Bo burst out laughing. He wanted to hug the little jeweler, but instead he put his hands on Sol’s shoulders; and the two men laughed until there were tears in the eyes of them both.

  Chapter Nine

  The road along the rim of the canyon that led to the village of Chinle was not much better than the horse track Johnny had directed him over several days ago. Barry cursed the rocks and the sand while the Model A steamed along for more than twenty miles until the road turned to gravel and he saw a sign that said Chinle was two miles ahead. The village turned out to be larger than he had expected, with a big stone schoolhouse and an administration building for the Indian Service. After his few days in totally primitive surroundings, the gravel streets and stone and timber houses appeared the height of civilization. He even found a gas station where his little car was well treated and filled up with all the liquids it would hold.

  “Where’s the trading post here?” be asked the Indian who was pouring water into the car’s radiator while steam billowed out.

  “Hubbel’s or the Sanchez post?”

  “Why, I guess the biggest one.”

  “Hubbel’s, down there.” The skinny brown man pointed to a timber and stone building with a pitched roof. Several Indians in black hats leaned against the wall near the door.

  Barry found the store almost sumptuous after the post he had visited with Johnny on the way in. It seemed to have everything one might need, including such luxuries as Coleman lanterns and stoves and tents of all kinds. Barry felt like one of the Indians now and took his time browsing around the counters, looking up at the hanging utensils to get the best cooking pot he could afford for Mrs. Chee. In one corner of the store an area was set off by a low railing, and behind it two men worked at benches making silver and turquoise jewelry. One of them was a

  Navajo of indeterminate old age, a red band around his hair. The other was, surprisingly, a white man with a short black beard and hair sprinkled with gray. His face as he looked up at Barry seemed calm, but his gaze was intent, almost searching. He laid down the little hammer he had been using on a miniature anvil and smiled at Barry.

  “Interested in some jewelry?” he asked.

  “I thought only the Navajo worked silver around here,” Barry said, smiling. He liked the man immediately, for some reason.

  “I’m just learning some of their tricks,” the bearded man said, standing up and holding out his hand. “George Beaumont,” he said.

  “Barry Golden.” They shook hands, Barry feeling the strength in the handclasp. He stepped back. “Maybe I could look at something to take home to my wife and kids.”

  “Sure.” Beaumont said a word in Navajo to the old Indian working at the bench. The Indian grunted but did not look up. “Here’s what we got in bracelets,” he said, taking a tray from beneath a glass countertop. “Now these are old, out-of-pawn stuff,” he said, pointing to some heavier pieces. “And these are some that Red Hand and I have been making here in the post.”

  Barry looked at the different designs, the weight of the stones and metal in the bracelets, how they felt when he picked them up. The newer ones were more delicately made, but the designs were traditional and the stones set with great solidity in the metal. He was afraid they would be awfully expensive and said so.

  “Well, now,” Beaumont said, hefting one of the old pieces, “there’s quite a few ounces of pure silver in this kind of thing, and that stone’s a pretty piece, too. This would cost you upwards of a hundred dollars in Phoenix. Here it’s forty-nine dollars flat.” He grinned. “Low overhead.”

  Barry smiled, liking the older man’s comfortable air.

  “Well, how about some of the newer pieces. I kind of like that one.” He pointed to a twisted wire bracelet with stones set all the way around it.

  “Yeah. Red Hand made that one. That’s a beauty. It’s got coral mixed in with the turquoise, see? The price on that is … let’s see. Sixteen bucks.”

  Barry made a deal on a bracelet for Renee, a ring for 161

  Mina with a lovely flat stone in it that Beaumont had set and a tiny silver pin in the shape of a wild turkey with feathers of petrified wood, coral and turquoise for little Martin. They concluded the deal, and Barry bought the pots and pans he had come for as a present for Mrs. Ghee. He remarked on this to Beaumont, who raised his head sharply.

  “That wouldn’t be Albeit Chee’s wife?” the gaunt, bearded man said, his face suddenly grave.

