He took a breath. Exhaled. He could see that she was listening.
“If you love your grandfather, you’ll tell me why he got shot so I can find the person who did it. And don’t lie again about Arthur Green Yazzie. I called the prison.”
“My poor shicheii. I never wanted any of this.” He heard anger in her voice as well as grief. “Leave me alone. Go back to Shiprock.”
“I can’t. You heard your grandfather.”
Ryana took the old man’s hand again. “All right then. If you want to help, give me two thousand dollars.”
Chee took a breath. “Why? What do you need all that money for?”
One of the machines connected to Mr. Natachi began to beep, and at the same time the chime of an old-fashioned doorbell filled the room. Ryana glanced at the phone in her lap and shut off the doorbell with a quick swipe of a finger.
She stood. “It takes the nurses a while to get here. I’ll let them know about the beeping. Will you stay with him while I do that and go to the restroom?”
The machine kept beeping.
“Two thousand, huh?”
“Sit here, closer to him, while I’m gone. Hold his hand.”
She leaned over the old man, whispered into his ear, and kissed his cheek before she left.
Chee took the vacant chair. “Sir, who did this to you?”
Mr. Natachi said nothing.
“The attack on you, was it meant to scare her?”
Mr. Natachi’s eyes stayed closed, but his chin moved subtly toward his chest and back up again. He looked gray and tired, but Chee pressed on. He repeated a version of the who-did-it question, this time in Navajo.
The machine’s noise had increased to the point where, Chee deduced, someone in the parking lot could probably hear it. He spoke louder to be heard over the commotion. “Your granddaughter is involved in something that worries you. Something not part of the way the Holy People told us to follow. Something dangerous. I need to understand what this is to protect her.”
Just when he concluded that the old man had gone to sleep despite the racket, Mr. Natachi opened his eyes.
“Yes.” He spoke with a vigor that surprised Chee. “Dangerous and evil.”
Having Ryana out of the room made it easier to say what came next.
“Your granddaughter asked me for a lot of money. If she had it, would that make her safe?”
Mr. Natachi didn’t hesitate this time. He moved his head right to left and left to right twice and whispered, “No” and then, in Navajo, “Ndaga’.”
A nurse came in, and the old man shifted his attention to her. She was a bilagáana but greeted them both with “Yá’át’ééh.” She walked to the machine and stopped the noise with the push of several buttons and then spoke to the patient. “I’m going to check your vital signs, and George will be in to x-ray your chest. He can do it right here in the room. Do you understand?”
Mr. Natachi nodded.
She focused on Chee. “I’m Lucinda. I’ll be his nurse for the rest of the day and again tomorrow. Are you his son?”
“Sort of.” He read the question in her eyes. “I’m responsible for Ryana, his granddaughter.”
“What a beautiful young woman. I saw her with him when I started my shift.” She noticed that the ID badge on her strap had flipped backwards and turned it.
Chee saw her name and photograph. “How is he doing?”
“Better than the doctors expected. The next twelve hours are crucial. By the way, Ryana’s blood type matches his, and she agreed to be a donor if necessary. He’s doing OK for now without a transfusion.”
Chee said, “I know he’ll be happier if he doesn’t need blood from anyone. Can I check in with you for an update on his condition?”
“Of course. My hospital cell number is on the information board.” She pointed to it. “Or just call the nurses’ station and they’ll connect us. It’s nice that Mr. Natachi has family here. Having someone who cares helps people recover.”
Chee nodded. That was one of the many reasons Navajo traditional healing ceremonies worked. The realization that dozens of friends and relatives would come to support you, bringing food, firewood, and their songs and prayers gave powerful energy to the patient.
After the nurse left, Chee asked again about the shooting, but Mr. Natachi either was asleep or pretending to be. He waited with the old man until the X-ray technician arrived and he knew without question that Ryana wasn’t coming back. He wondered what she had whispered to her shicheii.
On his way to the car, Chee dialed her phone, then texted: Call me asap about your grandfather. He viewed his promise to Mr. Natachi with regret. But he’d given his word to an elder, and so it was.
Back at the Chinle station, Adakai showed him the information he’d compiled as requested on Ryana’s time in Phoenix. The file included her Arizona driver’s license, a car registration for a BMW, and one paid speeding ticket. No references to any involvement with Arthur Green Yazzie or other criminal activity. It looked as though Yazzie’s intersection with the law had all been in Lieutenant Leaphorn’s era and mostly on Leaphorn’s part of the vast Navajo Nation.
He saw Adakai at his work station by the window and waved the man over to him.
“Thanks for the file on Ryana. I’m curious about something. You said she did some acting for the movies in Phoenix. I wonder if she had a screen name, you know, like Marilyn Monroe was really Norma Jeane something.”
Adakai rubbed his left hand with his right, stroking a tasteful, small star tattoo. “I gave you everything I found. Maybe Ryana made up the movie story to look more important, more accomplished than she is. She’s stuck on herself. I think I said that already. I wouldn’t put it past her to lie. You already mentioned that she lied about the bolo.” Adakai took a breath. “Did you have any luck on the burglaries?”
“No, nothing yet. I’m working on that unless somebody else gets shot while I’m here.”
The old man looked peaceful when Chee returned to the hospital. Ryana was not in the room with him. Chee knew that, when his time at the hospital was done, Mr. Natachi would also ask for the type of healing that involved songs, herbs, and sandpaintings in a ceremony to return him to hozho, to a state of peace, balance, and harmony.
Nurse Lucinda told him, without being asked, that the X-rays showed that Mr. Natachi’s lungs were clear. “And, so far at least, there’s no sign of infection. Considering what he’s been through, that’s quite something.” She readjusted the IV. “When Ryana came to check on him, she asked me to tell you not to be mad about Walter. That she just mentioned him because she’d seen something about him on television.”
“Could you run that by me again?”
Lucinda reached into her uniform pocket. “I knew I’d have trouble remembering the name.” She pulled out a yellow slip of paper and read from it. “Arthur Green Yazzie. Sorry about that. You want this?”
“No. I know who it is. When did Ryana leave?”
“About half an hour ago. Before she left, she donated some blood. She told me she had a lot to take care of, and she might not be back for a while. She specifically asked me to tell you not to worry about her. Wasn’t that sweet?”