'No. I figured they were in there, so I headed back to my truck. They heard me and came running out. One of them had a gun, but no shooting.'
'How'd you know they were there?'
'Smelled coffee,' Chee said.
Largo didn't comment on that. 'Those sons-a-bitches,' he said.
'The other thing is that Miss Pauling told me she overheard a telephone call from some man to Gaines. He told Gaines he could have the cocaine back for five hundred thousand dollars and to be ready with the money at nine p.m. Friday and—'
'Where?'
'He didn't say. This isn't our case, so I didn't ask too many questions. I told Cowboy Dashee and I guess they'll go out and talk to her.'
'Heard they had a little fire out there,' Largo said. 'You know anything about that?'
'I'm the one who reported it,' Chee said. 'Bunch of tumbleweeds caught on fire.'
'Listen,' Largo said. 'I'm going to do some seeing about the way the dea is behaving. We're not going to put up with any more of that. And when I talk to people I'm going to tell them that I gave you strict orders to stay away from this drug case. I'm going to tell people I'm going to kick your ass right out of the Navajo Police if I hear just one little hint that you're screwing around in federal territory. I'm going to tell people you understand that perfectly. That you know I'll do it. No question about it. You know that if you get anywhere near that drug case, or anybody involved with it, you are instantly and permanently suspended. Fired. Out of work.'
Largo paused, allowing time for the speech to penetrate. 'Now,' he continued. 'You do understand that, don't you? You understand that when I hang up this telephone I am going to write a memo for the files which will show that for the third and final time Jim Chee was officially and formally notified that any involvement on his part in this investigation would result in his immediate termination, said memo also showing that Chee did understand and agree to these instructions. Now, you got all that?'
'I got it,' Chee said. 'Just one thing, though. Would you put in the memo what I'm supposed to be doing? Put down that you've assigned me to working on that windmill, and solving the Burnt Water burglary, and finding Joseph Musket, and identifying that John Doe case up on Black Mesa. Would you put all that down, too?'
Another long pause. Chee guessed that Largo had never intended to write any memo for the record. Now he was examining Chee's motives.
'Why?' Largo asked.
'Just to get it all in, all in one place on the record.'
'Okay,' Largo said.
'And I think we should ask the medical examiner's office in Flagstaff to check the New Mexico State Penitentiary and see if they can come up with any dental x-rays on Joseph Musket, and then check them against the x-rays they took of John Doe's teeth.'
'Wait a minute,' Largo said. 'You saw Musket alive after Doe's body was found.'
'I saw somebody,' Chee said. 'West said it was Musket.'
Another silence. 'Ah,' Largo said. 'Yes, indeed.'
'And about the windmill. I think I know who has been doing it, but it's nothing we're ever going to prove.' He told Largo about the spring, and the shrine, and about how old Taylor Sawkatewa had tacitly admitted being there the night the plane had crashed, when Deputy Sheriff Dashee and Chee had talked to him.
'Wait a minute,' Largo said. 'When was this visit? It was after I ordered you to stay away from that drug case.'
'I was working on the windmill,' Chee said. 'Sometimes you get more than you go after.'
'I notice you do,' Largo said grimly. 'I've got to have the paperwork done on all this.'
'Is tomorrow soon enough?'
'Just barely,' Largo said. 'What's wrong with coming in to work and doing it now?'
'I'm way down at Cameron,' Chee said. 'And I thought I'd spend the day seeing if I can catch us that Burnt Water burglar.'
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The first step toward what Chee called catching the Burnt Water burglar was ceremonial. In effect, Chee was going hunting. From their very beginnings, the Navajos had been a society of hunters. Like all hunting cultures, they approached the bloody, dangerous, and psychologically wounding business of killing one's fellow beings with elaborate care. Everything was done to minimize damage. The system had been devised in the dim, cold past, when the Dinees preyed with the wolves on the moose and caribou of the Arctic. And the first step of this system was the purification of the hunter.
There was no place anywhere near his trailer lot where Chee could build a sweat house. So he had found a place on the ridge behind Tuba City. He'd built it in a little arroyo, using one of the banks for a wall and erecting a sort of lean-to of rocks and juniper limbs. There was plenty of dead wood all around to fuel its fire pit. The necessary water Chee carried in from his truck in two collapsible plastic containers. By midmorning, the rocks were hot enough. Chee stripped to his Jockey shorts. He stood, facing east, and sang the first of the four sweat lodge songs:
