The Wailing Wind - Leaphorn & Chee 17 Read Online Free PDF

fast. She caught him coming out of a classroom, trailed by a swarm of middle-school kids, and steered him into the room reserved as a faculty lounge. There they went through the ritual of family concern and affection. But she could tell Hostiin Yellow had sensed instantly that this was not a casual "drop in on the way" visit.
    He put the big cardboard box holding his collection of botanical and mineral specimens on the table, sat himself in one of the folding chairs, and eyed her curiously while she completed her recitation of family news.
    And finally she said: "And how about you? You look tired."
    And he said: "Girl Who Laughs, stop chattering now and tell me your trouble."
    Thinking about it later, she decided hearing her war name spoken did it—broke through her dignity and reduced her from woman to niece. Hostiin Yellow had given her that secret name—to be revealed to no one outside the bosom of her family. It was the name of her sacred identity and used only in dealing with the Holy People. If it became known to witches, it could be used against her.
    She sat in the chair he pointed her to, dug out a tissue to deal with the unwelcome tears, and told him everything. Of finding Doherty's body curled in the cab of his truck; of possibly losing her job because she hadn't handled it right; of taking away the old tobacco tin, which turned out to have tiny bits of placer gold mixed with the sand in it, and how that was getting her into trouble with everybody; of her mother being unsympathetic and telling her she never should have gone into police work. Her mother saying this trouble was good, maybe it would bring her to her senses. And when she told her mother how curt Sergeant Jim Chee had been, she had taken Chee's side. Called him a good man. Said Bernie should start treating him better.
    When the lightning storms ended and the Season When the Thunder Sleeps made it possible, she would ask him to do for her the proper sing to protect her from ghost sickness.
    Finally, with that said, Girl Who Laughs became Officer Bernadette Manuelito again, and she got to the reason she thought she had come to look for him, knowing now it was just a cover story—just an excuse.
    She took an envelope from a pocket and poured its contents onto the tabletop. Hostiin Yellow looked at the little litter of seedpods and burrs, and up at her.
    "When I reached in to see if the victim had a pulse, to see if he was still alive, I noticed his socks and his trouser legs had picked up all sorts of stickers," Bernie said. "Chamisa seeds, for example, but no chamisa grows way up there where we found his truck. The same with some of these other seeds, so I thought maybe they had come from where he was when he was shot."
    Hostiin Yellow had reached up and extracted a pencil from his tsiiyeel , using the bun in which traditional Navajos wear their hair as a holder. Now he was using the pencil tip to sort Bernie's botanical material into separate bunches.
    "I thought maybe you could help me find where it came from," Bernie said. But even as she said it, she knew it was an impossible job. The stuff she'd collected could have grown just about anywhere that was hotter and drier than the
Chuska
Mountain
high-country zone. About anywhere in the millions of acres of tundra from which the mountains rose.
    "Chamisa seed," said Hostiin Yellow, inspecting the fragment held between thumb and finger. "Chamisa needs some salt. In the old days, before people could buy salt blocks for their sheep, they used to have to drive them down out of the mountains to the halbatah —the 'gray lands' where the salt-holding plants grow. No salt in the high country soil. The runoff from the melting snow leaches it out."
    He glanced at Bernie. She nodded. She knew all this. Hostiin Yellow had taught her as a child.
    "If there are no salty plants, sheep start eating the stuff that poisons them." He held up another seed. "This sacatan grass grows down in the Halgai, in the flatlands.