get on the road.
But when he got back to the trading post, it was after 10 P.M. and Theodora Adams was gone. So was a GMC pickup truck owned by a woman named Naomi Many Goats.
I saw her talking to Naomi Many Goats, McGinnis said. She came in here and got me to draw her a little map of how to get to the Tso place. And then she asked if you were headed back to Tuba City, and I told her you’d probably just gone off to do some radio talking because you was fixing to go out and talk to the Cigarette woman. So she got me to show her where the Cigarette hogan was on the map. Then she asked who she could hire to take
