The Ghostway

Chee opened his mouth. Closed it. How should he frame the question?

'When I was young, I too believed what I wanted to believe. But you learn,' the old woman said.

'Grandmother,' Chee said. 'How did you learn that Ashie Begay is dead?'

'From what you told me,' Bentwoman said. 'And from what the girl told me.'

'I thought he might be alive,' Chee said. 'The girl is sure he is alive.'

Bentwoman's eyes were closed now. She was asleep, Chee thought. Or dead. If she was breathing under those layers of blankets and shawls, Chee could see no trace of it. But apparently Bentwoman was simply mustering her strength for what she had to tell him.

'Ashie Begay has Tewa blood in him,' Bentwoman said. 'His grandmother was from Jemez. The Salt Clan went out toward the morning sun, beyond the Turquoise Mountain, to get some sheep one winter, and they came back with some children from Jemez. Some of them they sold back for corn and horses, but Ashie Begay's grandmother became the wife of one of the men in the Salt Clan and bore the child who was Ashie Begay's mother. So Ashie Begay has the blood in him of the People Who Call the Clouds. Tewa blood, and Salt Clan blood, and his father married into the Turkey Clan, and his mother's lineage was Standing Rock on her father's side. And all that has to be considered when you understand why I know Ashie Begay is dead.'

Bentwoman paused, to catch her breath—which was laboring by now—or perhaps to allow Chee to comment. Chee had no comment to make. He didn't understand why Ashie Begay had to be dead. None of this had helped.

Bentwoman inhaled a labored breath, stirring her layers of coverings. She began explaining Ashie Begay's lineage in terms of the character of ancestors. Bentwoman's Daughter stood patiently behind the wheelchair, thinking her thoughts. Chee glanced at his watch. If the bus was on time, if Margaret Sosi had been on it, if she had walked rapidly, she should be within half a mile of here by now.

'So you see,' Bentwoman was saying, 'Ashie Begay, my grandson, has my blood in him too. All this blood combines, and it makes a certain kind of man. It makes the kind of man who would not have allowed the Gorman boy to die in his hogan. He would have been prudent. The Tewas are prudent. The Salt Clan is a prudent clan. He would have taken the Gorman boy out of the hogan so he could die in the safe, clean air. So the hogan would not be ruined by the chindi.'

It had taken Bentwoman a long time to say all of this, with many pauses. Now she was silent, breathing heavily.

'But the hogan was broken,' Chee said. 'The smoke hole was closed. The north wall was broken open. Everything in it was gone.'

'Was everything gone?' Bentwoman asked. 'Nothing was left?'

'Nothing but trash,' Chee said.

'Did you look?' Bentwoman asked.

'It was a chindi hogan,' Chee said. 'I did not go inside.'

Bentwoman breathed. She coughed. She exhaled a long breath. She turned her blind eyes toward Chee, as if she could see him. 'So only a belacani looked?'

'Yes,' Chee said. 'A white policeman.' He knew what Bentwoman was suggesting.

She sat for a long time, her eyes closed again. Chee was aware of the changing light outside the window. The sky turning red with sunset. Darkness gathering. Margaret Sosi would be walking through that darkness. He remembered the telephone number on Mrs. Day's calendar. He wanted urgently to go and meet Margaret. He would ask her immediately what was said on that postcard. He would take no more chances.

'If Ashie Begay is alive,' Bentwoman said, 'one day I will hear it. Someone in the family will know and the word will come to me. If he is dead, it would not matter. But it matters because this child believes he is alive, and she will always look for him.' Bentwoman paused again, catching her breath, turning her face toward Chee again. 'She should be looking for other things. Not for a dead man.'

'Yes,' Chee said. 'Grandmother, you are right.'

'You think Ashie Begay is alive?'

'I don't know,' Chee said. 'Maybe not.'

'If someone killed him, would it have been one of the People? Or would it have been a belacani?'

'A white man,' Chee said. 'I think it would have been a white man.'

'Then a white man buried Albert Gorman. And a white man broke the hogan?'

'Yes,' Chee said. 'If Ashie Begay is dead, that must have been what happened.'

'I don't think a belacani would know how to do it right,' Bentwoman said.

'No,' Chee said. He was thinking of Albert Gorman's unwashed hair.

'Somebody should find out for sure,' Bentwoman said. 'They should do that so this child can know her grandfather is dead. So this child can finally rest.'

'Yes,' Chee said. And who else would there be to do that but Jim Chee. And doing it meant going into the ghost hogan, climbing through the black hole in the north wall. It meant stepping through the doorway into darkness.

Bentwoman was facing him, awaiting his answer. Chee swallowed. 'Grandmother,' he said, 'I will go and do what I can do.'

Chapter 18

Chee drove slowly through a darkening landscape under a glowing copper-colored sky. He was something of a