The Threepersons Hunt

“Then what’s that make me, man? I never seen your face before. And you’re a cop. You said you was a cop.”

“Don’t blame the cops for your troubles, Joe. You confessed to that murder.”

“Yeah and I served my time like a good boy but it never stopped those motherin’ screws from pushing me around. You go in slam, you learn about cops.”

“I’m not a screw,” Watchman said, and went on even though it was a cheap shot: “I’m an Indian just like you.”

“Yutuhu,” Will Luxan murmured. It wasn’t contemptuous, merely informative; Joe nodded to show he understood.

“Navajo,” he said. “Man that don’t cut no ice. They had a Navajo down in slam tried to rape me once. I busted the son of a bitch all to hell.”

“Well that wasn’t me, was it.” Watchman tried another foothold: “The night Calisher was killed you were up in Cibecue. I know you didn’t kill him.”

“So you talked to Angelina.” Joe’s eyes shifted quickly to Luxan and his face changed. “What you done to my sister, man?”

“She’s all right.”

“You mean I don’t play ball with you, something happens to Angelina. It’s like that, hey?”

“No,” Watchman said, “it’s not like that. Nothing’s going to happen to her. I don’t play that way. I’m just trying to keep her out of the line of fire. The people that want you dead, maybe they want her dead too. You thought of that?”

It was clear by Joe’s expression that he hadn’t.

It had always been Watchman’s ace but he hadn’t wanted to play it.

Will Luxan said, “Maybe this time you tell him, Joe.”

Joe rubbed at the sweat on his face. “Man you know what you’re saying?”

Luxan said, “It is for you to say. But maybe this one could be right.”

Rufus Limita watched from the far side of the wickiup, his eyes dull and guarded. He didn’t stir at all. He was humming a little but so softly it was hardly audible; continuing the ritual song inside his throat.

Joe studied his hands. The muscles ridged at his throat, as if something physical were straining to burst out of him.

“Harlan Natagee,” he said, half choking it.

4.

“You figure Harlan witched you? Why?”

“It’s sort of been an enemy clan for a long time, you know? And everybody knows the son of a bitch is got all kinds of diyi kedn. He’s been witching people for years, everybody knows. He witched my woman and my kid. He’s trying to get at me but I think we got Rufus here in time.” It came out in a rush from wherever Joe had been holding it pent up.

“What’s Harlan got to do with you and Maria?”

“It ain’t that.” Joe was impatient with Watchman’s stupidity. “It ain’t me, it ain’t Maria. They put Harlan up to it.”

“Who did?”

“I guess it must have been Mr. Rand.”

“How could Rand put Harlan up to anything?”

“I heard tell they had a deal together, Harlan Natagee and Mr. Rand. Like under the table, you know?”

“You mean all that tough Indian nationalism is a smoke screen.”

“Man you don’t get as rich as Harlan by kicking white people in the teeth all the time. He’s got to be making deals all over the place. You heard about how they bust into that lawyer’s place, Kendrick, and they stole his papers?”

“Yes.”

“Well that wasn’t Rand’s people did that. Ain’t no gang of Rand’s going to bust into Whiteriver without everybody seeing them. The people would be watching them too close for them to get away with busting in anyplace, you follow me? No, man, that wasn’t Rand, that was Harlan’s boys did that.”

“You were in prison then. Who told you about it?”

Joe shrugged. “Jimmy. He was one of them, he helped bust in there and get those papers. It was Harlan told him to do that.”

“Why did Harlan want the papers?”

“Man I don’t know that, except I’ll bet you Harlan turned around and gave them right over to Mr. Rand.”

“But he couldn’t have used that excuse with Jimmy Oto, could he? He must have given Jimmy some reason.”

“I don’t know what that was.”

Will Luxan said, “Harlan is always against the man Kendrick because these lawyers and their paper, they take years, they delay everything. Harlan wants to stop all this lawyer business and get all the people to go over and dump rocks down those wells of Rand.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “If the white guys ever caught a bunch of I

Joe stirred and it disturbed the pattern of the sand-painting. Watchman said, “Can you prove Harlan Natagee’s working with Rand?”

“No. But it’s got to be, man.”

“Did Jimmy Oto tell you they had a deal between them?”

“Jimmy didn’t know nothing about that. He never stopped to think much. Me, I worked it out like I’m telling you. Harlan didn’t have no cause to steal those papers. It was Mr. Rand had the cause. You check it out, I bet you find out Harlan turned them right over to him.”

“You think Harlan witched you all because Rand put him up to it?”

“Maybe—maybe.”

“All right, now you can tell me why.”

“Why what?”

“Why did Rand want all of you dead?”

“I guess he got tired of footin’ the bill,” Joe said.

5.

The pistol was a loose weight in Watchman’s hand. It was past time to pile Joe into Luxan’s car and take him out of here in handcuffs but there were questions that still needed exposure. Confine Joe inside anything other than this wickiup and there was an excellent chance he would go silent.

Watchman said, “You kept your mouth shut all these years for your wife’s sake, for your little boy’s sake. There’s no reason to, now.”

Joe’s eyes sought help from Will Luxan but the old Mescalero only brooded upon his own fantasies and finally Joe rocked his face forward and back. “Well he was going to pay Joey’s way right through college.”

“That was your deal with Rand.”

“Yeah.”

“Did Rand kill Calisher?”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there. I come home that night, I got a call from Mr. Rand on the phone out to my line shack, he said he wanted to see me right away. It was the middle of the night, man, but he said it had to be right now. I drove over there and he walked me down to the foreman house, old Calisher was down on the floor there and this gun was on the chair. You could smell the powder smoke, you know? I guess he got shot a couple hours before that but you could still smell it. All Mr. Rand said to me, what he said was he had this dead body on his hands and I could help him out of this little problem, and he said he’d pay Joey right through college. So I listened to him, you know, I mean I wasn’t never gettin’ rich out in that line shack. He said all I had to do was take that gun off the chair and take it home and tell the cops I killed old Calisher because I found him trying to rape my wife. He said he’d make sure I didn’t spend more than a few years in the slam.”

“Was the whole thing a lie? There was nothing between Calisher and your wife?”

Rage stiffened Joe. ‘She was always straight with me.”

“But Calisher was hot for the ladies, wasn’t he?”

“She never give him the time of day, I’ll swear it on a Bible. She liked him but it wasn’t nothing like that.”

“Who hired Kendrick to defend you?”

“I guess the tribe did. I never saw the bill. Mr. Kendrick didn’t know about Mr. Rand, my deal with Mr. Rand. I told Mr. Kendrick I done it, I killed Calisher. He said he thought they’d throw the book at me and I’d get life, but I think maybe Mr. Rand made a deal with the prosecutor up there. I’m just guessing, I don’t know about that, you know, but Mr. Rand told me I’d be out in seven or eight and that’s the way it would’ve turned out except I bust out first. I pulled fifteen but you always get parole.”

“Nobody ever did a paraffin test on your hands?”