The Shape Shifter

Navajo Tribal Police.”

“Yeah,” Leaphorn said. “We met on that Ashie Pinto business. When one of our officers got burned up in his car.”

“Uh-huh,” Rostic said. “That was a sad piece of business.”

“I’m interested in another fire now. The one years ago at Totter’s Trading Post with an FBI Most-Wanted felon burned up in it. Do you remember that one?”

“Oh, boy,” Rostic said. “I sure do. Ray Shewnack was the victim’s name. I think that was my first real excite- ment as a police officer. Real big deal. Finding one of our top targets. A real genuine villain, that Shewnack was.”

“Any reason you can’t talk about it now?” 130

TONY HILLERMAN

“I’m retired,” Rostic said. “But it’s hard for me to believe anyone would still be interested. What are you doing? You wouldn’t be writing one of those serial killer celebrity books, would you?”

“No. Just trying to satisfy one of those old nagging questions.”

“Where you calling from?”

“Home in Shiprock. I’m retired, too.”

“And probably just as bored with it as I am,” said Rostic. “If you want to drive on over, I’ll meet you at that little place across from the Crownpoint High School. How about for lunch? Now you’ve reminded me of that business, I’d like to talk about it, too. Could you make it for noon?”

“Easily. Plenty of time,” Leaphorn said. “I’ll see you there.”

Plenty of time, indeed. Just about seventy miles from Leaphorn’s garage to the fried-chicken place across the street from Crownpoint High, and it was now just a little after sunrise. He would just cruise along, maybe stop here and there to see if he could find an old friend at the Yah-Ta-Hay store, and look in at the chapter houses at Twin Lakes, Coyote Canyon, and Standing Rock. In his days as Officer Leaphorn, patrolling that part of the Rez, he had learned the chapter house almost always had a pot of coffee on the stove and maybe a muffin or something to go with it while he updated information about current affairs involving cattle theft, booze bootlegging, or other disruptions of harmony. He would use this unhurried trip to see if he could get himself into the proper mood that the retirement world seems to demand, if one was going to survive in it.

THE SHAPE SHIFTER

131

The stop at Ya-Ta-Hay was a disappointment. Those working at the place seemed to be universally of the much-younger generation. No one he knew. At Twin Lakes, the parking lot was empty except for an old Ford Pinto, whose owner was an elderly lady whom he had known for about forty years but who was the grumpy sort.

He was not in a mood today to be the audience for her in-exhaustible armory of complaints about the ineptitude of the Tribal Council, nor to provide explanations for why the Navajo Tribal Police could not stamp out the reservation’s plague of drunk drivers.

His luck got better after he made the turn toward the east onto Navajo Route 9. The morning sunlight was glittering off the early snowpack on the high slopes of Soodzil, Mount Taylor on belagaana road maps, or dootl’izhiidziil to traditional Navajo shaman; it was Joe Leaphorn’s favorite view. Locally it was called Turquoise Mountain, and known as the sacred mountain of the South, built by First Man of materials brought up from the dark, flooded third world, and pinned to the earth with a magic flint knife by that powerful yei when it tried to float away. As Leaphorn had learned in the hogan stories of his childhood winters, it had been magically decorated with turquoise, fog, and female rain, and had been made home of dootl’altsoil

’at’eed and anaa’ji at’eed, whose names translated to Yellow Corn Girl and Turquoise Boy, both friendly yei. The holy people had also made the mountain home for all sorts of animals, including the first flocks of wild turkey Leaphorn had seen.

But most important in Navajo mythology, it was where Monster Slayer and his thoughtful twin, Born for Water, had confronted Ye’iitsoh, the chief of the enemy gods.

132

TONY HILLERMAN

They had killed him on the mountain after a terrible battle, thus beginning their campaign to clear this glittering world from the evils of greed and malice, the nasty conduct that had caused God to destroy the third world and which, alas, had followed the Dineh up from below.

And, Leaphorn was thinking, it was still on the prowl in this part of the glittering world, or why would all these things that were puzzling him—and killing people—be happening?

As he pulled into the parking lot at the Coyote Canyon Chapter House and saw old Eugene Bydonie standing at the door, holding his big black reservation hat in his hand and saying good-bye to an even more elderly lady, Leaphorn climbed out of his car and waved. “Ya teeh albini, Eugene,” he shouted. “Is the coffeepot on?” Bydonie peered, recognized him, shouted, “And good morning to you, Lieutenant. It’s been a long time, Joe.

What crime have we committed now to warrant some police attention again?”

“Well, you gave me stale coffee last time I was here.

How is it today?”

“Come on in,” Bydonie said, laughing and holding the door. “I just made a fresh supply.”

While drinking it, they discussed old times, mutual friends—many of whom seemed to be dying off—and the bad conditions of grazing, the price of sheep, and the higher and higher fees the shearers were trying to charge. They concluded with a rundown of which weaver had been selling what at last month’s Crownpoint rug auction. And finally Leaphorn asked him if he knew Ted Rostic.

“Rostic? There at Crownpoint? I think I’ve met him.

THE SHAPE SHIFTER