Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 14] (5 page)

Which was fine with Joe Leaphorn. He had thought of a way to spend
the rest of this day that would be much more interesting than listening
for modifications and evolutions in the legends he’d grown up with.
That talk with Louisa about how folks in lonely country knew everything
about their neighbors had reminded him of Undersheriff Oliver Potts,
now retired. If anyone knew the three on Gershwin’s list, it would be
Oliver.

Oliver Potts’s modest stone residence was shaded by a grove of
cottonwoods beside Recapture Creek, maybe five miles northeast of Bluff
and a mile down a rocky road even worse than described at the Chevron
station where Leaphorn had topped off his gas tank.

“Yes,” said the middle-aged Navajo woman who answered his knock,
"Ollie’s in there resting his eyes." She laughed. “Or he’s supposed to
be, anyway. Actually he’s probably reading, or studying one of his soap
operas." She ushered Leaphorn into the living room, said, "Ollie,
here’s company,” and disappeared.

Potts looked up from the television, examined Leaphorn through
thick-lensed glasses. “Be damned. You look like Joe Leaphorn, but if it
is, you’re out of uniform.”

“I’ve been out of uniform almost as long as you have,” Leaphorn
said, "but not long enough to watch the soap operas.”

He took the chair Potts offered. They exhausted the social
formalities, agreed retirement became tiresome after the first couple
of months, and reached the pause that said it was time for business.
Leaphorn recited Gershwin’s three names. Could Potts tell him anything
about them?

Potts hadn’t seemed to be listening. He had laid himself back in his
recliner chair, glasses off now and eyes almost closed, either dozing
or thinking about it. After a moment he said, “Odd mix you got there.
What kind of mischief have those fellows been up to?”

“Probably nothing,” Leaphorn said. “I’m just checking on some
gossip.”

It took Potts a moment to accept that. His eyes remained closed, but
a twist of his lips expressed skepticism. He nodded. “Actually,
Ironhand and Baker fit well enough. We’ve had both of them in a time or
two. Nothing serious that we could make stick. Simple assault, I think
it was, on Baker, and a DWI and resisting arrest. George Ironhand, he’s
a little meaner. If I remember right, it was assault with a deadly
weapon, but he got off. And then we had him as a suspect one autumn
butchering time in a little business about whose steers he was cutting
up into steaks and stew beef.”

He produced a faint smile, reminiscing. “Turned out to be an honest
mistake, if you know what I mean. And then, the feds got interested in
him. Somebody prodded them into doing something about that protected
antiquities law. They had the idea that his little bitty ranch was
producing way too many of those old pots and the other Anasazi stuff he
was selling. They couldn’t find no ruins on his place, and the feds
figured he was climbing over the fence and digging them out of sites on
federal land.”

“I remember that now,” Leaphorn said. “Nothing came of it? Right?”

“Usual outcome. Case got dropped for lack of evidence.”

“You said they fit better than Jorie. Why’s that?”

“Well, they’re both local fellas. Ironhand’s a Ute and Baker’s born
in the county. Both rode in the rodeo a little, as I remember. Worked
here and there. Probably didn’t finish high school. Sort of young." He
grinned at Leaphorn. “By our standards, anyway. Thirty or forty. I
think Baker is married. Or was.”

“They buddies?”

That produced another thoughtful silence. Then: "I think they both
worked for El Paso Natural once, or one of the pipeline outfits. If
it’s important, I can tell you who to ask. And then I think both of
them were into that militia outfit. Minutemen I think they called it.”

Potts opened his eyes now, squinted, rubbed his hand across them,
restored the glasses and looked at Leaphorn. “You heard of our militia?”

“Yeah,” Leaphorn said. “They had an organizing meeting down at
Shiprock last winter.”

“You sign up?”

“Dues were too high,” Leaphorn said. “But they seemed to be getting
some recruits.”

“We got a couple of versions up here. Militia to protect us from the
Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service and the seventy-two
other federal agencies. Then the survivalists, getting us ready for
when all those black helicopters swarm in to round us up for the United
Nations concentration camps. And then for the rich kids, we have our
Save Our Mountains outfit trying to fix it so the Ivy Leaguers don’t
have to associate with us redneck working folks when they want to get
away from their tennis courts.”

