Mrs. Darkwater’s appraisal matched her own. No basketball fan who had driven to the Shiprock would miss the game.
After Mrs. Darkwater shared a few more opinions, she handed the phone to Mama.
Her mother sounded strong and happy. “That lady who wants to weave, well, she’s doing pretty good. She makes mistakes, but she knows how to laugh at herself.”
“I’m glad.” She wished she had time to work with Mama. She knew how to weave, beginner-style, but Mama had more to teach her.
“Daughter, you sound sad. Are you still thinking about that bomb and the one who died?”
“Yes, but the Lieutenant is helping me figure things out. I’m in Tuba City with my husband and I’m going for a hike when we finish talking.”
“Is it snowing there?” Then Mama said, “Hold on.”
Bernie heard Mrs. Darkwater’s voice in the background but couldn’t pick out the words.
Then Mama spoke again. “We’re leaving. You be careful.”
Bernie went back to the hotel room, noticing that the sun was out and the morning light shone clear and sharp. She saw her laptop, still in its case, on the desk and checked her e-mail for a note from the Lieutenant, a follow-up from Cordova, or something from the office. Nothing.
It was the FBI’s case, wasn’t it?
She loaded her backpack with water and a jacket and made sure she had something to snack on. She had the cornmeal she brought for a prayer at the confluence of the two rivers if she managed to hike that far. She put the holster with her gun on her hip.
When she reached for her phone, she noticed that she’d missed a call from Lona. Swallowing her hesitation, she punched in the number. After five rings, a mechanical voice came on and Bernie left a message. “Sorry I didn’t catch you. I will be away from the phone most of the day, but I’ll try you again later.”
Then she climbed into her well-used Toyota and headed south toward Cameron.
The drive worked its magic. The morning sun brought the landscape to life—iron reds, subtle grays, warm browns. She passed the country she’d seen with Palmer, the dinosaur walkway, and rolled across the bridge over the Little Colorado River, the place where, after miles of meandering, the river begins to make its rock-rimmed descent to the canyon’s ancient floor. She cruised by the Cameron Trading Post oasis and took the traffic circle onto Highway 64, Desert View Drive, the route into the park.
There were two main ways to approach the Grand Canyon by vehicle. The southern route went through the village of Tusayan. With a collection of motels, restaurants, gas stations, and various tourist-focused businesses, Tusayan accommodated hundreds of thousands of visitors who came to enjoy the South Rim’s attraction each year. Beyond the settlement lay forest and, after a few miles, the more popular entrance to one of the nation’s most popular parks.
She preferred the eastern route through the Navajo Nation, arid and open, with miles of views unblocked by trees. As directed by Dashee’s map, she stopped at the turnoff for the Little Colorado River Tribal Park. The viewpoint area sat far above the sacred confluence of the two rivers. She saw some open-air booths, similar to the ones at the dinosaur tracks. She looked at the map again before putting it back in her pack. It showed the trail but, she realized, not where it started in relation to the parking lot. She could probably poke around and find it, but better to ask.
The first vendor she talked to shrugged her off politely. The next person she asked, a woman seller of cedar-bead necklaces with a toddler-sized daughter, offered to show her the trailhead. She told a young man in the booth to watch the child.
The women walked together, past a sign that warned of snakes, scorpions, and other possible threats to hikers. The critters slept now because of the weather. They crossed flat sandstone the color of coffee with milk. As they approached the canyon’s edge, Bernie remembered hiking down another trail in the canyon, and how she had imagined plunging to her death with a false step. She hoped Dashee’s trail wouldn’t be as treacherous.
After about ten minutes, the woman stopped and indicated with a swoop of her chin a place where the path angled off the plateau, heading downward. She looked at the sky. “You’ll be fine. It gets slick down there when the rain or snow comes, but it’s nice today.”
“How long would it take to me get to the river?”
“Depends on how fast you go. My brother back there, he makes it to the Little C in three hours.”
“He’s the one with your girl?”
The woman nodded once. Bernie figured, based on age and experience, it might take her an extra thirty minutes down and more than that coming back up. Seven hours? Because of November’s short days it would be dark before she reached the rim again, and she didn’t want that. But she’d hike awhile to get a sense of the place. Maybe she’d make it to where Dashee had drawn his big X.
The gray and brown stone walls that frame the Little Colorado’s narrow gorge lack the Grand Canyon’s panorama of color. The buff-colored limestone at the start of the trail—the same stone that paved the dinosaur walkway—is evidence of a shallow sea that covered this spot some 250 million years ago.
Bernie’s muscles gradually warmed as she moved down into the canyon. She breathed the fresh, cool air, listened to the wind, and appreciated the lack of highway sounds and human-made noise. If she was wrong and the attack on Palmer was tied to the mediation, then perhaps being in this land itself might help her puzzle out why young Horseman was dead.
She reached a switchback and surrendered to the meditative rhythm of the descent.
She had climbed too far away from the parking area to hear the vehicle pull in or to realize that the driver didn’t have to ask where the trail started. He went right to it and began to hike toward her.
She froze when she heard the voice calling her name.
The second time he yelled, she responded, “Who’s up there?”
The voice called out a name she didn’t recognize.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“I’m Clayton Secody. Sergeant Chee sent me. I have a message for you.”
She didn’t know a Clayton Secody and had never heard Chee mention him.
“What’s the message?” She put her hand on her gun. She heard the rhythmic steps on the trail and the lighter clatter of small dislocated rocks. Then a young man rounded a corner. A lanky Diné with a Dallas Cowboys cap greeted her in Navajo. Why would Chee send a stranger to interrupt her hike? Why hadn’t he just called her?
“We haven’t met, but I’m a friend of your sister,” he said.
“Darleen. Where is she?”
“She’s up in her car, waiting for me. She said she couldn’t hike down because her shoes were too smooth for the rocks.”