At Ease with the Dead (3 page)

As it drove away, I looked down at the gun. It was a Ruger, a. 357 Blackhawk. I flipped open the loading gate and spun the cylinder. Two cartridges left. I clicked the cylinder forward until the last empty chamber was aligned with the barrel, snapped the loading gate shut, lowered the hammer.

Now that there was no one around to admire my Dirty Harry impersonation, my hands were beginning to shake.

I took a deep breath, blew it out, and looked at the old man. His head bent forward, he was fingering the hole in his jeans thoughtfully.

“You all right?” I asked him.

He looked up at me and smiled his faint smile. “Of course,” he said. “I was okay even before you got here.”

I smiled. “Yeah?”

“Sure,” he said. “I had 'em surrounded.”

2

Y
ou're not really a cop,” the old man said.

“No,” I said. “Private detective.”

He smiled the faint smile. “Like Magnum P.I.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly. How'd you know I wasn't a cop?”

We were sitting, the two of us, on a pair of old ragged logs set at right angles along the ground. The sun was gone, the air was gray and cool, growing grayer and cooler as the sky went from violet to black. We had introduced ourselves—he was Daniel Begay, from Gallup. After he'd built a small efficient fire, he'd pulled an old blue enamel coffeepot from inside the camper shell of the pickup. Now we were both drinking coffee out of old blue enamel mugs. It was good coffee.

He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Cops carry guns. Even when they're off duty.”

True. I wondered if the three bozos in the Winnebago would remember this, and decide they wanted a rematch.

Daniel Begay smiled and took a sip of coffee. As though reading my mind, he said, “They won't be back. You scared 'em pretty good.”

I nodded. I hoped so.

He sipped some more coffee. “A private detective spends a lot of time scaring people?”

I smiled. “Not a lot of time.”

He nodded. “You do murder cases?”

I shook my head. “That's police business. Cops don't like it when you stick your nose in.”

He tasted the answer for a moment, then said, “So what does a private detective do?” He moved his head in a small polite nod. “If it's okay to ask.”

“Look for missing people. Gather evidence for insurance companies. Or for lawyers. Or for husbands and wives who don't want to be husbands and wives anymore.”

He nodded, sipped at his coffee. “You like your work?”

“Sometimes.”

He smiled again. “And sometimes you don't.”

I returned the smile. “And sometimes I don't.” A log shifted in the fire, crackling, and sent a thin streamer of bright orange sparks up to meet the stars. “Used to be,” I said, “I liked it all the time. Liked getting to the bottom of things.”

“You don't anymore?”

I shrugged. “Too many things,” I said. “Too many bottoms.”

“Myself,” said Daniel Begay, his eyes crinkling as he smiled behind another sip of coffee, “every now and then I like to see a nice round bottom.”

I grinned. “How about you? What kind of work do you do?”

He shrugged. Lightly, dismissively. “Some of this. Some of that. A few sheep. A little land.”

“You like your work?”

He smiled again. “Sometimes.”

I finished my coffee. “Are you going to be here in the morning?”

He raised his eyebrows slightly, as though surprised by the question. “Sure. I came for the fishing.”

I stood up. “Maybe I'll see you then. Do you have some water? I'll rinse out the cup.”

“No, no,” he said, and waved a hand. “Don't bother.”

“No bother.”

“Please,” he said, and smiled. “Leave it.”

I didn't know the proper etiquette here—it was his lake, his forest, his coffee cup—so I only nodded, set the cup down on the log, and told him again that I'd probably see him in the morning.

“What about the gun?” he asked me. He nodded toward the big Ruger lying atop the log I'd been using.

“You keep it,” I told him. “I'm not hunting any bear this season.”

He thought about it for a moment, then said, “Got a nephew wants a new pistol.”

“Now he's got one.”

I was up before dawn, and down at the shore just as gray was seeping into the east and color was returning to the world. Off in the trees, the birds were thrilled by this development.

A stillness lay over everything else. It was one of those brand-new mornings that make you think you're somehow sharing in the creation of the universe. The grass, the earth, the lake, they were all frozen in time, waiting for the ring of the starter bell. The air seemed thicker, denser, and so did the water. It looked so solid that I felt I could walk straight across its flat silver surface.

