home watching television, and almost simultaneous radio calls to all Navajo Police units on duty in the district, to the New Mexico State Police, and the San Juan County Sheriff's Office. Then, since the Chuska Mountains sprawl across the New Mexico border into Arizona, and Sanostee is only a dozen or so miles from the state boundary, and neither the dispatcher at Shiprock nor anyone else was quite sure in which state all this was happening, the call also went out to the Arizona Highway Patrol and, more or less out of courtesy, to the Apache County Sheriffs Office, which might have some legitimate jurisdiction even though it was a hundred miles south, down at St. Johns.
The Farmington office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had ultimate jurisdiction when such a lofty crime is committed on an Indian reservation, got the word a little later via telephone. The message was relayed to Jay Kennedy at the home of a lawyer, where he was engaged in a penny-a-point rotating-partner bridge game. Kennedy had just won two consecutive rubbers and was about to make a small slam, properly bid, when the telephone rang. He took the call, finished the slam, added up the score, which showed him to be ahead 2,350 points, collected his $23.50, and left. It was a few minutes after 10 P.M.
A few minutes after 10:30, Jim Chee got back to the Bistie place. He had met the ambulance from Farmington at Littlewater on U.S. 666. While Leaphorn was being tucked away in the back, Captain Largo had arrived—Gorman riding with him—and had taken charge. Largo asked a flurry of questions, sent the ambulance on its way, and made a series of quick radio checks to ensure roadblocks were in place. He'd hung up the microphone and sat, arms folded, looking at Chee.
'Too late for roadblocks, probably,' he said.
It had been a long day for Chee. He was tired. All the adrenaline had drained away. 'Who knows,' he said. 'Maybe he stopped to fix a flat. Maybe he didn't even have a car. If it was Bistie himself, maybe he just went back to his house. If—'
'You think it might be somebody besides Bis-tie?'
'I don't know,' Chee said. 'It's his place. He shoots at people. But then maybe somebody doesn't like him any better than he likes other people, and they came and shot him and dragged him off into the rocks.'
Largo's expression, which had already been sour, suggested he didn't like Chee's tone. He stared at Chee.
'How did it happen?' he asked. 'One old man, sick, and two cops with guns?'
Largo obviously didn't expect an answer and Chee didn't attempt one.
'You and Gorman go back up there and see if you can find him,' Largo said. 'I'll have the state police and the sheriff's people follow you. Don't let 'em get lost.'
Chee nodded.
'I'm meeting Kennedy here,' Largo said. 'Then we'll come along and join you.'
Chee headed for his car.
'One more thing,' Largo shouted. 'Don't let Bistie shoot you.'
And now, at 10:55, Chee parked beside Bistie's now-dark light pole, got out, and waited for the entourage to finish its arrival. He felt foolish. Bistie's truck was still absent. Bistie's shack was dark. Everything seemed to be exactly as they had left it. The chance of Bistie's hanging around to await this posse simply didn't exist.
There was a general slamming of doors.
Chee explained the layout, pointed up into the darkness to the hogan from which the shots had come. They moved up the slope, weapons drawn, the state policeman carrying a riot gun, the deputy carrying a rifle. What had happened here two hours before already seemed unreal to Chee, something he had imagined.
No one was at the hogan, or in it.
'Here's some brass,' the state policeman said. He was an old-timer, with red hair and a freckled, perpetually sunburned face. He stood frowning down at a copper-colored metal cylinder which reflected the beam of his flashlight. 'Looks like thirty-eight caliber,' he said. 'Who'll be handling the evidence?'
'Just leave it there for Kennedy,' Chee said. 'There should be another one.' He was thinking that the empty cartridge certainly wasn't from a 30-30. It was shorter. Pistol ammunition. And, since it had been ejected, probably from an automatic—not a revolver. If Bistie had fired it, he seemed to have quite an arsenal.
'Here it is,' the state policeman said. His flashlight was focused on the ground about a long step from where the first cartridge lay. 'Same caliber.'
Chee didn't bother to look at it. He considered asking everyone to be careful of where they walked, to avoid erasing any useful tracks. But as dry and windy as it was, he couldn't imagine tracking as anything but a waste of time. Except for the drag marks. Whatever had been dragged up here should be easy to find.
It was.
'Hey,' Gorman shouted. 'Here's a body.'
It was half hidden in a clump of chamiso, head downhill, feet uphill, legs still spraddled apart as if whoever had dragged it there had been using them to pull the body along and had simply dropped them.
The body had been Roosevelt Bistie. In the combined lights of Chee's and Gorman's flashlights, the yellow look of his face was intensified—but death had done little to change his expression. Bistie still looked grim and bitter, as if being shot was only what he'd expected—a fitting ending for a disappointing life. The dragging had pulled his shirt up over his shoulders, leaving chest and stomach bare. The waxy skin where the rib cage joined at the sternum showed two small holes, one just below the other. The lower one had bled a little. Very small holes, Chee thought. It seemed odd that such trivial holes would let out the wind of life.
Gorman was looking at him, a question in his face.
'This is Bistie,' Chee said. 'Looks like the guy who shot Lieutenant Leaphorn had shot this guy. I guess he was dragging him up here when we drove up, the lieutenant and me.'
'And after he shot the lieutenant he just took off,' Gorman said.
'And got clean away,' Chee added. Four flashlights now were illuminating the body. Only the San Juan County deputy was still out in the darkness, doing his fruitless job.
