Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 12] by The Fallen Man (v1) [html]

enough about ten or fifteen years ago to make development profitable. They say Harold, or the Breedlove family, or somebody, was negotiating for a mineral lease and the Mancos Chamber of Commerce had high hopes of a big mining payroll. But then Harold disappeared and before you know it the price was down again. I’d want to find out if any of that was true.”
    “I see,” McDermott said. “Yes, it would have made the ranch more valuable and made the motive stronger.”
    “What the hell,” Shaw said. “We were keeping quiet about it because news like that leaks out, it causes problems. With local politicians, with the tree-huggers, with everybody else.”
    “Okay,” Leaphorn said. “I guess if I take this job, then I’m safe in figuring the ranch is worth a lot more than the grass growing on it.”
    “What do you say?” Shaw said, his voice impatient. “Can we count on you to do some digging for us?”
    “I’ll think about it,” Leaphorn said. “I’ll call your office.”
    “We’ll be here a day or two,” Shaw said. “And we’re in a hurry. Why not a decision right now?”
    A hurry, Leaphorn thought. After all these years. “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” he said. “But you haven’t answered my question about the value of the ranch.”
    McDermott looked grim. “You’d be safe to assume it was worth killing for.”

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11
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    T WISTING THE TAIL OF A cow will encourage her to move forward,” the text declared. “If the tail is held up over the back, it serves as a mild restraint. In both cases, the handler should hold the tail close to the base to avoid breaking it, and stand to the side to avoid being kicked.”
    The paragraph was at the top of the fourth-from-final page of a training manual supplied by the Navajo Nation for training brand inspectors of its Resource Enforcement Agency. Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee read it, put down the manual, and rubbed his eyes. He was not on the payroll of the tribe’s REA. But since Captain Largo was forcing him to do its job he’d borrowed an REA brand inspector manual and was plowing his way through it. He’d covered the legal sections relating to grazing rights, trespass, brand registration, bills of sale, when and how livestock could be moved over the reservation boundary, and disease quarantine rules, and was now into advice about handling livestock without getting hurt. To Chee, who had been kicked by several horses but never by a cow, the advice seemed sound. Besides, it diverted him from the paperwork—vacation schedules, justifications for overtime pay, patrol car mileage reports, and so forth—that was awaiting action on his cluttered desk. He picked up the manual.
    “The ear twitch can be used to divert attention from other parts of the body,” the next paragraph began. “It should be used with care to avoid damage to the ear cartilage. To make the twitch, fasten a loop of cord or rope around the base of the horns. The rope is then carried around the ear and a half-hitch formed. The end of the rope is pulled to apply restraint.”
    Chee studied the adjoining illustration of a sleepy-looking cow wearing an ear twitch. Chee’s childhood experience had been with sheep, on which an ear twitch wouldn’t be needed. Still, he figured he could make one easily enough.
    The next paragraph concerned a “rope casting harness” with which a person working alone could tie up a mature cow or bull without the risk of strangulation that was involved with usual bulldogging techniques. It looked easy, too, but required a lot of rope. Two pages to go and he’d be finished with this.
    Then the telephone rang.
    The voice on the telephone belonged to Officer Manuelito.
    “Lieutenant,” she said, “I’ve found something I think you should know about.”
    “Tell me,” Chee said.
    “Out near Ship Rock, that place where the fence posts had been dug out. You remember?”
    “I remember.”
    “Well, the snow is gone now and you can see where before