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."Possibly.I sure wouldn't waste any time in getting out there.But I ought to caution you that it's not very likely they'll let you see the body.""Was a cause of death determined while the body was here?" asked Laika."Yes." He handed her several sheets of paper."Here's a copy of the report.The cause of death was extreme dehydration, but the reason for it is unknown.""And no foul play was suspected?""There was no sign of violence.""Just how dehydrated was Mr.Begay?"Austin seemed to be getting to the point where he no longer liked Laika's tone."I think you'll find that all in the report," he said coldly."I'm sorry we weren't able to help you further.""Thank you for the information," Laika said, just as coldly, then turned her back on the man and stalked out.Tony and Joseph followed.Back in the car, Tony found the village of Red Water on the detailed topographical maps in their dossier, while Laika and Joseph pored over the medical report."Identical to the hiker," Joseph said."No photos, though.""Well, why should they take photos?" Laika asked."They're not of a suspicious mind around here.Maybe they're used to finding dead Indians.""An Indian mummy, in this case," Joseph added."So do we have any legal rights on the reservation—as members of the National Science Foundation, that is?""I suspect," Laika said, "we'll be greeted with the same respect they'd afford a drug dealer.Or Custer."Red Water was worse than Tony had imagined.The town, such as it was, consisted of one long street with houses on either side, and two side streets with scattered dwellings.The whole village was no larger than a few acres.Everything was exposed to screaming sunlight, for the only vegetation was low brush and a few short, decorative trees struggling for their lives, planted in front of some of the houses.The buildings were all of one story, and mostly made out of weathered, unpainted planks.Roofs were flat or slightly slanted, and Tony noticed that rubber tires were sitting on a few of them, either for storage, or, as he suspected, to hold the roofs on in the event of a windstorm.Most of the windows were open and without screens, and Tony saw no air conditioners, though a few box fans sat in some of the windows, whose sills, when they were painted, were nearly all blue.Some of the houses were in clusters with other structures.On one lot there might be a house, then a small round or hexagonal hogan with a sloped roof, and next to it a small trailer or another outbuilding.On the side streets were a few rusty mobile homes, and even a school bus with painted-over windows.He wondered if anyone actually lived in it.A few of the houses had rudimentary porches, and some people were sitting on them, as if trying to catch a whisper of the breeze that stirred the dust.To the porch sitters, Pepsi seemed to be the drink of choice.A number of children played in the streets and in the areas between the dwellings.A car was parked at every third house or so, with the exception of one house where plaster or adobe, painted light green, covered the wooden planks.There, four cars were parked, all of them older than ten years.A black station wagon sat nearest the house.A long and narrow wooden box hung over its dropped-down tailgate."Looks like a party," Tony said."Or a funeral," said Joseph.They parked, which consisted of pulling off the dust of the main street onto the dust in front of one of the houses, and walked to the house with the cars.The few windows were all open, and three men were standing in the shade of a wood-planked porch.Two were drinking Pepsi, and one drank something from a chipped coffee mug."Is this the Begay house?" Laika asked.The men, somewhere in age between thirty-five and sixty, only looked at her."I'm looking for Mrs.Begay," she went on."Mrs.Ralph Begay?" Still the men said nothing.Tony thought he saw one of them nod slightly."Would you please tell her that three doctors from the National Science Foundation's Division of Special Investigations are here to speak to her?"The men looked at Laika, then at each other, and one of them went inside through the open door, where Tony saw less than a dozen other people standing, talking quietly.In a minute the man came back out with an elderly woman wearing a long-sleeved, black blouse and a long, dark blue skirt.Her face was deeply lined, and the hair on the top of her head was sparse.Around her wattled neck hung a large necklace made of small discs of turquoise and other stones, and from her ears dangled large, finely engraved silver earrings."Mrs.Begay?" Laika said, and the woman nodded.Laika went on to introduce their party and apologize for their coming at such a sad time, but that in the interests of science and to prevent other deaths similar to Mr.Begay's, it was imperative that they be allowed to examine the body before it was buried.Mrs.Begay shook her head and looked pointedly at the wooden box in the station wagon."The coffin is nailed down.It cannot be opened again.""Mrs.Begay," Laika said, "I can't stress too strongly the importance of this.Now, we represent the government, and—""No," Mrs.Begay said flatly, shaking her head."You mean nothing here.This is Navajo land.The People's affairs are not your affairs.What happened to my husband is between him and the gods, that is all.""She's right," one of the men said.He was the biggest and probably the youngest, and wore a tan sisal cowboy hat and a red-and-white striped shirt."You have no authority here.Why don't you stop bothering my aunt on the funeral day of her husband? The coffin is nailed down, and it stays that way, that's all.Leave us in peace, now."Mrs.Begay turned and walked back into the house, and the men turned away from the three operatives and sipped their drinks.Laika, followed by Joseph and Tony, started walking back toward the car, but she turned and moved a few steps closer to the station wagon and the wooden coffin inside it.They stopped near enough for Tony to see the big nails in the coffin.The men on the porch were watching them warily."Want me to steal the wagon?" Tony said softly to Laika."Sure," Joseph said, "and start another Indian war.""Let's go," Laika said, walking to the car and getting behind the wheel."Why don't they have the coffin inside?" Tony asked."Looks like a wake, but without the main attraction.""As I recall, the Navajo have a traditional fear of the dead," said Laika."They don't like a dead person inside the house.In fact, they try to get them outside if they're definitely going to die.""Tenderhearted," said Joseph.Laika shook her head."It's just their belief.They like to have someone else bury the dead, too.Odds are whoever's driving that station wagon isn't part of the family." She sighed."We'll head out of town and stop up on that butte overlooking it.From there we can see where the coffin goes.""What, you mean to find the cemetery?" Tony asked."Right.""And what good'll that do?" Then it hit him."No way.You're kidding, right?""We have to see one of these bodies, and if the family won't cooperate." She shrugged."It's necessary.""One little problem," Joseph said."Getting caught doing something like that on Indian land? Our covers would be busted for sure.No government agency is supposed to operate around here without permission from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.""Hell, Joseph," Laika replied, "we're not even supposed to be operating in this country, so it's a little late to worry about such niceties now.Besides, we'll cover him up again.No one will even know we were there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]