She walked down the slope with him. There was nothing left of the hogan building but the circle of stacked stone that formed a wall around the hard-packed earth of the floor, and the ponderosa poles and shreds of tar paper that had formed its collapsed roof.
'There was a hole there once,' Louisa said. 'Mostly filled in, though.'
They were in cloud shadow now, and the thunderhead over the mesa made a rumbling noise. They climbed the slope back to the truck.
'I wonder what they found?'
'In the hole?' Leaphorn said. 'I'd guess nothing. I never heard of a Navajo burying anything under his hogan fire pit. But of course McGinnis had an answer for that. He said Old Man Tijinney was a silversmith. Had a lard bucket full of silver dollars.'
'Sounds more logical than ceremonial things.'
Louisa said.
'Until you ask why bury a bucket when there's a million places you could hide it. And hoarding wealth isn't part of the Navajo Way anyway. There're always kin-folks who need it.'
She laughed. 'You tell McGinnis that?'
'Yeah, and he said, 'You're supposed to be the goddamn detective. You figure it out.' So I figured out there wasn't any bucket. You notice I never came up here with my pick and shovel to check it out.'
'I don't know,' she said. 'You're the tidiest man I ever knew. Just the kind of looter who'd push the dirt back in the hole.'
They found Dr. Albert Woody's van just where Chee had said it would be. Woody was standing in the doorway watching them park. To Leaphorn's surprise, he looked delighted to see them.
'Two visitors on the same day,' he said as they got out of the truck. 'I've never been this popular.'
'We won't take much of your time,' Leaphorn said. 'This is Dr. Louisa Bourebonette, I'm Joe Leaphorn and I presume you must be Dr. Albert Woody.'
'Exactly,' Woody said. 'And glad to meet you. What can I do for you?'
'We're trying to locate a woman named Catherine Pollard. She's a vector control specialist with the Arizona Health Department, and—'
'Oh, yes,' Woody said. 'I met her over near Red Lake some time ago. She was looking for sick rodents and infected fleas. Looking for the source of a plague case. In a way we're in the same line of work.'
He looked very excited, Leaphorn thought. Wired. Ready to burst. As if he were high on amphetamines.
'Have you seen her around here?'
'No,' Woody said. 'Just over at the Thriftway station. We were both buying gasoline. She noticed my van and introduced herself.'
'She's working out of that temporary laboratory in Tuba City,' Leaphorn said. 'On the morning of July eighth she left a note for her boss saying she was coming up here to collect rodents.'
'There was a Navajo Tribal policeman up here talking to me this morning,' Woody said. 'He asked me about her, too. Come in and let me give you something cold to drink.'
'We didn't intend to take a lot of your time.'
Leaphorn said.
'Come in. Come in. I've just had something great happen. I need somebody to tell it to. And Dr. Bourebonette, what is your specialty?'
'I'm not a physician,' Louisa said. 'I'm a cultural anthropologist at Northern Arizona University. I believe you know Dr. Perez there.'
'Perez?' Woody said. 'Oh, yes. In the lab. He's done some work for me.'
'He's a great fan of yours,' Louisa said. 'In fact, you're his nominee for the next Nobel Prize in medicine.' Woody laughed. 'Only if I'm guessing right about the internal working of rodents. And only if somebody in the National Center for Emerging Viruses doesn't get it first. But I'm forgetting my manners. Come in. Come in. I want to show you something.'
Woody was twisting his hands together, grinning broadly, as they went past him through the doorway.
It was almost cold inside, the air damp and clammy and smelling of animals, formaldehyde, and an array of other chemicals that linger forever in memory. The sound was another mixture—the motor of the air-conditioner engine on the roof, the whir of fans, the scrabbling feet of rodents locked away somewhere out of sight. Woody seated Louisa in a swivel chair near his desk, motioned Leaphorn to a stool beside a white plastic working surface, and leaned his lanky body against the door of what Leaphorn presumed was a floor-to-ceiling refrigerator.
'I've got some good news to share with Dr. Perez,' he said. 'You can tell him we've found the key to the dragon's cave.'
Leaphorn shifted his gaze from Woody to Louisa. Obviously she didn't understand that any better than he did.
'Will he know what that means?' she asked. 'He understands you're hunting for a solution to drug-resistant pathogens. Do you mean you've found it?'
Woody looked slightly abashed.
'Something to drink,' he said, 'and then I'll try to explain myself.' He opened the refrigerator door, fished out an ice bucket, extracted three stainless steel cups from an overhead cabinet and a squat brown bottle, which he displayed. 'I only have scotch.'
