Rosebrough shook his head. “It took teams of good climbers years to find the way you can get from the bottom to the top. Even that’s no cinch. It involves doing a lot of exposed climbing, with a rope to save you if you slip. Then you have to climb down a declivity to reach the face where you can go up again. That’s the way everybody who’s ever got to the top of Ship Rock got there.
And as far as I know, that’s the way everybody always got down.”
“So there isn’t any ‘fast way down’?”
Rosebrough gave that some thought. “There has been some speculation of a shortcut. But it would involve a lot of rappelling, and I never heard of anyone actually trying it. I think it’s way too dangerous.” They were moving away from Ship Rock now, making the long slide down toward the Farmington Airport. Leaphorn was feeling better. He was thinking that whatever Breedlove had meant by the fast way down, he had certainly done something dangerous.
“I’m thinking about that rappel route,” Rosebrough said. “If he tried that by himself, that would help explain where they found the skeleton.” He was looking at Leaphorn quizzically. “You’re awfully quiet, Joe. Are you okay? You’re looking pale.”
“I’m feeling pale,” Leaphorn said, “but I’m quiet because I’m thinking about the other two people who made the climb with him that day. Didn’t they get all the way up? Or what?”
“Who were they?” Rosebrough asked. “I know most of the serious rock climbers in this part of the world.”
“We don’t know,” Leaphorn said. “All we have are the notes of an old mountain watcher. Sort of shorthand, too. He just jotted down nine slash eighteen slash eighty-five and said three men had parked at the jump-off site and were climbing the—”
“Wait a minute,” Rosebrough said. “You said nine eighteen eighty-five? That’s not the date Breedlove wrote. He put down nine thirty eighty-five.”
Leaphorn digested that. No thought of nausea now. “You’re sure?” he asked. “Breedlove dated his climb September thirty. Not September eighteen.”
“I’m dead certain,” Rosebrough said. “That’s what the photo is going to show. Was I confused or something?”
“No,” Leaphorn said. “I was the one who was confused.”
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“You sure you feel all right?”
“I feel fine,” Leaphorn said. Actually he was feeling embarrassed. He had been conned, and it had taken him eleven years to get his first solid inkling of how they had fooled him.
23
CHEE HAD DECIDED THE GREASE
in the frying pan was hot enough and was pulling the easy-open lid off the can of Vienna sausages when the headlight beam flashed across his window. He flicked off his house trailer’s overhead light—something he wouldn’t have considered doing a few days ago.
But his cracked ribs still ached, and the person who had caused that was still out there somewhere. Possibly in the car that was now rolling to a stop under the cottonwood outside.
Whoever had driven it got out and walked into the headlights where Chee could see him. It was Joe Leaphorn, the Legendary Lieutenant, again. Chee groaned, said, “Oh, shit!” and switched on the light.
Leaphorn entered hat in hand. “It’s getting cold,” he said. “The TV forecaster said there’s a snow warning out for the Four Corners.
Livestock warning. All that.”
“It’s just about time for that first bad one,” Chee said. “Can I take your hat?” Which got Leaphorn’s mind off the weather. “No. No,” he said, looking apologetic. He regretted the intrusion, the lateness of the hour, the interruption of Chee’s supper. He would only take a moment. He wanted Chee to see what they’d found in the ammunition box on top of Ship Rock. He extracted a sheaf of photographs from the big folder he’d been carrying and handed them to Chee.
Chee spread them on the table.
“Note the date of the signature,” Leaphorn said. “It’s the week after Breedlove disappeared from Canyon de Chelly.” Chee considered that. “Wow,” he said. And considered it again. He studied the photograph. “Is this it? No one else signed the book that day?”
“Only Breedlove,” Leaphorn said. “And I’m told that it’s traditional for everyone in the climbing party to sign if they get to the top.”
“Well, now,” Chee said. He tapped the inscription. “It looks like Latin. Do you know what it means?” Leaphorn told him the translation. “But what did he mean by it? Your guess is as good as mine.” He explained to Chee what Rosebrough had told him about the ‘fast way down’ remark—that if Hal had tried this dangerous rappelling route it might explain how his body came to be on the ledge where it was found.
They stood at the table, Chee staring at the photograph and Leaphorn watching Chee. The aroma of extremely hot grease forced itself into Leaphorn’s consciousness, along with the haze of blue smoke that accompanied it. He cleared his throat.
“Jim,” he said. “I think I interrupted your cooking.”
“Oh,” Chee said. He dropped the photograph, snatched the smoking pan off the propane burner, and deposited it outside on the doorstep. “I was going to scramble some eggs and mix in these sausages,” he said. “If you haven’t eaten I can dump in a few more.”
“Fine,” said Leaphorn, who had deposited his breakfast in the barf bag, had been suffering too much residual queasiness for lunch, and had been too busy since to stop for dinner. In his current condition, even the smell of burning grease aroused his hunger.
They replaced the photos with plates, retrieved the frying pan, replenished the incinerated grease with a chunk of margarine, put on the coffeepot, performed those other duties required to prepare dinner in a very restricted space, and dined. Leaphorn had always tried to avoid Vienna sausages even as emergency rations but now he found the mixture remarkably palatable. While he attacked his second helping, Chee picked up the crucial photograph and resumed his study.
“I hesitate to mention it,” Chee said, “but what do you think of the date?”
“You mean being a date when the keen eye of Hosteen Sam saw no one climbing Ship Rock?”
“Exactly,” Chee said.
“I’ve reached no precise conclusion,” Leaphorn said. “What do you think?”
“About the same,” Chee said. “And how about nobody at all signing the book twelve days earlier? What do you think about that?
I’m thinking that the three people who old man Sam saw climbing up there must not have made it to the top. Either that, or they were too modest to take credit for it. Or, if his ledger hadn’t told me how exactly precise Sam was, I’d think he got his dates wrong.” Leaphorn was studying him. “You think there’s no chance of that, then?”
“I’d say none. Zero. You should see the way he kept that ledger. That’s not the explanation. Forget it.” 68 of 102
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Leaphorn nodded. “Okay, I will.”
The entry signed by Breedlove was near the center of the page. Above it the register had been signed by four men, none with names familiar to Chee, and dated April 4, 1983. Below it, a three-climber party—two with Japanese names—had registered their conquest of the Rock with Wings on April 28, 1988.
“Skip back to September eighteenth,” Leaphorn said. “Let’s say that Hal was one of the three Hosteen Sam saw climbing. It sounds like the car they climbed out of was that silly British recreation vehicle he drove. And then let’s say they didn’t make it to the top because Hal screwed up. So Hal broods about it. He gets the call at Canyon de Chelly from one of his climbing buddies. He decides to go back and try again.”
“All right,” Chee said. “Then we’ll suppose the climbing buddy went with him, they tried the dangerous way down. This time the climbing buddy—and let’s call him George Shaw—well, George screws up and drops Hal down the cliff. He feels guilty and he figures Hal’s dead anyway, so slips away and tells no one.”