Product Description

When Lt. Joe Leaphorn of The Navaho Tribal Police discovers a corpse with a mouth full of sand at a crime scene seemingly without tracks or clues, he is ready to suspect a supernatural killer. Blood on the rocks . . . A body on the high mesa . . . Leaphorn must stalk the Wolf-Witch along a chilling trail between mysticism and murder.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #158294 in Books
• Published on: 1990-02-15
• Released on: 1990-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061000010
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Brilliant . . . As fascinating as it is original." -- -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author

Tony Hillerman is past president of the Mystery Writers of America and has received their Edgar and Grand Master awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian's Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for best novel set in the West, and the Navajo Tribe's Special Friend Award. He lives with his wife, Marie, in Albuquerque, NM.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Luis Horseman leaned the flat stone very carefully against the piñon twig, adjusted its balance exactly and then cautiously withdrew his hand. The twig bent, but held. Horseman rocked back on his heels and surveyed the deadfall. He should have put a little more blood on the twig, he thought, but it might be enough. He had placed this one just right, with the twig at the edge of the kangaroo rat's trail. The least nibble and the stone would fall. He reached into his shirt front, pulled out a leather pouch, extracted an odd-shaped lump of turquoise, and placed it on the ground in front of him. Then he started to sing:

"The Sky it talks about it.
The Talking God One he tells about it.
The Darkness to Be One knows about it.
The Talking God is with me.
With the Talking God I kill the male game."

There was another part of the song, but Horseman couldn't remember it. He sat very still, thinking. Something about the Black God, but he couldn't think how it went. The Black God didn't have anything to do with game, but his uncle had said you have to put it in about him to make the chant come out right. He stared at the turquoise bear. It said nothing. He glanced at his watch. It, was almost six. By the time he got back to the rimrock it would be late enough to make a little fire, dark enough to hide the smoke. Now he must finish this.

"The dark horn of the bica,
No matter who would do evil to me,
The evil shall not harm me.
The dark horn is a shield of beaten buckskin."

Horseman chanted in a barely audible voice, just loud enough to be heard in the minds of the animals.

"That evil which the Ye-i turned toward me
cannot reach me through the dark horn,
through the shield the bica carries.
It brings me harmony with the male game.
It makes the male game hear my heartbeat.
From four directions they trot toward me.
They step and turn their sides toward me.

So my arrow misses bone when I shoot.
The death of male game comes toward me.
The blood of male game will wash my body.
The male game will obey my thoughts."

He replaced the turquoise bear in the medicine pouch and rose stiffly to his feet. He was pretty sure that wasn't the right song. It was for deer, he thought. To make the deer come out where you could shoot them. But maybe the kangaroo rats would hear it, too. He looked carefully across the plateau, searching the foreground first, then the mid-distance, finally the great green slopes of the Lukachukai Mountains, which rose to the east. Then he moved away from the shelter of the stunted juniper and walked rapidly northwestward, moving silently and keeping to the bottom of the shallow arroyos when he could. He walked gracefully and silently. Suddenly he stopped. The corner of his eye had caught motion on the floor of the Kam Bimghi Valley. Far below him and a dozen miles to the west, a puff of dust was suddenly visible against a formation of weathered red rocks. It might be a dust devil, kicked up by one of the Hard Flint Boys playing their tricks on the Wind Children. But it was windless now. The stillness of late afternoon had settled over the eroded waste below him.

Must have been a truck, Horseman thought, and the feeling of dread returned. He moved cautiously out of the wash behind a screen of piñons and stood motionless, examining the landscape below him. Far to the west, Bearer of the Sun had moved down the sky and was outlining in brilliant white the form of a thunderhead over Hoskininie Mesa. The plateau where Horseman stood was in its shadow but the slanting sunlight still lit the expanse of the Kam Bimghi. There was no dust by the red rocks now, and Horseman wondered if his eyes had tricked him. Then he saw it again. A puff of dust moving slowly across the valley floor. A truck, Horseman thought, or a car. It would be on that track that came across the slick rocks and branched out toward Horse Fell and Many Ruins Canyon, and now to Tall Poles Butte where the radar station was. It must be a truck, or a jeep. That track wasn't much even in good weather. Horseman watched intently. In a minute he could tell.

And if it turned toward Many Ruins Canyon, he would move cast across the plateau and up into the Lukachukais. And that would mean being hungry.

The dust disappeared as the vehicle dropped into one of the mazes of arroyos which cut the valley into a crazy quilt of erosion. Then he saw it again and promptly lost it where the track wound to the west of Natani Tso, the great flat-topped lava butte which dominated the north end of the valley. Almost five minutes passed before he saw the dust again.