  “Yeah. I been staying with them up in the canyon for a couple of days. Friend of mine . . Barry was going on, but the other man had turned to the trading post proprietor, who was getting out penny candies for some Indian kids.

  “Sam? Fella here is a friend of Albert Chee,” Beaumont said, his face in a frown.

  The proprietor handed the candy to the kids and came over, also frowning. He was a large man with a big belly and wore his hat all the time.

  “You hear about Albert?” the fat man said, leaning over the counter to look at Barry.

  “No,” Barry said. “I left there this morning, late … I guess around noon or a little later.” He felt guilty about all that had happened that morning and stammered, as if he had committed a crime.

  “He killed a man this morning,” Sam said, picking up a toothpick from the counter and digging at his teeth. “Down at the ranger station. Shot him clean through the heart with an old pistol.”

  Barry recalled Albert coming out of the shelter that morning and killing the dog. He must have gone crazy. “Was he drunk?”

  “Yeah, I ‘spect he was,” Sam said. “These people get a little liquor in ‘em, look out.” He looked at Barry with a deprecating nod. “You’re a friend of his, you better see the sheriff. Maybe you can help find him.” Sam moved off to wait on a white couple who had just walked into the store.

  “Where can I find the sheriff?” Barry asked the bearded man, who seemed as full of sympathy as Sam had been of indifference.

  “Come on,” Beaumont said. “I’m going out to the canyon anyway.” He called a couple of words in Navajo to Red Hand, who again just grunted.

  “How long it take you to learn to speak Indian?” Barry said as they walked down the dirt street.

  “I don’t speak ity really,” Beaumont said. “Red Hand taught me a few words, but I can’t really understand it. I’m trying, but l*m not all that good at languages.”

  The sheriff was not in his office, and the deputy said the whole bunch, probably half a dozen men, was out looking for Chee to bring him back. “They all gone up del Muerto,” the deputy said.

  “Where is that?” Barry asked as they walked back to the station where his car waited.

  “Why, that’s where you came from,” Beaumont said. “If you were staying with the Chee family.”

  “I thought it was Canyon de Chelly,” Barry said. “That’s what Johnny called it. He said it a little different … sort of tseh-i, something like that.”

  “Well, you see there’s really three canyons,” Beaumont said. He held up his hand with three fingers extended. “This one on the left is Canyon del Muerto, the middle one is de Chelly, and this one on the right is Monument Canyon.” He smiled for some reason and said, “You see, they make a sort of arrow shape, pointing into Arizona.” “Canyon of the Dead?”

  “Yeah. Good name, too. There was a massacre up there back in the last century. About a hundred Indians, mostly women and kids, holed up in a cave back there. The Spaniards killed every one of them except one old man who told the story. Place’s not very far from where the Chees live, if I remember right.”

  “You know the canyon pretty well, I suppose,” Barry said as they got into the Model A.

  “I only been here a couple of months, but 1 walk it all the time. Yeah, it’s so big that nobody knows it really, not even the people who were bom here, but I got a rough idea of the place and some of the people.”

  They rode along talking for the twenty miles or so of the rim road, and by the time they got to the trail down, which Barry recognized by landmarks he had picked out earlier, they had gotten to know each other about as well as if they had been neighbors in a small town. But there was, in each of the men, an element of mystery that both recognized. It seemed to Barry he had met a man who shared his view of the world. They started down the trail together after looking into the canyon and noting no unusual activity below that they could see.

  “Hey,” Barry said, “there weren’t any other cars up there. If the sheriff came out this way, wouldn’t he have come by car?”

  “I doubt it,” said Beaumont. “They most likely rode horses up Chinle wash looking for Albert’s trail. They couldn’t have got here yet. Maybe they’ve caught him down stream a ways. He was on horseback, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, I guess he was.” Barry hardly noticed the beauty of the trail or the canyon, now turning ruddy with evening light again. His mind was on the Chee family and their disaster.

