“Somebody shot you, goddammit,” Largo said. “Do you know who it was?”
“Shot me? Why would somebody do that?” But even before he finished the sentence he began to remember. Hosteen Maryboy dead on the floor. Getting back into the patrol car. But it was very vague and dreamlike.
“They shot you twice through the door of the patrol car,” Largo said. “It looked to Teddy Begayaye like you were driving away from the Maryboy place and the perpetrator fired two shots through the driver’s-side door. Teddy found the empties. Thirty-eights by the looks of them, and of what they took out of you. But you had the window rolled down, so the slugs had to get through that 59 of 102
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shatterproof glass after they punched through the metal. The doc said that probably saved you.” Chee was more or less awake now and didn’t feel like anything had saved him. He felt terrible. He said, “Oh, yeah. I remember some of it now.”
“You remember enough to tell me who shot you? And what the hell you were doing out at the Maryboy place in the middle of the night? And who shot Maryboy? And why they shot him? Could you give us a descri ption? Let us know what the hell we’re looking for—man, woman, or child?”
Chee got most of the way through answering most of those questions before whatever painkillers they had shot into him in the ambulance, and the emergency room, and the operating room, and since then cut in again and he started fading away. The nurse came in and was trying to shoo Largo out. But Chee was just awake enough to interrupt their argument. “Captain,” he said, hearing his voice come out soft and slurry and about a half mile away. “I think this Maryboy homicide goes all the way back to that Hal Breedlove case Joe Leaphorn was working on eleven years ago. That Fallen Man business. That skeleton up on Ship Rock. I need to talk to Leaphorn about . . . “
The next time he rejoined the world of the living he did so more or less completely. The pain was real, but tolerable. A nurse was doing something with the flexible tubing to which he was connected. A handsome, middle- aged woman whose name tag said SANCHEZ, she smiled at him, asked him how he was doing and if there was anything she could do for him.
“How about a damage assessment?” Chee said. “A prognosis. A condition report. The captain said he thought I might live, but how about this left eye? And what’s with the ribs?”
“The doctor will be in to see you pretty soon,” the nurse said. “He’s supposed to be the one to give the patient that sort of information.”
“Why don’t you do it?” Chee said. “I’m very, very interested.”
“Oh, why not?” she said. She picked up the chart at the foot of his bed and scanned it. She frowned, made a disapproving clicking sound with her tongue.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Chee said. “They’re not going to decide I’m too banged up to be worth repairing?”
“We’ve got two misspelled words in this,” she said. “They quit teaching doctors how to spell. But, no, I just wish I was as healthy as you are,” she said. “I guess a body shop estimator would rate you as a moderately serious fender bender. Not bad enough to total you out, and just barely bad enough to cause the insurance company to send in its inspector and raise your premium rates.”
“How about the eye?” Chee said. “It has a bandage over it.”
“Because of”—she glanced down at the chart and read—“’multiple superficial lacerations caused by glass fragments.’ But from the looks of this, no damage was done where it might affect your vision. Maybe you’ll have some bumpy shaving on that cheek for a while, and need to grow yourself about an inch of new eyebrow. But apparently no sight impairment.”
“That’s good to hear,” Chee said. “How about the rest of me?”
She looked down at him sternly. “Now when the doctor comes in, you’ve got to act surprised. All right? Everything he tells you is news to you. And for God’s sake don’t argue with him. Don’t be saying: ‘That ain’t what Florence Nightingale told me.’ You understand?”
Chee understood. He listened. Two bullets involved. One apparently had struck the thick bone at the back of the skull a glancing blow, causing a scalp wound, heavy bleeding, and concussion. The other, apparently fired after he had fallen forward, came through the door. While the left side of his face was sprayed with debris, the slug was deflected into his left side, where it penetrated the muscles and cracked two ribs.
“I’d say you were pretty lucky,” the nurse said, looking at him over the chart. “Except maybe in your choice of friends.”
“Yeah,” Chee said, wincing. “Does that chart show who sent me those flowers?” There were two bunches of them, one a dazzling pot of some sort of fancy chrysanthemum and the other a bouquet of mixed blossoms.
The nurse extracted the card from the bouquet. “Want me to read it to you?”
“Please,” Chee said.
“It says, ‘Learn to duck,’ and it’s signed, ‘Your Shiprock Rat Terriers.’”
“Be damned,” Chee said, and felt himself flushing with pleasure.
“Friends of yours?”
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“Yes, indeed,” Chee said. “They really are.”
“And the other card reads ‘Get well quick, be more careful and we have to talk,’ and it’s signed ‘Love, Janet.’” With that Nurse Sanchez left him to think about what it might mean.
