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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Tuve claim?
(a) That his father, Joe's brother, gave him a diamond.
(b) He got the diamond from an old shaman down in the canyon.
(c) That he was railroaded out of the police department.
(d) That the Great Spirit provides the diamond for a ceremony.

2. What does Bernie want to do?
(a) Have Billy stay with her for the time being.
(b) Go look for apartments and wants Chee to go with her instead of Cowboy.
(c) Go with Chee and Cowboy.
(d) Go talk to Joanna woman to woman.

3. Where did a plane crash in 1956?
(a) Over the Grand Canyon.
(b) Just outside Las Vegas.
(c) Over the Black Mountains.
(d) In the Kalahari Desert.

4. Who is Plymale?
(a) An actor friend of John Clarke's.
(b) Hal Simmons's partner.
(c) A person who manages a charity to which John Clarke left his fortune.
(d) An FBI code name for the diamond case.

5. Who does Joe find at the trading post?
(a) Shorty McGinnis.
(b) Louisa Berbonette
(c) Joanna Craig.
(d) Billy Tuve.

Short Answer Questions

1. What animal in the story starts the whole cycle of change?

2. What does Chandler pull out of a shaving cream container?

3. Where is Sherman?

4. What did John Clarke have in his possession on the aircraft?

5. What is the only evidence at this point that Joanna has to prove her relationship to John Clarke?

Short Essay Questions

1. When you read that the bail has been suspended for Billy Tuve and why, what is your reaction?

2. What does the telephone conversation between Bernie and Chee say about their relationship?

3. At this point in the story, do you believe it when Joanna says that she seeks only her father's arm to end his pain in the afterlife and is not interested in the diamonds?

4. How are Chandler and Plymale archetypes of the type of white man that imposed their way upon Native Americans?

5. What does Joanna say that gains Billy Tuve's attention and why?

6. What about the difference between white and Native American culture does Hillerman seem to be again emphasizing. Why do you as a reader respond to this obvious stereotyping?

7. What story does Shorty tell that is the motivation for the setting moving to the floor of the Grand Canyon?

8. How does Joe illustrate his thoughts about events arising from a complex and often invisible series of causes and effects?

9. Do you think Louisa's condemnation of the modern pollution of ancient myths is totally logical?

10. How does the author introduce the Navajo setting and a little of their philosophy?

(see the answer keys)

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