The Shape Shifter (27 page)

Probably indoors.

“Let’s get down there,” Leaphorn said. “Find out THE SHAPE SHIFTER

245

what’s happening.” Delonie must have felt the same way.

He had already broken into a trot.

They stopped at the windowless north wall of the house to get their breath and to listen, Leaphorn enjoying the reassuring feel of the pistol in his jacket, and Delonie tensely holding his rifle against his chest. They moved slowly around the corner to the porch.

“What’s that?” Delonie whispered. He was pointing at a heap of fresh dirt, the dark humus formed by centuries of fallen leaves and pine needles rotting every summer.

The humus seemed to have been dug from a hole under a sloping formation of broken sandstone. A shovel, with damp-looking humus still on its blade, leaned against the stone.

Leaphorn stepped over beside it. About three feet deep, he estimated. Between four and five feet long, a bit more than two feet wide, and a careless, irregular digging job. “Now what do you think is going to be buried there?” Delonie whispered. “Nothing very big.”

“No,” Leaphorn agreed. “But look how quick you could get something hidden in it. Just push that humus over it, and topple that sandstone slab over that, scatter a few handfuls of dead leaves and trash around. After the first rain there wouldn’t be much sign anybody had ever dug there.”

“Makes you wonder,” Delonie whispered, as they slipped cautiously around the corner by the porch.

The hunter was standing at the front door, watching them.

“Well, now,” Delos said, “what has brought the legendary Lieutenant Leaphorn all the way out here to my hunting camp.”

21

Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired, would sometimes wish that he had looked at his watch and noted the exact moment when he and Delonie had stepped in front of that porch and saw the man in the hunting camouflage smiling down at them. At that moment began an episode which seemed to last an awfully long time, but in reality must have been over in just a few minutes.

It was Jason Delos standing above them on the porch, looking even taller and more formidable than Leaphorn had remembered him. He was smiling, clean shaven, his hair tidy, both his hands deep in the pockets of an oversized hunting coat. The right-hand pocket, Leaphorn noticed, was bulging, with the bulge pointing toward him.

But his eyes had seemed friendly. Then their focus shifted to Delonie. The smile remained on his lips but was gone from his eyes.

“And my old friend Tomas Delonie,” Delos said. “I
248

TONY HILLERMAN

haven’t seen you in many, many years. But you shouldn’t be holding that rifle, Tomas,” he said. “They tell me you’re out on parole. Having that rifle makes you a violator, and Lieutenant Leaphorn would have to take you right back to prison. Drop that piece of yours on the ground there.” The tone was no longer friendly. The bulge in his pocket moved forward. “I mean drop the rifle right now.” Leaphorn’s eyes were focused on the bulge in the right-hand pocket of Delos’s jacket. Delos was almost certainly aiming a pistol right past Leaphorn’s head at Delonie, who now was letting his 30-30 dangle, muzzle downward.

“I drop it, it gets all dirty,” Delonie said. “I don’t want to do that.”

Delos shrugged. “Ah, well,” he said. His hand flashed out of the jacket pocket, pistol in it.

Delos fired. Delonie spun, rifle clattering to the ground. Delos fired again. Delonie dropped on his side, rifle beside him.

Delos had his pistol aimed at Leaphorn now, eyes intent. He shook his head.

“What do you think, Lieutenant?” he asked. “Would you rate that the proper decision, under the circumstances? About what you would have done if our positions were reversed?”

“I’m not sure what your position is,” Leaphorn said.

He was thinking that his own position was even worse than he’d anticipated. This man, whoever he was, was very fast with a pistol. And a very good shot. Leaphorn tightened his grip on the pistol in his own jacket pocket.

“Don’t do that,” Delos said. “Don’t be fondling that gun. That’s dangerous. Not polite either. Better you take your hand out of that pocket.”

THE SHAPE SHIFTER

249

“Maybe so,” Leaphorn said.

“Without the pistol in it.”

“All right,” Leaphorn said. And eased out his hand.

