Tony Hillerman - Leaphorn & Chee 01 - The Blessing Way

by The Blessing Way(lit)

  "Was that the man you saw last night? The man with the wolf skin?"

  "I don't know. I guess it is."

  A half mile up the canyon he had her turn off the ignition. From far behind them there still came the high whine of the winch, a faint sound now.

  "Anyway, he can't follow us," Miss Leon said. She smiled at McKee. "He's on the wrong side of his roadblock."

  "That's right," McKee said. But he knew it wasn't right. He had to work the winch from the down side because the tree top was pointing upstream. He'll simply swing the trunk downstream far enough so he can drive past it and then re-attach his winch line from the upstream side and pull it back in place across the canyon. He'll drive in and close the gate behind him. McKee wondered if Land-Rovers had four-wheel drive. He was almost certain they did. The Land-Rover could go anyplace the Volks could go, and lots of places it couldn't. The sense of urgency returned, and his hand and cheekbone began throbbing in harmony.

  "Is your hand broken?"

  "No," McKee said. "Sprained my little finger."

  She looked at him. The sympathy in her eyes embarrassed him and he looked away. "But it hurts a lot," she said. "It would feel better if you let me bandage it."

  "I think we better keep going," McKee said. "We'll drive up to our camp and get some water and stuff and find us a place we can climb out of here."

  "Maybe Dr. Canfield will be back now," she said. "That is, if he didn't go out to Shoemaker's."

  "Maybe so."

  She still thinks I'm imagining a lot of this, McKee thought. That was good, in a way. No reason to frighten her more than he already had as long as she would cooperate. And yet it would be easier, somehow, if she shared his knowledge of danger.

  Canfield was not at the camp. Nor was there any sign he had been there since McKee had left it. McKee hurriedly filled his canteen. He couldn't find Canfield's. It was probably in the camper truck. His papers were still on the folding table in the tent. If the man had examined them he had taken some care not to disarrange them. He pushed two cans of meat into his pocket, pushed the canteen into the front of his shirt, and picked up a box of crackers. What else would they need? He thought of the can opener on his pocket knife, found it beside his typewriter, and dropped it into his shirt pocket. His pickup, it occurred to him suddenly, would be better than the Volks. They could run it much farther up a side canyon-maybe even get it to the top. He trotted to the truck, switched on the ignition and kicked the starter. Nothing happened. He kicked the starter again and then he remembered seeing the man raising the hood. He raised the hood himself and looked down at the motor. The spark-plug wires were missing. He may be crazy, McKee thought as he trotted back to the Volks, but he's sure efficient.

  "O.K.," he told Miss Leon, "we'll drive up the canyon about a mile. There's a place up there we can turn up a side canyon. We'll drive up it as far as this Volks will go and then we'll climb out."

  Miss Leon was driving very slowly. McKee looked at her impatiently.

  "Better speed it up."

  Miss Leon was biting her lip again.

  "Dr. McKee. Really. Don't you think we should wait there at camp?" She looked at him, her face determined. "I'm sure Dr. Canfield will be coming back soon, and if he doesn't. that man we saw down the canyon, I'm sure that man would help us."

  Oh, God, McKee thought. Now I've got trouble with her.

  "You can't possibly climb out of this canyon and walk all the way back to Shoemaker's with your head hurt like that. We're going back."

  "Do you know why that pickup of mine wouldn't start?"

  Miss Leon looked at him again.

  "Why not?"

  "Our friend had pulled the wires off the spark plugs."

  She doesn't believe it, McKee thought. He felt suddenly dizzy with fatigue and pain.

  "Look," he said. "If we had time, I'd take you back there and show you. But we don't have time." His voice was fierce. "Now drive and keep driving until I tell you to turn right."

  Miss Leon drove, looking straight ahead. McKee looked at her profile. Her face was angry, but there was no sign of fear. It would be better if she was a little afraid, he thought, and he tried to think of what he might say. The pain in his hand had become suddenly like a knife through his knuckles, making concentration impossible. He inched it carefully out of his shirt front. The finger was rigid now, turning a bluish color, and the swelling had spread up the palm to the heel of his hand. He heard her sudden, sharp intake of breath.

  "You need a doctor," Miss Leon said. "That hand's broken."

  McKee put the hand carefully back inside his shirt, irritated at himself for giving her a chance to see it.

  "It's just a dislocated knuckle. The swelling makes it look worse than it is."

  "This is absolutely insane. I'm going to turn around and we're going back where you're camped and soak that hand." She started slowing the Volks.

  McKee put his boot on top of her foot on the accelerator and pressed. The little car jerked forward and she pulled at the wheel to control it.

  "Now get this straight," McKee said. His voice was angry and he spaced the words for emphasis. "I had a hard day yesterday. I was up all night. I'm tired and my hand hurts. I'm worried about Jeremy. You're going to behave and do what you're told. And I'm telling you again that we're going to climb out of this canyon."

  "All right, then," Miss Leon said. "Have it your way."

  There was a long, strained silence.

