“Note the date of the signature,” Leaphorn said. “It’s the week after Breedlove disappeared from Canyon de Chelly.” Chee considered that. “Wow,” he said. And considered it again. He studied the photograph. “Is this it? No one else signed the book that day?”
“Only Breedlove,” Leaphorn said. “And I’m told that it’s traditional for everyone in the climbing party to sign if they get to the top.”
“Well, now,” Chee said. He tapped the inscription. “It looks like Latin. Do you know what it means?” Leaphorn told him the translation. “But what did he mean by it? Your guess is as good as mine.” He explained to Chee what Rosebrough had told him about the ‘fast way down’ remark—that if Hal had tried this dangerous rappelling route it might explain how his body came to be on the ledge where it was found.
They stood at the table, Chee staring at the photograph and Leaphorn watching Chee. The aroma of extremely hot grease forced itself into Leaphorn’s consciousness, along with the haze of blue smoke that accompanied it. He cleared his throat.
“Jim,” he said. “I think I interrupted your cooking.”
“Oh,” Chee said. He dropped the photograph, snatched the smoking pan off the propane burner, and deposited it outside on the doorstep. “I was going to scramble some eggs and mix in these sausages,” he said. “If you haven’t eaten I can dump in a few more.”
“Fine,” said Leaphorn, who had deposited his breakfast in the barf bag, had been suffering too much residual queasiness for lunch, and had been too busy since to stop for dinner. In his current condition, even the smell of burning grease aroused his hunger.
They replaced the photos with plates, retrieved the frying pan, replenished the incinerated grease with a chunk of margarine, put on the coffeepot, performed those other duties required to prepare dinner in a very restricted space, and dined. Leaphorn had always tried to avoid Vienna sausages even as emergency rations but now he found the mixture remarkably palatable. While he attacked his second helping, Chee picked up the crucial photograph and resumed his study.
“I hesitate to mention it,” Chee said, “but what do you think of the date?”
“You mean being a date when the keen eye of Hosteen Sam saw no one climbing Ship Rock?”
“Exactly,” Chee said.
“I’ve reached no precise conclusion,” Leaphorn said. “What do you think?”
“About the same,” Chee said. “And how about nobody at all signing the book twelve days earlier? What do you think about that?
I’m thinking that the three people who old man Sam saw climbing up there must not have made it to the top. Either that, or they were too modest to take credit for it. Or, if his ledger hadn’t told me how exactly precise Sam was, I’d think he got his dates wrong.” Leaphorn was studying him. “You think there’s no chance of that, then?”
“I’d say none. Zero. You should see the way he kept that ledger. That’s not the explanation. Forget it.” 68 of 102
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Leaphorn nodded. “Okay, I will.”
The entry signed by Breedlove was near the center of the page. Above it the register had been signed by four men, none with names familiar to Chee, and dated April 4, 1983. Below it, a three-climber party—two with Japanese names—had registered their conquest of the Rock with Wings on April 28, 1988.
“Skip back to September eighteenth,” Leaphorn said. “Let’s say that Hal was one of the three Hosteen Sam saw climbing. It sounds like the car they climbed out of was that silly British recreation vehicle he drove. And then let’s say they didn’t make it to the top because Hal screwed up. So Hal broods about it. He gets the call at Canyon de Chelly from one of his climbing buddies. He decides to go back and try again.”
“All right,” Chee said. “Then we’ll suppose the climbing buddy went with him, they tried the dangerous way down. This time the climbing buddy—and let’s call him George Shaw—well, George screws up and drops Hal down the cliff. He feels guilty and he figures Hal’s dead anyway, so slips away and tells no one.”
“Yeah,” Leaphorn said. “I thought about that. Trouble is, why hadn’t the climbing buddy signed the register before they started down?”
Chee shook his head, dealt Leaphorn some more of the Vienna-and-eggs mixture, and put down the pan.
“Modesty, you think?” Leaphorn said. “He didn’t want to take the credit?”
“The only reason I can think of involves first-degree murder,” Chee said. “The premeditated kind.”
“Right,” Leaphorn said. “Now, how about a motive?”
“Easy,” Chee said. “It would have something to do with the ranch, and with that moly mine deal.” Leaphorn nodded.
“Now Hal has inherited. It’s his. So let’s say George Shaw figures Hal’s going to keep his threat and do his own deal on the mineral lease, cutting out Shaw and the rest of the family. So Shaw drops him.”
“Maybe,” Leaphorn said. “One problem with that, though.”
“Or maybe Demott’s the climbing buddy. He knows Hal’s going for the open strip mine, so he knocks him off to save his ranch. But what’s the problem with the first idea?”
“Elisa inherits from Hal. Shaw would have to deal with her.”
“Maybe he thought he could?”
“He says he couldn’t. He told me this afternoon that Elisa was just as fanatical about the ranch as her brother. Said she told him there wouldn’t be any strip-mining on it as long as she was alive.”
