Service paperwork for touring down into the depths, and collected a little information about the do’s and don’ts of canyon tripping. One of the do’s was a reminder that this was the “monsoon season” in the mountain west, a season of thunderstorms, and that these tended to produce quick, brief, and dangerous flash floods sweeping down the subsidiary canyons leading down to the Colorado River.
As was his custom, he had picked the most attractive young female Park Service employee there as his source of information, quickly noted from her ID tag that her name was Mela, and turned on his prep-school charm. He was supposed to meet his aunt here, he told this young lady. She was Mrs. Joanna Craig. But, alas, he was late. Could she tell him if Mrs. Craig had already checked in to get the required permits and some advice? The young lady, trained to be helpful to tourists, probably didn’t need the encouragement of the Chandler charm. She checked.
Yes, Mela said, a Ms. Joanna Craig had indeed checked in for a visit down into the canyon.
“It was yesterday,” she said, returning Chandler’s smile. “You’re even later than you thought.”
“Maybe I can still catch her,” he said. “Is she staying at that big hotel?” He dug his notebook from his jacket pocket, flipped through pages long enough to suggest a search. “We’re planning to go down the Hopi Salt Shrine Trail. Did she say anything about that? Did she say which trail she would be taking?”
Chandler left with a no to both questions and a warning from the Park Service aide that going down the Salt Trail would require dealing with the Hopi authorities. It was restricted for Hopi religious use and it probably would not be possible for him to go down there. His next stop was the hotel. Yes, a Ms. Joanna Craig was registered. He dialed her room number from the house phone. No answer. No need for his “Sorry, wrong number” excuse. That accomplished, he drove to a tourist parking lot and found himself a place to sit with shade and a view. There he waited for his cell phone to ring and get the word from Sherman that would begin the final phase of this project.
Sherman had called earlier, reporting success. He had located the home of Tuve’s mother, found Tuve there, identified himself as a deputy sheriff sent to take Tuve back to Gallup to clear up some problem about bonding him out. Then Sherman said he’d told Tuve that he didn’t believe he’d killed the man at the Zuni shop, that he wanted to help Tuve find the old man who had swapped him the diamond and thereby prove his innocence.
“Cut it short,” Chandler had said. “Where is he now?”
“Out taking a leak,” Sherman said. “We can talk?”
“Well, make it quick. Where do we meet?”
Sherman had said he didn’t know yet. “He says he has to go down something they call the Salt Trail to get close to the place he met this bird, but he says nobody can go down without doing the proper religious things. You need to understand I’m having trouble talking him into it. So far, the best he’ll agree to is to show me the place on the rim where the trail starts. He says he’ll do the blessing thing with us, give us some pollen and prayer sticks to use to protect us from the spirits, but he won’t go down with us.”
“The hell he won’t! What’s wrong with you, Sherman? I understood you know how to get reluctant people to do what they don’t want to do.”
“He says it’s not his fault. Says their Guardian Spirits keep people who aren’t supposed to be there from using that trail.” Sherman chuckled. “He says these spirits are sort of like us humans, except they have two hearts, still talk to the animals, have all sorts of powers. And they’ll make us fall over the edge, rocks drop on us, snakes biting us, that sort of thing. Says he’ll help us but he won’t go down with us. Anyway, he’s going to guide me to a parking place at the rim now, where the climb down starts, and when I get there, I’ll let you know. It can’t be very far from the South Rim entrance. You want me to wait for you there? What’s the plan?”
“Look, Sherman. It won’t do a damn bit of good to climb down there if he’s not going down with us. We have to have him there to be our guide.”
“I told him that. Then he said it would be easy for us, and he told me exactly how to get from the end of the trail to the place he was sitting when the man showed up with the diamond, and the other directions we’ll need.”
“Let’s hear ’em,” Chandler said.
Sherman explained the directions—the number of feet from water’s edge, number of paces down the river, number of paces around a corner of the cliff to the mouth of a drainage slough where he thinks the old man lives, number of minutes Tuve said it took the man to return.
“I think we could do it without him,” he said.
“Maybe we could,” Chandler said, “but there’s too much money riding on this for us to settle for maybe.”
“I wasn’t intending to settle for any maybe, either,” Sherman said. “He’ll take us down.”
Chandler said, “Yeah?” Emphasis on the skeptical sound.
“Come on, Chandler,” Sherman said. “You already reminded me I had a rep for getting people to do what they didn’t want to do. You need to remember I ran a police department criminal investigation unit. I haven’t forgotten the old tricks. I learned what would get cooperation out of all sorts of people. People a lot tougher than this dumb little Indian.”
Hearing Sherman say that restored a lot of Chandler’s confidence. The man did have a reputation, a bad one in some circles, for his skill at getting reluctant suspects to reveal where bodies had been hidden, the identities of cohorts, and other crucial information—facts that helped the cause of law enforcement far more than the prospects of the persons accused.
“All right, then,” Chandler had said. “How about the other stuff on that list I gave you. What did you find out about the woman who bonded Tuve out?”
“She’s interesting,” Sherman said. “Her name—the one she’s using, anyway—is Joanna Craig, from New York, and from what I’ve been hearing from various people in the law-and-order business, she was out here a couple of times earlier trying to find her father’s grave.”
Sherman waited a response to that. Got none.
“Probably the woman you told me about,” he added.
“Go on,” Chandler said.
“Doesn’t that surprise you?”
