The Dark Wind

The stew arrived. Miss Pauling stirred it absently. 'There was no reason for killing him,' she said, watching the spoon. 'They could have just pointed a gun at him and he would have given it to them with no trouble at all. He would have just thought it was funny.'

'I guess they didn't know that,' Chee said.

'He was always such a happy boy,' she said.

'Everything was fun for him. I'm five years older and when our mother left… You know how it is—I sort of took care of him until Dad remarried.'

Chee said nothing. He was wondering why it was so important for her to know who was to blame. There was a puzzle here to be solved, but after that, what did it matter?

'There was no reason to kill him,' she said. 'And whoever did it is going to suffer for it.' She said it with no particular emphasis, still moving the spoon mechanically through the well-stirred stew. 'They're not going to kill him and just walk away from it.'

'But sometimes they do,' Chee said. 'That's the way it is.'

'No,' she said. The tone was suddenly vehement. 'They won't get away with it. You understand that?'

'Not exactly,' Chee said.

'Do you understand 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'?'

'I've heard it,' Chee said.

'Don't you believe in justice? Don't you believe that things need to be evened up?'

Chee shrugged. 'Why not?' he said. As a matter of fact, the concept seemed as strange to him as the idea that someone with money would steal had seemed to Mrs. Musket. Someone who violated basic rules of behavior and harmed you was, by Navajo definition, 'out of control.' The 'dark wind' had entered him and destroyed his judgment. One avoided such persons, and worried about them, and was pleased if they were cured of this temporary insanity and returned again to hozro. But to Chee's Navajo mind, the idea of punishing them would be as insane as the original act. He understood it was a common attitude in the white culture, but he'd never before encountered it so directly.

'That's really what I want to talk to you about,' Miss Pauling said. 'If this Palanzer did it, I want to know it and I want to know where to find him. If somebody else was responsible, I want to know that.' She paused. 'I can pay you.'

Chee looked doubtful.

'I know you say you're not working on this. But you're the one who found out how he was killed. And you're the only one I know.'

'I tell you what I'll do,' Chee said. 'You go home. If I can find out whether Palanzer is the one, I'll call you and tell you. And then if I can find out where you could look for Palanzer, I'll let you know that, too.'

'That's all I can ask,' she said.

'Then you'll go home?'

'Gaines has the tickets,' she said. 'It was all so sudden. He called me at work, and told me about the crash and arranged to meet me. And he said he was Robert's lawyer and we should fly right out and see about it. So he took me home and I put some things in a bag and we went right out to the airport and all the money I have is just what was in my purse.'

'You have a credit card?' Chee asked. She nodded. 'Use that. I'll get you a ride to Flagstaff.'

Two men at a table near the cash register had been watching them. One was about thirty—a big man with long blond hair and small eyes under bushy blond eyebrows. The other, much older, had thin white hair and a suntanned face. His pin-striped three-piece suit looked out of place on Second Mesa.

'Do you know who Gaines is?' Chee asked.

'You mean besides being my brother's attorney? Well, I guess from what I hear that he must be somebody involved in this drug business. I guess that's the real reason he wanted me along.' She chuckled, without humor. 'To make him legitimate in dealing with people. Is that right?'

'So it would seem,' Chee said.

Cowboy Dashee came through the walkway, paused a moment by the cash register, spotted Chee, and came over.

'Saw you parked out there,' he said.

'This is Deputy Sheriff Albert Dashee,' Chee said. 'Miss Pauling is the sister of the pilot of that plane.'

Cowboy nodded. 'Everybody calls me Cowboy,' he said. He pulled a chair over from an adjoining table and sat down.

'Why don't you pull up a chair and join us?' Chee asked.

'You knpw this guy's a Navajo?' he asked Miss Pauling. 'Sometimes he tries to pass himself off as one of us.'

Miss Pauling managed a smile.

'What's new?' Chee asked.

'You talked to your office this afternoon?'

'No,' Chee said.

'You haven't heard about finding the car, or turning up the necklace?'

'Necklace?'