Death on a Pale Horse

by Douglass, Carl;

  The ME completes her on-scene examination and tells Soto and Begay that the estimated time of death was between six-thirty and eight-forty-five the night before—probably just after sunset. Dr. Haloke Todachine from the Bitter Water clan provides one more observation—one that both investigators already presume—the initial crime scene is the patch of discolored sand next to the high school main entrance steps.

  “The blood penetrated almost six inches into the sand in places. My bet is that she exsanguinated almost her entire blood volume in that spot, then was carried to the bed of her truck and laid in there in a funereal pose with her arms folded across her chest.”

  Sergeant Soto and Crime Scene Technician Hilda Chacon begin a tedious walk-and-look study of the area around Mrs. Yazzie’s truck. It is eye-straining work because swirling sand has covered most areas where tracks could be expected. Patrolman Maryboy’s boot tracks are blurred—as if they had been made three or four days ago—but they are still recognizable with a little imagination. With a little more imagination, the two techs believe they can identify a fairly straight line of drag marks and soft-soled foot marks straight across from the presumed site of the murder to the truck. Chacon offers the suggestion that part of that trail has been obscured by sweeping it with a cut-off branch of rabbit bush and points out a cut branch from a large bush on the west side of the school. Only Mr. and Mrs. Yassie’s fingerprints are found on the truck.

  Her office has almost innumerable fingerprints: those of her entire family, most of the faculty and staff, and about a third of the student body. There a set of clear finger smudges—for lack of a better term—on the visitor chair back and on Mrs. Yazzie’s desk in front of the visitor chair.

  Sgt. Soto tells Lt. Begay that the fingerprints “look as if they have been sanded off. I’ll have to do some more work to figure out who could have made them. We don’t think they came from a person wearing rubber gloves, though.”

  Half of the crime scene staff stays on at the high school, and the other half makes the drive to Mrs. Yazzie’s house. The crime scene investigation takes two full days before the unit heads back to Window Rock to sift through the mountain of evidence they have collected.

  Two days later, a hiker from Southern Utah calls 9-1-1 to report finding a body five miles outside of the Petrified Forest National Park, where a rutted and frowned-upon auxiliary extension of the Blue Mesa Trail wanders into the colorful hills. Naalnish Begay and Dodge Maryboy drive into the national park. Their right to enter the park and to carry on their investigation beyond the Blue Mesa Trail is granted by the Navajo Division of Public Safety liaison officer and the chief park ranger after the assistant US Attorney in Window Rock asks nicely. No vehicles, and not even horses are allowed off the asphalt, so Naalnish and Dodge know they are in for a long thirsty day—just another day in paradise—as Dodge puts it.

  The trailhead starts at a parking lot midway through the park. The first part of the hike is easygoing. It is downhill from the top of the mesa on asphalt, and is less than a mile long. The already brilliant slanting early morning sun just appearing in east gives the best view of the colors for the day—stunning reds, browns, oranges, yellows, and beiges, on a backdrop of serrated Triassic badlands. The asphalt ends in the floor of the valley. The breakoff trail is blocked off by large boulders placed across it by the park rangers, but it is obvious that there are a great many scoff-laws who ignore the rocks and the signs.

  Naalnish and Dodge make their way up a winding and irregular track through broken, wrinkled, and rutted hills with multiple layers of mud and clay stones and toppings of conglomerate gravel.

  “Looks like elephant skin,” Dodge says about halfway to the GPS location the Utah hiker gave them.

  “Kinda does. It’s one of the things that keep me here on the res,” Naalnish responds.

  The accommodating Utah hiker has left a Boy Scout type of cairn three feet high in the middle of the trail, with three fairly large rocks lying on the trail pointing north. The two NDCI officers need only to walk another thirty or forty feet to find the crime scene.

  Spread-eagled against a low bentonite rise is a man who could hardly be more obviously dead. Ravens and a golden eagle pecking at the man’s face and eyes are startled by the policemen. They reluctantly fly away and perch on rocks to wait until the intruders leave, like angels of the Grim Reaper adding to the macabre tableau Naalnish and Dodge must examine.

