“Let’s hope it stays this easy,” Chandler said.
“Take a look up,” Joanna said. “At the sky almost straight overhead.”
Chandler glanced at Joanna, suspicious.
“I saw a flash of lightning,” she said.
A boom of thunder punctuated her statement, producing a deafening battery of echoes from the cliffs.
“Guess it’s going to rain,” Chandler said, looking up now. “We’ll be dry in here. And if it keeps doing that, you can talk as loud as you like.”
“Yes,” she began, intending to tell this big, obnoxious man what she had read about the effects of rainstorms above the canyon. And what one of the people at the Park Service Center had told her of the sudden flash floods roaring down the little washes that drained the mesa tops. But no. Maybe that knowledge, and his ignorance, might be useful if she had any luck. And Joanna Craig had no doubt that she was going to need a lot of luck to get out of this situation.
He shifted the light beam, revealing nothing but the uneven layers of stone of the slot cliffs to the left, then he directed it up the cliffs, then across the slot. The light produced a brief burst of glitter as it passed the diamonds and then illuminated the cliffs to the right.
“There!” Chandler said, keeping the beam focused on the high shelf where Bernie had seen the diamond man’s bed. “See the cloth? I think we’ve found something.”
“Didn’t you notice something shining?” Joanna asked. She pointed. “Back that way.”
Chandler ignored her. Walked toward the shelf.
“Somebody had a bed roll up there,” he said. “This must be where the man with the diamonds lived.”
And as he said that, the beam of the flash struck the corpse.
Joanna sucked in her breath.
“Yes,” Chandler said. “I see him now. Or what’s left of him.”
He focused the light on the body. “Looks like somebody got here first,” he said, and switched the flashlight into his left hand and used his right to take out his pistol.
“You’re not going to need that gun,” Joanna said. “He’s already dead. A long time dead, the way he looks.”
“I can see that, dammit,” Chandler said. “But who killed him?”
“Look at him,” Joanna said. “Maybe it was time. Old age. Anyway, it certainly wasn’t very recently. He’s practically a mummy.”
“I see it now,” Chandler said. “And look, here’s some more of those footprints. All around here. She’s probably close. Anyway, I’ll keep this pistol handy.” He shined the light directly into Joanna’s face. “Might need it,” he said, grinning at her.
Joanna turned away from the flashlight, held out her hand. “Then give me mine. Maybe I’ll need it.”
He ignored that, swinging the flashlight beam past the body.
“And there,” he said. “Wow. Just look at that. Those must be my diamonds.”
“Arranged in two rows,” Joanna said. But she was staring at the white shape standing between the glittering columns. And thinking, My father’s arm. And noticing this man had said “my diamonds.” Not that she had ever believed he would share them with her. Or that she cared about the diamonds anyway, for that matter. The bone was what she wanted.
24
Bernie had reacted fast at the first sound of the voices. Strange voices. The man’s voice had an East Coast urban sound. Not Jim and not Cowboy, and it certainly didn’t sound like what she’d expect Billy Tuve to sound like. Who were they? What were they doing here? And why were they following her?
Lieutenant Leaphorn believed these diamonds were involved in a legal battle so big it had attracted FBI interest. Both of these people were armed. Park Service rules prohibited firearms in the canyon, so they weren’t merely tourists. If they thought she was dangerous to them, they might be dangerous to her. She ran up the slanting floor as fast and as quietly as the rock-cluttered pathway allowed. She wanted to find a place as far from the voices as she could get. A place where she could conceal herself until she could locate a way out of this slot.
Instead she ran almost immediately into a dead end. Part of one of the cliff walls had collapsed into a towering dam of chunks, slabs, and boulders blocking the floor and partially the slot. She climbed. A chunk of sandstone slid under her weight and dislodged smaller stones, bruising Bernie’s knee and starting a rattling little landslide that touched off a chorus of echoes. Surely they would have heard that. She moved cautiously toward the wall, slid under a tilted slab leaning against it, and sat down.
Time to subdue panic. Time to rest. Time to think. Time to make a plan.
Thinking came first. Remembering everything she had heard from Chee about the genesis of this crazy business. Then remembering (now she could hardly believe this) her voluntarily tagging along uninvited and unwanted.
Why? Out of a sense of adventure? Out of a yen to get a close look at the botanical/geological magic of this incredible canyon? Well, that was her excuse and it was partly true. But mostly it was to be with Jim Chee. She loved Jim Chee. Or thought she did. But where was Sergeant Chee now, when she really needed him?
