People of Darkness jlajc-4

by Tony Hillerman

  That sure is, Dr. Huff said. That’s a hell of a high percentage.

  How about the other two? Chee asked. Tsossie and Joseph Sam?

  Neither name showed up/’ Huff said. He was frowning. Four out of six, he said. What in the world could account for that? What were they doing?

  In 1948 they were the members of a roustabout crew on an oil well out near Grants, Chee said. The common labor. Beyond that they were all members of the same little cult in the Native American Church.

  They ever work in the uranium mines out there? We think we had a little increase from that. But that was lung cancer.

  Not as far as we know. And the mining was just getting well started in Ambrosia Lakes when these guys were dying, Chee said.

  How about asbestos? Were they installing insulation? He shook his head. No. Inhaled asbestos fiber is a carcinogen, but nothing like this. Nothing like four out of six. And not that quickly. And it’s the wrong kind of cancer. You know anything else about them?

  Damn little, Chee said.

  Did they ever work up at the Nevada test site? Did they work up there when we were doing that atmospheric testing of the bombs?

  K I don’t know, Chee said. It’s not likely.

  That could explain it, Huff said. We just found out this fall that we had a whole rash of leukemia fatalities downwind from the test site in the middle of the 1950s. We’ve pinned down twelve cases in one tiny little community. Blood cell formation is particularly sensitive to some forms of radiation.

  I know Dillon Charley didn’t work anywhere near Nevada, Chee said. He was working at Mount Taylor until just before he died.

  As for Emerson Charley, Mary said, they stopped atmospheric testing years ago, and he just died.

  Huff looked disappointed. Yes, he said, but sometimes it takes years to develop. And the cases might not all be connected. He produced a wry smile. And also, of course, maybe none of them have been within a thousand miles of the test site. Do you think you could find the other two of the six?

  We can keep trying on Tsossie, Chee said. But Joseph Sam’s dead. He won’t do you any good.

  Actually, he might do us some good, Huff said. Some kinds of cancers affect bone tissue. Some other kinds leave their traces in bone when they metastasize. You can often find the damage in ribs, or vertebrae, or sometimes large marrow bones. Do you know where he’s buried?

  We can try to find out, Chee said.

  And we’ll try to find some sort of common denominator among them, Huff said. How about this church they all belong to?

  Native American Church, Chee said. The peyote church.

  Huff grinned through his beard. If we suspected peyote of being carcinogenic, we’d have our mystery solved. But it isn’t. Anything else? Anything that ties them all together?

  Chee told him of Dillon Charley’s peyote vision, which had saved them all from the oil well explosion, and of the survivors being joined, or so it seemed, in their own cultthe People of Darkness.

  With a mole as their amulet figure? Isn’t the fetish usually a predator? A mountain lion, or a bear, or something like that? Huff asked.

  The mole’s the predator of darkness, Chee said. But it is unusual to use him for an amulet.

  So why did they pick the mole? Huff asked. l

  I’ve wondered, Chee said. And as he said it, he had a thought. Whoever took Emerson Charley’s body left his personal effects. Could we take a look at them?

  Why not? Huff said. If we haven’t lost them, too. Chapter Twenty-Six

  The red plastic bag was in a storage room on the second floor among scores of identical plastic bags, all arranged in alphabetical order.

  Bracken, the attendant said. Caldwell. Charley. Here it is. Emerson Charley. You can take a look at it there on that table.

  Chee removed a crushed black felt hat, a pair of cowboy boots which needed half soles, a denim jacket, a Timex watch with a steel band, a plaid cotton shirt, a T-shirt, a pair of jockey shorts, a pair of worn denim jeans, socks, a set of car keys, a pocket knife, a small leather pouch attached to a long leather thong, two blue shoestrings, a package of paper matches, and a billfold. He put the leather pouch and the billfold aside and quickly explored all the pockets. They were empty. Then he inspected the billfold. It contained a five, two ones, a driver’s license, a social security card, and a card identifying the agent who had written the liability policy on Charley’s pickup truck.

  Then he picked up the leather pouch,

  What’s that? Mary asked. What are you looking for?

  It’s where you carry your ceremonial stuff, Chee said. Supposed to be made of the hide of a deer killed in the ritual fashion. It holds your gall medicine. What you use against witchcraft. A little pollen. Maybe a little ceremonial corn meal He pulled open the draw cord and fished into the pouch with his fingers. And it’s where you carry your amulet, if you carry one.

