That had been another summer day like this, with squadrons of cumulus clouds drifting across the sky and dragging their shadows across the valley. Bernie was brand new in the npd, and he was taking her around—showing her where a Toadlena bootlegger lived, the locale of a family suspected of stealing cattle, and some of the places where terrain caused communication blind spots, and the good places where even their old radios would reach Shiprock or Window Rock. He'd stopped beside the dirt road up Chuska Peak to check in. Bernie had got out to collect another of those seedpods that attracted her. He'd joined her, stretching his legs and his cramped back muscles, thinking that he wasn't quite as young as he had been, thinking Janet Pete had court duty in Farmington that day and they had a dinner date that night. And then finding himself comparing Bernie's delight with a landscape that offered nothing but beauty and poverty with how Janet would have reacted.
Thinking about it now, he realized that might have been the moment when he first wondered if the bright young lawyer's beauty and style would be enough to let them bridge the cultural chasm between them.
He was pondering that when he heard the tinkle of sheep bells, and the flock began flowing past the spruce thicket above him. A slender, gray-haired man and a shepherd dog emerged a moment later. The man walked toward Chee while the dog raced past the flock, directing it toward a down-slope meadow.
Chee stood, identified himself by clan and kinfolk, and waited while the gray-haired man identified himself as Ashton Hoski.
'They say that you are a
'That is true,' Hostiin Hoski said, and he laughed. 'Years pass and there is never a need for either one. I start thinking that the Dineh have learned not to be violent. That I can forget those sings. But now I get patients again. Do you need to have the ceremony done for someone? For yourself?'
'It might be necessary,' Chee said. 'Do you already have a patient you are preparing for?'
Hoski nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Probably in October. As soon as the thunder sleeps.'
Chee felt a sick premonition. He hesitated.
'I know who you are,' Hoski said. 'You are a policeman. I have seen you on the TV news. At the court trial of that man who killed his brother-in-law, and then last week at that head-on collision out on Highway Six Sixty-Six. I'll bet you have the same ghost sickness—the very same ghost—as the man I will be singing for.'
'Yes,' Chee said. 'It is a job that causes you to be around too much death.'
'Were you around the corpse of this man who was shot up in the Coyote Canyon country? That would make it very easy. That was the same man.'
Chee swallowed. He didn't want to ask this question. He was almost certain he didn't want to know the answer. Or what to do with it if it was what he expected.
'Who is your other patient?' Chee asked.
'I think you might know of him,' Hoski said. 'Hostiin James Peshlakai.'
Chapter Twenty-One
« ^ »
Sergeant jim chee usually enjoyed driving, but the journey from Hostiin Hoski's high-country sheep meadow to Gallup's Gold Avenue offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been totally glum. He had made Osborne very aware of his opinion that Hostiin James Peshlakai was not a promising suspect in the Doherty homicide. Now his sense of duty, or honor, or whatever he could call it, required him to reverse that. Not that he thought Osborne had lent much weight to his opinion or, for that matter, would lend any weight at all to Peshlakai's arranging a Big Star Way for himself. However, Chee was an officer of the law. Duty required it. Why hadn't he been smart enough to leave well enough alone?
He could deal with that, of course. He'd simply tell Osborne what he had found, try to explain the implications, try not to notice that Osborne's interest, if he showed any at all, was simply polite, and then forget it—just as Osborne would.
But another problem that had surfaced on this trip wouldn't go away. He was finally facing the fact that he was falling in love with Officer Bernadette Manuelito.
That, too, was a matter of honor. He was Bernie's supervisor, and that, under Chee's ethical code, made her off limits and out of bounds. Besides he didn't know whether Bernie shared his feelings. She liked him, or at least pretended to as employees sometimes do. She had referred to him as 'sweet' with a tone and a look that was obviously sincere even by Chee's uncertain judgment. But what he had done for her had been a bit risky, even after Leaphorn's assistance took most of the risk away. Therefore, it was only natural that a well-raised woman would express her thanks. So how could he find out where he stood? By romancing her, or trying to. But how could he do that as long as he was the fellow ordering her around every day? He couldn't think of a good way. And what would happen if he did?
Chee parked just down the street from the fbi offices, pushed the buzzer, identified himself, and was clicked in. He made his way through the metal detector and past the row of cubicles where agents did their paperwork, then found Osborne awaiting him in a hearing room. They exchanged the usual greetings.
'Well,' said Osborne, 'what's new?'
'I've had to change my thinking about James Peshlakai,' Chee said. 'I think you'll want to take a close look at him.'
'Why? Something happen?'
'Remember what I started telling you about a curing ceremony that traditionals have after being involved with death, or corpses, or violence? Well, I checked on that. Peshlakai has arranged one.'
Osborne was sitting behind his desk, studying Chee. He nodded.
'He contacted a singer and arranged it the same day Doherty's body was found. In the morning.'
Osborne's expression was inscrutable. 'Was it something called a Big Star Way?' he asked. 'Is that it?'
Short silence while Chee digested this. 'Well, yes,' he said. 'That's the one.'
