Cave of Bones

by Anne Hillerman

  Thinking about the baby lifted Sandra’s spirits, and she told Bernie more than she needed to know about the baby and his mother. Someone had described the A’wee Chi’deedloh as a reverse baby shower. The baby, with the help of its parents, gave all who attended a gift of salt to rejuvenate their good character. Although there was more to it, in a nutshell the laugh symbolized the baby’s transition into personhood.

  Sandra circled back to Mr. Cruz. “He’s a valuable man, and that lava, it’s a bad place.”

  Bernie felt sadness roll over her like cold fog. “The search team won’t give up on Mr. Cruz. They will keep looking.”

  “They must have worked all night. That’s already too long for them not to find him. It’s freezing out there.” The longer the search continued, they both knew, the slimmer the chances that a missing person would be found alive.

  “It’s rugged country,” Bernie said. “There are too many places a person could get lost, but there are also spots where someone could find refuge. And Mr. Cruz would know where they are.”

  “I understand, but . . . Oh, here’s the captain.”

  Bernie heard a moment of quiet and then some clicks.

  “Manuelito?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know who Elsbeth Walker is?”

  “Yes. She’s the council delegate from here in Shiprock, right?”

  “That’s her. She wants an investigation into Wing and Roots for financial malfeasance. The request went to the chief, and he’s pulled in our department.”

  “Sorry, sir. What does that mean exactly?”

  “Councilor Walker thinks the Wings and Roots director, or somebody on the staff, misused funds the president’s office allocated to subsidize Navajo kids who were in the program. Mrs. Walker heard about the search for Cruz, and now she’s sure he’s absconded with the money, or the records or something, and there’s a conspiracy. She called last night after she talked to the chief and practically chewed my head off.”

  “You? Sir, why did she think you had something to do with it?” But even before she was done with the question, she knew the answer. It wasn’t Largo, personally, it was law enforcement in general.

  “She thinks the police are hiding something, in cahoots with Wings and Roots because the group asked one of our officers—that would be you, Manuelito—to talk to the kids.”

  “That’s pretty far out there. How did she even know about that?”

  “It’s on the program’s website and their social media. They have a photo of you with the award you got for helping arrest the person who hurt Lieutenant Leaphorn.”

  Bernie felt her skin grow hot with embarrassment at the thought of that unwelcome honor for doing her job. She was glad they were talking on the phone and not in his office.

  “An unnamed source told her the group is running in the red, despite some anonymous donations,” Largo went on. “She thinks someone at the agency is stealing the tribe’s money. I asked what her proof is, but she wouldn’t tell me because she thinks our substation is part of the conspiracy. The chief wants you to talk to Councilor Walker and try to get at least your part of this mess straightened out. Do that ASAP. Get this gal off my back.”

  Largo read her Walker’s phone number. “Anything else, Manuelito?”

  “Sir, something strange happened yesterday. One of the girls on that Wings and Roots trip, the girl who was lost and led to Cruz getting lost . . . anyway, she got sick and told one of the ambulance team she needed to talk to me.” She told him about the incident at the hospital with Annie Rainsong’s mother.

  “I’ll be surprised if the girl has much to say that helps with the investigation, but since Walker has raised the question of Cruz’s integrity, call the hospital and talk to the girl on the phone. If Walker objects, tell her it’s police business.”

  “Excuse me, sir? Why would Councilor Walker object?”

  “Manuelito, Elsbeth Walker is Annie’s mother. I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent her girl on that trip as a sort of spy mission. It helped that the daughter has her dad’s name.”

  “Then I was wrong when I told you I hadn’t met Walker. She didn’t confront me about any of this malfeasance or collusion stuff at the hospital, thank goodness.”

  Largo ended the call.

  The phone rang almost immediately. It was the station again, but to her relief the voice on the line was Sandra’s.

  “Chee called while you were talking to the captain. He said everything is fine, don’t worry about him, and he’ll catch you later.”

