Page 11 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

A BOUT FOUR MILES back down the rutted road, Corrie slowed the Tahoe and turned onto a dirt track.

Up ahead, Nora could see a hogan and, behind it, a trailer and some sheep corrals.

“That’s it,” said Corrie.

“Stop here.”

Corrie brought the SUV to a stop a good hundred yards from the trailer.

“I’m going to get out. You stay in the car.”

“Remember, she’s got a shotgun,” said Corrie.

“They all do,” Nora said.

She stepped out into the heat, put on her hat, and, leaning against the car, waited.

The sun was so bright it was hard for her to see inside the trailer, and the door to the hogan was closed.

It looked like nobody was there—except Nora knew the woman must be around somewhere.

The sheep were in the corral, huddled in the shade of a shelter.

Five minutes went by, and finally the door of the hogan opened and a lady with iron-gray hair stepped out, a look of displeasure on her face.

A shotgun was tucked in the crook of her arm, broken open and ready for loading.

She made a dismissive gesture with her arm, warning them off.

“Yá’át’ééh shimasani”— Hello, Grandmother —Nora called out, hoping her pronunciation wasn’t too terrible.

The woman frowned and waved her off again.

“Haa’íílá ńt’é?” How are you doing?

The woman scowled. Nora could see, in the dim interior behind her, a loom with a half-completed weaving.

“Bilagáana bizaadísh dinits’a’?” Do you speak English?

At this, the woman looked puzzled.

“Bilagáana bizaadísh dinits’a’?” Nora repeated.

Navajo was such a tongue twister, she thought, she might be ordering moo shu pork without realizing it.

“Haash yinilyé?” What is your name?

At this, the woman’s face wrinkled up, and for a moment Nora thought she was going to drop two shells into the shotgun barrels—but then she realized the woman was laughing.

Her thin, cackling voice came through the air, sounding like a cricket with hiccups.

“Um, is everything all right?” Nora asked in English.

The woman held her sides.

“You speak bad Navajo,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” said Nora, flustered.

“Where did you learn to talk so badly?”

“I took some courses in Santa Fe.”

More cackling.

“Say something else!”

Nora was taken aback.

“You mean, in Navajo?”

The woman nodded.

“Um.” She delved into her small bag of memorized phrases.

“Háázhó’ógo bee ádíní.” Please speak more slowly.

This set the woman into fresh cackles of laughter.

Nora realized she had no teeth.

At this, Corrie rolled down the passenger window.

“What’s going on?” she asked in a low voice.

“My Navajo is being made fun of.”

“You were speaking Navajo? It sounded like you were choking on food.”

Nora suppressed her irritation.

The old lady had now leaned her shotgun against the side of the hogan and was waving for them to come over.

Nora called out, “Ahéhee’ shimasani.” Thank you , Grandmother .

At a nod, Corrie got out and followed Nora to the old woman.

She went inside and gestured for them to follow.

The interior of the trailer was spotlessly clean and almost empty, save for a large open tub brimful of water, a Coleman camping stove running off a bottle of propane, two wooden benches alongside a crude wooden table, and a wood stove, thankfully not going.

“Welcome,” said the old lady in good English.

“Do you want coffee?”

“Yes, please,” said Nora, and Corrie seconded it.

“My name is Nora Kelly, and this is my friend Corrie Swanson.”

The old lady bowed her head in acknowledgment but did not offer her own name.

She turned the heat on under a tin coffee pot.

She pointed to it. “Gohwééh,” she said.

“Coffee.”

“Gohwééh,” Nora repeated.

The woman’s face wrinkled up in amusement again.

She went to a cupboard, took out three enameled tin cups, and placed them on the table, along with a jar of Cremora and another of sugar.

She eased herself down while the coffee heated.

A silence fell. Nora had already spent enough time with Navajo people to know that silence was common, and not to be treated as something that needed to be filled with trivial conversation.

Indeed, it was often a token of respect.

She took a moment to study the woman.

It was hard to tell how old she was.

A lifetime in strong sun had produced a face that was deeply wrinkled, almost more than she’d imagined possible.

Into this face were set two alert eyes like black marbles, a pronounced chin, broad cheekbones, and a sweep of gray hair tied back in a bun with a blue silk ribbon.

She was wearing traditional dress: a purple velveteen blouse with a squash blossom necklace, turquoise earrings, a woven cotton belt, and a long orange calico dress—all very old-style.

It amazed Nora that she took the time and effort to dress like that when nobody would see her, and especially in the heat.

It said a lot about her sense of self-respect and dignity.

The coffee warmed, and the woman rose and filled their cups.

Into her own she heaped several teaspoons of sugar and at least four or five of Cremora.

Nora declined both, but Corrie avidly heaped Cremora and sugar into her cup.

Nora took a sip and smiled, even though it was awful—it must have been boiling for days on the stove.

She sensed it was finally time to speak.

“Did you see all the cars and RVs going past your place last week?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“That was a movie crew,” said Nora.

“They’re shooting a movie called Steele , a Western, in the badlands.”

“Those were some fancy RVs,” the woman said, with another toothless smile.

“They found something out there. Human remains.”

At this the woman’s face froze, the mirth turning to unease.

She said nothing. Nora knew that Navajos were extremely uncomfortable talking about the dead.

“It was a woman, and she passed away between two to seven years ago. We’re trying to find out who she was.”

The old woman shifted uneasily, making no response.

“We want to be able to tell her family.”

At this, the woman said, “Where did you find the body?”

“Near the base of that tall black rock mesa a few miles down the road—the one that looks like a stubby finger.”

Now the woman’s face showed traces of alarm.

There was a long shaking of her head.

“That is a bad place. A ch’ ?dii place.”

Nora recognized the Navajo word for ghost .

“May I?” Corrie asked.

She took out a manila envelope, removed an eight-by-ten photo of the victim’s facial reconstruction, and held it out to the woman.

“Did you ever see someone like this come through here?”

The woman took the photo and looked at it a long time.

Then she nodded slowly.

“About five years ago, she was here.”

Corrie leaned forward, excitement in her face.

“Five years? Can you be more specific?”

The woman shook her head.

“Time is not that important to me, but it was sometime in the summer. I saw her walk past on the road out there, moving real slow. I was frightened. She looked so strange. I never saw her again.”

“You didn’t know she’d died out by that black rock?”

“I never go there.” She shuddered.

“That is a place of yee naaldlooshii .”

“Skinwalkers, Navajo witches,” Nora translated for Corrie in a low voice.

“I never go there,” the woman repeated.

“Why is it a place of skinwalkers?” Corrie asked.

The woman looked really frightened now.

“I don’t know. It’s been that way since the beginning of time.”