  Barry found himself in the awkward position of bringing bad news to the Chee family, for no one in the camp had heard anything from Chinle. Albert had evidently not come back since early that morning. He tried to make Mrs. Chee understand, and Beaumont tried also, but they only succeeded in making her think that Albert was dead. She sent one of her daughters up to the permanent camp to get Johnny, her face drawn and terrible looking. She would not believe anything, obviously, until she could hear it in her own language. When Johnny came running down the edge of the stream, it was obvious he had been told by the little girl what was the matter. He looked at Barry for confirmation.

  “True?” he panted, his hat in his hand. “My uncle killed a man?”

  “That’s what they said in Chinle,” Barry said, feeling intensely the agony of his friend.

  Johnny put his arms around his “mother” and led her into the shelter, talking softly in Navajo. After a moment the men waiting outside heard the woman’s voice raise in a wail, a moaning that rose to a crescendo and fell again to rise again with the next breath. They were startled by the arrival of several people from the upstream camp, the women ducking to go into the shelter as Johnny came out putting his hat on. One of the women who went into the shelter was Sarah Lakuchai. She paused to look at Barry before ducking through the doorway, but it was George Beaumont Barry was looking at.

  Beaumont looked at Sarah and his face went white under the beard, his eyes starting out. He stood like a stone on the spot until she disappeared into the shelter.

  “Bo?” Barry said to the older man, feeling a chill run through him. “What’s the matter? You look like somebody’s holding a gun to your head.”

  Beaumont emerged from his trance and stared hard at Barry, as if trying to remember who he was. His voice was harsh. “Who was that?”

  “The young woman? A relative of the Chees—Sarah Lakuchai, I think her name is.’* Barry felt uncomfortable. All of this going on, he thought, and 1 have to think about that, too.

  “She was not here last month,” Beaumont said, his eyes squinted up as if he were thinking hard or trying to look through a stone. “1 was here, and she was not here.*’

  Barry felt that his new friend had suddenly gone crazy also. He thought first that Bo also had come under the Indian woman’s power—but no, that was silly.

  “Well, I wish you’d let me in on it,” Barry said impatiently. “1 met her at the peyote ceremony, among a lot of others.” He looked closely at Bo.

  “It’s her,” the older man whispered. “And now what do I do?”

  Barry turned away. It was too much for him to fathom, and the irritating abstraction Beaumont had fallen into was not to be dealt with. He walked over to where Johnny was standing, talking with some of the men from the upstream camp. He could understand nothing of what they were saying, of course, which only added to his frustration. He stood there helplessly for a few minutes, waiting for Johnny to realize he was there. Finally the young Indian turned to him, his face a noncommittal mask.

  “He killed a white man then?” Johnny said.

  “That’s what they said.” Barry hated the difference of race now. He felt suddenly an alien in the camp. “They said he was drunk and the man insulted him or something. But the man he shot had a knife. It might have been self-defense.”

  “A white?” Johnny said, his face impassive. “Murder.’* Johnny said a few more words to the men around him. They nodded and the group broke up, heading back upstream.

  “We’ll try to find him,” Johnny said. “Some of the men thought of places he might go to hide, and I’ve got an idea myself.”

  “You’re going to turn him over to the sheriff?”

  “It’s a white matter, but even the tribal cops would shoot him first and then bring him in. Yeah, we’ve got to find him.”

  Johnny and two other young men headed down the can-165

  yon on horseback in the deepening dusk while Bo and Barry took some meat and fried bread one of the women brought them and headed back up the trail to the top. Barry was surprised to find the sun still in the sky when they emerged from the canyon.

  “We’re not going to be much help up here,” he said as they threw their blankets and food in the back seat.

  “Well, we can move faster and see farther, at least as long as we can see,*’ Beaumont said. “We can locate the sheriff’s bunch, maybe, and see if they’ve found him yet.”

  But even that was no easy task, for the canyon was cut into many side canyons of varying depth and length, some of which it was impossible to get near in a car. They spent the evening tramping along the rim of the canyon, peering down into its deepening gloom for signs of activity. They saw Johnny and the other two Indians trotting along the streambed far below and then drove on down a mile or so and got out to look again.

