The First Eagle

'Not yet,' she said.

'They won't.'

'And if they do, what then?'

'You say that Jim Chee told you he had, without authorization, taped a telephone call from Agent Reynald.' Chee paused. 'And that you had believed him.'

She stared at him. 'Had believed him?'

'Then you say that after you had reported this to the assistant U.S. attorney, Jim Chee informed you that while Reynald had made the remarks exactly as reported, Chee had no such tape.'

Janet was rising from her chair. She stood looking down at him. How long? Five or six seconds, but memory doesn't operate on conscious time. And Chee was remembering the happiest day of his life—the moment when their romance had become a love affair. He had imagined their love could blend oil and water. She would become a Navajo in more than name and work on the reservation. She would forget the glitter, power, and prestige of the affluent Washington society that produced her. He would set aside his goal of becoming a shaman. He would become ambitious, compromise with materialism enough to keep her content with what he knew she must see as poverty and failure. He'd been young enough to believe that. Janet had believed it, too. Believed the impossible. She could no more reject the only value system she'd ever known than he could abandon the Navajo Way. He hadn't been fair to her.

'Janet,' he said, and stopped, not knowing what else to say.

She said: 'Damn you, Jim,' and walked away.

Chee finished his coffee, listened to her car starting up and rolling across the parking-lot gravel. He felt numb. She had loved him once, in her way. He knew he'd loved her. Probably he still did. He'd know more about that tomorrow when the pain began.

 

Also by TONY HILLERMAN

The Fallen Man

Finding Moon

Sacred Clowns

Coyote Waits

Talking God

A Thief of Time

Skinwalkers

The Dark Wind

People of Darkness

Listening Woman

Dance Hall of the Dead

The Fly on the Wall

The Blessing Way

The Boy Who Made Dragonfly (for children)

<NONFICTION>

Hillerman Country

The Great Taos Bank Robbery

Rio Grande

New Mexico

The Spell of New Mexico Indian Country