  "If I'm wrong about that guy, I'll apologize," McKee said. "But really I can't take a chance on being wrong. Not if he's as crazy as I think he is."

  Miss Leon was silent. He glanced at her. She looked away. McKee suddenly realized she was crying and the thought dismayed him. He slumped down in the seat, baffled.

  "Is this where we turn?"

  "Right, up that side canyon."

  The tributary seemed narrower now than it had when he and Canfield had poked into it earlier. Just day before yesterday. It seemed like a week.

  McKee wondered what he could say. What did you say when you made a woman cry? "Getting pretty narrow," he said.

  "Yes."

  The canyon bent abruptly and the stream bed here was too narrow for all four wheels. The Volks tilted sharply as the right wheels rolled over a slab of exposed sandstone. It jolted down, slamming the rear bumper against the stone.

  McKee suddenly noticed tire tracks on the bank ahead of them. A truck had been in here recently, but before yesterday's rain. Runoff had wiped out the tracks on the sandy bottom but the rain had only softened the imprint where the stream hadn't reached.

  McKee was suddenly alert and nervous.

  Miss Leon slowed the Volkswagen.

  "Do you want me to try to drive over that?" she asked. Just ahead the canyon walls pinched together and water-worn rocks upthrust through the sand.

  "Ill take a look," McKee said. He climbed stiffly from the Volks. The rocks were partly obscured by brush and didn't look too formidable. A few yards upstream they gave way to another stretch of sand. Beyond, the canyon rose sharply and was crowded with boulders from a rock slide. It was probably impassable for a vehicle.

  "Put it in low and angle to the left," McKee directed. "We can get it past that brush and leave it there out of sight."

  The Volks jolted over the rocks more easily than McKee had expected. He showed Miss Leon where to park it out of the water course behind the brush and then collected the canteen and cracker box.

  "We can lock the car," he said. "You can take anything you think you'll need, but I'd keep it light."

  "I have a box of things I was taking to Dr. Hall," Miss Leon said. "I couldn't replace those."

  "We can take it," McKee said. It was then he noticed she was wearing an engagement ring-a ring with an impressive diamond. Why be surprised? he thought. Why be disappointed? Of course she was engaged. Not that it could possibly matter.

  Walking was easy for the first fifty yards across the hard-packed sand, but then it beca
me a matter of climbing carefully over the rocks. McKee noticed with surprise that the truck had apparently made it across this barrier. Its path was marked by broken brush. He glanced back. Miss Leon was sitting on a rock, holding her ankle. He noticed she hadn't brought the box.

  "What happened?"

  "I twisted it." She looked frightened.

  He looked at her wordlessly, feeling for the first time in his life absolutely helpless. He walked back down the rocks toward her.

  "How bad is it?" He squatted beside her, looking at the ankle. It was a very trim ankle, with no sign yet of swelling.

  "I don't know. It hurts."

  "Can you put your weight on it?"

  "I don't think so."

  McKee sat down and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. His head ached.

  "We'll wait awhile," he said finally. "When it feels better, well go on."

  He tried to think. If her ankle was sprained, it would swell soon. And if it was sprained it would be almost impossible for her to make the climb out. The long walk across rough country to Shoemaker's would be even more impossible. At least twenty-five miles, he calculated. Perhaps farther from here. What if they simply waited here? Would the man in the Land-Rover follow them?

  And what if he did? McKee tried to retrace all that had happened since yesterday. The rams with their throats slashed. The note from Canfield. The man who came in the darkness. What had that been in his hand there in the moonlight? Had it really been a pistol? The feeling of being hunted down the canyon. That seemed unreal now. Incredible. But the tree being winched across the canyon had been real. He tried to think of an explanation for it. There was none. It must have been intended to close the canyon behind Miss Leon's Volkswagen. To pen them in. He rubbed his forehead again, and pulled out his cigarettes. Miss Leon was sitting motionless just below him, resting her head on her hand.

  She's not very big, he thought. Maybe 110 pounds. If it wasn't for this damned hand he could carry her. Miss Leon's short-cut hair had fallen around her face. Her neck was very slender and very smooth. He felt a sharp, poignant sadness.

  "Would you like a cigarette?"

  "No thank you," Miss Leon said. She didn't look up.

  "I can't tell you how sorry I am," McKee said slowly. "I know you must think I'm out of my mind. But that man." He stopped. There was nothing to be gained by going over it again.

  She looked at him then.

  There's no reason for you to be sorry," she said. "I know you're just trying to protect me."

  McKee had thought her eyes were black or brown. They were dark blue. He looked away. If he was wrong about this she would forever think of him as the ultimate in idiots. And even if he was right, and she knew he was right, there was her fianc‚, the man she was trying so hard to find. And, he realized bleakly, it wouldn't matter anyway.

  "But I think we should go back now. We have to go back."

