The Dark Wind (1982)

The Dark Wind is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the fifth in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, published in 1982. It is the second of the novels to feature Officer Jim Chee.

Now working from Tuba City, Sgt. Chee is assigned four cases by Capt. Largo. A drug-smuggling plane crashes, and Largo insists Chee stay away from that case, a tough challenge as he gathers information from Hopis, European Americans, and Navajos to solve the original cases.

Reviewers found this to have a "classic Hillerman plot", involving a plane crash, possibly illegal drugs, and a vandalized windmill on the Joint-Use lands. It is "relentlessly introspective" and "with Hillerman's moodily fine prose in full Southwest regalia", as the Hopi and the Navajo ways are contrasted, and Chee explores a white man's motivation, of revenge.

Plot summary

Jim Chee is assigned four cases to solve by Captain Largo, his new boss at the Tuba City, Arizona office of the Navajo Tribal Police. One is to ascertain who stole jewelry from the Burnt Water trading post, and to find the paroled man suspected of the thievery, Joseph Musket. The third is to find who is vandalizing a windmill in the Joint-Use lands recently allotted to the Hopi. Fourth is to learn the identity of the Navajo man found dead on the path to Kisigi Spring.

While he is on stakeout near the windmill one night, a small plane crash lands in the Wepo Wash. Chee runs to the crash, finding the pilot and his passenger dead, and a man sitting up in a business suit, holding a card, murdered. As he approaches, he hears someone leaving on foot in the early morning darkness. He also hears a gunshot, most likely the one that killed the man in the business suit, and sees headlights of a vehicle leaving the scene. The airplane was carrying illegal cargo, likely drugs, and the DEA agents, in particular T. L. Johnson, are possessive of their law enforcement turf.

As Chee collects information on Joseph Musket and on the unidentified corpse, he gradually learns information related to the crash and the drug deal. Johnson finds this as reason to invade Chee's home in the morning, including beating Chee up, in Johnson's usual style. Johnson puts forward that Chee was present so soon after the plane crashed because Chee is part of the drug smuggling.

The deteriorated condition of the corpse, found over a week after death, makes identification impossible. Later, Albert Lomatewa provides the exact date of death and how the corpse looked, hands and feet flayed as if by a Navajo "skinwalker", or witch. Chee meets Jake West, owner of the Burnt Water trading post, where the jewelry theft was reported, and briefly the employer of Musket. West's son, Thomas Rodney West, was killed recently in prison; he had been friends with Joseph Musket since childhood. Chee presses Cowboy Dashee to arrange an interview with the Hopi elder responsible for a shrine near the windmill. Dashee translates. Chee makes a deal with Taylor Sawkatewa: Chee will bring supplies to stop that windmill, which interferes with water flow around the shrine, in return for Sawkatewa telling all he saw and heard in the time it took Chee to reach the plane crash site. A man forced another to place the landing lights in the wrong place, and then shot him dead. Items were removed from the plane but they were not placed in the car that left the scene. From the pilot's sister, Chee learns a meeting is set up for transfer of the drugs during a private Hopi kachina ceremony. She wants revenge, or justice, for her brother's death. Revenge is not a Navajo concept, so Chee struggles to understand it as motivation.

Chee arrives at Sityatki, the old Hopi village, having retrieved the two aluminum suitcases filled with cocaine from their hiding place in the sand at the crash site. Both Jake West and Johnson appear, the former expected, the latter a surprise. West has killed the drug kingpin, figuring he is responsible for his son's murder while he was held in prison. Johnson is there not truly as a DEA agent, but as the man who wants these drugs, which he claims are worth $15 million. After Chee arrests and handcuffs West, Johnson does the same to Chee. As this encounter unfolds, a rare intense rainstorm breaks the long drought, rapidly making dangerous rivers in the usually dry arroyos. At Chee's vehicle, Johnson gets the suitcases of cocaine. Johnson's plan is to kill the other two. Chee explains how Johnson visited Thomas West in prison, such that the other prisoners assumed he was a snitch and killed him in regular confinement. Johnson could have handled that so Thomas lived. Jake West understands this means he killed the wrong man in revenge for his son's death. Chee grabs one suitcase and throws it at Johnson. It then slides to the river which horrifies Johnson, who runs to save the cocaine. West follows and pushes Johnson into the river. Chee tells West that the unidentified corpse will be checked against Joseph Musket's prison dental records, and it is clear that West killed Musket. West says that the jewelry reported stolen is hidden in his kitchen, just before he dies from the gunshot wound received from Johnson. West killed six men before reaching Johnson to avenge his son's murder. Chee reflects that all this time, Capt. Largo insisted that Chee stay out of the drug smuggling case. Not wanting to be criticized, Chee hurls the other suitcase full of cocaine into the raging river, all other active cases having been solved.

Characters

Jim Chee: Navajo officer in the Navajo Tribal Police. He is now at Tuba City, AZ office, under Captain Largo. He is skilled in tracking in that desert part of the world.

Deputy Cowboy Albert Dashee, Jr: Hopi man, works as one of the deputies for Coconino County Sheriff's office in Arizona. He is of the Side Corn Clan. He and Chee are becoming friends in law enforcement.