'All right,' Irene Musket said.
'First I have to make a telephone call. Can I use your telephone?'
He called Jim Chee from Houk's house. It was after six. Chee had gone home for the day. No telephone, of course. Typical of Chee. He left Houk's number for a call back.
They slid the kayak into the back of his truck, with its double-bladed paddle and Houk's worn orange jacket, tied it down, and drove south to Sand Island launch site. Bureau of Land Management signs there warned that the river was closed for the season, that a license was required, that the San Juan catfish was on the extinction list and taking it was prohibited.
With the kayak in the water, Leaphorn stood beside it, feet in the cold water, doing a last-minute inventory of possibilities. He wrote Jim Chee's name and the Shiprock police station number on one of his cards and gave it to her.
'If I don't meet you by noon tomorrow down at Mexican Hat, I hope you will call this man for me. Tell him what you told me about Mr. Houk and this kayak. And that I took it down the river.'
She took it.
He climbed into the kayak.
'You know how to run that thing?'
'Years ago I did. I think I'll remember.'
'Well, put on the life jacket and buckle it. It's easy to turn over.'
'Right,' Leaphorn said. He did it.
'And here,' she said. She handed him a heavy canteen with a carrying strap and a plastic bread sack. 'I got something for you to eat out of the kitchen,' she said.
'Well, thanks,' Leaphorn said, touched.
'Be careful.'
'I can swim.'
'I didn't mean the river,' Mrs. Musket said.
Chapter Seventeen
T ^ t
TRAILERS ARE POOR PLACES to sleep on those nights when seasons are changing on the Colorado Plateau. All night Jim Chee's narrow bed quivered as the gusts shook the thin walls of his home. He slept poorly, wrestling with the problem of Elliot's application while he was awake, dreaming of jawbones when he dozed. He rose early, made coffee, and found four Twinkies abandoned in his otherwise empty bread box to round out his breakfast. It was his day off, and time to buy groceries, do the laundry, check three overdue books back into the Farmington library. He'd refilled his water reservoir, but his butane supply was low. And he needed to pick up a tire he'd had repaired. And, come to think of it, drop by the bank and see about the $18.50 difference between his checkbook balance and their records. Instead he looked in his notebook and found the number Dr. Pedwell had given him for the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe. 'That would have an MLA number,' Pedwell had told him when he'd asked if Elliot had also applied to excavate the site where Etcitty and Nails had been killed. 'It's in New Mexico, and apparently on public land. If it's on a Navajo section, we record it. If it's not, Laboratory of Anthropology handles it.'
'Sounds confusing,' Chee had said.
'Oh, it is,' Pedwell had agreed. 'It's even more confusing than that.' And he'd started explaining other facets of the numbering system, the Chaco numbers, the Mesa Verde, until Chee had changed the subject. Now he realized he should have asked for a name at Santa Fe.
He made the call from the station, drawing a surprised look from the desk clerk, who knew he was off. And it took three transfers before he connected with the woman who had access to the information he needed. She had a sweet, distinct middle-aged voice.
'It's easier if you know the MLA number,' she said. 'Otherwise I have to check through the applicant files.'
And so he waited.
'Dr. Elliot has eleven applications on file. You want all of them?'
'I guess so,' Chee said, not knowing exactly what to expect.
'MLA 14,751. MLA 19,311. MLA--'
'Just a moment,' Chee said. 'Do they have site locations? What county they're in. Like that?'
'On our map, yes.'
'The one I'm interested in would be in San Juan County, New Mexico.'
'Just a minute,' she said. The minute passed. 'Two of them. MLA 19,311 and MLA 19,327.'
'Could you pin the location down any more?'
'I can give you the legal description. Range, township, and section.' She read them off.
'Was he issued the permits?'
'Turned down,' she said. 'They're saving those sites to be dug sometime in the future when they have better technology. It's hard to get permission to dig them now.'
'Thanks a lot,' Chee said. 'It's exactly what I need.'
And it was. When he checked the legal description on the U.S. Geological Survey map in Captain Largo's office, MLA 19,327 proved to share range, township, and section with the oil well pump beyond which he'd found the U- Haul truck.
He had less luck trying to call Chaco Canyon. The phone was suffering some sort of satellite relay problem that
