Part Eight: Revelations


"Ya-tah-hey," Daniel said in the traditional Navajo greeting to the Captain at Window Rock Police Headquarters, also known as the Division of Public Safety. The older man just gave him an appraising stare. "Um, I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson, this is Major Samantha Carter, and this is Teal'c. We were sent by Colonel O'Neill."

The older man sighed. More belacani, just what he needed today. Washington was all over his ass with this matter. These three were an unlikely group. All he had been told was these were specialists. Specialists in what he wondered. And the man with glasses was going to inflict his 'knowledge' of Navajo on him. Sheesh.

"I know who you are, Dr. Jackson. I'm Captain Ben Tsosie. You want to tell me why this is so important?" The Captain didn't bother to offer them seats. He was busy. A restless man, Captain Tsosie spent his time on his feet more than in his chair.

"Well, a woman named, Dr. Ellie Thorsdaughter, is missing, presumed kidnapped. And we need your help to find her."

"I already know that." The Captain snorted. "Don't waste my time. Why is this so important? I can't help you if I don't know something about the case."

"She is an anthropologist. She's working on a sensitive matter. And we have reason to believe that this is a matter of National Security." Sam spoke firmly but politely.

"National Security, you're telling me that an anthropologist is necessary to National Security?" Heads bobbed. Tsosie appraised each person in his office. It was a motley assortment. "In the meantime, I'll go back to my original question. Why is this so important I have to drop everything for one lost tourist who is probably already at home or in some motel taking a shower? For all we know, she had an argument with her boyfriend and took off."

"She didn't do that. We are certain." Teal'c gave his scary look.

"If you know why we are here, then you know that this goes high up. All the way up." Major Carter knew time was short. She didn't need this man obstructing the search with the attitude. "I know the Secretary of the Interior called President Yazzie. So can we just get started?"

Teal'c looked confused and glanced over at Daniel. "I do not believe that is the President's name, Major Carter."

"Yes, but the Navajo are a sovereign nation with their own government and their own President." Sam turned back to Captain Tsosie.

"Um, sir, we mean no disrespect, and we understand that the Air Force has no jurisdiction here, but we would appreciate your cooperation. It's a matter of life and death." Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose, hoping he had smoothed the Captain's ruffled feathers. But Carter was already dialing the phone on the Captain's desk.

"Yes, sir. We need him to do that." Sam hung up the phone. Staring down the Captain, the tall officer smiled. "Just a moment, sir." The phone rang on his desk.

"Tsosie. Yes, Mr. Secretary." He listened a moment more and hung up the phone. "I guess we shall be working together for a while." He shrugged. The phone rang again. "Tsosie. Yes, they are. Yes we are. I got that." He hung up. "President Yazzie has a burr under his saddle over this, too. He told me to handle this personally. So back to my original question, you want to tell me what this is all about?"


In Crownpoint, Lt. Bistie hung up the phone with a sigh. How do you tell the belacani about Navajo Wolves? Not that he believed in witches, but it was a fact of life on the reservation. Plenty of the Dinee did. This was the third call this afternoon about witchery. He had a real live Colonel breathing down his neck to find the Colonel's woman. He had headquarters crawling up his butt to do something to get Washington off their case. And he wouldn't be home tonight anytime soon. So, Lt. Bistie did the only thing he could. He called his wife. Maybe she knew some gossip. At any rate, it would start her asking. And she would ask her mother. He couldn't do that. No husband ever spoke to his mother-in-law. It was forbidden. Probably, it was a good thing. No talk meant no fights. He sighed and waited for his wife to pick up.


Meanwhile back in Window Rock, Captain Tsosie decided the best place to start the inquiry would be with the local gossip who was a member of a big clan. The afternoon was cold and clear driving out towards Chinle on US Route 191. The Captain swung off to a dirt road with no particular designation. They stopped in sight of a Hogan. Captain Tsosie turned off the engine and told them not to get out. The wait, in the police car, seemed to last forever.

Daniel explained to Sam and Teal'c that approaching a Navajo home abruptly was considered bad manners. Letting the family adjust to the idea of visitors was an expected courtesy. And it let people tidy up and dress for company. When the family finally exited the Hogan it was time to approach. A Hogan is a round earthen building partially sunk into the ground with a tall wooden beam that supports the roof. The roof has a smoke hole in the top center. And the doorway always faces east. The team led by Captain Tsosie slowly approached the family. The policeman being a clan elder had to begin the exchange. He inquired about the usual concerns over rain, crops, the flock of sheep, relatives, and identified himself by his clan names. When everyone was settled, he began the inquiry.

