Threepersons Hunt by Brian Garfield Page A

him and made his way out of the house, feeling no closer to the fugitive Joe than he’d felt twelve hours ago.

3.
    Driving to the mission he passed the Agency cop Pete Porvo. Porvo’s prowl car was headed the opposite way and he didn’t wave when Watchman passed him; there was a nod but not a smile of greeting.
    The mission was right on the road below Cedar Creek. Watchman braked to avoid hitting a pariah dog on the oil-smudged road. He turned around and parked facing Whiteriver and when he got out two women were watching him: an Apache, her baby riding on a cradleboard on her back, and a big Anglo woman in olive corduroy trousers too large for her buttocks.
    â€œMrs. LaSalle?”
    â€œYes?…”
    â€œMy name’s Watchman. I wonder if the pastor’s around.”
    â€œHe just went to tape up the garden hose. You’ll find him in the workshop.” She shaded her eyes and pointed the way.
    It was summer vacation and there were no children around the mission school. It was a little greener than the ones up on the Navajo Reservation but the mock-adobe architecture, the severity of it, was enough of a reminder to put the taste of brass on Watchman’s tongue. These were the schools where Indian kids were flogged for acting like Indians instead of whites. The missionaries were maybe a little less weak and venal and corrupt than their predecessors but they still believed you had to drill private notions of greed into Indians before they could become Christians and be saved.
    George LaSalle was binding fricton tape around the hose nozzle like a tourniquet. Watchman started talking and then listened, and found LaSalle to be a vigorous old zealot filled with a lot of prejudicial nonsense from the Rousseau lexicon of antiquated idealism: “I understand my Inyans, you see.”
    LaSalle evidently had been born unawares and his many years’ experience among the simple savages hadn’t taught him anything. He was the sort of white man who indulged in self-flagellating atonement for the sins of his ancestors against Indians but his atonement took the form of insensitive charities and terrible advice. The key to the behavior of men like LaSalle was their conviction that the tribes were their personal wards.
    â€œI tried to set him on the straight and narrow, God knows. But that boy’s a pipperoo, I swan. A jim-dandy horseman, by the way—I kept telling him, if he only applied himself he’d be a crackerjack rodeo performer.”
    LaSalle’s eyes flicked at Watchman like a lizard’s tongue. The gleaming unhealthy skin was stretched over his bones almost to the point of splitting; he had a sepulchral face and wispy tufts of white hair. He waved the hose around as though he were a snake charmer.
    â€œHe was a stubborn boy, you know; I imagine he’s still a stubborn boy. I use the word ‘boy’ advisedly—he never allowed himself to grow up.”
    â€œNot even after he became a husband and father?”
    â€œWell to be sure I never saw him much after his baby was born, but all you need to do is take a look at the evidence. That was a pretty fast crowd they ran with up at Rand’s place.”
    â€œWhat crowd was that?”
    â€œWell I shouldn’t be telling tales out of school, should I, but I must say it was I who advised him against taking the job up there. After all, he had a perfectly good position at the sawmill right here in Whiteriver, and he did have a degree of seniority there. I think she turned his head, though. One word from her and he was off wherever she pointed him. I realize it’s old-fashioned nowadays to speak of women leading men astray, but I swan she was a juicy little thing, she turned a great many heads, you know.”
    â€œI’d started to get the impression she was a steadying influence on him.”
    â€œHardly, I’d say. She knew that crowd quite well, you know—the Rand bunch, that is. Not