Skinwalkers. Part 9

Chee didn't bother to look at it. He considered asking everyone to be careful of where they walked, to avoid erasing any useful tracks. But as dry and windy as it was, he couldn't imagine tracking as anything but a waste of time. Except for the drag marks. Whatever had been dragged up here should be easy to find.

It was.

"Hey," Gorman shouted. "Here's a body."

It was half hidden in a clump of chamiso, head downhill, feet uphill, legs still spraddled apart as if whoever had dragged it there had been using them to pull the body along and had simply dropped them.

The body had been Roosevelt Bistie. In the combined lights of Chee's and Gorman's flashlights, the yellow look of his face was intensified-but death had done little to change his expression. Bistie still looked grim and bitter, as if being shot was only what he'd expected-a fitting ending for a disappointing life. The dragging had pulled his s.h.i.+rt up over his shoulders, leaving chest and stomach bare. The waxy skin where the rib cage joined at the sternum showed two small holes, one just below the other. The lower one had bled a little. Very small holes, Chee thought. It seemed odd that such trivial holes would let out the wind of life.

Gorman was looking at him, a question in his face.

"This is Bistie," Chee said. "Looks like the guy who shot Lieutenant Leaphorn had shot this guy. I guess he was dragging him up here when we drove up, the lieutenant and me."

"And after he shot the lieutenant he just took off," Gorman said.

"And got clean away," Chee added.

Four flashlights now were illuminating the body. Only the San Juan County deputy was still out in the darkness, doing his fruitless job. Down in Roosevelt Bistie's yard below, two more vehicles parked. Chee heard doors slam, the voice of Kennedy, the sound of Kennedy and Captain Largo coming up the slope. Chee's flashlight now was focused above the bullet wounds at a place on Bistie's left breast-a reddish mark, narrow, perhaps a half-inch long, where a cut was healing. It would seem, normally, an odd place for such a cut. It made Jim Chee think of Bistie's wallet, and the bone bead he had seen in it, and whether the wallet would have been dragged out of Bistie's hip pocket on his heels-first trip up this rocky slope, and whether the bone bead would still be in it when it was found.

He squatted beside Bistie, taking a closer look, imagining the scene at which this little healing scar had been produced. The hand trembler (or stargazer, or listener, or crystal gazer, or whatever sort of shaman Bistie had chosen to diagnose his sickness) explaining to Bistie that someone had witched him, telling Bistie that a skinwalker had blown the fatal bone fragment into him. And then the ritual cut of the skin, the sucking at the breast, the bone coming out of Bistie, appearing on the shaman's tongue. And Bistie putting the bone in his billfold, and paying his fee, and setting out to save himself by killing the witch and reversing the dreaded corpse sickness.

Chee moved the beam of his light up so that it reflected again from the glazed, angry eyes of Roosevelt Bistie. How did Bistie know the witch was Endocheeney, the man who all at Badwater agreed was a mild and harmless fellow? The shaman would not have known that. And if the two men even knew each other, Chee had seen no sign of it.

Behind him, the state policeman was shouting to Largo, telling him they'd found a body. The wind kicked up again, blowing a flurry of sand against Chee's face. He closed his eyes against it, and when he reopened them, a fragment of dead tumbleweed had lodged itself against Bistie's ear.

Why was Bistie so certain the witch who was killing him was Endocheeney? He had been certain enough to try to kill the man. How had their paths crossed in this fatal way? And where? And when? Now that Bistie was also dead, who could answer those questions? Any of them?

Largo had joined the circle now, and Kennedy. Chee sensed them standing just behind him, staring down at the body.

"There's what killed him," the state policeman said. "Two gunshots through the chest."

Just on the edge of the circle of illumination, Chee could see the healing cut on Bistie's breast. Those two bullets had completed the death of Roosevelt Bistie. But the little wound high on his breast above them had been where Roosevelt Bistie's death had started.

