He’d guessed right for once. It proved to be a Utah State Policeman.
He shined his flash on Chee, looked at the identification Chee was holding out, and said, “Out of the car, please,” and stepped back.
Chee opened the door and got out.
“Face the car please, and put your hands on the roof.”
Chee did so, happy he’d left his belt and holster on the motel bed, and was patted down.
“OK,” the State Policeman said.
And then another voice, Bernie’s voice, saying: 'That’s Sergeant Chee. Jim, what are you doing here?”
And Chee stood there, still leaning against the car, grimacing, wondering if there was any way things could possibly get any worse.
Chapter Seventeen
The eastern sky was glowing pink and red over the bluffs that gave Bluff, Utah, its name when Officer Jim Chee climbed into his patrol car. He inserted the key, started the engine, did what all empty-country drivers habitually do: he checked the fuel gauge. The needle hovered between half and quarter full. Plenty to get back to the rendezvous point on Casa Del Eco Mesa, where Nez and he were scheduled to resume the search of their canyon. But not enough to feel comfortable when you’re going a long way from paved road and service stations. He glanced at his watch, pulled out of the Recapture Lodge lot onto U.S. 163. The Chevron station-diner he’d pass should be open about now. He’d stop, fill the tank, buy a few emergency-ration candy bars to share with Nez and continue, not thinking about how foolish he’d looked last night.
Good. The station must be open. He couldn’t see whether the lights were on, but a pickup was driving away. Chee stopped by the pumps, got out. A man was sitting on the gravel beside the station’s door, back against the wall. If Chee had numbered the drunks he’d dealt with since he joined the Navajo Tribal Police, this one would be about 999. He stepped out of the car, wondering what the station operator was doing, and gave the drunk a closer look.
Blood was trickling down the man’s forehead. Chee squatted beside him. The man looked about sixty, hair graying, wearing a khaki shirt with LEROY DELL embroidered on it. The man was breathing heavily. The blood came from an abrasion cut over his right eye. Chee started for the car to radio this in and get an ambulance. Get a pursuit started.
“What? What are you doing? Oh!”
Chee spun around. The man was staring at him, eyes wild, getting up.
“What happened?” the man asked. “Where is he? Did he get away?”
Chee helped him to his feet. “You tell me who hit you,” he said. “I’ll radio it in and get you an ambulance and we’ll see if we can catch him.”
“The son of a bitch,” the man said. He waved his hands. “Look at the mess he made.”
On the other side of the entrance, under a sign reading REST ROOMS CUSTOMERS ONLY, a garbage can lay on its side, surrounded by a scattering of cans, bottles, newspapers, sacks, crumpled napkins - all those things people discard at service stations. Nearby, a newspaper-vending machine was on its back.
“Who was he?” Chee said. “I want to call it in. Give us a better chance to catch him.”
“I don’t know him,” the man said. “He was a big Indian-looking guy. Navajo probably, or maybe a Ute. Tall. Maybe middle-aged, or so.”
“Driving a blue pickup truck?”
“I didn’t see the truck. Didn’t notice it.”
“Did he have a weapon?”
“That’s what he hit me with. A pistol.”
“OK,” Chee said. 'Why don’t you go in and sit down. I’ll get the police on it.”
The dispatcher sounded sleepy until the pistol was mentioned.
“Call him armed and dangerous,” Chee suggested. “You might mention this is in the area we’re hunting the Ute Casino perps.”
The dispatcher chuckled. “Those the perps the feds said were long gone. Flown away?”
“Don’t we wish,” Chee replied, and went back into the station to find out just what had happened.
Leroy Dell was sitting behind the cash register, holding his head.