I decided to use the path instead. Realism, as usual, beating out romance.

When I came to Daniel Begay's campsite, I saw that he was already up, and had been for a while. He had lit another fire and it had burned down to coals. Warming by the side sat a cast-iron pan holding a few biscuits. The old man was sitting on the same log he had occupied last night, the brim of his hat tipped forward as he fiddled with the reel of a fly rod. I didn't know much about fly rods, but I knew that this one was expensive. Eight or nine feet long, made of slender bamboo that had aged to the color of old ivory, it looked as delicate and as functional as a spider's leg.

He looked up as I approached, and smiled. “You hungry?”

“Always. But are you sure I'm not imposing?”

“Not if you're hungry.”

“Okay, then. Thanks.”

Nodding, he set aside the rod and rested it carefully against the log. Moving slowly, deliberately, he picked up his cane and walked down to the shore, then bent forward at the waist and used his right hand to grasp a length of rope that led into the water. He stood straight, pulling in the rope. Twitching at the end, the rope hooked through its gill, was a thick rainbow trout, at least two flashing pounds of fish. A bigger trout than I'd ever caught in my life.

“Nice fish,” I told him, feeling a bit like the straight man in a vaudeville act. Custer and the Indian.

He nodded, dropped his cane, and reached his right hand into his pocket, pulled something out. A knife, it looked like.

“You want any help?” I asked him.

He turned to me and smiled. “Oh, I think I'll be okay.” A knife blade suddenly sprang,
snick
, from the front of his fist. Switchblade. He nodded toward the fire. “Have a biscuit.”

As he squatted down to clean the fish, I strolled over to the fire. I pried a biscuit from the pan and sat down on the log. Took a bite of biscuit. Crunched at it. Crunched some more. It was a lot like eating fiberboard. But I'd be willing to bet that fiberboard has more subtle nuances of flavor.

I sat there for a while, teeth sawing away at the thing, trying to produce enough saliva to soften it. Finally Daniel Begay limped up from the shore, the fish in his left hand, the knife and the cane in his right. He looked down at me. “Biscuit okay?”

“Good,” I said around a mouthful of gravel. “Great.”

He nodded, his face expressionless. “Biscuits aren't my best thing.”

“It's terrific,” I mumbled. “You've got to give me the recipe.”

He smiled then. “Not allowed to. Old family secret.”

I laughed and some biscuit dust shot from my mouth.

In the camper he had everything he needed to fix breakfast: oil, flour, salt and pepper, blue enamel plates. He put the remaining biscuits on a plate, poured oil into the pan, set it on the coals. Before he dredged the fish with flour, he cut off the tail and tossed it into the fire. This could have been a religious observance, or it could have been a convenient way to get rid of a fish tail. After he fried the fish, the two of us ate it, drinking more of his good coffee out of the blue metal cups. The fish, flaky and sweet, was even better than the coffee.

We didn't talk much while we ate. I'm not at my best in the morning—I'm no longer sure when I
am
at my best, or even what my best is, exactly. I suspect that Daniel Begay was quiet because that was simply the sort of man he was. But his silence was as companionable as most conversations.

At one point, I nodded to the fly rod. “That's a nice piece of equipment. Had it long?”

“Few years. A gift.”

“You've taken good care of it.”

He nodded. “Gifts should get good care. Like this one.” Smiling, he pointed his fork at the fish on his plate. Then he waved the fork lightly around, taking in the lake, the forest, the far-off mountains. “And this.”

No argument there, not from me.

He wouldn't let me help him with the dishes. He rinsed them down at the lake, dried them with an old strip of terry-cloth towel, and then packed everything, including the gun and the fly rod, into the camper. Finished, he turned to me and said, “Well. Got to go now.”

I was surprised—I had thought he'd stay for the day. And I suppose I was disappointed; I'd been enjoying his company. But mountain men don't whimper when they say
ciao.
I nodded and asked him, “Where're you heading?”

“Tuba City. Got to see some people.”

“Long drive.”

He nodded.

I didn't offer my hand—some Navajos, I knew, aren't comfortable with the tradition—but he offered his, and I took it. “Drive carefully,” I told him.

