Talking God

“Mary Landon,” Chee said.

“That sure has dragged along,” Dashee said. “Is she back out here again?”

“She did move back to Wisconsin,” Chee said, thinking he really didn’t much want to talk about this. “But we write. Next week, I’m going back there to see her.”

“Well,” Dashee said. The breeze had shifted now and was moving out of the north, even colder than it had been. Dashee turned up his coat collar. “None of my business, I guess. It’s your funeral.”

The screen of blankets had been dropped over the doorway of the patient’s hogan now and all the curing activities were going on in privacy. The bonfires that lined the cleared dance ground burned high. Spectators huddled around them, keeping warm, gossiping, renewing friendships. There was laughter as a pinon log collapsed and the resulting explosion of sparks routed a cluster of teenagers. Mr. Yellow had built a kitchen shelter behind the hogan, using sawed telephone poles as roof posts, two-by-fours and particle board for its walls. Through its doorway, Chee could see dozens of Mrs. Tsosie’s Bitter Water clansmen drinking coffee and helping themselves from stacks of fry bread and a steaming iron pot of mutton stew. Highhawk had drifted that way too, with Bad Hands trailing behind. Chee and Dashee followed Highhawk into the kitchen shelter, keeping him in sight. They sampled the stew and found it only fair.

Then the curtain drew back and the hataalii backed out through it. He walked down the dance ground to the yei hogan. A moment later he made the return trip, walking slowly, chanting. Old Woman Tsosie emerged from the medicine hogan. She was bundled in a blanket, her hair bound in the traditional fashion. She stood on another blanket spread on the packed earth and held out her hands toward the east. The kitchen shelter emptied as diners became spectators. The socializing at the bonfires quieted. Then Chee heard the characteristic call of Talking God.

“Huu tu tu. Huu tu tu. Huu tu tu. Huu tu tu.”

Talking God led a row of masked yei, moving slowly with the intricate, mincing, dragging step of the spirit dancers. The sound of the crowd died away. Chee could hear the tinkle of the bells on the dancers’ legs, hear the yei singing in sounds no human could understand. The row of stiff eagle feathers atop Talking God's white mask riffled in the gusty breeze. Dust whipped around the naked legs of the dancers, moving their kilts. Chee glanced at Henry Highhawk, curious about his reaction. He noticed the man with the crippled hands had moved up beside Highhawk.

Highhawk's lips were moving, his expression reverent. He seemed to be singing. Chee edged closer. Highhawk was seeing nothing but Talking God dancing slowly toward them. “He stirs. He stirs,” Highhawk was singing. “He stirs. He stirs. Now in old age wandering, he stirs.” The words were translated from the ceremony called the Shaking of the Masks. That ritual had been held four days earlier in this ceremonial, awakening the spirits which lived in the masks from their cosmic dreams. This white man must be an anthropologist, or a scholar of some sort, to have found a translation.

Talking God and his retinue were close now and Highhawk was no longer singing. He held something in his right hand. Something metallic. A tape recorder. Hataalii rarely gave permission for taping. Chee wondered what he should do. This would be a terrible time to create a disturbance. He decided to let it ride. He hadn’t been sent here to enforce ceremonial rules, and he was in no mood to be a policeman.

The hooting call of the Yeibichai projected Chee’s imagination back into the myth that this ceremony reenacted. It was the tale of a crippled boy and his compact with the gods. This was how it might have been in those mythic times, Chee thought. The firelight, the hypnotic sound of the bells and pot drum, the shadows of the dancers moving rhythmically against the pink sandstone of the mesa walls behind the hogan.

Now there was a new smell in the air, mixing with the perfume of the burning pinon and dust. It was the smell of dampness, of impending snow. And as he noticed it, a flurry of tiny snowflakes appeared between him and the fire, and as quickly disappeared. He glanced at Henry Highhawk to see how the grave robber was taking this.

Highhawk was gone. So was Bad Hands.

Chee looked for Cowboy Dashee. But where was Cowboy when you needed him? Never in sight. There he was. Talking to a young woman bundled in a down jacket. Grinning like an ape. Chee jostled his way through the crowd. He grabbed Dashee’s elbow.

“Come on,” he said. “I lost him.”

Deputy Sheriff Dashee was instantly all business.

“I’ll check Highhawk’s car,” he said. And ran.

Chee ran for Bad Hands’ car. The two men were standing beside it, talking.

No more waiting, Chee thought. He could see Dashee approaching.

“Mr. Highhawk,” Chee said. “Mr. Henry Highhawk?”

The two men turned. “Yes,” Highhawk said. Bad Hands stared, his lower lip clenched nervously between his teeth.

Chee displayed his identification.

“I’m Officer Chee, Navajo Tribal Police. We have a warrant for your arrest and I’m taking you into custody.”

“What for?” Highhawk said.

“Flight across state lines to avoid prosecution,” Chee said. He sensed Dashee at his elbow.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Chee began. “You have the right to—”

“It’s for digging up those skeletons, isn’t it?” Highhawk said. “It’s okay to dig up Indian bones and put ’em on display. But you dig up white bones and it’s a felony.”

“—can and will be used against you in a court of law,” Chee concluded.

“I heard the law was looking for me,” Highhawk said. “But I wasn’t sure exactly why. Is it for sending those skeletons through the mail? I didn’t do that. I sent them by Federal Express.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Chee said. “All I know is you’re Henry Highhawk and I got a warrant here to arrest you on. As far as I know you shot eighteen people in Albuquerque, robbed the bank, hijacked airplanes, lied