Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 17] by Skeleton Man (v4) [html] Page A

glad for you. Glad for both of you. She’s a prize. It took you way too long to realize it.”
    “It wasn’t that I didn’t realize it. It was just—Just—Well, I don’t know how to explain it.”
    “How about telling me it’s none of my business. Or saying twice burned makes you triple careful. Anyway, congratulations. And tell Bernie everybody is happy for both of you.”
    “Well, thanks, Lieutenant. She’s a great lady.”
    “You’re going hunting, then? You think there’s any hope of finding the diamond man? After all these years?”
    “Not much, I guess. But what else can you do? Dashee and I talked about it, agreed it seemed hopeless, but if he’s heard what you’ve just told me, I’m dead certain he’s going to go hunting, and just as certain he’ll want me to help—even though he probably won’t ask me.”
    “I see your point,” Leaphorn said. “Shorty told me a couple of other things that might be helpful.” He told Chee what Reno had said about meeting his diamond man at the mouth of a cave up one of those narrow little slots that drain runoff water down the cliffs into the Colorado River, about the diamond being in a snuff can, and the case from which the old man took it, containing several such cans.
    “That’s odd,” Chee said.
    “I thought so, too. But this old fellow had taken a smaller diamond out of a different snuff can. So maybe they’re his storage units. And the can he gave Reno was in a leather pouch. Sort of like a medicine pouch.”
    “He was an Indian? What kind?”
    “Shorty said Reno didn’t know. But he didn’t speak much English. And gave some hand signals saying the diamonds came out of an airplane crash.”
    “The pouch. Was that like one of ours?”
    “About the same. But it had a sort of Anasazi-looking symbol stitched into it. Big figure with a tiny head, very broad upper torso, tiny stick legs.”
    “Any ideas about that?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe a clan totem, or a symbol of one of his tribe’s spirits.”
    “Didn’t look like any of the tribal figures you’d recognize, then?”
    “No, but I’ve never had much contact with any of those tribes that far down the Colorado.” Leaphorn chuckled. “I sort of neglected to give the pouch back to Shorty when I returned his diamond. Thought I’d show it to Louisa when she gets back. She’s down in the canyon now, collecting her oral histories from the Havasupais.”
    “Well, thanks again,” Chee said. “I guess I’ll have to actually find that guy and ask him about it. And if something comes up and you need to find me, you have my cell phone number.”
    “Ah. Yeah. I think I wrote it down.”
    That concluded the conversation and left Chee to decide what to do about it. He’d call Dashee, of course. Discuss it with him. Find out what he wanted to do. But first he had to call Bernie.
    He dialed her number. Thinking what he could have told Leaphorn if he wanted to confess the truth. He could have said he hadn’t told Bernie he loved her a long time ago because he was afraid. Cowardice prevented it. Ithurt when he learned that Mary Landon didn’t want him. She wanted the dairy farmer she could make out of him. Lonely again after that. It hurt even more when he finally understood that he was just the token Navajo to Janet, someone to be taken back to Washington and civilized. Even lonelier than before. And when he found Bernie, right under his nose, he knew here was his chance. The really right one. He loved everything about her. But he was too damned scared to make the move. What if she rejected him? Mary and Janet, they’d found him someone they could mold into what they wanted. But he had found Bernie. And if she turned him down, he’d never find anyone like her. He’d never have a wife. He’d always be lonely, all the rest of his life.
    He listened to Bernie’s number ring nine times before he decided she wasn’t home. And then he called Dashee. Told him the good news first, and then the