"Ho," Horseman said, and relaxed. The truck had turned toward Tall Poles. It would be the Army people who watched the radar place. He moved away from the tree, trotting now. He was hungry and there was a porcupine to singe, clean, and roast before he would eat.

Luis Horseman had chosen this camp with care. Here the plateau was cut by one of the hundred nameless canyons which drained into the depth of Many Ruins Canyon. Along the rim, the plateau's granite cap, its sandstone support eroded away, had fractured under its own weight. Some of these great blocks of stone had crashed into the canyon bottom, leaving behind room-sized gaps in the rimrock. Others had merely tilted and slid. Behind one of these, Horseman knelt over his fire. It was a small fire, built in the extreme corner of the natural enclosure.

Customer Reviews

A predictable mystery, but the action and the culture was just gripping
I loved this novel, and while I guessed the Whodunnit, the why dunnit was less easy to guess. What I really liked about this was the action, and the culture. The insight into the Navajo community and culture was extraodinary and so infused in the book as that it didn't seem forced.

This book starts with the disappearance of Luis Horseman who thinks he has murdered someone and takes off for a lonely corner of the Navajo tribal lands. Leaphorn a Navajo 'Law and Order' sets out to find him, What he finds is a body - which seems a bit odd - the death is suspicious and witchcraft is suggested.

Leaphorn must sift through the facts and the fiction to understand the Navajo's death. I really enjoyed this part - listening to Leaphorn as he sorted out what people said and what they probably meant. The convoluted relationships which allowed him to figure out what happened to Luis

The story then cuts to a pair of researchers who are studying the Navajo and their culture and rituals - and this is where the action gets really good. I found the pursuit in this to be one of the best I have read. It was chilling to read and I couldn't put it down.

The last part of the book where the reason was revealed and the ultimate escape was all right. Quite amusing in parts, but not brilliant - well written though.

Overall, I really liked this book and have been searching out more of his stuff. I have said it before, but I will say it again, the culture is so well revealed - I was intrigued by it and loved the way it fitted in with the story without dominating it with excessive explanation. I also enjoyed his descriptions of the country, they were graphic and evocative.

I would recommend you try at least one of his stories, my favourite so far has been listening woman.

Introducing Joe Leaphorn
Tony Hillerman has written 15 or so novels about Navaho policemen working in the high,dry canyon country of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Published in 1970, this is the first in the series, introducing Joe Leaphorn, who will become well and favorably known in subsequent novels.

Witches are about in the Navajo country and Leaphorn -- the most rational of men -- perceives a connection between the tales of the witches and the murder of a young Navajo. Strange things occur: the throats of sheep are slashed, men dressed in wolfskins are seen, a hat is stolen, all of this leading to a confrontation in a cliff dwelling and a chase on a high desert plateau.

This is not the best novel of the series. Some of the deeds of a mild-mannered college professor fleeing the "witches" seem improbable. And Leaphorn is not yet fully developed as a unique character and master detective. But "Blessing Way" is a strong beginning to what would become a masterpiece series.

Hillerman's strengths are authenticity and atmosphere. Elements of Navajo culture, religion, and folkways are woven into the fabric of his novels. His landscapes are harsh and spectacular. Nature is magnificient, but also menacing. In this exotic setting, the supernatural seems almost possible and little chilly fingers tickle your spine. If you are a urbanite, you may not like Hillerman; but if you are drawn to big, blank spots on the map you will likely love him. Not the least of his accomplishments is that he has probably taught more people about the Navajo -- and generated more interest in Navajo culture -- than any other writer.

How It All Began
If you're already a Hillerman fan, you already know this is where it all started and you don't need me to tell you how good it is.

However, if you're approaching the technically-white but 'adopted'-Navajo master storyteller for the first time, and want to know where to begin, this is the place!

You will learn more authentic information about the Navajo culture from Hillerman than from all the academic types who have ever written on the subject. Not to mention Southwest Geography and Climate, along with the uncomfortable relationship between the Navajo tribal police and other law-enforcement agencies in the area.

From the creepy opening chapter, to the introduction of the great tribal policeman, Leaphorn, to the satisfying resolution of the mystery, there is no better way to meet Hillerman than in the book that started it all. Here are Arizona and New Mexico as you've always imagined them, complete with tourist-guide detail about places you'll HAVE to go visit after you read this. [The books really do make great travel guides, once you figure out where the locales are by consulting a good map.]

The *only* quibble anyone could have with this book is the Title, which is NOT Hillerman's own-- it was imposed on him by his publisher and has nothing to do with the story. Other than that, the book is perfect.