tongue and shook his head. He pushed himself up from the desk and stood, shoulders slumped, staring at the sheet covering the body of Anderson Nez.
'You know,' he said, 'back in the Middle Ages the doctors had another cure for this stuff. They thought it had something to do with the sense of smell, and they recommended people stave it off by using a lot of per fume and wearing flowers. It didn't stop everybody from dying, but it proved humans have a sense of humor.'
Shirley had known Howe long enough to understand that she was now supposed to provide a straight line for his wit. She wasn't in the mood, but she said: 'What do you mean?'
'They made an ironic song out of it—and it lived on as a nursery rhyme.' Howe sang it in his creaky voice:
'Ring around with roses, pockets full of posies. Ashes. Ashes. We all fall down.'
He looked at her quizzically. 'You remember singing that in kindergarten?'
Shirley didn't. She shook her head.
And Dr. Howe walked down the hall toward where another of his patients was dying.
Chapter Two
ACTING LIEUTENANT JIM CHEE of the Navajo Tribal Police, a 'traditional' at heart, had parked his trailer with its door facing east. At dawn on July 8, he looked out at the rising sun, scattered a pinch of pollen from his medicine pouch to bless the day and considered what it would bring him.
He reviewed the bad part first. On his desk his monthly report for June—his first month as administrator in charge of a Navajo Police subagency unit—awaited him, half-finished and already overdue. But finishing the hated paperwork would be fun compared to the other priority job—telling Officer Benny Kinsman to get his testosterone under control.
The good part of the day involved, at least obliquely, his own testosterone. Janet Pete was leaving Washington and coming back to Indian country. Her letter was friendly but cool, with no hint of romantic passion. Still, Janet was coming back, and after he finished with Kinsman he planned to call her. It would be a tentative exploratory call. Were they still engaged? Did she want to resume their prickly relationship? Bridge the gap? Actually get married? For that matter, did he? However he answered that question, she was coming back and that explained why Chee was grinning while he washed the breakfast dishes.
The grin went away when he got to his office at the Tuba City station. Officer Kinsman, who was supposed to be awaiting him in his office, wasn't there. Claire Dineyahze explained it.
'He said he had to run out to Yells Back Butte first and catch that Hopi who's been poaching eagles,' Mrs. Dineyahze said.
Chee inhaled, opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. Mrs. Dineyahze would have been offended by the obscenity Kinsman's action deserved.
She made a wry face and shook her head, sharing Chee's disapproval.
'I guess it's the same Hopi he arrested out there last winter,' she said. 'The one they turned loose because Benny forgot to read him his rights. But he wouldn't tell me. Just gave me that look.' She put on a haughty expression. 'Said his informant was confidential.' Clearly Mrs. Dineyahze was offended by this exclusion. 'One of his girlfriends, probably.'
'I'll find out,' Chee said. It was time to change the subject. 'I've got to get that June report finished. Anything else going on?'
'Well,' Mrs. Dineyahze said, and then stopped.
Chee waited.
Mrs. Dineyahze shrugged. 'I know you don't like gossip,' she said. 'But you'll probably hear about this anyway.'
'What?'
'Suzy Gorman called this morning. You know? The secretary in the Arizona Highway Patrol at Winslow. She said one of their troopers had to break up a fight at a place in Flagstaff. It was Benny Kinsman and some guy from Northern Arizona University.'
Chee sighed. 'They charge him?'
'She said no. Professional courtesy.'
'Thank God,' Chee said. 'That's a relief.'
'May not be over, though,' she said. 'Suzy said the fight started because Kinsman was making a big move on a woman and wouldn't stop, and the woman said she was going to file a complaint. Said he'd been bothering her before. On her job.'
'Well, hell,' Chee said. 'What next? Where's she work?'
'It was Catherine Pollard,' Mrs. Dineyahze said. 'You know? Works out of that little office the Arizona Health Department set up here after those two bubonic plague cases. They call 'em vector control people.' Mrs. Dineyahze smiled. 'They catch fleas.'
'I've got to get that report out by noon,' Chee said. He'd had all the Kinsman he wanted this morning.
Mrs. Dineyahze wasn't finished with Kinsman. 'Did Bernie talk to you about Kinsman?'
'No,' Chee said. She hadn't, but he'd heard a rumble on the gossip circuit.
'I told her she should tell you, but she didn't want to bother you.'
'Tell me what?' Bernie was Officer Bernadette Manuelito, who was young and green and, judging from gossip Chee had overheard, had a crush on him.
Mrs. Dineyahze looked sour. 'Sexual harassment,' she said.
