Having said that, McGinnis took another sip, picked the leather pouch off his lap, and started trying to untie the thong that held it closed.
McGinnis looked up from his labor. “You’ve seen ’em like this afore,” he said.
“Looks like a pouch to hold his ceremonial pollen,” Leaphorn said. “Or carry the cornmeal to use for a blessing. But I don’t recognize that figure stitched into the leather. It looks a little like a baseball umpire with his chest protector. What kind of Indian was he? Hopi? Havasupai? Hualapai? Yuman? Could even be one of the Apache tribes. They all use medicine pouches.”
“This cowboy, this Reno, said he didn’t know much about Indians. But he said this old fellow talked a lot about Masaw, or however you pronounce that kachina. Anyway, the Hopis know about him, and I think some of the Yuman people down in the canyon, too. And the Supai folks. Some of them call him Skeleton Man. Supposed to be the Guardian of the Underworld, and the spirit who greeted the first Hopis when they came up from the dark world they been living in. This spirit told them how to make their religious migrations and where to live when they finished doing that. And the big thing about him for the Hopis, this spirit taught them not to be afraid of death.”
McGinnis paused, took another sip.
“Getting hoarse,” he said. “That’s the most I’ve talked in a while. But anyway, he’s supposed to have let a bunch of Hopi elders look down into the underground and see where people who died were living comfortable and having a good time.”
McGinnis stopped, examined the whiskey level in his glass. “What was that you asked me about?”
“What was in the little pouch?”
“Well, it wasn’t pollen. There was nothing blessed in this medicine pouch,” McGinnis said. He poured the contents out into his palm.
A small round metal box emerged, worn-looking and with the legend
McGinnis twisted off the lid and extracted a clear blue-white stone, marble-sized but not marble shape. He held it out between thumb and forefinger, rotating it in a beam of sunlight. The sunlight flashed through it, touching off glittering bursts of light.
“When you pour your pollen out of your pouch,” McGinnis said, “then you’re pouring out a blessing. That’s the symbol of regerminating life. Of everything good and healthy and natural. Pour this little bastard out and you got the symbol of greed. It’s the sign of what folks cheat and steal and kill for. White women like to wear them to show other folks how rich they are.”
He held it out in a beam of sunlight, admired it. “Pretty, ain’t it?”
“Ah,” Leaphorn said, and smiled. “Mr. McGinnis, you’re starting to sound like an old-fashioned traditional Navajo.”
“Not quite,” McGinnis said. “But remember, when that First Man spirit fella of yours, when he was talking about the witchcraft evil stuff he had in his medicine bundle, he called it ‘the way to make money.’ Always did think that was a good point we whites overlooked. I mean, when a fella had more stuff than he needed and was stacking more of it up with the people all around him hungry, that was a pretty good clue he had some of that greed sickness, and they collect these things to prove they’re better at being greedy than their friends.”
With that, McGinnis produced a creaky old man’s chuckle and put the diamond back into the tin and the tin into the medicine pouch.
“Somebody said money was the root of all evil,” McGinnis said. “Myself, I never did well enough here to get much of it.”
“How about the diamond? Sounds like you wanted to make that work for you.”
McGinnis reached out and dropped the pouch into Leaphorn’s hand, changing the subject. “Take another look at it. Up close. It’s pretty, all right. But nothing to go to jail for.”
Leaphorn extracted the snuff can from the pouch, took out the diamond, and let the sunlight shine through it. He turned it, examined it.
“Seems to have been shaped to fit into some sort of necklace. A pendant. You just gave him some groceries for it and got you his horse, too? I’d say you struck a pretty hard bargain,” he said. “Sounds to me like you were trying to practice ‘the way to make money.’”
McGinnis looked defensive. “You’re making it sound worse than it was. My pickup was still running then. I gave him a ride into Page. Figured it was a fake, anyway. So did Reno.”
Leaphorn looked surprised. “Well, now. Is that right? Then how come you estimated it at ten thousand dollars when that burglar stole it?”
McGinnis laughed, peered at Leaphorn, raised his eyebrows. “Are we still having a friendly conversation here? Or are you back to being a cop?”
“Let’s keep it friendly.”
“Well, then. I told this young fella I wasn’t born yesterday and I knew all about those artificial diamonds. Zircons, I think they are. Did he really think I’d believe he was giving me a genuine diamond for a little food and a ride through the snowstorm? And he said, to tell the truth, he’d have been disappointed in me if I did. He said he always figured it was artificial.”
“You say he admitted it was a fake?”
McGinnis nodded. “Yeah. Reno said he figured that old fellow who gave it to him was either sort of crazy or a religious nut. Thought he might be trying to organize some sort of cult to the Skeleton Man down there.”
“But you listed it as an expensive diamond in the burglary report. If I hadn’t known you so long, that would surprise me.”
“Well, after the burglary I got to thinking about it, and I thought maybe I was just getting too cynical about things. Probably it really was a real diamond.” McGinnis peered at Leaphorn, nodded. “Yes,” he said. “A real perfect stone, too.”
