People Of Darkness

Mary was staring at him. “Come on,” she said. “Cut it out. Let me in on it.”

“I’m still getting it sorted out,” Chee said. “But what it boils down to is why a man who’s very much into keeping mementos and showing them off would hide the best of them in his wall safe.”

“Like those medals,” Mary said.

“Like those and his high school football team picture, and a couple of athletic awards.”

“And black rocks,” Mary said.

“Let’s get to those later. Stick to the easy stuff now.”

“Easy if you’ve thought of the answer,” Mary said. “Quit showing off, damn it. What have you thought of?”

“The only difference I can see is the ones in the safe were all from Vines’ early life. Boyhood and young man in the military. The stuff on the wall is after he struck it rich.”

Mary had her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her expression said she was looking for significance in this. “Before the oil well explosion and after the explosion. Is that it? And how about the rocks?”

“We better get moving,” Chee said. “It’s going to get dark.” He put the pickup in gear.

“In other words, you don’t know about the rocks.”

“Somehow they had to be important. A memento of something important,” Chee said. “And from his early life.”

“I’ll buy that,” Mary said. Moments ticked away as the pickup jolted over the rocky surface. “Hey,” Mary said. “I know what. The rocks are from when he found the uranium deposit. They’re his first ore samples. Don’t you think?”

“That would fit,” Chee said. “Sure. Why didn’t you think of that earlier?”

“You didn’t ask me,” Mary said. “All you had to do was ask.”

“Okay, then. Explain why he keeps those medals in the safe.”

“Maybe he’s keeping them for somebody else,” Mary said.

The wind rocked the pickup again, buffeting it with a barrage of driven sand. Chee down-shifted to pull the truck up a steep incline.

“Mary,” he said, “you’re a genius.” He switched on the transmitter and raised the dispatcher at Crownpoint. His instructions were specific. Call Martin at the FBI. Tell him to have the Veterans Administration make a high-priority emergency check on the military record of Benjamin J. Vines. Was he a first lieutenant in the 10 1st Airborne Division? Had he won the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart? What kind of discharge? Any criminal record in the service?

The dispatcher read the instructions back. “Anything else?”

“Tell Martin I’ll explain it to him when I see him tonight. Tell him I’ll be late. And… wait a minute.” Chee fished out his notebook. “Give him these names, too.” He read off the names of those killed in the oil well explosion. At the name of Carl Lebeck, he paused. Lebeck the geologist. Lebeck the well-logger. For a geologist, black rocks might be a memento. “Put the name of Lebeck first,” Chee said. “Tell Martin that if Vines didn’t win those decorations, to have the VA go down that list of names and see if Lebeck or any of the others won them.”

“Got it,” the dispatcher said. “You still at Bisti?”

“Northwest of the burned-out trading post,” Chee said. “We’ll be out here until after dark, the way it looks.”

“Better watch the weather,” the dispatcher said. “It’s snowing some over on the west side. Inch on the ground at Ganado. Not supposed to amount to much, but you know how that is.”

“We’ll watch it,” Chee said. He flicked the radio switch and put the pickup back into gear.

“What are you thinking?” Mary asked.

Chee frowned at the windshield. “Mostly, I’m just taking a shot in the dark.”

“But just mostly,” Mary said. “Have you figured a way that Vines and the oil well co

“They must,” Chee said. “They have to co

Mary laughed. “Sure,” she said. “Now all you have to do is figure out how.”

“I think I have,” Chee said. “At least part of it.”

The track angled to the right and up the slope of dark-blue shale marbled with reddish impurities. Above it, the top of the butte loomed, now no more than a thousand yards away. Chee shifted down. Mary was watching him impatiently.

“I’m waiting,” she said.

“Okay,” Chee said. “First we agree there has to be a reason. White man or Navajo, you do things for a reason. With a Navajo, something this bad – blowing up people wholesale – would have to be witch business. Irrational. Evil for the sake of evil. No other motive would make sense. For the white man, I think it would be greed.” He glanced at her. “All right so far?”

Mary looked puzzled. “I guess so,” she said.

“If we’re dealing with witchcraft, what’s happened since doesn’t co

Mary shrugged.

“So we’re dealing with a white man’s crime,” Chee continued. “The motive’s greed. Who gains by blowing up an oil well? You have to remember where that well was. We couldn’t find the remains because the Red Deuce has swallowed up the site. So the oil company drilling the well had a mineral rights lease on that piece of land. If the well produces oil, the lease is extended as long as production lasts. That’s the standard oil lease form. So let’s say somebody knows there’s a uranium deposit under the well. Who’d benefit?”

“You mean the Senas? Because it was on their ranch?”

“Maybe the Senas,” Chee said. “When it finally did happen, uranium made Gordo Sena rich. But something doesn’t fit with thinking Gordo did it.”

“You mean like killing his own brother?” Mary asked. “Maybe Robert Sena pla

“I didn’t mean that,” Chee said. “I meant the Sena ranch is like most ranches out here. It’s a little bit of privately owned land co

“So you rule out Sena,” Mary said. “Who then?”

“I don’t quite rule out the Senas,” Chee said. “There’s a piece missing somewhere. I can’t think it through.”

The pickup tilted abruptly downward into a narrow wash. Chee shifted into his lowest gear, braked to a stop, and inspected the arroyo. The problem would be pulling the truck up the other side. The arroyo carried very little water even after down-pours, and a tall growth of mesquite and rabbit brush on both sides of the track had limited erosion. But still, years of cutting away had made the opposite bank steep enough so that getting traction to the pickup out of it looked chancy.

“Looks like the end of the line,” Mary said. “But aren’t we close enough to walk?”

“We’ll try the pickup,” Chee said. “If we don’t make it, there’s plenty of room down there to turn it around.”

The vehicle produced a great shower of flying gravel, lost traction briefly, and skidded sideways. But it made the brief, steep climb. Ahead now, no more than four hundred yards away, they could see three gnarled cottonwoods. In a desert climate they signaled either a spring or a very shallow water sand that could be tapped by a well. And that in turn explained why this track led across the badlands and why the Tsossies had picked the site for their hogan. Chee and Mary could see the hogan now about twenty feet beyond the trees. It was a hexagon of stacked sandstone slabs, roofed with poles which radiated outward from a central smoke hole. The earth that once insulated the roof against cold and heat had long since washed away.