“Boy, when you understand the big, you understand the little. First understand the big.”
And that would mean, in this case, that if Chee learned to understand all men (the big), he could understand white men (the little). His uncle would add that if a Navajo could find harmony with a deer, he could find equal harmony with a white man. Chee grimaced at the windshield. And then his uncle, who never failed to belabor a point, would add some wisdom about deer and men. He would say that the deer is much like the Navajo in fundamental ways. It loves its offspring and its mate, food, water, and its rest. And it hates cold, hunger, pain, and death. But the deer is also different. Its life is short. It builds no hogans. The Navajo is more like a white man than like a deer.
That’s about what his uncle would say, Chee thought sourly. But his uncle had no dealings with the whites when he could avoid them. And how would his uncle explain the thinking of a white man who filled his home with mementos of his achievements but kept his greatest honors hidden away in a keepsake box? The medals Tomas Charley had described were a Bronze Star and a Silver Star, which – as the military encyclopedia in the university library had informed him – are awarded for deeds of courage in combat; and the Purple Heart, awarded to those wounded in action. You would expect to find them framed in places of prominence on Vines’ wall, along with his other trophies. Why did he hide them away with a package of old boyhood photographs and a double handful of rock fragments? A Navajo might either advertise his exploits or modestly conceal them. Why would anyone hide some and advertise others?
The sky was darker now and the wind blew from the northwest. It gusted around the pickup, kicking up a flurry of sand and tumbleweeds.
“That has to be our butte,” Chee said. He pointed through the right side of the windshield. “It’s the only one within nine miles of the trading post. And it’s in the right direction.”
The track emerged on a great sheet of barren granite and skirted an island of overlaid sandstone. The island was capped by a slab of white limestone, which left a wide overhang where the softer rock had worn away. It suggested to Chee a table where giants dined. Suddenly, just beyond this landmark, he took his foot from the gas pedal and let the truck roll to a stop.
“What?” Mary asked.
Chee looked at her. “Boy,” he said. “Am I stupid.” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Two sets of keepsakes, he was thinking. One on the walls. One hidden in the safe. What was the difference between them? The difference was in time.
Mary was staring at him. “Come on,” she said. “Cut it out. Let me in on it.”
“I’m still getting it sorted out,” Chee said. “But what it boils down to is why a man who’s very much into keeping mementos and showing them off would hide the best of them in his wall safe.”
“Like those medals,” Mary said.
“Like those and his high school football team picture, and a couple of athletic awards.”
“And black rocks,” Mary said.
“Let’s get to those later. Stick to the easy stuff now.”
“Easy if you’ve thought of the answer,” Mary said. “Quit showing off, damn it. What have you thought of?”
“The only difference I can see is the ones in the safe were all from Vines’ early life. Boyhood and young man in the military. The stuff on the wall is after he struck it rich.”
Mary had her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her expression said she was looking for significance in this. “Before the oil well explosion and after the explosion. Is that it? And how about the rocks?”
“We better get moving,” Chee said. “It’s going to get dark.” He put the pickup in gear.
“In other words, you don’t know about the rocks.”
“Somehow they had to be important. A memento of something important,” Chee said. “And from his early life.”
“I’ll buy that,” Mary said. Moments ticked away as the pickup jolted over the rocky surface. “Hey,” Mary said. “I know what. The rocks are from when he found the uranium deposit. They’re his first ore samples. Don’t you think?”
“That would fit,” Chee said. “Sure. Why didn’t you think of that earlier?”
“You didn’t ask me,” Mary said. “All you had to do was ask.”
“Okay, then. Explain why he keeps those medals in the safe.”
“Maybe he’s keeping them for somebody else,” Mary said.
The wind rocked the pickup again, buffeting it with a barrage of driven sand. Chee down-shifted to pull the truck up a steep incline.
“Mary,” he said, “you’re a genius.” He switched on the transmitter and raised the dispatcher at Crownpoint. His instructions were specific. Call Martin at the FBI. Tell him to have the Veterans Administration make a high-priority emergency check on the military record of Benjamin J. Vines. Was he a first lieutenant in the 10 1st Airborne Division? Had he won the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart? What kind of discharge? Any criminal record in the service?
The dispatcher read the instructions back. “Anything else?”
“Tell Martin I’ll explain it to him when I see him tonight. Tell him I’ll be late. And… wait a minute.” Chee fished out his notebook. “Give him these names, too.” He read off the names of those killed in the oil well explosion. At the name of Carl Lebeck, he paused. Lebeck the geologist. Lebeck the well-logger. For a geologist, black rocks might be a memento. “Put the name of Lebeck first,” Chee said. “Tell Martin that if Vines didn’t win those decorations, to have the VA go down that list of names and see if Lebeck or any of the others won them.”
“Got it,” the dispatcher said. “You still at Bisti?”
“Northwest of the burned-out trading post,” Chee said. “We’ll be out here until after dark, the way it looks.”
“Better watch the weather,” the dispatcher said. “It’s snowing some over on the west side. Inch on the ground at Ganado. Not supposed to amount to much, but you know how that is.”
“We’ll watch it,” Chee said. He flicked the radio switch and put the pickup back into gear.
“What are you thinking?” Mary asked.
Chee frowned at the windshield. “Mostly, I’m just taking a shot in the dark.”
“But just mostly,” Mary said. “Have you figured a way that Vines and the oil well connect?”
“They must,” Chee said. “They have to connect. If not Vines, then Gordo Sena. One or the other has to connect.”
Mary laughed. “Sure,” she said. “Now all you have to do is figure out how.”
“I think I have,” Chee said. “At least part of it.”
The track angled to the right and up the slope of dark-blue shale marbled with reddish impurities. Above it, the top of the butte loomed, now no more than a thousand yards away. Chee shifted down. Mary was watching him impatiently.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
“Okay,” Chee said. “First we agree there has to be a reason. White man or Navajo, you do things for a reason. With a Navajo, something this bad – blowing up people wholesale – would have to be witch business. Irrational. Evil for the sake of evil. No other motive would make sense. For the white man, I think it would be greed.” He glanced at her. “All right so far?”
Mary looked puzzled. “I guess so,” she said.
“If we’re dealing with witchcraft, what’s happened since doesn’t connect. Maybe a Navajo would want to kill the Charleys if he knew they were witches who’d done him harm. That’s happened. But he would do it in the heat of rage, not years later. So let’s set that aside.”