Skeleton Man

 

By Tony Hillerman

Back in the 1950s, two airplanes collided over the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Over a hundred people died in the crash and debris and human remains cascaded over the northern stretch of the Grand Canyon near the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River. This story is based on that real disaster.

So in the story, a man aboard the plane had a briefcase full of cut diamonds handcuffed to his wrist. His remains were never found, but tales of a detached arm with a handcuffed case attached circulated throughout the local area. The man had a fiancée and one of the diamonds had been cut to his specifications and he intended to give it to his fiancée for an engagement ring. His fiancée was pregnant and they were looking forward to a happy life together. However, his wealthy parents were opposed to the marriage and when the baby was born after his death, his family refused to acknowledge the baby and cut her out of his will.

Fifty years later, the daughter has come to the Grand Canyon area, determined to locate either the diamonds or her father's arm & its attached case. Because tales of diamonds have reached her ears, raising her hopes that she can finally prove she is her father's legitimate heir and exact her revenge on the people who treated her mother so meanly.

Cowboy Dashee's relative tried to pawn a large diamond for $20.00 that the police believe he got in a robbery of a trading post.  Cowboy's relative, Billy Tuve, has a story of having been given the diamond by an old man down in the canyon in exchange for an army surplus trenching tool. In order to clear his name, Cowboy wants Tuve to take himself and also officer Jim Chee down into the canyon where he encountered the old man. Billy doesn't want to because it is a sacred site for his people but he finally agrees and the three of them are joined by Chee's fiancée, Bernadette.

But the dead man's daughter is also on the rim of the Grand Canyon. She had hoped to get Tuve to guide her into the canyon but she ran afoul of the man hired to stop her from reaching her goal. So now five people are all in the canyon looking for the old man, the diamonds, the briefcase and the arm, but without Tuve, who managed to slip away and disappear.

This was an OK story. Not a lot of action for most of the story, but it picks up quite a bit in the last third, with the two groups of people in the canyon hunting for the same treasure. At the end, Chee and Bernie get married and go to live in his shabby old trailer down by the river. Hillerman giving Jim Chee a long delayed happy ending.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.