Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 01] by jpg] The Blessing Way (v1) [html Read Free Book Online Page A

asked. "Maybe it was just somebody walking through there."
    McKee thought, for a long moment, that Old Woman Gray Rocks would ignore the question. He let it hang in the heavy silence. Behind the winter hogan, the dogs began to bark and McKee heard the sound of the pickup truck—Canfield coming back from Shoemaker's with the groceries.
    "The way I heard it," Old Woman Gray Rocks said, still slowly, "this witch had a wolf skin over his back and he was down where those rams were penned, killing them with a knife."
    Canfield arrived from Shoemaker's with $43 worth of groceries in the camper, a case of beer, and a letter from Ellen Leon, postmarked Page, Arizona. She planned to spend a day or two checking the trading posts around Mormon Ridge and the Kaibab Plateau in the northwest section of the Reservation. And then she would come to Chinle on Thursday and drive over to Shoemaker's trading post and find out where she could meet them. Canfield had left a note and a penciled map telling her they would be camped about five miles up the main branch of Many Ruins Canyon and showing her how to get there.
    "Works out good for everybody," Canfield said. "You've got your witchery business going on in the neighborhood, and if we have time, we can look around up in there and see if we can find that green van." He grinned. "Let's hope we don't find it. We'll get out my guitar and serenade her and spend bacchanal evenings under the Navajo moon."
    "I don't know if I've got any witchery business yet," McKee said. "I've got to find this Tsosie family and find out what their trouble is, if anything. According to the old lady, Charley usually has his summer hogan just a few miles south of where we'll be camping, so that should be easy. Then maybe the Tsosies can tell me where to find Afraid of His Horse. The old lady didn't want to talk about him. They don't like witch trouble in the family."
    "What are you going to do about Horseman?"
    McKee thought about it. "I think I ought to go on back to Chinle tomorrow and call Leaphorn about it," he said.
    "Your cop really thinks it wasn't a natural death?"
    "I don't think he knows," McKee said. "But he guessed right about Horseman coming back in here to hide."
    Canfield let the pickup idle along the hard-packed sand of the canyon floor, turning occasionally to side canyons to check his map and his memory of where cliff ruins he would inspect were located. The sun was low as they penetrated the upper canyon. Here the cliffs closed in, rising in sheer, almost smooth walls nearly four hundred feet to a narrow slit of sky above. Here in this slot of eroded stone darkness came early. Canfield had switched on his headlights before he found a likely camp—a hillock of rocky debris which had collected enough soil to support an expanse of grass and even a growth of young cottonwoods and willows.
    By the time they had Canfield's working tent pitched and supper cooked, the first stars were visible over the canyon walls. A nighthawk flashed past them, hunting. Up canyon a rasping hoot touched off a dull pattern of echoes.
    "Saw-whet owl," Canfield said. He grinned at McKee. "If Leaphorn was right, maybe that's Horseman's ghost enjoying the night out."
    They ate and then sat in the silent darkness, watching the light of the early moon light the top of the canyon walls. From some infinite distance came the faint sound of barking.
    "Take your pick," McKee said. "A coyote, some sheepherder's lost dog, or one of my witches turned into a wolf for the evening."
    Canfield took the turquoise frog from his pocket and rubbed it, chuckling.
    "I'll say it's a witch," he said, "because this keeps me safe from witches."
    Actually, McKee remembered, the turquoise shape wasn't a Navajo charm. It was a much older Anasazi fertility totem with nothing at all to do with witches.
    Of course it didn't really matter.

Chapter 8
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    McKee left the campsite before dawn, called Leaphorn's office from the Gulf station on