  “Later?”

  “That’s all he said.”

  Bernie said, “If he calls again, please tell him I’ll call when I get a chance.”

  Bernie telephoned the Gallup hospital several times but was never able to connect with Annie. After she explained the situation, the charge nurse told her Annie was lucid and able to have visitors. Bernie dreaded visiting hospitals, but this trip was part of her job.

  Annie looked younger and tiny against the bright white bedsheet. She had scrapes on her forehead, an oxygen canulla in her nose, an IV line running from a bag of fluid into her left arm. Amazingly for this busy place, the bed next to her was empty. The shades were pulled, and only a faint glow from outside penetrated the space. The lights were off, as was the television.

  Bernie expected to see Councilor Walker there and was relieved not to have to talk to her. As she approached the foot of the bed, Annie opened her eyes.

  “How are you feeling? I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Annie lifted the arm attached to the IV. “OK, except for this thing. They told me I got dehydrated out there because I didn’t want to drink water. Who likes to pee in the bushes?”

  “What happened? Mrs. Cooper said you started to feel really bad and were acting crazy on the bus.”

  “I don’t know. I got too hot, and my stomach hurt . . . and then the light bothered my eyes, and then, well, I was just totally out of it. I told Cooper to keep the windows closed so I wouldn’t float away from the van. I heard strange music from the jungle or something. After that, I don’t remember.”

  “Did the doctor say what caused it?”

  “Everyone keeps asking me about drugs, but I’m clean.”

  “Do you know if any of the girls or any of the adults at the camp came down with this?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Annie pushed the button to raise the head of the bed. “They want to do more tests, and that stinks. I feel better but still kinda floaty and strange. Did anyone find Mr. Cruz?”

  “I haven’t heard.” Bernie saw the question in the girl’s eyes. “The searchers will keep looking for him. Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

  Annie stared at the ceiling for a few moments. When she spoke again her voice was softer. “You remember that I told you I didn’t see him out there when he came to look for me?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I didn’t see him, but I heard him. He followed me as I was walking back to the base camp.”

  Bernie studied the girl. No obvious signs that Annie was lying. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “If you didn’t see him, how do you know it was Mr. Cruz?”

  Annie picked at an edge of the tape that kept her IV in place. “Mr. Cruz has this little metal bell on a cord attached to his backpack, and it swings and makes a sound like bing, bing. He said up in Alaska people hike with bells on their packs to let the bears know they’re coming. He said this was to let us know when he was coming so we could be good. I heard that sound on the trail to the base camp. You know . . . after I left that cave. I know it was him.”

  “Did you turn around to say hi?”

  “No. I waited for him to say something.” Annie drew her legs up underneath her and wrapped her arms around herself, looking even smaller. “I thought he would yell at me for leaving my vision spot. When he didn’t say anything, I figured he was super mad. You know, too mad to talk or yell or anything.”
The girl pulled her knees into her chest, and her shoulders tensed.

  “What happened next?”

  “I kept walking and I got to where I could see the blue tent, so I knew I was in the right place. I didn’t hear the bell anymore. Even if he was mad, I felt safer with him behind me, like my guardian spirit or something in case I wasn’t headed in the right direction to the main camp.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  Annie spoke quickly now. “I turned around when I didn’t hear him anymore, but I couldn’t see him, either.”

  “Did you mention this to Mrs. Cooper?”

  The girl shook her head. “Cooper would say I imagined it or had a vision or something. I figured Mr. Cruz would come back when he was ready.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t imagine hearing Mr. Cruz because you were still upset about the cave thing?”

  “I’m sure.” She stretched out her legs again under the sheets.

  “Were you high then?’

  “No.” She reinforced it with a couple shakes of her head.

  “Thanks for telling me about hearing Mr. Cruz. I’m going to pass this along to the searchers.”

  Annie smiled ever so slightly. “Do you think that could help find him?”

