Read The Wailing Wind - Leaphorn & Chee 17 for Free Online

now, I think you should let the other policemen find that place."
    Bernie nodded. But she could tell from his expression that he didn't interpret that gesture as consent. She sat and watched him.
    And Hostiin Yellow watched her. As hunter for the white men, his Girl Who Laughs had lost her laughter. Why must she care who had done this crime? If a belagaana did it, let the belagaana punish him if they must. If it was a Navajo—one who still lived by Changing Woman's laws—then he would come to be cured of the dark wind that had caused him to kill. But no good to tell this young woman all this. She knew it. And Girl Who Laughs would live her life her own way. That, too, was Navajo. He was proud of that, too. And of her.
    She was glancing away from him now, at something outside the window. Her face reminded him of the old photograph in the museum at Window Rock—the women who had endured their captivity at Bosque Redondo. The narrow, straight nose, the high cheekbones, the strong chin. None of the roundness here that the gene pool of the Zuñis, Hopis, and Jemez had contributed to the Dineh. Beauty, yes. Dignity, too. But nothing soft about Girl Who Laughs.
    Hostiin Yellow sighed.
    "Girl Who Laughs, you have always been stubborn. But I want you to listen to me now," he said. "The belagaana have always killed for gold. You already know that. You have seen it. But have you thought about how some people kill for religion?"
    Bernie considered that, looking for a connection and seeing none. Hostiin Yellow was studying her.
    "Are you hearing what I say?"
    Bernie nodded again. "Yes," she said. But she really wasn't. "You mean like the Israelis and the Palestinians? And the people in the Balkans, and…"
    Hostiin Yellow's expression told her he was disappointed.
    "Like people in Ganado or Shiprock or Burnt Water or Albuquerque or
Alabama
or anywhere," he said. "When the wind inside turns dark and tells them it must be done."
    Bernie tried for an expression that would suggest she understood. It didn't seem to work.
    "You have seen what the coal mining has done to our Earth Mother on Black Mesa. And other places. Have you seen what these modern placer mines do? Great jets of water washing away everything. The beauty is gone. Our sisters the plants, our brothers the animals, they're all dead or washed away. Only the ugly mud is left."
    "I saw a documentary about that high water-pressure placer mining. On public television. It made me sad. And then it made me angry," Bernie said.
    "Think and consider," Hostiin Yellow said. "If it makes you angry, it might make some people angry enough to kill. Think about it. What if those are the people you are looking for? What do they do if you find them?"
     
    Chapter Five
     
    Leaphorn stopped his pickup beside a patrol car bearing the decal of the Apache County Sheriff's Department, which told him the scene of the Doherty homicide was officially decided to be in
Arizona
and not in San Juan County ,
New Mexico
, a few feet to the east. The car was empty. Fifty feet beyond it, fenced off behind a yellow crime scene tape, was Doherty's blue king-cab truck with a burly fellow in a deputy uniform sitting on its tailgate looking at Leaphorn. Who did he know in the
Apache
County
department? The sheriff, of course, an old-timer, and the undersheriff, but neither of those would be out here. Once Leaphorn had known all the deputies, but deputies come and go, changing jobs, getting married, moving away. Now he knew fewer than half of them. But he could see he knew this one, who was walking toward him. It was Albert Dashee, a Hopi Indian better know as Cowboy. And he was grinning at Leaphorn.
    "Lieutenant," Deputy Dashee said. "What brings you up here to the scene of our crime? I hope you're going to tell me that New Mexico admitted the Arizona border is actually over there"—Dashee pointed to the west side of the arroyo—"and San Juan County has to do the babysitting for the Federals instead of