The First Eagle

'My boss.'

Leaphorn had laughed. 'That's not what I meant.'

'I didn't think it was.'

'You know anything about this job she's going to offer me?'

'No.'

'What she wants?'

'It's none of my business.'

So Leaphorn dropped it. He watched the scenery, learned that even the rich could find only country-western music on their radios here, tuned in KNDN to listen in on the Navajo open-mike program. Someone had lost his billfold at the Farmington bus station and was asking the finder to return his driver's license and credit card. A woman was inviting members of the Bitter Water and Standing Rock clans, and all other kinfolk and friends, to show up for a yeibichai sing to be held for Emerson Roanhorse at his place north of Kayenta. Then came an old-sounding voice declaring that Billy Etcitty's roan mare was missing from his place north of Burnt Water and asking folks to let him know if they spotted it. 'Like maybe at a livestock auction,' the voice added, which suggested that Etcitty presumed his mare hadn't wandered off without assistance. Soon Leaphorn had surrendered to the soft luxury of the limo seat and dozed. When he awoke, they were rolling down 1-25 past Santa Fe's outskirts.

Leaphorn then had fished Millicent Vanders's letter from his jacket pocket and reread it.

It wasn't, of course, directly from Millicent Vanders. The letterhead read Peabody, Snell and Glick, followed by those initials law firms use. The address was Boston. Delivery was FedEx's Priority Overnight.

Dear Mr. Leaphorn:

This is to confirm and formalize our telephone confirmation of this date. I write you in the interest of Mrs. Millicent Vanders, who is represented by this firm in some of her affairs. Mrs. Vanders has charged me with finding an investigator familiar with the Navajo Reservation whose reputation for integrity and circumspection is impeccable.

You have been recommended to us as satisfying these requirements. This inquiry is to determine if you would be willing to meet with Mrs. Vanders at her summer home in Santa Fe and explore her needs with her. If so, please call me so arrangements can be made for her car to pick you up and for your financial reimbursement. I must add that Mrs. Vanders expressed a sense of urgency in this affair.

Leaphorn's first inclination had been to write Christopher Peabody a polite 'thanks but no thanks' and recommend he find his client a licensed private investigator instead of a former cop.

But…

There was the fact that Peabody, surely the senior partner, had signed the letter himself, and the business of having his circumspection rated impeccable, and—most important of all—the 'sense of urgency' note, which made the woman's problem sound interesting. Leaphorn needed something interesting. He'd soon be finishing his first year of retirement from the Navajo Tribal Police. He'd long since run out of things to do. He was bored.

And so he'd called Mr. Peabody back and here he was, driver pushing the proper button, gate sliding silently open, rolling past lush landscaping toward a sprawling two-story house—its tan plaster and brick copings declaring it to be what Santa Feans call 'Territorial Style' and its size declaring it a mansion.

The driver opened the door for Leaphorn. A young man wearing a faded blue shirt and jeans, his blond hair tied in a pigtail, stood smiling just inside the towering double doors.

'Mr. Leaphorn,' he said. 'Mrs. Vanders is expecting you.' Millicent Vanders was waiting in a room that Leaphorn's experience with movies and television suggested was either a study or a sitting room. She was a frail little woman standing beside a frail little desk, supporting herself with the tips of her fingers on its polished surface. Her hair was almost white and the smile with which she greeted him was pale.

'Mr. Leaphorn,' she said. 'How good of you to come. How good of you to help me.'

Leaphorn, with no idea yet whether he would help her or not, simply returned the smile and sat in the chair to which she motioned.

'Would you care for tea? Or coffee? Or some other refreshment? And should I call you Mr. Leaphorn, or do you prefer 'Lieutenant'?'

'Coffee, thank you, if it's no trouble.' Leaphorn said. And it's mister. I've retired from the Navajo Tribal Police.'

Millicent Vanders looked past him toward the door-. 'Coffee then, and tea,' she said. She sat herself behind the desk with a slow, careful motion that told Leaphorn his hostess had one or other of the hundred forms of arthritis. But she smiled again, a signal meant to be reassuring. Leaphorn detected pain in it. He'd become very good at that sort of detection while he was watching his wife die. Emma, holding his hand, telling him not to worry, pretending she wasn't in pain, promising that someday soon she'd be well again.

Mrs. Vanders was sorting through papers on her desk, arranging them in a folder, untroubled by the lack of conversation. Leaphorn had found this unusual among whites and admired it when he saw it. She extracted two eight-by-en photographs from an envelope, examined one, added it to the folder, then examined the other. A thump broke the silence—a careless pifion jay colliding with a windowpane fled in wobbling flight. Mrs. Vanders continued her contemplation of the photo, lost in some remembered sorrow undisturbed by the bird or by Leaphorn watching her. An interesting person, Leaphorn thought.

A plump young woman appeared at his elbow bearing a tray. She placed a napkin, saucer, cup, and spoon on the table beside him, filled the cup from a white china pot then repeated the process at the desk, pouring the tea from a silver container. Mrs. Vanders interrupted her contemplation of the photo, slid it into the folder, handed it to the woman.

'Ella,' she said. 'Would you give this, please, to Mr. Leaphorn?'

Ella handed it to Leaphorn and left as silently as she had come. He put the folder on his lap, sipped his coffee, the cup was translucent china, thin as paper. The coffee was hot, fresh, and excellent.