“What’s the difference between a photo tour and a regular tour where people take pictures?”
Paul laughed, a deep, cheerful sound that reminded Chee of the fun they’d had together as boys. “My tours are special, brother. Personal tours with personal attention. Small groups only. I’ll show them the right angle, the perfect perspective, unique sites. I’ll let them use my horses as models, too.”
“Hold on a minute. Let me talk to Bernie about it.”
Bernie, his beautiful Bernie, had been sitting on the deck with a book, waiting for him to get off the phone so they could drive out to her mama’s place before it got too hot. He remembered the title: Helping People with Head Injuries. She could use a break, he thought, and they both had time off coming. A few days away would be nice. He had been thinking about taking her on a little vacation. This trip would be easy, interesting, and practically free.
Bernie had never been to Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii, the Valley of Rocks, known on maps as Monument Valley. Chee had visited many times, helping Paul’s family with their livestock, working side by side with his cousin and his uncle, fixing the generator and refilling the water tank at the well at Goulding’s. And then shooting baskets on the packed-dirt basketball court until it grew too dark to see the rim. He remembered the pleasure of getting up each morning amid the breathtaking buttes and spires. Chee never tired of the place.
He had explained the invitation. “Paul lives in Mystery Valley. It’s part of Monument Valley, right next to it, but not included in the park. Bilagaanas have to be with a Navajo guide to see it because it’s not open to general tourists. It’s full of arches and windows, holes in the rock that are like eyes to the sky. Beautiful. Remote, too. He hauls water, doesn’t have electricity except for the gasoline generator. No cell phone service out there either.”
Bernie looked up from her book. “It sounds wonderful. Quiet. Relaxing. I’d love to see it.” Then her expression darkened. “But what about Mama? What if she gets sick or something?”
“Think positive. Mama’s fine, and Darleen lives with her. And it’s not like we are going to California or somewhere. It’s only a two-hour drive from Shiprock to Paul’s place.”
“OK. If we can get time off and Darleen agrees, let’s do it.”
Chee got back on the phone.
“Great,” Paul said. “The hogan should be all done by then.”
They stopped at the trading post at Teec Nos Pos. While Bernie pumped the gas, Chee went inside to get her a Coke, a treat to officially launch their vacation.
The place was busy as usual, a mixture of Navajos shopping for meat, vegetables, and maybe a sack of Blue Bird flour, and tourists checking out the weavings in the rug room or looking for jewelry or a little wooden horse or some other souvenir made by one of the locals to hang on a Christmas tree. A woman Chee knew was working the cash register.
“You should have been here yesterday for the flea market.” She rang up the Coke and gave him his change. “Everybody and his brother had something to sell. Where are you off to?”
“Monument Valley.”
The woman nodded. “I hear that hotel the tribe built is fancy. You staying there?”
“Not this time.”
“I think Rhonda is staying there. She’s making a movie.”
“Rhonda?”
“Rhonda! Can you believe it? Yeah. Here on the rez.”
He would have asked, “Who is Rhonda?” but there was a line of customers waiting patiently behind him. And, he thought, it didn’t matter anyway.
His phone vibrated just as he left the store. He pulled it out of his pocket, saw that it was Captain Largo, and took the call.
Chee knew the drive through the north-central section of the Navajo Nation always took Bernie’s breath away. She marveled at the purple hue of the Carrizo Mountains and the softer colors in the rounded hill beyond them. She asked him to stop at Baby Rocks and took photos of the formation, which resembled an artist’s clay rendition of a flock of totem poles. He pulled over again when they reached a pullout with a view of Comb Ridge, frozen waves of rock. They climbed out and Bernie took more pictures while he savored the beauty.
“You’re really quiet today,” he said. “Everything OK?”
“I keep thinking about that dirt, you know, the boxes in that car I stopped yesterday? I’m dying to know how he used that to hide drugs. Or to hide something else. I keep replaying the scene and wondering what I missed.”
“If that guy hadn’t offered you five hundred bucks, would you have been suspicious?”
“Sure, wouldn’t you have been? Why would somebody have boxes of dirt in the trunk? Why was he so nervous and sweaty?”
“That’s the thing about being a cop. You run into all kinds.”
“I know. I almost wish we could have put off our trip just so I could find out what that guy was up to. You know, see for myself how he hid the drugs.”
Chee took a breath. Now, he decided, was as good a time as any to tell her. “Speaking of work, Largo got a call from the guy in charge of the office in Kayenta. They opened a little substation at Monument Valley because of all the visitors this summer and a movie that’s being made there. The filming is taking longer than expected, and some of the officers on duty had a training scheduled. Largo asked me, as long as we were out this way, if I could fill in for them for a few days.”
Bernie looked at him, waiting for the rest. He shrugged. “How tough can it be, babysitting some Hollywood types?”
“But what about our vacation?”
“We still have four days. I don’t have to go to work until the end of the week. By then, you’ll probably be sick of me anyway.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Chee heard the irritation in her voice.
“He just called when we stopped for gas. You know, we can use the money.”
“I know.”
She turned from him and looked out the window. “I guess that goes with the territory when you’re married to a cop. We’ll just make the most of the time we’ve got.”
“Good plan,” he said. “We’ll call this vacation lite.” They passed the junction for Bluff, Utah, and headed on to Kayenta, Arizona, the last town before Monument Valley.
“You hungry?” Chee asked. “There’s a hamburger place here that has a Code Talker museum. It’s pretty cool.”
“I’m OK. I can’t wait to see the monuments. Let’s stop there on our way home.”
Paul greeted them with enthusiasm and a snack of sweet watermelon. Then he offered them a tour that started with a vehicle parked under a ramada.