"You were a town boy," Chee said. "They were country kids. Bashful. They figured you'd be stuck-up." He grinned, trying to imagine this hardassed cop as a boy. "I bet you were, too."
The dirt track to the Benally place proved to be smoother than the washboard gravel of Route 7028. It led a mile and a half to an expanse of packed dirt on which stood a log hogan with a dirt roof and one of those small frame houses which, before the era of aluminum mobile homes, were hauled around on flatbed oil-company trucks to shelter crews of drilling rigs. It had been painted white once but not much paint had survived the winters. Two standard fifty-five-gallon oil drums stood on a platform beside the door. An empty corral was behind it, with too many poles missing to make it useful, and behind the corral, a brush arbor sagged.
A woman with a shawl over her head leaned in the open doorway, watching while Blizzard parked. To Chee, she looked about eighty, or a little older, with a once-round face now shrunken by the years.
"I hope you are well, Grandmother," he said in Navajo. He told her his mother's clan, and his father's, and that he was a tribal policeman. "And this man beside me is a Cheyenne Indian. His people were part of those who beat General Custer. And we have come to find out if you can help us with a problem."
Gray Old Lady recited her clans, including being born to the Bitter Water People of Delmar Kanitewa's father. She invited them in, signaled them to seat themselves on a bench beside the table, and offered them coffee. While the pot heated on the wood stove against the wall, Chee made his pitch. It was the fifth time he'd made it since morning and he hurried through it, making sure the old woman knew they didn't want to arrest the boy-only to talk to him.
She poured the coffee into two tin cups. The pot held only enough for a half-cup for Chee and Blizzard. None for her. She put it back on the shelf.
"I know the boy," she said. "My grandson's son. We called him Sheep Chaser. But I haven't seen him this year. Not for a long time."
Chee sipped the coffee. It was strong and stale. Through the doorway into the other room he could see a form lying motionless under a blanket. "Does Sheep Chaser have any good friends around here? Somebody he might be visiting?"
"I don't think so," she said. "He goes to live with his mother's people. The Tano People. I don't know anything about him anymore."
Which was exactly what Chee had expected to hear. He translated the gist of it to Blizzard. Blizzard nodded and grunted. "Tell her I said thank you very much for all the assistance," Blizzard said.
"We thank you," Chee said. He nodded toward the doorway. "Is someone in your family ill?"
She turned and looked into the bedroom. "That is my husband," she said. "He is so old that he does not know who he is anymore. He has even forgotten how to walk and how to say words."
"Is there anyone helping you?" Chee said. "Taking care of things?"
"There is the bilagaana from the mission at Thoreau," she said. "He comes in his truck and keeps our water barrel filled and twice a week he brings us food. But this week he hasn't come."
Chee felt sick. "Is his name Eric Dorsey?"
Gray Old Lady produced an ancient-sounding chuckle. "We call him our begadoche. Our water sprinkler. Because he brings our water. And because he makes us laugh." The memory of laughter produced a small, toothless smile.
"He has this thing, like a duck, and he pretends to make it talk." But the smile went away and she drew her hands up to her chest, looking worried. "Except this week, he didn't come."
"How much water do you have?" Chee asked.
"One barrel is empty," she said. "The other one, maybe about this much." She demonstrated six inches of water with her hands. "When he comes he always looks into the barrels, and last week he said he would fill them when he came this time. But he didn't come."
Blizzard had said polite words to the old woman in English and was walking back to the car. She kept her eyes on Chee, looking worried.
"Do you think he will come next week?" she said. "If he doesn't come next week I will have to use less water."
"I will send someone out here to fill your water barrels, Grandmother," Chee said. "I will send somebody from the mission at Thoreau or somebody from the tribal office at Crownpoint. And when they come you must tell them that you need help."
"But the bilagaana has helped us," she said, looking puzzled. "In many ways." She pointed at the rocking chair. It was beautifully made, with simple lines, and looked new. "He made that for us, at the school I think. He said that chair would be better for my back when I sit beside the bed. And with the duck he would make my husband laugh."
"Grandmother," Chee said. "I think the bilagaana who helped you is dead."
She seemed not to hear him. "He brings us food and he fills our water barrels and he took my man in to see the bilagaana doctors. And he helped us when my daughter had rugs to sell. He told us the man at the trading post was not paying enough. And he sold them for us and got a lot more money."
"Grandmother," Chee said. "Listen to me."
But she didn't want to listen. "The trader had been giving us fifty dollars but Begadoche got three hundred dollars once, and once it was more than six hundred. And when I had to sell my necklace and my bracelets because we didn't have any money he told me the pawn place in Gallup didn't give us enough, and he knew someone who would pay a lot more because they were old and he got them out of pawn and the man he knew gave us a lot more money."
Chee held up his hand. "Grandmother. Listen. The bilagaana won't come anymore because he is dead. I will have to send someone else. Do you understand?"
