Tess found herself envying Connor’s seeming unconcern.
He was Belacana, non-Navajo, she reminded herself. To him a dead body was just a dead body. Even if he understood what an Enemy Way was, the concept of a warrior undergoing a ceremony to rid himself of the ghosts of those he’d killed wouldn’t fit his logical view of the world.
She didn’t know how much credence she put in the old beliefs herself, she thought unhappily as they headed across the parking lot. All she knew was that she wished she had some—
“I got corn pollen,” Joey said beside her in a small voice. His backpack slung over his shoulder, he fumbled under the grimy neckband of his tee. “I think you’re supposed to sprinkle some on your tongue and your head. That’s what Mac told me when he gave it to me, anyway.”
“Mac? John MacLeish?”
Connor was ahead of them, but from the stiffening of his posture as she spoke, Tess knew he’d heard her reference to the man the FBI was hunting. Too bad, Agent, she thought with a spurt of defiance. If you think I’m going to take this opportunity to see if Joey’s memory’s starting to come back, you’re wrong. Right now us two Dineh have more important business to attend to.
“Yeah. He said the worst thing that could happen to a man was if he forgot who he was and where he came from. He told me I should be proud to be one of the People.” Joey glanced up. “Some kids had been ragging me, calling me a dumb Indian.”
“I see.”
She did see, Tess thought. The hardscrabble environment of the streets was a perfect breeding ground for ignorance and racism; although also, from what she understood Joey to be saying, equally a place where a homeless man’s rough kindness could reveal itself in giving the gift of pride to a child. For the first time she found herself wondering what kind of person the mysterious MacLeish was. A killer, yes, judging from the Agency’s case against him. But he’d seemingly behaved with compassion and sensitivity toward the boy.
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