  The amulet he extracted was black, and dull, and shaped into the eyeless, sharp-nosed form of a mole. He held it up for Mary’s inspection. It was heavy, formed from a soft stone. Some sort of shale, Chee guessed. Here we have Dine’etse-tle, Chee said. The predator of the nadir. The hunting spirit of the underworld. One of the People of Darkness.

  He stared at it, heavy on his palm, hoping for some information. It was well formedbetter than most amulets. Chee remembered the amateur sculpture in B. J. Vines’ huge office. Had Vines made this? Was this formed from one of those fragments of black rock Emerson Charley had found in Vines’ keepsake box? Perhaps. But what did that mean? He slipped the mole back into the pouch.

  Did it tell you anything?

  Chee recited two lines of Navajo. That’s from one of the blessing chants, he said.

  The mole, his hunting place is darkness.

  The mole, his hunting song is silence. Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The secretary from Dr. Huff’s office met them as they left the storage room. The message was from Chee’s Crownpoint office. It told him to call Martin at Albuquerque fbi headquarters.

  I thought nobody knew where we are, Mary said. She was frowning. Wasn’t that how we were going to stay safe?

  Nobody but my office, Chee said.

  But if your office knows, can’t somebody else?

  How? Chee asked.

  Mary thought about it, still frowning. She shrugged. I guess you’re right, she said. But you know how people are.

  Martin wanted to remind Chee that he was supposed to come in and look at photographs.

  Maybe in a day or two, Chee said. To tell the truth, I’m going to stay away from places where this guy might be waiting around for me.

  I think you can relax a little now. He’s gone.

  How do you know?

  We made a clean sweep, Martin said. Checked every motel, every hotel, every place he could be staying. We even checked new apartment rentals.

  Lot of work, Chee said.

  He’s no place around here, Martin said. And we found the green-and-white Plymouth. It was in a little garage in Gallup. The son of a bitch drove it in and told the mechanic it needed a valve job and he was in no hurry for it. That’s why we didn’t find it abandoned anywhere.

  That was smart, Chee said. You know how he got out of Albuquerque this time?

  We’re pretty sure he stole a car. Just drove it somewhere. Maybe El Paso or Denver. Somewhere far enough to miss our stakeouts. And then he took a plane for wherever he goes.

  So he’s not in Albuquerque?

  Not unless he’s staying with relatives, Martin said. Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At the cost of hours of driving from here to there in search of older members of the Mud Clan, Jimmy Chee learned a little about Windy Tsossie. He learned that not long after the oil well explosion, Tsossie had married a daughter of Grace Yazzie of the Standing Rock Clan. He had moved northwestward to the Bisti country to join his new family. He had been seen around Ambrosia Lakes no more. Chee learned that Tsossie’s wife was dead. He learned other things as well. Among the impor
tant ones was that Tsossie’s sister-in-law, a woman named Romana Musket, was alive and well and living between Thoreau and Crownpoint in the log house with the tin roof and the sheep pens behind it that was visible on the slope above the highway. Mrs. Musket seemed likely to know where Tsossie could be found, alive or dead. Chee had also learned that no one seemed to know for sure which one it would be. No one had heard Tsossie had died. On the other hand, Chee had found no one who had actually seen him for years. And finally Chee had accumulated a general impression of Windy Tsossie. It was a negative impression. His kinsmen and his clansmen, when they admitted remembering him at all, remembered him without fondness or respect. They talked of him reluctantly, vaguely, uneasily. No one put it in words. Since Chee was Navajo, no one needed to. Windy Tsossie did not go in beauty. Windy Tsossie was not a good man. He did not follow those rules which Changing Woman had given the People. In a word, Windy Tsossie was believed by his kinsmen to be a witch.

  I don’t see how you can say that, Mary said. You told me what they said. Nobody even hinted at anything like that.

  They wouldn’t, Chee said, not to a stranger. I might be a witch myself. Or you might be. And witches don’t like people talking about witches.

  Mary yawned. You’re stretching things, she said.

  Did you notice that talking about Tsossie made them nervous? That’s the tip-off.

