the angry tears in Janet’s eyes. She didn’t answer and he didn’t expect her to.
16
DECEMBER CAME TO THE FOUR CORNERS
but winter lingered up in the Utah mountains. It had buried the Wasatch Range under three feet and ventured far enough south to give Colorado’s San Juans a snowcap. But the brief post-Halloween storm that had whitened the slopes of Ship Rock and the Chuskas proved to be a false threat. It was dry again across the Navajo Nation— skies dark blue, mornings cool, sun dazzling. The south end of the Colorado Plateau was enjoying that typically beautiful autumn weather that makes the inevitable first blizzard such a dangerous surprise.
Beautiful or not, Jim Chee was keeping himself far too busy to enjoy it—even if his glum mood would have allowed it. He had learned that he could handle administrative duties if he tried hard enough, and that he would never, ever enjoy them. For the first time in his life, he felt no sense of pleasure as he went to work. But the work got done. He made progress. The vacation schedules were established in a way that produced no serious discontent among the officers who worked with him. A system had been devised whereby whatever policemen who happened to be in the Hogback neighborhood would drop in on Diamonte’s establishment for a friendly chat. This happened several times a week, thus keeping Diamonte careful and his customers uneasy without giving him any solid grounds for complaint. As a by-product, it had also produced a couple of arrests of young fellows who had been ignoring fugitive warrants.
On top of that, his budget for next year was about half finished and a plan had been drafted for keeping better track of gasoline usage and patrol car maintenance. This had produced an unusual (indeed, unprecedented in the experience of Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee) smile on the face of Captain Largo. Even Officer Bernadette Manuelito seemed to be responding to this new efficiency in Chee’s criminal investigation domain.
This came about after the word reached the ear of Captain Largo (and very shortly thereafter the ear of Acting Lieutenant Chee) that Mr. Finch had nailed a pair of cattle-stealing brothers so thoroughly that they had actually admitted not just rustling five unweaned calves but also about six or seven other such larcenies from the New Mexico side of Chee’s jurisdiction. So overwhelming was the evidence, the captain said, that they had plea- bargained themselves into jail at Aztec.
“Well, good,” Chee had said.
“Well, goddammit,” Largo replied, “why can’t we nail some of those bastards ourselves?” Largo’s imperial “we” had actually meant him, Chee realized. He also realized, before this uncomfortable conversation ended, that Finch had revealed to Largo not only Chee’s ignorance of heifer curiosity but how he and Officer Manuelito had screwed up Finch’s trap out by Ship Rock. Chee had walked down the hall away from this meeting with several resolutions strongly formed. He would catch Finch’s favorite cow thief before Finch could get his hands on him. Having beaten Finch at Finch’s game, he would resign his role as acting lieutenant and go back to being a real policeman. There would be no more trying to be a bureaucrat to impress Janet.
And to accomplish the first phase of this program he would shift Manuelito over to work on rustler cases—she and Largo being the only ones in the Shiprock District who took it seriously.
Officer Bernadette Manuelito responded to this shift in duties by withdrawing her request for a transfer. At least, that was Jim Chee’s presumption. Jenifer had another notion. She had noticed that the frequent calls between the lady lawyer in Window Rock and the acting lieutenant in Shiprock had abruptly ceased. Jenifer was very good at keeping the Shiprock District criminal investigation office running smoothly because she made it her business to know what the hell was going on. She made a couple of calls to old friends in the small world of law enforcement down at Window Rock. Yes, indeed. The pretty lawyer had been observed shedding tears while in conversation with a lady friend in her car. She had also been seen having dinner at the Navajo Inn with that good-looking lawyer from Washington. Things, it seemed, were in flux. Having learned this, it was Jenifer’s theory that Officer Manuelito would learn of it, too—not as directly perhaps, or as fast, but she would learn of it.
Whatever her motives, Manuelito seemed to like her new duties. She stood in front of Chee’s desk, looking excited, but not about rustling.
“That’s what I said,” she said. “They showed up at old Mr. Maryboy’s place last night. They told him they wanted trespass permission on his grazing lease. They wanted to climb Ship Rock.”
“And it was George Shaw and John McDermott?” Chee said.
“Yes, sir,” Officer Manuelito said. “That’s what they told him. They paid him a hundred dollars and said if they did any damage they’d pay him for that.”
“My God,” Chee said. “You mean those two lawyers are going to climb Ship Rock?”
“Old man Maryboy said the little one had climbed it before. Years ago. He said most of the white people just sneaked in and climbed it, but George Shaw had come to his house to get permission. He remembered that. How polite Shaw had been. But this 48 of 102
15/03/2008 19:57
TheFallenMan
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Floop/Local%20Settings/Te...
time Shaw said they were bringing a team of climbers.”
“So the tall one with the mustache probably isn’t going up,” Chee said, wondering if he sounded disappointed. But should he be disappointed? Would having McDermott fall off a cliff solve his problem with Janet? He didn’t think so.
“They didn’t say why they were going up there, I guess,” Chee said.
“No, sir. I asked him about that. Mr. Maryboy said they didn’t tell him why.” She laughed, showing very pretty white teeth. “He said why do white men do anything? He said he knew a white fellow once who was trying to get a patent on a cordless bungee jumper.”
Chee rewarded that with a chuckle. The way he’d heard it, it was a stringless yo-yo, but Maryboy had revised it to fit mountain climbers.
“But what I wanted to tell you about was business,” Officer Manuelito said. “Mr. Maryboy told me he was missing four steers.”
“Maryboy,” Chee said. “Let’s see. He has—”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “That’s his lease where we found the loose fence posts. Where somebody was throwing the hay over the fence. I went by his place to tell him about that. I was going to give him a notebook and ask him to