> 15 <>

THE INDIAN HEALTH service hospital at Gallup is one of the prides of this huge federal bureaucracy-modern, attractive, well located and equipped. It had been built in a period of flush budgeting-with just about everything any hospital needs. Now, in a lean budget cycle, it was enduring harder times. But the shortage of nurses, the overspent supplies budget, and the a.s.sortment of other fiscal headaches that beset the hospital's bead counters this particular morning did not affect Joe Leaphorn's lunch, which was everything a sensible patient should expect from a hospital kitchen, nor the view from his window, which was superb. The Health Service had located the hospital high on the slope overlooking Gallup from the south. Over the little hump in the sheet produced by his toes, Leaphorn could see the endless stream of semitrailers moving along Interstate 40. Beyond the highway, intercontinental train traffic rolled east and west on the Santa Fe main trunk. Above and beyond the railroad, beyond the clutter of east Gallup, the red cliffs of Mesa de los Lobos rose-their redness diminished a little by the blue haze of distance, and above them was the gray-green shape of the high country of the Navajo borderlands, where the Big Reservation faded into Checkerboard Reservation. For Joe Leaphorn, raised not fifty miles north of this bed in the gra.s.s country near Two Gray Hills, it was the landscape of his childhood. But now he looked at the scene without thinking about it. service hospital at Gallup is one of the prides of this huge federal bureaucracy-modern, attractive, well located and equipped. It had been built in a period of flush budgeting-with just about everything any hospital needs. Now, in a lean budget cycle, it was enduring harder times. But the shortage of nurses, the overspent supplies budget, and the a.s.sortment of other fiscal headaches that beset the hospital's bead counters this particular morning did not affect Joe Leaphorn's lunch, which was everything a sensible patient should expect from a hospital kitchen, nor the view from his window, which was superb. The Health Service had located the hospital high on the slope overlooking Gallup from the south. Over the little hump in the sheet produced by his toes, Leaphorn could see the endless stream of semitrailers moving along Interstate 40. Beyond the highway, intercontinental train traffic rolled east and west on the Santa Fe main trunk. Above and beyond the railroad, beyond the clutter of east Gallup, the red cliffs of Mesa de los Lobos rose-their redness diminished a little by the blue haze of distance, and above them was the gray-green shape of the high country of the Navajo borderlands, where the Big Reservation faded into Checkerboard Reservation. For Joe Leaphorn, raised not fifty miles north of this bed in the gra.s.s country near Two Gray Hills, it was the landscape of his childhood. But now he looked at the scene without thinking about it.

He had been awake only a minute or two, having been jarred by the arrival of his lunch tray from a hazy, morphine-induced doze into a panicky concern for the welfare of Emma. He remembered very quickly that Agnes was there, had been there for days, living in the spare bedroom and playing the role of concerned younger sister. Agnes made Leaphorn nervous, but she had good sense. She'd take care of Emma, make the right decisions. He needn't worry. No more than he normally did.

Now he had finished the wit-collection process that follows such awakenings. He had established where he was, remembered why, quickly a.s.sessed the unfamiliar surroundings, checked the heavy, still cool and damp cast on his right arm, moved his thumb experimentally, then his fingers, then his hand, to measure the pain caused by each motion, and then he thought about Emma again. Her appointment was tomorrow. He would be well enough to take her, no question of that. And another step would be taken toward knowing what he already knew. What he dreaded to admit. The rest of his life would be spent watching her slip away from him, not knowing who he was, then not knowing who she was. In the material the Alzheimer's a.s.sociation had sent him, someone had described it as "looking into your mind and seeing nothing there but darkness." He remembered that, as he remembered the case report of the husband of a victim. "Every day I would tell her we'd been married thirty years, that we had four children.... Every night when I got into bed she would say, 'Who are you?' " He had already seen the first of that. Last week, he had walked into the kitchen and Emma had looked up from the carrots she was sc.r.a.ping. Her expression had been first startled, then fearful, then confused. And she had clutched Agnes's arm and asked who he was. That was something he'd have to learn to live with-like learning to live with a dagger through the heart.

He groped clumsily with his good left hand for the b.u.t.ton to summon an attendant, found it, pressed it, glanced at his watch. Outside the gla.s.s, the light was blinding. Far to the east, a cloud was building over Tsoodzil, the Turquoise Mountain. Rain? Too early to tell, and too far east to fall on the reservation if it did develop into a thunderstorm. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat, slumped, waiting for the dizziness to subside, feeling an odd, buzzing sense of detachment induced by whatever they'd given him to make him sleep.

"Well," a voice behind him said. "I didn't expect to find you out of bed."

