Coyote Waits Read Online Free PDF

Hosteen Pinto’s family would certainly know if Hosteen Pinto owned that pistol?”
    “Maybe not,” Leaphorn said. He didn’t look up because he didn’t want to show his resentment. Mrs. Keeyani he could tolerate. He respected her reason for being here — even though it wasted her time and his. Professor Bourebonette was another matter. But it was an astute question.
    “Probably they wouldn’t understand that,” he agreed.
    He was looking for something in the report that would tell him how Ashie Pinto had gotten from his place behind Yon Dot Mountain to Navajo Route 33 south of Ship Rock, New Mexico. Two hundred miles, more or less. Nothing in the report mentioned an abandoned car or pickup.
    Dr. Bourebonette cleared her throat politely. “Does that report tell how Hosteen Pinto got over into New Mexico?”
    “I was looking for that,” Leaphorn said, glancing up at her. “Do you know?”
    “Someone came and got him,” she said.
    “Who?”
    Dr. Bourebonette glanced at Mary Keeyani.
    “I don’t know,” Mary Keeyani said. “But I know somebody came and got him. I had gone over to the store at the Gap to get some kerosene for the light. And my husband, he was out with the sheep. Everybody was gone somewhere except my youngest daughter. She had come home on the school bus and she’d gone out to catch her horse and go help with the sheep and she saw dust from the car.”
    “It wasn’t Pinto’s car?”
    Mrs. Keeyani laughed. “Hosteen Pinto’s car broke a long time ago,” she said. “The chickens sleep in it.” Her amusement left as quickly as it had come. “She was up on the side of the hill with the horse and all she saw was the dust and maybe just a glimpse. It had come from Hosteen Pinto’s shack. The road, it runs right by my mother’s hogan and past our house and then out toward Twentynine Mile Canyon and connects up with the road to Cedar Ridge Trading Post. She said it might be a light-colored car, or maybe a pickup, or maybe it was just dusty.”
    “When was this?”
    “It was the evening before Hosteen Pinto got arrested over in New Mexico.”
    Leaphorn flipped back through the report. He found nothing about any of this.
    “Did a policeman come to talk to you?”
    “A young white man,” she said. “With those little spots on his face. And a Navajo to translate for him.”
    Freckles, Leaphorn thought. A culture unafflicted with freckles has no noun for them. “What did they want to know?”
    “They asked about the pistol. They asked about what Hosteen Pinto was doing over there. Where did Pinto get the pistol? Where did he get the two fifty-dollar bills he had in his pocket? Did Hosteen Pinto know Delbert Nez — the man they say he shot? They asked questions like they thought Hosteen Pinto was bootlegging wine. Like how did Hosteen Pinto act when he was drunk? Did he get into fights? How did he make a living? Was he a bootlegger?” Mrs. Keeyani had been looking down at her hands. Now she looked up. “They seemed to think for sure he was a bootlegger.” She shook her head.
    “How did you answer?”
    “I said maybe the fifty-dollar bills were his fee. From the one who came and got him.”
    “Fee?”
    “He had his crystals with him,” Mrs. Keeyani said. “When he was younger he used to work finding things for people. When I was a little girl they would come from as far away as Tuba City, and even Kayenta and Leupp. He was pretty famous then.”
    “He was a crystal gazer,” Leaphorn said. He leaned forward. If this man was working as a shaman, maybe there was more to this than just another senseless, sordid whiskey killing. “He still worked at it?”
    “Not much.” She thought about it. “Last year he found a horse for a man who works over at Copper Mine, and then he did a little work for a white man. And he would work with Dr. Bourebonette.” She nodded at the professor. “That was about all I know about.”
    “What had the white man lost?”
    “I think he was hunting