climb it alone. But it looks like maybe I was wrong.”
“Maybe the people with him had climbed it before,” Leaphorn said.
“That wouldn’t matter. You’d still want to have it on the record that you’d done it again. It’s a hell of a hard climb.”
“Anything else?”
“He said he made it up at eleven twenty-seven A.M.
and under that he wrote, ‘Four hours, twenty-nine minutes up. Now, I’m going down the fast way.’”
“Looks like he tried,” the pilot said. “But it took him about eleven years to make it all the way to the bottom.”
“Could he have climbed it that fast alone?” Leaphorn asked. “Is that time reasonable?” Rosebrough nodded. “These days the route is so well mapped, a good, experienced crew figures about four hours up and three hours down.”
“How about the fast way down?” Leaphorn asked. To him it sounded a little like a suicide note. “What do you think he meant by that?”
Rosebrough shook his head. “It took teams of good climbers years to find the way you can get from the bottom to the top. Even that’s no cinch. It involves doing a lot of exposed climbing, with a rope to save you if you slip. Then you have to climb down a declivity to reach the face where you can go up again. That’s the way everybody who’s ever got to the top of Ship Rock got there.
And as far as I know, that’s the way everybody always got down.”
“So there isn’t any ‘fast way down’?”
Rosebrough gave that some thought. “There has been some speculation of a shortcut. But it would involve a lot of rappelling, and I never heard of anyone actually trying it. I think it’s way too dangerous.” They were moving away from Ship Rock now, making the long slide down toward the Farmington Airport. Leaphorn was feeling better. He was thinking that whatever Breedlove had meant by the fast way down, he had certainly done something dangerous.
“I’m thinking about that rappel route,” Rosebrough said. “If he tried that by himself, that would help explain where they found the skeleton.” He was looking at Leaphorn quizzically. “You’re awfully quiet, Joe. Are you okay? You’re looking pale.”
“I’m feeling pale,” Leaphorn said, “but I’m quiet because I’m thinking about the other two people who made the climb with him that day. Didn’t they get all the way up? Or what?”
“Who were they?” Rosebrough asked. “I know most of the serious rock climbers in this part of the world.”
“We don’t know,” Leaphorn said. “All we have are the notes of an old mountain watcher. Sort of shorthand, too. He just jotted down nine slash eighteen slash eighty-five and said three men had parked at the jump-off site and were climbing the—”
“Wait a minute,” Rosebrough said. “You said nine eighteen eighty-five? That’s not the date Breedlove wrote. He put down nine thirty eighty-five.”
Leaphorn digested that. No thought of nausea now. “You’re sure?” he asked. “Breedlove dated his climb September thirty. Not September eighteen.”
“I’m dead certain,” Rosebrough said. “That’s what the photo is going to show. Was I confused or something?”
“No,” Leaphorn said. “I was the one who was confused.”
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“You sure you feel all right?”
“I feel fine,” Leaphorn said. Actually he was feeling embarrassed. He had been conned, and it had taken him eleven years to get his first solid inkling of how they had fooled him.
23
CHEE HAD DECIDED THE GREASE
in the frying pan was hot enough and was pulling the easy-open lid off the can of Vienna sausages when the headlight beam flashed across his window. He flicked off his house trailer’s overhead light—something he wouldn’t have considered doing a few days ago.
But his cracked ribs still ached, and the person who had caused that was still out there somewhere. Possibly in the car that was now rolling to a stop under the cottonwood outside.
Whoever had driven it got out and walked into the headlights where Chee could see him. It was Joe Leaphorn, the Legendary Lieutenant, again. Chee groaned, said, “Oh, shit!” and switched on the light.
Leaphorn entered hat in hand. “It’s getting cold,” he said. “The TV forecaster said there’s a snow warning out for the Four Corners.
Livestock warning. All that.”
“It’s just about time for that first bad one,” Chee said. “Can I take your hat?” Which got Leaphorn’s mind off the weather. “No. No,” he said, looking apologetic. He regretted the intrusion, the lateness of the hour, the interruption of Chee’s supper. He would only take a moment. He wanted Chee to see what they’d found in the ammunition box on top of Ship Rock. He extracted a sheaf of photographs from the big folder he’d been carrying and handed them to Chee.
Chee spread them on the table.