It was Dilly Streib. He was wearing his FBI summer uniform, a dark blue two-piece suit, white s.h.i.+rt, and necktie. On Streib, all of this managed to look slept in.

"I'm not out of bed yet," Leaphorn said. He gestured toward the closet door. "Look around in there and see if you can find my clothes. Then I'll be out of bed."

Streib was holding a manila folder in his left hand. He dropped it at the foot of Leaphorn's bed and disappeared into the closet. "Thought you'd like to take a look at that," he said. "Anybody tell you what happened?"

It occurred to Leaphorn that he had a headache. He took a deep breath. His lunch seemed to consist of a bowl of soup, which was steaming, a small green salad, and something including chicken which normally would have looked appetizing. But now Leaphorn's stomach felt as if it had been tilted on its side. "I know what happened," Leaphorn said. "Somebody shot me in the arm."

"I meant after that," Streib said. He dumped Leaphorn's uniform at the foot of his bed and his boots on the floor.

"After that I'm blank," Leaphorn said.

"Well, to get to the bottom line, the guy got away and he left behind Bistie's body."

"Bistie's body?" Leaphorn reached for the folder, digesting this.

"Shot," Streib said. "Twice. With a pistol, probably. Probably a thirty-eight or so."

Leaphorn extracted the report from the folder. Two sheets. He read. He glanced at the signature. Kennedy. He handed the report back to Streib.

"What do you think?" Streib asked.

Leaphorn shook his head.

"I think it's getting interesting," Streib said. That meant, Leaphorn understood from half a lifetime spent working with the federals, that people with clout and high civil service numbers were beginning to think they had more bodies than could be politely buried. He took off his hospital gown, picked up his unders.h.i.+rt, and considered the problem of how to get it on without moving his right arm around more than was necessary.

"I think we should have kept that Indian locked up a while," Streib said. He chuckled. "I guess that's belaboring the obvious." The chuckle turned into a laugh. "I'm sure his doctor would have recommended it."

"You think we could have got him to change his mind? Tell us what he had against Endocheeney?" Leaphorn asked. He thought a moment. If they had taken Bistie back into custody, Leaphorn had planned to try an old, old trick. The traditional culture allows a lie, if it does no harm, but the lie can be repeated only three times. The fourth time told, it locks the teller into the deceit. He couldn't have worked it on Bistie directly, because Bistie would have simply continued to refuse to say anything about Endocheeney, or bone beads, or witchcraft. But maybe he could have worked around the edges. Maybe. Maybe not.

"I'm not so sure," Leaphorn said. He was even less sure he could have talked Streib into signing his name on the sort of complaint they would have needed. This was a notably untidy piece of work, this business of a man who seemed to think he'd shot a man who'd actually been stabbed. And the FBI hadn't fooled the taxpayers all these years by getting itself involved with the messy ones. Streib was a good man, but he hadn't survived twenty years in the Agency jungle without learning the lessons it taught.

"Maybe not," Streib said. "I defer to you redskins on that. But anyhow ..." He shrugged, letting it trail off. "This is going to put the heat on. Now we don't just have a bunch of singles. Now we got ourselves a double. And maybe more than a double. You know how that works."

"Yeah," Leaphorn said. Doubling homicides didn't double the interest-it was more like squaring it. And if you had yourself genuine serial killings, nicely mysterious, the interest and the pressure and the potential for publicity went right through the roof. Publicity had never been an issue with Navajo Tribal Police-they simply never got any-but for federals, good press brought the billions pouring in and kept the J. Edgar Hoover Building swarming with fat-cat bureaucrats. But it had d.a.m.ned sure better be good press.

Streib had seated himself. He looked at the report and then at Leaphorn, who was pulling on his pants with left-handed awkwardness. Streib's round, ageless, unlined face made it difficult for him to look worried. Now he managed. "Trouble is, among the many troubles, I can't see how the h.e.l.l to get a handle on this. Doesn't seem to have a handle."

Leaphorn was learning how difficult it can be to fasten the top b.u.t.ton of his uniform trousers with his left-hand fingers after a lifetime of doing it with right-hand fingers. And he was remembering the question Jim Chee had raised. ("I heard gossip at Badwater Trading Post," Chee had said. "They say a bone was found in Endocheeney's corpse.") Had the pathologist found the bone?

"The autopsy on Old Man Endocheeney up at Farmington," Leaphorn said. "I think somebody should talk to the pathologist about that. Find out every little thing they found in that stab wound."

