“Who the hell are you?” McKee asked. “And what do you want with us?”
“Let’s go now. You will walk a little ahead and do as you’re told.”
He turned the machine pistol sideways, and tapped the safety button beside the trigger guard.
“I carry it cocked, with the safety off. It’s a .38 caliber and I’m good with it.”
“I’ll bet you are,” McKee said.
The man kept well behind them as they walked past the brush and over the rocks. McKee walked silently, trying to think.
Miss Leon touched his arm. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was very small.
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“If I hadn’t been so stupid,” she whispered. “I thought it was because you had hurt your head.”
“What else could you think? It still seems crazy.”
“I’m sorry. You could have gotten away.”
“I should have been able to manage it anyway,” McKee said. His voice was bitter.
“How did he know our names?”
“He looked through the papers in our tent,” McKee said. “I guess he saw them there.”
“No talking,” the Navajo said. “Save your breath.”
They walked in silence up the sand and around the outcropping where Canfield’s camper was parked.
“We’ll stop here a moment,” the man said.
McKee saw Miss Leon looking at the truck. He was glad he had had sense enough to close the tailgate.
“I noticed you looked in it,” the man said. “I wish you hadn’t broken that window. What did you think that would accomplish? It’s going to look funny.”
The Navajo moved toward the pickup, watching them as he did. He glanced inside and then briefly inspected the broken window.
“This Canfield seemed like a nice fella,” he said. “Full of jokes.”
“Then why did you kill him?” McKee asked fiercely. He spoke in Navajo.
The big man looked at him, as if trying to understand the question. He answered in English. “Just bad luck. There wasn’t any other way to handle it.” He looked at McKee solemnly and pursed his lips. The expression was rueful. “Have to go on now,” he said. “It’s more than a mile to my car and a lot of climbing.”
Within a few hundred yards, the going became increasingly difficult. The canyon floor rose sharply now and was choked by brush and tumbled boulders. McKee climbed stolidly, helping Miss Leon when he could and trying to think. What kind of a monster was this? He seemed perfectly sane, as if this crazy episode were simply business. He had apparently killed Jeremy as unemotionally as he would swat a fly. McKee was absolutely certain he would kill Miss Leon and him with the same coolness. And, as usual, he could do nothing about it. He had thought about turning suddenly and trying to hit the man with a rock. But his right hand was almost useless and the Navajo kept a cautious distance behind them.
It didn’t seem likely the man would leave them alive, not with the knowledge that he was a murderer. But why hadn’t he simply shot them by the camper? McKee had sensed that the man had considered this, at least for a moment, after he had confirmed that Canfield’s body was still in the truck. But he had dropped the idea. He must have some use for us alive, McKee thought. Either that, or he wants our bodies somewhere else, and it’s easier to have us walk. But why? The man seemed sane but there was no conceivable sanity in any of this.
“We’ll climb out here,” the Navajo said. He indicated a gap in a rockslide which had broken out of the south wall of the canyon. “You go first, Dr. McKee. When you reach the top you will lie down with your feet sticking out over the rim where I can see them. Ellen will be just ahead of me and if you try anything foolish I will have to shoot her so I can come after you. Do you understand how it will work?”
He studied McKee’s face.
“You may think I’m bluffing. I’m not. I don’t really think I’ll need Miss Leon.”
McKee looked at her. She stood just below him, breathing heavily from the exertion, her face damp with perspiration. She attempted a smile.
Somehow, McKee thought, I’m going to get her out of this. Even if it kills me.
He began climbing. It was slow because of his right hand, and by the time he reached the top he was drained with exhaustion. He lowered himself onto the rimrock, with his feet jutting out.
“Stay on your stomach,” the voice from below ordered.
The position left him completely helpless. He couldn’t move without the Navajo seeing him and he had no doubt at all that the man would kill Miss Leon the moment he did. He wondered what the man had meant about probably not needing her. Why would he need her? And why did he need him?
