“How long will this take?” Palmer took a drag on his cigarette, feeling the warm smoke in his throat, in his lungs. Exhaling slowly, savoring the sensation.
“As long as you want, once we get there. We don’t have very far to go.”
The old man cruised like a local, avoiding the potholes as he drove through town and then east on gravel roads. Palmer finished his cigarette and added it to the ashtray, a convenience he didn’t find in new vehicles. The one in Duke’s truck was half full of filters.
Palmer had been standing outside the hotel, smoking and thinking about poor dead Rick and wondering why Robert had grown so angry. He heard the truck approach, heading toward the entrance overhang. But it passsed the motel’s front door and continued straight ahead, to where he stood. He’d felt a surge of adrenaline.
The driver lowered the window. “Are you Mr. Palmer, the leader for the meeting about the Grand Canyon?” The voice was the man on the phone.
“I’m the mediator, if that’s what you mean.”
“Hello, sir. I’m Denny Duke. I’m a councilor with the San Juan Paiute. You heard of us?”
“Yes, of course. I recognized your voice on the phone. I got your letters and your voice mails.”
“I got your answers. I didn’t like them much, and that’s the truth. I need to show you something.”
Palmer told Duke that he was totally occupied with the mediation, asked him to make an appointment.
Duke interrupted. “No, sir, no. I need you to see something tonight. It’s connected with the big meeting.” His distinctive voice had a low, smooth, rhythmic cadence.
“Tell you what. Go get what you want to show me and bring it into the motel. It’s warm in there. We can sit in the lobby.”
“No, sir, that won’t work. You’ll be glad you came with me, but we need to go now.”
“I can’t do it. I’m out here enjoying a smoke and then I’ve got to get back to work and later try to catch some sleep. Like I told you on the phone.” He kept the nervousness out of this voice. Duke was too aggressive, too persistent.
“Your job as mediator is to be fair, right?”
“Yes, correct.”
“Well, you can’t be fair until you see this. I promise you, you won’t regret it. I’ll haul you right back here—I give you my word on that. I’m an old Indian with a bad knee and a beat-up truck. Why are you worried?”
Palmer faked a smile. “Oh, maybe because someone killed my nephew and blew up my car and because whoever did it is still out there.”
“I’m sure sorry about that, but it wasn’t me. Come on now. We could have already been there in the time you spent jawing. It’s warmer in the cab here than out there.” The old man grinned, showing what remained of his front teeth.
“Just let me finish my smoke.”
“You can smoke in the truck. Mother does it all the time.”
The decision was made to exclude Duke’s band of Paiutes from a seat at the table for several reasons, the most obvious of which was the band’s small population—fewer than five hundred tribal members. The mediator had invited them to submit their views in writing and to sit in the audience. He hadn’t noticed Duke in the crowd today, but he could have overlooked him with everything else going on.
Palmer said, “You know, a Navajo cop got assigned to be my bodyguard. He’ll give me grief if I don’t ask him to ride along.”
“Nope. This has to be just between us. Come on, brother. You won’t regret it.”
Chee got on his nerves and this old man seemed harmless. Interesting, even. In the research he’d done to prepare himself for the mediation, Palmer had learned a bit about the San Juan Paiutes. He’d found nothing about a cultural inclination toward kidnapping or murder. So he walked to the passenger side, pulled the heavy door open, and climbed in.
He noticed the rifle on the rack behind him. Even though almost every pickup in Indian Country had a weapon on a rack, he felt his stomach tighten.
Duke cruised through Tuba City and out past the town’s lights and pavement without conversation.
Palmer knew that this branch of Paiutes had a 5,400-acre reservation, an island inside the boundaries of Navajo Nation. The name of the band came from the San Juan River, which bordered their territory and which they, like the Diné, held sacred. The band had a distinct language, although some tribal members also spoke Navajo, Hopi, and English. They were known for their baskets; many of the wedding baskets used in the traditional Diné marriage ceremony were created by San Juan Paiutes.
Palmer glanced out the truck’s windows into the black night. “Are we going to your house?”
“No, sir, we’re driving to my mother’s place. She’s the one who can tell the story and the one who keeps it safe.”
“How much farther?”
“We’re almost there.”
The truck turned onto a rutted road and bounced over a cattle guard. The road became a track through the sandy soil. Palmer saw the beam from the headlights reflect off the dried vegetation between the tracks and heard the plants scratch the truck’s undercarriage. He looked through the windshield into the velvet evening, no human-made light in sight. That reminded him of the flashlight on his cell phone and that he should have at least called Chee.
He patted his jacket pocket for his phone, then checked his shirt and pants. No luck. He felt around the truck seat.
“Whatcha doing?”
“I think my phone must have fallen out of my pocket.”
“I’ll help you hunt it up when we stop. Those things don’t do nothin’ out here in the sticks anyhow unless you’re lucky. The radio in here used to work. I don’t know what’s gone wrong with it now.” Duke banged on the radio with the palm of his hand and turned the round knob. Palmer heard a click but nothing else. “Getting old like the rest of us.”
Duke slowed for a pair of bony horses caught in the beam of his headlights as they meandered across the road. Palmer stared out the windshield beyond them into unbroken velvet night.
“Do the people who live out here have electricity?”
“Not a bit, except a few who got generators. Mother gets by with her heating stove, kerosene lamps, and candles. She has water now, so I don’t have to lug it out for her no more. She usually goes beddie-bye by now, but she said she’d stay up till we got there.” They stopped in front of a house, and the truck lights illuminated gray cinder block. Palmer noticed a butterscotch glow seeping through a gap in the curtains.