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.He had been full of the mathematics hewas studying, and of his own wisdom, and he had talked to his old uncle ofprobabilities and of randomness.He had always remembered the scene."You think these raindrops are random?" his uncle had asked.And Leaphorn hadbeen surprised.He'd said of course they were random.Didn't his uncle thinkthey were random?"The stars," Haskie Jim said."We have a legend about how First Man and FirstWoman, over by Huerfano Mesa, had the stars in their blanket and were placingthem carefully in the sky.And then Coyote grabbed the blanket and whirled itaround and flung them into the darkness and that is how the Milky Way wasformed.Thus order in the sky became chaos.Random.But even then.Eventhen, what Coyote did was evil, but was there not a pattern, too, in the evildeed?"That had not been the time in Leaphorn's life when he had patience for the oldmetaphysics.He remembered telling Haskie Jim about modern astronomy and thecosmic mechanics of gravity and velocity.Leaphorn had said something like"Even so, you couldn't expect to find anything except randomness in the waythe rain fell." And Haskie Jim had watched the rain awhile, silently.And thenhe had said, and Joe Leaphorn still remembered not just the words but the oldman's face when he said them: "I think from where we stand the rain seemsrandom.If we could stand somewhere else, we would see the order in it."After he had thought about the meaning in that, Leaphorn had looked for orderin everything.And he usually found it.Except in the events of insanity.JoeLeaphorn didn't think a man-or a woman-who carried a ladder along with a paintgun into the hills would be insane.There was a pattern there, and a motive, if he could only find them.Chapter 16Deputy t.j.birdie was on duty when Jim Chee arrived at the San Juan Countyjail at Aztec.T.J.said he was just too busy right now."We're short-handed.I got the desk and the telephone switchboard, and theradio and everything all to myself.Just George back there in the jail and me.Come in tomorrow during regular hours and somebody will do it for you.It'snot as easy as you make it sound.All that sorting around.Putting stuff backwhere it was."Page 98 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Come on, T.J.," Chee said."Don't act like a horse's ass.All you got to dois pull the file on booking Ashie Pinto and let me take a look at theinventory of what stuff he had.""Can't leave the phone," T.J.said."Sheriff'd hang me up by the balls if hecalls in here and I'm not on it." Deputy Birdie was a stubby young man withhis black hair cut short-half Apache.It was gossiped in political circlesthat the sheriff had hired him in the interest of attracting votes from thenearby Jicarilla Apache Reservation and still didn't know Birdie was aMescalero, whose numerous kinfolks and clansmen voted two hundred miles southand east in Otero County.Chee knew that Birdie was actually White MountainApache whose folks voted in Arizona and he was pretty sure the sheriff hadhired him because he was smart.Unfortunately he was also lazy."Come on, damn it," Chee said.He came around behind the counter."Just get inthere and pull out the Ashie Pinto file.I'll answer the telephone for you.""Well, hell," T.J.said."What's the big hurry?"But he left, muttering.And when he returned five minutes later he handed Cheethe folder.The inventory of Hosteen Ashie Pinto's impounded possessions was short:wallet containing:two fifty-dollar billsphoto of womanphoto of two menone pocketknifeone combone tin chewing tobacco containing corn mealone leather pouch (jish) containing:two crystals feathers, mineral stonesbull durham pouch of pollenassorted small jish itemsChee handed the folder back to Birdie."That it?" Birdie said."Can I get back to doing my duty for San Juan Countynow?""Thanks, T.J.," Chee said."What were you looking for? Did you find it?""His jish.The old man is a crystal gazer," Chee said."I wanted to see if hewas working.If he had his medicine bundle with him.""Well, hell," Birdie said."I was here the night they brought him in.I couldhave told you that.Saved me all that work if you'd just asked."Page 99 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlIt was late but Chee decided to make the four-hour drive to Albuquerque,turning the new information over in his mind.First, there was the fact thatTagert had hired Pinto.Presumably he'd picked up Pinto at his hogan and takenhim to the vicinity of whatever he was hunting.Pinto had taken along hiscrystals-the tools of his profession as a finder of the lost and seer of theunseen.Some white men around the Reservation used crystal gazers but Tagertdidn't seem the sort.He guessed the historian was more interested in the oldman's memory than in his shamanistic powers.Memory of what? Logically itwould be connected to Tagert's interest in two white men who seemed to havedied a long lifetime ago in a rock formation on the Navajo Reservation.Presumably Tagert would be hunting their bodies, for evidence that one of themwas the notorious Butch Cassidy.Logic suggested that the rock formation wouldbe somewhere fairly close to where he'd arrested Pinto.There were plenty ofthem around-the product of the same paroxysm of volcanic action that crackedthe earth and formed the basaltic spires of Ship Rock.It might be the sameformation into which he and Janet Pete had taken their stroll to study thework of Delbert Nez's nutty vandal.If all else failed, he might search thatformation again.Given a day or two to cover it better and more daylight hemight find something.Or get snakebit.But Pinto's old tale suggested witches were involved.Firsthe would see where that could lead him.And then there was the business of Colonel Ji.Who? Why? Probably Ji had liedto protect his son, Chee guessed.What had his son done? Or was it just afather's concern that his kid might be involved in something dangerous?He turned it over, and over, and over.And the thinking kept him awake whilehe drove the endless miles of N.M.44 toward Albuquerque.He had relied on atranslator's transcript of Hosteen Pinto's tale of horse theft and homicide.He wanted to hear it for himself in the old man's own voice.Chapter 17The yellow tape used to isolate the scene of a crime dangled loosely acrossColonel Ji's front gate.Leaphorn detached it, ushered Professor Bourebonettethrough, and reconnected it behind them."You're sure this is all right?""The people from the Bureau are all finished in here," Leaphorn said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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