There were no vehicles near the smaller house, but that didn’t surprise him since Mr. Natachi probably wasn’t driving anymore. Also missing were the dogs that alerted rural residents to arriving visitors. The late morning was quiet; he could barely hear the traffic on the canyon overlook road.
Chee sat in his unit for a few minutes for the sake of courtesy, and when Mr. Natachi didn’t appear, he climbed out of the SUV. As he walked toward the house, he noticed a tire track in the sand. From years of habit he bent down to look more closely, finding a spot where the tread was nearly smooth.
He knocked on the front door. He waited and then spoke loudly enough to be understood over the radio inside. “Mr. Natachi, it’s Jim Chee from Shiprock. Your friend Bernie’s husband.”
Chee rapped again. He spoke louder this time. “Hello, sir. Are you in there?” When no answer came, he tried the knob. The door opened.
The room’s warm air smelled faintly of fried onions. The radio had switched from country music to a weather report: continued hot and dry. He moved through the doorway, stopped, and called again more forcefully. “Mr. Natachi, it’s Jim Chee. I’d like to talk to you.”
Noise from the radio was the only response.
The housekeeping here reminded him of his own home in the pre-Bernie days, when he survived without her propensity for having everything in its proper place. It had a casual man-living-alone look to it. Not exactly messy but hovering on the line. A coffee cup with a bit of dark liquid at the bottom sat next to a jar of peanut butter and an open box of saltine crackers. On top of a pile of papers, Chee saw an advertising circular for hearing aids with the name Herman Natachi on the label, quick reassurance that he had come to the right place.
Chee stepped toward the back of the house, where he assumed he’d find the bedroom. Based on his experience, he prepared for the worst but hoped to see an empty bed.
“Mr. Natachi. Mr. Natachi?”
The room was empty, the bed made. No sign of a disturbance, just a pair of brown-framed reading glasses and a leather-bound book on the table next to the bed. Chee felt the stiffness flow out of his neck and shoulders. On a shelf across from the bed he noticed a beautiful belt buckle, a prize for roping someone had won at a rodeo ten years ago. If he was like most people, Mr. Natachi kept his jewelry in the bedroom, and sure enough, on top of the nightstand Chee saw the bolo tie with the silver tips Bernie had described.
In the old days, some people used the pawn system for safeguarding valuables. Chee remembered his relatives going to the pawn shop to rescue their favorite turquoise necklaces and silver belt buckles for special events, then re-pawning them. In his grandparents’ days, people had nothing much in their homes to steal and the rare pilfering was handled among the clans, not by the police.
Chee wrote a note on his business card, asking for a call, and wedged it between the screen and the front door. He might have guessed wrong about Mr. Natachi and driving. Or maybe the old gentleman had a buddy who picked him up—that would explain the fresh tire track. He ruled out a trip on a horse; neither this house nor the one nearby had a corral.
He decided to check the nearby house to talk to Ryana before he headed to Chinle. She might know where her grandfather was. Maybe Mr. Natachi himself had stopped in for coffee and Chee could interview them both.
He opened the door to his SUV and realized the July morning had heated the interior to pizza-baking temperature. He relocked it. The walk would do him good.
The sun, glaring from a cloudless sky, had begun its daily job of baking the already desiccated landscape. He remembered the times he’d been in Washington, DC, in the summer, where trees blocked the sky, a monotony of green dominated the color scheme, and the thick air left a sticky residue on your skin. In his opinion, brown held more interest. A person could see the bones of the earth out here. He felt at home.
Like Mr. Natachi’s place, the larger house also seemed deserted. A shade covered the front window. A plastic bowl half full of water sat on the porch, but, again, no dog barked. He rang the doorbell, waited, then knocked. He studied the door frame, where a large spot of what looked like blood stood out, red against the white paint, at about shoulder height.
He rapped again, louder and more persistently. “Ryana? Everything OK in there?”
Then he heard a voice behind the door. “Grandfather?”
“No, it’s Jim Chee.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Manuelito’s son-in-law. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Open the door so we can hear each other better.”
“I can’t talk now. I’ve got to go to work, my ride is on her way.”
“I see blood out here. Are you hurt?”
“Blood?” The space on the other side of the door drew quiet.
“Where do you work?” Chee felt sweat accumulating in the places where his hatband touched his skin.
“At the senior center.”
“I saw a car out there. Why do you need a ride?”
“Oh, that’s my boyfriend’s. He’s not here right now or he’d drive me.”
“I’ll give you a lift. We can talk in the car. My unit has air-conditioning.”
“Oh, what the hey.”
The door opened.
He’d seen a lot of surprises in his days as a cop, and this was another. Ryana was almost as tall as he was, something around six feet, with jet-black hair that fell to her shoulders in a neat, blunt curtain. She had sparklingly clear dark eyes and, as far as he could tell, perfect skin. She wore jeans that hugged her long legs and a shirt with a green-and-black print design, cut low enough to allow room for a silver-and-coral necklace to rest against the burnished skin of her chest. She met the textbook definition of beautiful.
“Come on in.”
He followed her, admiring a hanging lamp made of antlers over the dining table. He smelled the residue of coffee and toast from her small kitchen. She walked ahead of him into the living room.
“Sit. I just need my shoes and a minute to call Elsie. I hope she hasn’t left already to pick me up.”
“I have to talk to Mr. Natachi, too. Do you know where he is?”
“No. He and I usually have coffee before I go to work. I guess he made other plans and didn’t tell me. I heard a car drive up to his house this morning.” Chee recognized worry in her voice. “What did you say about blood?”
“I’ll show you.”
“OK.”
Ryana disappeared down the hall and closed the door. He hadn’t seen any bandages or noticed wounds on her hands or arms. The shade drawn over the window that faced the road gave the morning light the color of Canyon de Chelly’s sandstone. He listened to the unexpected crunch of tires on the dirt road. Then he heard the gunshots.
9
The closeness of the gunshots propelled Chee to his feet. He moved his hand toward his gun as he raced for the door.
“What was that?” Ryana came from the bedroom, a shoe in her hand.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He ran outside in time to see a black car pulling away from the house. He watched a person slowly rise to hands and knees in the cloud of dust the car left in its wake. The man crawled for a moment and then collapsed, rolling onto his back. Chee saw the red stain on his denim shirt. He sprinted toward the person, keeping an eye on the retreating car.