Streib put the report back in the folder, the folder on his lap, pulled out his pipe, and looked at the No Smoking sign beside the door. Beside the sign, Little Orphan Annie stared from a poster that read: "Little Orphan Annie's Parents Smoked." Beside that poster was another, a photograph of rows and rows of tombstones, with a legend reading "Marlboro Country." Streib sniffed at the pipe, put it back in his jacket pocket.

"Why?" he asked.

"One of our people heard rumors that a little fragment of bone was found in the wound," Leaphorn said. He kept his eyes on Streib. Would that be enough explanation? Streib's expression said it wasn't.

"Jim Chee found a little bone bead in his house trailer along with the lead pellets after somebody shot the shotgun through his wall," Leaphorn said. "And Roosevelt Bistie was carrying a little bone bead in his wallet."

Understanding dawned slowly, and unhappily, causing Streib's round face to convert itself from its unaccustomed expression of worry to an equally unaccustomed look of sorrow and dismay.

"Bone," he said. "As in skinwalking. As in witchcraft. As in corpse sickness."

"Bone," Leaphorn said.

"Lordy, lordy, lordy," Streib said. "What the h.e.l.l next? I hate it."

"But maybe it's a handle."

"Handle, s.h.i.+t," Streib said, with a pa.s.sion that was rare for him. "You remember way back when that cop got ambushed over on the Laguna-Acoma. You remember that one. The agent on that one said something about witchcraft when he was working it, put it in his report. I think they called him all the way back to Was.h.i.+ngton so the very top dogs could chew him out in person. That was after doing it by letters and telegrams."

"But it was witchcraft," Leaphorn said. "Or it wasn't, of course, but the Lagunas they tried for it said they killed the cop because he had been witching them, and the judge ruled insanity, and they-"

"They went into a mental hospital, and the agent got transferred from Albuquerque to East Poison Spider, Wyoming," Streib said, voice rich with pa.s.sion. "The judge ruled' don't cut it in Was.h.i.+ngton. In Was.h.i.+ngton they don't believe in agents who believe in witches."

"I'd do it myself. Look into it, I mean. But I think you'd have more luck talking to the doctor," Leaphorn said. "Getting taken seriously. I go in there, a Navajo, and start talking to the doc about witch bones and corpse sickness and-"

"I know. I know," Streib said. He looked at Leaphorn quizzically. "A bone bead, you said? Human?"

"Cow."

"Cow? Anything special about cow bones?"

"d.a.m.n it," Leaphorn said. "Cow or giraffe, or dinosaur or whatever. What difference does it make? Just so whoever we're dealing with thinks it works."

"Okay," Streib said. "I'll ask. You got any other ideas? I got a sort of a feeling that the one at Window Rock-the Onesalt woman-could be some sort of s.e.x-and-jealousy thing. Or maybe the Onesalt gal nosed into some sort of ripoff in the tribal paperwork that caused undue resentment. We know she was a sort of full-time world-saver. Usually you just put her type down as a pain in the a.s.s, but maybe she was irritating the wrong fellow. But I sort of see her as one case and those others as another bag. And maybe now we toss that Chee business in with 'em. You have any fresh thinking about it?"

Leaphorn shook his head. "Just the bone angle," he said. "And probably that leads no place." But he was doing some fresh thinking. Nothing he wanted to talk to Streib about. Not yet. He wanted to find out if Onesalt's agency knew anything about the letter that office had mailed to Dugai Endocheeney. If Onesalt had written it, Dilly might be dead wrong about Onesalt not being linked to the other homicides. And now he was thinking that Roosevelt Bistie fell into a new category of victim. Bistie had been part of it, part of whatever it was that was killing people on the Big Reservation. Thus the killing of Bistie was something new. Whatever it was, this lethal being, now it seemed to be feeding on itself.

Leaphorn shook his head. "Just the bone angle," he said. "And probably that leads no place." But he was doing some fresh thinking. Nothing he wanted to talk to Streib about. Not yet. He wanted to find out if Onesalt's agency knew anything about the letter that office had mailed to Dugai Endocheeney. If Onesalt had written it, Dilly might be dead wrong about Onesalt not being linked to the other homicides. And now he was thinking that Roosevelt Bistie fell into a new category of victim. Bistie had been part of it, part of whatever it was that was killing people on the Big Reservation. Thus the killing of Bistie was something new. Whatever it was, this lethal being, now it seemed to be feeding on itself.

