The Wailing Wind

After she had directed Osborne and his crime scene experts to the burned area where she had been (probably) shot at, and showed him where she'd noticed what she presumed were the victim's boot prints, this area of the canyon had been made off limits by strips of yellow crime scene tape. She and Chee, their usefulness exhausted, had then been advised to go about their business elsewhere while the crime scene folks sniffed the air, read the sand, and deduced what had happened here. But by the time they'd reached the chapter house on the way out, a New Mexico state policeman had waved them down, said Agent Osborne wanted them, and directed them back to the hogan near the canyon entrance.

The hogan now was definitely occupied. Smoke, and the aroma of burning pinon, emerged from its stovepipe. The track up the slope was occupied by three vehicles—a McKinley County sheriff's car, a Ford sedan in fbi black, and an elderly Chevy pickup. Bernie recognized the grinning deputy at the hogan's plank door as a young fellow who had made a move on her last spring when they were both working the Navajo Fair, and said 'Hello, George,' as he waved them in.

Not all of the smoke produced by the hogan's stove had escaped out the pipe. Three men were awaiting them in the aromatic haze: Agent Osborne, a young fellow in a jean jacket standing with him by the door, and an elderly man, his gray hair tied in the traditional bun, sitting on a bench beside the hogan's table.

'We're having a little trouble getting any information out of Mr. Peshlakai,' Agent Osborne said to Chee. And having said it, he endowed Bernie Manuelito with a sort of 'Oh, yes, I forgot' nod.

'What sort of information are you after?' Chee asked. He was nodding to the old man, smiling at him.

'We found the spent round that was fired at Officer Manuelito,' Osborne said. 'Glanced off a rock, and it's well enough preserved to get a match.' He pointed toward a plastic evidence sack leaning against the wall. 'He has an old Savage thirty-thirty carbine, the right caliber and so forth to match the slug we found, but the old fella doesn't seem to want to talk about it.'

Chee glanced at Peshlakai, who had looked faintly amused at Osborne's description. To Mr. Peshlakai Chee nodded again, and said in Navajo: 'He doesn't know you understand English.'

Peshlakai erased the beginnings of a smile, looked very somber, and said: 'It is true.'

'Officer Harjo, Ralph Harjo, he's my interpreter,' Osborne said. 'With the Bureau of Indian Affairs Law and Order office. He's Navajo.'

'Good to meet you,' Chee said, and switched into Navajo. 'I'm born to the Slow Talking Dineh, born for the Bitter Water. People call me Jim Chee.'

'Ralph Harjo,' Harjo said, looking slightly abashed as they shook hands. 'My father was Potawatomi, and my mother grew up over near Burnt Water. I think she said she was a member of the Standing House clan.'

'Hostiin Peshlakai may have been raised way over on the west side of the reservation. The language over there is a little different,' Chee said. 'Lot of Paiute words mixed in, and some things are pronounced differently.'

'That might be part of my problem,' Harjo said. 'But he's not being responsive to questions. He wants to tell me about something that happened a long time ago. I think it's about religion. We moved to Oregon when I was a kid. I don't have the vocabulary for that stuff.

'If you get down to the bottom line, all we really want here is whether he admits shooting at Officer Manuelito. And why he did it. We're going to hold off on the Doherty homicide for now. Don't want to stir the old man up on that until we get a search warrant and see what we can find in here.'

'How about the rifle?' Chee asked, nodding toward the evidence sack.

'I asked him about it,' Harjo said. 'He said go ahead, take it. Bring it back before hunting season starts.'

'Sounds like that makes it legal,' Chee said. 'Now, with this questioning, you're going to have to have patience.'

It began, of course, with Chee telling Mr. Peshlakai who he was—not in belagaana terms of what he did to make money but how he fit in the Dineh social order. He named the maternal clan he was 'born to' and paternal clan he was born for. He mentioned various relatives—most notably the late Frank Sam Nakai, who was a shaman of considerable note. That done, he listened to Mr. Peshlakai's listing of his own clans and kinfolks. Only then did Chee explain his position in the belagaana world and that it was his duty to learn who had fired a shot at Bernadette Manuelito. Anything Mr. Peshlakai could tell him about that would be appreciated.

This produced a silence of perhaps two minutes, while Mr. Peshlakai considered his response. Then he motioned at Chee and his other visitors and asked if they would like to be served coffee.

A good sign, Chee thought. Mr. Peshlakai had something to tell them. 'Coffee would be good,' he said.

Peshlakai arose, collected an assortment of cups from the shelf behind him, lined them up on the edge of the stove, put a jar of Nescafe instant coffee beside them, tested the pot of steaming water on the stovetop with a cautious finger, pushed the pot into a hotter spot, said: 'Not quite hot enough,' and resumed both his seat and his silence.

Osborne frowned. 'What's all this about?'

'It's about tradition,' Chee said. 'If you're going to do any serious talking in a gentleman's home, he offers you some coffee first.'

'Tell him we haven't got time to brew coffee. Tell him we just want him to answer some simple questions.'

'I don't think they're going to have simple answers,' Chee said.

'Well, hell,' Osborne said. He started to add something angry to that, changed his mind. 'I have a couple of calls to make. Come get me when he's ready to cooperate,' he said, and disappeared through the doorway.

The silence stretched until Peshlakai touched the coffeepot, judged its temperature sufficient, spooned instant coffee into each cup, filled them with steaming water, passed them around, sat, and looked up at Chee.

Chee sipped his coffee, in which the flavor of the Nescafe blended nicely with the alkaline and whatever other minerals enriched Peshlakai's water. It was a taste that pleasantly recalled to Chee his hogan boyhood, and he nodded his approval to Hostiin Peshlakai.

'My grandfather,' Chee said, 'as you have heard, when this woman with me came to this canyon yesterday in