Delos nodded, and shifted his gaze back to Delonie, now sprawled on his side and absolutely motionless. Then studying Vang, looking thoughtful.

“Tommy, first I think we should get that rifle out of Mr. Delonie’s reach. Just in case he wasn’t hit as hard as it seems.” He held his hand out.

Vang grabbed the rifle by its barrel, slid it on the ground toward the porch, and looked up, awaiting further instructions.

That was not what Delos wanted, Leaphorn thought.

Now how would he react to Tommy not handing him the rifle?

Delos seemed unsure himself for a moment. But he nodded.

“Now go over and help Lieutenant Leaphorn take off his jacket. Get behind him, slip it off his shoulders, make sure that pistol of his stays in the pocket, and then bring it here and hand it to me.”

Maybe Delos will be careless, Leaphorn was thinking.

Maybe Tommy will deliberately give me a chance. Maybe there’ll be a moment when he blocks the man’s view.

When I can get my pistol out and use it.

“Hands high,” Delos said. “And Tommy, you make certain you are always behind him. Remember, from now on, I’m grading you on how well you can follow instructions. And remember, this lieutenant here is a highly regarded lawman. He is very much one of the predator class. He can be very dangerous if you give him the least little opportunity.”

250

TONY HILLERMAN

Tommy seemed to be trying for a passing grade. He felt the jacket pockets to make sure he knew where the pistol hid, then slid the jacket down over Leaphorn’s shoulders as he lowered his arms. He folded the jacket neatly, took it to the edge of the porch, and handed it up to Delos.

“Very good,” Delos said. “Now go over to Mr. Delonie and check on the condition of his health. Take your hand and check the artery on the side of his neck. Under the jaw. You will have to use a little pressure probably. Then tell me what you feel.”

Tommy knelt beside Delonie, looked at the arm that had been holding the rifle when Delos shot him.

“Bleeding some, the arm is,” Tommy said. “And the bone has been broken.”

“Check that neck artery,” Delos said. “Then get close to his face. See if you can detect any breathing.” Tommy felt Delonie’s neck, looked thoughtful. Tried again. “Feel nothing here,” he said. Then he bent over Delonie’s face, close, then closer. Sat up, shook his head.

“Feel no air coming out. Don’t hear anything either.”

“All right,” Delos said. “Now pull back his jacket and his shirt and take a look at where that second shot got him.”

Tommy did as told. He looked back at Delos, held up one hand to display blood on it, and then stood, faced Delos, and put his other hand high on his right-side rib cage. “It hit him right about here,” he said. “Bleeding right there. And I think broken rib bone. Maybe two.”

“Good,” Delos said. “Now you sit there and watch Mr.

Delonie. Carefully, I mean, because sometimes people aren’t quite as dead as they seem to be. Now I’m going THE SHAPE SHIFTER

251

to ask the lieutenant some questions, and I want you to listen. You let me know if he’s not being honest with me.” Tommy nodded and sank into a yoga-like position, legs folded under him.

Leaphorn, aware of how his own tired legs were aching, was thinking how comfortable Tommy looked.

He felt totally exhausted. Hard day yesterday, almost no sleep, then the long drive, and now this. And he was supposed to be retired. Instead he was standing here like a fool, dizzy with fatigue. Making it worse, he had nothing to blame but his own foolishness.

Delos waved his pistol.

“Lieutenant Leaphorn, I want you now to sit down on the ground and then stretch your legs out in front of you.

I want to interview you, and I don’t want either of us to be distracted by your deciding you want to try to get the jump on me. Understand that?”

“Clear enough,” Leaphorn said. He eased himself down on the thickest patch of grass and weeds available, leaned back, and stretched out his legs. It felt good, but as Delos intended, it left him with no chance of getting up in a rush. Overhead he noticed the sunrise had turned the strips of fog clouds over the mountain ridges a brilliant scarlet. Almost morning. And the birds knew it. He could hear robins chirping and the odd sound mountain grouse make when seasons are changing.