  The thing that interests me is I think we’re finally going to find one of them alive, she said. What’s he going to tell us? I really think now he’s going to remember something.

  If he’s alive.

  He will be.

  I have the same sort of hunch, Chee said.

  They were driving the subagency’s pickup truck, having traded the relative comfort of the patrol car for the ability to follow wagon tracks. They drove northeastward, mostly in second gear, over a rutted road which now tilted downward. Chee flicked his lights to bright. The beams lit the broad, sandy bottom of an arroyo below. When they reached it, he stopped.

  Chaco Wash, he said. He switched on the dome light, unfolded his map, and examined it. The map was one entitled Indian Country, produced by the Auto Club of Southern California; Chee had found it both accurate and detailed. It rated routes of travel in nine categories, ranging from Divided Limited Access Highways, down through Gravel, Graded Dirt, and Ungraded Dirt to Doubtful Dirt. For the last fifteen miles, they had been driving on Doubtful Dirt. According to the map, the Doubtful Dirt ended at Chaco Wash.

  Chee folded the Indian Country map and extracted from his shirt pocket a lined sheet of notebook paper. It had come from a red-covered Big Chief notebook at the home of Mrs. Musket. On it, a grandson of Ramona Musket had drawn another map to show how to reach the hogan where Rudolph Charley was conducting a Peyote Way. His grandmother was attending the services. The grandson was about twelve. He wore a T-shirt with the S symbol of Superman decorating its front, and he drew the map carefully with a ballpoint pen, and while he drew he explained that Rudolph Charley was the new peyote chief because somebody had shot the old peyote chief, who was Rudolph Charley’s older brother.

  Right at Chaco Wash the regular road got washed out. Supergrandson said. You turn right there, and you drive up the sand if you want to, because it’s smoother. You got to pay attention or you’ll miss the turns. I’ll put down some landmarks to look for. He glanced up and grinned at Mary, and switched politely to English. If you’re not careful out there you can get lost, he assured her.

  On the Big Chief map, Supergrandson had penned in salt cedars at the point where the Doubtful Dirt road petered out at the wash bottom. Now, in the beam of his headlights, Chee could see a cluster of winter-bare salt cedar below. Chee let the truck roll forward again, past the trees and onto the smoothness of the arroyo floor.

  Here’s where we get to the place where if we’re not careful we can get lost, Mary said. Is that right?

  Right, Chee said.

  Let’s not, Mary said. I’m too tired. I’m flat out exhausted. It seems like we’ve been in this truck about seventeen days.

  Just since about sunrise, Chee said.

  Mary turned suddenly and stared back out the rear window. I get a feeling I’ll look back there and see somebody following us, she said. Not somebody. That blond man.

  How could he? Chee asked. There’s no way he could know where we’re going.

  She shivered, and hugged herself. Let’s say he’s smart, she said. Or let’s say he has some reason himself to go to this peyote ceremony.

  I can’t think why he would.

  It’s a memorial service for Tomas Charley, isn’t it? Or something like that. Maybe he’s looking for people, just as we are. Maybe we’ll just run into him there.

  I doubt it, Chee said.

  I think you’re like me. Too tired to care. You’re so tired you’re going to tell me your war name.

  It won’t be much longer now, Chee said. We want to be at Charley’s place at midnight, and then Mrs. Musket will tell us that Windy is living in Grants and give us his address and telephone number. Then we go get some sleep and tomorrow we’ll call Tsossie, and he’ll tell us who blew up the oil well and why, and where to find the evidence to give to the grand jury, and who to arrest and why Emerson Charley’s body was taken out of the hospital, and who hired the blond man to shoot Tomas Charley, and

  Oh, stop, Mary said. She yawned hugely behind her hand. With the luck you and I have, she said through the end of the yawn, that kid gave us the wrong address or the wrong night, or Mrs. Musket won’t be there, or she never heard of Windy Tsossie, or she won’t like your looks and won’t talk to you, or she’ll tell you Tsossie moved to Tanzania and didn’t leave an address, or it’s the wrong Tsossie, or the blond will be there and he’ll shoot you. Or even worse, he’ll shoot me.

  Chee smiled. Well, he said, we’ll soon know.

