The Dark Wind

West looked puzzled. He raised his eyebrows, looked from Dashee to Chee and back.

Dashee laughed. 'Just a joke,' he said. 'Chee was out there when it happened, so the dea was suspicious. They're suspicious of everybody. Including me, and you, and that fellow over there.' Dashee indicated a geriatric Hopi who was easing himself out of the front door with the help of an aluminum walker and a solicitous middle-aged woman. 'What was it Chee wanted to know?'

'There's a little shrine in that arroyo by the windmill,' Chee said. 'By a dried-up spring. Lots of pahos in it. Looks like somebody's taking care of it. You know anything about it?'

At the word 'shrine,' Cowboy's expression changed from joviality to neutrality. Cowboy was listed on the payroll of the Coconino County, Arizona, Sheriffs Department as Albert Dashee, Jr. He'd accumulated sixty hours credit at Northern Arizona University before saying to hell with it. But he was Angushtiyo, or 'Crow Boy,' to his family, a member of the Side Corn Clan, and a valuable man in the Kachina Society of his village of Shipaulovi. Chee was becoming a friend, but Crow Boy was Hopi and Chee Navajo, and shrines, any shrines, involved the Hopi religion.

'What do you want to know?' Cowboy asked.

'From where it is, you can see the windmill,' Chee said. 'Whoever tends it might have seen something.' He shrugged. 'Long shot. But I've got nothing else.'

'The pahos,' Cowboy said. 'Some of them new? Like somebody is taking care of it now?'

'I didn't look at them real close,' Chee said. 'I didn't want to touch anything.' He wanted Cowboy to know that. 'But I'd say some were old and some were new and somebody is taking care of it.'

Cowboy thought. 'It wouldn't be one of ours. I mean not Shipaulovi village. That's not our village land. I think that land down there belongs either to Walpi or to one of the kiva societies. I'll have to see what I can find out.'

As the Navajos saw it, the land down there was Navajo land, allotted to the family of Patricia Gishi. But this wasn't the time for renewing the old Joint Use arguments.

'Just a long shot,' Chee said. 'But who knows?'

'I'll ask around,' Cowboy repeated. 'Did you know they're fixing that windmill again today?' He grinned. 'You ready for that?'

Chee was not ready for that. It depressed him. The windmill would be vandalized again—as certain as fate. Chee knew it in his bones, and he knew there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening. Not until he understood what was happening. When the new vandalism happened it would be Cowboy's fault as much as his own, but Cowboy didn't seem to mind. Cowboy wouldn't have to stand in Captain Largo's office, and hear Captain Largo reading the indignant memo from the pertinent bureaucrat in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and have Largo's mild eyes examining him, with the unspoken question in them relative to his competence to keep a windmill safe.

'With the bia doing it, I thought it would be Christmas before they got it done,' Chee said. 'What the hell happened?'

'Something must have gone wrong,' West said.

'The bia got efficient. It happens every eight or ten years,' Cowboy said. 'Anyway, I saw a truck going in there. They said they had all the parts and they was fixing it today.'

'I think you can relax,' West said. 'They probably got the wrong parts.'

'You going to stake it out again?' Cowboy asked.

'I don't think that will work now,' Chee said. 'The plane crash screwed that up. Whoever it was learned I was out there. They'll make damn sure next time nobody's watching.'

'The vandal was out there the night the plane crashed?' West asked.

'Somebody was,' Chee said. 'I heard somebody climbing out of the wash. And then while I was busy with the crash, somebody screwed up the windmill again.'

'I didn't know that,' West said. 'You mean the vandal was right down there by the wreck? After it happened?'

'That's right,' Chee said. 'I'm surprised everybody didn't know that by now. They're handing the report around for everybody to read.' Chee told West and Cowboy about the lawyer and the sister of the pilot.

'They was in here yesterday morning, asking for directions,' West said. 'They wanted to find the airplane, and they wanted to find you.' West was frowning. 'You mean to tell me that fellow had read the police report?'

'That's not so unusual,' Cowboy said. 'Not if he is the lawyer for somebody involved. Lawyers do that all the time if there's something they want to know.'

'So he said he was the pilot's lawyer,' West said. 'What was his name?'

'Gaines,' Chee said.

'What did he want to know?' West asked.

'He wanted to know what happened.'

'Hell,' West said. 'Easy enough to see what happened. Fellow ran his airplane into a rock.'

Chee shrugged.

'He wanted to know more than that?' West persisted.

'He wanted to find the car. The one that drove away after the crash.'

'He figured it was still out there somewhere, then?'

'Seemed to,' Chee said. He wanted to change the subject. 'Either one of you heard any gossip about a witch