Gray Old Lady Benally understood. She must have understood all along because even while she was talking her cheeks were wet with tears.
11
LOOKING BACK on it, trying to analyze how it came to be, Chee finally decided it was partly bad luck and mostly his own fault. They had left Blizzard's car at Gallup. Bad luck. It meant they had to head back in the direction of Chee's place to get it. Bad luck, again. It happened that way because the very last people they'd wasted their time checking lived over by the Standing Rock Chapter House. So they drifted homeward past Coyote Canyon on Navajo Route 9. That took them right past the Yah-Tah-Hay intersection, which put them almost as close to Chee's trailer in Window Rock as to Blizzard's car in Gallup. And somewhere before then Blizzard had said he was just too damned tired of driving to drive home. That brought them to the part that was Chee's own fault.
"Why don't you get a motel room in Gallup?" Chee said. "Then you can just call your office tomorrow. Find out if they're ready to let us give up on this one."
"I'll just sleep in my car," Blizzard had said.
It was at that point Chee had screwed himself up once again. Maybe it was being tired himself-not wanting to drive into Gallup and then back to Window Rock-or maybe it was feeling sort of guilty for thinking Blizzard was such a hardass when actually he was just new and green. Or maybe it was sympathy for Blizzard-a lonesome stranger in a strange land-or maybe he was feeling a little lonely himself. Whatever the motive, Chee had said, "Why don't you just bed down at my place? It's better than the backseat of a car."
And Blizzard, of course, said, "Good idea."
And so there they were, Blizzard deciding he'd sleep on the couch and saying he'd volunteer to cook supper unless Chee wanted to go back into Window Rock and eat someplace there. Then the telephone rang.
"It's Janet," the caller said. "I got the impression the other day at the Navajo Inn that you wanted to talk to me about something. Was I right?"
"Absolutely," Chee said.
"So I have an idea. Remember you telling me about that old movie that used Navajos as extras, and they were supposed to be Cheyennes but they were talking Navajo, and saying all the wrong things? The one that they always bring back to that drive-in movie at Gallup? Sort of a campy deal, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show?"
"Yeah," Chee said. "Cheyenne Autumn. A couple of my relatives are extras in it."
"Well, it'
s back again and I thought-"
But Blizzard was eavesdropping. He overheard. He entered the conversation. "Cheyenne Autumn," he said. "Yeh!"
"Who was that?" Janet said. "You have company?"
"A BIA policeman. Harold Blizzard."
"You told me about him," Janet said. "He's a Cheyenne himself, isn't he? I bet he'd like to see that movie. Why don't you ask him to come along?"
"I'm sure he's already seen it."
"No, I haven't seen it," Blizzard said, in a voice Chee felt was inappropriately loud. "I've heard about it, but I never have seen it."
"He hasn't seen it," Janet said. "I heard him. Why don't you bring him along? Don't you think it would be fun to get a Cheyenne's reaction?"
Chee didn't think so. Janet didn't know this Cheyenne. He glanced at Blizzard, sitting on the edge of his couch, looking expectant. "You wanna go?"
"Sure," Blizzard said. "I'd love to go. If I won't be in the way."
"We can talk after the movie," Janet said.
Of course. But they could have also talked during the movie. And talking about the movie during the movie-celebrating the small victory of The People over the white man that this John Ford classic represented-was the reason Navajos still came to see it, and the reason the owner of the Gallup Drive-in still brought it back. And besides talking during the movie, if things developed as Chee had hoped, there were things to do besides talk.
So here they were in Janet Pete's Ford Escort, parked fifth row from the screen with pickup trucks on both sides of them, with Janet sitting beside him and Sergeant Harold Blizzard hulking over them in the backseat. But one might as well make the best of whatever fate was offering.
"Right in here," Chee said. "Just a minute now. She'll be the first girl you see doing the drumming. There she is. That's Irma. My oldest sister."
The scene was solemn. Three Navajos playing the roles of three Cheyenne shamans were about to pray to God that the U.S. government would keep its treaty promises-a naive concept, which had drawn derisive hoots and horn honkings from the rows of pickup trucks and cars. A row of Cheyenne maidens were tapping methodically at drums, accompanying the chanted prayers.
"How about the song?" Blizzard asked. "Is that Navajo, too?"
Blizzard was leaning forward, chin on the seat back, his big ugly face between Janet and Chee.
"Sort of," Chee said. "It's a kind of modification of a song they sing at Girl Dances, but they slowed it down to make it sound solemn." This was not the way Chee had intended this date with Janet Pete to turn out.
Richard Widmark, commanding the cavalry detachment in charge of keeping order at this powwow between government bureaucrats and the Cheyenne, was now establishing himself as pro-Indian by making derogatory remarks about the reservation where the government was penning the tribe. Since the landscape at which Widmark was pointing was actually the long line of salmon-colored cliffs behind the lyanbito Chapter House just south of Gallup, this produced more horn honking and a derisive shout from somewhere.
