July Fourth was a scorching summer day in Marble Canyon. The sunlight was so bright it hurt, even with sunglasses. A tantalizing band of towering cumulus monsoon clouds was climbing toward the blue heavens above the San Francisco Peaks over Flagstaff to the west. Perhaps the gods would bring rain relief to Navajo land one day soon. But not today.
Officer Dalton Singer’s truck radio came to life, snapping him out of his weather reverie. It was an urgent call from the Tuba City dispatcher reporting that a dead body had just been found near Bitter Springs, fifty miles away. Dalton was the closest unit. The dispatcher was short on details other than to say it was an apparent suicide.
Suicide was extremely rare on Navajo. Liquor or traffic accidents were invariably the biggest killers after heart disease and diabetes. The taking of one’s own life so dishonored the Navajo sense of beauty that it simply was not done.
Dalton dreaded what he was going to find. He wished someone else had gotten the call. Suicide and murder were the worst.
The directions led to an isolated spot above Jackass Creek, off Indian Route 6094, just a few miles downstream from Lee’s Ferry, where river trips were sometimes illegally launched. It was fairly close to the Little Colorado River. What was it with that place lately?
Dalton was not a traditional Navajo, so he did not instinctively fear the dead. Death made him profoundly sad more than anything else.
Most Navajo believed the Chindi, the evil spirit of the dead, roamed around, waiting to infect whoever came near with ghost sickness. The Chindi, the last breath taken by the deceased, held all that was wrong with them. It never left the place of death. It was there forever. That’s why a Navajo family would move out of a house if a loved one had died within. They would knock a big hole in the north-facing wall, so the menacing force could escape. Navajo land was littered with death hogans. The living would then build a new house far away and never return.
For the same reason, most Navajo didn’t like to touch a dead body. So the Hopi, who did not share the Navajo superstitions and fears about the deceased, were often hired to perform the burial.
But suicide was deeply disturbing, no matter one’s personal beliefs. Dalton was filled with anxiety as he turned off Highway 89 across from the Arizona Department of Transportation Work Center at Navajo Springs and took a heavily traveled and well-maintained gravel road heading north toward the Grand Canyon.
A few miles down the road, he passed a once active but now abandoned windmill. The well had dried up or become contaminated. Nearby sat a bone-dry patch of sand that had once been a rain-fed field of corn. It was a desolate landscape home to desperate people.
At the end of the washboard road, overlooking the Colorado River, he found a battered green Subaru Forester Compact SUV. Several bowlegged Navajo ranchers who discovered the body milled about, smoking silently and staring into the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon.
Dalton greeted the grizzled Navajos with a friendly yá át tééh. The old ranchers tipped their cowboy hats but said nothing. They were shaken and wouldn’t be going anywhere near the SUV holding the dead man’s foul spirit. It was likely they had already gotten too close when they first inspected the vehicle. Now they would need an expensive healing ceremony to restore their harmony.
The owner of the nearest ranch, Fred Yazzie, a tall, straight-backed Navajo in his late fifties, came forward reluctantly. He held his black Lone Hawk hat in his hands like a gift.
Dalton knew the man vaguely, remembering him as trustworthy and friendly. On the way in, he had passed Fred’s well-tended ranch, where several large cottonwoods provided a blanket of shade.
“Me and the others were rounding up some livestock this morning and we decided to eat lunch out here on the rim where we could watch the river. Big mistake. We saw the car and wondered who it might be. Figured it was someone catching a river trip maybe. We could see the driver just sitting there, and we noticed the windows were all rolled up. Seemed strange on such a hot day. So we went over to see what the fellow was doing way out here on Navajo land—I mean, he wasn’t from around here ‘cause we would have recognized his car.”
Fred went silent and looked up at the blue sky as if for inspiration.
Dalton knew how difficult this was for the old Navajo cowboy. Even talking about death was inviting trouble. The dead man’s Chindi would be nearby, and when he heard them talking about him it would come for them with bad intentions. Dalton was surprised the three men had even stayed around waiting for him to arrive.
Dalton walked toward the Subaru, stopping outside the driver’s door. He peered in, then stepped back involuntarily. “It’s a belegana.”
The three Navajo nodded in unison but offered nothing else in response, preferring to stare at the ground.
Dalton was relieved the victim wasn’t Navajo, but the red tape that would have to be unraveled, dealing with an Anglo suicide on the Rez, was going to be a giant pain in the ass. Dalton took a deep breath and moved closer to get a better look. He was a jumble of emotions.
Inside the car, sitting calmly at the wheel, was the environmental rabble rouser Hunter Maxwell, who had helped lead the protest at the Tribal Council meeting a few nights before. The same Hunter Maxwell had gotten into a vicious fight with Vladimir Petrov’s Russian bodyguards.
This was going to be a sensational news story. It would also have the Navajo police chasing their tails for the next two weeks.
Someone had swept the ground around the SUV so there were no tracks. He could see the brush strokes in the dirt made by a broom. That seemed very odd.
Dalton opened the door to a smell like stale aftershave. Maxwell hadn’t struck him as the kind of guy who wore cologne. He wore brown shorts, a green tank top, and Teva water sandals.
The dead man’s pale face was turning a nasty shade of gray in the intense heat. He seemed to be scowling. Examining, Dalton found no wounds or telltale blood.
There was a long garden hose extending from the tailpipe to the interior of the car. The man apparently died from inhaling carbon monoxide. Maxwell appeared to have committed suicide.
The interior of the car was clean. A towel on the passenger seat was covered in dust as if it had been used to clean off surfaces. There was no sign of a struggle, and there was no suicide note. A rope was neatly coiled on the floor in the back seat and a maroon-and-gold Arizona Sun Devils baseball hat was sitting in the back hatch. That was it. There was nothing to indicate foul play or that Hunter Maxwell had put up his customary fight. The only oddity Dalton noticed was the lack of water. He took note that a seasoned Canyon rat like Hunter Maxwell was traveling in the backcountry in the middle of summer without carrying any water. That seemed unlikely.
Dalton touched nothing. He didn’t want to contaminate the potential crime scene, a crime scene that made little sense to him. Everything seemed normal enough, and yet slightly out of whack.
“Why would Hunter Maxwell come way out here on the Navajo Reservation and kill himself?” said Dalton under his breath.
Dalton didn’t know the white man. He had just seen him that one time when he was beating the head Russian goon to a bloody pulp. But Maxwell seemed to exude life. He was healthy and raring for a fight. He seemed like a tough man who was in the struggle of life for the long haul. Why would he kill himself in the middle of nowhere just a few days after putting on such a wild show in Window Rock?
Dalton was skeptical that he did.
This was not suicide. This was murder. Dalton was certain of it, but he also knew that proving it would be another matter altogether.