“Just offer to pay them something then,” Leaphorn said. He was tired of Delonie. Or maybe just tired in general. He leaned against the door. Yawned again. Dozed.
Came suddenly awake when Tommy braked for a stop sign at Gobernador.
“Turn left here,” Tommy said. “Right?”
“Right,” Leaphorn said.
When he awoke again, Tommy was tapping his arm.
“Dulce,” Tommy said. “Here’s the clinic.” Leaphorn opened the door, got out, stiff and sore but happy to see Delonie was getting out, too. He’d expected an argument.
“I guess you’re right,” Delonie said. “This arm is just aching now but this place in the ribs, it’s really hurting.
What do we call it? Hunting accident?”
“That’s what they’ll be expecting,” Leaphorn said.
“How about you were climbing up some rocks, the rifle fell, went off, shot you in the arm, and then you crashed down over some other rocks. Banged up your ribs.”
“I think that sounds reasonable,” Delonie said.
The triage nurse who checked Delonie in didn’t seem suspicious. But the young Apache doctor who took over seemed to have his doubts. He raised his eyebrows, looked at Leaphorn’s identification as well as Delonie’s, shook his head, got Delonie to lie on a gurney, and made another careful inspection of rib damages.
“Fell on some rocks, huh?” he said, looking up from Delonie’s rib cage at Leaphorn and making it sound like a question. “You see it happen?”
“Didn’t see it until after it happened,” Leaphorn said.
THE SHAPE SHIFTER
267
“That rifle of his didn’t accidentally shoot him twice, did it?”
Leaphorn responded with a weak smile and a negative head shake.
“Whatever, then,” the doctor said, and rolled Delonie down the hall to wherever he intended to patch him up.
Leaphorn was asleep again before Tommy Vang got them out of Dulce, awake again momentarily the next time the truck stopped. He remained conscious long enough to ask Tommy where they were and what time it was. Tommy said Farmington and almost noon. Leaphorn said, “Due north now to Crownpoint,” and Tommy laughed, said, “You just go back to sleeping, Lieutenant. I remember where we left your pickup.”
Leaphorn did go back to sleep, and by the time they rolled into the Navajo Tribal Police substation at Crownpoint, he suddenly found himself sort of dazed, but finally wide awake.
He looked at his watch. “You made good time, Tommy.
Did some violating of the speeding laws, I guess.”
“Yes. Went very fast sometimes,” Tommy said, grinning as he said it. “I’m in a hurry to get home. I’ve been gone about thirty years.”
And he demonstrated that hurry by speeding out of the police parking lot while Leaphorn was still climbing wearily into his own truck. But he did lean out the driver’s-side window to give Leaphorn a farewell wave.
24
And now three rest and recuperation days had passed.
The Legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired, was sampling a grape from the basket of goodies he had brought with him to welcome former Navajo Tribal policewoman Bernadette Manuelito, now Mrs. Jim Chee, and Sergeant Chee back from their honeymoon trip to Hawaii. And Bernadette was frowning at him, looking incredulous.
“You’re saying that’s the last time you saw this Tommy Vang? He just drove away? And you just got in your truck and came back here?”
“Well, yes,” Leaphorn said. “Of course we shook hands. He said he’d call me. Took down my number and address and all that. And we wished each other luck. All that sort of thing.”
Bernie was refilling his coffee cup, looking even prettier than he remembered, but not totally happy with 270
TONY HILLERMAN
him at the moment. No matter, Leaphorn was feeling fine. Rested, refreshed, enjoying the sweet smell of the autumn breeze drifting in through those pretty white curtains, bordered with lace, which replaced the grimy blinds that once obscured the windows, noticing that this little room seemed larger now and no longer assaulted his nostrils with what he had thought of as the Jim smell, the odor of some sort of special lubricant Sergeant Chee always used on his pistol, his holster, belt, uniform straps, probably his shoes, and maybe even on his toothbrush.
Now the place smelled . . . he couldn’t think of a name for it. It simply smelled good. Sort of like that subtle perfume scent Bernie sometimes used. And through the open window, the breeze brought in the hooting sound of a dove, the chittering of robins nesting by the river, and assorted whistles and chirps of the various birds the changing seasons brought to this bend in the San Juan River. He could even hear the faint sound of the river itself gurgling along just below Chee’s old trailer home. Ah, Leaphorn was thinking, how good it is to be in home territory again.
How good it is to be retired.