Potts had his eyes closed again. Leaphorn waited, Navajo fashion,
until he was sure Potts had finished this speech. He hadn’t.

“Come to think of it,” Potts added, "maybe that’s how you could tie
in ole Everett Jorie. He used to be one of the militia bunch.”

Potts sat up. “Remember? He used to run that afternoon talk show on
one of the Durango radio stations. Right-winger. Sort of an
intellectual version of what’s his name? That fat guy. Ditto Head. Made
him sound almost sane. Anyway, Jorie was always promoting the militia.
He’d quote Plato, and
Shakespeare and read passages from Thoreau and Thomas Paine to do it.
Finally got so wild the station fired him. I think he was a fairly big
shot in the militia. I heard Baker was a member. At least I’d see him
at meetings. I think I saw George at one, too.”

“Jorie still in the militia?”

“I don’t think so,” Potts said. “Heard they had a big falling-out.
It’s all hearsay, of course, but the gossip was he wanted ’em to do
less talking and writing to their congressman and things like that and
get more dramatic"

Potts had his eyes wide open now, peering at Leaphorn, awaiting the
question.

“Like what?”

“Just gossip, you know. But like blowing up a Forest Service office.”

“Or maybe a dam?”

Potts chuckled. “You’re thinking of that big manhunt a while back.
When the guys stole the water truck and shot the policeman, and the FBI
decided they were going to fill the truck with explosives, blow up the
dam and drain Lake Mead.”

“What’s your theory on that one?”

“Stealing the water truck? I figured they needed it to water their
marijuana crop.”

Leaphorn nodded.

“FBI didn’t buy that. I guess there was budget hearings coming up.
They needed some terrorism to talk about, and if it’s just pot farmers
at work, that hands the ball to the Drug Enforcement folks. The
competition. The enemy.”

“Yeah,” Leaphorn said.

“Now,” Potts said, "it is time for you to tell me what you’re up to.
I heard you been working as a private investigator. Did the Ute Casino
people sign you up to get their money back?”

“No,” Leaphorn said. “Tell the truth I don’t know what I’m up to
myself. Just heard something, and had time on my hands, and got to
wondering about it, so I thought I’d ask around.”

“Just bored then,” Potts said, sounding as if he didn’t believe it.
“Nothing interesting on TV, so you thought you’d just take a three-hour
drive up here to Utah and do some visiting. Is that it?”

“That’s close enough,” Leaphorn said. “And I’ve got one more name to
ask about. You know Roy Gershwin?”

“Everybody knows Roy Gershwin. What’s he up to?”

“Is there anything to connect him to the other three?”

Potts thought about it. “I don’t know why I want to tell you
anything, Joe, when you won’t tell me why you’re askin‘. But, let’s
see. He used to show up at militia meetings a while back. He was
fighting with the BLM, and the Forest Service, and the Soil
Conservation Service, or whatever they call it now, over a grazing
lease and over a timber-cutting permit, too, I think it was. That had
gotten him into an antigovernment mood. I think Baker used to work for
him once on that ranch he runs. And I think his place runs up against
Jorie’s, so that makes them neighbors.”

“Good neighbors?”

Potts restored his glasses, sat up and looked at Leaphorn. “Don’t
you remember Gershwin? He wasn’t the kind of fellow you were good
neighbors with. And Jorie’s even worse. As a matter of fact, I think
Jorie was suing Roy over something or other. Suing people was one of
Jorie’s hobbies.”

“About what?”

Potts shrugged. “This and that. He sued me once ‘cause his livestock
was running on my place, and I penned them up, and he wanted to take
’em back without paying me for my feed. With Gershwin, I don’t
remember. I think they were fighting over the boundaries of a grazing
lease.” He paused, considering. “Or maybe it was locking a gate on an
access road.”

“Were any of those three people pilots?”

“Fly airplanes?” Potts was grinning. “Like rob the Ute Casino and
then stealing Old Man Timms’s airplane to fly away? I thought you was
retired from being a cop.”

Leaphorn could think of no response to that.

“You think maybe those three guys did it?” Potts said. “Well, that’s
as good a guess as I could make. Why not? You have any idea where
they’d fly to?”

“No ideas about anything much,” Leaphorn said. “I’m just idling away
some time.”