  "Maybe so," he said. If she couldn't walk there were no happy alternatives. He would simply have to gamble that he had been insanely wrong about it all. It occurred to him then that Miss Leon might be faking the injured ankle. He didn't think that would be like her. And then he thought about the tire tracks. There had only been one set, which meant the truck had either come out of this canyon before yesterday's rain, or had driven in and parked. A round trip would have left two sets of tracks. He walked up the canyon a few yards to where the brush closed in over the rocks. The branches had obviously been broken by something tearing its way upward. And unless the canyon bottom widened suddenly, and flattened-which looked impossible from here-it couldn't have gone much farther. "I'll be right back," McKee said. "I'm going to see where that truck went."

  It proved easy enough to follow. Beyond the barrier of brush, its wheels had straddled the now-narrow stream bed, leaving two deep tracks in the loamy soil-tracks which disappeared behind a brush-covered outcropping of rock a hundred feet upstream. McKee walked slowly toward this screen, feeling a growing tenseness. Behind it he would find some sort of vehicle. It couldn't possibly be the Land-Rover. It might be, he realized, Canfield's camper. Or the pickup of some Navajo sheepherder. If it was Canfield's truck, where was Jeremy?

  Canfield's camper was parked just behind the outcropping, its front wheels pulled up on a rock slope, tilting it at a sharp angle. McKee stood a moment looking at it. Then he looked up the canyon and stared up at the rimrock above. Nothing was in sight.

  "Jeremy?" He kept his voice low.

  There was no answer.

  The truck was locked. He looked through the side window. No keys in the ignition. But Canfield's hat was on the floorboards. It was a plaid canvas fishing hat, with an oversized feather. A ridiculous hat, but why had Canfield left it behind?

  McKee walked to the back of the pickup and peered through the small back window of the camper compartment. Canfield had stripped the interior and used it primarily for weather-proof storage. It was dark inside and McKee could see nothing at first. He pressed his face against the glass and used his left hand as a shield against the reflecting sunlight. He saw, first, a khaki shirt front and then the legs of a man. One was bent sharply at the knee and the other, extended, crossed it at the ankle. The man's head was out of sight, against the tailgate of the camper and directly below the window, outside McKee's line of vision.

  He knew instantly that the form was that of Jeremy Canfield and the civilized instincts of his consciousness proclaimed that Canfield was asleep. But some infinitesimal fraction of a second later his reason told him that Jeremy was not asleep. Men did not sleep, head down, on such a steep slope.

  McKee tried the handle on the camper again. It was locked. He looked around him for a rock, wrapped his left hand in his handkerchief, and smashed at the glass. It took five blows to force his way through the laminated safety window. He picked out the shards of glass still in the way and reached through, unsnapped the catchlock on the inside, raised the top panel on its hinges and dropped the tailgate. There was an outflow of warmer air escaping from the camper compartment and what had been Dr. J. R. Canfield slid a few inches toward him.

  McKee took a short step backward and stared. Canfield's mouth was stretched open in some frozen, soundless shout. McKee swallowed and then sat on the tailgate. With his thumb he gently closed Canfield's eyes. The eyelids felt sandy under his touch and he noticed then that there was also sand around the mouth and in his friend's thinning hair. He rubbed his hand absently against his pant leg and stared blindly out across the canyon. He found himself wondering where Canfield had left his guitar. Back in the tent, he thought. Canfield had been working on one of his "ethnics" to celebrate the arrival of Miss Leon. McKee tried to remember the words. They were witty, he recalled, and unusually unprofane for one of Jeremy's productions. Then he could think only of Miss Leon, a slight, slender, weary figure sitting on the rock with her head resting on her arm.

  McKee got up, pushed Canfield's body a few inches back up the steep incline of the pickup bed and closed the tailgate. He moved rapidly down the canyon.

  There was no alternative now. No question of turning back. But was there a way to get Miss Leon out of this trap without bringing her past this truck? He looked again at the canyon walls. With two good hands he might be able to make it to the top here, but he was sure she couldn't. And he didn't have two good hands. He cursed vehemently as his jogging trot started the throbbing again..If only he hadn't been so clumsy. He would have to bring her past the truck. There was no other way. But he would keep her from looking in.

  She was still on the rock when he pushed his way through the bushes, and she looked up and smiled at him.

  "We have to go now," he said. "How's the ankle?"

  "I don't think I can do more than hobble on it," she said. "We'll have to go back."

  "We're not going back. I found Canfield's truck up there. Someone broke in the back window and he's gone."

  "But we can't possibly."

  "Get up," McKee ordered. His voice was hoars
e. "Get on your feet. I'll help you."

  "I'm not going," Miss Leon said.

  "You're going, and right now." McKee's voice was grim. He gripped her arm and lifted her to her feet, surprised at how light she seemed. The box of crackers was on the rock where he had left it. How could he have been silly enough to bring crackers?

  She tried to jerk away from his grip, and then faced him. McKee noticed there were tears in her eyes.

  "You've got a concussion. We just can't go stumbling around like this. We've got to get you to a doctor. Please," she said. "Please, Dr. McKee. Please come back to the camp and Dr. Canfield will help you."

  McKee looked at her. There was dust on her face and a tear had streaked it. He looked away, feeling baffled and helpless. Maybe he would have to tell her about Canfield.