Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 14] (14 page)

“If they had a secret hidey-hole, I think you’d find it not too far
from where they left the truck. They’d be carrying a lot. Food and
water probably, unless they stocked up in advance. And four hundred and
something thousand dollars. From that casino it would be mostly in
small bills. That would be a lot of weight. And then weapons. They
apparently used assault rifles at the casino. They’re heavy.”

That triggered another thought in Chee—a worry that had been nagging
for attention.

“You mentioned a roadblock on your way in from the Ute Reservation.
An NTP block, I think you said. Talking to a policewoman.”

“It was one of our patrol cars, but the man sitting in it was
wearing a San Juan County deputy uniform. The woman was wearing a
Navajo Police uniform. Up here it would probably be one of your people
out of Shiprock.”

Chee was doing a quick inventory of police women at Shiprock. There
weren’t many. “How old?” he asked. “How big?”

Leaphorn knew exactly what he was asking.

“I’ve only seen her a time or two,” he said. “But I think it was
Bernadette Manuelito.”

“Son of a bitch,” Chee said, voice vehement. “What are they using
for brains?” He was pulling on his socks. “What the devil does she know
about staying alive at a roadblock?”

The roadblock as Leaphorn described it was on Utah 163 about halfway
between Recapture Creek and the Montezuma Creek Bridge. A sensible
place to put it, Chee thought, since a fugitive who spotted it would
have no side trails to detour onto. There was only the brush bosque of
the San Juan River to the south and the sheer stone cliffs of McCracken
Mesa to the north. What wasn’t sensible was assigning Bernie to such
dangerous duty. That was insane. Bernie would be working backup,
surely. Even so, this would be a three-unit block at best. Whoever they
had would be up against men who had already proved their willingness to
kill and their ability to do it. They’d used an automatic rifle at the
casino, and a rumor was afloat that they also had night-vision scopes
missing from a Utah National Guard armory.

Chee imagined a bloody scene and drove the first eight miles of his
trip much faster than the rules allowed. Then, abruptly, he slowed. A
belated thought worked its way through his anger. What was he going to
say when he got there? What would he say to the officer in charge? It
would probably be a Utah state cop, or a San Juan County deputy. He
tried to imagine the conversation. He’d introduce himself as NTP out of
Shiprock, chat about the weather maybe, discuss the manhunt a minute or
two. Then what? They’d want to know what he wanted. He’d tell ‘em he
didn’t think Bernie had any roadblock training.

Down the slope, Chee’s headlights illuminated a red REDUCE SPEED
sign.

Then what would they say? Chee took his foot off the gas pedal, let
the car roll, imagining a tough-looking Utah cop grinning at him,
saying, “She’s your lady? Well, then, we’ll take good care of her for
you.” And a deputy sheriff standing behind him, chuckling. An even more
dreadful thought emerged. The next step. They’d tell Bernie she had to
stay in her car, run and hide anytime a stop seemed imminent. Bernie
would be outraged, furious, terminally resentful. And justifiably so.

The car was rolling slowly now. Chee pulled it off onto the
shoulder, slammed it into reverse, made a pursuit turn, and headed back
toward Bluff, giving his idea of saving Officer Bernadette Manuelito
more thought.

That thought was quickly interrupted. The sound of a siren in his
ear, the blinking warning light atop a Utah State Police car reflecting
off his rearview mirror. Chee grunted out the Navajo version of an
expletive, slammed himself on the forehead with a free hand, and angled
his car off on the shoulder. Of course. He’d done exactly what one does
to trigger pursuit from every roadblock from Argentina to Zanzibar. He
put on the parking brake, extracted his NTP identification, turned on
the overhead light, did everything he could think of to make it easier
for whichever cop would show up at his driver-side window.

He’d guessed right for once. It proved to be a Utah State Policeman.

He shined his flash on Chee, looked at the identification Chee was
holding out, and said, “Out of the car, please,” and stepped back.

Chee opened the door and got out.

“Face the car please, and put your hands on the roof.”

Chee did so, happy he’d left his belt and holster on the motel bed,
and was patted down.

“OK,” the State Policeman said.

And then another voice, Bernie’s voice, saying: "That’s Sergeant
Chee. Jim, what are you doing here?”

