McKee remembered he had not been able to look over the pen from the arroyo bed. That meant the pole wall was about six feet high—too high for a coyote, or even a wolf, to jump. It occurred to him then that Yazzie must surely have built the corral with coyotes or wolves much in mind and designed it to keep them out. The poles were wired together, top and bottom, and the bases had been buried in the sandy soil. The gate, a narrow door of poles held together by horizontal braces, had also been wired securely shut. McKee remembered this clearly because of the time it had taken him to unfasten the wires. If Yazzie had carelessly left the gate insecurely fastened the night the wolf got in, why would he have bothered to fasten it so securely after the damage was done? McKee drove slowly along the hard-packed canyon floor. The cloud he had noticed earlier had built higher now and there had been a shower somewhere. The breeze was cool and smelled of wet pine. In places the going was slow and rocky. Here the canyon walls closed in, sheer smooth cliffs which funneled the water of the occasional flash floods into a narrow torrent. But generally the road was smooth and the canyon bottom broadened to a hundred yards or more. The runoff stream here required only a small portion of the canyon floor. Its bed wandered between tumbled hills of rocky debris and there were grass and even a few cottonwoods. Here the sandstone had been softer and more readily destroyed by wind and water. It was in places like these that the Anasazis had built on the talus slopes and high under the overhanging shelter of the canyon walls the cliff houses which gave the canyon its name. McKee passed three of these stone ruins on his way to the campsite without giving them more than a glance. He was, by then, thoroughly disgusted with himself for his oversight at the sheep pens—carelessness which meant he would have to return to the Yazzie hogans and find out exactly how the coyotes had gotten in. He was so immersed in this problem that it was not until he turned his truck up the slope to the campsite that he noticed Canfield's camper truck was gone. McKee switched off the ignition and sat silently a moment. The exhaust noise echoed up and down the canyon and then died, leaving an utter stillness. The butane campstove was unlit, McKee noticed, and there was no sign that Canfield had started cooking supper, although it was his turn for the chore. "Where in the devil could he have gone?" McKee said aloud. He was inside the tent when he saw the note, a sheet of typing paper on the folding table weighted by a turquoise frog—Canfield's proof against witches. Bergen— A Navajo dragged himself up here with a leg all swollen up with snakebite. I'm taking him to Teec Nos Pas. Be back tomorrow morning. John McKee reread the note and stared at the signature; Dr. J. R. Canfield's first name was Jeremy, not John.
Chapter 10 Contents - Prev / Next Sandoval squatted beside the sand painting and told Charley Tsosie to put his knees on the knees of the Corn Beetle. He showed him how to lean forward with one hand on each hand of the figure. When Tsosie was just right, Sandoval began singing the part about how the corn beetles called out to tell the Changing Woman that her Hero Twins, the Monster Slayer and the Water Child, were coming home again safely. His voice rose in pitch on the "lo-lo-loo" cry of the beetle, and then fell as he chanted the part about the Hero Twins visiting the sun, and slaughtering the monster Ye-i. It was stifling in the hogan and Tsosie's bare back was glistening with sweat. Even his loin cloth was discolored with it. That was good. The enemy was coming out. And now Sandoval was ready for the next part. He sprinkled a pinch of corn pollen on Tsosie's shoulders and had him stand up and step off the sand painting—carefully so that the pattern wouldn't be disturbed. Sandoval felt good about the painting. He hadn't done an Enemy Way since just