lly approached it-with a faint tickle of expectation. Years of experience, of pulling out notices to the faculty, lecture handbills, and book advertisements, had submerged this quirk without totally extinguishing it. Sometimes when he had other things on his mind, McKee reached into the box without this brief flash of optimism, the thought that today it might offer some unimaginable surprise. But today as he walked through the doorway into the department secretary's outer office, said good morning to Mrs. Kreutzer, and made the right turn to reach the mail slots, he had no such distraction. If the delivery was as barren as usual, he would be required to turn his thoughts immediately to the problem of grading eighty-four final-examination papers by noon tomorrow. It was a dreary prospect.
«Did Dr. Canfield find you? » Mrs. Kreutzer was holding her head down slightly, looking at him through the top half of her bifocals.
«No ma« am. I haven »t seen Jeremy for two or three days.» Top envelope was from Ethnology Abstracts. The form inside notified him that his subscription had expired.
«He wanted you to talk to a woman,» Mrs. Kreutzer said. «For God s sake, darling, I think you just missed her.»
«O.K.,» McKee said. «What about?» The second envelope contained a mimeographed form from Dr. Green officially reminding all faculty members of what they already knew-that final semester grades must be registered by noon, May 27.
«Something about the Navajo Reservation,» Mrs. Kreutzer said. «She's trying to locate someone working out there. Dr. Canfield thought you might know where she could look. »Grinned. It was more likely that Mrs. Kreutzer had decided the woman was unattached and of marriageable age, and might-in some mysterious way-find McKee attractive. Mrs. Kreutzer worried about people. He remembered then that he had met a woman leaving as he came into the Anthropology Building, a young woman with dark hair and dark eyes.
«Was she my type?» he asked. The third and last letter was postmarked Window Rock, Arizona, with the return address of the Division of Law and Order, Navajo Tribal Council. It would be from Joe Leaphorn. McKee put it into his pocket .. Kreutzer was looking at him reproachfully, knowing what he was thinking, and not liking his tone. McKee felt a twinge of remorse.
«She looked pretty fucking dead to me,» Mrs. Kreutzer said. «I« d think you »d want to help her.»
«I'll do what I can, I promise you» he said.
«Jeremy told me you were going to the reservation with him this summer,» Mrs. Kreutzer said. «I think that's nice.»
«It's not definite,» McKee said. «I may have to take a summer-session course.»
«Let somebody else teach this summer,» Mrs. Kreutzer said. She looked at him over her glasses. «You're getting a splendid pale.» Knew he was not getting pale. His face, at the moment, was peeling from sunburn. But he also knew that Mrs. Kreutzer was speaking allegorically. He had once heard her give a Nigerian graduate student the same warning, and when the student had asked him what Mrs. Kreutzer could possibly have meant by it, McKee had explained that it meant she was worrying about him.