And Chee stood there, still leaning against the car, grimacing,
wondering if there was any way things could possibly get any worse.

The eastern sky was glowing pink and red over the bluffs that gave
Bluff, Utah, its name when Officer Jim Chee climbed into his patrol
car. He inserted the key, started the engine, did what all
empty-country drivers habitually do: he checked the fuel gauge. The
needle hovered between half and quarter full. Plenty to get back to the
rendezvous point on Casa Del Eco Mesa, where Nez and he were scheduled
to resume the search of their canyon. But not enough to feel
comfortable when you’re going a long way from paved road and service
stations. He glanced at his watch, pulled out of the Recapture Lodge
lot onto U.S. 163. The Chevron station-diner he’d pass should be open
about now. He’d stop, fill the tank, buy a few emergency-ration candy
bars to share with Nez and continue, not thinking about how foolish
he’d looked last night.

Good. The station must be open. He couldn’t see whether the lights
were on, but a pickup was driving away. Chee stopped by the pumps, got
out. A man was sitting on the gravel beside the station’s door, back
against the wall. If Chee had numbered the drunks he’d dealt with since
he joined the Navajo Tribal Police, this one would be about 999. He
stepped out of the car, wondering what the station operator was doing,
and gave the drunk a closer look.

Blood was trickling down the man’s forehead. Chee squatted beside
him. The man looked about sixty, hair graying, wearing a khaki shirt
with LEROY DELL embroidered on it. The man was breathing heavily. The
blood came from an abrasion cut over his right eye. Chee started for
the car to radio this in and get an ambulance. Get a pursuit started.

“What? What are you doing? Oh!”

Chee spun around. The man was staring at him, eyes wild, getting up.

“What happened?” the man asked. “Where is he? Did he get away?”

Chee helped him to his feet. “You tell me who hit you,” he said.
“I’ll radio it in and get you an ambulance and we’ll see if we can
catch him.”

“The son of a bitch,” the man said. He waved his hands. “Look at the
mess he made.”

On the other side of the entrance, under a sign reading REST ROOMS
CUSTOMERS ONLY, a garbage can lay on its side, surrounded by a
scattering of cans, bottles, newspapers, sacks, crumpled napkins - all
those things people discard at service stations. Nearby, a
newspaper-vending machine was on its back.

“Who was he?” Chee said. “I want to call it in. Give us a better
chance to catch him.”

“I don’t know him,” the man said. “He was a big Indian-looking guy.
Navajo probably, or maybe a Ute. Tall. Maybe middle-aged, or so.”

“Driving a blue pickup truck?”

“I didn’t see the truck. Didn’t notice it.”

“Did he have a weapon?”

“That’s what he hit me with. A pistol.”

“OK,” Chee said. "Why don’t you go in and sit down. I’ll get the
police on it.”

The dispatcher sounded sleepy until the pistol was mentioned.

“Call him armed and dangerous,” Chee suggested. “You might mention
this is in the area we’re hunting the Ute Casino perps.”

The dispatcher chuckled. “Those the perps the feds said were long
gone. Flown away?”

“Don’t we wish,” Chee replied, and went back into the station to
find out just what had happened.

Leroy Dell was sitting behind the cash register, holding his head.

“They’ll be sending an ambulance,” Chee said.

“Down from Blanding. About twenty-five miles from the clinic, and
twenty-five back,” Dell said. He groaned and grimaced and described to
Chee what had happened. When he was walking from his house up behind
the station to open the place he’d heard a sort of a crashing sound.
He’d hurried around the corner and seen a man going through the trash.
He had shouted at him, and the man had said he just wanted to get some
old newspapers.

“Just newspapers?”

“That’s what he said. And I said, “Well you’re going to have to
clean up the mess, too.” And then I noticed the vending machine was
turned over and went to look at that and I saw he’d broken into that.
And I turned around and said he was going to have to pay for that and
he had this gun in his hand and he hit me.”

“What kind of gun?”

“Pistol. I don’t know what kind. It wasn’t a revolver.”

“Anything missing?”

“I don’t know,” Dell said, grimacing again. “Tell the truth, I don’t
give a damn. I’ve got a hell of a headache. You take a look if you want
to.”