The Navajo reached the top before Miss Leon and stood well aside while she finished the climb.
“Walk right over there to the truck,” he said. McKee saw the Land-Rover almost hidden behind a growth of juniper.
“But first hold that hand out so I can see it.”
McKee held out his left hand, palm open.
“Are you left-handed, Dr. McKee?”
“No. I’m right-handed.”
“I was afraid you would be. Let me see it.”
McKee slowly raised his injured hand. He suppressed a wince as motion renewed the pain. The sun was directly south now and that might explain some of the weakness in his legs. It was noon and he hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon.
“That looks bad,” the Navajo said. “We may have to soak it to get that swelling down.”
McKee saw that Miss Leon was also staring at his hand. He dropped it, flinched again, and the blood drained into it.
“I’m touched by your sympathy,” McKee said.
The Navajo chuckled. “It’s not really that,” he said, grinning at McKee. “It’s just that I have to have you write a letter for us.”
> 14 <
THERE IS NO comfortable way, McKee found, to lie face down on the back seat of a moving vehicle with his wrists tied together and roped to his ankles. The best he could arrange involved staring directly at the back of the front seat. By looking out of the right corner of his eye, he could see the back of the Big Navajo’s neck. The man had his hat pushed forward on his forehead. That would be because they were driving west and the sun was low through the windshield. By looking down his cheek, he could see Miss Leon, sitting stiffly against the right door of the Land-Rover, as far as she could get from the Indian.
The Land-Rover lurched over something and McKee spread his knees to keep from shifting on the seat. Making the move started the throbbing again in his right hand. The Navajo was saying something but it was lost in dizziness.
“I don’t know,” Miss Leon said.
“How about you? How long were you planning to stay?”
The question sounded so ordinary and social that McKee had an impulse to laugh. But when Miss Leon had answered two or three days, the Navajo had turned his head toward her. There was a long silence then, and when the Navajo spoke again, McKee realized the question had not been casual at all.
“Did anyone know where you were going?”
“Everyone knew.”
“This Dr. Green at Albuquerque knew,” the Navajo said. “Who else? What about your husband? Did he know you were coming to this canyon?”
“I don’t have a husband.”
There was another silence then.
“Who else knew then?” the Navajo asked.
“Some other friends of mine, of course, and my family. Why? What difference does it make?”
“Another thing. Why did McKee sit around in the canyon and let me cut him off?”
“Ask him,” Miss Leon said.
“You tell me,” the Navajo said.
“Because I was a fool,” Miss Leon said.
“You slow him down?” The Navajo chuckled. “Didn’t you believe there was a Navajo Wolf?”
“He had that horrible bruise on his forehead,” Miss Leon said, “I thought it was that.”
“Well
, I would have got him anyway.”
“No,” she said. “If it hadn’t been for me, Dr. McKee would have gotten away.”
“Maybe you don’t know about us Navajo Wolves. We turn ourselves into coyotes, and dogs, bears, foxes, owls, and crows.”
McKee stared at the back of the Navajo’s head. He had ticked off the litany of were-animals in a voice heavy with sarcasm. And he listed bears, and owls, and crows. There had been a scholarly argument about that when Greersen first published his book about witchcraft beliefs in the 1920’s. Greersen had listed only one account of each. The bear story had come out of the Navajo Mountain district and the owl and crow incidents were both far to the east—over on the Checkerboard Reservation in New Mexico. McKee had never found a source who knew of more than were-dogs, were-wolves, and were-coyotes. The big man must have read Greersen, and that had to mean he had researched somewhere with an anthropological library. But why, and where?
“And we fly through the air when it’s dark and we need to,” the Navajo was saying. “McKee wouldn’t have got away.”
“He’d already gotten away once.” Miss Leon’s voice was angry and insistent. “He outsmarted you last night. And today he outsmarted you again. He…”
“Lady. Drop it. You don’t know who I am. Nobody gets away.”