> 16 <>

THE CAT WAS there when Chee awakened. It was sitting just inside the door, looking out through the screen. When he stirred, rising onto his side in the awkward process of getting up from the pallet he'd made on the floor, the cat had been instantly alert, watching him tensely. He sat, completed a huge yawn, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and then stood, stretching. To his mild surprise, the cat was still there when he finished that. Its green eyes were fixed on him nervously, but it hadn't fled. Chee rolled up the sleeping bag he'd been using as a pad, tied it, dumped it on his unused bunk. He inspected the irregular row of holes the shotgun blasts had punched through the trailer wall. One day, when he knew who had done it, when he knew it wouldn't be happening again, he would find himself a tinsmith-or whomever one found to patch shotgun holes in aluminum alloy walls-and get them patched more permanently. He peeled off the duct tape he'd used to cover them and held out his hand, feeling the breeze sucking in. Until the rains came, or winter, he might as well benefit from the improved ventilation. there when Chee awakened. It was sitting just inside the door, looking out through the screen. When he stirred, rising onto his side in the awkward process of getting up from the pallet he'd made on the floor, the cat had been instantly alert, watching him tensely. He sat, completed a huge yawn, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and then stood, stretching. To his mild surprise, the cat was still there when he finished that. Its green eyes were fixed on him nervously, but it hadn't fled. Chee rolled up the sleeping bag he'd been using as a pad, tied it, dumped it on his unused bunk. He inspected the irregular row of holes the shotgun blasts had punched through the trailer wall. One day, when he knew who had done it, when he knew it wouldn't be happening again, he would find himself a tinsmith-or whomever one found to patch shotgun holes in aluminum alloy walls-and get them patched more permanently. He peeled off the duct tape he'd used to cover them and held out his hand, feeling the breeze sucking in. Until the rains came, or winter, he might as well benefit from the improved ventilation.

For breakfast he finished a can of peaches he'd left in the refrigerator and the remains of a loaf of bread. It wasn't exactly breakfast, anyway. He'd got to bed just at dawn-thinking he was too tired, and too wired, to sleep. Even though night was almost gone, he avoided the bunk and used the floor. He had lain there remembering the two black holes in the skin of Roosevelt Bistie's chest, remembering the healing cut higher on Bistie's breast. Those vivid images faded away into a question.

Who had called Janet Pete?

Unless she was lying, it had not been Roosevelt Bistie's daughter. The daughter had driven up just behind the ambulance. She had been following it, in fact-coming home from s.h.i.+prock with four boxes of groceries. She had emerged from Bistie's old truck into the pale yellow light of police lanterns, with her face frozen in that expression every cop learns to dread-the face of a woman who is expecting the very worst and has steeled herself to accept it with dignity.

She had looked down at the body as they carried it past her and slid the stretcher into the ambulance. Then she had looked up at Captain Largo. "I knew it would be him," she'd said, in a voice that sounded remarkably matter-of-fact. Chee had watched her, examining her grief for some sign of pretense and thinking that her prescience was hardly remarkable. For whom else could the ambulance have been making this back-road trip? Virtually no one else lived on this particular slope of this particular mountain-and no one else at all on this particular spur of track. The emotion of Bistie's Daughter seemed totally genuine-more shock than sorrow. No tears. If they came, they would come later, when her yard was cleared of all these strangers, and dignity no longer mattered, and the loneliness closed in around her. Now she talked calmly with Captain Largo and with Kennedy-responding to their questions in a voice too low for Chee to overhear, as expressionless as if her face had been carved from wood.

But she had recognized Chee immediately when all that was done. The ambulance had driven away, taking with it the flesh and bones that had held the living wind of Roosevelt Bistie and leaving behind, somewhere in the night air around them, his chindi. chindi.

"Did Captain Largo tell you where he died?" Chee had asked her. He spoke in Navajo, using the long, ugly guttural sound which signifies that moment when the wind of life no longer moves inside a human personality, and all the disharmonies that have bedeviled it escape from the nostrils to haunt the night.

"Where?" she asked, at first puzzled by the question. Then she understood it, and looked at the house. "Was it inside?"

