Cabot looked surprised.
“What agency?”
“It was a Department of Energy copter,” Chee said. “I believe it’s based at the Tonapaw Proving Grounds over in Nevada.”
“Department of Energy? What business do the energy folks have out here?”
Chee had decided he didn’t much like Special Agent Cabot, or his attitude, or his well-shined shoes and necktie, or perhaps the fact that Cabot’s paycheck was at least twice as large as his, plus all those government perks. He said, “I don’t know.”
Captain Largo glowered at him.
“I understand the Department of Energy had leased the copter to the EPA,” Chee said, and waited for the next question.
“Ah, let’s see,” said Cabot. “I will rephrase the question so you can understand it. What are the Environmental Protection people doing up here?”
“They’re hunting old mines that might be a threat to the environment,” Chee said. “Mapping them. Didn’t the Bureau know about that?”
Cabot, used to asking questions and not to answering them, looked surprised again. He hesitated. Glanced at Captain Largo. Chee glanced at
Largo, too. Largo’s almost-suppressed grin showed that he also knew what Chee was doing and wasn’t as upset by it as it had seemed a moment ago.
“I’m sure we did,” Cabot said, slightly flushed. “I’m sure if such mapping was in any way helpful to us in this case, it would be used.”
Chee nodded. The ball was in the FBI court. He outwaited Cabot, who glanced at Largo again. Largo had found something interesting to look at out the window.
“Sergeant Chee,” Cabot said, 'Captain Largo told us you had some reason to suspect this particular mine might be used by the perpetrators of the Ute Casino robbery. Would you explain that, please?”
This was the moment Chee had dreaded. He could imagine the amused look on Cabot’s face as he tried to explain that the idea came from a Ute tribal legend, trying to describe a hero figure who could jump from canyon bottoms to mesa rims. He took a deep breath and started.
Chee hurried through the relationship of George Ironhand with the original Ironhand, the account of how the Navajos couldn’t catch the villain, the notion that since the man was called the Ute name for the badger he might have—like that animal—a hole to hide in with an exit as well as an entrance. As Chee had expected, both Cabot and his partner seemed amused by it. Captain Largo did not appear amused. No suppressed grin now. His expression was dour. Chee found himself talking faster and faster.
“So here was the EPA doing its survey, I hitchhiked a ride, and there it was. The old entrance on a shelf high up on the canyon wall and above it the ruins of the old surface mine. It made sense,” Chee said. “I recommended to Captain Largo that it be checked out.”
Cabot was studying him. “Let’s see now,” he said. “You think that the people digging coal out of the cliff down in the canyon decided to dig right on up to the top? If I know my geology at all, that would have them digging through several thick levels of sandstone and all sorts of other strata. Isn’t that right?”
“Actually, I was thinking more of digging down from the top,” Chee said.
“Can you describe the old mine structure?” Cabot asked. “The building?”
“I have pictures of it,” Chee said. “I took my Polaroid camera along.' He handed Cabot two photos of the old structures, one shot from rim level and one from a higher angle.
Cabot looked at them, then handed them to his partner.
“Is that the one you thought it might be?” he asked.
“That’s it,” Smythe said. “We spotted that the day we found their truck. We put a crew in there that afternoon and searched it, along with all the other buildings on that mesa.”
“What did you find?” asked Cabot, who obviously already knew the answer. “Did you see any sign that people might be hiding in the mine shaft?”
Smythe looked amused. “We didn’t even see a shaft,” he said. “Much less people. Just lots of rodent dropping, old, old trash, odds and end of broken equipment, animal tracks, three empty Thunderbird wine bottles with well-aged labels. There was no sign at all of human occupancy. Not in recent years.”
