Rock with Wings Read Online Free PDF

friends she left with?”
    “One was that Stoop Man. And his sister, too.” Mama’s voice had an edge now. “Daughter, I need to say an important thing.”
    Bernie and Chee stared at the cell phone, waiting.
    “If you come here now instead of staying there with the one youmarried, I will be angry with you. T’ahi’go .” The word translated to something between “livid” and “furious.”
    “You hear me, daughter? Understand this.”
    Bernie’s eyes glistened. “Use your walker, Mama. Be really careful. Drink something.”
    Bernie’s mother was probably not sipping water like she was supposed to, Chee realized, because without Darleen as a safety net, using the bathroom was difficult for her. She had given herself a black eye that spring when she slipped and fell against the tub.
    “You be careful, too,” she said to Bernie, and hung up.
    Bernie looked at the phone and then shifted her gaze to the picture-perfect view of the expansive valley. Chee thought how much they’d been looking forward to this vacation. He thought about the private tour in the People Mover, and Bernie’s face when he told her how the red stone buttes and spires began to glow at the first hint of dawn. He thought of who they knew who might be willing to stay with Bernie’s mother, and discarded every idea as quickly as it popped up.
    “I need to check on Mama and figure out what’s happening with Darleen.” She looked like she was fighting back tears. “Oh, honey, I’m so—”
    Chee touched her lips with his fingertip. He had already left cash for the bill and a tip on the table. He reached for his truck keys. “Don’t forget to take your burger. I might want it later if you don’t.”

3
    They made good time, Chee driving as fast as he could safely. Before they reached Agathla Peak, Bernie had called the hospitals in Shiprock and Farmington. If her baby sister had been in an accident fairly close to home, the ambulances would have taken her there first. Through friends who worked in the emergency rooms and gave her the information confidentially, she learned that Darleen had not come in for treatment, been admitted, or been transferred elsewhere. Good, but it left the mystery unsolved. Of course, there were other hospitals in the area—Gallup, Cortez, Durango—but those were farther away, and Bernie didn’t have contacts there. She’d put that off until she ran into a dead end.
    Darleen could have been arrested. If she were, it probably had to do with too many beers.
    Bernie thought about calling Bigman and decided not to, at least for now. If the Navajo Police had picked up Darleen, she knew someone would be in touch. Even if they had stopped Darleen and let her go, Bernie and Chee would find out about it soon enough. Theirs was a small and close-knit community. She’d have to live with the embarrassment.
    She phoned a girlfriend who worked for the San Juan County sheriff’s office and could have discreetly found out if Sister had been arrested by one of the deputies. But the woman was out of the office, and Bernie didn’t have her cell number.
    So she sat and fidgeted, edgy and uncomfortable in this unknown territory. She could have asked Chee his opinion, but she wasn’t ready for it yet.
    They rode in silence to Kayenta, where Chee turned on to US 160. They cruised east on a paved two-lane highway with no traffic signals, stop signs, cell service, or patrol cars, and plenty of scenery. Bernie studied the landscape as it rolled by, watching the first tinge of pink sunset brighten to brilliance and then fade again to soft gray. She turned on the radio and channel-surfed, finding only static. Turned it off again. Looked out the window until she could see the first pinpoints of starlight in the summer sky.
    Chee broke the silence. “When Paul told me he could use some help, I didn’t realize how much.”
    “Paul’s a nice guy, hard to say no to. It felt good to do something physical instead of sitting in my unit