  The victim is a tall, snow-white-haired Indian. He is naked. His wrists and ankles are nailed to the clay bank of the wrinkled outcropping. He is encircled by three rings of colored nylon rope from which dangle cloth dolls representing witches, and yenaldooshi [skinwalkers], bone fragments, rocks and pebbles, bits of string, snake teeth, owl feathers, and turquoise jewelry. Similar objects hang from foot-long galvanized twisted steel nails driven into the man’s chest and extremities. In Navajo lore, such objects are used to cause the person pain and illness.

  “The ME’s going to find more of them implanted inside this guy’s body,” Dodge says.

  Naalnish is quiet and avoids looking at the man’s ruined face.

  “What’s wrong, Naalnish, other than the obvious?” Dodge asks the senior officer.

  Naalnish lets a full minute pass before he says, “I know this man.”

  They make another call to Dr. Todachine and Sgt. Soto in Window Rock and tell them the grim news.

  “Hyrum Kieyoomia? You sure?” Soto asks. “I just heard him give a talk on KTNN about the problems of the educational system on the reservation—the usual stuff: traditional Navajo values and concepts in conflict with modern white man’s educational ideas. That must have been two, maybe three days ago.”

  “I’m sure,” Naalnish tells him. “I know his chest scar from his bypass, and his long belly scar from the resection of his large bowel for cancer a while back, and by his tattoo.”

  Navajos generally do not approve of tattoos, but Naalnish knows he has one—probably had it inked on just to spite the ultraconservatives on the res. His tattoo covers the entirety of his chest. It is the Navajo Nation Flag done in vivid full color. Naalnish knows he had it done less than a year ago after a particularly divisive election for tribal president—a position he sought and lost—that year. On a tan background, the outline of the present Nation is shown in copper with the original 1868 Treaty Reservation in dark brown. At the cardinal points in the tan field are depicted the four sacred mountains. A rainbow symbolizing Navajo sovereignty arches over the Nation and the sacred mountains. In the center of the Nation, a circular symbol shows the sun above two green stalks of corn, which surrounds three animals representing the Navajo livestock economy, and a traditional hogán and modern home. Between the hogán and the house is an oil derrick symbolizing the resource potential of the Tribe, and above the sun, a modern sawmill symbolizes the progress and industry characteristic of the Navajo Nations’ economic development. The hardline traditionalists despise the new flag for its representation of “progress,” a word and concept they passionately oppose.

  The victim is, or was, the outspoken superintendent of the Painted Desert school district. In the center of his chest—in the center of the image of the sun—is a long spear that is pinning him to the earth. A rat, a snake skin, two buzzard feathers, and a carcass of a raven hang from the shaft of the spear to give him boils throughout eternity, to convey the hatred felt by the killer and to derail his hóhzó—”peace,” “beauty,” and “holiness”—forever, or perhaps to cause him to become a chindi or a skinwalker, and to roam the earth as an evil spirit who can cause harm to the living and be feared and hated.

  “Someone really didn’t like him, Naalnish,” Dodge says.

  “That is certain,” says Naalnish, “and we need to find out who.”

  Chapter Four

  Dr. Todachine and Sgt. Soto arrive in the late afternoon with their forensics crew and a wizened old Navajo man. “This is medicine man Zonnie Whitehorse, who has been sent by the Navajo National Council to
do an Enemy Way ceremony before we can begin,” Dr. Todachine says.

  Lt. Begay gives Dr. Todachine a brief look, and she looks away. He is unsure whether she is just behaving in the Navajo way by not making eye contact or if she is avoiding the risk of a small communication critical of the Council.

  He reaches his hand to Whitehorse and says, “Yá’át’ééh abíní [Good morning].”

  Whitehorse notes the unenthusiastic welcome.

  He says, “Dooládó’ dooda da,” [Sorry], “but it is the right thing to be done, and our Council desires that this be handled in the Naabeehó [Diné or Navajo] way. This woman will bring harm to our people by touching this dead person as she does every day.”

  “You know that you will waste important time—time that will help the murderer get away—Zonnie. It is my understanding of the way that the Enemy Way ceremony must involve the person—the patient—participating, and this person is dead.”

  “A council of medicine men has met on this matter. It is a special case. I am to act as a proxy for the person’s departed spirit. I will sing the chant, do the dance, and the make the sand painting to rid our world of the Monster Slayer.”

  “The ceremony lasts three days, Zoonie. We will lose valuable evidence. In this sun, the man will decompose rapidly. We beg of you to let us proceed with our work in order to find the person who did this terrible thing.”

