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It gave official notice to the hogan that a visitor was coming and McKee guessed it was a universal custom among rural people. His father, he remembered, would never approach another’s farmhouse without pausing at the gate to holler, “Hello,” until properly acknowledged. Among people who depended more upon distance from neighbors than window blinds to preserve their privacy it was a practical habit.
The high slopes of the Lukachukais were obscured now by the darkness of the cloud. Light from the setting sun glittered from the strata of ice crystals forming in the thin, frigid air at its upper levels. Deep within it, the structure of the cloud was lit by a sudden flare of sheet lightning. And then there was a single lightning bolt, an abrupt vivid streak of white light pulsing an electric moment against the black of the rain, connecting cloud and mountain slope.
The light breeze, shifting suddenly down canyon, carried the faintly acrid smell of ozone released by the electrical charge and the perfume of dampened dust and rain-struck grass.
The Navajo language is too specific and precise to lend itself to effective profanity. Leaphorn cursed in Spanish and then—at length—in English.