"Outside," Chee said. "Out in the yard. Behind the house."

It might be true. It takes a while for a man to die-even shot twice through the chest. No reason for Bistie's Daughter to believe her house had been contaminated with her father's ghost. Chee had evolved his own theology about ghost sickness and the chindi chindi that caused it. It was, like all the evils that threatened the happiness of humankind, a matter of the mind. The psychology courses he'd taken at the University of New Mexico had always seemed to Chee a logical extension of what the Holy People had taught those original four Navajo clans. And now he noticed some slight relaxation in the face of Bistie's Daughter-some relief. It was better not to have to deal with ghosts. that caused it. It was, like all the evils that threatened the happiness of humankind, a matter of the mind. The psychology courses he'd taken at the University of New Mexico had always seemed to Chee a logical extension of what the Holy People had taught those original four Navajo clans. And now he noticed some slight relaxation in the face of Bistie's Daughter-some relief. It was better not to have to deal with ghosts.

She was looking at Chee, thoughtfully.

"You noticed when you and the belagana belagana came to get him that he was angry," she said. "Did you notice that?" came to get him that he was angry," she said. "Did you notice that?"

"But I don't know why," Chee said. "Why was he so angry?"

"Because he knew he had to die. He went to the hospital. They told him about his liver." She placed a hand against her stomach.

"What was it? Was it cancer?"

Bistie's Daughter shrugged. "They call it cancer," she said. "We call it corpse sickness. Whatever word you put on it, it was killing him."

"It couldn't be cured? Did they tell him that?"

Bistie's Daughter glanced around her, looked nervously past Chee into the night. The state policeman's car-on its way back to paved highways-crunched through the weeds at the edge of the yard. Its headlights flashed across her face. She raised her hand against the glare. "You can turn it around," she said. "I always heard you could do that."

"You mean kill the witch and put the bone back in him?" Chee said. "Is that what he was going to do?"

Bistie's Daughter looked at him silently.

"I talked to them already," she said finally. "To the other policemen. To the young belagana belagana and the fat Navajo." and the fat Navajo."

Largo would hate hearing that "fat Navajo" description, Chee thought. "Did you tell them that's what your father was doing? When he went to the Endocheeney place?"

"I told them I didn't know what he was doing. I didn't know that man who got killed. All I know is that my father was getting sicker and sicker all the time. He went to see a hand trembler over there between Roof b.u.t.te and Lukachukai to find out what kind of cure he would need to have. But the hand trembler had gone off someplace and he wasn't home. He went over on the Checkerboard Reservation, someplace over there by the Nageezi Chapter House, and talked to a listener over there. He told him he had been cooking food over a fire made out of wood struck by lightning and he needed to have a Hail Chant." Bistie's Daughter looked up at Chee with a strained grin. "We burn butane to cook on," she said. "But he charged my father fifty dollars. Then he went to the Badwater Clinic to see if they would give him some medicine. He didn't come back until the next day because they kept him in the hospital. Made X-rays, I think. Things like that. When he came back he was angry. Said they told him he was going to die." Bistie's Daughter stopped talking then, and looked away from Chee. Tears came abruptly but without sound.

"Why angry?" Chee asked, his voice so low she might have thought he meant the question only for himself.

"Because they told him he could not be cured," Bistie's Daughter said in a shaky voice. She cleared her throat, wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. "That man was strong," she continued. "His spirit was strong. He didn't give up on things. He didn't want to die."

"Did he say why he was angry at Endocheeney? Why he blamed Endocheeney? Did he say he thought Endocheeney had witched him?"

"He didn't say hardly anything at all. I asked him. I said, 'My Father, why-' " She stopped.

Never speak the name of the dead, Chee thought. Never summon the chindi chindi to you, even if the name of the ghost is Father. to you, even if the name of the ghost is Father.

"I asked that man why he was angry. What was wrong. What had they told him at the Badwater Clinic? And finally he told me they said his liver was rotten and they didn't know how to fix it with medicine and he was going to die pretty quick. I told the other policemen all this."

"Did he say anything about being witched?"

Bistie's Daughter shook her head.

"I noticed that he had a cut place on his breast." Chee tapped his uniform s.h.i.+rt, indicating where. "It was healing but still a little sore. Do you know about that?"

"No," she said.