“I think it would be safe enough,” Bernie said. “The water’s not so deep now. Not running so fast. Let’s climb down and get out of here.”
Joanna Craig looked doubtful. “How about that man?” she asked. “He’s down there somewhere. And he has his pistol.”
“I think he’s gone,” Bernie said. “Gone forever. And we have your pistol, too.”
“I don’t know, though. What if he comes back?”
“If he comes back, we shoot him,” Bernie said. “Let’s get out of here before there’s more rain and it gets worse again.”
“He said he unloaded the pistol.”
“He said it, but he didn’t do it. I checked. It’s still loaded.”
“Do you know how to shoot it?”
“I’m a policewoman,” Bernie said, and was surprised to hear the pride in her voice. Noticing she hadn’t said “former policewoman.” She’d thought she’d gotten over that.
They eased their way down off the platform into the water flow. Not much more than ankle-deep now, but cold. No matter how hot the summer day, these male rains in the high country were always icy. If Jim was here to hear her, she’d be tempted to say “cold as a police sergeant’s heart.”
Even as she thought that, she heard his voice, and her name. The echoes off the slot’s cliffs were repeating it: “Bernie, Bernie, Bern, Ber…” But even in the echoes she recognized Jim’s voice.
“Jim!” she shouted. “We’re up here. We’re coming down the wash.”
That, too, immediately translated itself into a clamor of echoes. But he would have understood enough of it.
“Come on,” Bernie said, leading Joanna on a splashing run down the stream. With Bernie thinking she didn’t really know whether the blond man with the gun was actually gone forever. Thinking she should have warned Jim. Thinking it was too late for that now. Stopping to get Joanna’s pistol out of her pocket, just in case.
And when they started running again there was Jim Chee, splashing toward them.
“Bernie!” he shouted, still running. “Thank God.”
“Jim,” she said, gesturing toward Joanna, “this is Joanna Craig and—”
Their reunion was too violent for that sentence to be completed. He splashed into Bernie, partly due to enthusiasm, partly because he had lost his balance. The impact of a soggy man with a fairly dry woman was forceful enough to send out a spray. Then they were hugging each other with force and enthusiasm.
“Jim,” Bernie said, when she had recovered enough breath to say it. “Where have you been? I was afraid you —”
“I thought I had lost you, Bernie,” Chee blurted out. And, alas, added: “Why didn’t you wait for me? I thought I told you—” He was smart enough to end it there.
Bernie backed away a little. “Ms. Craig,” she said, “this is Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. He used to be my boss. Sometimes he thinks he still is.”
“How do you do,” Chee said to Joanna. “And we’re going to be married right away,” and he hugged Bernie again.
Bernie found herself talking directly into his left ear. “Jim, there’s a man in here. With a pistol. Claims to be a deputy from California. Big blond man.”
“He’s gone,” Chee said, still hugging Bernie. “Washed down the canyon out there, and on down into the Colorado.”
“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Chee,” Joanna said. “But if it’s safe now, we should get out of this water. Get someplace out in the open air.”
They started down the runoff flow, which was diminishing quickly, with Bernie talking fast about how she had gotten here, about the diamonds, about the arrival of Joanna and Chandler, about the dried, emaciated corpse, about Chandler taking the diamonds.
“That body washed by me,” Chee said. “And so did the blond man, carrying some sort of rope knotted on the ends. In fact, I think I might have been able to save him, but the rope got caught in that cat’s claw brush at the mouth of this slot. Instead of trying to get to where I could pull him to the bank, he was trying to jerk it loose.”
“That rope had all those diamonds in it,” Bernie said, and explained how Chandler had rigged two long wool hiker’s socks together to carry them.
“Well, they’re gone now,” Chee said. “Maybe they’ll sink to the bottom of the Colorado River, or wash all the way down to Lake Mead.”
“They were Ms. Craig’s diamonds,” Bernie said. “Or would have been. I saved one of them for Billy Tuve to use as evidence—if he needs it.”
She took the snuff can from her pocket, handed it to Chee. “Be careful, Jim. Don’t you drop it.”
Chee grinned at her. “Now, Bernie, you’re not supposed to talk to me like that until after I’m your husband.”
But he was careful with it, taking out the folder pouch, putting diamond in pouch, pouch in can, and can in his pocket.
The early twilight of the world outside the slot greeted them now. They ducked under the cat’s claw brush and walked out of the now-shallow flow to the cliff-side bank where Chee had waited.
