“What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“I’ll call Katie in the morning to bring my stuff. Otherwise, I’m going to phone room service and stay here and work until about an hour before the meeting.”
Chee handed him a business card with his cell phone number and jotted down his room number. “Call me if anything seems odd, threatening, out of the ordinary. Or just come to my room. I’d like the other key to your room, just in case. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Palmer handed him the key card. Chee walked out the side door to his unit to get his overnight bag. He heard the barking and saw the camper. If the girl at the desk hadn’t been so polite, he could have said no, he thought. But now he was committed, so he’d deal with the canine troublemaker next.
4
The barking originated in a vintage orange Volkswagen camper van parked sideways at the edge of the fenced hotel lot. The vehicle had California plates, a rusty dent behind the driver’s door, and a Save Wild America bumper sticker. Another read “Earth Day—Love Your Mother” and looked as though it might have come from the first Earth Day. Perhaps tourists, he thought, or protesters in Tuba for the meeting. He hadn’t expected out-of-staters.
He noticed light escaping through the drawn curtains. The high-pitched barking grew more ferocious as he walked toward the camper door. He knocked. “Officer Jim Chee, Navajo Police.”
A man’s voice called out. “Go away. Do you know what time it is?”
“There are some complaints about the dog barking.”
“What barking?” The dog continued to bark. “Stop with the harassment already. Find some real crime.” And then the man swore at him.
Chee had dealt with rude people for most of his career but never got used to it. He felt a flare of anger. One of the basic principles of the Navajo Way was to treat your fellow creatures with respect, and he knew the world would certainly move more smoothly if everyone followed that.
“Sir, do you have a room at the hotel?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you don’t.” Chee kept his voice level. “The hotel has a vacancy and you can bring the dog in. Otherwise, you need to keep your dog quiet and move the van. This lot is only for hotel guests.”
“He’ll stop barking once you leave. If you’re really a cop and not just a security goon, go find some bad guys. Like those developers who want to rape the Grand Canyon.”
Chee was tired. The November cold moved up from the asphalt parking lot through the soles of his boots, through his socks and into his skin.
“The motel will have your vehicle towed. You’d be smart to move it yourself.”
The man swore at him again through the closed door.
The dog kept barking. Chee trotted back into the lobby. “I talked to the dog’s owner, told him he could be towed. He’s difficult.”
“Thanks anyway.” The girl reached below the counter, opened a drawer, and took out some foil bags. “Here, have some extra coffee. You look like you might need it in the morning.”
Chee’s room, a copy of Palmer’s, sat on the other side of the hall with a window toward the parking lot. He put the room key cards and the coffee packs on the desk along with his wallet and car keys. He missed Bernie already. He sent her a text: Tuba 2 a.m. Wish you were here.
He adjusted the thermostat to warm the room, hung his shirts in the little closet, quickly brushed his teeth, and, finally, climbed between the smooth, fresh sheets of the king-sized bed. It seemed like he had just dozed off when a sound awakened him. He reached to the bedside table for his ringing phone. It was seven a.m.
“Hey, Jimmie Chee. What’s cookin’?”
“Not much. I’m in Tuba.” He’d met Albert Dashee, better known as Cowboy, on one of his first assignments. Dashee worked for the Hopi Tribal Police and had become a friend. “What’s up, brother?”
“I’m driving to Moenkopi today, just got a little bored and that made me think of you.”
“I got a call from the captain to come here late last night to help with the big mediation session after that excitement in Shiprock.”
“I heard about that. That’s why I have to work, too. The boss figured with you Navajos providing security, we ought to come and supervise. So we’ll be running into each other a lot this week.”
“Yeah. There’s a downside to everything.” He hid his surprise that Dashee knew about his assignment; some news travels fast in Indian Country.
Dashee chuckled. “Wanna meet for lunch?”
“Sounds good. You treating?”
“Sure.” Dashee didn’t hesitate or make a joke; Chee assumed his friend needed a favor.
“When and where?”
“Tuuvi Cafe as soon as the orientation ends. I figured I’d see you there, but I thought I’d call you, anyhow. Start your day off right.”
“What orientation?”
Dashee told him when and where. “Captain West set this up, but after what happened at the high school, the feds want in on it, too. I guess they think they can keep it at a two-ring circus instead of a full rodeo.”
No one had told him about the orientation, but that didn’t surprise Chee and he didn’t take it personally. He knew how things worked or didn’t work. And if he’d missed the session, someone would have filled him in. But now that Dashee had let him know, he figured he ought to show up.
“So what time does it start?”
Dashee told him.
“Is that Navajo time or Arizona time?”
“We call it Hopi time, but it’s all good now, dude, until March. Then we stay sane and you all get complicated with daylight savings. Where do you put all that extra daylight anyway?” Dashee laughed.
As he showered, Chee thought about humans and time. Spanning three states, the Navajo Nation, of which Tuba City was a major metropolis, joined most of the rest of the United States in the switch on and off daylight saving time. People living away from Navajoland in the rest of Arizona, including Dashee’s Hopi village, didn’t move their clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall. Because Navajo Tuba City and Hopi Moenkopi were neighbors, the hour time change from one side of the street to the other caused tourists considerable confusion.
He dressed and went outside to greet the day with sacred cornmeal and his morning prayer. He noticed the untowed camper van parked by the fence. The dog was quiet. Back in his room, Chee put some water in the little coffeepot, added grounds to the basket. While the coffee brewed he turned on the television, something he never did at home in the morning because there he had Bernie to talk to.
The Shiprock explosion made the morning news. The cameras showed the ruin of the bombed car and the flashing lights of cop cars. The FBI guy looked good on camera and sounded calm, professional, and serious.
He called Bernie.
“Sweetheart, turn on the TV. They’ve got Cordova on the news talking about what happened. He gave a shout-out to Navajo Police. That would be you and the rookie.”