That had ended the conversation. The Land-Rover had turned sharply and tilted downward—moving mostly in first gear down the narrow bottom of a dry wash. And after what McKee guessed must have been three or four miles there was the feel of smooth flat sand under the wheels and the Navajo drove much faster. There was no sun on the Land-Rover now and McKee was sure they were back on the floor of Many Ruins but he wasn’t sure of directions.
A dull pain from the bruise on his forehead and the throbbing of his hand made it difficult to concentrate. Who was the Navajo? In this part of the Reservation, The People linked owls with ghosts, but not with witches, and gave crows and ravens no supernatural significance at all. Obviously, the man’s tone was heavily ironic when he listed the birds and animals. McKee could think of no source for such a list except Greersen’s Case Studies in Navajo Ethnographic Aberrations. It was a notoriously ponderous and difficult volume intended for cultural anthropologists. Why would the Navajo read such a book? When McKee tried to make sense of this, his mind kept turning to the sound of Ellen Leon’s voice defending him. “He outsmarted you,” she had said.
The Land-Rover stopped and McKee heard the hand brake go on.
“You stay here,” the Indian said. “Don’t try to untie McKee and don’t try anything funny.”
And then the door opened, the big man was gone, and Miss Leon was leaning over the back of the seat. She looked dusty, disheveled, very tired, and very sympathetic. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Where are we? Where did he go?”
“At the tree,” Miss Leon said. “The one he pulled across the canyon. Are you all right?”
“What’s he doing? Putting on the winch?”
“Yes. Dr. McKee, I’m sorry I was such a silly fool. I didn’t…”
“I couldn’t hear part of the conversation. Did he tell you anything useful? Who he was, or anything like that?”
“No. I don’t think so. He said nobody ever got away from him.”
“I heard that,” McKee said. “Did he say anything else?”
“I can’t think of anything.” She paused. “He asked me why we waited in the canyon so he could catch us.”
“I heard that, too. Don’t worry about it.”
And then he heard the big man climbing back into the Land-Rover. There was the sound of shifting gears, the whine of the winch, and the cracking noise of limbs breaking. Then the winch stopped and the man climbed out again.
“I want you to be very, very careful,” McKee said. “Do exactly what he tells you to do. And keep your eyes open. Watch for a chance to get away. If you can get out of his sight, hide. Hide and don’t move until it’s pitch dark and then get out of the canyon. Go to Shoemaker’s. That’s south by southwest of here. You know how to tell your directions at night?”
“Yes,” Ellen said.
She probably doesn’t, McKee thought, but it seemed entirely academic.
“Find the Big Dipper,” McKee said. “The two stars in the line at the end of the cup point to the Pole Star. That’s due north.”
“He’s coming back,” she said.
“Remember. Watch for a chance.”
And then the big man was leaning over the seat, looking at him. “I hope you were giving Miss Leon good advice.”
“I told her to follow orders.”
“That’s good advice,” the Navajo said.
They drove about ten minutes by McKee’s estimate before the Land-Rover stopped again.
“This time you better come along, Miss Leon,” the man said. “Slide out on my side.”
“Where are you taking her?” McKee’s voice was loud.
“I won’t hurt her,” the man said. “We’re just going to get some of your papers.”
McKee twisted his shoulders and neck, straining to see out the rear window. Only the top of the cliff was in his line of sight, but it was enough to confirm that they were at their camping place.
They were gone only a moment. And then the Land-Rover was moving again, smoothly at first up the sandy floor of Many Ruins and then a jolting, twisting ride. Suddenly they weren’t moving. McKee heard the hand brake pulled on.
“I see you got a woman, George. Where’s the man you were after?”
The voice was soft. A Virginia accent, McKee thought, or maybe Carolina or Maryland.
“In the back seat,” the Navajo said. “Get out, Miss Leon.”
