The Ghostway

A fresh blast of wind rattled sand against the windows and seeped through some crack somewhere to move icy air around Chee's ankles. His memory skipped ahead to the weekend he'd taken Mary back on the plateau to his mother's summer hogan south of Kayenta. When he'd asked his mother later what she'd thought of Mary, his mother had said, 'Will she be a Navajo?' And he had said, 'Yes, she will be.' Now he knew he had been wrong. Or probably wrong. Mary Landon would not be a Navajo. How could he change that? Or, if he couldn't change it, could Jim Chee stop being a Navajo?

Now Natonabah was leaving, zipping up his fur-lined jacket, his face flushed, his mouth grim. Clearly the captain had, in his low-key way, expressed disapproval. Chee quit thinking about Mary Landon and reexamined his conscience. He'd already done that automatically when Largo had signaled him to stay behind and had thought of no violations of Largo's rules and regulations. But now Captain Largo's large round face considered him, even blander and milder than usual. Often that meant trouble. What had he done?

'You all caught up on your work?'

Chee sat up straight. 'No, sir,' he said.

'You catch that Yazzie who's bootlegging all that wine?'

'No, sir.'

'Found that kid did the cutting on the Ute Reservation?'

'Not yet.' It was going to be worse than he'd expected. He'd only had the Ute stabbing added to his case list Friday.

Largo was peering down into the file folder in which he kept Chee's reports. It was a bulky file, but Largo apparently decided to shorten the ordeal a little. He flipped rapidly through it, then closed it and turned it face down on his desk. 'All this still-unfinished business then?' he asked. 'You got plenty to keep your mind occupied?'

'Yes, sir,' Chee said. 'Plenty of work to do.'

'I got the impression that you had time on your hands,' Largo said. 'Looking for something to keep you occupied.'

Chee waited. Largo waited. Ah, well, Chee thought, might as well get it over with. 'How's that, sir?' he asked.

'You pulled the file on the Gorman business,' Largo said. His expression asked why.

'Just curious,' Chee said. Now he would get a lecture on respecting jurisdictions, on minding his own business.

'You find anything interesting in there?'

The question surprised him. 'Not much in there at all,' he said.

'No reason for there to be,' Largo said. 'It's not our case. What were you looking for?'

'Nothing specific. I wondered who Gorman was. And who was the man who came after him. The one Gorman shot at the laundry. What Gorman was doing in Shiprock. How Begay fit in. Things like that.'

Largo made a tent of his fingers above the desk top and spent a moment examining it. 'Why were you curious?' he asked, without taking his eyes off his fingers. 'Fight in a parking lot. The survivor runs to his kinsman to hide out and heal. Everything looks normal. What's bothering you?'

Chee shrugged.

Largo studied him. 'You know,' he said, 'or anyway you heard from me, that an fbi agent got killed back in California in this one. The Agency is always touchy. This time they're going to be extra touchy.'

'I was just curious,' Chee said. 'No harm done.'

'I want you to tell me what made you curious.'

'It wasn't much,' Chee said. He told Largo about the way Gorman's corpse had been prepared, with its hair unwashed, and of wondering why Begay had not moved Gorman outside before the moment of death.

Largo listened. 'You tell Sharkey about this?'

'He wasn't interested,' Chee said.

Largo grinned.

'Maybe no reason to be,' Chee admitted. 'I don't know much about Begay. Lots of Navajos don't know enough about the Navajo way of getting a corpse ready. Lots of 'em wouldn't care.'

'Younger ones, maybe,' Largo said. 'Or city ones. Begay isn't young. Or city. What do you know about him?'

'They call him Hosteen, so I guess the people up there respect him. That's about it.'

'I know a little more than that,' Largo said. 'Begay is Tazhii Dinee. In fact, I'm told his aunt is the ahnii of that clan. He's lived up there above Two Gray Hills longer than anybody can remember. Has a grazing permit. Runs sheep. Keeps to himself. Some talk that he's a witch.'

Largo recited it all in a flat, uninflected voice, putting no more emphasis on the last sentence than the first.

'There's some talk that just about everybody is a witch,' Chee said. 'I've heard you were. And me.'

'He seems to have a good reputation,' Largo said. 'People up there seem to like him. Say he's honest. Takes care of his relatives.' That was the ultimate compliment for a Navajo. The worse insult was to say he acted like he didn't have any relatives. In Navajo country, families come first.

Chee wanted to ask Largo why he had learned so much about an old man who kept to himself high in the Chuska Mountains. As Largo had said, the Gorman shooting was an fbi case—white-man business completely outside the jurisdiction of the Navajo Tribal Police. Instead of asking, he waited. He'd worked for Largo two years, first at the Tuba City subagency and now here at Shiprock. Largo would tell him exactly what Largo wanted him to