He nodded. “Good fishing,” he told me. He smiled his faint smile. “You watch out for those bottoms now.”

I smiled. “I'll do that. You too.”

“I will,” he said, his eyes crinkling. “I will.”

Two months later, and a week after the first snow up in the Ski Basin, I was sitting with my chair swiveled around so I could stare up at the crisp line of bright white mountain against pale blue sky. A thin banner of creamy cloud was sailing over the ridge. It was as though a big fluffy ball were unraveling behind the mountain, sending out a pale streamer that slowly feathered, dissipated, finally disappeared.

The temperature out there was in the forties. Like a lot of other people in town, I was looking back to the summer's heat wave with a certain fond regard.

Maybe I should take up skiing, I told myself. Go shussing down the slopes in a pair of tights, showing off my teeth and my crotch. Hang around the lodge afterward, get loaded on hot buttered rum. Chatter about base and powder while I ogled trim butts and jouncing sweaters.

But I'd been raised mostly in New England, and in my circles snow had been something you shoveled, like manure. Except at a distance, I haven't liked the stuff since.

Still, every year about this time, especially when business is slow, I go through the same interior argument.

And business was slow. Pedro had long since gotten the goods on the unfortunate Mr. Murchison. Three runaway kids had been traced, two to LA., one to New York. Once case of insurance fraud had been proven, another was about to be disproven. When that was closed out, the Mondragon Agency would be clientless.

And then someone walked into the office.

For a moment I didn't recognize him. For one thing, it had been a while since Lake Asayi. For another, when I last saw him he'd been wearing jeans, a plaid western shirt, and battered cowboy boots. Now he was wearing a gray wool suit, a white shirt, and a black bolo tie. Boots now, too; but dressy ones, highly polished. With the steel gray hair knotted behind his head, he looked very dapper indeed.

Then I noticed the cane. Suddenly his features became familiar, swimming up into focus on the surface of the stranger's face. “Daniel,” I said, and stood up and came around the desk. He held out his hand, I shook it. “Daniel Begay. Good to see you. How goes it?”

“Pretty good,” he said, smiling that faint hint of a smile. “And you?”

“I'm okay. Have a seat.”

There are two client chairs in the office. I directed him to one and took the other myself. “What's up?” I asked him.

“Well,” he said, “I'd like your help.”

I was a bit surprised. He hadn't struck me, back at Asayi, as a man who'd need anybody's help with anything. But sooner or later, I suppose, it's something we all need. “Sure,” I said. “If I can.”

He slipped a pipe and a leather tobacco pouch from the right-hand pocket of his suit coat. “Okay to smoke?”

“Be my guest.”

He opened the pouch, pinched some tobacco, twisted it into the pipe. “How much do you charge to find someone?”

“Missing person? Depends. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of phone calls. Who's missing?”

“Relative of a woman I know.” He screwed some more tobacco into the bowl.

“Man or woman?”

“Man.” Tamping tobacco down with his thumb.

“How long's he been missing?”

He put the pipe stem between his teeth. From his left-hand coat pocket he pulled a red Bic lighter. He lighted it, held the flame to the bowl, the flame flared as he puffed. “Since Nineteen twenty-five,” he said.

I sat back, wondering how to phrase it politely. “Well, Daniel,” I said. “That's a long time ago. He could be dead by now.”

The faint smile came again, a fractional movement of the lips against the pipe stem. “Oh, he is. He was dead then too.”

3

D
ead,” Rita said.

“Since Eighteen sixty-six,” I told her. “How's your Navajo history?”

It was evening. I'd closed the office, swam my mile in the municipal pool, hammered down a quick green chili stew at the Plaza Restaurant, and then driven up to Rita's. The two of us were sipping mulled claret on the living room sofa. The air was cozy with the scents of cinnamon and clove, and a fire snapped and flapped in the big kiva fireplace across the darkened room. Shadows slid along the Persian carpet. Outside, beyond the picture window, a blanket of starlit snow glowed between the trees. Rita was wearing a light blue skirt, a silk blouse the color of the summertime sky, and a light blue cashmere cardigan. She looked fairly cozy herself.