'He thought it was kind of funny this Nakai knowing so much about Navajo Wolves.'
Leaphorn looked at Billy Nez sharply.
'Why Nakai? Did your uncle think this man was a Mexican?'
'Nakai, or Belacana, or something,' Billy Nez said. 'Anyhow my uncle said he didn't talk much good Navajo. Wanted to talk in English and my uncle don't talk that much, so he tried to talk in Spanish and this man didn't know that good.' Billy Nez paused. 'So I guess he wasn't a Nakai, come to think of it. Maybe a Ute or something.'
So, Leaphorn thought. No doubt now why the Hand Tremble had prescribed the Enemy Way instead of the Prostitution Way. Here's why they thought the witch was a foreigner-an enemy ghost to be exorcised. But the man in the Land-Rover, the man with the black hat, had been a Navajo. Leaphorn was certain of it.
Anyway, Billy Nez was saying, his uncle had said he didn't pay much attention to witches when he needed grass for his sheep and the sheep of his wife, and the man had driven away. But after that his uncle had known something was going to be wrong.
The first week they were back in the high country a young coyote had trailed his uncle, followed his horse all the way across the mesa one morning. That was the Coyote People telling him to watch out. The Coyote People caused a lot of trouble, Billy Nez said, but they were good about warning people.
A little bit after that, at night, his uncle heard the Wolf on top of his hogan. Some dirt had fallen down from the roof on the east side of the hogan (and now, Leaphorn thought, the other three compass points), and then on the south side, and then on the west side and then some dirt fell down on the north side. And then his uncle had known the Wolf would be looking down the smoke hole to see where they were and to blow some corpse powder down on them. But the uncle of Billy Nez was not afraid of a Wolf. He ran outside the hogan to chase him away but he didn't see anything for sure. Maybe he saw a dog running away but he wasn't sure.
'That would have been about the first part of May?' Leaphorn asked.
'A little bit before that,' Billy Nez said. The moon was in its last quarter two cycles so it would have been in the last part of April.'
Almost two weeks before Luis Horseman came home to die.
But the second time his uncle had seen the Wolf. It was daylight then, sundown but still daylight, and his uncle was bringing some of the sheep in for watering and he had thought something was watching him maybe. He looked up to the rim of the mesa and there was this witch standing there, looking at him. He was up on the mesa rim on the rocks with this wolf skin on him, but his uncle could tell it was a man. His uncle had said this witch had stood there looking at him and then made some medicine with his hands. His uncle had thought he might be calling to the other witches to come out of their cave and help. His uncle drove the sheep down to the hogan then and they sprinkled pollen and sang the songs from the Night Way. The songs against witches.
'What day was that?'
'That was three or four days after the first time on the roof,' Billy Nez said. 'I think it was three days.'
After that, his uncle had taken his .30-30 with him when he herded the sheep and he had left one of the boys at the hogan with his wife, in case the witch would come there while he was gone. And he thought he had better track this Wolf and kill it. He went up on the mesa where he had seen the Wolf, and he found tracks there. Some of them were big boot tracks and some were like a big dog. It was still the Season When the Thunder Sleeps and the ground was damp from the snow thaw and tracking was easy.
'My father is a brave man,' said the cousin of Billy Nez, and was instantly embarrassed by his rudeness. They smoked a moment in silence to let the incident pass. Then Billy Nez resumed his story.
Under the other slope of the mesa, his uncle had found tire tracks. The Wolf had driven up there and left his truck and then come back to it and driven away. After that the Wolf had started bothering the livestock. That first night, his uncle had heard the horses whinnying like they were scared and then he heard one of them screaming, and when he ran out there to where he had them penned, two of them had their tendons cut and his uncle had to kill them.
Leaphorn raised a hand in interruption. This surprised him. He had expected nothing so concrete.
'My nephew, did you see these horses?'
'I saw them. The Wolf must have done it with a hand ax. He cut both of the rear tendons on the mare and he hit the colt so hard that it broke his legbone.'
Good enough, thought Leaphorn. I've got another reason for finding this son of a bitch. The Tribal Council had a law against cruelty to animals. Besides, Leaphorn didn't like a man who would do that to a horse.
After that, Billy Nez continued, it was the sheep. His uncle lay out all night with his .30-30 but the Wolf didn't come back any more for a while. And then the moon came and one white night he heard some rifle shots and he ran out there and the witch had been shooting into where the flock was sleeping. Three of them were dead and he had to butcher some of the others that were hurt.
'After that my uncle talked about it with my aunt and they decided to bring those sheep out of there. They didn't think they could catch that witch and he might get them. So they came on down here.'
Leaphorn passed around his cigarette pack again.
'When was it he shot those sheep?'
'Night just like this,' Billy Nez said. He looked at the moon, which was two nights short of full phase.
'Be about twenty-six, twenty-seven days ago. One moon back.'
'And when did you go after the witch?' Leaphorn asked.
'Well, my uncle's father came over to our place with some of the other men of the outfit and they talked it over. And then they got that Hand Trembler in and he sang the hand-trembling songs and held his arm out over my uncle and it shook and shook. He said the reason he'd been having these dreams was this foreign witch was bothering him.'
Billy Nez took another deep drag on the cigarette.