  “There is no hurry. This one is going nowhere. I have done this for many years, as did my father, Quincy Whitehorse, from Rock Meadow.”

  With that, he turns his face away from Lt. Begay and busies himself with the preparations for the arduous Ana’í Ndáá’ [Enemy Way] ceremony. The Enemy Way rite is done as an exorcism to remove ghosts, violence, and negativity that can bring disease and do harm to the host’s [and may be taken to include the Navajo nation as the host] health and balance that lies ahead.

  Both Naalnish and Haloke resign themselves to one more failure to preserve evidence in an unforgiving landscape. Dodge walks away and rolls his eyes at the mountains to vent his frustration, and to be sure that he is not seen doing it. Gaagii maintains his enigmatic and noncommittal facial expression and makes his way back to the forensics tent that the crew carried in under the blistering sun. He, too, knows that it will be a long wait, and nothing can be done to change that. He is better at the Navajo way than either Naalnish or Haloke.

  At nine-fifteen the following morning, dispatch calls Naalnish on his iPhone.

  “Lieutenant Begay,” he says.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant. We have another one. We had four all of last year. I’m hoping we are not going to beat that record this week.”

  Lt. Begay sighs, “What is this one, Ooljee?”

  Ooljee Etcitty was named for her grandfather, a silversmith. Her name was prophetic. Never had there been a more moonfaced person who was not a Han Chinese.

  “Sialea-lea Biakeddy was found dead in her yard about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Don’t know her, Ooljee, should I?”

  “Probably not. She is an old one. Before your time. She used to run the Navajo Lake Lodge store. That’s in Kane County, Utah. The local cops want a Navajo officer to handle it. Apparently the crime scene looks ‘Indian’ according to them. Should I tell them yes?”

  “Why not? Dodge and I don’t having anything better to do for a couple of days. We’ll mount up and drive up there.”

  Naalnish and Dodge are on US 180 West. Dodge is driving while Naalnish calls Blue Mesa dispatch on his cell phone.

  “Hi, Ooljee, we’re about to turn off onto Apache Avenue on the way to I-40. Would you send an officer up to the crime scene in the park to keep Dr. Todachine and Sgt. Soto company?”

  “Right away.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lt. Begay’s next call is to Dr. Todachine.

  “Hello, Haloke.”

  “Hello, Naalnish, having a nice trip?”

  “It’s okay. How’s Zonnie getting along—any progress?”

  “You know the man; he has one speed, and that’s low gear. These spiritual things can’t be rushed, and he has the power from the anointed.”

  “The feds?”

  “Good thinking, there, Naalnish.”

  “So, where is he in the ceremony?”

  “Half a day’s worth. He has done the rites and prayers to exorcize the ghosts and to remove violence and negativity that can bring disease and do harm to host health and balance. Right now, he is busy making a sand painting—appears to be his own design; so, who knows how long it will take.”

  “I didn’t get time to ask you what you found on Mrs. Yazzie. Can you give me the short version, Haloke?”

  “Not that much. Tox screen was negative. Almost nothing in her stomach. I presume she hadn’t eaten much of anything the whole day. The autopsy showed exactly one thing of interest: she was run through with a not very sharp double-edged blade—perfectly straight, angled upwards, all the way through. Cut a huge gouge through her heart and the ascending aorta. I think she exsanguinated into the sand by the school door.”

  “Spear?”

  “Likely, and one with a stone point, not steel. For all of her activism to modernize the schools in Navajoland, she was still a pretty old-fashioned Navajo woman. She was wearing hand-beaded knee-high moccasins, a pleated cotton skirt to her ankles, and matching long-sleeved, deep burgundy velvet shirt-like waist cut blouse. She had on a Concho belt and a turquoise squash blossom necklace. Although it was still pretty warm at that time of evening, she was wearing a patterned grey shawl.”

  A pickup driven by a young woman holding a cell phone swerved in front of Dodge’s

  4x4 Chevrolet Tahoe, causing him to hit his brakes. He puts on the lights and siren, and pulls around her to give her a wake-up call about what she is doing. Naalnish waggles his finger at her as a warning. They are going nearly eighty-miles-an-hour and have no intention of stopping. It is her lucky day.

