quickly. It was new, with less than three thousand miles on the odometer. A folder on the dashboard suggested it had been rented from the Albuquerque airport office of Hertz.
Inside the school, the air was rich with a melange of aromas. Chee identified the smells of cooking fry bread, floor wax, blackboard chalk, stewing mutton and red chili, of raw wool, of horses, and of humans. In the auditorium, perhaps a hundred potential buyers were wandering among the stacks of rugs on the display tables, inspecting the offerings and noting item numbers. At this hour, most of the crowd would be in the cafeteria, eating the traditional auction dinner of Navajo tacos – tortillas topped with a lethal combination of stewed mutton and chili. Chee stood just inside the auditorium entrance, methodically examining its inhabitants. He had little idea what Charley would look like-just Becenti’s sketchy description. His inspection was simply a matter of habit.
“Looking for someone?”
The voice came from beside him, from a young woman in a blue turtleneck sweater. The woman was small, the sweater large, and the face atop the folds of bulky cloth was unsmiling.
“Trying to find a man named Tomas Charley,” Chee said. “But I don’t know what he looks like.”
The woman’s face was oval, framed by soft blond hair. Her eyes were large, and blue, and intent on Chee. A pretty lady, and Chee recognized the look. He had seen it often at the University of New Mexico – and most often among Anglo coeds enrolled in Native American Studies courses. The courses attracted Anglo students, largely female, enjoying racial/ethnic guilt trips. Chee had concluded early that their interest was more in Indian males than in Indian mythology. Their eyes asked if you were really any different from the blond boys they had grown up with. Chee looked now into the eyes of the woman in the bulky blue turtleneck and detected the same question. Or thought he did. There was also something else. He smiled at her. “Not knowing what he looks like makes it tougher to find him.”
“Why not just go away and leave him alone?” she asked. “What are you hunting him for?”
Chee’s smile evaporated. “I have a message from his nephew,” he said. “Somebody wants to buy his old car and…”
“Oh,” the young woman said. She looked embarrassed. “I guess I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I’m sorry. I don’t know him.”
“I’ll just ask around,” Chee said. Her distaste for police was another standard reaction Chee had learned to expect from the young Anglos the reservation seemed to attract. He suspected there was a federal agency somewhere assigned to teach social workers that all police were Cossacks and that Navajo police were the worst of all. “Are you with the Bureau of Indian Affairs?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m helping the weavers’ cooperative.” She gestured vaguely toward the check-in table, where two Navajo women were sorting through papers. “But I teach school here. Fifth grade. English and social studies.” The hostility was gone from her eyes now. The curiosity remained.
“I’m Jim Chee.” He extended his hand. “I’ve been assigned to the police station here. Fairly new here.”
“I noticed your uniform,” she said. She took his extended hand. “Mary Landon,” she said. “I’m new, too. From Wisconsin, but I taught last spring at Laguna Pueblo school.”
“How do you do,” Chee said. Her hand was small and cool in his, and very quickly withdrawn.
“I have to get back to work,” Mary Landon said, and she was gone.
It took Chee about thirty minutes to establish that Tomas Charley was present at the auction and to get a description of the man. He might have done it faster had there been any sense of urgency. There wasn’t. Chee was more involved in getting acquainted with the occupants of his territory. Then Mary Landon was at his elbow again.
“That’s him,” she said. “Right over there. The red-and-black mackinaw and the black felt hat.”
“Thanks,” Chee said. Mary Landon still wasn’t smiling.
Tomas Charley was leaning against the wall alone. He seemed to be watching someone in the crowd. Mary Landon said something else, but Chee didn’t hear it. He was studying Charley. He was a small man – not over five and a half feet – and skinny. His face was bony, with small, deep-set eyes and a narrow forehead under the brim of his tipped-back hat. There was an alertness about him, a tension. The eyes shifted to Chee now, quickly past him, and back again. Becenti had said he was half crazy, a fanatic. The small black eyes had the took of those who see visions. Getting Tomas Charley to talk, Chee thought, would take a lot of care and a lot of luck.
As it developed, it was no trouble at all. They talked a bit about the rug auction, and about the drought. Chee leaned against the wall beside the man, guiding the conversation. The auctioneer was on the stage now, a florid white man explaining the rules in a West Texas voice. Chee talked of Sheriff Gordo Sena, of jurisdiction problems between Navajo police and white sheriffs. The first rug was auctioned for $65. Bidding on the second one stuck at $110. The auctioneer put it aside and joked with the crowd about its stinginess. He moved the offer up to $155, and sold it.
Chee talked of Mrs. Vines’ job offer, of what she’d said of the burglary, of his decision not to get involved in it, and of Vines’ withdrawing the offer. Tomas Charley said less and less.
“It’s no business of mine,” Chee said. “I don’t care about the burglar.” He grinned at Charley. “I know who went in Vines’ house and got that box You know who went in. And Gordo Sena never is going to know. What I’d like to know is what was in that box.”
Charley said nothing. Chee waited. On the fifth rug, bidding was spirited. The auctioneer sold it for $240.
“I’ve got a curious mind,” Chee said. “Lots of things funny about Vines. Lots of things funny about Gordo Sena. Mrs. Vines, too.”
Tomas Charley glanced at him, then glanced away. He stood with his arms crossed in front of him. The fingers of his left hand, Chee noticed, tapped nervously against his right wrist.
“Why did Vines bury your grandfather there at his house?” Chee asked. “I wonder about that. And why did somebody try to kill your father? And why did Mrs. Vines want me to find Vines’ old box? And then not want me to find it? And why did Gordo Sena warn me to mind my own business?”
Chee asked the last question directly to Charley. The drumming fingers stopped. Charley pursed his lips.
“I don’t give a damn if you got into Vines’ house and took something,” Chee said. “None of my business. But what was in that box?”
“Rocks,” Tomas Charley said. “Chunks of black rocks.”
It occurred to Chee that he hadn’t really thought about what the box might hold. But he hadn’t expected this. He considered it. “No papers?” he asked. “Nothing with anything written on it?”
“Mostly rocks,” Charley said.
“Nothing else?”
“Some medals,” Charley said. “Stuff from the war. Stuff like that.” He shrugged.
“Tell me everything that was in it.”
Charley looked surprised. “Well,” he said. “There’s a little card glued inside the lid. Got Vines’ name and address on it. Then there was three medals. One was the Purple Heart and the other two were like stars. One out of some kind of brown metal and the other one looked about the same, but it had a little silver star in the middle of it And there was a set of wings like paratroopers wear, and a shoulder patch with an eagle head on it and silver bars like lieutenants wear in the army.” Charley thought. “Photo-graphs. A picture of a girl, and a picture of a man and woman standing by an old car, and then a whole bunch of black rocks.” Charley stopped. The catalog was complete.
“Nothing else?” Chee asked. “What did you expect to find?”
Charley shrugged.
“Luck?” Chee asked.
Charley’s face tightened. “Vines was a witch,” he said. He didn’t use the Navajo word, which meant witch, or skinwalker, or Navajo Wolf. He used a Keresan expression – the word the people of Laguna and Acoma used to mean sorcerer.
“I heard that, too,” Chee said. “You think you’d find his medicine bundle?”
Charley glanced at Chee, then looked away. Time ticked past. The auctioneer began the rhythmic litany of another transaction.
“He was killing my father,” Charley said. “I wanted to turn the witching around. I wanted to find something for that.”
Chee didn’t say any of the obvious things. He didn’t say, “Your father is dying of cancer.” He didn’t say, “It’s not witchcraft; it’s something wrong with the way the cells grow.” He said nothing at all. Tomas Charley was sure his
