Nightwing by Martin Cruz Smith

from his gnarled fingers and floated upwards, slowly spinning. “You sure he’s dead?”
    Youngman went back out on the plaza. The sun was directly overhead, trying to melt the mesa. Youngman blinked through sunglasses at a silver water tower and his eyes fell to boys playing with a handmade top on a roof, and to the plaza. Rough ladders marked three holes spaced across the dusty plaza. The ladders led down to kivas , underground chambers. From the bow standard and horsehair on the two nearer ladders, he could tell they were occupied by Antelope and Snake priests who had already been in hiding for six days for the Snake Dance.
    From a house two doors away, two men emerged. One was Walker Chee and the other was the white who’d been driving the Cadillac. Chee filled the doorway. Navajos were different from Hopis: they were bigger, fleshier, and their heads seemed squared at the corners. Chee embellished these attributes with hair razor-cut to the collar of a dark, three-piece suit, a silk tie, and thick fingers studded with turquoise rings. The white took off sunglasses. His features were broad and pink, drawn with the eraser end of a pencil. Neither man noticed Youngman in the shadows.
    The white frowned.
    “You said the deal was set.”
    “Just a few more days, Piggot.”
    “A few more days and a few more days, that’s all I’ve heard. I have crews standing by. What fucking game are you playing? And you were going to bring maps of the canyon. What happened to the maps?”
    “The maps aren’t important,” Chee said.
    “You know how expensive that kind of map is?”
    “We don’t want maps here. Not here. Back off and leave it to me.”
    “You’re stalling me, Chief. I’m trying to figure out why.”
    A village elder joined the two men and Youngman took the opportunity to try to slip away unseen. He got to the middle of the plaza.
    “Deputy, I want to talk to you,” Chee called.
    Youngman came to a stop.
    “Excuse me.” Chee left Piggot and the elder and approached Youngman alone. The tribal chairman moved with proprietary ease, ushering Youngman out of earshot of anyone else. Youngman was aware of being smaller and, in comparison, grubby. There were perhaps a thousand flies buzzing around the plaza. Not one of them would dare land on Chee. Chee dispensed a smile.
    “You’re Deputy Duran, right?” he asked softly.
    “Yes.”
    “And you pushed around a Mr. Paine yesterday, is that correct?” Chee lowered his voice.
    “I pointed out to him that he was on the wrong reservation.”
    Eyes began appearing in the windows around the plaza. The white man was searching the soles of his shoes.
    “Are you going to tell me I’m on the wrong reservation?” Chee asked.
    “Are you confused?”
    “No, I’m not. That’s how you and me differ. See, I got loads of my own Indians just like you. Dumb and poor. You get satisfaction out of that, fine. I heard about you before, Duran. You are the best living example of ignorance in Arizona, did you know that? You can’t help yourself and you can’t help anyone else. I bust my balls to bring some money to the mesa. I go to Washington, New York, Houston and show ’em an Indian doesn’t necessarily have to be drunk or dumb and as soon as I get someone out here to help us some jerk like you shows up and screws me. Now you think I do it so I can get my face on a magazine cover. Great, that’s your opinion. But there are three power plants and twelve proposed power plants on my reservation that say an Indian can do more than pose for nickels. And I’ve started the medical programs that’ll mean we don’t have to be the most disease-ridden people in this country. And the irrigation programs I’ve fought through the courts are just as much for Hopis as Navajos. So, do me a courtesy, Deputy, until you get as smart as the average toad, you hide yourself away the next time you see anyone who has anything to do with me. That a deal? And don’t you eavesdrop on me ever