Jim Chee

Jim Chee is a sergeant with the Navajo Tribal Police. He is well known by the local characters, and is engaged to Bernie Manuelito. He is a good friend and colleague of Cowboy Dashee, a Hopi. Whenever they are together, there is a good deal of good-natured bantering between the two. Chee is also the protégé of Joe Leaphorn, the ostensible narrator of Skeleton Man, but who does not play a major role here. Jim agrees to help his friend Cowboy prove the innocence of Billy Tuve, Cowboy's nephew, who has been charged with the murder and robbery of a jewelry storeowner. Jim is portrayed as a man unlucky in love who has rejected at least two white fiancés because they insisted on removing him from his native Southwest and turning him into a model "white Indian." Although most of his friends...