“I hope that’s it,” Dashee said.
“Broke, you think?”
“I guess,” Dashee said. “It feels like it. Or maybe it pulled the tendon loose. I was trying to get the boot off before it got too swollen.”
Chee rescued Dashee’s pocket knife. Gently as possible he cut the remaining strings, eased the boot off, and inspected the ankle.
“Already swollen,” he said. “When did it happen?”
“About an hour ago, I guess,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was checking on a little side canyon up there.”
“How far?” Chee asked.
Dashee managed a strained-sounding laugh. “What difference does that make? But I’d say about an hour’s downhill crawl, with a few stops to feel sorry for myself and yell for help.”
“Tell you what,” Chee said. “I’ll carry you down to that deep little pool by the Salt Shrine. That water’s cold. You can soak it, and I’ll see what I can do about finding some help.”
They discussed that suggestion, with Dashee expressing his doubts that Chee could carry him down the narrow and obstacle-rich trail without dropping him (or more likely, both of them) on the ragged boulders. He pressed for an alternate solution in which Dashee’s already-slit pants leg would be converted into bandage material, the ankle would be securely bound, and the trip would be made with Dashee hopping along on his good leg and Chee supporting his damaged side.
While the proposed bandaging was being done, they delivered their reports. Dashee had checked out two promising-looking connecting gulches, finding tracks and some interesting petroglyphs from Anasazi days, and was giving up on the second of these when he took his fall. Chee reported that he had taken looks at some undercuts which might have been cave sites—one with some signs it had been lived in long ago. He had made an extensive exploration of a fairly major drainage canyon, finding old tracks, both horse and human, but nothing very promising to suggest it was the home of the diamond dispenser. Then he returned to the place they had left Bernie to await Billy Tuve.
“What did she have to say?”
“She wasn’t there,” Chee said.
Dashee quit grimacing long enough to look surprised. And then alarmed. “She wasn’t? What happened?”
“She left a note on that big flat rock there. She told Tuve she was going to walk up the river awhile, and if he showed up before she got back, then wait for her. And if we showed up, the same for us. Our turn to wait.”
Dashee managed a grin. “Sounds like Bernie,” he said.
“Yeah,” Chee said, looking less happy about it. “Anyway, I waited awhile. Looked around. Found some other tracks there, too. Made by new men’s hiking boots. About size eleven or twelve, I’d say. But no sign of anyone there. Then I thought maybe you’d found the diamond man’s cave and come back to get her and she’d left with you for a look at it. So I headed up this way and heard you hollering.”
Dashee considered that, didn’t like the sound of it.
“Hey,” he said. “I wonder what happened to her.”
“I thought she’d be here with you. Now I’m getting a little worried.”
“Maybe another broken ankle,” Dashee said. “Hope it’s nothing worse. Hope she wasn’t hauled away by the size-twelve hiking boots.”
“I checked on that. They seemed to be a lot fresher than her tracks. And when her tracks went upriver, they didn’t follow.”
“Still, it makes you uneasy,” Dashee said.
“Let’s get you down to the river,” Chee said. “I think we can get a call out from there for the National Park rescue people to come and get you. I want to go find her.”
20
Successful skip tracers develop through endless practice the craft of concealment. One does not capture the wanted man nor repossess the overdue auto if the culprit sees you first. Almost anywhere in its meandering official 277 miles, the Grand Canyon offers a fine assortment of hiding places. The bottom end of the Hopi Salt Trail was no exception. Bradford Chandler selected a niche in the nearby cliff. It offered shade, a comfortable place to sit, the cover of a growth of tamarisk bushes, and a good view of the final hundred yards of the trail down which Joanna Craig would be coming. While he sat there waiting, he developed and refined his tactics for dealing with the woman.
Since she probably had shot Sherman, she probably had a pistol, and seemed to have no hesitation about shooting it. If she was carrying it in her hand, which he thought unlikely, he would simply shoot her. Why take the risk? More likely it would be tucked away. Perhaps even disposed of, since she would logically expect the police to be looking for her. Anyway, if the pistol was not displayed, he would assume the role of a businessman proposing a deal, which should, if his lies were well told, seem persuasive.
He stretched his legs, took another drink from his water bottle, and went over it again. He’d hardly started that when she appeared, alone, trudging wearily down the final rough segment of the trail, looking dusty, disheveled, and exhausted.
He stood. She stopped at the trail end, studied the area for a minute, then walked past him, not more than a dozen yards beyond the bush he was behind. Then Chandler stepped out behind her.