The door by McKee’s head opened and he saw a man looking down at him. On his stomach, with his head turned to one side, McKee could see only out of the corner of his right eye. He could see a belt buckle, and a navy-blue vest with black buttons, and the bottom of the man’s chin and up his nostrils.
“He’s tied up,” the voice above him said. It seemed to McKee a remarkably stupid thing to say.
“Move a little bit out of the way,” the Navajo said. Then McKee felt the Indian’s hands, deftly untying the knots.
“Get any calls while you were gone?” the soft voice asked. “Do they know when we can haul out of this hole?”
“No calls,” the Big Navajo said. “You see anything?”
“No,” the soft voice said. “Just that kid on the horse again. Up on the top. Way off across the mesa.”
“You can get up now, Dr. McKee.”
McKee sat up and examined the man with the blue vest. He was a tall young man with a pale face shaded by a light-blue straw hat. He looked back at McKee and nodded politely—blue eyes under blond eyebrows—and then turned toward Miss Leon.
“How do you do,” he said. Ellen Leon ignored him.
The young man wore a harness over his vest supporting a shoulder holster with a semi-automatic pistol in it. McKee didn’t recognize the type, but it seemed to be about .38 caliber. Miss Leon stood stiffly in front of the truck. She looked frightened.
“Come on,” the Big Navajo said. “Get out now. I’m in a hurry.”
McKee climbed out of the Land-Rover, his muscles stiff. His head ached, but the ache was lost in the violent throbbing of his injured hand. He held it stiffly at his side and glanced around.
They were up a narrow side canyon. Below, not more than two hundred yards, McKee could see the broad sandy bed of Many Ruins bright in the afternoon sun. Here there was shadow and it was a moment before he noticed the cliff dwelling high on the sandstone wall behind the blond man. It was large for an Anasazi ruin—built in a long horizontal fault cleft some forty feet above the talus slope and protected from above by the sloping overhang of the cliff. He wondered, fleetingly, if it was one of those excavated by the Harvard-Smithsonian teams. It would be hard to reach, but that made it all the more attractive to the archaeologists. Less chance it had been disturbed.
“Dr. McKee is going to write that letter for us, Eddie,” the Navajo said. “It may take some time, and while I’m thinking about the letter, you want to be thinking about McKee. He’s tricky.”
“He hasn’t written it yet?” the blond man asked. He sounded surprised.
“I could have had him write it back at his camp,” the Indian said. “I think I could handle him. Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred. But why take chances with one this slippery?”
“Too much money involved,” Eddie said. “Way too much money for taking chances.”
He slipped the pistol deftly from the holster, handling it, McKee noticed glumly, as naturally as a pipe smoker handles a pipe.
“Don’t talk so much,” the Big Navajo said. “We’re going to leave these two behind and the less they hear the better.”
Eddie said, “Oh?” The word came out as another question.
The Navajo reached into the Land-Rover, pulled out a pile of papers, stacked them on the hood, sorted swiftly through them, extracted a letter, and skimmed it.
“How about this Dr. Green? Looks like he’s your boss. He’d probably be the one to write.”
“Green’s chairman of the department,” McKee said. “We usually try to keep in touch when we’re in the field.”
How long, McKee wondered, had Canfield lived after he wrote his note for this man? Just long enough for the Navajo to kill him without marks of violence. Only one thing was clear in this incredible situation—the Navajo’s need for this letter was all that kept Miss Leon and himself alive. He wouldn’t write it, but it had to be handled exactly right.
The Big Navajo handed him Dr. Canfield’s ball point pen. It was a slim silver pen, and as McKee accepted it with his left hand he felt his resolution harden. He would never, under any circumstances, write this letter.
“I didn’t find any stationery so I guess you used your notebook?”
“That’s right,” McKee said.
“We’ll make it to Dr. Green,” the Navajo said. “What do you call him? Dr. Green? Or his first name?”
“Dr. Green,” McKee lied. “He’s pretty stuffy.”
The Blessing Way Page 12