  “This place is a lot bigger than I thought,” Barry said. They stood on the edge of a thousand-foot-deep chasm sometime later.

  “They used to think the Navajo had a big fortress up here,” Bo said as he shaded his eyes to look down the sheer rock. “But it was just the canyons themselves that scared people.”

  They drove another mile and looked down again, seeing only the scattered hogans and shelters of another settlement.

  “Maybe those people would know something,” Barry said.

  “If they did, they likely wouldn’t tell us,” Bo said. “We better let your friend Johnny take care of the asking.”

  At their next stop, with the sun resting on the horizon, Bo pointed down and to the right of the cliff they were standing on. “Right under us here is what they call Massacre Cave, I think, if my memory is good. It’s a couple hundred feet down, but there’s no path to get there from the top. I never saw anybody climb it from the bottom, but they say there’s a trail that goes to it. I’ve looked at it from the canyon floor, and it’s about seven hundred feet straight up.”

  “You think it’s possible for him to have got up there?” Barry was trying to visualize a cave seven hundred feet up a sheer cliff.

  “There’s so many mins and caves in these canyons,“Bo said, shaking his head. “He could be anywhere.”

  “Maybe we should go down there and check,” Barry said. “Isn’t there a trail down near here?”

  “Oh, yeah, I think there is one going to a bunch of hogans up ahead,” Bo said. “But we might better locate the sheriff before it gets really dark. You see there’s so many side canyons, too. There’s Many Cherry and Twin Trail, and Black Rock Canyon between here and the junction with de Chelly, and then there’s others: Tunnel Canyon and Cottonwood Canyon before you get onto the wash where it comes out above Chinle.”

  But they did not find the sheriff’s party by full dark, and they finally gave up and made camp on top among the junipers. The fire was more for its comforting blaze than any necessity of cooking. They had not brought coffee, and Barry missed that, but they had bread, meat, dried fruit and a bag of water.

  “I doubt that posse will be traveling at night,” Bo said, as he got his blanket out of the car.

  “Maybe we should get down in the canyon tomorrow morning and see if they’ve gone by us,” Barry said. He was extraordinarily tired and felt a discomfort inside him. The Beast stirred about near the surface of his mind, making it hard for him to think about anything.

  “We’re about across from Twin Trail,” Bo said. “The main canyon is nearly a mile wide here. There’s some hogans down there, I believe.” He rolled up in his blanket under the edge of the juniper branches.

  Barry made sure the fire was safe and burning low, and he spread his blanket on a soft patch of sand. The stars flared with their accustomed brilliance, and a waxing moon rode just above the eastern horizon. He tried not to think about this day, to put everything out of his mind, and for once he succeeded.

  The fire burned on for an hour or more as the two men breathed evenly in sleep. As the last embers were blowing in the faint night wind, a creature the size of a full-grown tiger slipped out of the blanket that had been around it and padded away into the dark.

  As I ease through the door of the hogan, I hear the women moaning in unison from the hut they use for their religious services. They are keening the death of Albert Chee, whom they believe is already with his fathers. Sarah would have been with them, but I exerted control and had her plead sickness. This night I feel it is nearly time. Certainly it must be soon, or 1 will have to seek another. My time is limited now, a new sensation. 1 have always ignored time, thought it was only humans who fought its passing. Now 1 know its necessity. I trot away from the camp, keeping to the rocks to avoid tracks, and soon 1 can break into a full run downstream. I ignore the perceptions around me of the night animals, the penned sheep, the slinking coyotes, one of whom is a failed Outsider. Him I give a wide berth as I run, not wanting to arouse his interest. He is what in a human society would be called insane, perhaps perverted, a perfect specimen out of the Navajo legend. Such a creature has missed his time and will never have a second chance, a terrible fate for one who has awakened and knows what is possible after The Leap has been made.

 

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