'Not really,' Chee said. 'Not my part of the reservation.'
'How about the country around Badwater Wash? Around where Endocheeney lived?'
'A lot better,' Chee said. 'It's not what Captain Largo has me patrolling, but I spent some time out there trying to find a kid who got washed down the San Juan last year. Several days. And then I handled the Endocheeney business. Went out there twice on that.'
'I'm right that Bistie wouldn't say anything about whether he knew Endocheeney?'
'Right. He wouldn't say anything. Except he was glad Endocheeney was dead. He made that plain. So you guess he knew the man.'
You do, Leaphorn thought. But maybe you guess wrong.
'Did he say anything that would give you an idea whether he knew that Badwater country? Like about having trouble finding Endocheeney's place? Anything like that?'
'You mean beyond stopping at the trading post to ask directions? He did that.'
'That was in Kennedy's report,' Leaphorn said. 'What I meant was did you hear anything from him, or from the people you talked to at Badwater, that would tell you he was totally strange to that country? Afraid of not finding the road? Getting lost? Anything like that?'
'No.' The word was said slowly, indicating the thought wasn't finished. Leaphorn waited. 'But I didn't press it. We just got his description, and a make on his truck. Didn't look for that sort of information.'
Obviously it wouldn't have seemed to have any meaning at that stage of the game. Perhaps it didn't now. He waited for Chee to make unnecessary excuses. None materialized. Leaphorn began phrasing his next question, but Chee interrupted the thought.
'You know,' he said slowly, 'I think the fellow who knifed Endocheeney was a stranger too. Didn't know the country.'
'Oh?' Leaphorn said. He'd heard Chee was smart. He'd heard right. Chee was saving him his question.
'He came down out of the rocks,' Chee said. 'Have you seen that Endocheeney place? It's set back from the San Juan maybe a hundred yards. Cliffs to the south of it. The killer came down off of those. And went back the same way to get to where he'd left his car. I spent some time looking around. There were two or three easier ways to get down to Endocheeney. Easier than the way he took.'
'So,' Leaphorn said, half to himself. 'Two strangers show up the same day to kill the same man. What do you think of that?'
There was silence. Through his window Leaphorn watched an unruly squadron of crows flying in from the cottonwoods along Window Rock Ridge toward the village. Lunchtime for crows in the garbage cans. But he wasn't thinking of crows. He was thinking of Chee's intelli gence. If he told Chee now that the man who killed Wilson Sam was also a stranger, and how he knew it, Chee would quickly detect the reason for his first question. They had established that Chee, too, was a stranger to Wilson Sam's landscape. They established Leaphorn's suspicions. But to hell with that. A cop who got himself shot at from ambush should expect to be under close scrutiny. Chee might as well. He would tell Chee what he'd learned.
'It's possible,' Chee was saying, slowly, 'that there weren't two strangers coming to find Endocheeney. Maybe there was just one.'
'Ah,' said Leaphorn, who had the very same thought.
'It could be,' Chee went on, 'that Bistie knew he missed Endocheeney when he shot at him on the roof. So he drove away, parked up on the mesa, climbed down, and killed Endocheeney with the knife. And then—'
'He confesses to shooting Endocheeney,' Leaphorn concluded. 'Pretty smart. Is that what happened?'
Chee sighed. 'I don't think so,' he said.
Neither did Leaphorn. It violated what he'd learned of people down the years. People who prefer guns don't use knives, and vice versa. Bistie had preferred a rifle. He still had the rifle. Why not use it on the second attempt?
'Why not?' Leaphorn asked.
'Different tracks. I don't think Bistie would have brought along a change of footwear, and what few tracks I found at Endocheeney's didn't match Bistie's boots. Anyway, why would he do that? And why not shoot him on the second attempt? Why use a knife? It gave him an alibi, sure. And fooled us. But think of the advance planning it would take to make it all work out like that. And the things that could go wrong. It doesn't match my impression of Bistie.'
'Okay,' Leaphorn said. 'Do you know anything from talking to Bistie, or from anything, that would suggest that Bistie might have known Wilson Sam?'
'No, sir. Nothing.'
'Well, we seem to have another strange situation, then.' He told Chee what he'd learned at Chilchinbito Canyon.
'Doesn't make much sense,' Chee said. 'Does it?'
'That bone bead in your trailer,' Leaphorn said. 'It turned out to be bovine. Made out of old cow bone.'
Chee made a noncommittal sound.
'Anything else happened with you? Anything suspicious?'
'No, sir.'
'You learning anything?'
'Well…' Chee hesitated. 'Nothing much. I heard gossip at Badwater Trading Post. They say a bone was found in Endocheeney's corpse.'
Leaphorn exhaled, surprised. 'Like he had been witched?'