  They merge onto I-40 W. towards Flagstaff and take exit 211 toward Winona then onto County Road 394, where they have to slow down because of the several turns and the mounting traffic—Koch Field Road, Silver Saddle Road, and then onto US 89 North where they can get up to a reasonable—75–80 miles-per-hour—speed again for seventy-five miles and after a right turn onto US 89T for another forty-three miles. The approach into Utah requires a jog onto Coppermine Road and again on Lake Powell Boulevard, before moving back onto the straight shot through Utah on 89.

  “I need a break,” Dodge says. “I’m starved, and I need to ease my springs.”

  He pulls into a truck stop where they gas up and get pizzas and Cokes to go.

  After another straight high-speed stretch of seventy-five miles, Dodge makes a couple of more jogs that put them into Cedar City, Utah. Dodge is using his truck’s GPS that shows a right turn onto 100 North. Utah rural towns are easy to drive in because they almost all have simple gridiron city street plans, but they always have construction delays. He returns to 89N for another forty miles to 14W, then turns onto Farm Road 053 for three miles, which brings them to the Navajo Lake Lodge and a well-cordoned-off crime scene.

  Aside from the bustling activity all around the handsome old lodge, the scenery is magnificent. Cedar City is red-rock, semi-desert country. Twenty-six miles east in the Dixie National Forest is Navajo Lake—or the “Blue Mirror of Heaven” by its Indian name. It is situated in a deep narrow valley centrally located between Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, and Cedar Breaks National Monument. Navajo Lake was formed when ancient lava flows dammed drainage in a narrow valley. The lake drains into both the Great Basin and the Colorado River drainage systems through sinkholes in the lake floor. It is cool there, with dense coniferous forests surrounding the lake and the nearby hillsides.

  Naalnish and Dodge duck under the yellow crime scene tape and make their way to the tent where they expect to find the body of the victim. A large Utah State Trooper greets the two Indian policemen with a broad smile and extends his hand.

&nb
sp; “Took your sweet time, gentlemen,” he says and makes a theatrical glance at his watch.

  “Can’t let anything interfere with naptime,” says Naalnish and shakes the trooper’s hand.

  They are old friends, and Sgt. Cliff Moon knows they have taken less than five hours to make a 360-mile long six-hour trip.

  “Show me what you have, Cliff.”

  “This nice lady is—was—Sialea-lea Biakeddy. Used to run the store here a while back. Apparently, she was back up here from Cedar for an Indian whoop-de-do.”

  Mrs. Biakeddy’s body is lying three-quarters prone in a large pool of what is apparently her own blood. She is very dark-skinned and wrinkled from long years in the sun. She has snowy white—very well taken care of—hair. There is an obvious hole in the back of her blouse, presumably the entrance wound, and almost certainly the cause of death. She is dressed in Navajo “best dress”—fully beaded foot-high moccasins, a pleated rich blood-red colored velvet skirt and a matching long-sleeved blouse, and a silver Concho belt. She is wearing turquoise rings on both hands, a simple gold wedding band, and six or seven turquoise inlaid bracelets as bling. Around her neck is a striking ornate antique sterling silver petit point turquoise pendant.

  “It apparently wasn’t a robbery,” Lt. Begay says, noting the obvious.

  “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a nondrug related killing in these parts,” Sgt. Moon says. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw the murder of an uptown native-American senior.”

  “You can say ‘Indian,’ Cliff. It’s back to being okay on the politically correct list,” Naalnish says.

  Cliff nods, “Can’t be too careful.”

  Cliff, Naalnish, and Dodge share a small laugh.

  “TOD was pretty close to eight-forty-five this morning. We kept her as cool as we could. Our CSI team is about done. Not much to find or see except a box of flyers about school issues she was apparently handing out. I presume you will want to take her back to Window Rock for autopsy, no?”

  “Yes. That will save you the grief of having to deal with the feds and the Indians, which is a very complicated and frustrating arrangement, as I know even better than you do. In fact this is our third homicide in the last two days; we’re having a run on them. Beginning to look like maybe the same MO. The vics are certainly similar—dressed-up, high class citizens, and Indians with at least one similarity besides their ethnicity. They all have had something to do with the movement to change the school system for our kids from the deeply entrenched old ways and more into the modern age; so, they will have a chance at competing,” Dodge adds.