for about two hours. He was beginning to resent it.
Bashe Lady stopped talking, gave Leaphorn an inscrutable look, and threw out her hands.
“A lot of stuff about the heroism and bravery of the Great Chief Ouray,” Becenti said, ”but nothing that’s not already published. Bottom line was she thought this Ironhand was related to Ouray in some way, but she wasn’t sure.”
Leaphorn leaned forward and interrupted. “Could you ask her if this Ironhand had any descendants with the same name?”
Becenti looked at Louisa. Louisa looked at Leaphorn, frowning. “Later,” she said. “I don’t want to break up her line of thought.” And to Becenti: 'Ask her if this hero Ironhand had any magical powers. Was he a witch? Anything mystical?”
Becenti asked, with Bashe Lady grinning at him.
The grin turned into a cackling laugh, which turned into a discourse, punctuated by more laughter and hand gestures.
“She says they heard the Navajos [Becenti had stopped translating that into Bloody Knives in deference to Leaphorn sitting behind him] were fooled so often by Ironhand that they began believing he was like one of their witches — like a Skinwalker who could change himself into an owl and fly, or a dog and run under the bushes. She said they would hear stories the Navajos told about how he could jump from the bottom of the canyon up to the rim, and then jump down again. But she said the Mogche people knew he was just a man. Just a lot smarter than the Navajos who hunted him. About then they started calling him Badger. Because of the way he fooled the Navajos.”
Leaphorn leaned forward, into the silence which followed that, and began: 'Ask her if this guy had a son.”
Louisa looked over her shoulder at him, and said, “Patience. We’ll get to that.” But then she shrugged and turned back to Becenti.
“Ask her if Ironhand had any children?”
He had several, both sons and daughters, Bashe Lady said. Two wives, one a Kapot Ute and the other a Paiute woman. While Becenti was translating that, she burst into enthusiastic discourse again, with more laughter and gestures. Becenti listened, and translated.
“She said he took this Paiute woman when he was old, after his first wife died, and she was the daughter of a Paiute they called Dobby. And Dobby was like Ironhand himself. He killed many Navajos, and they couldn’t catch him either. And Ironhand, even when he was an old, old man, had a son by this Paiute woman, and this son became a hero, too.”
Louisa glanced back at Leaphorn, looked at Becenti, said, “Ask her what he did to become a hero.”
Bashe Lady talked. Becenti listened, inserted a brief question, listened again.
“He was in the war. He was one of the soldiers who wore the green hats. She said he shot a lot of men and got shot twice himself, and they gave him medals and ribbons,” Becenti said. “I asked which war. She said she didn’t know, but he came home about when they were drilling the new oil wells in the Aneth field. So it must have been Vietnam.”
During all this, Great-Granddaughter emerged from the kitchen and handed Leaphorn his renewed glass of iced tea — devoid now of ice cubes. What Bashe Lady had been saying had brought Granddaughter out of lethargy. She listened intently to Becenti’s translation, leaned forward. “He was in the army,” she said. “In the Special Services, and they put him on the Cambodian border with the hill tribes. The Montegnards. And then they sent him over into Cambodia.” She laughed. “He said he wasn’t supposed to talk about that.”
She paused, looking embarrassed by her interruption. Leaphorn took advantage of the silence. Granddaughter obviously knew a lot about this younger version of Ironhand. He put aside his manners and interjected himself into the program.
“What did he do in the army? Was he some sort of specialist?”
“He was a sniper,” she told Leaphorn. “They gave him the Silver Star decoration for shooting fifty-three of the enemy soldiers, and then he was shot, so he got the Purple Heart, too.”
“Fifty-three,” Leaphorn said, thinking this had to be George Ironhand of the casino robbery, thinking he would hate to be prowling the canyons looking for him.
“Do you know where he lives?”
Granddaughter’s expression suggested she didn’t like this question. She studied Leaphorn, shook her head.
Becenti glanced back at him, said something to Bashe Lady. She responded with a few words and a couple of hand gestures. In brief she said Ironhand raised cattle at a place north of Montezuma Creek - approximately the same location Leaphorn had been given by Potts and