  At seven minutes to midnight the track they were following skirted a rocky outcrop covered with stunted juniper. The truck’s headlights reflected from a windshield, and then from the corrugated metal roof of a shack and the glass of the window below the roof. Chee slowed the truck to a crawl and examined what the headlights showed him. Three pickup trucks, an old white Chevy, and a wagon on which bales of hay served as seats. Twenty yards behind the shack was the round stone shape of a hogan, with a thin wisp of blue smoke emerging from the smoke hole in the center of its conical dirt-insulated roof. No one was in sight.

  Chee parked the truck beside the newest of the pickups, flicked off the headlights, and stepped out into the darkness. The moon was down and the black sky was brilliant with a billion stars. He stood with face raised, drinking it inthe great fluorescent sweep of the Milky Way, the pattern of the winter constellations, the incredible silent brightness of the universe.

  Mary was standing beside him now. My God, she said in a hushed voice. I never saw the sky like that.

  Altitude, Chee said. We’re almost at the Continental Divide here. Mile and a half above sea level; air’s thin. And partly it’s because there’s no ground lights. Look, he said, pointing to the southeast. See that little glow on the horizon? That’s Albuquerque. Hundred miles away, but you can see what it does.

  It makes you forget for a minute how cold you are, Mary said. She shuddered. The minute’s up. I’m cold.

  From the hogan came the sound of song and the tapping of a pot drum. Distance and the hogan walls muted it, and the singing was not much more than a rising and falling rhythm, part of the background of the windless night. Chee glanced at his watch. The followers of Lord Peyote wouldn’t recess their ceremonial until midnight. They began at sunset after a prayer to inform the setting sun that their intentions were holy, and the ritual would not end until sunrise. But at midnight there was a break. And that meant another five minutes to wait.

  When I was a boy, Chee said, sometimes my mother would wake me up in the darkest part of the night, and we’d go out away from the hogan, and she’d teach me star lore. How the constellations move and ho
w you can tell the direction and the time of night if you know the time of year. And how it all began.

  How did it all begin? Mary asked.

  There weren’t any Navajos yet. Just Holy People. First Man, First Woman, Talking God, Gila Monster, Corn Beetle, all the various yei figures. At night, the sky was black and blank except for the moon. So First Man decided to hang out the stars. And he put up the Blue Flint Boys Chee pointed to Cepheus and the Bear, and the Stalking God, and all the rest. And along came Coyote, and he grabbed the blanket where First Man had the stars waiting to be hung, and he gave it a toss and threw all that were left out in one great swinging motion. That’s what made the Milky Way.

  Quite a coyote, Mary said. She shivered again and hugged herself.

  The hogan was silent now, and suddenly there was light at the doorway as the blankets hung across the opening were pulled back.

  Chee reached into the cab of the truck and turned on the dome light. It was polite to let people know who was calling on them.

  Contrary to Mary’s pessimism, Mrs. Musket was there. She was a gray-haired, sturdy woman with a red-and-green mackinaw over the voluminous velveteen blouse and skirt of traditional Navajo womanhood. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about Windy Tsossie.

  Rudolph Charley invited them into the hogan out of the cold, and stood beside them listening. Rudolph Charley looked a lot like Tomas Charley. Just a little younger and even thinner.

  It all happened a long time ago, Chee was saying. Before he married your sister. There was an explosion at an oil well where he worked. We want to see if he remembers what happened.

  Mrs. Musket stared at Chee, glanced nervously at Mary, at Charley, and then back at Chee.

  He won’t remember anything, Mrs. Musket said.

  It seems like just about everybody else who was working with Tsossie is dead, Chee said. We can’t talk to them. We want to talk to him.

  I think Windy is dead, too, Rudolph Charley said. I think the witch got them all.

  Yes, Mrs. Musket said. He’s dead.

  When did he die? Chee asked. He suspected Mrs. Musket was lying. Experience taught one to watch the face of a person being questioned. Lying made almost everyone nervous. Mrs. Musket was nervous. But then she would be nervous anyway, at being questioned by strangers who appeared out of the darkness to talk of death. And there was more to it than nervousness. Something vague and hard to define. And he thought that he knew what was causing it. Mrs. Musket had eaten peyote and drunk of the black drink of the ceremonialpeyote tea. She was in that dreamy world of the psychedelic. He glanced at Rudolph Charley. The road chief of his ceremonial, too, looked at Chee as if he wasn’t sure that Chee existed.