The boys got Joe to get up on the horse. He put three arrows in the hat faster than Cern had done it, riding at a gallop. After that they were all over him, telling him they owed him the best hat in the gift shop, laughing and getting him to show them how to hold the bow and arrows. They were still at it, taking turns on the horse, pretty much ignoring Cern when Begay arrived to pick him up.

As they drove deeper into the stark flat vastness of Navajo country, distant horizons punctuated by majestic, seemingly unscalable mesas, Cern told Begay the result of his study the night before. 

"I think we have to present the old ways as if they're new," he said. "We can't stand on tradition alone, we have to show how the 'new' ways are better. Then we I think we can sweep the legal obstructions aside."

Begay nodded in agreement, but he said, "As you found, the issues are more than just legal. There are emotional barriers, a history of finger-pointing. Even in the Nation there is not agreement. Today I will take you to meet some ranchers who tried the new-old way, and have given up on it, each for their own reasons."

"Good. We need to understand that side of things and see if we can find out what's behind it."

The first such ranch was small, an octagonal hogan, a windmill, a cistern, and a couple of rambling corrals. The rancher greeted Begay and Cern cordially enough, but he seemed a bit sullen. Begay ignored the attitude and Cern followed his lead.

"How many head do you have now, Denny?"

"Eleven cows, twenty-seven sheep."

"How many did you have five years ago?"

"About fifty-five and eighty."

"What changed?"

"Some of the cows got sick. I should have let them die, but I didn't want the rest of the herd to go the same way, so I had a vet come look at them. He gave them some medicine, but they died anyway. Then the vet sent me a bill. A big bill. I sold most of the rest to pay for that. Then I had to sell most of the sheep just to feed my family."

"How are you managing now?"

"I'm not. My wife works part time at the casino. That doesn't pay enough either, but they helped her get a line of credit."

"Credit from the casino?"

"From a bank in Flagstaff. Some guy at the casino helped her get it."

"So now you owe money to the bank?"

Denny nodded. He looked down and scuffed at the dirt with his toe.

Cern asked, "Is the interest rate favorable?"

"I don't know about that. I only know that every month we have to pay, and what we have to pay keeps getting bigger."

It was much the same with the other small ranchers they visited that day. At one point they were doing well, then something, unhealthy stock, water shortage, rising feed prices, knocked the bottom out from under them. They cut back on their herds, and resorted to loans that they now couldn't keep up with.

Cern remarked on this to Begay on the way to their last stop. Begay gave him a strange look, and then said, "Sorry, I almost forget you are not Navajo."

"Thanks for the compliment, but what do you mean?"

"I think if you ask them, they will say they are afflicted by a skinwalker."

"You mentioned this the other day. You mean shaman, like you and me?"

"No, not like you and me. One who knows something of the spirit ways, but uses them for evil."

"Oh. More like the brujos of Mexico then?"

"That would be a better comparison. But the Navajo have their own ideas about these things. Another Anglo term might be necromancer."

"One who uses the dead to affect the living."

Begay nodded. "The Diné have many ideas about this. Because the skinwalker can appear as many different things, even different people, they are hard to identify. So when trouble comes, it is easy to say there is a skinwalker to blame, and no one can say otherwise."

"So people blame their own troubles, their own failings, on a skinwalker, and do not have to take responsibility. It is a perfect excuse for anything that goes wrong."

"Except when there really is a skinwalker behind it."

"And you think that might be the case?"

"I have come to think it is nearly always the case."