my questions about this man, Ill take you there. If you start lying, Ill take you back to. Short Mountain. And I know enough to tell when the lying starts.
He was there, then, she said. It wasn’t really a question. The girl hadn’t doubted he’d be there. But there was a new expectancy in her face something avid.
He was there, Leaphorn said. About six foot, black hair. That sound like the man you expected?
Yes, she said.
Who is he?
I’m going to raise hell about this, the girl said. You don’t have any right.
Okay, Leaphorn said. Do that. Who is he?
I told you who he is. Benjamin Tso.
What does he do?
Do? She laughed. You mean for a living? I don’t know.
You’re lying, Leaphorn said. Tell me, or we go back to Short Mountain.
He’s a priest, the girl said. A member of the Order of Friars Minor . . . a Franciscan. Her voice was resentful, perhaps at the information, perhaps at having been forced to reveal it.
Whats he doing here?
Resting. He was tired. He had a long trip.
From where?
From Rome.
Italy?
Italy. She laughed. That’s where Rome is.
Leaphorn turned off the ignition. We stop playing these games, he said. If you want to see this man, you’re going to tell me about it.
Oh, well, she said. What the hell? And having decided to talk, she talked freely, enjoying the narration.
She had met Tso in Rome. He had been sent there to complete his studies at the Vatican’s American College and at the Franciscan seminary outside the city. She had gone with her father and had met Tso through the brother of her college roommate, who was also about to be ordained. Having met him, she stayed behind when her father returned to Washington.
The bottom line is were going to get married. To skip a little, he came out here to see about his grandfather and I came out to join him.
You’ve skipped a lot, Leaphorn thought. You’ve skipped the part about seeing something you cant have, and wanting it, and going after it. And the Navajo, a product of the hogan life, of the mission boarding school, and then of the seminary, seeing something he had never seen before, and not knowing how to handle it. It would have been strictly no contest, Leaphorn guessed. He remembered Tsos rapt face staring up at the elevated bread, and felt unreasonably angry. He wanted to ask the girl how she had let Tso struggle this far off the hook.
Instead he said, He giving up being a priest?
Yes, she said. Priests cant marry.
What brought him here?
Oh, he got a letter from his grandfather, and then, as you know, his grandfather got killed.
So he said he had to come and see about it.
And what brings you here?
She glanced at him, eyes hostile. He said to join him here.
Like hell he did, Leaphorn thought. He ran and you tracked him down. He started the carryall again and concentrated for a moment on steering. He doubted if he would learn anything more from Theodora Adams. Probably she and Tso were simply what they seemed to be. Rabbit and coyote. Probably Tso was simply a priest who had been inspired to escape from this woman by some instinct for self-preservation. To save what?
Himself? His honor? His soul? And probably Theodora Adams was the woman who has everything pursuing the man made desirable because he is taboo.
Or perhaps Father Tso was Goldrims. If he was, Theodora Adams’s role would be something more complex than sexual infatuation. But whatever her role, Leaphorn felt she was too tough and too shrewd to reveal more than she wanted to reveal.
The carryall jolted and groaned over the sloping track beneath the mesa and rolled across the expanse of packed earth that served as the yard of Hosteen Tso. The girl was out of the vehicle before it stopped rolling, running toward the hogan shouting, Bennie, Bennie. She pulled open the plank door and disappeared inside. Leaphorn waited a moment, watching for the dog. There was no trace of it. He stepped out of the carryall as the girl emerged from the hogan.
You said he was here, she said. She looked angry and disappointed.
He was, Leaphorn said. In fact, he is. Tso had emerged from the screen of junipers west of the hogan and was walking slowly toward them, looking puzzled. The morning sun was in his eyes and he had not yet identified the girl. Then he did. He stopped, stunned.
Theodora Adams noticed it, too.
Bennie, she said. I tried to stay away. Her voice broke. I just couldn’t.
I see, Tso said. His eyes were on her face. Was it a good trip?