“Several ranchers around here have their little planes,” Potts said.
“None of those guys, though. I remember hearing Jorie going on about
flying for the navy on his talk show, but I know he didn’t have a
plane. And airplanes was one of the things Jorie used to bitch about.
People flying over his ranch. Said they scared his livestock. He
thought it was people spying on him when he was stealing pots. Baker
and Ironhand now. Far as I know, neither of them ever had anything
better than a used pickup.”

“You know where Jorie lives?” Leaphorn asked.

Potts stared at him. “You going to go see him? What you going to
say? Did you rob the casino? Shoot the cops?”

“If he did, he won’t be home. Remember? He flew away.”

“Oh, right,” Potts said, and laughed. “If the Federal Bureau of
Ineptitude says it, it must be true." He pushed himself up. “Let me get
myself a piece of paper and my pencil. I’ll draw you a little map.”

Cowboy Dashee rolled down the window of Apache County Sheriff’s
Department Patrol Unit 4 as Chee walked up. He leaned out, staring at
Chee.

“The cooler’s in the trunk,” Dashee said. “Dry ice in it, with room
enough for about forty pounds of smoked Alaska salmon caught by my
Navajo friend. But where’s the damned fish?”

“I hate to tell you about that,” Chee said. “The girls had this big
welcome-home salmonfest for me at Shiprock. Dancing around the campfire
down by the San Juan, swimming bareback in the river. Just me and nine
of those pretty teachers from the community college." Chee opened the
passenger-side door and slid in. “I should have remembered to invite
you.”

“You should have,” Dashee said. “Since you’re going to work me for
some favor. From what you said on the telephone, you’re going to try to
get me in trouble with the FBI. What do you want me to do?”

They’d met at the Lukachukai Chapter House, Chee making the long
drive from Farmington over the Chuska Mountains and Dashee up from his
station at Chinle. Dashee arrived a little late. And now was accused by
Chee of being corrupted from his stern Hopi ways and learning how to
operate on ‘Navajo Time,' which recognized neither late nor early. They
wasted a few minutes exchanging barbs and grinning at one another as
old friends do, before Chee answered Dashee’s question.

“What I’d like you to do is help me get straightened out on that
business with the stolen airplane,” Chee said.

“Eldon Timms’s airplane? What’s to straighten out? The bandidos
stole it and flew away. And thank God for that." Dashee made a wry
face. “If you see it anywhere, just call the nearest office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“You think that’s what actually happened?”

Dashee laughed. “Let’s just say I hope the feds got it right this
time. Otherwise, we both ought to apply for a leave. I don’t think I
could stand a repeat of that Great Four Corners Manhunt of 1998. You
want to go crashing around in the canyons again?”

“I could get along without that,” Chee said, and told Dashee what
he’d learned about the Timms
L-17, and the insurance, and Timms’s futile effort to sell it, and all
the rest. “You mind us driving over there and showing me where the
pickup was found, and the barn where Timms kept the plane? Just going
over that part of it with me?”

Dashee studied him. “You’re wanting to use your old buddy Cowboy
because you’re not back on duty yet, and don’t have any business out
there anyway even if you were. And me, being a deputy sheriff of Apache
County, Arizona, could claim I had some legitimate reason to be butting
in on a case the FBI has taken over. So if the feds get huffy about us
nosy locals, they can blame me. Am I right?”

“That’s about it,” Chee said. “Does it make sense to you?”

Dashee snorted, started the engine. “Well, then, let’s go. Let’s get
there while we still have a little daylight.”

The sun was low when Dashee stopped the patrol car. The ragged top
of Comb Ridge to the west was producing a zigzag pattern of light and
shadow across the sagebrush flats of the Nokaito Bench. The Gothic
Creek bottoms below were already a crooked streak of darkness. Dashee
was pointing down into the canyon. “Down there but for the grace of God
and Timms’s convenient airplane go you and I,” he said. “Once again
testing the federal law-enforcement theory that to locate fugitives you
send out local cops until the perps start shooting them, thereby giving
away their location.”

“It used to work in India when the nabobs were hunting tigers,” Cree
said. “Only they did it with beaters instead of deputy sheriffs. They’d
send those guys in to provoke the animals.”