Timeline

He telephoned ahead, so when he pulled the Mercedes under the red-and-cream-colored portico of the McKinley Hospital Trauma Unit, the orderlies were waiting there with a gurney. The old man remained passive as they eased him onto the gurney, but as soon as they began to strap him down, he became agitated, shouting, "Unhand me, unband me!"

"It’s for your own safety, sir," one orderly said.

"So you say, out of my way! Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!"

Baker was impressed by the way the orderlies handled the guy, gently but still firmly, strapping him down. He was equally impressed by the petite dark-haired woman in a white coat who fell into step with them. "I’m Beverly Tsosie," she said, shaking hands with them. "I’m the physician on call." She was very calm, even though the man on the gurney continued to yell as they wheeled him into the trauma center. "Quondam phone, makes me roam. . . ."

Everybody in the waiting room was looking at him. Baker saw a young kid of ten or eleven, his arm in a sling, sitting in a chair with his mother, watching the old man curiously. The kid whispered something to his mother.

The old guy sang, "To the plaaaaace I belongggg. . . ."

Dr. Tsosie said, "How long has he been this way?"

"From the beginning. Ever since we picked him up."

"Except when he was sleeping," Liz said.

"Was he ever unconscious?"

"No."

"Any nausea, vomiting?"

"No."

"And you found him where? Out past Corazón Canyon?"

"About five, ten miles beyond."

"Not much out there," she said.

"You know it?" Baker said.

"I grew up around there." She smiled slightly. "Chinle."

They wheeled the old man, still shouting, through a swinging door. Dr. Tsosie said, "If you’ll wait here, I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something. It’ll probably be a while. You might want to go get lunch."

Beverly Tsosie had a staff position at University Hospital in Albuquerque, but lately she’d been coming to Gallup two days a week to be with her elderly grandmother, and on those days she worked a shift in the McKinley Trauma Unit to make extra money. She liked McKinley, with its modern exterior painted in bold red and cream stripes. The hospital was really dedicated to the community. And she liked Gallup, a smaller town than Albuquerque, and a place where she felt more comfortable with a tribal background.

Most days, the Trauma Unit was pretty quiet. So the arrival of this old man, agitated and shouting, was causing a lot of commotion. She pushed through the curtains into the cubicle, where the orderlies had already stripped off the brown felt robes and removed his Nikes. But the old man was still struggling, fighting them, so they had to leave him strapped down. They were cutting his jeans and the plaid shirt away.

Nancy Hood, the senior unit nurse, said it didn’t matter because his shirt had a big defect anyway; across the pocket there ran a jagged line where the pattern didn’t match. "He already tore it and sewed it back together. You ask me, pretty lousy job, too."

"No," said one of the orderlies, holding up the shirt. "It’s never been sewn together, it’s all one piece of cloth. Weird, the pattern doesn’t line up because one side is bigger than the other. . . ."

"Whatever, he won’t miss it," Nancy Hood said, and tossed it on the floor. She turned to Tsosie. "You want to try and examine him?"

The man was far too wild. "Not yet. Let’s get an IV in each arm. And go through his pockets. See if he’s got any identification at all. If he doesn’t, take his fingerprints and fax them to D.C.; maybe he’ll show up on a database there."

Twenty minutes later, Beverly Tsosie was examining a kid who had broken his arm sliding into third. He was a bespectacled, nerdy-looking kid, and he seemed almost proud of his sports injury.

Nancy Hood came over and said, "We searched the John Doe."

"And?"

"Nothing helpful. No wallet, no credit cards, no keys. The only thing he had on him was this." She gave Beverly a folded piece of paper. It looked like a computer printout, and showed an odd pattern of dots in a gridlike pattern. At the bottom was written "mon. ste. mere."

" ‘Monstemere?’ Does that mean anything to you?"

Hood shook her head. "You ask me, he’s psychotic."

Beverly Tsosie said, "Well, I can’t sedate him until we know what’s going on in his head. Better get skull films to rule out trauma and hematoma."

"Radiology’s being remodeled, remember, Bev? X rays’ll take forever. Why don’t you do an MRI? Scan total body, you have it all."

"Order it," Tsosie said.

Nancy Hood turned to leave. "Oh, and surprise, surprise. Jimmy is here, from the police."

Dan Baker was restless. Just as he predicted, they’d had to spend hours sitting around the waiting room of McKinley Hospital. After they got lunch  –  burritos in red chile sauce  –  they had come back to see a policeman in the parking lot, looking over their car, running his hand along the side door panel. Just seeing him gave Baker a chill. He thought of going over to the cop but decided not to. Instead, they returned to the waiting room. He called his daughter and said they’d be late; in fact, they might not even get to Phoenix until tomorrow.

And they waited. Finally, around four o’clock, when Baker went to the desk to inquire about the old man, the woman said, "Are you a relative?"

"No, but – "

"Then please wait over there. Doctor will be with you shortly."

He went back and sat down, sighing. He got up again, walked over to the window, and looked at his car. The cop had gone, but now there was a fluttering tag under the windshield wiper. Baker drummed his fingers on the windowsill. These little towns, you get in trouble, anything could happen. And the longer he waited, the more his mind spun scenarios. The old guy was in a coma; they couldn’t leave town until he woke up. The old guy died; they were charged with manslaughter. They weren’t charged, but they had to appear at the inquest, in four days.