  “It might. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  “Well, sort of. Did you really find that scary cave? Or you just want to make me feel good?”

  “I found a cave that matched the description you gave me.”

  “Mr. Cruz kept telling us to stay away from caves, you know, because they were filled with things that could cause trouble. We used to laugh, but now I believe him. I think the chindi followed me. That’s what made me go crazy on the van.”

  Bernie reached in her backpack. “I found something else, too.” She extracted the pink phone.

  Annie burst into laughter. “You got it!” she said, and then stopped when Bernie handed the phone to her. She pushed herself up to sitting in the hospital bed. “What happened to the screen? It’s all broken.”

  “It was like that when I came across it in the parking lot, near where Cooper parked the van. Maybe somebody ran over it. But I’m surprised that phone is yours. You told me you didn’t have one.”

  Annie didn’t miss a beat. “I meant I lost it, but—”

  “But what?”

  “But I thought I lost it somewhere else.”

  A woman with a hospital badge on her lanyard motioned Bernie away from the bed.

  “The toxicology screen is back. It looks like Annie ingested an alkaloid, something like datura. Her symptoms ought to be gone in another twelve hours or so. You should have a talk with your daughter about experimenting with drugs. If she had consumed more, this could have had a different outcome.”

  “Thanks for the information, but this young lady is not my daughter.”

  The woman looked horrified.

  Bernie gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m sure her mother will be here soon, and she’ll want to know about the lab report.”

  She walked back to Annie’s bed. “One of the tests showed that you had a hallucinogen in your system.”

  Annie started to yell. “No way! Nobody had drugs out there. Not even weed. No way. That test must be screwed up.”

  The hospital woman gave Annie a stern look. “Get some rest before your mother comes.”

  Bernie left Annie and walked past other patient rooms, a cart with food trays, and a patient in her hospital gown holding the IV tree with her right hand as she strolled down the hall. A person in hospital scrubs held on to the thick white belt that circled the woman’s waist. Then Bernie saw Annie’s mother leaning on the nurses’ desk, across from a gray-haired man. From the body language Bernie could tell it was not a pleasant conversation. Walker stopped what she was saying to the nurse and frowned. “This is a private conversation, Officer. Where are your manners?”

  “Councilor, I need to talk to you about your complaints against Wings and Roots.”

  “Well, this obviously is not the place. We’ll talk at the police station.” Walker turned her back and resumed her harangue of the man at the desk.

  Bernie checked her phone for messages, found none, and called Darleen from the lobby, again getting no answer. This time Bernie’s message was more direct. I don’t like being ignored. Mama is worried about you. Call me ASAP.

  A few moments later, her phone beeped with a text message.

  In class. Tell Mama I’m OK. UR distracting me!!!

  As she left the hospital parking lot, Bernie thought of Joe Leaphorn and the long days she and Chee and Louisa had spent in the hospital with him. She was only an hour from his home in Window Rock now, but she had to get back to work.

  She listened to the scanner, hoping for news that Cruz had been found but hearing nothing about the search. As she began the drive toward Shiprock, she thought of Annie and datura. In the summer, datura grew like the weed it was on parts of the reservation and the entire Southwest—hardy, with beautiful huge white flowers that turned into prickly pods holding thousands of tiny seeds. Ranchers knew it as jimson weed, and kept their animals away from its toxic leaves. During their conversation at camp, Annie hadn’t been high, but she was anxious and worried. She’d told the truth about the cave, and her story of hearing Mr. Cruz’s bell seemed honest. She’d lied about having a phone and about her mother’s death, though, making the girl a less-than-reliable informant.

  Cooper thought the girl’s hallucinations came from drugs she’d hidden, and the lab test had found something like datura, Annie had another answer: chindi, the spirit of the dead one she’d stumbled upon in the cave. Perhaps the bones came from a Spanish rancher or an American homesteader. A centuries-old trail through the lava connected the Zuni and Acoma pueblos, thirty miles apart as the crow flies, and elders in both pueblos knew places with special significance to their people. Their bones had been found here, too.

