“They’ll be sending an ambulance,” Chee said.
“Down from Blanding. About twenty-five miles from the clinic, and twenty-five back,” Dell said. He groaned and grimaced and described to Chee what had happened. When he was walking from his house up behind the station to open the place he’d heard a sort of a crashing sound. He’d hurried around the corner and seen a man going through the trash. He had shouted at him, and the man had said he just wanted to get some old newspapers.
“Just newspapers?”
“That’s what he said. And I said, “Well you’re going to have to clean up the mess, too.” And then I noticed the vending machine was turned over and went to look at that and I saw he’d broken into that. And I turned around and said he was going to have to pay for that and he had this gun in his hand and he hit me.”
“What kind of gun?”
“Pistol. I don’t know what kind. It wasn’t a revolver.”
“Anything missing?”
“I don’t know,” Dell said, grimacing again. “Tell the truth, I don’t give a damn. I’ve got a hell of a headache. You take a look if you want to.”
Chee looked. He opened the cash-register drawers.
“Empty.”
“I take the money home at night,” Dell said.
“You better call somebody to come down here and look after you,” Chee said. “I’m going to get myself some gas and see if I can find that pickup truck.”
Finding the truck occupied much of the day. A Bureau of Indian Affairs cop sent over from the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico spotted it at the Aneth Oil Field about sundown. It was stuck in the sand of an arroyo bottom off an abandoned road. South of Montezuma Creek. West of Highway 35. Back on the emptiness of Casa Del Eco Mesa. Back within easy walking range of Gothic Canyon, or Desert Creek Canyon, or anyplace else for a man burdened only by an old newspaper.
It was farther, however, than Sergeant Jim Chee could have walked that evening. Chee had sprained his left ankle climbing down a rocky slope while on this fruitless hunt. It had been one of those no-brainer accidents. He’d put his weight on a protruding slab of sandstone that looked solid but wasn’t. Then, instead of facing the inevitability of gravity and taking the tumble with a roll in the rocks, he’d tried to save his dignity, made an off-balance jump and landed wrong. That hurt, and it hurt even worse to require help from a deputy sheriff and an FBI agent to haul him back to his car.
Chapter Eighteen
The voice on the telephone was Captain Largo’s, with no words wasted.
Chee said, “No sir, I can’t put any weight on it yet,”; listened a few moments, said, “Yes sir,” listened again, another 'Yes sir,” and clicked off. Total result: Largo wanted to know when Chee could resume his canyon-combing duties, preferably immediately; Largo instructed him to fill out an injury report form, and Largo had already sent somebody down to his trailer with it. It should include name, phone number, etc., of the physician who had X-rayed the ankle. Chee should do this immediately and send the report right back. Largo was shorthanded, and Chee should not waste the messenger’s time with a lot of conversation.
Chee adjusted the ice pack. He tried to think of the word, in either Navajo or English, to describe the color the swelling had turned and settled on ‘plum-colored.' He considered whether he should resent the lack of either sympathy or confidence the captain’s call had indicated. About the time he’d decided to pass that off as part of Largo’s natural-born grumpiness, the messenger arrived.
“Come on in,” Chee said, and Officer Bernadette Manuelito stepped in, in full uniform and looking neater than usual.
“Wow,” she said. “Look at that ankle.' She made a wry face. “I’ll bet it hurts.”
“Right,” Chee said.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot,” she said, her tone disapproving. “Barging right in like that.”
“I didn’t “barge right in.” I drove up to get some gasoline. I noticed a pickup driving away. Then I saw the victim sitting by the wall. And weren’t you supposed to bring me a report to fill in and then rush right back to the captain with it, with no time wasted talking?”
“I still think you were lucky,” Manuelito said. “You’re a fine one to be thinking I wasn’t competent to work on a roadblock.”
Chee was conscious of his face flushing. He looked at Bernie, found her expression odd but inscrutable—at least to him.
“Where’d you hear that?”
