And slipping off from jail. Do that again and its your ass!
Begay shrugged. Stop to think about it, though, he said. And about the worst they can do to you for getting out of jail is get you back in again.
This is three times, Leaphorn said. The patrol car skidded around a flat turn, swayed, and straightened. Leaphorn jammed down on the accelerator.
That bird sure didn’t want a ticket, Begay said. He glanced at Leaphorn, grinning. Either that, or he just likes running over cops. I believe a man could learn to enjoy that.
They covered the last twenty miles to the Red Lake intersection in just under thirteen minutes and slid to a gravel-spraying stop on the shoulder beside Charley's patrol car.
What happened? Leaphorn shouted. Did he get past you?
Never got here, Charley said. He was a stocky man wearing a corporals stripes on the sleeves of his uniform shirt. He raised his eyebrows. Ain’t no place to turn off, he said. Its fifty-something miles back up there to the Kayenta turnoff He was past that when I started chasing him, Leaphorn interrupted. He must have pulled it off somewhere.
Begay laughed. That dog in the back. Maybe that was a Navajo Wolf.
Leaphorn didn’t say anything. He was spinning the car across the highway in a pursuit turn.
Them witches, they can fly, you know, Begay said. Reckon they could carry along a big car like that?
It took more than half an hour to find where the Mercedes had left the highway. It had pulled off the north shoulder on the up-slope of a hill leaving the roadbed and plowing through a thin growth of creosote bush. Leaphorn followed the track with his flashlight in one hand and his .38 in the other. Begay and Charley trotted along behind him Begay carrying Leaphorns 30-30. About fifty yards off the highway, the car had bottomed on an outcrop of sandstone. After that, its path was blotched with oil spurting from a broken pan.
Hell of a way to treat a car, Begay said.
They found it thirty yards away, rolled into a shallow arroyo out of sight from the highway.
Leaphorn studied it a moment in the beam of his flashlight. He walked up to it cautiously.
The drivers door was open. So was the trunk. The front seat was empty. So was the back seat. The front floorboards were littered with the odds and ends of a long trip gum wrappers, paper cups, the wrapper from a Lotaburger. Leaphorn picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled of onions and fried meat. He dropped it. The nearest Lotaburger stand he could remember was at Farmington about 175 miles east in New Mexico. The safety inspection sticker inside the windshield had been issued by the District of Columbia. It bore the name of Frederick Lynch, and a Silver Spring, Maryland, address. Leaphorn jotted it in his notebook. The car, he noticed, smelled of dog urine.
He didn’t leave nothing much back here, Chancy said. But here’s a muzzle for a dog. A big one.
I guess he went for a walk, Leaphorn said. He’s got a lot of room for that.
Thirty miles to a drink of water, Charley said. If you know where to find it.
Begay, Leaphorn said. Take a look in back and give me the license number.
As he said it, it occurred to Leaphorn that his bruised leg, no longer numb, was aching.
It also occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Begay since after they’d found the car.
Leaphorn scrambled out of the front seat and made a rapid survey of the landscape with the flashlight. There was Corporal Charley, still inspecting the back seat, and there was Leaphorns 30-30 leaning against the trunk of the Mercedes, with Leaphorns key ring hung on the barrel.
Leaphorn cupped his hands and shouted into the darkness: Begay, you dirty bastard!
Begay was out there, but he would be laughing too hard to answer.
» 3 «
T
he file clerk in the Tuba City subagency of the Navajo Tribal Police was slightly plump and extremely pretty. She deposited a yellow Manila folder and three brown accordion files on the captains desk, flashed Leaphorn a smile and departed with a swish of skirt.
You already owe me one favor, Captain Largo said. He picked up the yellow folder and peered into it.
This will make two, then, Leaphorn said.
If I do it, it will, Largo said. I may not be that dumb.
You’ll do it, Leaphorn said.
Largo ignored him. Here we have a little business that just came in today, Largo said from behind the folder. A discreet inquiry is needed into the welfare of a woman named Theodora Adams, who is believed to be at Short Mountain Trading Post. Somebody in the office of the Chairman of the Tribal Council would appreciate it if wed do a little quiet checking so he can pass on the word that all is well.
Leaphorn frowned. At Short Mountain? What would anyone Largo interrupted him. There’s an anthropological dig out there. Maybe she’s friendly with one of the diggers. Who knows? All I know is her daddy is a doctor in the Public Health Service and I guess he called somebody in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the BIA called somebody in . . .
Okay, Leaphorn said. She’s out in Indian country and daddies worried and would we look out after her right?
But discreetly, Largo said. That would save me a little work, if you’d take care of that. But it wont look like much of an excuse to ask Window Rock to let you off guarding those Boy Scouts. Largo handed Leaphorn the Manila folder and pulled the accordion files in front of him. Maybe there’s an excuse in these, he said. You can take your pick.
