Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 14] by Hunting Badger (v1) [html]

and Bailey again,” Largo
said. “Three sets of state police involved, three sheriff’s
departments, probably four, BIA cops, Ute cops, cops over from the
Jicarilla Reservation, Immigration and Naturalization is sending up its
Border Patrol trackers, federals galore, even Park Service security
people. I’m putting you in Montezuma Creek. We have four people up
there working with the FBI trying to locate some tracks. You’re
reporting to Special Agent"—Largo consulted a notepad on his
desk—"named Damon Cabot. I don’t know him.”
    “I’ve heard of him,” Chee said. “You remember that old poem: 'The
Lodges spoke only to Cabots, and the Cabots spoke only to God.'”
    “No, I don’t,” Largo said, "and I hope you’re not going up there
with that smart-aleck attitude.”
    Chee looked at his watch. “You want me up there today?”
    “I wanted you up there yesterday,” Largo said. “Be careful and keep
in touch.”
    “OK,” Chee said, and headed for the door.
    “And Chee,” Largo said. “Use your head for once. Don’t get crosswise
with the Bureau again. Have some manners. Give ’em some respect.”
    Chee nodded.
    Largo was grinning at him. “If you have trouble giving ‘em respect,
just remember they get paid about three times more than you do.”
    “Yeah,” Chee said. "That’ll help.”
    The gathering place for the manhunt was the conference room of the
Montezuma Creek Chapter House. The parking lot was crowded with a
varied assortment of police cars, most easily identified by
jurisdiction by Chee. He spotted Cowboy Dashee’s Apache County patrol
unit resting off the gravel but under the shade of the lot’s solitary
tree, a couple NTP units, two of the shiny black Ford sedans the FBI
used and an equally shiny green Land Rover. That, he concluded, would
be far too expensive to be owned by any of the nonfederal agencies
here. Probably it had been seized in a drug raid and driven down from
Salt Lake or Denver by whichever Special Agent had been put in charge
of this affair.
    The conference room itself was as crowded as the lot and almost as
hot. Someone had concluded that the feeble window-mounted
air-conditioning unit wasn’t handling the body heat produced by the
crowd and had opened windows. A dozen or so men, some in camouflage
outfits, some in uniforms, some in suits, were crowded around a table.
Chee saw Dashee perched on a folding chair beside one of them, reading
something.
    Chee walked over. “Hey there, fella,” he said to Dashee. “Are you
the Special Agent in Charge?”
    “Keep your voice down,” Cowboy said. “I don’t want the feds to know
I associate with you. Not until this business is over, anyway. However,
the man you want to report to is that tall guy with the black baseball
cap with FBI on it. That doesn’t stand for Full Blood Indian.”
    “He looks sort of young. Do you think he understands this country?”
    Dashee laughed. “Well, he asked me about the trout fishing in the
San Juan. He said somebody told him it was great. I think he’s based in
St Louis.”
    “You tell him fishing was good?”
    “Come on, Chee. Ease up. I just told him it was great about two
hundred miles upstream before all the muddy irrigation water gets
dumped in. He seems like a good guy. Said he was new out here. Didn’t
know whether to call a gully an arroyo, or a wash, or a cut, or a
creek. His name’s Damon Cabot.”
    Up close Damon Cabot looked even younger than he had from the back
of the room. He shook hands with Chee, explained that other detachments
were handling other aspects of the hunt and that this group was trying
to collect all possible evidence from the area where the escape vehicle
had been abandoned.
    “Here’s where we have you,” he said, pointing to the map spread on
the table and indicating a red X near the center of Casa Del Eco Mesa.
“That’s our Truck Base. Where the perps abandoned the pickup truck. Are
you familiar with that area?”
    “Just generally,”