Tuve stared at her, looked at Dashee, a question on his face.
Dashee said, “We don’t do it. Don’t take white people down that trail. They are not initiated. They don’t know the prayers to say, don’t know what Masaw told us to do. If they go down for the wrong reason, with the wrong spirit, a Two Heart will make them fall.”
Craig looked surprised, then interested. “Masaw? Who’s that?”
Tuve ignored the question.
Dashee looked at Chee.
Chee shrugged. “I’m not a Hopi, you know, but we Navajos understand that Masaw is their Guardian Spirit of the Underworld. Sometimes he’s called Skeleton Man or Death Man because he taught the Hopis not to be afraid to die. Anyway, after the Hopis came up to the Earth Surface World, they say God made him sort of their guardian if I’ve got it right. And the Two Hearts are the sort of people who didn’t quite make the transition from what they were in the underworld into the human form. Didn’t get rid of the evil. Still have an extra animal heart. Sort of like the witches you white people talk about.”
“Or like the witches Navajos call Skinwalkers,” Dashee said, with a sardonic glance at Chee.
“Actually, we call them Long Lookers,” Chee said, looking slightly apologetic. “And we have several versions of them.”
“I think the rain’s finished here for now,” Dashee said, trying to change the subject. “Moving over to the Checkerboard Reservation.”
“One more question,” Chee said. “Mr. Tuve, who was that man who came to see you this morning?”
“I don’t know him. He said his name was Jim Belshaw, and he said he wanted to know about getting me out of jail. And he wanted to talk to me about the diamond. He said he would come back later to get me out.”
Tuve nodded toward Craig, who was watching this exchange. “I thought maybe this lady here sent him. She could tell you about him.”
“I didn’t send him,” Craig said, looking startled and flustered. She glanced at Chee, a questioning look.
“Oh,” Tuve said. “That seems funny.”
She looked at Chee. “One of your people?”
“Not us,” Chee said. “I don’t know who he was. Neither did the court clerk.”
“Well, anyway, then,” Craig said to Tuve. “If you can’t take me down the Salt Trail—and I really don’t want to bother your Two Hearts—then we’ll just get down there another way.”
Chee noticed that she was smiling at Tuve as she said it.
9
The thunderstorm was gone from Gallup now, drifting away to bestow its blessing wherever the wind or Pueblo rain dances took it. One of Billy Tuve’s numerous uncles had arrived to give him a ride back to Shungopovi on Second Mesa. Chee watched Joanna Craig chatting with Tuve, a conversation he didn’t manage to overhear, and then giving him his instructions on the requirements of those free on bond. Chee gave Craig his police card and a request that she stay in touch. Then Dashee led the way out into the hotel parking lot to Chee’s car.
“Look at it,” Dashee said. “Clean. Didn’t recognize it. I never saw it like that before. You can even make out that Navajo Nation symbol on the door.”
“Get in, Cowboy,” Chee said. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“And decide what to do,” Dashee said. “What’d you think of that Craig woman?”
“How about you?” Chee said. “I noticed you were being uncharacteristically polite. I mean, hopping up and rushing over to get her purse and hand it to her.”
“It was heavy,” Dashee said.
“Yeah,” Chee said. “I thought it would be. The way it looked.”
“Maybe she’s carrying a super makeup outfit, or a really old-fashioned cell telephone, or”—Dashee gave Chee a sidewise look—“maybe a pistol?”
“The pistol occurred to me,” Chee said. “She’s from the East, you know. A lot of Easterners worry about you Indians.”
“Hey!” Dashee said. “We Hopis are the peaceful ones. You Navajos were the hostiles. And you were showing it again today.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You wouldn’t let us eat lunch with Ms. Craig there at the hotel. So we just sat there in the chair and watched them eat.”
“Good point,” Chee said. “That wasn’t very smart.” He turned his clean, rain-washed car into the Bob’s Diner parking lot.
While they dined they agreed on several other points.
For one, Tuve would win no prizes for intellectual brilliance. His story about swapping his shovel for the diamond was not going to sound likely to a jury.
