She'd been maybe twelve, more interested in her phone than in his stories.
The memory stung, sharp and fresh, but James pushed it aside.He could deal with his feelings about Irene later.Right now, he needed to focus on why someone had been here in the middle of the night.
He rounded the rock formation, his eyes sweeping the ground for signs of disturbance.
Then he saw the body.
James stopped walking.His heart, which had been beating steadily, suddenly thundered in his chest.For a long moment, his mind refused to accept what his eyes were showing him.It tried to find other explanations—someone sleeping, someone who had passed out, anything but what this clearly was.
A man, lying among scattered artifacts that gleamed dully in the sunlight, positioned with his arms and legs at specific angles that James recognized even through his shock as having ceremonial significance.
This wasn't someone sleeping.
This was another murder.
James took a stumbling step backward, his boot catching on a rock.He caught himself before falling, but the movement broke the paralysis that had frozen him.His hand fumbled for his phone in his jacket pocket, his fingers clumsy and uncoordinated.
He called the police, explained as calmly as he could what he'd found.The dispatcher asked him questions—where exactly the body was, was he safe, could he see anyone else in the area—but James wasn't really listening.His eyes were fixed on the scene before him, on the terrible tableau of death and desecration, on the violation of a place that should have been protected.
He thought about Irene, about their argument this morning, about how she'd accused him of being stuck.Maybe she was right.Maybe staying here, holding onto the old ways, trying to protect what was sacred—maybe all of it was futile in the face of evil like this.
Maybe the world was moving on, changing into something he didn't recognize, and no amount of connection to the land could stop it.
The dispatcher was telling him to stay on the line, that officers were on their way, that he should move away from the scene and wait somewhere safe.James obeyed mechanically, walking backward, putting distance between himself and the body, never taking his eyes off the horror before him.
He didn't know the victim.Couldn't identify them from this distance, didn't want to get close enough to try.But it didn't matter who they were.
What mattered was that someone was hunting in his community, using their most sacred places as a stage for murder.
And James had probably seen the killer's lights last night and done nothing.
The guilt of that, combined with the shock of discovery, made his knees weak.He sat down heavily on a flat rock, the phone still pressed to his ear, waiting for the police to arrive and knowing that when they did, everything would change again.
Just like when Patricia had been found.
Just like when the first terrible crack appeared in the foundation of safety, his community had always taken for granted.
James Koyiyumptewa sat in the April afternoon sun and waited, the sacred site behind him violated once more, his daughter's angry words still echoing in his head, and the terrible knowledge settling in his bones that the lights he'd seen last night would haunt him for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Patricia Lomahongva's house was a modest single-story dwelling on the edge of the village, surrounded by a carefully tended garden that showed signs of recent neglect—weeds beginning to push through the flower beds, a few tools left out that should have been stored away.The kind of small disorder that accumulates when someone is absent or preoccupied with other things.
Such as, perhaps, the genealogical project Patricia had been working on.
Polacca unlocked the front door with a key provided by Patricia's sister.The house had that particular stillness of a home whose occupant wouldn't be returning, a quality Kari had encountered too many times in her career.Personal belongings arranged just as their owner had left them, frozen in time, waiting for someone who would never come back.
The interior was neat and comfortable—furniture that had been carefully chosen but wasn't expensive, walls decorated with family photographs and a few pieces of traditional Hopi pottery.A handwoven basket sat on the coffee table, its geometric patterns precise and beautiful.Everything spoke of a woman who valued her heritage, who lived simply but with intention.
"Her home office is this way," Polacca said, leading Kari down a short hallway.
The office was a converted bedroom, its walls lined with bookshelves filled with genealogical reference materials, tribal histories, and three-ring binders meticulously labeled with family names.A large desk dominated the space, its surface covered with file folders, sticky notes, and a desktop computer with a dark monitor.
Kari moved to the desk and began carefully examining the materials.The top folder contained family trees—hand-drawn diagrams showing relationships spanning multiple generations, with notes in Patricia's handwriting about sources and dates.The next folder held DNA test results, pages of genetic markers, and percentage breakdowns that meant little to Kari without proper context.
"This is extensive work," Kari said, flipping through another folder."How long had she been doing this?"
"Years.Maybe a decade?"Polacca stood near the doorway, her arms crossed."Like I said at the Cultural Center, she helped a lot of families."
