a half up. Sound carries in the thin air. But nobody pays attention. Another mile or so straight up that road, it’s snowing. I have to be satisfied with who you are or we all drive up there and I come back alone, understand?”
“Yeah, I understand. What I don’t understand is what you want me to do about it. He wouldn’t recognize my face. I was—”
“Shot, it looks like,” he interrupted.
“Right. You want to take my fingerprints? Would that do it?”
“No. I have to ask you a question.”
But he didn’t ask one. Just stood there, as if waiting for the question to come to him. When I heard the cell phone trill in his breast pocket, I realized that maybe it would.
“We’re here,” he answered.
He listened for a second, then said: “He is not alone.”
More silence, then: “No.”
He listened for another minute, closed the phone, and slipped it back into his pocket.
“What was the name of your problem?” he asked me.
The Indian nodded his head slightly. And put the pistol back inside his coat. “I still have to go through your bags,” he said. “I can’t watch you and do that at the same time. But Indeh will. Just stay in one spot, and he won’t bother you.”
The pit moved a few steps toward us, but he stayed as relaxed as he’d been all along, the hair on the back of his neck nice and flat.
“Help yourself,” I said.
The Indian did a thorough job. Took out every single item and laid it on the ground, then checked the bags for seams and compartments before he went through the contents.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll let you repack your own stuff—I wouldn’t want to mess it up.”
When Gem and I were done, we all piled back in the Land Rover. The Indian turned it around and headed down the mountain.
The Land Rover’s compass told me we were heading north, and the highway signs said we were on I-25. The Sandia Mountains remained a looming presence on our right, but to the left was a vast open space, mostly flat except for some scattered mesas … and another mountain range off in the far distance. The Indian saw me looking in that direction. “The San Mateos,” he said.
As the Land Rover rolled past a landscape of sand and low scrub growth, we were buffeted by gusts of wind that vanished as suddenly as they appeared … then came again.
“That’s the biggest pit I’ve ever seen,” I said to the Indian, trying to engage him. “What is he, a bandog?”
“Indeh is not a pit bull,” he said, pride deep in his voice. “He is a purebred Perro de Presa Canario.”
“I never heard of—”
“They were originally bred in the Canary Islands, so some call them Canary dogs,” the Indian said, his tone reverent, as if reciting a tribal legend. “They were a cross between an indigenous breed, which is now extinct, and the English mastiff.”
“What were they bred
“For fighting,” he replied, contempt now ruling his voice. “And once dog-fighting was banned on the islands, it took some very dedicated people to save and preserve the breed.”
“He’s a real beauty,” I said. “How much does he weigh?”
“Right about one ten, depending on the season.”
“Why did you name him Indeh?” Gem asked, speaking for the first time, pronouncing the word exactly as the Indian had, accent on the second syllable. “Was it to honor your ancestors?”
The Indian half-turned in his seat to look at Gem. He nodded slowly. “You have a gift,” he told her. “His name is for my people. The Chiricahua Apache. Do you know of them?”
“I am ashamed to say I do not,” Gem answered, her head slightly bowed.
“They were the greatest guerrilla fighters America ever produced,” I said, quietly. “Battled the entire U.S. military to a draw for a dozen years. Cochise and Geronimo were Chiricahua Apaches.”
“You know our history?” the Indian asked me.
“Just tiny bits and pieces. Enough for my deepest respect.”
“You know this from reading?”
“I did time with a guy, Hiram. He was the one who told me.”
“He was Chiricahua?”
“Chickasaw.”
“Uh!” is all the Indian said. He held my eyes for a split second before he reached across the seat and scratched his Canary dog behind the ears.
The way I used to with Pansy. I …
Gem gently elbowed me in the ribs. I opened my eyes and looked into hers. She shook her head slightly … to tell me the Indian hadn’t noticed where I’d
