Sacred Clowns

“So putting the cane in the wagon was a last-second addition,” Leaphorn said. “They hadn’t pla

“That’s what Henry Agoyo told me.”

“You think probably your brother didn’t know about the cane until Delmar brought it to him?”

“That’s what I think,” Sayesva said.

“So what was that shop teacher’s motive for making it?” Leaphorn asked, as much to himself as to Sayesva. “And why was the shop teacher killed?”

Neither of them could think of an answer.

Chapter 18

NOR COULD Bert Penitewa, the governor of Tano Pueblo.

Leaphorn had walked from Sayesva’s house, across the plaza and around a corner and down a narrow street walled with adobe houses. As Sayesva had told him, the governor’s home was the third on the left.

A middle-aged woman answered the door, with a jacket on and a shawl over her head. Yes, Governor Penitewa was home. She was his daughter and she had to run to see about something a neighbor had asked her to do. But she ushered him in, invited him to sit on the sagging sofa, called her father, and left.

The governor of Tano Pueblo was a short, heavy-bodied man, probably in his late seventies. But like many of his race, he didn’t show his age. His hair was thick and black, his face hardly lined, and while his belly bulged over the belt of his jeans, his back still resisted the slump of the aged.

“I’m sorry Della had to leave in such a hurry,” he said. “She makes much better coffee than I do and I want to offer you a cup.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already had my quota for the day,” Leaphorn said.

Penitewa gestured him back onto the sagging sofa by the front window and seated himself behind a table that seemed to also serve as his desk. Behind the desk, Leaphorn could see into the bedroom from which the governor had emerged. To his left, a doorway opened into the kitchen. To his right, he could see into what seemed to be another bedroom. This living room was small, crowded with worn furnishings, its plank floor covered with a good Navajo rug, its walls decorated with photographs and a framed print of Christ crucified. Beside the kitchen door a shelf held three kachina figures, a seed basket, two good examples of Acoma pottery, and a plastic clock made to represent a coyote howling. On the wall behind the table where Penitewa sat, two canes hung side by side. One was made of a light wood with a head of heavy ornate silver tied with a black cord and dangling a black tassel. The other was a simple ebony stick with a round silver head. The Lincoln Cane.

“How about iced tea? I should offer you something,” Penitewa said. “I presume this is an official visit from a representative of the Navajo Nation. That hasn’t happened at this pueblo for many, many years.”

Leaphorn wasn’t quite sure how that remark was intended. As he remembered history, Tano had been hostile to the Navajos during what Frank Sam Nakai called “the Kit Carson wars.” But then, just about all the Pueblos had joined the Americans in that campaign. Only Jemez Pueblo had remained forever friendly.

“I think the best we could call this visit is semiofficial,” Leaphorn said. “We had a teacher killed on our reservation a little while ago.” He explained the evidence that the victim had made a copy of the Tano Lincoln Cane, that a Navajo suspected of the homicide was in custody, and that Delmar Kanitewa had apparently brought the cane to Tano and had given it to Francis Sayesva, and that it had subsequently been taken when Sayesva was killed.

Penitewa listened in silence, motionless, face impassive. But his eyes betrayed surprise and interest.

“So, that’s it,” he said. “I wondered where it came from.”

“Apparently, that’s it,” Leaphorn said. “The evidence is circumstantial. But it’s strong. We found shavings of what looks like ebony wood in the teacher’s shop, and what seemed to be a mold to cast the silver head. The Kanitewa boy was there at the right time. He brought a package of the proper shape and gave it to Francis Sayesva. But, of course, we haven’t actually had our hands on it.”

“I saw it in the wagon,” Penitewa said. “It was quite a shock. At first I thought it was the real one. I thought someone had come in here and got it down off the wall.”

“Could that have happened?”

Governor Penitewa smiled at him. “It could have, but it didn’t. I came right home to look and it was still on the wall.” He turned and pointed. “There’s the original. Would you like to see it?”

“I would,” Leaphorn said. He glanced at his watch.

Penitewa hoisted himself out of the chair, took the black cane from the wall, and handed it to Leaphorn.

The weight surprised Leaphorn. Ebony was a heavy wood indeed. He ran his hand down the smooth surface, looked at the tip – which seemed to be made of steel – and then at the head. Silver, inscribed a. lincoln, pres. u.s.a. and 1863.

Above that was the name of the pueblo. He ran his thumbnail under the L and examined the nail. What it had scraped away looked a little like wax but it was probably something more professional than that. Probably some sort of molding putty sold in art supply houses for just this purpose.

Penitewa was watching him. “Are you checking whether I’m a neat housekeeper?”

“No sir,” Leaphorn said. He got up and showed Penitewa first the head of the cane and then the residue on his thumbnail. “I think someone stuck the head down into some sort of molding clay. I think they made an impression of it to make the copy. Could that be possible?”

Penitewa looked surprised. “Who could it have been?” He sat again, put the cane on the table in front of him. “Lot of people, I guess.”

‘It’s always left on the wall like that?” Leaphorn said. “Or do you lock it up somewhere?”

“It’s the governor’s symbol,” Penitewa said. “Whoever is governor, it hangs on the wall in his office. It’s the tradition. When I was a little boy, my great-grandfather was governor. It hung on the wall in his house.”

Leaphorn wanted to ask if anyone had ever stolen it, which would have been a stupid question since there it was, in the governor’s hand. But Penitewa seemed to sense the thought.

“I think President Lincoln sent nineteen of them out from Washington – one for each of the pueblos. The Spanish started it in 1620.” He pointed to the heavier cane. “Some of the pueblos got another one – three canes altogether – one from the Mexican government when Mexico won its independence. And a couple of pueblos, so I’m told, don’t have any anymore.”

“Stolen?”

Penitewa shrugged. “Disappeared,” he said. “Who knows what happened to them. But nobody has ever tried to steal ours.”

“If someone made a molding of the head of this one, it probably happened fairly recently. Have you had any unusual visitors this month? Anyone you left alone in here long enough for that to be done? Anyone suspicious?”

Penitewa considered, shook his head.

“How about Delmar Kanitewa? We think he brought the replica from Thoreau to his uncle.”

“Delmar,” Penitewa said. He thought. “No. He’s been away living with his dad.”

“How about Francis Sayesva?”

If the governor had needed to think about that, it had been long ago. His answer was instant.

“Francis was my friend.”

“I heard that,” Leaphorn said. “But I was told you disagreed about a lot of things. Where to put the grade school when it was built. Whether the pueblo should lease the old Jacks Wild Mine for a dump. Where to locate the new housing when the Bureau of Indian Affairs wanted it built. Things like that.”

Penitewa laughed. “Francis loved to argue,” he said. “Somebody would want to do something, Francis was always the one to tell the council why not. Somebody wanted to stop something, Francis was there saying why to do it. But he was a good man. He was one of the valuable people.”