Slickrock Paradox (11 page)

“How did they take it?”

“I don't know. Even though the tribal police are overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, communication between departments isn't so good.”

“Did you know that she worked with Dead Horse Consulting doing archaeological surveys for our friend Isaiah?”

“Yes. Did Isaiah tell you that?”

“He did. First he comes at me as if the girl's disappearance two years ago was headline news on
CNN
and then he acts as if he's never heard of Dead Horse Consulting. He's had them on the payroll of his various development schemes for as long as I've known him.”

“He's a big player, Silas. He's got two dozen people working for him. Maybe he just farms it out and they hire who they want.”

“Maybe.”

“Listen, we're working with the feds to chase this thing down. You've got to let us do our job.”

Silas held up his hands. “Say no more. I'm just curious.”

“Careful with that, Silas. You know what they say about cats and all.” He stood up and offered his hand. Silas took it. “Listen, Silas. Jacob Isaiah, well, he's a serious man and serious about his business. He's been here since before they started pulling uranium out of the ground back in '54. He's likely to be here after both you and I are buzzard bait. I make it a point to stay out of his way. It's just some friendly advice from me to you.”

“I appreciate it, Dex. I do.”

Silas closed the door behind the sheriff. He had every intention of getting in Jacob Isaiah's way if it meant understanding what connection the Wisechild girl had to his missing wife. He looked around the store. He hadn't sold a book in a month; maybe he wouldn't wait for the following week to resume his search. There was a lot of country on the Hopi Reservation that he could search by car.

SILAS WAS OUT THE DOOR
by eight the next morning. Now, at midday, he was on the long and nearly empty stretch of highway that ran across the northwest corner of the Navajo Reservation. He drove down the length of Black Mesa, where in order to understand the roots of Penelope's environmental activism in the American Southwest, Silas had turned early in his search for her. What he thought of as her “college-student” fascination with the work of Edward Abbey had led her to this part of the Colorado Plateau many times. It was only a couple of hours from Flagstaff, and it was here in Abbey's novel of malcontent,
The Monkey Wrench Gang
, that the band of eco-saboteurs had struck at the nerve center of the coal industry that was ripping into the heart of the Hopi and Navajo lands. Since the 1960s the Peabody Coal Company, one of the largest coal companies in the world, had been digging into the rich deposits of coal found on Black Mesa.

He couldn't see them from Route 160, but just south and east were some of the largest man-made holes on the planet. It was here, when Penelope first started to get involved with conservation work, that she came. When Silas asked her what she hoped to accomplish, she said that it was enough at first to “bear witness.” He had returned to marking his papers, and she had returned to the Hopi and Navajo Reservations many times.

Silas wondered if the Wisechild woman and Penelope had known each other. Or maybe Penelope's disappearance was somehow linked to the work that Kayah had been doing when she was murdered?

He drove on, his mind buzzing with questions. It was early in the afternoon when he turned off Route 160 at Moenkopi and headed into the heart of the Hopi Reservation, a smaller reservation completely surrounded by the sprawling Navajo Reservation. They were different people, with different cultures, but they were inextricably linked by geography. He steered the Outback up the southwest side of the incline of Black Mesa and into the Fourth World of the Hopi. According to Hopi creation myths, the previous three worlds of the Hopi had been destroyed by the creator when witchcraft led their people to do evil. The Hopi emerged through a crack in the earth—believed to be at the heart of the nearby Grand Canyon—to the Fourth World, where they now dwelled.

The landscape that greeted him on the Mesa was open, wide and far-reaching, the color of milky tea. Russian thistle, the invasive plant better known as tumbleweed, blew across the road. Cows dotted the landscape, their ribs and hips jutting like invitations to the turkey vultures that soared high above. The panorama of dust was flat, with reefs of stone on the horizon surrounded by a tan landscape dimpled with flat-topped mesas, and otherwise starkly barren.

It was nearly four o'clock when Silas drove into the tribal seat of Kykotsmovi Village, or K-Town, as it was known locally. After a bloodless feud in 1906, those who wanted to foster closer ties with the outside or white world had settled here to create the modern Hopi government. It was located on the Second Mesa, and though Silas knew he'd have to backtrack to find the family of Kayah Wisechild, the only person he knew on the Hopi Reservation lived near K-Town.

He followed a narrow winding track that wove down through the sage and rabbit brush to a double-wide trailer sitting on the edge of a dusty arroyo. This was Roger Goodwin's place. Goodwin was a professor of cultural anthropology at Northern Arizona University. He also taught courses in the university's groundbreaking Applied Indigenous Studies Program, which focused on the Hopi. He was an Anglo, and one of the few outsiders who had been accepted into the Hopi clans.

There was no vehicle in the yard and no lights on at the house. Silas stepped out of the car, went to the back and opened the hatch, and took a can of Dr Pepper from the cooler. Alcohol of any kind was prohibited on both the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. He walked over to a sickly cottonwood and sat down on a broken lawnchair in its shade and waited. An hour passed when a pick-up truck finally came barreling down the road. Silas waited in the shade of the tree as the rusting 1970 Ford came to an abrupt halt next to the trailer. Two people were riding in the back and three in the front. The two in the bed of the truck had kerchiefs over their faces and sunglasses on, and as the truck skidded to a halt, they hopped out, grabbing packs. He waved to them and raised his can of Dr Pepper and they waved back. The driver's door opened, its hinges popping loudly, and Roger Goodwin stepped down. He paused when he saw Silas reclining in the shade.

“Been here long?” Roger asked, as his two passengers unfolded themselves from the bench seat and headed toward the trailer.

“About an hour.”

