Talking God

With the misty rain, he paints his form…“

The vehicle disappeared from sight in an irregular row of mostly pickup trucks. Chee strolled toward it, remaining out of the firelight when he could. It was a Bronco, new under its heavy coating of dust. Its only occupant seemed to be the driver. He opened the door, lighting the overhead bulb. He swung his legs out, stretched, emerged stiffly, and closed the door behind him. In no hurry, apparently.

Neither was Jim Chee. He leaned against the side of an old sedan and waited.

The cold breeze moved through the sage around him, whispering just loud enough to obscure the ceremonial chanting. The fires that lined the sides of the dance ground between the hogan and the little brush-covered medicine lodge were burning high now. The light reflected from the face of Henry Highhawk. Or, to be more accurate, Chee thought, the man I presume to be Henry Highhawk. The man, at least, who drove the prescribed white Bronco. He wore a shirt of dark blue velvet with silver buttons—the shirt a traditional Navajo would have proudly worn about 1920. He wore an old-fashioned black felt hat with a high crown and a band of silver conchas—a “reservation hat” as old-fashioned as the shirt. A belt of heavy silver conchas hung around his waist, and below it he wore jeans and boots—the left boot, Chee now noticed, reinforced with a metal brace and thickened sole. He stood for a long time beside the car in his shirt sleeves, oblivious of the cold, engrossed in what he was seeing. In contrast to Bad Hands, this visitor was obviously fascinated by this ceremonial event. Finally, he reached inside, pulled out a leather jacket, and put it on. The jacket had leather fringes. Of course it would have fringes, Chee thought. Hollywood’s Indian.

Chee strolled past him to Cowboy’s patrol car and rapped on the window.

Cowboy sat up, looked at him. Chee opened the door and slid in.

“They ready to dance?” Cowboy asked, the question muffled by a yawn.

“Any minute now,” Chee said. “And our bandido has arrived.”

Cowboy felt around for his gun belt, found it, straightened to put it on. “Okay,” he said. “Away we go.”

Deputy Sheriff Cowboy Dashee climbed out of his patrol car and followed Navajo Tribal Policeman Jim Chee toward the crowd gathering around the fires. Dashee was a citizen of Mishhongnovi on the Hopi Second Mesa, born into the distinguished Side Corn Clan, and a valuable man in the ancient Hopi Antelope Society. But he was also a friend of Jim Chee from way back in their high school days.

“There he is,” Chee said. “The cat with the reservation hat, leather jacket with the Buffalo Bill fringes.”

“And the braids,” Dashee said. “He trying to set a new style for you guys? Replace buns with braids?”

The driver of the Bronco was standing very close to a squat, elderly man in a red plaid coat, leaning over him as he first talked, then listened attentively. Chee and Dashee edged through the crowd toward him.

“Not now,” Plaid Coat was saying. “Old Lady Tsosie she’s sick. She’s the patient. Nobody can talk to her until this sing is over.”

Why would this belagaana grave robber want to see Agnes Tsosie? Chee had no idea. That irritated him. The big shots never told working cops a damned thing. Captain Largo certainly didn’t. Nobody did. Someday he would walk into something and get his head shot off because nobody had told him anything. There was absolutely no excuse for it.

Bad Hands walked past him, approached Highhawk, waited for the polite moment, touched the man’s shoulder. Highhawk looked startled. Bad Hands seemed to be introducing himself. Highhawk offered a hand, noticed Bad Hands’ glove, listened to what might have been an explanation, shook the glove gingerly. “Let’s get him,” Dashee said. “Come on.”

“What’s the hurry?” Chee said. “This guy’s not going anyplace.”

“We arrest him, we put him in the patrol car, and we don’t have to worry about him,” Dashee said.

“We arrest him, and we have to baby-sit him,” Chee said. “We have to haul him down to Holbrook and book him into jail. We miss the Yeibichai dance.”

Dashee yawned a huge yawn, scrubbed his face with both palms, yawned again. “To tell the truth,” he said, “I forget how you talked me into coming out here anyway. It’s us Hopi that have the big tourist-attraction ceremonials. Not you guys. What am I doing here, anyway?”

“I think I told you something about all the Miss Navajo and the Miss Indian Princess contestants always coming to these Yeibichais,” Chee said. “They haul them in from Albuquerque and Phoenix and Flagstaff on buses.”

“Yeah,” Dashee said. “You did say something about girls. Where the hell are they?”

“Be here any minute,” Chee said.

Dashee yawned again. “And speaking of women, how you doing with your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?”

“That good-looking lawyer.” Dashee created curves in the air with his hands. “Janet Pete.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Chee said.

Dashee put on his skeptical expression.

“I’m her confidant,” Chee said. “The shoulder upon which she weeps. She’s got a boyfriend. In Washington. Her old law professor down at the University of Arizona decided to quit teaching and be a millionaire. Now she’s back there working for him.”

Dashee’s disappointment showed. “I liked her,” he said. “For a Navajo, that is. And for a lawyer, too. Imagine liking a lawyer. But I thought you two had something going.“

“No,” Chee said. “She tells me her troubles. I tell her mine. Then we give one another bad advice. It’s one of those things.”

“Your troubles? You mean that blue-eyed little schoolteacher? I thought she’d kissed you off and moved back to Milwaukee or someplace. Is she still your trouble?”