screen came back negative. When we asked for a special tox screening, it showed extremely low levels of a drug, Hinditunayzine chloride, that had been prescribed to keep her lungs functioning. She did die of the disease, but only because her sister had been withholding the correct dose of the medicine intended to keep her alive. She should have taken one little blue tablet three times a day. Instead, the report showed levels consistent with one pill every three days. That’s why there was so much medicine in the prescription bottles in Collette’s car. The autopsy also found evidence that she was suffocated toward the end. Mrs. Pinto said Tiffany was alive when Collette asked her to go outside to wait for the ambulance. She would have died anyway with that low dose of medicine, but not quick enough for Collette.”
Louisa came back with the pie. The crust, the color of golden sandstone, made Bernie remember the night Bigman had politely declined to take the burned version home to his expectant wife. Their baby boy was thriving.
Bernie served everyone. “I thought of one more question. Lieutenant, what happened to the dog I found on the trail, the one who alerted us to the dead man?”
“Da dog has a new home. Wid a boy who needed him.”
Louisa smiled. “You said that well. I’m glad you went back to working with Jake. I think those sessions have helped you.”
The therapist had urged him to practice his English as much as he could, especially with friends who would offer encouragement. Leaphorn smiled to himself. Peach pie therapy made a sweet ending to a fine evening.
Acknowledgments
The Tale Teller drew its inspiration in part from a real-life tragedy. The Long Walk took the Navajo under armed guard from their sacred homeland to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, to a concentration camp known as Bosque Redondo. Hwéeldi, as the Navajos call it, left its impact on every Navajo family, including those who escaped the soldiers seeking to capture them.
The year 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the signing of the treaty that established what is now the Navajo Nation and enabled the ragged, starving Navajo families to return to their land between the four sacred mountains. The Southwest’s version of the Trail of Tears lives in infamy, and the story deserves to be recognized as a true and shameful part of United States history. I extend special thanks to Thelma Domenici, Mary Ann Cortese, and the hardworking Friends of Bosque Redondo—the site of the imprisonment—for inviting me to revisit the monument which respectfully commemorates this sad event. I was humbled and honored to speak to your group.
Jennifer Nez Denetdale’s remarkable book, Reclaiming Navajo History (University of Arizona Press, 2007), offered another source of inspiration as I considered the Long Walk. Thanks to Joyce Begay Foss for her efforts to bring Ms. Denetdale, the author and historian, to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. I am also grateful to her and to museum director Della Warrior for arranging the public display of an amazing rug that dates to the time immediately after the treaty signing and was influenced by the weaver’s memory of the years at Bosque Redondo.
The cover of Denetdale’s book has an iconic photo of Navajo leaders Manuelito and Juanita, his wife. Manuelito, one of the signers of the 1868 treaty, wore a black top hat along with traditional Navajo clothing. The photo shows Juanita in a traditional woven Navajo dress, a biil. That very dress, which dates to the time of the Long Walk, was displayed at the Navajo Nation Museum on loan from its home in the collection of the Autry Museum of the American West. The Navajo museum also displayed an original copy of the treaty that allowed the Navajo to return to their homeland. Heartfelt thanks to Clarenda Begay, curator at the Navajo Nation Museum, for helping me understand the museum’s process for accessioning gifts and for her work to bring Juanita’s dress and the treaty to the Navajo Nation.
Although I could find no records to support my idea that another dress woven by Juanita still exists, part of the joy of writing novels is the freedom an author has to elaborate on the known universe. And as we know, the world is rich in the unexpected.
Luckily for me, I did not have to invent the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, Arizona, or the Navajo Nation’s library and law enforcement headquarters in Window Rock, or the towns of Oak Springs, Chinle,