“Can you wait five more minutes while I shower?”

“No trouble. Want a soda?”

“In a minute. Let me drop my stuff.” The lanky man grabbed a rucksack from the back of the truck and followed his passengers into the trailer. Silas heard the generator roar to life, shattering the stillness. Ten minutes passed and the man emerged. “You said something about a soda?”

Silas was about to push himself up on his cane when the man waved his hand. “I'll get it. You want another?”

“Back of the car. Yes please.” Roger went to the Outback and returned with two cans of Dr Pepper.

“It's good to see you, Roger. Got yourself a new batch of vassal laborers, I see?”

“We call them graduate students, Silas. Maybe you remember them? Eager, willing?”

“I remember grad students alright; handy for getting your research done, as I recall. I see you're working them even on a Saturday.”

“Billed as a cultural anthropology hike . . . What brings you to the Fourth World, Silas? It's been, what, two years since I last saw you?”

“I need some help,” Silas said. “I'm looking for someone.”

“For Penelope, Silas, I know. Every one of my students has a picture of her in their pack.”

“That's kind, but no, a local girl. I'm looking for her family. Her name is Wisechild. Grew up on the Third Mesa. Did an undergrad degree with you.”

“Yes, of course.” Roger spoke in Hopi and then translated for Silas, “‘Her breath has passed from her body.' She was found up in your neck of the woods. It's been all over the local papers.”

“I know, Roger. I found her.”

THEY SAT ON
the tailgate of Goodwin's truck. Silas told him the whole story, including the dream. The anthropologist was silent for a long time after Silas had finished his tale.

“Death is a strange thing for the Hopi,” he finally said. “When a person dies in the Fourth World, their spirit lives on and descends into the world below, where they can carry out their day to day lives. This happens on the fourth day after death, when their
soona
, or substance of life, is released. There are many different beliefs around this on the Mesas. Some believe that when this happens, a person's spirit can play tricks, trying to convince others to join it on the journey.”

“How do the Hopi manage when a person has died but the body has not been found?”

“About as well as we do, Silas. Maybe a little worse. These people have very ancient beliefs in the katchina, their gods, and in many different entities of the underworlds. These include some very unsavory characters, taking the form of witches. When a girl like Kayah Wisechild goes missing, they believe it is the work of these dwellers of the underworld. They move among us, sometimes taking human shape, and sometimes causing all manner of trouble among people.”

“Will there be some rest now that her remains have been recovered?” asked Silas.

“There will be a ceremony. I was under the impression that the
FBI
would be transporting the bones back to Salt Lake for further study.”

“I don't know the answer to that question. I can make some calls. Can there be a ceremony without the body?”

“There will be some ritual, but nothing final. Given the nature of her death, there will be no rest,” said Roger.

“Do you know her family?”

“Oh yeah. They're good people.”

“Can you point me in their direction? I'd like to talk to them.”

“Sure, I can do that. And then send someone to find you after a week of driving around the Mesas. How about I take you there in the morning? It will help if I'm with you.”

“To translate?”

“Yes, but also for more than just the language. More as an ambassador.”

“I'd appreciate it.”

“You want to come inside? It's Rachael's turn to cook tonight. She's pretty good.”

“I need to find a place to camp,” said Silas, looking around as if a Big K Campground might materialize out of the desert scrub.

“You can camp here. Come in, talk with the students, eat our food, then pitch your tent wherever you want. In the morning we'll drive over to Third Mesa.”

Silas nodded. Roger hopped down from the tailgate and offered Silas a hand.

BY EIGHT THE
next morning they were in Goodwin's truck, bouncing up the rutted track to Indian Route 2. They drove mostly in silence, Goodwin from time to time pointing out a cultural or natural feature and commenting on its significance. In a little under half an hour they turned north onto a dirt track and then again onto a two-lane, rutted path that wove across the top of Third Mesa.

“Anything I need to know?” Silas asked.

“Just like anywhere else. Respect. That's the place there,” Roger said, pointing to a trailer parked against a small sandstone butte. A tiny, dry wash snaked across the scrubby field, several rain tanks next to it. “Down the wash a ways the family grows corn. It's about their only source of income besides the government.” Roger and Silas continued on the path and noticed that in addition to a dilapidated Chevy pick-up in the yard, two dusty but new Yukon
SUV
s were parked by the trailer.

“Stop here,” Silas said forcefully. Roger stopped in the middle of the tracks.

“Friends of yours?”

“I don't know. They look like government vehicles.”

“Nobody out here drives a truck like that,” agreed Roger. The two men had stopped a quarter of a mile away, the butte partially obscuring the trailer and concealing them from view. Silas reached into the pack at his feet and pulled out his Nikon binoculars.

“Definitely government,” he said, looking at the plates. “Don't know who's driving them. Oh, wait a minute . . .”

A man stepped out of the trailer. “Agent Dwight Taylor. Assistant Special Agent in Charge,” said Silas.

“This going to be trouble?” asked Goodwin.

“I don't know. He's from the Monticello office. He's leading the investigation into Ms. Wisechild's murder. I've been dealing with him for the last three and a half years, you know, with regards to Penny.”

“So you're old buddies then?”

“Something like that.”

Three more people stepped out of the trailer. “I see two more
FBI
men, including Taylor's partner, a Utah man named Nielsen. I don't recognize the fourth man.”

“Let me have a look.” Goodwin trained the binoculars on the men. “The feds are pretty obvious. I don't know why they all look alike, but they do. Even the yokel-looking guy is clearly a G-man. The guy with the white shirt and the tan slacks, I don't recognize him. He's certainly not Hopi.”