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right hand, the red border was broken, swept aside and marked by a prayer stick decorated by shrike feathers. Another prayer stick pinned a cigarette pack Youngman had thrown away the day before into the figure of the coyote. And in the center of the painting, sprawled over the double serpentine, lay Abner, dead, still in his kilt, wearing a mask of raw rabbitskin. His own skin, from his feet to the crown of his head, was sliced away so completely that bone showed at his fingers and knees.
    Youngman wasn’t the only person staring with disgust and awe. Just inside the door was another tourist in a windbreaker, a short man with a confident bearing and a smooth, marbled face. On the other side of the painting was the Health Service nurse, a blonde girl in faded jeans.
    “When did you get here?” Youngman asked her.
    “Ten minutes ago.”
    The tourist knelt by Abner. He cleared his throat and took a Bible from inside his windbreaker, but before he could speak Youngman hauled him up by his collar.
    “No missionary work here.”
    “Red or white,” the man held up his Bible, “a person deserves a final blessing.”
    “He was a priest of the Fire Clan,” Youngman said.
    “Maybe he was Christian as well.”
    “Not even dead.” Youngman turned to the girl. “Did they touch anything?”
    “No,” she answered angrily. “And they’re not missionaries.”
    “We’re with a foundation.” The tourist adjusted his jacket. “We only try to help—”
    “Same thing.” Youngman cut him off. “Why are you here?”
    “Miss Dillon volunteered to show us around the reservation and take us to your famous Snake Dance. We arrived a few days early so we thought we’d get some camping in as well. I’m John Franklin.” Franklin had an amplified baritone, the kind that carried well in a boardroom. In Abner’s shed it was too loud.
    “Did you examine the body?” Youngman asked the girl.
    “There was nothing I could do for Abner, so I looked for tracks. In case we have a rabid coyote running loose. I didn’t know when you were going to be around. That’s why we stopped here, so I could ask about you.”
    “Did you find any tracks?”
    “None.” Anne Dillon had a tanned, oval face with deep-set eyes. She was almost as good a hunter as Youngman and he knew it well.
    “I took a look at the body,” Franklin interjected. “The blood looks quite fresh to me. This attack of wild dogs or whatever must have occurred right before we arrived.”
    With his boot, Youngman nudged Abner’s leg.
    “He’s stiff. About ten hours dead.”
    Youngman led the way back to the van, where the other missionaries huddled as if the morning weren’t already warming up to its regular oven quality.
    “Everything is all right,” Franklin reassured them. “I believe this is the Deputy Duran that Miss Dillon mentioned.”
    “What kind of cameras do you have?” Youngman asked.
    Franklin had a Nikon and the rest had similar 35mm cameras, except for Mrs. Franklin, a frightened lady with blue-rinsed hair, who held up an SX-70.
    “That’s what I want. A flash attachment, too, if you have it.”
    Youngman took the Polaroid alone into the shed. He took two pictures of Abner and four pictures of the shed, left them to develop behind the altar on the trunk and returned to the van.
    “Thanks.” He handed back the camera and $8. “That’s for the film and bulbs.”
    “You don’t have to—”
    “I think you better go now.” He made a cigarette while they got into the van, Anne behind the steering wheel. He watched them drive away until they were out of sight, then he killed the cigarette and went to the shed.
    “Damn it, Abner.”
    Youngman stood for ten minutes, only his eyes moving. He blocked the sound of the wind and stripes of light that came through the walls and, most of all, any memory of the white campers, because Abner had done his best to turn his junkyard garage into a sacred kiva and it was in terms of a kiva that Youngman had to