Coyote Waits by Tony Hillerman Page B

washboard surface, avoiding the worst of the bumps such roads develop. It was twilight when they dropped down into Short Mountain Wash and parked on the hard-packed earth that formed the trading post yard.
    It was empty. Leaphorn parked near the porch, turned off the ignition and sat. He had brought Emma here once, long ago, to see this place and to meet Old John McGinnis. He’d described McGinnis as he’d known him, honorable in his way but notoriously grouchy, pessimistic, perverse, quick with insults and overflowing with windy stories and gossip. Over the front door nailed to the porch beam a faded sign proclaimed:
     
    THIS ESTABLISHMENT FOR SALE
INQUIRE WITHIN
     
    The sign had been there at least fifty years. According to local legend, McGinnis had hung it there within weeks after he’d bought the store from the Mormon who’d established it. The legend had it that young McGinnis had been outsmarted in the deal. Those who knew him found that incredible.
    “He’s rude,” he’d told Emma. “No manners at all and he may snap at you. But look him over. I’d like to know what you think of him.”
    So, of course, McGinnis had been courtly, charming, full of smiles and compliments, showing Emma the best of his pawn goods and his collection of lance points, pots, and assorted artifacts — perverse as always. Emma had been charmed.
    “I don’t see why you say those bad things about him,” she’d said. “He’s a good man.”
    As always when it came to judging people, Emma was correct. In his prickly, eccentric way, John McGinnis was a good man.
    Leaphorn was aware that Professor Bourebonette had glanced at him and glanced away. He supposed she was wondering why he was just sitting here. But she said nothing, and made no move to open her door. Willing to wait, sensing the value of this moment to him. He found himself favorably impressed with the woman. But then this sort of sensitivity would be something one in her profession would polish — part of their technique for establishing rapport with those they need to use. How long would her formula cause her to wait?
    Cold evening air settling into Short Mountain Wash pushed a breeze across the yard, moving a tumbleweed languidly toward the porch. A water barrel stopped it. The buildings here had looked tired and decrepit the first time he’d seen the place. In the red light of the sunset they looked worse. A plaster-and-stone building behind the main post had been partially burned and left unrepaired, the shed where hay was stored leaned to the left. Even the porch seemed to have sagged under the weight of age and loneliness.
    Now a naked light bulb hanging over the trading post door went on, a feeble yellow glow in the twilight.
    “Well,” Leaphorn said. “He’s ready to receive a customer. Let’s go talk to him.”
    “I only met him once,” Bourebonette said. “He helped me find some people. I remember he seemed fairly old.”
    “He knew my grandfather,” Leaphorn said. “Or so he claims.”
    Bourebonette looked at him. “You sound skeptical.”
    Leaphorn laughed, shook his head. “Oh, I guess he really did know him. But with McGinnis—” He laughed again.
    The front door opened and McGinnis stood in it, looking out at them.
    “After closing time,” he said. “What you want?”
    He was smaller than Leaphorn remembered — a white-haired, bent old man in faded blue overalls. But he identified Leaphorn as soon as he climbed out of the car.
    “Be damned,” McGinnis said. “Here comes the Sherlock Holmes of the Navajo Tribal Police. And I betcha I can guess what brought him out here to the poor side of the Reservation.”
    “
Yaa’ eh t’eeh
,” Leaphorn said, “I think you know Dr. Bourebonette here.”
    “Why, yes indeed I do,” McGinnis said. To Leaphorn’s amazement, he made something like a bow. “And it’s good to see you back again, Ma’am. Can you come on in and have something to drink? Or maybe join me at my supper. It’s only