Page 23 of It Takes a Thief

I took this opportunity to go around to the passenger side of the truck and tap some fentanyl onto my fist. It would’ve been nice to add some Tango & Cash to the mix, but a slight breeze was stirring up, and I knew Galileo was looking at me.

Then it occurred to me.

They might make me do a pee test before hiring me at the hospital.

“Oh, shit,” I croaked, wiping my fist on my ass. I looked out toward the Four Corners as though Asdzáá Nádleehé herself would send me a sign. She was Changing Woman who created the sky and the earth. I was learning.

What to do? I’d have to cold turkey it, was what. Without my old frustrating job, without Ford around—or not around, as the case may be—irritating me with his lack of attention or interest in me, I might not need Tango & Cash. My rib was healed. I no longer had any excuse for my behavior. I was no better than the bilagáana who drank the blue-sky liquid made on the Rez, “Montana Gin.” I was some fine person to look down my nose at them.

When I looked at Galileo, waiting for our burritos with such a sweet expression on his face as though admiring a good strip tease, I knew I had to stop it. He gazed at me and practically winked, he was that corny and good. He seemed to be having an orgasm when he bit into his burrito, eyes squeezed shut.

“Hózhó,” he murmured. All is right with the world.

“What do you normally eat at your hogan?”

He grinned impishly. “Let’s see. Breakfast was instant mashed potato and green beans the consistency of my shoes.”

I sighed deeply, feeling guilty for enjoying my burrito so much. “We’re going to get some help for you, Galileo.” Then I realized it sounded condescending. What if Galileo didn’t want help?

But he seemed to consider it. “Doing what?”

“Well, like I told you. The Bare Bones own a lot of business around Pure & Easy. You like it down there? You don’t have much family here, do you, since your mom died?”

“No. Not much to speak of. Nothing much to lose, really. Once I found my underwear high up in a cottonwood tree near school. I found my biological father in an end-of-days cult in the Appalachians. I’ll find something. I’ll find something to do with my life.”

We were crumbling up our papers, tossing them in a trash can. “You’re a really tall guy. Maybe you could work in our tuxedo store.”

Galileo smiled wanly. “What’s a tuxedo?”

“Welcome to my bilagáana world.”

Back in the truck, we dodged the free-range cows that ambled unconcerned in the road. We neared the town proper. What was funny, Galileo removed his head scarf and combed his oily hair back with one of those dime store combs, fussing with it as though it were some Park Avenue coiffure.

“If we’re lucky, Dr. Chesbrough will be here. Sometimes he goes on rounds, makes house calls.”

“House calls?” Who had heard of a thing like that in decades?

“He came to our mother’s hogan, before we had to burn it down. She was obviously very near death, and we had no time to get her out of the structure. So she expired, and Ellis and I had to strip down and rub ash all over ourselves to handle the body. He stayed with me all night. We got two neighbors to help bury her the next day.”

I knew Navajo had a shrinking fear of death, and only four people were allowed at the burial. Still, I thought that was mighty big of Dr. Ellis Chesbrough, who sounded like a “non.” He had a heart.

Going over a slight rise in the road, there was another obstruction before us.

In our lane, a truck had come to a stop diagonally. A truck in front of it was parked neatly on the shoulder, facing us.

“Another adláanii,” said Galileo with a deep sorrow.

“You mean just some adláaniis in the middle of nowhere?”

“That’s the worst kind of adláanii. They do seem to come out of the blue, especially at night. Some people get them confused with skinwalkers. Except sometimes adláaniis don’t wear coyotes on their heads.”

“Sometimes…? Oh Galileo, look. Pull over.”

“Oh, this is too gruesome. I can’t look.”

“Just pull over. You don’t have to look.”

I leaped out of Galileo’s truck. The bed was crowded with men, maybe on their way back from a job site. They held shovels and hoes as though posing for a painting. It didn’t look like anyone had jumped out to help, maybe used to this sort of thing.