“First, I’ll explain the rules. Very simply. If I see any hint you’re just killing time, stalling, playing a game with me, or if I see any hint you’re about to do something reckless, then I will shoot you in the leg. You understand?”

“Yes,” Leaphorn said, “clear enough.”

252

TONY HILLERMAN

Delos was grinning at him. “I will let you pick the leg.

Which one would you prefer?”

“Take your pick.”

“Good,” Delos said. “I’ll shoot the left one first. Above the knee.”

Leaphorn nodded.

“First question,” Delos said. “How did Tommy make his connection with you? I want to know what prompted that to happen.”

Leaphorn considered that. How much did he want Delos to know? Was Tommy going to remain loyal to Delos, as Delos seemed to think? Was he right in concluding that Delos intended to kill him, and Delonie, and Tommy Vang, too? Vang? Why else prepare that little grave? Vang was the only visitor Delos had been expecting.

“You sort of arranged that yourself,” Leaphorn said.

“Sending Tommy over to my home in Shiprock to see if he could recapture that specially prepared cherry you’d given me for my lunch.”

That provoked a long, thoughtful pause.

“That was the way I told him to behave,” Delos said.

“Did he just walk right in and ask you for it?” Leaphorn laughed. “No, he was careful. He waited until he knew I was gone, and then until he saw this professor friend of mine who lives there, too, drive away.

Then he got into my garage, but the professor had forgotten something, and she came back and saw him coming out of the garage. She asked him what he was doing. He said he was looking for me, and she told him he could find me at Crownpoint. So he came to Crownpoint to find me.”

“Tommy,” Delos said, “Is that the way it happened? It sounds like you were being pretty careless.” THE SHAPE SHIFTER

253

“Oh, I tried to be careful,” Tommy said, sounding penitent. “But bad luck. Both times bad luck. At Crownpoint I found the lieutenant’s truck in the parking lot. I found the lunch sack, too, but he saw me getting it.”

“You blamed bad luck twice, Tommy. Remember how I tried to teach you about that? We don’t give luck any chance to be bad. And I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of excuse from you. Now tell me how you let this all happen.” He waved his pistol in a circle, bringing in both Delonie and Leaphorn in the sweep. “You were told to come here alone, just to bring me a report.”

“Lieutenant Leaphorn, he told me—”

Leaphorn interrupted him.

“You’re going to have to take the blame for that yourself, Mr. Delos, for several reasons.”

“Oh, now. This is what I’ve been waiting to hear. If one doesn’t understand his mistakes, one is likely to be doomed to repeat them.” Delos was smiling down at Leaphorn, pistol pointing directly at him now.

Leaphorn shifted his legs, making them more comfortable and getting them in a slightly better position to move fast if the opportunity to do anything ever developed. At the moment, that didn’t seem likely. Even if something happened to distract Delos—maybe a mountain lion trotting by, or a minor earthquake—Leaphorn hadn’t come up with any sensible idea of what he could do. The only plan he had seemed pretty hopeless. When Delos had ordered him to sit down, he’d noticed a promising-looking stone, about the size of an apple. When he was lowering himself to the ground, he’d carefully covered the rock with his hands. Finally, when Delos was looking at Tommy, Leaphorn had pulled it closer. Now he had it
254

TONY HILLERMAN

gripped in his palm. Fairly good throwing size, if he ever had a chance. And if he did get the chance, maybe about one in a million odds that he could hit Delos with it before Delos shot him. But better than nothing.

“Crownpoint,” Delos said. “That seems to be where you sort of added Tommy to your team, or tried to, if I have this figured right. How did Tommy do that?”

“Actually you get credit for that, too,” Leaphorn said.

Delos stared at him. “Explain.”

“That old, obsolete map you gave him. The roads have been rerouted some in the years since that thing was drawn.”

“So why did Tommy tell you where he was going?” Leaphorn glanced over at Tommy, who was staring at him and looking very tense.

“You know,” Leaphorn said, “I think we should skip all the way back to the beginning where all this started.

That’s where you made your first mistake.”