Read Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 04] for Free Online

something came of it for us. The Council wanted the peyote church stopped. So we was trying to arrest anyone with peyote. But word got around about the preacher saving those lives, and the congregation kept growing."
    "And you kept arresting them?"
    "Trying to," Becenti said. "They kept moving the services around. First one place and then another. Sort of went underground." Becenti laughed again. "Got real secret. The leaders took to wearing mole amulets and they called themselves the People of Darkness." Becenti used the same Navajo word that Mrs. Vines had remembered
    "The peyote chief was a Navajo named Dillon Charley?"
    "That's right," Becenti said. "He was the peyote chief. He was the one who had the vision."
    "Did B. J. Vines have anything to do with that oil well?"
    "No," Becenti said. "He didn't come into this country until after all that happened." Becenti slammed his fist into his palm. "By God, though," he said, "Vines and Charley got connected later on. Charley worked for him. After that explosion Sena hated Charley and pretty soon Sena was hating Vines, too." He glanced at Chee. "How much you know about Vines?"
    "Just what I've heard," Chee said. "Came in here a poor boy at the very beginning of the uranium discoveries. Made the big uranium find on Section 17 and sold his leases to Anaconda for ten million dollars and a percentage royalty on the ore, and now he gets a little richer every time they drive an ore truck out of the Red Deuce Mine. Got more money than the U.S. government, big-game hunter, flies an airplane, so forth."
    "That's about it," Becenti said. "Except early on he and Sena had their troubles. Sena was sheriff by then, and Vines ran some Anglo against him and spent a lot of money and be damned if he didn't beat Sena. And Sena came back two years later and beat the Anglo. Sena's been sheriff of Valencia ever since, and he never did forgive Vines."
    "How did Charley get involved with Vines?" Chee asked.
    "Politics. He started working with Vines against Sena—getting out the Navajo vote, and the Lagunas and Acomas. On Vines' payroll, probably. Later on he worked out there at Vines' ranch. Died years ago."
    "What happened to the People of Darkness?"
    "Haven't heard of them for years," Becenti said. "But the church is still operating. You remember the courts ruled that peyote was a sacrament and they had a right to dope themselves up with it. Charley's son—I think his name was Emerson—he was the preacher after Dillon died. And Emerson's boy, he's a peyote chief since Emerson's sick."
    "Tomas Charley?"
    Becenti nodded. "He's a crazy little son of a bitch," Becenti said. "All them Charleys was crazy and this youngest one is the worst. His mother's a Laguna. From what I hear, he's into one of the Laguna kiva societies, and he's the peyote chief in the Native American Church around here, and he does some curing for the People on top of it all."
    "How'd that happen?" Chee asked.
    "One of the boy's paternal uncles is a
yataalii
," Becenti said. "Pretty good old fellow. He taught Tomas the Blessing Way and the kid does it now and then. But most people would rather get someone else."
    "Why do you say he's crazy?"
    Becenti laughed and shrugged. "Chewed too goddamn many peyote buttons," he said. "Got his brains curdled. Sees visions. Thinks he's talking to God. Silly little bastard." Becenti paused, searching for an illustration. "He come in the office last year and said Jesus had told him there was going to be a terrible drought and we should warn everybody to stock up on food. And then this fall he was in telling us that some witch was making his daddy sick. His daddy, that's Emerson Charley."
    "Well, it's been dry as hell," Chee said, "and his daddy is dying."
    "It's always dry," Becenti said. "And his daddy's got cancer. That's what I heard. I didn't know he was dying." Becenti thought about it. "Anyway, he didn't get witched. I think cancer runs in that family, like craziness. I think that's what the