The Blessing Way

He considered the letter he had received that week from McKee—talking of coming back to the Reservation to continue his witchcraft research. There had been such letters before, but McKee hadn't come. And he won't come this time, Leap-horn thought. Each year he waits to pick up his old life it will be harder for him. And maybe now it's already too hard. And, thinking that, Leaphorn snapped off his desk lamp and sat a moment in the dark listening to the wind.

At Albuquerque, four hundred miles to the east, the wind showed itself briefly in the apartment of Bergen McKee, as it shook the television transmission tower atop Sandia Crest and sent a brief flicker across the face of the TV screen he wasn't watching. He had turned off the sound an hour ago, intending to grade final-examination papers. But the wind made him nervous. He had mixed a shaker of martinis instead, and drank slowly, making them last until, finally, he could sleep.

Tomorrow, perhaps, there would be the answer to his letter, and Joe Leaphorn would tell him that it was a good season for witchcraft gossip, or a poor season, or a fair season. And maybe, if prospects were good, he would go to the Reservation next week and spend the summer completing the case studies he needed to finish the book that no longer mattered to him. Or maybe he wouldn't go.

He snapped on the radio and stood by the glass door opening on his apartment balcony. The wind had raveled away the cloud cover over Sandia Mountain and its dark outline bulked against the stars on the eastern horizon.

Ten stories below, the lights of the city spread toward the foothills, a lake of phosphorescence in an infinity of night. Behind him the radio a

"But," the singer promised, "life goes on."

The sentiment parodied McKee's mood so perfectly that he laughed. He walked back to his desk—a bulky, big-boned, tired-faced man who looked at once powerful and clumsy. He shuffled the ungraded exam papers together, dumped them into his briefcase, poured a final martini from the shaker, and took it into the bedroom. He looked at the certificate framed on the wall. It needed dusting. McKee brushed the glass with his handkerchief.

"Whereas," the proclamation began, "it is commonly and universally known by all students of Anthropology that Bergen Leroy McKee, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., is in truth and in fact none other than MONSTER SLAYER, otherwise identified as the Hero Twin in the Navajo Origin Myth;

"And Whereas this fact is attested and demonstrated by unhealthy obsession and preoccupation of said Professor McKee, hereafter known as Monster Slayer, with belaboring his students with aforesaid Origin Myth;

"And Whereas Monster Slayer is known to have been born of Changing Woman and sired by the Sun;

"And Whereas the aforesaid sexual union was without benefit of Holy Matrimony, and is commonly known to have been illicit, illegal, un-sanctified and otherwise improper fornication;

"Therefore be it known to all men that the aforesaid Monster Slayer meets the popular and legal definition of Bastard, and demonstrates his claim to this title each semester by the ma

The proclamation had been laboriously hand-lettered in Gothic script, embossed with a notary public's seal, and signed by all seven members of McKee's seminar. Signed six years ago, the year he had won tenure on the University of New Mexico anthropology faculty—full membership in the elite of the students of man with W. W. Hill, and Hibben, Ellis and Gonzales, Schwerin, Canfield, Campbell, Bock and Stan Newman, Spuhler, and the others. The year he became part of a team unmatched between Harvard and Berkeley. The last good year. The year before coming home to this apartment and finding Sara's closets empty and Sara's note. Fourteen words in blue ink on blue paper. The last year of excitement, and enthusiasm, and plans for research which would tie all Navajo superstitionsjnto a tidy, orderly bundle. The last year before reality.

McKee drained the martini, switched off the lights and lay in the darkness, hearing the wind and remembering how it had been to be Monster Slayer.

Chapter 3

Bergen McKee approached his faculty mailbox on the morning of May 26 as he habitually approached it—with a faint tickle of expectation. Years of experience, of pulling out notices to the faculty, lecture handbills, and book advertisements, had submerged this quirk without totally extinguishing it. Sometimes when he had other things on his mind, McKee reached into the box without this brief flash of optimism, the thought that today it might offer some unimaginable surprise. But today as he walked through the doorway into the department secretary's outer office, said good morning to Mrs. Kreutzer, and made the right turn to reach the mail slots, he had no such distraction. If the delivery was as barren as usual, he would be required to turn his thoughts immediately to the problem of grading eighty-four final-examination papers by noon tomorrow. It was a dreary prospect.

"Did Dr. Canfield find you?" Mrs. Kreutzer was holding her head down slightly, looking at him through the top half of her bifocals.

"No ma'am. I haven't seen Jeremy for two or three days."

The top envelope was from Ethnology Abstracts. The form inside notified him that his subscription had expired.

"He wanted you to talk to a woman," Mrs. Kreutzer said. "I think you just missed her."

"O.K.," McKee said. "What about?" The second envelope contained a mimeographed form from Dr. Green officially reminding all faculty members of what they already knew—that final semester grades must be registered by noon, May 27.

"Something about the Navajo Reservation," Mrs. Kreutzer said. "She's trying to locate someone working out there. Dr. Canfield thought you might know where she could look."

McKee gri

"Was she my type?" he asked. The third and last letter was postmarked Window Rock, Arizona, with the return address of the Division of Law and Order, Navajo Tribal Council. It would be from Joe Leaphorn. McKee put it into his pocket.

Mrs. Kreutzer was looking at him reproachfully, knowing what he was thinking, and not liking his tone. McKee felt a twinge of remorse.

"She seemed nice," Mrs. Kreutzer said. "I'd think you'd want to help her."

"I'll do what I can," he said.

"Jeremy told me you were going to the reservation with him this summer," Mrs. Kreutzer said. "I think that's nice."

"It's not definite," McKee said. "I may have to take a summer-session course."

"Let somebody else teach this summer," Mrs. Kreutzer said. She looked at him over her glasses. "You're getting pale."

McKee knew he was not getting pale. His face, at the moment, was peeling from sunburn. But he also knew that Mrs. Kreutzer was speaking allegorically. He had once heard her give a Nigerian graduate student the same warning, and when the student had asked him what Mrs. Kreutzer could possibly have meant by it, McKee had explained that it meant she was worrying about him.