Chee looked. He opened the cash-register drawers.

“Empty.”

“I take the money home at night,” Dell said.

“You better call somebody to come down here and look after you,”
Chee said. “I’m going to get myself some gas and see if I can find that
pickup truck.”

Finding the truck occupied much of the day. A Bureau of Indian
Affairs cop sent over from the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New
Mexico spotted it at the Aneth Oil Field about sundown. It was stuck in
the sand of an arroyo bottom off an abandoned road. South of Montezuma
Creek. West of Highway 35. Back on the emptiness of Casa Del Eco Mesa.
Back within easy walking range of Gothic Canyon, or Desert Creek
Canyon, or anyplace else for a man burdened only by an old newspaper.

It was farther, however, than Sergeant Jim Chee could have walked
that evening. Chee had sprained his left ankle climbing down a rocky
slope while on this fruitless hunt. It had been one of those no-brainer
accidents. He’d put his weight on a protruding slab of sandstone that
looked solid but wasn’t. Then, instead of facing the inevitability of
gravity and taking the tumble with a roll in the rocks, he’d tried to
save his dignity, made an off-balance jump and landed wrong. That hurt,
and it hurt even worse to require help from a deputy sheriff and an FBI
agent to haul him back to his car.

The voice on the telephone was Captain Largo’s, with no words wasted.

Chee said, “No sir, I can’t put any weight on it yet,”; listened a
few moments, said, “Yes sir,” listened again, another "Yes sir,” and
clicked off. Total result: Largo wanted to know when Chee could resume
his canyon-combing duties, preferably immediately; Largo instructed him
to fill out an injury report form, and Largo had already sent somebody
down to his trailer with it. It should include name, phone number,
etc., of the physician who had X-rayed the ankle. Chee should do this
immediately and send the report right back. Largo was shorthanded, and
Chee should not waste the messenger’s time with a lot of conversation.

Chee adjusted the ice pack. He tried to think of the word, in either
Navajo or English, to describe the color the swelling had turned and
settled on ‘plum-colored.' He considered whether he should resent the
lack of either sympathy or confidence the captain’s call had indicated.
About the time he’d decided to pass that off as part of Largo’s
natural-born grumpiness, the messenger arrived.

“Come on in,” Chee said, and Officer Bernadette Manuelito stepped
in, in full uniform and looking neater than usual.

“Wow,” she said. “Look at that ankle." She made a wry face. “I’ll
bet it hurts.”

“Right,” Chee said.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot,” she said, her tone disapproving.
“Barging right in like that.”

“I didn’t “barge right in.” I drove up to get some gasoline. I
noticed a pickup driving away. Then I saw the victim sitting by the
wall. And weren’t you supposed to bring me a report to fill in and then
rush right back to the captain with it, with no time wasted talking?”

“I still think you were lucky,” Manuelito said. “You’re a fine one
to be thinking I wasn’t competent to work on a roadblock.”

Chee was conscious of his face flushing. He looked at Bernie, found
her expression odd but inscrutable—at least to him.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Professor Bourebonette told me.”

“I don’t believe it,” Chee said. “When did she say that? And why
would she say anything like that?”

“At the roadblock. She and Lieutenant Leaphorn came through about an
hour or so after you -" Bernie hesitated, seeking a way to describe
Chee’s arrival. “After you were there. They stopped and talked a while.
That’s when she said it. She asked me if you had come by, and I said
yes, and she asked me what you’d said, and I said nothing much. And she
acted surprised, and I asked why, and she said you’d gotten all angry
and excited when they told you they’d seen me at the roadblock and ran
right out and drove away.”

Chee was still trying to read her expression. Was it fond, or
amused? Or both.

“I didn’t say you were incompetent.”

Officer Manuelito said, “Well, OK,” and shrugged.

“I just thought it was too dangerous. Those guys had already shot
two cops, and shot at another one, and the Ironhand guy, he’d killed a
lot more in Vietnam.”

“Well, thanks then." Manuelito’s expression was easy to read now.
She was smiling at him.

“The captain said for you to rush that report right back to him,”
Chee said, and held out his hand.

She gave it to him, secured to a clipboard with a pen dangling.