  Bones made her think of Spider Woman. She remembered the old story of how Spider Woman came for disobedient children, took them up onto the monolith known as Spider Rock, and devoured them in her nest at the top, where their bones formed a white ring in the sandstone. She wondered if Councilor Walker had told Annie that story, and remembered the councilor in conflict with the nurses rather than sitting with her daughter. She thought about the way Mama worried over her and her sister. Bernie decided she’d sit at the loom when she got some time off. That, and see if she could learn a little more about Datura stramonium.

  She was still in Gallup, stuck in traffic because of a load of hay that had spilled onto 491, when Largo came on the radio.

  “The search coordinator called here, looking for you. They are broadening their efforts, and they need Cruz’s next of kin. It won’t be long before Cruz’s name goes public.”

  Bernie remembered that Cooper had promised to text her with Cruz’s sister’s info. “He has a sister in Grants. I’ll call Cooper and get the information to the search team.”

  “While you’re at it, tell her we’d like to see the program’s financial reports. If she doesn’t want to hand them over, let her know what Councilor Walker is saying about the program and about you.”

  “I’m on my way to the station now.”

  “No. You need to drive back to Grants and talk to Cruz’s sister face-to-face. She’s on the board of Wings and Roots and may have a different perspective on her brother’s disappearance.”

  “Sir?”

  “A person who matched Cruz’s description was spotted earlier this morning, hitchhiking along I-40 west near the Fort Wingate exit.” She heard a squeak as Largo leaned back in his chair. “It was an odd thing. The driver who saw him is one of the Cibola County search and rescue volunteers and knew the description of the missing person. He had to leave the search crew because his wife was having a baby. They were on the way to the hospital. The similarity didn’t register until after the baby arrived. By then, someone had given the man he saw a ride. It might
not have been our guy, but an alert went out for him along the interstate. If it was Cruz, Councilor Walker is on to something with her mismanagement claims.” Largo took a breath. “Have you met with her yet?”

  “No, sir. I tried, but she said she wanted to come to the station. She said she’d call me.”

  “When you figure out how to reach the sister, see if she thinks this guy is on the run.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And stay in touch.”

  “I’ll phone Cooper right now.”

  Cooper’s hello sounded distracted. Bernie explained what she needed and put her phone on speaker.

  “Sure, I have the information on Merilee Cruz. I’ll text it right now. I meant to send it, but it slipped my mind.” Cooper’s voice cracked. “I guess I forgot because I can’t believe that Dom hasn’t shown up, wondering why we’re making such a fuss.”

  “I need to come by your office and get copies of those financial reports and board minutes,” Bernie said. “Councilor Walker thinks I’m involved in some sort of police cover-up.”

  “She told me that too. For some reason, that woman seems to hate you.”

  9

  Before he left for class that morning, Chee called the phone number for the New Mexico State Land Office, asked for Caitlyn Vigil, and was transferred and put on hold before a soft voice came on the line.

  “This is Caitlyn. How may I help you?”

  Chee briefly introduced himself. “I’m calling because one of my coworkers is worried about George Curley. He asked me to see if you could help him reach George.”

  The line was silent, and when Caitlyn came on the line again, the softness was gone.

  “I can’t talk about this here. I’ll call you when I have a break.”

  “All right. Here’s my number, but I’m in class.” Chee told her she could also try him at the hotel. “But just tell me this. Is George OK?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “Give me your cell number in case—”

  But she’d already hung up.

  Every time he came to Santa Fe and the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy for a training, Chee decided he would have made a terrible teacher. He was patient, but he grew bored quickly. Teaching something once in a while, like tracking, was fine because of the challenge of putting the talk together and figuring out how to get the class involved. But to teach the same material over and over again? No thanks.