The expression of Bentwoman's Daughter did not change. Perhaps, Chee thought belatedly, her skepticism was not of Chee, the rumpled stranger, but of Chee, the Navajo Policeman. The relationship between the Dinee and their police force was no more universally serene than in any other society.
'You should talk to Bentwoman,' the old woman said.
Chee said nothing. Bentwoman? When he'd seen the age of Bentwoman's Daughter, he'd presumed that Bentwoman would be dead. Chee was not good at guessing age, particularly of women. But she must be eighty. Perhaps older.
Bentwoman's Daughter was waiting, her wrinkled hands folded motionless in the folds of her voluminous skirt.
'If she will talk to me,' Chee said. 'Yes. That would be good.'
'I will see,' said Bentwoman's Daughter. She raised herself painfully from her chair and hobbled past the heavy blanket that hung over the doorway leading to the rear of the house.
Chee examined the room. The blanket was a black-and-gray design popular among weavers of the Coyote Canyon area and looked very old. The only furniture was the worn overstuffed sofa where the old woman had put him, a rocking chair, and a plastic-topped dinette table. A calendar hung on the wall opposite him—a color print of the gold of autumn cottonwoods in Canyon de Chelly issued by a Flagstaff funeral home. The calendar page was August, and seven years old. Two cases of Pepsi-Cola bottles were stacked against the wall and, beside them, three five-gallon jerricans that Chee guessed held water. A kerosene lamp, its glass chimney smudged with soot, stood on the table. Obviously, such amenities as water, gaslines, electricity, and telephone service had not yet been provided by whoever had sold this addition.
Chee heard the voice of Bentwoman's Daughter, loud and patient, explaining the visitor to someone who apparently was deaf, saying that he wanted to see 'Ashie Begay's granddaughter.' So she's been here, Chee thought. Almost certainly, she's been here. And then the blanket curtain pushed aside and a wheelchair emerged.
The woman in the chair was blind. Chee saw that instantly. Her eyes were open, aimed past him at the front door, but they had the clouded look of the glaucoma that takes such a heavy toll among the old of his people. Blind, and partially deaf, and immensely old. Her hair was a cloud of fluffy white, and her face, toothless, had collapsed upon itself into a mass of wrinkles. This was Bentwoman.
Chee stood and introduced himself again, talking slowly and very loud, and making sure he followed all of the traditional courtesies his mother had taught him. With that out of the way, he paused a moment for a response. None came.
'Do I speak clearly enough, my grandmother?' he asked. The old woman nodded, a barely perceptible motion.
'I will tell you then why I have come here,' Chee said. He started at the beginning, with going to the hogan of Ashie Begay, and what he found there, and of meeting Margaret Billy Sosi there later, and what Margaret had told him, and what he had forgotten to ask her. Finally he was finished.
Bentwoman was motionless. She's gone to sleep, Chee thought. This is going to take time.
Bentwoman's Daughter stood behind the chair, holding its handles. She sighed.
'The girl must go home,' Bentwoman said in Navajo. Her voice was slow and faint. 'There is nothing for her here but trouble. She must go back to her family and live among them. She must live in Dinetah.'
'I will take her back to her people,' Chee said. 'Can you help me find her?'
'Stay here,' Bentwoman said. 'She will come.'
Chee glanced at Bentwoman's Daughter, inquiring.
'She took the bus,' Bentwoman's Daughter said. 'She went into the city when the sun came up. She said she would be back before it gets dark.'
'It's getting dark now,' Chee said. He was conscious of how elusive Margaret Sosi had been. Something was making him uneasy. The number written on Mrs. Day's calendar hung in his mind.
'Has anyone else been here looking for the girl?' Chee said. 'Asking about her?'
Bentwoman's Daughter shook her head.
'When do you think she'll be back?'
'The bus comes every hour,' Bentwoman said. 'It stops down there where the map is. Every hour until midnight.'
'About when does it stop?'
'Twenty minutes after the hour,' Bentwoman's Daughter said. 'When it's on time.'
Chee glanced at his watch. It was five thirty-five. Two and a half miles to the bus stop, he guessed. She might be home in fifteen or twenty minutes. If she walked fast. If the bus was on time. If—
Bentwoman made a noise in her throat. 'She should go home to her family,' Bentwoman said. 'She wants to find Ashie Begay, my grandson. Ashie Begay is dead.'
It was an unequivocal statement. A fact stated without emotion.
Bentwoman's Daughter sighed again. She looked at Chee. 'He was my nephew,' she explained.
'Ashie Begay is dead?' Chee asked.
'He is dead,' Bentwoman said.
'Did Margaret Sosi tell you this?'
'The girl thinks he is still alive,' Bentwoman said. 'I told her, but she believes what she wants to believe. The young sometimes do that.'
