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''The Blessing Way'' is the first crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman first published in 1970; it introduces Joe Leaphorn. ==Plot summary== Anthropologist Bergen McKee comes to the Navajo Reservation to research tales of witches, first visiting his old friend, Joe Leaphorn and his wife Emma. Leaphorn is a Navajo Tribal Police lieutenant. A young man, Luis Horseman, thought he had killed a man in a fight, and thus went out of sight. His victim survived, so Leaphorn spreads the word, so that Luis will talk with the police. Speaking at a trading post with McKee, Leaphorn sees a Navajo man, a stranger to him, buying a new hat. His old one was stolen, but not the expensive silver concho hatband on it (an odd sort of theft), which he places on the new hat. Leaphorn, to make his point, says that "Otherwise we'll go in there and get him", if he does not appear on his own, a statement heard by the stranger. The next morning, the body of Luis is found near Ganado; he had been suffocated with sand after being killed elsewhere. Leaphorn rues his statement, feeling it somehow led to this murder. McKee and his colleague, Professor J. R. Canfield, begin a joint field trip in the Lukachukai Mountains, the canyons of the west slope. A young woman, Ellen Leon, approached Canfield for assistance in finding a friend, Dr. Hall, who is working somewhere on the reservation, doing something with electronics. She arranges to meet them in Many Ruins canyon. The Tsosie family hosts a Navajo Enemy Way ceremony, which Joe Leaphorn attends. In the course of the long event, he learns who found the symbolic scalp of the witch who has been killing their sheep and disabling their horses. Billy Nez, young brother of Luis, saw the man, and took his hat for the ceremony. Leaphorn understands the need for this curative Enemy Way ceremony; the effect of this ceremony is that the troublemaker will die within a year. After interviews where he learns that there is a Navajo Wolf now, McKee returns to the campsite in his car, to see that Professor Canfield is not there, nor is his vehicle. Instead, there is a note saying he will return after helping a Navajo get medical treatment; oddly, he signed the note John, when his name is Jeremy. McKee sleeps outside, but is awakened hearing sounds in the otherwise silent night. He moves away from the campsite, to listen. A man wearing a wolf skin and holding an automatic weapon walks into the campsite, then into the tent to read papers there. He calls out McKee's name, rather startling, but McKee keeps silent and the man finally walks away. In the morning, he is prepared to drive out, but realizes that Miss Leon arrives that day. He awaits her arrival. During the night, McKee slipped on the rocks, leaving his face injured, and injuring his right hand rather painfully, so he looks less professorial than she expects. He tries to impress upon her the need to leave the canyon immediately, but fails. McKee finds Canfield's vehicle, and sees his dead body inside it, but does not tell Miss Leon of the death. He tries to drive his own vehicle, to learn that it is inoperable. As the two argue, the man returns, with his weapon. He wants McKee to write a letter like the one Canfield left him. The man is Navajo, but he is not comfortable speaking the language with McKee. He takes the pair to an Anasazi pueblo. His partner Eddie arrives, also armed and talks to George, the Navajo. Miss Leon has now realized her error in delaying their exit, and apologizes to McKee. Left alone in the pueblo, McKee searches for the hidden exit normally part of the dwellings of these ancient people. He finds it, and sets a plan in motion for the return of Eddie and George. Miss Leon went out one way, while McKee used old hand and footholds to reach the level where Eddie is. Eddie has shot Ellen, and then seeks McKee. In their encounter, Eddie falls over the cliff edge into the crevasse, dying from the fall. McKee tends Ellen, then seeks Hall for help. He follows electric cable to a side canyon, and cuts off the insulation from it. George shoots him in the back from a distance. McKee uses the insulation to make a catapult with a sapling, to throw a sharpened pine stake, right into George, whose gun sight obscured his view. McKee picks up the wolf skin and the gun. As he walks toward the truck, Billy Nez appears with his rifle, and tells McKee to stop. McKee tells him that he is a teacher. The two reach Hall at his truck, tell him about Ellen. Hall tells Billie Nez to give up his rifle, while McKee says not to do that. Leaphorn arrives at the scene, telling Billie Nez to hold onto his rifle. McKee wakes up in the hospital two days later, confessing to two murders. Ellen Leon is recovered from her wounds. She had set a very smoky fire to attract attention, which is how Leaphorn found her. Joe Leaphorn tells McKee that Hall shot himself when Leaphorn arrived, right in front of him, just as McKee fainted from loss of blood. Hall was collecting radar data about missiles under test from a federal facility near the Reservation, hoping to sell his information for a huge fee. George and Eddie worked for him, keeping people away from his work. From the federal perspective, George and Eddie did not exist; Dr Canfield and Hall were killed in a car accident, which injured Ellen Leon and McKee. Still recovering, McKee gets a long note from Ellen Leon. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Blessing Way」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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