brush. He held something that might have been a curved staff and he motioned Leaphorn toward him.
'That was a mistake,' Elliot said.
'Killing them?'
Elliot laughed. 'That was correcting the mistake. Nails was too careless. And too greedy. Once the silly bastards stole that backhoe they were sure to get caught.' He glanced at Leaphorn. 'And Nails was sure to tell you guys everything he knew.'
'Which would have been bad for your reputation,' Leaphorn said.
'Disastrous,' Elliot said. He waved the pistol. 'But hurry it up. I want to get out of here.'
'If you're working on what I think,' Leaphorn said, 'there's something I want to show you. Something Friedman-Bernal found. You're interested in jaw deformities. Something like that?'
'Well, a little like that,' Elliot said. 'You understand how the human chromosome works? Fetus inherits twenty- three from its mother, twenty-three from its father. Genetic characteristics handed down in the genes. Once in a while polyploidy occurs in the genetic crossover points. Someone gets multiple chromosomes, and you get a characteristic change. Inheritable. But you need more than one to do a trace which has any real meaning. At Chaco, in some of the early Chaco burials, I found three that were passed along. A surplus molar in the left mandible. And that went along with a thickening of the frontal bone over the left eye socket, plus--' Elliot stopped. 'You understanding this?'
'Genetics wasn't my favorite course. Too much math,' Leaphorn said. What the devil was Brigham Houk doing? Was he still behind that slab up ahead?
'Exactly,' Elliot said, pleased by this. 'It's one percent digging and ninety-nine percent working out statistical models for your computer. Anyway, the third thing, which sort of mathematically proves the passalong genes, is that hole in the mandible through which the blood and nerve tissue passes. At Chaco, from about 650 A.D. until they turned out the lights, this family had two holes in the left mandible and the usual one in the right. Plus those other characteristics. And out here, I'm still finding it among these exiles. Can you see why it's important?'
'And fascinating,' Leaphorn said. 'Dr. Friedman must have known what you were looking for. She saved a lot of jawbones.' He was almost to the great sandstone slab. 'I'll show you.'
'I doubt if she found anything I overlooked,' Elliot said. He followed Leaphorn, keeping the pistol level. 'But this is the way we were going anyway.'
They were passing the sandstone now. Leaphorn tensed. If nothing happened here, he would have to try something else. It wouldn't work, but he wouldn't simply stand still to be shot.
'Right over here,' Leaphorn said.
'I think you're just--'
The sentence ended with a grunt, a great exhalation of breath. Leaphorn turned. Elliot was leaning slightly forward, the pistol hanging at his side. About six inches of arrow shaft and the feathered tip protruded from his jacket.
Leaphorn reached for him, heard the whistle and thump of the second arrow. It went through Elliot's neck. The pistol clattered on the stone. Elliot collapsed.
Leaphorn retrieved the pistol. He squatted beside the man, turned him on his back. His eyes were open but he seemed to be in shock. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
There was snow in the wind now, little dry flakes that skittered along the surface like white dust. Leaphorn tested the arrow. It was the sort of bow hunters buy in sporting goods stores and it was lodged solidly through Elliot's neck. Pulling it out would just make things worse. If they could be worse. Elliot was dying. Leaphorn stood, looking for Brigham Houk. Houk was standing beside the slab now, holding a great ugly bow of metal, wood, and plastic, looking upward. From somewhere Leaphorn heard the clatter of a helicopter. Brigham Houk had heard it earlier. He stood very close to cover, ready to vanish.
The helicopter emerged over the rim of the mesa almost directly overhead. Leaphorn waved, saw an answering wave. The copter circled and disappeared over the mesa again.
Leaphorn checked Elliot's pulse. He didn't seem to have one. He looked for Brigham Houk, who seemed never to have existed. He walked over to the litter where Dr. Eleanor Friedman-Bernal lay. She opened her eyes, looked at him without recognition, closed them again. He tucked the rabbit fur cloak around her, careful to apply no pressure. Now it was snowing harder, still blowing like dust. He walked back to Elliot. No pulse now. He opened his jacket and shirt and felt for a heartbeat. Nothing. The man was no longer breathing. Randall Elliot, graduate of Exeter, of Princeton, of Harvard, winner of the Navy Cross, was dead by arrow shot. Leaphorn gripped him under the arms and pulled him into the cover of the slab where Brigham Houk had hidden. Elliot was heavy, and Leaphorn was exhausted. By pulling hard and doing some twisting, he extracted the arrows. He wiped the blood off as well as he could on Elliot's jacket. Then he picked up a rock, hammered them into pieces, and put the pieces in his hip pocket. That done, he found dead brush, broke it off, and made an inefficient effort to cover the body. But it didn't matter. The coyotes would find Randall Elliot anyway.
Then he heard the clatter of someone scrambling down the cut. It proved to be Officer Chee, looking harassed and disheveled. It took some effort for Leaphorn not to show he was impressed. He pointed to the litter. 'We need to get Dr. Friedman to the hospital in a hurry,' he said. 'Can you get that thing down here to load her?'
'Sure,' Chee said. He started back toward the cut at a run.
'Just a second,' Leaphorn said.
Chee stopped.
'What did you see?'
Chee raised his eyebrows. 'I saw you standing beside a man slumped down on the ground. I guess it was Elliot. And I saw the litter over there. And maybe I saw another man. Something jumping out of sight back there just as we came over the top.'
'Why did you think it was Elliot?'
Chee looked surprised. 'The helicopter he rented is parked up there. I figured when he heard she was still alive he'd have to come out here and kill her before you got here.'