And so it went. Scenes came in which somber-looking Cheyenne leaders responded to serious questions in somber-sounding Navajo. When converted back into English by the translator the answers made somber sense.
But they produced more happy bedlam among the audience, and prompted the "What did he really say?" question from either Janet or Blizzard-and often both. What he really said tended to have something to do with the size of the colonel's penis, or some other earthy and humorous irrelevancy. Chee would sanitize this a bit or put the humor in the context of Navajo customs or taboos, or explain that the celebratory honking was merely noting the screen appearance of somebody's kinfolks.
It was a long movie, but not long enough for Chee to come up with a plan that would have disposed of Blizzard. The most obvious solution was to simply drive by the Navajo Nation Inn, drop him off, and tell him you'd pick him up in the morning. But that was blown by the fact that Blizzard had left his briefcase at Chee's place and the briefcase contained (as Blizzard had proudly told him) "everything you have to have if you get caught somewhere overnight." Coming up with something better, such as sending Blizzard off to the snack bar at the projection center to buy another bucket of popcorn and driving off without him, was ruled out by Janet's unexpected behavior. She seemed to have developed a liking for the man, laughing at his jokes, engaging him in discussions of their mutual childhoods as city Indians, quizzing him about what he knew about his tribe, and so forth.
And so, movie finally over, Janet drove them home. And there, with the car still rolling to a stop, Harold Blizzard did something to reestablish himself in Jim Chee's esteem.
"Janet," Blizzard said, "this has been a lot of fun, and I hope to see you again, but now I'm going to rush right in and get some sleep." And he had the door open and was out even before he finished the sentence.
Janet turned off the engine. And the lights. Without a word they watched Blizzard disappear into Chee's trailer.
"I like him," Janet said.
Chee considered what had just happened. "Me, too," he said. "And he was right. It was fun."
"It was," Janet said. "And it was sweet of you to bring him along."
"It was, wasn't it," Chee said. "But why do you think so?"
"Because you wanted to talk to me."
"Yep," Chee said.
"About what?"
"Us."
"Us?" Light from the autumn moon lit her face. She was smiling at him.
"We've been friends a long time," Chee said.
"Two years, I guess. More than that. Ever since you were trying to nail that old man I was representing up at Farmington. Almost three years if you add in that time I was away at Washington."
"I wasn't trying to nail him," Chee said. "I was looking for information."
"And you tried to trick me?"
"I did trick you," Chee said. "Remember? I found out what I needed to know."
"I remember," she said. "But now I think I'm ready to forgive you."
And with that, Janet Pete leaned across, put her hand behind Chee's head, pulled his face down, and kissed him, and sighed, and kissed him again.
It was quite a while later, although the moon was still illuminating Janet's face, when she said, "No, Jim. No. Time to stop."
"What?" he said. "Why?"
"Because," she said. "I think we sort of stopped being just friends. So now we have to get better acquainted."
"That's just what we were doing," Chee said.
"No," Janet said, sitting up straight, buttoning buttons. "I tried that way once. It doesn't work. It hurts too much if you're wrong."
"In Washington?"
"In Washington, and in law school."
"Not this time," Chee said. "This time you're not wrong. It's me. And you're right."
Janet looked at him, and then out the windshield, thinking. "When you're a certain age." she said, "when you're young, and you fall in love-or think you have-then you think that sex is the way you prove it. Prove that you're in love." She was still staring out the windshield, straight ahead. "But it doesn't prove a damned thing."
Chee thought about that. "What you're saying-"
"What I'm saying is I know I like you. Maybe I like you a lot. Even an awful lot. But it doesn't have anything at all to do with-" She paused. Looked at him. Grinning at him now. "To be exactly correct, it doesn't have much to do with your pearly white teeth, and your long, lean, lanky frame, and all those muscles. I started liking you because you're kind to people."
"If I had known that, I would have been even kinder," Chee said.
"But I'm not going to be just another of Jim Chee's girlfriends."
"Hey," Chee said. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean we hear about things. We women."
"No truth to it," Chee said. "I'm too busy."
Janet laughed. "Exactly what I hear," she said. "Very busy. A girl at every chapter house."
"Come on, Janet," Chee said. "Knock it off."
"
Remember," she said. "You told me about the schoolteacher at Crownpoint. The one you were in love with."
"A long time ago," Chee said.
Janet was silent for a moment. "How about her? Are you still in touch?"
"She sent me a Christmas card," Chee said. "Wrote 'Happy Holidays' on it."
Janet smiled at him, her face illuminated by the moon. "That sounds safe enough," she said.
"Now it's your turn. How about The Attorney at Law?"
It took her a while to answer. And while he waited, Chee felt his stomach tighten. What would she say? How would she say it?
She said, in a small voice, "I don't like to think about him."
Tony Hillerman - Leaphorn & Chee 11 - Sacred Clowns Page 10
