daddy did the badger escape trick. And where he did it.” He looked at Leaphorn. “Do you have any ideas about that?”
“Well, I was going to ask you if you had found any mine shafts down in Gothic Creek Canyon.”
“We saw several little coal digs. What they call dog holes. None of them went in more than a few yards. Just people digging out a few sacks to get them through the winter. That creek cuts through coal seams in a lot of places, some of them pretty thick. But we didn’t see anything that looked like commercial mining.”
“Maybe Ironhand has himself a hidden route up some narrow side gulch,” Leaphorn said. “From the way the old woman told the story there just had to be a quick way to get up and down the canyon wall. Did you see any little narrow cuts like that? Maybe even a crack a man could climb?”
“Not in the section we covered,” Chee said. “Maybe we’ll find one farther down toward the San Juan Canyon.”
“If they had a secret hidey-hole, I think you’d find it not too far from where they left the truck. They’d be carrying a lot. Food and water probably, unless they stocked up in advance. And four hundred and something thousand dollars. From that casino it would be mostly in small bills. That would be a lot of weight. And then weapons. They apparently used assault rifles at the casino. They’re heavy.”
That triggered another thought in Chee—a worry that had been nagging for attention.
“You mentioned a roadblock on your way in from the Ute Reservation. An NTP block, I think you said. Talking to a policewoman.”
“It was one of our patrol cars, but the man sitting in it was wearing a San Juan County deputy uniform. The woman was wearing a Navajo Police uniform. Up here it would probably be one of your people out of Shiprock.”
Chee was doing a quick inventory of police women at Shiprock. There weren’t many. “How old?” he asked. “How big?”
Leaphorn knew exactly what he was asking.
“I’ve only seen her a time or two,” he said. “But I think it was Bernadette Manuelito.”
“Son of a bitch,” Chee said, voice vehement. “What are they using for brains?” He was pulling on his socks. “What the devil does she know about staying alive at a roadblock?”
Chapter Sixteen
The roadblock as Leaphorn described it was on Utah 163 about halfway between Recapture Creek and the Montezuma Creek Bridge. A sensible place to put it, Chee thought, since a fugitive who spotted it would have no side trails to detour onto. There was only the brush bosque of the San Juan River to the south and the sheer stone cliffs of McCracken Mesa to the north. What wasn’t sensible was assigning Bernie to such dangerous duty. That was insane. Bernie would be working backup, surely. Even so, this would be a three-unit block at best. Whoever they had would be up against men who had already proved their willingness to kill and their ability to do it. They’d used an automatic rifle at the casino, and a rumor was afloat that they also had night-vision scopes missing from a Utah National Guard armory.
Chee imagined a bloody scene and drove the first eight miles of his trip much faster than the rules allowed. Then, abruptly, he slowed. A belated thought worked its way through his anger. What was he going to say when he got there? What would he say to the officer in charge? It would probably be a Utah state cop, or a San Juan County deputy. He tried to imagine the conversation. He’d introduce himself as NTP out of Shiprock, chat about the weather maybe, discuss the manhunt a minute or two. Then what? They’d want to know what he wanted. He’d tell ‘em he didn’t think Bernie had any roadblock training.
Down the slope, Chee’s headlights illuminated a red REDUCE SPEED sign.
Then what would they say? Chee took his foot off the gas pedal, let the car roll, imagining a tough-looking Utah cop grinning at him, saying, “She’s your lady? Well, then, we’ll take good care of her for you.” And a deputy sheriff standing behind him, chuckling. An even more dreadful thought emerged. The next step. They’d tell Bernie she had to stay in her car, run and hide anytime a stop seemed imminent. Bernie would be outraged, furious, terminally resentful. And justifiably so.
The car was rolling slowly now. Chee pulled it off onto the shoulder, slammed it into reverse, made a pursuit turn, and headed back toward Bluff, giving his idea of saving Officer Bernadette Manuelito more thought.
That thought was quickly interrupted. The sound of a siren in his ear, the blinking warning light atop a Utah State Police car reflecting off his rearview mirror. Chee grunted out the Navajo version of an expletive, slammed himself on the forehead with a free hand, and angled his car off on the shoulder. Of course. He’d done exactly what one does to trigger pursuit from every roadblock from Argentina to Zanzibar. He put on the parking brake, extracted his NTP identification, turned on the overhead light, did everything he could think of to make it easier for whichever cop would show up at his driver-side window.
