“He didn’t say, but I think he figures maybe Breedlove wasn’t alone up there. And maybe the widow knew more than she was telling him at the time.”
“And what’s that about Amos Nez getting shot last week down at Canyon de Chelly? You lost me on that connection.”
“It was sort of thin,” Chee said. “Nez happened to be one of the witnesses in the disappearance case. Leaphorn said he was the last person known to have seen Breedlove alive. Except for the widow.” Largo considered. Grinned. “And she was Joe’s suspect, of course,” he said. And shook his head. “Joe never could believe in coincidences.”
“They still had that mountain climbing gear in the evidence room at Window Rock and I had them send it up,” Chee said. “It looks to me a lot like the gear they found on our Fallen Man, so I called Mrs. Breedlove up at Mancos.”
“What’d she say?”
“She’d gone into town for something. The housekeeper said she’d be back in a couple of hours. I left word that I was coming up this afternoon to show her some stuff that might bear on her missing husband.” Finch cleared his throat, glanced up at Chee. “While you’re there why not just kind of keep your eyes open? Tell ’em you’ve heard good things about the way they run their place. Look around. You know?” Finch looked to Chee to be about fifty. He had a hollowed scar high on his right cheek (resulting, Chee guessed, from some sort of surgery), small, bright blue eyes, and a complexion burned and cracked by the Four Corners weather. He was waiting now for Chee’s response to this suggestion.
“You think Demott’s sort of augmenting his herd with some strangers?” Chee asked.
“Well, not exactly,” Finch said, and shrugged. “But who knows? People losing their cattle. Maybe the coyotes are getting ’em.
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Maybe Demott’s got fifteen or twenty head he’s shipping off to the feedlot and he thinks it would be nice to round it off at twenty or twenty-five. No harm in looking. Seeing what you can see.”
“I’ll do that,” Chee said. “But were you telling me you don’t have anything specific against Demott?” Finch was studying Chee, looking quizzical. He’s trying to decide, Chee thought, how stupid I am.
“Nothing I could take in to a judge and get a search warrant with. But you hear things.” With that, Finch broke into a chuckle. “Hell, you hear things about everybody.” He jerked a thumb at Largo. “I’ve even been told that your captain here has some peculiar-looking brands on some of his stock. That right, Captain?”
“I’ve heard that myself,” Largo said, grinning. “We have a barbecue over at the place, all the neighbors want to go out and take a look at the cowhides.”
“Well, it’s a lot cheaper than buying beef at the butcher shop. So maybe somebody’s eating Demott’s sirloin and the Demotts are eating theirs.”
“Or mutton,” added Largo, who was missing some ewes as well as a calf or two.
“How about me going along for the ride?” Finch said. “I mean up to the Lazy B?”
“Why not?” Chee said.
“You wouldn’t have to introduce me, you know. I’ll just sort of get out and stretch my legs. Look around a little bit. You never know what you might see.”
5
THEY CAME INTO VIEW OF THE HEADQUARTERS
of the Lazy B with the autumn sun low over Mesa Verde, producing shadow patterns on Bridge Timber Mountain. Chee had been thinking more of home sites lately and he thought now that this little valley would be a beautiful place for Janet and him. The house in the cluster of cottonwoods below them would be far, far too large for him to feel comfortable in. But Janet would love it.
Finch had been doing the talking on the drive up from Shiprock. After the first fifty miles of that, Chee began listening just enough to nod or grunt at the proper intervals. Mostly he was thinking about Janet Pete and the differences between what they liked and what they didn’t. This house, for example. Women usually had most to say about living places, but if he retained veto power, theirs certainly wouldn’t be anything as huge as the fieldstone, timber, and slate mansion the Breedlove family had built for itself. Even if they could afford it, which they certainly never would.
That reminded Chee of the white Porsche that had zipped past him yesterday. Why did he connect it to Janet? Because it had class, as did she. And was beautiful. And, sure, she’d like it. Who wouldn’t? So why did he resent it? Was it because it was a part of the world she came from in which he would never be comfortable? Or understand? Maybe.
But now he was about to walk in and see if he could get a widow to identify a bunch of stuff that would tell her that her husband was truly dead. Tell her, that is, unless she already knew—having killed him herself. Or arranged it. He’d worry about the Porsche later. The Breedlove mansion was now just across the fence.
According to Finch, old Edgar Breedlove had built it as a second home—his first one being in Denver, from which he ran his mining operations. But he’d never lived in it. He’d bought the ranch because his prospectors had found a molybdenum deposit on the high end of the property. But the ore price fell after the war and somehow or other the place got left to a grandson, Harold. Hal had adopted his granddad’s policy of overgrazing it and letting it run down.
“That ain’t happening now,” Finch had told him. “This place ain’t going to go to hell while Demott’s running it. He’s sort of a tree-hugger. That’s what people say. Say he never got married ’cause he’s in love with this place.” Chee parked under a tree a polite distance from the front entrance, turned off the ignition, and sat, killing the time needed by hosts to get decent before welcoming guests. Finch, another empty-country man, seemed to understand that. He yawned, stretched, and examined the half dozen cows in the feedlot beside the barn with a professional eye.
