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.Chee gave him some time to think, uneasy, but enjoying the view.Walpi was on the high edge of the mesa, maybe seven thousand feet above sealevel and a couple of thousand feet above the immensity of empty country belowthem.A truck was rolling down U.S.264 far below their feet, ant-sized, andthe thunderheads of the late-summer monsoon season were beginning to buildover Tovar Mesa, and the Hopi Buttes, and the ragged spire of Montezuma sChair miles to the south.No lightning yet, and only one of the clouds [159]was dragging a mist of vigara below it.As the cloud towers rose higher laterin the morning some of them would make rain.Now they only produced a patternof cloud shadows dappling the landscape dark blue as they drifted eastward.Dashee sighed. You re sure about this photo of Bernie? he asked. It wastaken by her boss, and it was handed around to some druggies in Sonora.Imean, right away after it was taken? And the word from there was that theythink Bernie is dangerous? He stared at Chee. Is that true? Not justspeculation? Chee nodded. You re a hell of a lot of trouble.My folks always warned me aboutassociating with you Head Breakers. No more head breaking, Chee said. Now we Navajos kill folks with ourkindness. Head Breakers was a pejorative Hopi term for Navajos, the traditionalenemies of the Hopi since about the sixteenth century.It suggested Dashee stribe considered them too unsophisticated to invent bows and arrows.Page 77 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html You re telling me Lieutenant Leaphorn believes all this nonsense too, Dashee said. The Legendary Lieutenant is endorsing this. He s the one who figured it out.Found the pipeline on one of his maps. Oh, well, Dashee said. We better take my truck then.If we re going to bebusting in on these people, we want to make it look official. I d say head east over to Gallup, then south through the Zuñi Reservation toFence Lake, then State Road 36 through Quemado, and then down to Lordsburg.Get a motel there, be up early and. Dashee was glowering at him.[160] I see you already have my route all planned.You took ole Cowboy forgranted again. Dashee shifted into his copy of Chee s voice: Just go onover to Second Mesa and get Cowboy.He s easy.He ll believe whatever you tellhim. Ah, come on Cowboy.You know Just kidding, Cowboy said. Let s go. I owe you one, Chee said. One? Cowboy said. You already owe me about six. 21Budge got Winsor s Falcon 10 jet ready to fly and reassured himself thatarrangements had been properly made to clear this journey into Mexico.Then hefound a comfortable chair in the transient flights waiting room and sat tryingto decide what to do.Progress on that was slow.Memories of Chrissy keptintruding.The first time he d met her, almost the first moment in fact, she had madehim aware that she was not the usual type of young woman Winsor sent him tocollect.He d been following his standard limo driver pattern, arriving aboutfifteen minutes early, waiting about ten minutes, and then ringing the belland announcing that he was early but available at her convenience.But thistime Chrissy had spoken first. Oh, my, she had said. I m sorry.I m sorry I m late.I ll hurry.I ll beright down. The young women Winsor had previously collected [162] had without anyexceptions actually been late, had never apologized, had never hurried, andhad never shown any interest in whether he minded waiting out in the frostydarkness.They were so far away on the upper side of the class barrier thatlimo drivers were invisible to them.They showed no more interest in who wasdriving the car than they would for the spare tire in the trunk.The first fewtimes he d done this chore, he had ventured a friendly welcome, or one ofthose nice evening remarks.The responses, if any, had been cool and terse,letting him know that it was pushy and intrusive of him to dare to speak to adebutante from whichever expensive and exclusive finishing school had finishedthem.Page 78 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlChrissy had been different.She had hurried out of the apartment house entryand reached the car in such a rush that she d had her hand on the door handlebefore he could get there to open it for her. Golly, she said. I m sorry I ve kept you waiting.My dad taught us thatbeing late is really rude.It tells the other person you think you re moreimportant than they are. Actually, I was a little early, Budge had said.And when they were en routehe ventured a nice evening remark.This time it had touched off aconversation.Chrissy actually introduced herself to him.And so it had gone.During the dozens of times he d been her driver since that day, they d becomefriends in a strange sort of way, answering one another s biographicalquestions, exchanging opinions of current Washingtonian uproars andcontroversies, agreeing that this city was interesting but had more than itsshare of people way, way too driven [163] by greed and ambition.And graduallyit became more and more personal. I guess I m one of those greedy ones, too, Chrissy had said one day. Icame here to try to get into law school at George Washington University, and Idid, so now I m in it, and making good grades, and I m surrounded by lawyers.And by law students.And all they seem to think about is either getting moneyor getting power.And I m not sure anymore I want to be one. Yeah, Budge had said. I used to be a political activist. Power to thePeople, you know.Or, as we used to shout over in Catalonia when I was akid, A la pared por los ricos Firing squad for the rich folks. Dreamed ofbeing the czar of the universe.I was going to reform everything, start withthe soccer rules, work up to the United Nations, and then see what I could dowith human nature. But no more? she asked. Did you give up on all that? Her voice soundedsad, but maybe that was just to play along with his joke. It was just a dream, he said. My family was always on the wrong side, fromthe fight against Franco and the fascists to running to South America andgetting with the losing side down there. Well, now you re a success.You re making a lot of money, she said. I knowyou re not just getting paid to drive the limo.You re sort of an aide to Mr.Winsor.I ve heard him talking about you. And what did he say? Well, once I heard him tell Mr.Haret, the man who works with Congress forhim, he told him that you were the only one he had he could absolutely counton.And on [164]the telephone once, he was telling someone that when thingsget out of control he turns it over to Budge, and he knows Budge will fix it. Did he mention why he can depend on me? No, she said, then hesitated. Unless he said you owed him a great bigfavor.Maybe that was it. It was
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