"Yah-tah-hey, Hosteen Ben Nez." The title of Hosteen is a Navajo term of respect like mister or sir. "We come in search of a white woman who is missing. We hope someone may have seen her. We hope someone may know of someone who has seen her. Maybe someone knows a reason." The Captain paused then added, "we know you are wise in the way of the clan and will know if something unusual has happened."

Hosteen Nez took his time. He had to decide if he would speak about such matters in front of strangers. Such things were great secrets. But he knew Captain Tsosie would not come himself if it were not important.

"We have heard a Wolf. We have heard strange talk of more witches than usually come during the nights with a moon. We have heard that someone made corpse powder." Hosteen Nez became silent. He was not comfortable speaking about this matter. But his wife sure was.

"They say the Wolf is not following the usual way." The Grey Haired Woman spoke her contempt. "He dug up a body. He didn't sing it first. Some of the men are tracking him."

"I don't think they can catch this one." Hosteen Nez stated. "The usual way is to catch him and tie him down and starve him until he confesses. Then it will turn the witching around on the witch."

"Kintahgoo' bil I noolhtah," Daniel asked? Sam blinked. Daniel spoke Navajo too? She looked to him for an explanation. "It means why do you say that?" Then he turned back to the old woman with the long grey hair outside her Hogan. Captain Tsosie had driven them up the road to Chinle Canyon to meet with the local gossip. So it was probably ok to address her directly. "Why do you think they can't catch him?"

"They don't think the Wolf lives around here. He's a stranger." Then the old woman gossiped cheerfully about other matters. "Hosteen Charley saw many oil trucks way over by Seven Lakes, up by the Big Buttes. They told him to move out. Then he saw one of the same trucks over by Tsaile headed toward Lukachukai."

"How do you know he is a stranger?" Teal'c was intrigued with the whole situation. He looked about the Hogan with a practiced eye. Many things were strange here. But keeping the woman on track was imperative. The local gossip could wait.

"He made a dry camp. And he was only quarter-mile down the arroyo from the spring. A local would have known about the spring." She looked away. Teal'c's interruption was rude.

Daniel took Teal'c aside when he saw the old woman was offended. Quietly, Daniel started to explain about Navajo witches. They were made the scapegoat for problems and sickness among the people. The witch should have been one of the clan. He would be someone who was the target of envy or anger. But this situation presented an unusual set of facts. Captain Tsosie understood as well. It was a time for cautious questions or the woman would give misdirection or stop answering.

"Who found the dry camp?" Tsosie was an elder and his questions would be difficult not to answer.

"My husband said one of the Yazzie boys found the place where the Wolf had camped."

"How do they know it was the Wolf?"

"The boot tracks were the same as the ones found around the sheep pen after the Wolf came there."

"Someone saw the Wolf?"

"He came at night wearing a wolf skin. Witches come out at night when there is a moon. The man who saw him woke up when the lambs started to cry out. And there was the witch in the moonlight. He was killing the rams with a knife."

"Where was this exactly?"

"They said it was before Many Farms in Chinle Wash."

Captain Tsosie seemed satisfied. He nodded to the woman and thanked her. Then he led the team out of the Hogan.

"This is bad."


Later that evening, the team met up to swap information. It was a long drive between Chinle and Crownpoint. Jack had set up shop at the Crownpoint police substation because it was close to both Gallup where Ellie was last seen and Albuquerque where Kirtland AF Base could provide support.

"Anti'll," said Daniel. "That's witchcraft in Navajo. They think there's a pack of witches out doing damage but they won't say why."

"You're kidding?" Jack rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture of fatigue. "This is the twenty-first century. Nobody believes in that stuff anymore."

"Well apparently, they do. And it's causing quite a stir around these parts. We learned that some of the men are trying to track a particular witch saying that this one isn't local." Daniel pushed his mutton stew around his plate for the fourth time. "I can't eat this. Can we get some pie?"

"No, just fry bread with cinnamon and honey. You think you are in the Hilton?" Captain Tsosie shook his head. "Look, people around here blame lots of things on witches."

"How do they know that a witch is involved?" Jack couldn't believe he had asked that question in front of an alien anthropologist. Dr. Svenson was listening intently.

Yeah, bet this makes a great paper at the Science Academy Doc. Earth superstitions 101, it should get you the Nobel Prize or the equivalent.

"They look for signs, such as having a bone fragment blown into the victim and then he gets sick. Or folks who have drunk too much even though booze is illegal and then think they saw someone turn into an animal. Or they are hallucinating from taking Datura. Or they are just stupid and upset. So they look for a scapegoat. It usually turns out to be a clan member that someone has a grudge against. Our problem is where to start looking. I sent some policemen from the Many Farms substation to check out the wash as far as they could. Nothing. Doesn't mean there is nothing." Captain Tsosie finished his stew and accepted the coffee. "The sonofabitch could be anywhere. It took us three years to find a bootlegger we knew was providing."

"It won't take that Yazzie outfit three years to find itself a witch." The local FBI agent, Shel Littleton offered. "The buzz over by Mexican Water is that there's going to be an Enemy Way sung. That ought to take care of the witch. Of course, the last FBI agent to mention the word 'witch' in his report got chewed out in Washington and re-assigned to some lame hole in the wall, worse than this one," he teased Tsosie. The two knew each other well.

"Who's having it?" Tsosie asked.

"Somebody in the Begay family."

"Why an Enemy Way?" Daniel was curious. "Isn't that to cure folks corrupted by outsiders, like when men go into the army or stay away from the Reservation a long time? Wouldn't a Blessing Way be more appropriate?"

"Possibly, there are other chants to remove mania, repel ghosts, insanity. I would have picked the Coyote Way. So I'm guessing that these folks think the witch is an outsider too." The older man had a few ideas about these folks.

It didn't make sense. An Air Force Colonel was down here with a small team consisting of two anthropologists, an astrophysicist, and whatever the other one was. That one didn't say much. But he missed nothing. Maybe he was a tracker of some kind.

Tsosie had been a Marine in 'Nam.' A colonel should be commanding a whole base of people. He should leave this matter to the folks who did this kind of work. Hmmph, Dr. Ellie must really be something special. Tsosie appraised the woman officer. She was smart. But what the heck was she doing here? Why would an astrophysicist be necessary on a manhunt?

Then the policeman caught an unguarded look the major gave the colonel. The policeman noticed how she sat next to him every time. Is this another relationship? Does she know they were searching for the colonel's woman? And the pale tall man is out of place. Tsosie didn't know why it was so obvious, but he was certain.

The waitress came to the table to tell Tsosie he had a phone call. Cell phones did not work in this part of the world, yet. The Navajo Telephone Company was all there was, except for the police radio in the captain's car. The outsiders wondered how anyone knew Tsosie was in this little eatery out in the middle of nowhere. The FBI agent saw them exchange looks and smiled. They had a lot to learn about the Reservation.

"The body the oil workers found was killed somewhere between four pm and midnight yesterday." The coroner reported to Lt. Bistie. "No, it wasn't a woman. It was an Indian male. But by the looks of him, someone burned a big hole in him. There were the remains of a fire and several of his bones showed marks of having been whittled by a knife. Sound familiar?" No one wanted to use the word 'witch.'

"All too familiar, Doc. Ok, thanks. I'll have a search party started."

Oh brother, thought Bistie. Someone was making corpse powder and bone beads to shoot into another victim. Or, someone wanted it to look that way and another issue was at hand. All the phone calls, this afternoon, were right on the mark. Something very odd was going on. But why would a Navajo Wolf want a white woman? Those two men waiting outsidemy office want that answer too.

Beckoning the pair in, Lt. Bistie offered them a seat. The phone rang again and Lt. Bistie was told it was his wife and it was urgent. He took the call. She could never just get to the point. He sighed and then hung up.

"It seems we are having an unusual number calls about superstitions today. We put the word out about the woman. So far the best I can tell you is that old fables die hard. Everyone who calls is claiming something strange is going on, but it's couched in mythology. I wouldn't waste your time with this nonsense."

"Oh, I don't know. Try me." Jack tried to be affable. If he had learned anything from Daniel, it was listen to the natives. Their stories were often rooted in fact.

"Ok, well, it seems folks are all stirred up about a Skinwalker." Seeing blank looks on the faces before him, Lt. Bistie tried an explanation. "A Skinwalker takes on the skin of an animal and assumes its powers. If a bird, then it flies. If a wolf, then it runs. Usually, the signs are that a coyote was around. Coyote is the messenger of the Holy People. Some take it as a sign of danger. Then they mention sounds in the night, interpreted as a witch trying to put corpse powder down the smoke hole in the Hogan roof. And then there are the usual reports of dead lambs. So what probably happened is a coyote got them and the old man can't deal with it. So he says a witch did it. But this story," Bistie pointed to the telephone, "this story was a beauty. Seems an old man is swearing up and down that he saw the skinwalker for real because its eyes glowed. Can you imagine? He was probably drunk." Then Bistie saw the reaction on the two men. It was fear.

"I have to make a call. Do you mind?" Colonel O'Neill asked urgently. Dialing the SGC he spoke swiftly and ordered backup. Now there was a reason the Air Force had jurisdiction. If not, it would be arranged because the President would see to it that Jack was in charge.